Shaw James: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8159. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]1.JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he stand by all his answers to oral question No. 5 yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yes.James Shaw: When he said yesterday that “it is going to take a long time for the world to heat up significantly and it is going to take a long time to take the measures that might mitigate that.” what did he consider to be significant?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I would not want to get into a technical discussion here but I was just reflecting on the time spans covered by the climate change models which run out for about a hundred years.James Shaw: Would he say that it is significant or insignificant that global temperatures will have risen by 1 degree by the end of this year which is halfway to the agreed global limit of a 2 degree rise?Hon BILL ENGLISH: It was in anticipation of that kind of temperature increase that the previous Government with the then support of the Greens put in place the emissions trading system and the increase in the carbon price probably reflects the growing understanding that those temperatures are rising and that more mitigation will be required.James Shaw: Given that National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has found that the 2013 drought which cost the New Zealand economy an estimated $1.3 billion was longer and more severe because of climate change would he not agree that taking “the measures that might mitigate that.” is more urgent than he suggested yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I think that one can have a discussion about the degree of urgency around climate change policy without relying on individual weather events where it can be difficult to connect one to the other or to suggest to the public that some particular policy might avoid droughts in the future—I think that is unlikely. There are debatable points about how much urgency and I guess that will be discussed at the Paris conference in the next few weeks.James Shaw: Given then that NIWA has also found that events such as the 2014 Northland rain storms which cost $18 million just in direct insurance claims are now twice as likely to happen because of climate change would he not agree that taking the measures to mitigate that is actually more important than he suggested yesterday?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The member could go through a list of individual events that point in the direction that the climate is warming up but as he knows probably better than most it is a global system and the impact of global action is what is going to be important and that will be tested in the next few weeks in Paris.James Shaw: What advice has he received from Treasury about the economic impact of the more frequent and more severe floods storms and droughts that are already happening or anticipated to happen in New Zealand?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I have not received advice specifically on that although when I have looked at advice from other sources it has been clear that there are some balancing effects and that in some parts of the world we are going to see for instance more food production rather than less. In fact Treasury’s advice is largely focused on the fact that New Zealand faces the prospect of giving up more economic growth per unit reduction in carbon output than any other developed country. This is one of the reasons why the Government is pretty careful about how it sets its targets because the economic cost to us of any target that is similar to another country’s target is higher.James Shaw: How exactly does this Government’s economic strategy of “more roads more cows and more oil” fit with the urgent need to reduce our climate emissions in the next 30 years?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I suppose in the first case we want to be pretty careful about the negative effects of “no cows no oil and fewer roads” which is the Greens’ policy. We are unlikely to go down that track but as I have said before to the member the principal tool for making complex trade-offs around climate change is the emissions trading system. It sends a price signal; that price signal is currently changing. It is a bit unfortunate that the Greens have abandoned what was a multi-party consensus and are heading off in the direction of a carbon tax.