12. NICKY WAGNER (National) Link to this
to the Minister for the Environment
How much have the Ministry for the Environment’s greenhouse gases declined since the introduction of the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this
The previous Government committed $10.4 million to the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme, of which the Ministry for the Environment was the lead agency. Emissions from the ministry, though, have increased from 656 tonnes to 766 tonnes since the programme was launched by the previous Government.
Hon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
The Carbon Neutral Public Service programme was a “touchy-feely” PC programme that was a total waste of public money. All it aimed to do was to hide the awful record that the previous Government had of ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Charles ChauvelWhy is the Minister not gravely concerned about cutting the independent environmental advice available to the Government, given that the Government has just contracted out a cost-benefit analysis on the emissions trading scheme to the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, an analysis that major emitters, including Solid Energy, funded last year, and that reached the astonishing conclusion that taxpayers rather than emitters should bear the cost of New Zealand’s emissions?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
I am not sure what that question had to do with the previous Government’s proud programme of a carbon-neutral Public Service, but I make the following point: the cost of that scheme worked out at over $2,400 per tonne of carbon emission, when under any logical basis and in the Crown accounts carbon is valued at about $20 per tonne. That simply reinforces the waste of money and the poor programmes of the previous administration.
What will happen to the $10 million that was budgeted for the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme?
Hon Dr NICK SMITH Link to this
That money has been reprioritised through the Budget process to areas of real value to New Zealanders, like home insulation programmes, clean heating programmes, and programmes to improve water quality, because this Government is about making a practical difference and investing in front-line services that really matter.