Parker David: Resource Management (Climate Protection)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Parker David: Resource Management (Climate Protection)  Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3926] 
Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 There is no doubt in my mind that the world is living beyond the environmental means of our planet not just because of climate change but on a variety of other measures. Fisheries are terribly depleted around the world. Habitats for many different species are shrinking not just in Africa but also in our own country. Desertification is spreading at an alarming rate not just in Africa but also in food-producing parts of China and in Australia. Freshwater aquifers are dropping in height because we are taking more water out of them than is being replenished into them. Enormous inland lakes such as Lake Chad and various others around the world are shrinking to a mere fraction of their former size because their water is being used for human purposes before it gets to them. 
The stand-out signal of them all is climate change. The reality is that if the world does not get these problems under control we will see more than just the loss of species as a terrible outcome; we will visit upon future generations a lifestyle and a conflict that is very scary to think about. I am not talking about that happening just to people many generations ahead of us. Our own children will probably be faced with conflicts caused by environmental woes a lack of food a changing climate and flooding. If water levels go up by 1 metre 30 million Bangladeshis will have to move—30 million. It beggars belief. 
John Hayes 
: They’re moving right now because of the flood. 
Hon DAVID PARKER 
: That is a very good point. They are moving right now because of a flood without any sea level rise. In fact I heard an amazing statistic a little while ago and it has stuck in my mind. 
More people have already died in Bangladesh since World War II than died as a consequence of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are writ large in the memories of most people of my age and older as being the worst environmental tragedy that the world has ever suffered. Yet already without climate change or an increase in water levels what has befallen Bangladesh has already been worse than the combined effect of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. A rise of the sea level by a metre would mean that 30 million people have to move somewhere else. That sort of event causes war. 
Climate change obviously has very serious consequences so what can we do about it? The sensible thing would be to price emissions properly. That does affect the decision as to whether we buy something. It changes behaviour. It means that a wooden ladder becomes cheaper than an aluminium ladder because a wooden ladder does not have emissions. At the margin there will be a few more wooden ladders fewer aluminium ladders and fewer emissions in the world. Similarly people would be encouraged to drive cars that have more aluminium than heavy steel. That is another good thing that emissions pricing does. But it works only if we have it and it works only if we have a price that is high enough to change behaviour. At the moment we do not have that because the Government has suspended the emissions trading scheme. The investment signals are not yet in the economy and as a consequence we will not have the same reduction in emissions that we would have with emissions pricing. 
That is where I know Jeanette Fitzsimons stands on this issue. She says we need emissions pricing but in the absence of emissions pricing we have to rely upon regulation. If we do not have emissions pricing or regulation we will not have much at all to force change and reduce emissions and we would have a very unpleasant future. 
We hear National saying we ought not to be world leaders on this issue. New Zealand has never been a world leader on this. We should be ashamed of how much we have been laggards. It is true that in the last 3 years or so we have started to make progress but it is not true that we have been world leaders. At one stage we were the only country in the southern hemisphere that agreed to take on a Kyoto commitment but we have not been world leaders when it came to implementing policies to reduce our emissions. 
It is true that we are world leaders in a little part of it in terms of research into reducing agricultural emissions and so we should be. We are good at improving the efficiency of farming as well as reducing emissions and we will profit from that investment. To say that we should back away from the steps we have already taken—modest though they are in New Zealand because apparently we should not be world leaders—is to abrogate our responsibility. 
The reality is that if a country as rich in endowments as New Zealand—with its low population densities its enormous endowment of resources including land soil water and forests—cannot get it right on environmental issues such as fisheries management or climate change response we must ask ourselves what hope there is for the rest of the world. I am afraid that the reality is quite stark. If a country like New Zealand cannot get these issues right there is very little hope that the world will. That is not a future that this Parliament should countenance. 
If New Zealand does not show how these things can be done we are effectively saying that the world will not. And if the world does not then we do our children their children and all of the children of the world a great disservice not to mention the other species on the planet that will become extinct as a consequence. 
A response to climate change is absolutely necessary. I agree with Eric Roy that the pricing of emissions is probably more important than the measures in this bill but we have not yet got that. The price has to be enough to change behaviour otherwise it is not worth doing; it is just a fig leaf that hides inaction. Unless we have an appropriate price on emissions we must pursue regulatory alternatives. Those regulatory alternatives in New Zealand in respect of matters that effect the environment naturally sit under the Resource Management Act. 
Debate interrupted.