Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues) Link to this
I move, That the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Climate change presents very serious global risks and demands an urgent global response. The recent Stern review concluded that the scientific evidence is overwhelming. Taking action now must be viewed as investment in the future. The less we do now, the greater the difficulty and the costs of adapting to climate change in the future. We must do what we can to reduce our emissions, to protect our clean, green image, and to make our contribution to the global effort.
The great outdoors is central to Kiwis’ lives. We need to protect it so that we can maintain our distinct New Zealand way of life. We need to take action, balanced with the need for productivity gains and growth. This bill is about providing opportunities. The bill allows individuals the opportunity to hold accounts in New Zealand’s Emissions Unit Registry and to trade in emission units. It also provides a mechanism for landowners to establish forest sinks and earn Kyoto Protocol units. With these opportunities come risks. As with all investments, individuals will need to make their own assessment of the risks and returns of entering the emerging carbon market.
In regard to the Emissions Unit Registry, the bill amends the principal Act to allow for individuals, not only the Crown, to hold accounts in the registry, and therefore to hold emission units. The amendments made by the Commerce Committee were to clauses 5, 13, and 23, in order to better protect the property rights and interests of unit and account holders. The Commerce Committee amended clauses 5 and 13, which relate to the powers of the Minister of Finance and the registrar to deal with units, open accounts, etc., by providing more specific criteria in circumstances in which the Ministers responsible for the registry may provide a direction to the registrar to close a holding account. The select committee also amended clause 23, which limits the bar to bringing an action against the Crown. This narrows the exclusion of Crown liability.
In regard to the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, the bill amends the principal Act by inserting a new Part 3B into the Forests Act 1949. This will provide an opportunity for landowners to establish forest sinks and earn carbon credits. The mechanisms in this bill will enable landowners to make better productive use of their land, particularly isolated and erosion-prone land that is currently marginal for uses such as agriculture or conventional forestry production. Landowners may wish to establish a forest to control soil erosion, improve water quality, and better manage flood peaks. This may in turn assist with maintaining land production, averting damage to farm improvements, and reducing downstream damage from siltation and pollution. Forestry, of course, can also diversify rural incomes, thus reducing the impact of adverse events that may become more frequent with climate change.
The Permanent Forest Sink Initiative provides an opportunity for landowners to assist in both mitigating and adapting to climate change. The aim of adapting to climate change is to minimise the risks and maximise the opportunities that will arise from the projected changes in our climate over the coming decades and century. Adaptation complements mitigation, and mitigation is about reduction of emissions. Both are necessary responses to deal with the challenges that climate change poses to our economy, environment, and society.
The Government moved amendments to the bill through a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee of the whole House. Since the second reading, in relation to the registry, amendments have been made to clause 7(2)(a), clause 9, and clause 15(1). The amendments to clauses 7(2)(a) and 15(1) were made in order to ensure more efficient operation of the registry. The amendment to clause 9 was to provide better transparency and specificity in order to better protect the rights of unit and account holders. With regard to the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative, amendments were made to clause 30. The amendments substitute new definitions of landholding, carbon sequestration, forest sink, forest sink covenant, and landowner. These are technical amendments and will assist the working of the legislation. The more substantive change to clause 30 concerns the regulation-making powers. It enables regulations to be promulgated by the Governor-General in Council concerning carbon sequestration calculation methodology, the transfer of units, the definition of a forest sink, dispute resolution, requirements for reporting and verification, and harvest restrictions.
Finally, I thank all of those involved in developing the bill, the Commerce Committee for its consideration of the bill, and my parliamentary colleagues from both sides of the House who have supported the bill.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) Link to this
What a pickle we have in New Zealand in respect of climate change policy. It has all been said quite accurately by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. That neutral office holder has said that in New Zealand right now we have a vacuum in respect of climate change policy. Here we are, 7 years after the election of this Government, and on one of the most critical issues of our time we have a vacuum. All we have from the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues is that next month we will get some options. We on this side of the House say that, after 7 years of this Government, a set of options is simply not good enough; it is simply not credible.
It is all the more incredible that the Prime Minister, at the recent Labour Party conference, said that New Zealand is going to be carbon neutral. That was an extraordinary commitment from the Prime Minister. The advice from officials is that New Zealand does not have a bolter’s show of meeting the very modest targets of the Kyoto Protocol as ratified in 2002. Officials are saying that even to stabilise emissions from New Zealand is an extraordinarily demanding thing to do. So for a Prime Minister who has failed so badly to now be talking about a more ambitious goal than that of any other country in the world defies credibility.
Then we look at the Government’s actual record. How often have I heard Labour members damning the Governments of Australia and the United States in respect of climate change? How often have I stood on the platform and heard Labour Ministers talking about big bad George W Bush being in the pocket of the oil barons and a threat to the climate? Well, this week in Nairobi this Government got a very harsh message. You see, emissions under Helen Clark’s Government have grown by 6.8 percent.
