John Key and Kevin Rudd chatting about Carbon Trading (image: John Ansell)
New Zealand stands alone in the world. It can’t be called leading because it is going to constitute bleeding more than leading. Australia has canned their plans for an ETS, at least for three years and now the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys and the Sausage Eaters have done the same.
If China, the US, India Australia, Germany and France don’t want a bar of emissions trading then why is that our government is still pressing ahead to keep New Zealand on the bleeding edge of emissions control when our economy produces less than 0.8% of the world’s emissions. It simply is economic suicide and folly.
Rudd in Australia bizarrely blames his flip-flop on the Opposition, a funny position to take considering he has an absolute majority in the House and the Senate with which to pass legislation.
Mr Rudd has put off his doomed emissions trading scheme until 2013 at the earliest, blaming a recalcitrant Opposition and slow global progress over climate change for the delay.
Back here in New Zealand, Fran O’Sullivan points out the precarious position that New Zealand now sits in and David Farrar, finally, if somewhat hesitantly pastes agrees that politically as well as economically our ETS is doomed. Ever the faithful mouthpiece of Bill English’s lies lines he suggests though that it simply isn’t possible to repeal or amend our ETS in time for July 1.
I’ll have to read the ETS legislation to check, but am unsure whether or not the Government can defer the entry of those sectors, without amending or repealing the ETS law. If a law change is needed, it couldn’t realistically be done by 1 July.
This of course is complete tosh. If a government in cahoots with an opposition can pass MP Superannuation schemes in the dead of the night in just 7 minutes then it can easily repeal, defer or postpone the implementation dates for each sector to at least match progress toward similar legislation by at least Australia a but should also include ALL of our major trading partners. This is easily a case for urgency of parliament, it is what urgency was designed for.
It is time now for John Key to put Nickpocrisy Smith and his daft ETS plans on hold, temporarily for now and permanently in the long run.
If Angela Merkel can see the writing on the wall and the short-arsed Frog is delaying then Nickpocrisy Smith and John Key should be able to come to grips with backing us out nicely from this folly. They should know they can get away with it, the polls tell them that,. If mining in national parks didn’t upset anyone, and the super city hasn’t either then I think they will find that ditching the silly ETS shouldn’t be too hard.
In any case it isn’t like Nickpocrisy Smith‘s officials have even got a working framework for the ETS to implement on July 1. They aren’t even close to having the scheme operational by then. There is no use having a market with the field being marked out and all the players aware of the game rules before commencing trading.\
Time for a little helping of humble pie John, ditch the stupid ETS and make it quick. i mean it isn’t like the fourth most abundant chemical element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen is even a pollutant. particularly when combined with two molecules of the third most abundant chemical element.
