Groser Tim: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
Groser Tim: Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:649;Page:18164] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 I say to the Hon Peter Dunne who spoke before and who was clearly very concerned very upset about the process with regard to the Climate Change (Emissions Trading and Renewable Preference) Bill that he may well find rather rapidly that Labour is a political and legislative Government he would have been well designed to miss. I look at a statement just made by Business New Zealand. I would argue that Business New Zealand is fairly measured in its comments generally. But it has started to use language like “The number of hasty back room deals we’ve seen with minor parties makes a mockery of the Government’s stated desire to consult widely.” and it has carried on and said: “It’s just self-serving politics. The fact we’ve got literally hundreds of SOPs in the house right now is further evidence of a political circus.” Those are not my words but the words of the head of Business New Zealand. I think perhaps that Mr Dunne may be well out of it I tell him. 
I will take up the points made by my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp about forestry but I will put them in the broader context of land use land use change and forestry. I recall a point I was making earlier that this was essentially grafted on to an agreement amongst industrial countries and there are many many serious flaws in the treatment of land use change and forestry. In the greater scheme of things—perhaps during the first commitment period—for annex 1 countries for developed countries perhaps that does not matter too much. After all agriculture for the European Union accounts for only around 3.4 or 3.5 percent of its emissions and the European Union is a very large part of the developed world. So one could argue that well for a first effort as an international agreement perhaps complete accuracy is not important in the scheme of things. 
Unfortunately there is a country that is a sharp exception to that and that country just happens to be the country called New Zealand. As we all know although in the case of one other annex 1 country Australia agriculture does creep up into very significant figures—18 percent of Australian emissions from memory are from agriculture—in the case of New Zealand it accounts for practically 50 percent of our total emissions. So the very casual rules around land use land use change and forestry although perhaps not major lacunae in the scheme of things on a broader international basis are a fundamental problem for New Zealand. 
One might have thought that a Government that was conscious of New Zealand’s growth problems would want to take that into account when designing the policy response of this one country for which those slack rules are a fundamental problem. The point here is that we are gaining a system that will almost certainly change. There is an enormous degree of naivety in the Government’s slavishly following that one set of rules in the overall framework of the Kyoto Protocol when that clearly not only will change but must change. The reason it must change is that although it is really only a problem for one small developed country in the first commitment period—that small developed country being none other than our very own dear small country—it will matter hugely to developing countries. Although New Zealand is literally unique in terms of its emissions profile amongst developed countries New Zealand is not at all unique when we put the broader picture of developing countries into the equation. 
One thing is clear: although nobody in this room nobody in this country and frankly nobody anywhere understands what the next successor agreement will be we all know that if there is to be a successor agreement in one way or another it must include the major developing country emitters. If it is to achieve its objective—and I have completely fluid views on what that might be because I accept the principle of common and differentiated responsibilities which is derived from the World Trade Organization concept of special and differentiated treatment; we would never expect developing countries to do exactly the same in exactly the same time frames as developed countries. But one thing is clear: it is almost inconceivable that we will have an international framework in the second commitment period unless the developing countries do something and that means the rules on land use land use change and forestry not only will change but have to change. We are gaining a system that will not last.