Hughes Gareth: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. It is a great honour to speak in the second reading debate of the Civil Aviation (Cape Town Convention and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Today we are seeing why it is so important to have the Greens in Parliament. I have not heard a single member talk about the consequences of this bill on the environment or on our communities. We have talked about how this bill will make it cheaper for aircraft to finance aircraft and other heavy arms but no one has talked about the impacts. The fact is that aircraft emissions have grown by 73 percent in the last 40 years. That is vitally important because climate change is the greatest threat facing the planet. [ 
Interruption 
] I will let the honourable Minister Mapp repeat what he said; I do not know what he actually said. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: It’s a relatively small percentage of the global total. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I would like to touch on that. It is around 3 percent as the Minister will be aware. But the Minister will also be aware that there are significant debates globally about what the actual aircraft emissions are and what the global warming potential of those emissions are for the planet. The emissions are not just carbon dioxide but also nitrous oxide which has a greenhouse potential nearly 300 times worse than carbon dioxide over a 100-year time frame. The Minister may also be aware of the radiative forcing effects from the contrails which are condensation clouds at high levels and the impacts of water vapour. It is estimated that sometimes those could be up to 10 percent of global emissions. I hear what the Minister is saying but I think what we are hearing is— 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: The Minister is slapped down by the youngest member of the House—fantastic. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: I thank my colleague Mr Hughes. But I will get back to the issue of climate change. Today we are discussing how this legislation will make it cheaper for aircraft when aircraft emissions continue to grow. It is a big issue because greenhouse gas emissions in New Zealand and around the world are rising. Ladies and gentlemen it is not just a problem for the polar bears any more; climate change is a problem facing the planet right now. Last year Kofi Annan the former UN Secretary-General published a report saying that 300000 people die every year as a result of climate change not in 10 years and not in 20 years. We are not just talking about the polar bears; we are talking about right now. 
In 2007 Sir Nicholas Stern said in the Stern report that it is cheaper to take action now. It is expensive to tackle climate change and we hear about that almost daily from Mr Boscawen. The cost of tackling climate change is in the order of 2 percent of global GDP which is not an insignificant number. But when we look at the estimates of the costs of climate change in our lifetimes we are looking at potentially 20 percent of global gross domestic product being affected by climate change. The time to act is now and if we keep increasing our emissions from aircraft in New Zealand and around the world I ask where else we will make needed cuts to stay within the safe climatic band which is 350 parts per million. 
The bill makes it cheaper to own and operate an aircraft which I guess we all agree with and which is what we are talking about today. But we are not asking the important questions of whether we want to increase air travel in New Zealand or whether we want to make an essentially unsustainable sector continue to grow when we know the impacts of climate change. We know oil will not get any cheaper. In Louisiana over the last couple of months oil drillers have had to go further and deeper into more extreme environments because the easy sources of oil have already been tapped. We are reaching what is described as peak oil which is the end of cheap oil. The members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee heard about that in a letter from Dr Russel Norman and I hope that the committee will make an inquiry into it. It is an important issue because in New Zealand nearly 10 years ago we sunk over $800 million into saving our national airline. It is an important issue but as the price of fuel continues to increase we will see lessening usage internationally and lessening returns on our considerable investment. 
Climate change is a major issue for the New Zealand brand. The Green Party talks about it a lot because this Parliament is seeing a stark contrast in vision at the moment. On one side we can mine our treasured places try to squeeze more dairy production—4 percent a year of continual growth—and keep investing in mad motorways which do not make economic sense. On the other side we can focus on our “clean green” brand making that a reality and focusing on premium products. Those are the kinds of questions being asked considerably more and more by hundreds of thousands of tourists who are flying here every year. We have potentially 80000 people coming to New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup next year. We will have maybe a billion people watching. But with the Rugby World Cup New Zealand could become like China at the time of the Beijing Olympics with questions being raised on human rights. New Zealand could become like South Africa at the time of the Football World Cup with questions being raised on racism and housing issues. Will the Rugby World Cup highlight our hypocrisy on our green issues? Will it be around the fact that we are not facing up to the growth in our airline emissions and that we are not facing up to any sector growth of emissions in New Zealand? 
I wish that we were debating a bill that would see aircraft become more sustainable. I am not a doom and gloom merchant. There are options available for aircraft industries worldwide. I wish we were discussing the “Wellington Convention”. There is an option going around the world pushing for more stringent aircraft sustainability standards. I wish we were pushing for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from the aircraft and shipping industries which so far are not counted under the Kyoto Protocol. I wish we were including those gases in our Kyoto register and in our emissions trading scheme. I know it will happen one day but the sooner we face up to the fact that our considerable 3.4 million tonnes of emissions that come from our international aircraft sector is massive and will be counted one day the better. We may as well start facing up to the truth. 
So in summary I am disappointed that no one else in the House has raised these sustainability issues and has asked the core question. Sure we want to make it cheaper for aircrafts to operate in New Zealand and globally but do we want to support and keep subsidising the aircraft industry in New Zealand through our emissions trading scheme? It is being subsidised for its pollution when we know that we do not have a second planet. Kia ora.