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Richard Treadgold | April 28, 2010 | 7:58 pm

Climate Conversation Group

In the Parliament today, Chris Auchinvole asked Nick Smith (Minister for Climate Change): “Are claims correct that New Zealand is the first in the world to have an emissions trading scheme, and that it is just a tax for revenue purposes?”

And thus did Nick reply:

No, 38 countries have commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, and 29 of them, or three-quarters, already have an emissions trading scheme. Nor is the scheme a tax. Although consumers and businesses will pay $350 million in the first year of the scheme for their emissions, foresters will receive $1,100 million in carbon credits for post-1989 forests. Far from providing net revenue to the Government, the scheme is actually a cost to the Crown. There are 12,000 New Zealanders who, in good faith, planted trees on the assurances of both National and Labour Governments that they would receive carbon credits for those post-1989 forests. The emissions trading scheme honours that commitment.

But the facts are different from those presented by our Nick.

Washington Times editorial  11 June 2010

New study debunks Al Gore's hysterical fairy tale

Of all the apocalyptic imagery summoned by global warming's proponents, the most compelling has been the threat of coastal devastation from rising sea levels. In his best-selling work "Earth in the Balance," Al Gore argued that the selfishness of Western industrialization would obliterate small, impoverished countries.

"Although the sea level has risen and fallen through different geological periods, never has the change been anywhere near as rapid as that now expected as a consequence of global warming," he wrote. "... [I]sland nations like the Maldives and Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides), will be devastated if the projections made by scientists turn out to be accurate." Mr. Gore solemnly predicted that millions of poor inhabitants would be forced to flee their homelands in a desperate bid for survival - unless we adopt his political agenda. It just isn't so.

nzherald.co.nz   3 June 2010

They are the poster children for fears that rising sea levels will swallow island nations.

But a study of Pacific Islands over the past 60 years shows many are fighting back against climate change by actually increasing in land area.

Aerial photographs and high resolution satellite images of 27 islands taken since the 1950s found only four islands had decreased in land area - despite sea level rises of about 12cm - and most of those were uninhabited.

At the same time, seven islands grew in tiny Tuvalu, the low-lying group whose fate transfixed the world's media at the Copenhagen climate conference last year.

The Dominion Post 3 June 2010

OPINION: Could it be that other countries are waiting to see how NZ's scheme pans out, asks Joe Fone.

'The madness of the Government's new carbon tax is that New Zealanders will be the only people in the world paying it," Nick Smith said in 2005.

"It will drive up the costs of living and undermine competitiveness of New Zealand business for negligible environmental gain."

Back then, Dr Smith was scathing of the Labour government's planned emissions tax but now, as minister for climate change issues, he argues the exact opposite. It is difficult to reconcile these contrary attitudes, especially given revelations of scientific malfeasance in the climate science community during the intervening five years that have thrown serious doubt on the whole idea of human-induced climate change.

The minister gets around this contradiction by arguing that the National Government's emissions trading scheme is not a tax at all but a strategy designed to change our behaviour. This argument is specious because it suggests that National's scheme would have some effect on climate while Labour's would not, due to a few technical differences. Hardly.

examiner.com

By Brandon Lighton  24 May 2010