Baldock Larry: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Baldock Larry: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20404] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to speak on the first reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. It gives us an opportunity to outline United Future’s position on climate change and the Kyoto Protocol and to list the reasons for which we oppose as we have always opposed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. It is a flawed instrument—even the leader of the Green Party admitted that it is far from perfect. Why on earth would we sign up to something that we know to be flawed? The idea that the world will be able to work through that instrument to achieve its ends is ridiculous. 
I will outline the reasons why United Future has taken that position. The first one as has been mentioned earlier is that to join up with something that our major trading partners have not joined is ridiculous. It is unwise and places a greater burden upon our own industries than they would otherwise have as they try to compete in a global market. That is the first reason that we have considered it unwise to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: Before the break I was outlining the reasons why United Future has been opposing the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. I had covered point one which was that our major trading partners have not joined it. Point two is that despite the plethora of media articles that we encounter about the scientific evidence for global warning—and in fact for the human-induced cause of global warning—there is still considerable uncertainty amongst many well-informed credible scientists and meteorologists who cannot seem to get their view presented in the media. We can ask questions about why that is and about the influence of the environmentalists’ lobby in the media but that point is clearly made. Many scientists are not convinced of the science as yet and have opposing views. 
Point three is that even if the theory were correct the chances of achieving worldwide targets are questionable to say the least. The ability of the Third World and the developing countries to come up with any commitments into the second commitment period is very questionable. I lived in the Third World for 15 years—in the Philippines—and I spent a considerable amount of time travelling throughout Asia. The idea that Asian countries will be able to meet the targets imposed upon them by 2012—or begin to meet those targets—is absolutely ridiculous. Those nations need a lot more in terms of basic infrastructure before they will be able to think about the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. Point four is that even if the targets were met the effect on so-called human-induced climate change is very debatable—it is negligible. The figures of the UN itself state that if all targets are met by 2100 the reduction in temperature that could be achieved by meeting those targets would be only 0.14 percent of the warming effect. So even if we are successful the chances of us making any lasting change to global warming—if it is actually coming from human-induced effects—are negligible. 
It makes no sense to impose a carbon tax on our businesses and economy in the light of the points that I have just made. The money could be much better spent on things that will benefit not just our country regardless of the protocol but also the Third World instead of pursuing the ideology that is behind the protocol. Research and development investment is to be welcomed in our nation and around the world in order to find alternative sources of energy and to find energy efficiency. We could do a lot more by spending money on improving the age of our vehicle fleet in New Zealand and shifting as soon as possible to hybrid cars. That would help to reduce emissions—if those emissions have an effect on our climate. Because we do not know for certain what is causing climate change or how long it will last it would make a lot more sense to spend money on mitigating any effects of climate change than to try to play God and stop it. 
The Climate Change Response Act was bad legislation and United Future opposed it. This Climate Change Response Amendment Bill makes that bad legislation a little better and a little more business friendly so in United Future we have had to ask ourselves what we should do about this bill. If in the future a new Government was to come into the House that wished to withdraw New Zealand from the protocol United Future would be prepared to support that move. But at the moment New Zealand is committed to the protocol. We have ratified the treaty and it is not an easy process to extract ourselves from treaties once we have committed to them. It is important to United Future to make sure that at least in the first commitment period the commitment to the protocol does not end up costing New Zealand a whole lot of unnecessary money resulting in New Zealand having to buy carbon credits from nations like Russia for example that are not doing any more about addressing carbon dioxide emissions than we are but that have simply benefited from certain historical circumstances. It would be ludicrous if we had to buy carbon credits from Russia. 
We have had to ask ourselves what we will do about this bill. It makes bad legislation a little better and we have therefore concluded that we will support the first reading of the bill and send it to the select committee in the hope that more discussion and more debate in the select committee will lead to a better response in the end. I believe that this bill is an indication that the Government does not believe in the protocol as much as it says it does and that it is beginning to have some serious doubts about whether it has been the right course of action. Hopefully as further submissions from the public come to the select committee and as the legislation is debated further in the House we may be able to see a further change in the Government’s policy. 
We welcome the provision in this bill to extend the regulation-making powers of the Forests Act in order to enable the establishment of a mechanism to allow landowners to access any value the protocol creates for carbon from newly-established permanent forest sinks. That will be achieved via a contract between the Crown and a landowner and will encourage the planting of new forests by landowners. The one thing we know we could do in New Zealand in order to address the concerns about carbon dioxide emissions is to plant trees. One of the ways to encourage that is to give people the benefit of the carbon credit and the carbon trading mechanism that is to emerge from planting trees. 
There are other reasons not just for the sake of carbon credits—because anybody who invests money on that basis would be shooting in the breeze somewhat particularly with the potential for Governments to flip-flop around on their policy—to plant trees. It is good for us to reforest areas in New Zealand. We face incredible challenges to do with our water quality and it would make a lot of sense to plant riparian strips around every river and lake in New Zealand so that we could filter a lot of the nutrient runoff that comes off our land goes into our waterways and causes us so much difficulty. One of the best things we could do would be to plant a 10 to 20 metre riparian strip of native bush around our waterways wherever possible and to provide nature’s best solution to that problem. Also as a by-product of that we would achieve further carbon credits from the planting of that new forest. We will pursue the issue at the select committee to make sure that the bill enables some benefit from that planting to pass to the landowner so that there is an incentive to pursue that course of action. 
We will support the bill through its first reading and its referral to the select committee but we make very clear United Future’s position on the protocol and on the principal Act which we consider took New Zealand in the wrong direction.