Posted 23 June 2010
Media release
JOHN KEY FACES RISK OF RUDD-SLINGING
Unless he intervenes to defer implementation of the forthcoming emissions trading scheme (ETS), Prime Minister John Key runs the risk of the same level of sudden electoral backlash that now threatens the re-election prospects of Kevin Rudd’s Labor government in Australia. This today from the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, commenting on the description by two Victoria University researchers that the current ETS is “technically obsolete” and “beyond rescue.”
“One of the authors, Simon Terry, is known to be a believer in man-made global warming, and when one such as he is reported as saying that the ETS will not make any inroads into cutting New Zealand’s gross emissions levels, the rest of us are entitled to ask why are we persisting with it?,” said Coalition secretary, Terry Dunleavy.
“Government Ministers can’t even agree on what the immediate cost on taxpayers will be: Climate Change Minister Nick Smith says $1.6 billion, Science Minister Wayne Mapp says $1.75 billion, as though a difference of $175 million is neither here nor there. Agriculture Minister David Carter quotes one set of costs on farmers, while farming organisations quote other and much higher figures. There are no estimates of what the flow-on costs that consumers will face on goods and services on top of the higher prices they will have to pay for fuels and electricity. And there is yet no clarification of which businesses will be favoured with free credits or how many?
“Three principal figures, the Prime Minister, his Chief Science Adviser Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, and Climate Change Minister Smith all have agreed publicly that the ETS will have little or no effect on emissions levels or climate change, and we are basically it is to show the world we are doing our ‘fair share’. That misplaced symbolism is a sad and sick joke in a world in which none of our trading partners, other than EU, have an ETS in place or in prospect, and the EU scheme does not include agriculture of any direct charges on consumers.
“All of a sudden, people are asking why John Key continues to support a charge on New Zealanders, that his Australian counterpart has abandoned, and that contradicts
Contact: Terry Dunleavy – mobile 0274 836688
Email: [email protected]