Lindsay TischHon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
By 6.8 percent, and in the big bad USA over the same years emissions have grown by 1.3 percent. So there we have Helen Clark’s actual record—not the rhetoric but the actual record—which is five times worse than that of George W Bush. Now let us look at the record of Australia, because I have often been at international conferences where our Labour Ministers have pretended that somehow John Howard and Australia are the bad guys. Again, I ask them to look at the record, because New Zealand’s emissions are growing at a far faster rate than Australia’s.
Darren HughesHon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
But even more serious, I tell Mr Darren Hughes, is that in the last 6 years, when Mr Hughes and Labour have been in Government, we have seen each and every year a decline in the amount of forestation. Throughout the 1990s we averaged plantings of 60,000 hectares of new forest each year. Every year that Labour has been in office that number has dropped, to the point where in 2004 and 2005 we actually had net deforestation. Labour has said that that is just economics and it is not its fault. Well, that is interesting. If we go across to Australia, which is selling to exactly the same markets, and which is investing heavily in the pine and forest industry, we see that there is 450,000 hectares of new forests. So I say—
Shane JonesHon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
Well, Mr Shane Jones says that it is a bigger country. Let us say that it has five times our population. If we were doing even one-fifth as well, we would expect to have 90,000 hectares of new forest in New Zealand. But I tell Mr Jones that we are actually cutting down more trees than we are planting—we are going backwards. So I say to Labour members that their track record is appalling.
Let us look at the track record of policy failures. There has been the “fart tax”, and the backward flip on that. There has been the carbon tax, and the Government’s back-down on that—although we have different answers from the Prime Minister and from the Minister responsible for Climate Change Issues as to why the carbon tax was dropped. There is the billion-dollar bungle in respect of the Kyoto balance. Projects to encourage renewable energy have been stopped. We have had negotiated greenhouse agreements, and that policy has been canned. There has even been the nonsense of Labour voting to remove climate change provisions from the Resource Management Act, then voting for a bill that would put them back in. Labour has blocked renewable energy projects—it killed Project Aqua and it stopped the Dobson hydro scheme—yet it has built coal-fired power stations and gas-fired power stations, and, for goodness’ sake, it has even spent public money on building an oil-fired power station. It is little wonder that we have seen a constant decline in the proportion of New Zealand’s electricity that is produced from renewable energy.
Members opposite, who have no policy—the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says they have no policy; their friends in the Green Party say they have no policy—ask what National’s policy is. I want to outline exactly what National thinks should be done. We believe that we need to cap the emissions in the electricity sector. They are growing faster than those in any other area. New Zealand has lots of renewable energy options, with wind, hydro, geothermal, and wave and tidal energy, to be able to meet this country’s electricity needs without building another coal-fired power station, as Mighty River Power, one of this Government’s State-owned enterprises, is promoting in Whangarei.
We also say that we need to provide an incentive to plant forests. That is why we are saying we want a tradable emissions permit system, which will enable us to encourage players in the forestry industry to get some credits for the forests they are planting. You see, this Government, with its ridiculous policy of a deforestation cap, is saying to foresters that it will charge them if in future they cut down their trees. Not surprisingly, those foresters have their chainsaws out early and they are cutting those trees down, which is bad for our economy and bad for the environment. That deforestation cap will go. National says that is a sound approach.
We have identified a whole number of other such ideas, including bio-fuels, improving the fuel efficiency of vehicles, updating the building code to take into account energy efficiency, reforming the Resource Management Act so that we can actually build some renewable energy projects, and joining the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, an agreement that includes India and China. Let us be honest: we will not make any progress on climate change unless those countries are engaged and involved. We have also talked about the fact that we need to substantially boost investment in research and development. This Government has turned down over $3 million worth of research projects to reduce our agricultural emissions, and we simply say that that is wrong.
So this bill is not going to take us very far, at all. Those who think this bill will solve New Zealand’s climate change problem are kidding themselves. I challenge the next Labour speaker to tell us how Labour is going to make New Zealand carbon neutral. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to prophesy with her incredible targets at the Labour Party conference, and to talk about our being carbon neutral, but she should come down to this Parliament and tell us how that will be achieved. For us it looks like a pipedream. [Interruption] I say to Mr Hughes and Marian Hobbs that the Labour Party cannot have a conference where it talks about being carbon neutral, then have Mighty River Power propose to build a new coal-fired power station that will produce 38 million tonnes of carbon over the next 40 years. That is simply not credible. I would like the next Labour speaker to explain why it has proceeded to build a new oil-fired power station.
We need leadership in this area. National has provided it. I encourage Labour to pick up National’s constructive ideas around a tradable emissions permit system. That is the way of the future. This bill is only a teeny-weeny step towards providing what is required. We need to fill the vacuum that exists in climate change policy and actually provide New Zealand with a constructive way forward.
