Minister Not Telling The Truth About Kyoto: KFA

Climate Change Minister Not Telling The Truth About Kyoto

In his announcement about New Zealand’s Kyoto shortfall last week, Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson forgot to tell New Zealanders that one of the main reasons for the fiasco is that his Labour Government’s policy has stopped new forest planting in New Zealand, Kyoto Forestry Association spokesman Roger Dickie said today.

“Forest plantings at even a modest level of 50,000 hectares per annum could have increased New Zealand’s forest sink credits by more than NZ$2 billion by 2012 when the first commitment period ends,” Mr Dickie said.

“Instead, the Labour Government’s policies have ripped more than 8,000 jobs and more than $200 million of annual investment from provincial towns and cities throughout New Zealand.

“Mr Hodgson also forgot to tell New Zealanders how a carbon tax of NZ$15.00 is going to work when the government will have to purchase the forecast shortfall of credits from the world market, where the present carbon price, quoted on www.pointcarbon.com, is NZ$34.00 and rising. Clearly, the Labour Government’s climate change policy as proposed by Mr Hodgson is bankrupt and will need considerable support from the New Zealand taxpayer.

“The only beneficiaries of this Labour Government policy will be Eastern European countries who have emission savings records to sell, and overseas big business. The losers will be the New Zealand taxpayer and the New Zealand environment.”

more … The Kyoto Forestry Association represents tens of thousands of environmentally-aware New Zealanders who have planted more than 200,000 hectares of forestry since 1990. Based on statements made by government officials at the time, they believed that part of their return would arise from the value of the carbon credits stored in their forests. Since the government announced that it intends to take forest-owners’ credits without compensation, investors have voted with their feet and new planting has plummeted to almost zero. This compares with an average of 65,000 hectares per year from 1992 to 1998.

The association is planning to announce next month the first stage of a NZ$2 million advertising campaign to expose the Government’s incompetent approach to Kyoto and explain a better path forward.

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