From Neil Henderson to the Gisborne Herald
Submitted by climaterealists on Mon, 31/05/2010 - 20:38
Sir
I wish to comment on the Government’s assertion that there is a misinformation campaign against the emissions trading scheme being organised by ACT and Federated Farmers. I suggest Mr Key looks in the mirror to see the source of the greatest misinformation.
He says the ETS will cost us $3 per week which comes to $150 per year.
I don’t believe my power bill is way higher than average. But my power bill for just the units used (no supply charges) for the house (no farm power) will increase by around $230. To run a car for 15,000 km per year is going to cost another $52 at 3.5c litre.
Then we have to add on the flow on effects of the cost of energy on all goods and services we consume and it is easy to see it will be more than double Mr Key’s estimate. These figures of mine are confirmed by one of Mr Key’s own ministers, Mr Gerry Brownlee, the Energy Minister, who has said it will cost the average family $7 per week!
Mr Key said livestock emissions will only cost $3,000 per year by 2030. Readily available calculations show that they will cost over $12,000 before allowing for any ‘emissions intensity’ gains. These are not known yet, but won’t be that large. It is also expected that the carbon price will be four to six times higher by 2030 if the whole ETS has not gone belly up due to common sense finally reasserting itself in the meantime.
He says we need an ETS to pay the foresters to plant pine trees. It takes several years before a tree is big enough to earn significant income from carbon credits. The trees the foresters want credits for, that the Prime Minister is talking about, were planted at least five years ago before we had an ETS, and in many cases before Kyoto was signed.
These foresters did not plant in the knowledge of carbon credits so they can hardly cry foul if it is now taken away. But if we persist with this nonsense, the owners of new forests being planted now will have a right to demand payment.
But in any case the Government does not have to pay the credits. The ETS is a trading scheme. The foresters can trade their credits on the international market. Indeed I understand that is what Earnslaw One did last year.
Mr Key said we need a price on carbon. Why? It is now becoming obvious to even those in the IPCC that the world is not warming because of carbon dioxide, so there is no reason to burden us with unnecessary costs on that account. Common sense does suggest the supply of oil and coal will eventually run out, so we should not squander the resource. But the law of supply and demand should create a price without needing to regulate one.
At least twelve of Mr Key’s National Party colleagues, including the Ministers of Climate Change and Agriculture and the Deputy Prime Minister, stood on the steps of Parliament in 2003 to oppose the ‘fart tax’ that would have cost farmers $8.4 million per year. T
he current scheme will cost farmers ten times as much from July in direct costs and probably as much again in indirect costs. It will cost the economy a full $500 million. I must ask why they are doing this to our country.
Is Mr Key gilding his CV ready to present to the UN to secure his job when he is no longer Prime Minister? That may happen sooner than he thinks!
Yours faithfully
Neil Henderson
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