Hon MARIAN HOBBS (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this
With delight I rise to support the third reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, for several reasons. The first is to reply immediately to the speaker before me, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, and reiterate to all who are listening that this bill is not the sole movement, the sole way forward, towards achieving carbon neutrality. To advocate that, or even to pretend that, would be foolish. I have not heard anyone on the Government benches ever advocate that this Permanent Forest Sink Initiative is the sole way forward.
We will reach our goals, and there are several reasons why I support this bill. The first is that amending the Act so that individuals as well as the Crown can hold emission units will allow for possible developments as policy comes out in the future. I say that as clearly as I possibly can, for those who are well aware of what is actually happening in respect of the questions of reforestation or forestation. At the moment, the holding of emission units is very limited. The bill says that someone not connected with the Government can now own carbon credits. We have actually made a shift, and that shift, in this particular bill, opens up some possibilities that I understand are the subject of policy development.
The second reason why I particularly support this bill is that the whole notion of the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative does allow landowners to establish forest sinks and earn carbon credits. Particularly, though, it allows them to do this and at the same time kill about two or three birds with one stone—or with one planting.
No, we are not; we are going to provide habitat for birds, and that is about the fifth reason why we should do this.
This initiative is particularly about planting forest on isolated or erosion-prone land, and that is something that will help land subject to the floods that have come about largely through climate change and deforestation. Some say this can be done by planting indigenous trees and plants, thereby enhancing the habitat. Those of us who were in the Local Government and Environment Committee meeting this morning listening to officials of the Department of Conservation know that this initiative is another tool for that department.
The bill is also about improving water quality. At this stage, I draw the attention of members opposite to water quality and Lake Taupō, and I will repeat a small story for people here who claim there has been a loss of the amount of acreage in forest. When I was the Minister for the Environment the ministry was negotiating funding of $81 million, and the methodology, to change land use around Lake Taupō. The ministry talked to Tūwharetoa, the Taupō District Council, and Environment Waikato. We were trying to do this aside from regulation—to provide incentive. Suddenly, we had forest owners coming to us saying that they wanted to bill the Government for billions of dollars. The reason they gave was that they knew there was no money in forestry, there was money only in dairying, and that if the Government said they could not put in dairy farms around Lake Taupō because it wanted the lake’s water quality to improve, then they wanted compensation. That has meant that every time I hear forestry companies say that the Government does not really care about the Kyoto Protocol or about water quality, I know that all they care about is the bottom dollar. Some of those people do not have an environmental bone in their bodies. I find those sorts of arguments, which have been repeated by our colleagues across the floor so many times, slightly difficult to take.
I remind those members of the House that the Kyoto Protocol was an attempt by the international community to find a mechanism by which it could solve the planetary problem of global warming, and that mechanism was a trading mechanism. It is the same sort of mechanism that is actually being used in respect of nitrates around Lake Taupō, and maybe around Lake Rotorua. It is the same kind of thing. An incentive is given to people in order to change their ways of earning, their ways of farming, or their ways of industry. The mechanism involved is a trading mechanism and it involves the valuing of carbon credits. As we say in this bill, if people can grow more trees to absorb carbon, then they can earn credits and balance that against greenhouse gas emissions.
That—for those who are not listening—is what is meant by carbon neutrality. It is a balance between emissions and credits earned, and it can be done in market forms and by activity. So some industries, private cars, bus fleets, whatever, will be exuding carbon dioxide—and animals will be giving out methane and greenhouse gas emissions—and those emissions will be neutralised by what those industries plant and grow that absorbs the carbon out there. That is carbon neutrality. It is a really important aim to achieve.
I must admit that I feel I have been at the receiving end of the speech given before me by the Hon Dr Nick Smith at least five times in 5 days, and I am getting rather bored by that particular speech. I also find it ironic, because the same member gets up and says all the time: “I want consensus. I want to work with the Government.” Well, the Government feels particularly attacked and unloved by that particular member, and, for all sorts of reasons, cannot really understand why we should get into bed with him. Well, there are all sorts of reasons!
I will stay with killing the birds. Is it consensus when that particular member gets up and breaks select committee convention by quoting from documents that were given to the select committee? I would think that is not an endearing attribute of working with the Government. Is it consensus when the National Party uses every opportunity to attack, rather than to build trust and rather than to build consensus? It is all about attack. Its members ask why we do not take them with us on overseas delegations. Why would we, when all we get is attack, and we do not get a way of moving forward? Is it consensus to talk about percentages of growth rather than actual emissions or total per person, as in the statistics that were given out then? When one talks about Australia and percentages of growth in emissions, as distinct from emissions per person, that gives a totally different picture; that is playing around with statistics, and we have seen too much of that. That is not about building consensus.
