Baldock Larry: Urgent Debates — Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Release of Report 
Baldock Larry: Urgent Debates — Greenhouse Gas Emissions—Release of Report 
[Volume:627;Page:21771] 
LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of United Future in this snap debate on the revised estimates that were released last week by the Convenor Ministerial Group on Climate Change. The first point I want to make is to correct Mr Shirley’s assertion that ACT is the only party in this House that has consistently opposed the Government’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. From the moment I entered Parliament as a part of United Future we have opposed the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. In fact within 1 month of the election in 2002 we issued a press release that stated very clearly that we did not think that signing up to the Kyoto Protocol was in New Zealand’s interests or in the interests of the world environment. I think the information that was released last week further substantiates our position on that. 
 The second point I want to make is that it is important to realise that if there were a threat to us as human beings on this planet and a threat to our way of life and if we were convinced that the remedy being proposed would deal with the problem all of us in the House would want to act responsibly and would probably be prepared to pay the cost no matter what it was. 
The fact that we may now find ourselves in a situation where we have to pay $1 billion is not really the issue. The issue is whether that money will be well spent and will really address the problem or whether it is simply money that will go down the gurgler and be wasted without addressing the problem that people see coming. 
When we raise questions about the Kyoto Protocol it is not helpful to be accused of being irresponsible or lacking in environmental concern and so on. This is a very serious matter that ought to be debated properly and openly and all questions should be asked answered and addressed without people throwing mud at each other and one accusing the other of not being as environmentally friendly. The real question we ought to be asking and we ought to allow to be asked is whether the Kyoto Protocol is the answer to this problem. In question time earlier today I raised the matter of what is occurring in Europe which I believe is one of the major issues with the Kyoto Protocol and that is that it has been founded on very very poor estimates right from the beginning. 
It is not really surprising that we suddenly have within 1 year a change from a 30 million tonnes surplus to about a 30 million tonnes deficit because this is the nature of the Kyoto Protocol all over the world. In a recently convened meeting in Europe most of the European nations admitted that they also have hugely underestimated their obligations under the protocol. When I read out the percentages that they have underestimated or that will be over-reported at the next official meeting at Kyoto it is clear to anybody with any common sense to see that they will not be able to meet those targets. 
Portugal is over its promise by 77 percent Spain by 61 percent Greece by 51 percent Ireland by 41 percent Luxembourg by 31 percent Finland by 27 percent Denmark by 26 percent and on the list goes. All those nations were relying on England and Germany having some surpluses that they could take up. The next bombshell to hit us will be England or Germany admitting just like we have that: “Oops! We got it wrong and we do not have any credits to make available to the rest of Europe.” That will be the next bombshell that will come. Then Russia will realise that its economic growth has been so substantial and underestimated that it too will be in a deficit situation. So we will end up with a situation where there are no sellers of any carbon credits and therefore the Kyoto Protocol will in effect fall over. 
The carbon trading mechanism will not work if there are no sellers unless perhaps—and this might be the one positive that will still exist within Kyoto though I am not entirely convinced—there is the opportunity that if one cannot buy credits one can earn them by going out and helping a Third World nation reduce its emissions. Perhaps if the world were committed to spending billions and billions of dollars in the developing world to reduce its emissions and to get rid of very highly polluting kinds of energy development it would be a positive for the whole world. But I very much doubt that we will ever arrive at a situation where Europe or even New Zealand would be prepared to spend a billion dollars in foreign aid in terms of earning Kyoto credits to make the whole thing work. But it is a possibility and I will keep my mind open in that regard. 
I think that as European nations begin to realise that they have signed themselves up to something that is actually very very costly the whole political spin machine will probably change in the world. Instead of reading headlines and hearing statements from politicians all over the world about this being the worst thing we could ever face and about this resulting as Jeanette Fitzsimmons has said recently in mass starvation in Africa we will find that the language changes and that some of the scientists who have deep concerns about the basis of the Kyoto Protocol will start to be heard a bit more clearly and Governments will shift their emphases because no one will be committed to paying the kind of money that is looming on the horizon from the Kyoto Protocol. 
The second question that we ought to be allowed to ask is not only whether the protocol is the answer but whether the money that will be spent really makes a difference and whether it is cost-effective. For many many years when it came to building roads in New Zealand we had a thing called the benefit-cost ratio whereby if we had a road that needed to be fixed on which people were being killed we had to wait for a few more lives to be wasted on that road before the Government would spend the money. If we applied that same kind of logic to the Kyoto Protocol I believe we would decide that it was not worthwhile spending the money because we have no guarantee that it would very much alter what is predicted to come upon us. I share Ken Shirley’s scepticism about whether this is the whole cause of the climate change that is being discussed. 
The international office for climate change estimates that the global temperature might increase by 2.1 degrees centigrade by 2100. Even if all the Kyoto targets were met—and as I said earlier that seems very unlikely because of the recent estimates out of Europe for example for the first commitment period; the estimates for the second and third commitment periods are even more dramatic and impossible to meet—we have an opportunity to reduce that 2.1 degree temperature increase by 0.02 degrees centigrade by 2050. By 2100 it could be reduced by 0.14 degrees centigrade. We have to get the point in the right place. We are not talking about a 1 degree reduction; we are talking about 0.14 degrees which will not make a lot of difference and as Dr Brash pointed out earlier it will perhaps delay the inevitable by a matter of only 6 years. 
Therefore it makes no sense at all in our opinion to be pursuing the Kyoto answer to the problem. One of the things that actually concerns me is that every now and again scientists have it all worked out and they say that they know what will happen and how it will occur and then along comes some report that completely flummoxes their theory up until that point. In fact we have to admit that that occurs quite often in the scientific world. It is amazing what human beings know and the increase of our knowledge is quite dramatic but we still do not know everything; we are still learning an incredible amount every day. This is borne out by the fact that every now and again another report comes along that completely tips everything upside down like the report that came out recently from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in which Erich Duchemin a consultant for the panel stated that the green image of hydro power as a benign alternative to fossil fuels is false. In his report he stated that they may now realise that in fact hydro dams may be emitting as much as three and a half times what is produced by generating the same amount of electricity from oil. When those reports come out those who are committed— 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I don’t accept that. 
LARRY BALDOCK 
: This is from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change and I would be happy to give it to the member afterwards to read and he can read the whole theory behind it. Those committed to the Kyoto Protocol simply push their heads further into the sand and carry on without actually evaluating whether the focus on renewable energy is the total answer. If in fact we have carbon dioxide coming out of hydro dams to the extent that those reports from Brazil indicate then we should be rethinking that also. 
Then we have respected people like Augie Auer who has guided us in our weather analysis on television for many years claiming that the Kyoto Protocol is just nonsense. I am looking forward to having a meeting with Mr Auer very soon to hear his theories about what is causing climate change. I think that that is what we all should be doing in this House—having an open mind to debate the issue further.