Wednesday, 16 February 2005

Baldock urges commonsense over Kyoto protocol

While the debate rages on in the scientific community on whether in fact any recorded climate change is the result of greenhouse gas emissions, United Future’s environment spokesman Larry Baldock believes we must take a pragmatic approach.

“It is prudent in the absence of clear facts either way to do what can sensibly be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“However, we utterly reject scaremongering reports from doomsday merchants predicting the end of the world, and saying we must treat CO² as a pollutant rather than a natural part of the atmosphere.”

Raising the issue with the Prime Minister during Parliamentary Questions today, Mr Baldock suggested more could be achieved by an internal carbon trading mechanism that did not place New Zealand at a disadvantage to its trading partners which is the result of signing up to the unwieldy overly-bureaucratic Kyoto system.

The Prime Minister agreed it might be easier to ban polluting motor vehicles rather than polluting cows – which are the main source of New Zealand’s greenhouse gases – but insisted it was better for New Zealand to be part of mainstream international agreements, such as the Kyoto protocol.

Mr Baldock said “Maximising technological advances like getting rid of clapped-out old cars with GE-free stickers on them and replacing them with more efficient vehicles will make greater progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions than all the Green’s policies put together.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media