Is it consensus to talk about Australia’s reforestation when we know that the Australians do not have a dairy industry out there trying to take up every piece of acreage available, as happens particularly in Southland, where that member, Eric Roy, comes from? The Australians do not have that because they have an irrigation problem, with a lack of water, so their reforestation is for very good environmental reasons—to conserve water and have a different land use. That is not comparing apples with apples. It is not an example of people from the other side talking with people from this side. It is an example of exchanging attack knives rather than working with. When we have an example of that working with, I think the Government will be interested.
But, unlike National members, I will remind listeners what this bill is about. This bill is about the principles behind establishing a Permanent Forest Sink Initiative. By ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, an opportunity has been opened up for landowners—particularly of largely marginal land—to establish permanent forests and gain individual emission units. To enter that initiative the land must be eligible. Forest is defined under the protocol, but there may be areas of mixed scrub and pasture; the boundaries may not be clear, and we will work our way through that. What will the forest owners receive? They will receive tradable Kyoto Protocol - compliant emission units that they will be free to sell to whomever they wish. Can trees be harvested? Yes, trees will be able to be removed on a continuous canopy basis; people will not be able to clear-fell. Are we talking about exotic and indigenous species? We certainly are.
So there are opportunities out here to be taken. We are dealing with the environment; the benefits are not just about carbon credits and making money but about providing increased indigenous habitat and ecosystems, clean water, flood protection, and cleaner air in mitigation against dairying, for example. Those are, therefore, reasons to support this bill.
Finally, I would like to say that I am grateful the National Party, for all its harrumphing and attacking, is—I understand—going to vote in favour of this legislation, having changed its mind halfway through and suddenly had a road to Damascus experience.
ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) Link to this
I would like to take my part in the third reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill, too, and make what is probably about my eighth contribution since it was reported back and had its second reading. I would have liked to be here when the Climate Change Response Bill was introduced in 2002. Here we have a Government saying the Opposition is a johnny-come lately, yet the Government actually introduced the original legislation in 2002—
—4 years ago. I accept what the member Marian Hobbs, who has just resumed her seat, said: this is a minor part of the much bigger plan that is needed to solve the problem. I look forward to new legislation and new initiatives, and I offer my wisdom and ability to assist the member in introducing something that is real and meaningful.
What we have had from this Government is, essentially, placebo activity—activity that makes people think something is happening when it is not. The Government signed up to the Kyoto Protocol with the notion that it was going to solve the problem, but in reality the protocol is ineffectual because the model upon which it is based is flawed. Let us go back, the Kyoto Protocol said, to 1990 levels of emissions, and categorise countries into category 1, category 2, and category 3. But in the first commitment period only category 1 countries have to go back to 1990 levels, and it looks like no country will make it. New Zealand is not going to make it. This bill, which puts some solidity back into the sink market in terms of forestry, is not going to do it for New Zealand, either.
I want to state a few principles here. I, personally, have been concerned about the impacts of climate change since the late 1980s. Right now, it is a very, very topical issue. Many members will have seen or heard about the film An Inconvenient Truth. I am not sure the film actually progresses all that much the argument on the impacts of climate change. From my point of view, it is not really a scientific treatise; it is more an emotive response. We know that some of the issues that are presented in it are factually not right—the bit about the islands in the Pacific sinking, causing Polynesian people to come to New Zealand, and that sort of thing. We know that is not right, so we start asking what else is not right.
I, for one, would prefer that this argument be put at a scientific level, so that we can understand the issue better. I accept that maybe 20 percent of the scientific community are sceptics, but let them publish factual documents, not just make press statements. Then we can make comparisons, because science is about thesis and antithesis. That stuff needs to be out there.
As I have said, I have been looking at this issue for about 20 years, and I am persuaded that planet Earth has a fragile thermal blanket around it, and that New Zealand ought to accept its share of responsibility for the 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases that are released into that blanket every day—although some of those are absorbed into the ocean. But if the sceptics say that planet Earth can absorb and tolerate that much, then I ask at what point in the next 1,000 years—considering that currently we release 7 million tonnes a day, and the amount is increasing—they will say “Oops!”. Because that day must come, and the responsible course is for us to move now.
This bill plays a very minor part in this regard. The Government is wrong if it thinks the bill will buy us time in meeting our commitment. While the bill has been going through the different stages I have made many speeches on this subject, and have said there are a number of reasons why New Zealand is deforesting. The Government’s own example, with Landcorp clear-felling a large area of the central North Island, indicates that there are other, more productive forms of land use; that there are better returns from doing something else. Just changing the sink responsibility, so that tree owners can own the forest credits, will not solve the problem.
