6. Question No. 6—Climate ChangeHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Climate ChangeQuestion No. 6—Climate Change6. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel) to the Minister of Climate Change: Does he stand by all his statements and actions?Hon JAMES SHAW (Minister of Climate Change): Yes. In particular I stand by the actions I have taken to secure bipartisan support for clear and stable climate change policies that contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. I would like to acknowledge that member's and his party's support for the framework enshrined in the zero carbon Act as well as the first three emissions budgets. That bipartisan accord means that New Zealanders can now enjoy a sense of certainty and predictability about the direction of climate change policy over the coming decades.Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with journalist Henry Cooke who says of the 284 actions in the Government's emission-reduction plan 158 are plans to make other plans and if not what is the correct number?Hon JAMES SHAW: As I said before the emissions reduction plan contains approximately 300 strategies policies and actions to guide us towards a low-emissions future which as I said before is about 300 more than we've heard from the National Party.Hon Scott Simpson: Does he stand by his statement Ah well I'd need to ask the Minister of Transport that um but um you know …" after he was asked about income brackets for cars what car age and the availability of subsidy for the car scrappage scheme announced yesterday?Hon JAMES SHAW: I stand by all my statements.Hon Scott Simpson: Does he agree with the Minister of Transport who according to RNZ when asked about the details of the Government's scrappage scheme said "Ask the climate Minister." and does he stand by his statement "Ah well I'd need to ask the Minister of Transport that …"?Hon JAMES SHAW: I didn't hear that report.Hon Chris Hipkins: If as some have suggested no further plans and strategies are required has he seen any concrete proposals for how to achieve the emissions reductions New Zealand requires?Hon JAMES SHAW: At the moment the emissions reduction plan that is going to be tabled in this House this week is the only plan that I've seen from anybody other than the ACT Party which have the least credible plan to reduce emissions that I have ever seen in my entire life.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Does he stand by his statement "There are those who will be worried that these emissions budgets do not go far enough."—I'm one of them—and if so how can he have confidence that the budgets in his emissions reduction plan will meet our international emissions reduction commitments?Hon JAMES SHAW: Yes I do. One of the reasons why we set up the climate change—in fact the primary reason why we set up the Climate Change Commission is because there is a broad spectrum of opinion about how fast and how far we should be going as a country. I am someone who has a great sense of urgency about the crisis that faces us. I think that we should be going far faster and far further than we have over the course of the preceding three or four decades that climate change has been in the political domain. But the point of the Climate Change Commission is to provide an independent expert-led body to provide advice to this House and to the Government of the day about the stepping-stone emissions budgets that get us down to our long-term targets to 2050. That body includes people like James Renwick who's one of the leading climate scientists in this country he's an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author and if you don't take my word for it you can take his word for it. And if you don't take his word for it the question is: whose word are you going to take for it on what basis are you making your decisions? That was the basis upon which we set up the Climate Change Commission.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How can he have confidence in his plan when it subsidises the continued inaction of the agricultural sector on methane to the tune of $710 million taken out of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) when they are still paying nothing into the ETS and given that annual methane emissions make up 42.7 percent of our gross emissions?Hon JAMES SHAW: Well I've said any number of times that I've been quite frustrated at the extremely slow pace of change in the agricultural sector. The industrial sector and transport sector are moving far faster by comparison. Having said that there are a number of parties and a number of environmental NGOs that campaigned on a platform in the last election of setting up support for farmers to be able to roll out emissions reductions practices techniques tools and technologies on their farms. That is what the commitment of funding does in the emissions reduction plan. It doesn't actually go as fast as some such as Greenpeace would have liked who are proposing that we put a billion dollars into that. So it doesn't kind of meet the requirement of them in that sense but the whole point of this is not to replicate what we've already got which is a number of research and science institutes but to take the changes in on-farm practice and the technologies that have already been developed and to ensure that those are rolled out to the maximum extent possible around farms in New Zealand.Hon Scott Simpson: Does the Minister agree with the James Shaw mentioned by journalist Henry Cooke who has tweeted today "James Shaw tells me that yes if the Greens held the balance of power he would have delivered a different Emissions Reduction Plan yesterday." and how can New Zealanders be sure that the plan released yesterday was his real actual plan?Hon JAMES SHAW: I am the James Shaw."