Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Roy Eric: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
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ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I would like to take my part in the third reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill too and make what is probably about my eighth contribution since it was reported back and had its second reading. I would have liked to be here when the Climate Change Response Bill was introduced in 2002. Here we have a Government saying the Opposition is a johnny-come lately yet the Government actually introduced the original legislation in 2002— 
Lindsay Tisch 
: 4 years! 
ERIC ROY 
: —4 years ago. I accept what the member Marian Hobbs who has just resumed her seat said: this is a minor part of the much bigger plan that is needed to solve the problem. I look forward to new legislation and new initiatives and I offer my wisdom and ability to assist the member in introducing something that is real and meaningful. 
What we have had from this Government is essentially placebo activity—activity that makes people think something is happening when it is not. The Government signed up to the Kyoto Protocol with the notion that it was going to solve the problem but in reality the protocol is ineffectual because the model upon which it is based is flawed. Let us go back the Kyoto Protocol said to 1990 levels of emissions and categorise countries into category 1 category 2 and category 3. But in the first commitment period only category 1 countries have to go back to 1990 levels and it looks like no country will make it. New Zealand is not going to make it. This bill which puts some solidity back into the sink market in terms of forestry is not going to do it for New Zealand either. 
I want to state a few principles here. I personally have been concerned about the impacts of climate change since the late 1980s. Right now it is a very very topical issue. Many members will have seen or heard about the film  
An Inconvenient Truth. 
 I am not sure the film actually progresses all that much the argument on the impacts of climate change. From my point of view it is not really a scientific treatise; it is more an emotive response. We know that some of the issues that are presented in it are factually not right—the bit about the islands in the Pacific sinking causing Polynesian people to come to New Zealand and that sort of thing. We know that is not right so we start asking what else is not right. 
 I for one would prefer that this argument be put at a scientific level so that we can understand the issue better. I accept that maybe 20 percent of the scientific community are sceptics but let them publish factual documents not just make press statements. Then we can make comparisons because science is about thesis and antithesis. That stuff needs to be out there. 
As I have said I have been looking at this issue for about 20 years and I am persuaded that planet Earth has a fragile thermal blanket around it and that New Zealand ought to accept its share of responsibility for the 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases that are released into that blanket every day—although some of those are absorbed into the ocean. But if the sceptics say that planet Earth can absorb and tolerate that much then I ask at what point in the next 1000 years—considering that currently we release 7 million tonnes a day and the amount is increasing—they will say “Oops!”. Because that day must come and the responsible course is for us to move now. 
This bill plays a very minor part in this regard. The Government is wrong if it thinks the bill will buy us time in meeting our commitment. While the bill has been going through the different stages I have made many speeches on this subject and have said there are a number of reasons why New Zealand is deforesting. The Government’s own example with Landcorp clear-felling a large area of the central North Island indicates that there are other more productive forms of land use; that there are better returns from doing something else. Just changing the sink responsibility so that tree owners can own the forest credits will not solve the problem. 
I mentioned in an earlier speech that we need to have value-adding and processing so that there is an elevated price and we get more out of the trees we produce. We need to look at long-term commitments of electricity from a sustainable source because as my colleague the Hon Nick Smith said this Government is relying more and more on thermal energy and that has been the bogeyman in terms of our releasing greenhouse gases and the reason why New Zealand has performed so poorly according to the report that was presented in Nairobi recently. 
So we have to accept responsibility to put in order all of the things that will encourage people to plant trees. Yes there are some fragile areas of New Zealand that we need to retire and it will be good if they go back into some form of trees but we ought not to react in a knee-jerk way and suddenly plant  
Pinus radiata 
 or something else that may degrade the land with acid leaf litter or some of those other issues. We need to not react in a knee-jerk way; there needs to be a rational approach. Today the Local Government and Environment Committee heard the financial review of the Department of Conservation and the officials said that the retiring of land under tenure review will assist in the generation of carbon credits. I thought hello tenure reviews are mostly about retiring land above the snowline and the definition of the snowline is that trees do not grow above it. So how will we create a huge carbon sink on retired land above 1000 metres? I am interested to see the Department of Conservation’s proposals. 
The point is this bill will do a little bit but not a lot. It is a start but by no means a completion. There is the issue of “food miles” and the Government must take action because some of our competitors in Europe are jumping on the bandwagon and saying their people must buy food products produced in Europe. That is nothing more than a prejudice against New Zealand for marketing reasons. It is not based on science and earlier in my speech I said it was important that we bring science into this. The Minister has mentioned that New Zealand agriculture is much more efficient than that of other countries but on the other hand the Government is out there trumpeting that 49 percent of our greenhouse gases come from agriculture and that is drawing the attention of our competitors overseas. Yes we might be more efficient but they have in their heads the fact that New Zealand’s agriculture is a significant player in the production of greenhouse gases. 
During the course of the debate from the second reading on I have urged and challenged Government members to justify with science the figure of 49 percent. Trees through photosynthesis sequester carbon out of the atmosphere; some of the 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted each day go into trees and that is good. How come that does not work with grass? We are doing this country’s exports a mischief when we loosely use that figure. I have asked officials Government members and anybody who uses that figure to justify it. Not one person has. So that is a challenge for the next Government speaker and for the Government. If they continue to peddle that line then the consequences are that consumers will boycott New Zealand goods and that will be because the Government is promoting something that I do not believe is accurate. If it is accurate then let Government members prove it and then we will deal with the issues. 
Let me conclude the way I started. This Earth is a relatively fragile environment and we as legislators have a responsibility to do our bit not just for today or for tomorrow but looking forward to the future. I believe that greenhouse gas emissions are one of those things that we need to approach in a rational way and yes it is important that there is some kind of cooperation across the House. The previous speaker the Hon Marian Hobbs asked why the Government should include the Opposition. I say simply because National will be the Government these are long-term issues and we cannot have a 3-year parliamentary term approach to solving a problem that is significant looking forward centuries. That simply will not work and there has to be buy in. National is offering our combined resources to work with the Government in finding a solution that not only will solve the problem of climate change but will build New Zealand’s credibility enhance the primary products that we produce and build tourism for the future.