Scrapping two-for-one in ETS not enough to save our climate

National's Budget has failed for the eighth year in a row to do anything meaningful to protect the climate, with its scrapping of the dodgy two-for-one carbon credit scheme unlikely to significantly reduce our emissions, the Green Party said today.

“The two-for-one deal in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) was always dodgy and while it’s good the Government’s getting rid of it, Paula Bennett can’t pretend it’s going to meaningfully cut our emissions,” said Green Party, Co-leader James Shaw.

“National needs to fix the myriad of other problems in the ETS, otherwise this will just be a cosmetic fix aimed to make it look like they care about the climate.

“Scrapping the two for one deal will at best reduce climate pollution by just 0.7 percent according to the Government's own analysis.

“John Key appears to have forgotten that just months ago he committed in Paris to reduce emissions by 11 percent below 1990 levels. This clearly won’t get him there.

“Under National, climate pollution is at its highest level ever. Budget 2016 could have been a turning point, a chance to invest in a cleaner, low-carbon economy, but instead National chose to do as little as possible.

“Climate change is already costing our Government more than it’s bargained for. Budget 2016 shows that National spent $2.5 million in 2015 providing assistance in the aftermath of adverse climatic events, despite not having budgeted for this in the previous year.

“The Budget also cut funding to domestic-focused Climate Change Research by $600,000, and reduced funding for advice on decreasing domestic emissions by $3.8 million compared to what was budgeted in 2015/16.

“It’s ridiculous that at a time when the Government is blowing its budget mopping up the effects of climate change, it’s cutting back on the very research and advice it needs to fix the problem,” said Mr Shaw.

ENDS

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