Roy Eric: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roy Eric: Biofuel Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 02 September 2008. Volume:649;Page:18281. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I want to make a contribution. I am fascinated intrigued and a little disturbed by the Biofuel Bill. I think for a start it is wrongly named but we are not having the title debate. I am inclined to think that it is the “Placebo Climate Change Bill’. 
The Minister of Energy said this measure would be a small step. Well it is not even a step; it is barely a shuffle. You see if we look at what New Zealand is attributed to be contributing to the world’s discharge of carbon gases we see that we contribute 0.2 percent nationwide. Fifty percent of that is from agriculture. I do not know what the figure for transport is by— 
Peter Brown 
: About half of that. 
ERIC ROY 
: Well no. I say to Mr Brown that it is less than half of that because there is coal consumption in a whole lot of furnaces coal is used in electricity generation and quite a bit is used in thermal energy. So transport contributes a long way less than one-half of 0.2 percent. 
Peter Brown 
: No no—half. 
ERIC ROY 
: Let us not get into that. It is minuscule. Yet we are here in the dead of night arguing about 0.5 percent of an element of fuel. It is not even a small step. It is so small that it is not even a perceptible shuffle. 
I am a bit alarmed because I actually believe that the consumption of fossil fuels is a serious issue. I do not believe that from here on in we can combust and release 6 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year without it having an impact. My point is this: the energy and the effort that we are putting into this debate will have zero impact. If there is an issue out there our focus should be on doing some serious work on looking at alternatives in the whole transport arena—hydrogen-powered vehicles and that sort of thing. That is where the focus must be—to find an alternative. 
The Minister may well argue that this measure should be a focus. My argument would be that it is more of a placebo. It actually will not make one whit of difference. Well it will make a difference because the world has embraced biofuels and that has created some huge distortions in other areas. Dr Norman referred to this issue. When biofuels are picked up in the wrong way there is quite often destruction of ecosystems that actually make a contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. For example in tropical areas palm oil and sugar cane are replacing rainforests. In a lot of places in the world particularly in Europe and the United States crops that have high fertiliser and water requirements are being grown to produce biofuels and they have a negative impact. 
What does that mean in terms of the world? Well let us look at the world supply of food on a consumption basis. For at least the last two decades the time frame between harvesting food and consumption has been between 100 and 120 days. If we grow and harvest lettuces they are not going to last 120 days but for baked beans ice cream frozen mutton or milk powder that is what the time frame has been—between 100 and 120 days. We are seeing food shortages in countries that have never had food shortages before. One of the drivers of those food shortages is the shift of arable land to biofuels. I am told—and I am gullible so I believe it—that the current time frame in terms of the food chain between harvest and consumption is around 50 days. At times it has been down to as low as 47 days. That is simply because we are misusing arable potential to create biofuels that will not make one whit of difference in terms of dealing with the issue of fossil fuel - generated carbon gases. 
I say that yes we have a responsibility but as for dealing with a bill such as this in urgency well that is why I call it the “Placebo Climate Change Bill”. There are a whole range of other issues. We talk about sustainability—