Shaw James: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2957. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green):Tēnā koe. The 2013-14 annual review of the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment outlines activities that the ministry has undertaken in support of the Government’s economic development strategy of increasing deep-sea oil exploration fracking for gas and coal extraction. This particular plank of the Government’s economic strategy has a number of consequences. First of all it increases our dependence on oil imports which is currently costing the country about $5.3 billion a year and is contributing to our balance of payments deficit. Secondly it decreases our resilience to global shocks such as fluctuations in the price of oil and the risk of stranded assets. Thirdly and most important it adds to New Zealand’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions globally which are of course in turn increasing climate change.Climate change is a significant drag on the New Zealand economy. New Zealand’s worst storm in 60 years in 2013 left 30000 Wellington homes without power—some for up to a week—and set the city back $4 million in direct clean-up costs. Around the country it resulted in over $31 million in insurance claims. But that pales in comparison with the hit that we took as a result of our worst drought in 70 years. Scientists from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd and Victoria University of Wellington found in a peer-reviewed study that the severity of the drought was due to climate change. This drought cost the New Zealand economy over $1.5 billion. Jobs are being lost in the tourism sector as glacier melt does not just melt the glaciers but also eradicates the businesses that are guiding tourists up to them. An industry that is close to my heart personally—the snow sports industry—is under threat as snow cover retreats up the mountains and the seasons get shorter and this will worsen over the coming two decades. I note that the Minister of Tourism is completely silent about these job losses in his sector and about the challenge facing this important part of New Zealand’s tourism sector.We are already paying the price of climate change. Farmers are already paying the price of climate change. Our tourism operators are already paying the price of climate change. Top Kiwi scientists are telling us that we will be experiencing these worst ever - type of events every single year—longer deeper droughts; extreme rain and floods; incredibly powerful winds. The thing is while we are investing in sunset industries that expose New Zealand to ever-increasing risk we are missing the economic opportunity of a lifetime—an economic opportunity that is taking the rest of the world by storm so to speak. The global renewable energy market is estimated to be worth about $20 billion by 2020. Why is exporting our already extreme competence in this area not a core part of the Government’s economic development strategy? The global industry for converting waste into value is estimated to be worth about $200 billion and New Zealand is nowhere to be seen. Upgrading every New Zealand home to be thermally efficient would save us around $800 million a year in unnecessary energy costs and would increase our resilience to extreme weather events. Investing in distributed energy via a world-class smart grid would save us about $3.6 billion by 2030 and would turn people who currently consume and spend into people who produce and earn.This is just a sample of the opportunities that we could be taking up and participating in. If we did we would be more resilient and more self-sufficient and would have a better balance of payments. But most important when it comes to climate change we would be part of the solution and not part of the problem.