Parker David: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Parker David: Climate Change Response Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:635;Page:6225] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) 
: 
 I must respond to the allegation that the only climate change - related initiative the Government has that makes any sense is the permanent forest sinks initiative. Until I heard that I thought we had support from National for some of the other sensible measures we have under way such as improvements to the building code so as to increase the energy efficiency of buildings. Another recent initiative is to incorporate a minimum mandatory percentage of biofuels to be incorporated in transport fuels which is another very significant policy. 
The policy the Greens are leading on through Jeanette Fitzsimons is solar hot water heating initiatives. Improvements to the national energy system through the rewriting of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy as well as the New Zealand Energy Strategy will be out by the end of the year. 
The other two points I would make are that once again there was exaggeration from the member who just took her seat. She made reference to the fact with some pride that they knocked over the so-called “fart tax” and said that it was about $100 million. What a load of nonsense! It was never over $100 million. It was about a research levy so that the agricultural community could play its part in contributing to the research effort that is needed to find more efficient ways of agriculture that also reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 
R Doug Woolerton 
: She wouldn’t know that! 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: No the member is quite right. The reality is that that research has been going on. It has been funded in part by the Government and funded partly through the industry groups that have come to the table and recognised that there is a problem to be addressed. 
The other remark I would make is in respect of the so-called cost of the Kyoto Protocol. It is not yet clear what New Zealand’s balance will be during the first commitment period of Kyoto. 
Jacqui Dean 
: It might be more. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: Well I suppose that is possible. I am pretty confident it will be less than currently projected. The second point to make there is about the borax poured on the Kyoto Protocol by those members. The Kyoto Protocol remains the most effective international instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This country is proud that it is part of the mainstream response in the world to reduce emissions. Yes there is a moderate cost to reducing emissions but that cost does not arise from the Kyoto Protocol. If members on the National Party benches actually think about it they will be forced to acknowledge that it costs more to do something different tomorrow than it does to just continue what we did yesterday. Implicitly at its most simple level the climate change response requires us to reduce emissions. It requires us to tomorrow do something different from that which we did yesterday. 
That does imply some cost. The cost arises from reducing emissions—from doing something different tomorrow from that which we did yesterday. It does not arise from the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is but a way to measure that cost. The cost arises from doing something tomorrow in order to reduce emissions. 
The final point to make in respect of that is the nickel and diming that we hear from National Party members yet again today on Kyoto. It shows they still have not got the most simple of messages that has been so clearly articulated by Sir Nicholas Stern in the last week. He is the former chief economist to the World Bank. He was commissioned by the United Kingdom Government to look at the costs of climate change—not the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions but the costs of climate change if we do not reduce emissions. 
He found what we all know intuitively: that the costs of not reducing greenhouse gas emissions are far higher than doing something about it. Those costs are potentially dire. They are measured not just in economic terms—and the economic costs would be very high and are scary—but perhaps even more concerning are the security issues that arise when one has millions of people on the move as a consequence of their not being able to live where they currently live because patterns of food production change or sea levels rise. They do not have to rise a lot in order to pollute aquifers particularly in low-lying Pacific Islands; but also in other areas such as Bangladesh a relatively low increase in sea level a relatively small increase in sea level can have a lot of people on the move. Sir Nicholas Stern has shown that the costs of not doing anything are far higher than the cost of responses.