I mentioned in an earlier speech that we need to have value-adding and processing so that there is an elevated price and we get more out of the trees we produce. We need to look at long-term commitments of electricity from a sustainable source, because, as my colleague the Hon Nick Smith said, this Government is relying more and more on thermal energy, and that has been the bogeyman in terms of our releasing greenhouse gases and the reason why New Zealand has performed so poorly according to the report that was presented in Nairobi recently.
So we have to accept responsibility to put in order all of the things that will encourage people to plant trees. Yes, there are some fragile areas of New Zealand that we need to retire, and it will be good if they go back into some form of trees, but we ought not to react in a knee-jerk way and suddenly plant Pinus radiata or something else that may degrade the land with acid leaf litter or some of those other issues. We need to not react in a knee-jerk way; there needs to be a rational approach. Today the Local Government and Environment Committee heard the financial review of the Department of Conservation, and the officials said that the retiring of land under tenure review will assist in the generation of carbon credits. I thought, hello, tenure reviews are mostly about retiring land above the snowline, and the definition of the snowline is that trees do not grow above it. So how will we create a huge carbon sink on retired land above 1,000 metres? I am interested to see the Department of Conservation’s proposals.
The point is this bill will do a little bit, but not a lot. It is a start, but by no means a completion. There is the issue of “food miles”, and the Government must take action because some of our competitors in Europe are jumping on the bandwagon and saying their people must buy food products produced in Europe. That is nothing more than a prejudice against New Zealand for marketing reasons. It is not based on science, and earlier in my speech I said it was important that we bring science into this. The Minister has mentioned that New Zealand agriculture is much more efficient than that of other countries, but, on the other hand, the Government is out there trumpeting that 49 percent of our greenhouse gases come from agriculture, and that is drawing the attention of our competitors overseas. Yes, we might be more efficient, but they have in their heads the fact that New Zealand’s agriculture is a significant player in the production of greenhouse gases.
During the course of the debate, from the second reading on, I have urged and challenged Government members to justify with science the figure of 49 percent. Trees through photosynthesis sequester carbon out of the atmosphere; some of the 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted each day go into trees, and that is good. How come that does not work with grass? We are doing this country’s exports a mischief when we loosely use that figure. I have asked officials, Government members, and anybody who uses that figure to justify it. Not one person has. So that is a challenge for the next Government speaker, and for the Government. If they continue to peddle that line, then the consequences are that consumers will boycott New Zealand goods, and that will be because the Government is promoting something that I do not believe is accurate. If it is accurate, then let Government members prove it, and then we will deal with the issues.
Let me conclude the way I started. This Earth is a relatively fragile environment, and we as legislators have a responsibility to do our bit, not just for today or for tomorrow but looking forward to the future. I believe that greenhouse gas emissions are one of those things that we need to approach in a rational way, and, yes, it is important that there is some kind of cooperation across the House. The previous speaker, the Hon Marian Hobbs, asked why the Government should include the Opposition. I say simply because National will be the Government, these are long-term issues, and we cannot have a 3-year parliamentary term approach to solving a problem that is significant looking forward centuries. That simply will not work, and there has to be buy in. National is offering our combined resources to work with the Government in finding a solution that not only will solve the problem of climate change but will build New Zealand’s credibility, enhance the primary products that we produce, and build tourism, for the future.
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this
In referring to what the previous speaker, Eric Roy, said, I point out that I have been working, perhaps harder than anyone in this House, to try to get some cross-party agreements going on climate change. I refer back to when I went to the Kyoto meeting in 1997. National was the Government and Simon Upton was the Minister for the Environment. There was no possibility then of the Greens being invited to join the Government delegation; I went entirely as an observer at my own expense. I had to go under the auspices of an international parliamentarians for the environment group, because there was no way I could get there under the auspices of the New Zealand Government. However, let us hope that times will change and we will get some more cross-party work on this issue.
The issue that the previous speaker raised is serious and deserves an explanation, and possibly I might be able to help answer his question. Eric Roy has consistently said he takes climate change seriously and wants answers. He asked why there are credits for forests planted on land but not for the carbon sequestered in grass on grasslands. The answer is that, yes, the grass stores a little bit of carbon, although not nearly as much as the forest does. When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated the question was what land-use changes would qualify as sinks under Kyoto. The measurement tools in those days were quite poor compared with what they are now, and only forest was agreed to count—
The point I was making was how do you get to the 49 percent. I am not arguing the relative merit, because grass is processed. Could you answer that—where do you get the 49 percent from?
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS Link to this
Forty-nine percent is the result of counting those gases that the Kyoto Protocol counts—methane, nitrous oxide, and so forth. It is the percentage of our gross emissions; nobody says it is the percentage of our net emissions. Under Kyoto, the carbon sequestered in animals and in grass does not count, but under Kyoto II that carbon might count. There will be more development of the whole question of land use and land-use change as the—
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS Link to this
It is not a finite result, but it is the one we are liable for in this term, and that is why we have to count it.
