Chauvel Charles: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:655;Page:4752] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 The Minister for Climate Change Issues has given a very fair summary of the provisions of the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading Forestry Sector) Amendment Bill and I do not intend to repeat what he said. I will take a few moments of the House’s time to follow his lead and speak on some of the wider questions in this area that face the House and the country going forward. 
I will start with the science because it is after all—ironically perhaps—one of the first terms of reference the special select committee the Minister referred to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee has had to contend with. I was interested in the gracious remarks made by Hekia Parata on the select committee’s deliberations. It was refreshing to hear that it was an educative experience for new members of the select committee. I do not know whether those of us for whom it was at least the second time round could go quite that far. Certainly the three or four members of the committee who participated last time in the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s deliberations on the current legislation I think take the view that by and large most of the submissions we heard were fairly reiterative of what was heard last time. It was interesting however to learn that most of the larger emitters have moved from what was generally an implacable opposition to the idea of emissions trading in New Zealand to an acceptance that it is the best way to go given our current circumstances and world developments. The submissions they made to the Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee tended to concentrate much more on trying to contend for amendments to the scheme that would be in their individual best interests. 
Perhaps one great advantage of the current select committee process is the fact that the science is on the table. One of the good things about the select committee is that we heard from reputable scientists including representatives of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and we have been able to form a view—pretty much around the table perhaps with one exception—that that science is reputable. The fact that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports its concerns and its finding that sea levels will rise between 18 and 59 centimetres by 2100 is something we should be concerned about. The fact that its findings are endorsed by reputable academics and scientific organisations the world over is something that will be useful to see likely recorded in the committee’s report back to the House. 
Earlier today during question time in the Chamber we heard reference to the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change. Given its report if anything it is clear that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been conservative in its findings. Rather than sea level rises of between 18 and 59 centimetres we might be looking at something like rises of between 50 and 100 centimetres. There was also World Health Organization research in the International Scientific Conference on Climate Change report about 150000 extra deaths 85 percent of which will be of young children occurring in low-income tropical countries as a result of the effects of climate change. Some of those countries are in our neighbourhood in the Pacific an area we have always expressed concern for. That is something we should be very worried about. 
Some of the members present in the Chamber today were also present at a recent science forum. I think the Assistant Speaker Mr Roy was there. We heard a presentation from an eminent academic at Otago University who talked about a phenomenon that was new to me: the increasing acidification of the oceans thanks to human-related climate change. Obviously it is a good thing that the oceans absorb carbon dioxide. They have acted as an effective sink to date and global warming would be a much worse phenomenon were it not for that propensity. But no system is closed and one of the results as we heard of the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide is that their pH has been decreasing. From 1751 about the time of the Industrial Revolution and also coincidentally about the time when records started to be kept to 1994 the pH of the ocean is estimated to have decreased from about 8.179 to 8.104. We heard that in about 30 years we might reach a tipping point. It is not a uniform tipping point because different parts of the ocean acidify at different rates but the concern is that those organisms that require calcium carbonate to construct their cell coverings or skeletons will not be able to do that any more in an acidified ocean meaning that a cascade effect up the food chain seems inevitable. 
I will respond to the observations that have been made about the special select committee by saying that a lot of the material that we heard was the relitigation of line call judgments. Perhaps it would be interesting to recall the Minister’s recount of history over the last 15 years on this matter. We have relitigated a lot of that history. It is now down to a number of line calls. I really hope at least for selfish personal reasons but also in the national interest that we do not have another select committee where we rehash these questions because I think it is becoming clear what we need to do. It has also become very clear that the science has to be treated as being beyond dispute. 
Looking forward we have to get over the problems we have with climate change policy at the moment. The ACT Party and the National Party in their coalition agreement—or their support agreement or whatever the correct term is these days for such agreements—said they would put the emissions trading scheme on hold then there would be a special select committee and then perhaps there would be legislation depending on the findings of that exercise. Well as one of the ACT members at the select committee remarked ironically one day—in terms that I will not repeat in the Chamber—that is not quite what happened. The bit about putting the emissions trading scheme on hold did not happen so what we have is the problem that we now face in the House whereby the legislation has been allowed to run on as it is unamended yet we have the select committee looking at broad questions as to the design of an emissions trading scheme not as it happens at the detail of the substantive legislation. 
For some reason that is not a term of reference of the select committee. But the broad questions around design as well as the science and whether to have a carbon tax or an emissions trading scheme are the things we have been debating in Parliament while at the same time the foresters truck on with no one to trade their credits with. The stationary energy sector and the industrial processes people have no allocation plans and no certainty about how they will be affected by the scheme except for the fact that the law tells them they will come into the scheme on 1 January. They are having to try to plan their businesses on that basis. 
We cannot go on like this. It is absolutely clear that this is a policy fiasco. It is up there with in my view the tax breaks that have been put in place for offshore minerals exploration; the repeal of the moratorium on future construction of baseload thermal generation plants; the rescinding of the phase-out of the energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs; the failure to promote the allocation plans that I have referred to as required by law; and the scrapping of the Fast Forward fund and the research and development tax credit. That after all was how the country was going to pay for the technological adaptations that everybody knows that agriculture needs to undergo in order to get into the scheme and get its emissions down after 2013. It will be through the technological advances that we need to fund that farmers will be in a position to do what we all know they need to do. The fiasco is also up there with the repeal of the biofuels obligation. 
Labour has made an offer as is now public knowledge to try to get on reach some common ground and get out of this policy fiasco that has become climate change and energy policy in New Zealand. I am very optimistic that with goodwill on all sides we will be able to get out of this mess. Certainly Labour will be devoting its efforts to that end.