Australia’s climate pact leaves NZ out in cold

Friday, July 29th, 2005

Australia’s climate pact leaves NZ out in cold

The climate change pact just announced by Australia, the US, China, India and South Korea represents the route to discharging our climate change obligations which New Zealand should have been party to, says the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern).

The ‘Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate’ agreement covers 40 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions.

“The pact focuses on accelerating the development of new technology to capture carbon emissions, not on the carbon tax which will artificially hike the price of energy in New Zealand,”Alasdair Thompson, EMA’s chief executive.

“Its aim is to encourage investment in technical innovation, not in more complex bureaucracy.

“If New Zealand joined this group of our major trading partners we would be better placed to make use of our 1000 year coal reserves.

“Instead, under the Kyoto Protocol, we are likely to end up paying Russia for using our coal, and may find nuclear power cheaper.

“We have to agree also with Australia’s Environment Minister Ian Campbell when he said yesterday: ‘Its quite clear the Kyoto Protocol won’t get the world where it wants to go.’

“The new pact will see New Zealand and Australia’s economic policies diverge, rather than drawing us together, and our future standards of living demand the trans Tasman economy is integrated under the Single Economic Market (SEM).”

ENDS

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