ETS Credibility? What Credibility?

ACT Deputy Leader and Climate Change Spokesman John Boscawen today questioned how Environment Commissioner Dr Jan Wright could call for a strengthening of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in order to maintain its credibility when the fact is that it has no credibility to begin with.

“For the ETS to have any semblance of credibility the Government must first clarify its purpose and whether that purpose is achievable.  There must also be some benchmark against which progress can be measured,” Mr Boscawen said.

“Dr Wright was also wrong when, in her submission to the ETS Review Panel 2011, she urged the Government to ensure that agriculture is included in the ETS in 2015.  Agriculture is New Zealand’s primary industry, and it would be extremely foolhardy to undermine the foundation of our economy by including it in a scheme that has no clear purpose.

“In fact, ACT’s submission to the Panel identifies no fewer than nine different instances where the purpose of the ETS is unclear – in speeches by Climate Change Minister Dr Smith, in the legislation itself, and in the Panel’s consultation document.

“ACT’s submission also highlights the fact that the ETS should be both measurable and achievable but actually lacks an explicit and achievable purpose, as well as benchmarks against which progress can be assessed.

“This being the case, the ETS should be completely scrapped.  At the very least, Dr Wright’s exhortations should be ignored and agriculture excluded – the Government cannot afford to further disadvantage our increasingly fragile economy by forging ahead with an ETS more prohibitive than those of our major trading partners,” Mr Boscawen said.

ACT’s submission to the ETS Review Panel 2011 can be read at http://www.act.org.nz/files/Submission_ETS_Review_Panel.pdf