Copeland Gordon: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Copeland Gordon: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18127] 
GORDON COPELAND (Independent) 
: 
 This bill is called the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill. I will not talk about the renewable preference bit but I will certainly talk about climate change and the emissions trading parts of this bill. Concerning climate change itself I can say that one thing is now clear: it has always been with us. In Roman times wine was grown in the north of England and there is plenty of historical evidence to support that conclusion. 
There is also significant evidence of what causes climate change. I went to a seminar in the United States in 2006 where I talked to some leading climate change scientists and also to some scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration who perhaps do not come into that category but nevertheless are some of the best brains in the world. They were of the view that the main driver of climate change is actually solar. Therefore it is not man-made. If it were man-made then it would be very difficult to explain—as Rodney Hide alluded to—the medieval warming period and the period in Roman times that I referred to. 
Unlike Rodney Hide I am not a climate change scientist. Therefore my approach to this issue as it would be with many others in this Committee is to get the very best scientific explanation that we can from a number of sources that an increase in global warming is or is not due to increasing levels of emissions. Whether those emissions are carbon-related is as Rodney Hide has said only a hypothesis. It is not fact. It has now been discovered that an increase in carbon levels over thousands of years follows a warming in the climate. [ 
Interruption 
] Yes Madam Chairperson I am talking about Part 1. Part 1 is so long and complex that virtually everything I am saying is referred to in it somewhere. I have checked that out so I am sticking to Part 1. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Could the member refer to the clauses please. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: There are hundreds of them. It would take me 5 minutes to list them. I would just ask for a little bit of leniency given the complexity of this whole matter. There are definitions and all kinds of things in there. 
The conventional wisdom in recent years has been that global warming follows increasing levels of carbon. If that is the case then we would also expect Mars for example not to have had any change at all in its climate over many years because there is no carbon up there to emit. But in fact Mars is warming as is Earth. Therefore there is a link back to the sun. 
This bill raises some very serious issues for New Zealand. If it is fundamentally flawed then we are indeed imposing on our fellow citizens enormous additional costs with no clear evidence at all in my view that it will make one iota of difference to the warming of the climate we are seeing at the moment. That really is a good reason for us to proceed with a great deal of caution. Personally I find it difficult to separate the scientific facts from the politics in this matter. When New Zealand initially signed the Kyoto Protocol—which led to this bill in the first place—we thought we were on a $500 million windfall and that $500 million would be paid across to New Zealand. In fact we found out later that that was wrong and now we are in hock to the tune of about $1 billion potentially. That figure is growing every day as the price of carbon goes up. It seems to me that it is that reality that has driven this bill rather than the science. 
From the scientific advice I have received I think there is a great deal more to be known about this subject before we rush through legislation that we all might live to regret. I think this is a time to be very cautious lest we decide in haste to pass this legislation only to repent at leisure and in the meantime impose unnecessary costs on Kiwi businesses and families at the very time when all of us in this country are already struggling with rising cost levels. Why on earth in that situation would we impose extra costs based on dubious outcomes in the future? I hope we are not just chasing the wind and wasting our time and our money— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: Again I make a plea: this is the Committee stage; it is not the first reading the second reading or the third reading. We are dealing with the clauses in Part 1.