I gave some figures this afternoon on the area of forest that would be required to sequester all of our emissions in order to meet the Prime Minister’s target of having a carbon-neutral economy. Members may have noted that those figures were very large. All of the land from Wellington up to Levin and the Wairarapa, for example, would be required to sequester just the outcome from our transport. I will update those figures a bit now. The Greens support this Permanent Forest Sink Initiative—as we have done all the way through—because we think permanent forest sinks are an important part of the answer. Let us look at just what they could achieve in neutralising the emissions that we are accountable for under Kyoto, which are the emissions that have grown since 1990. Under this bill, how much area of new permanent forest sink would we need to neutralise completely the growth in our emissions since 1990? The answer is that we would need 780,000 hectares of forest. That is not totally impossible. We can go a long way towards achieving a target like that if we want to.
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS Link to this
No, that is to offset everything that has grown from 1990 until now. How is it made up? This is where the figures become interesting. Although agriculture represents around half of our total emissions, it is not around half of the growth, and it is only the growth we are accountable for—this time—under Kyoto. Agriculture has grown enough to require 280,000 hectares of forest. Could we find on marginal land, on odd corners of farms that are not highly productive, and on areas that are steep and slipping, 280,000 hectares in New Zealand on which to plant permanent forest in order to completely wipe the debt of all our increasing agricultural emissions since 1990? I have not done those figures, but I think maybe we could do so.
But let us compare that with what has happened with transport—and this is the reason the Greens are so frustrated about the lack of action on transport by this Government and every preceding one. The transport emissions growth would require 330,000 hectares of forest. In other words, the growth in agricultural emissions would require the equivalent of 4.5 times the area of Lake Taupō to be planted in forest, but the growth in transport emissions would require the equivalent of 5.4 times the area. Electricity, by comparison, is piddling; it would take only 55,000 hectares—only 90 percent of the area of Lake Taupō.
There is an awful lot of focus on electricity. Electricity is an easy target and we do need to take action everywhere, but the biggie is transport, and we are not looking at it. But it is not hard to do so. Our vehicles are using on average, across the fleet, twice as much fuel as they need to compared with best-practice vehicles, in order to travel the same distances and cart the same number of people. Surely, over the next decade or two that will be an easy target to reach.
So the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is needed, it is overdue, and the Greens totally support it. Permanent forest sinks are an important way of meeting our Kyoto targets in the short term, and of restoring some climate balance in the longer term. They are only a temporary solution; in the long term there is not enough land to keep on expanding the planting area every year as we increase emissions. Therefore, permanent forest sinks will buy us some time. The real target has to be to reduce those emissions, to find clean sources of energy from renewables, to use energy much more efficiently, and to change the way we do things.
But this is a good bill. Let us support it, and let us recognise that 780,000 hectares of permanent forest sink would offset all of our emissions growth since 1990, which is what we are accountable for under Kyoto.
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Māori Party—Waiariki) Link to this
Kia ora, Mr Deputy Speaker; kia ora tātou katoa. The emails came in fast and furious after the second reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill on 25 October—to the Māori Party, at least. One email said the following: “All the big noise about climate change, interviews from all sectors … when the reality is that they are all ‘johnny-come-latelys’. No-one is talking or asking the view of the indigenous people, Maori, Aborigine, Inuit, Native American, Papuan etc. We hold the key to the Earth’s survival, and they dismiss you as you would a child who asks intuitive questions”.
Never one to shirk from a challenge, I thought it was only fitting to bring to the House a copy of the indigenous peoples’ statement from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change some 4 years ago, in November 2002. The statement refers to the sacred relationship with Papatūānuku, mother Earth, that binds indigenous peoples to conserve biodiversity for the survival of present and future generations. The perilous state of the Earth, as we are challenged by global warming and climate change, is evidenced in the melting of the polar ice caps, the inconsistency of the seasons, the rising seas, food and water shortages, species extinction, and massive loss of lives and homes. Traditional ways of life are being affected by the damage caused by climate change, particularly in forest, wetland, river, and coastal areas.
Set against this wider international indigenous perspective, what will this bill do to make a positive difference to mother Earth, Papatūānuku? In ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, Aotearoa has made the commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to at least 5 percent below the 1999 levels from 2008 to 2012, and it could not have come a day sooner. The fact that we are the fourth-highest nation amongst developed nations in the emission of greenhouse gases is hardly something to boast about; nor is the fact that New Zealand’s rate of emissions is growing significantly faster than that of Australia’s, nor the fact that the rate of carbon emissions has increased faster than the rate of population growth and GDP, leaving us in the dubious position of our rate being more than twice the world average, and above the OECD average.
This bill amends the Climate Change Response Act 2002 to allow entities other than the Crown to hold accounts in the Kyoto Protocol register and to trade in emission units.
In my second reading speech I raised the issues associated with the actions of the Christchurch City Council, which has sold carbon credits to British Gas. There is, of course, a very significant contradiction inherent in the relationship of carbon credits to climate change. If we take the basic premise that climate change is about greenhouse gas emissions, surely the desired outcome is that emissions need to be reduced. If industry polluters are able to purchase carbon credits to offset their polluting emissions, yet still make no apparent effort to reduce emissions, surely the core problem remains.
The hub of the problem is that most global warming over the last 150 years is attributable to human activity. The answer, therefore, lies in our human hands. All of us have a responsibility to do what we can to ensure that we assist this nation by not putting more carbon into the atmosphere than we are able to offset by other means. Indigenous peoples across the globe understand their role and responsibility as being unique in conserving Papatūānuku, mother Earth, but it is not a duty that we hold exclusively. We in the Māori Party believe that if we are going to reverse, mitigate, or halt in their flow any of the catastrophes that stand to threaten Papatūānuku, urgent and specific attention must be accorded this issue by all peoples of this land.
The second major thrust of this bill is to extend the regulation-making powers of the Forests Act 1949. The proposal is to establish a mechanism to allow landowners to access the value of carbon from newly established permanent forest sinks. Such an arrangement created under the Kyoto Protocol may result in the promotion of afforestation for erosion control and other environmental concerns, and the promotion of forestry for economic development and employment promotion in particular regions.
We are aware that Ngāti Porou Whānui Forests is very keen for this bill to be supported, and it recognises that it and other iwi will be able to make income by trading carbon credits accumulated in their forest assets. It believes that it is able to make money before the harvesting of forests, which, as such, is a totally new income stream. Alternatively, it is able to make money by planting permanent forests on isolated or erodible land that is not suitable for farming and harvesting forests. To this end, of course, the Māori Party will support the priorities expressed by whānau, hapū, and iwi in their aspirations for cultural, economic, social, environmental, and spiritual wealth. There is no greater goal for many of our people than for whānau, hapū, and iwi to be actively participating and succeeding in the economy.
But we draw the House’s attention once more to the concept of the genuine progress index, which differentiates between positive contributions to progress, and negative activity. We are aware that forestry can be harmful to the environment. We understand that some hapū and iwi have been undertaking research in forestation and deforestation that could be helpful in underpinning our future developments. What we know is that deforestation to create pasture lands and subsequent pine forests has caused a whole host of environmental problems for land and waterway ecosystems. Pine needles and sap are poisonous, allowing no secondary or tertiary forest-floor growth. Thus the natural layering found in indigenous forests, where other flora and fauna form part of the ecosystem, is not found. Pine is very much a mono-crop. After three rotations of pine, the ground has effectively been rendered sour and useless for any other crops for many generations.
There are obvious implications for whānau wanting to develop land-based sustainability. We must always bear in mind the checks and balances that come with any situation, and the cost of deforestation for future growth.
Finally, I once more draw the attention of the House back to the indigenous peoples’ caucus from the eighth session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In its statement the indigenous caucus concluded: “Our duty as indigenous peoples, to Mother Earth impels us to demand that we be provided adequate opportunity to participate fully and actively at all levels of local, national, regional and international decision making processes and mechanisms on climate change.”
The Māori Party is proud to stand in the House to contribute to the debate and the discussions around climate change, and to vote in support of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill.
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) Link to this
I am pleased to take a call on behalf of United Future in this third reading of the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill. United Future does not pretend to be able to predict all of the consequences and outcomes of climate change, but through the growing scientific and economic evidence we understand the risks of climate change and the need for a timely response to it. Climate change is, in truth, a global challenge, and through international and domestic cooperation it can be managed so as to mitigate its risks while providing, at least in the New Zealand context, a range of opportunities for environmental sustainability and social and economic development. The environment is our basic life-support system and must remain in good health. If people want to use the environment for outdoor recreation or economic development, or if they want simply to admire and appreciate it, then it must be used in ways that do not cause permanent widespread damage or compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs—that is, in ways that are sustainable long term.
We are very, very delighted indeed to see the Permanent Forest Sink Initiative contained in this bill. While creating an opportunity for further carbon sinks, the trees will also work to prevent soil erosion, the leeching of nitrates, and the excursion of stock into rural waterways. We want to see this legislation promote the planting of native trees and bush alongside, or close to, all inland waterways where practical, in order to act as carbon sinks, limit soil erosion, and reduce agricultural runoffs. We encourage landowners to return non-viable farming land—and we have huge tracts of it in this country—to native, regenerative forest in order to create carbon sinks. We also want to ensure that New Zealand producers of sustainably harvested timber products are not undercut by the dumping of imported timber and products that have been harvested without regard to sustainability criteria. I think it is really quite stupid that we continue to allow into this country large importations of timber that come from non-sustainable harvesting in overseas countries, in competition with timber grown sustainably in New Zealand. I believe that unless we change our policy in that regard, we are not part of the solution to climate change but are actually part of the problem.
I want to make a couple of other brief points. Firstly, when we talk about planting trees and the afforestation of the New Zealand land, we are not talking about any particular type of tree. Native trees and exotic species should both be part of the mix. Indeed, we need to spread our risk away from Pinus radiata and look at other faster growing and therefore better carbon sequestering species—such as, for example, eucalypts. I would also like to say that there is some scientific linkage now between pine trees, which we are good at growing, and biomass fuels. If, indeed, that science can be progressed, we could certainly have a win-win for New Zealand. Let us imagine that, from our own pine trees, we could actually produce quite a good proportion of our transport fuel needs. That really would be an ideal outcome, and we should strive to work towards it.
I also mention that just the other day I talked with Dr Malahoff, who is the head of GNS Science—a Crown-owned institute—and one of New Zealand’s leading scientists. He told me that GNS Science is currently working on a system of possible sequestration of carbon from our thermal electricity generating plants. I understand the idea is that the carbon would be captured and pumped into the now empty Kapuni gas well. I thought that was a quite striking—and also scientific—response to the question of climate change. I think the Government should give full support to that idea, because it could be a very important part of bringing New Zealand in the direction of the long-term goal of carbon neutrality.
I agree too with the points that Jeanette Fitzsimons has made regarding transport. I think we need to spend more time identifying where the roadblocks are to shifting people out of cars and into buses and trains. We need to make sure that we have robust ways of doing that and come up with novel answers. For example, I have suggested in this House earlier that we need more car parking buildings at the railway stations in Auckland and Wellington, so that people can park-and-ride. We need to look at those practical realities as well, if we are to see the carbon emission goals be accomplished.
This bill is a step in the right direction and has the wholehearted support of United Future.
MARK BLUMSKY (National) Link to this
It is nice to have a chance to participate in this third reading. As I indicated the other day when I spoke during the Committee stage, when members speak on areas that were not part of the select committee process that one has been involved in, one learns a lot of things one did not know. I suggest that I now know a lot more about forestry and its importance in the whole climate change debate, and very much understand the power of forestry as an effective method for sequestering carbon. I did not realise the power of a tree in regard to cleaning up the air.
When I look at what this Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is trying to do, I can say only that we have to support it. What we are doing is putting in a mechanism that encourages and supports forest growth. It provides an opportunity for people to plant forests, because it will make a heck of a lot more sense to them to do so.
The thing that surprised me when I looked at this bill was that I did not realise that originally National did not support it. In reading the report back from the Commerce Committee, I noted that Opposition members opposed this bill on the grounds that New Zealand should not be implementing the Kyoto Protocol ahead of our major trading partners. I know that the Minister took great delight the other day in trying to suggest that we were doing a major flip-flop. That is not the case, at all. We were very clear in our minds way back then that Kyoto was not delivering what it should, and that the fact that New Zealand would be writing a cheque for hundreds of millions of dollars for, maybe, the Russian mafia was a disgrace. On that reason alone we opposed the bill; it was not that we wanted to discourage the planting of forestry to clean up the air.
We need to make sure we protect the green image of New Zealand. We need to lower our emissions. We absolutely need to keep the whole image of New Zealand being 100 pure on the world scale. What we do will not make a hell of a difference at the end of the day, to be perfectly honest; a heck of a lot bigger players on the world market, such as China, are making a bigger mess than we ever could. But is it not nice to stand tall? Is it not nice to show that, hey, we can make a wee difference, we can be leaders, and we can talk positively about where we are going?
In talking leadership I take this chance to congratulate Nick Smith on his leadership in setting the agenda on this issue through A Bluegreen Vision for New Zealand, which he introduced the other day. It is a 30-page comprehensive document on the way forward. It was because of his leadership that the Prime Minister decided she had better try to pick up on this issue, which she did at the Labour Party conference the other day when she started talking up climate change. That was in response to the work done by Nick Smith and his leadership. The National Party filled the vacuum that had been very much left by the Labour-led Government. When Peter Neilson, a former Labour Cabinet Minister who is now the Chief Executive of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, says that Nick Smith’s blue-green vision for New Zealand is the most comprehensive environment plan for New Zealand to be produced by any political party in over a decade, one has to say that Nick Smith is setting the agenda and leading the country down a path it has to go down. Hence the desire of the Prime Minister to suddenly step up, take notice, and talk about what she calls the climate change crisis requiring comprehensive strategies. Here we are today, talking about a bill that was referred to the Commerce Committee in May 2005. How much for urgency, Prime Minister?
So, not to prolong the debate, I just say I am proud to stand here and say that National members are supporting this bill. This will make a difference. It is part 1 of a many, many faceted, I am sure, strategic plan and delivery to make sure we keep New Zealand clean, show some significant leadership, and make a difference.