The special select committee to review the emission trading scheme has refused to hear the submission by Pastural Farming Climate Research Inc. They site the number of submissions as being the reason. 278 submissions were received of which just over half asked to be heard by the committee as did we.
That means about 140 submissions which at 10 minutes per submission being the time allocated for each would only involve 23 hours to hear the submissions. The committee sits each Thursday and does not report back until September so I would think they could have found the 23 hours they needed. It is probably more a case of them not wanting to hear what we have to say. Our argument that livestock methane emissions should not be included because they are non fossil fuel emissions and therefore sustainable and not responsible for global warming goes to the heart of the Kyoto Protocol and rips it out.
Allowing our argument to get traction would seriously undermine the global warming industry. That is why we must get traction. Submissions were received by groups who advocate agriculture be exposed to the ETS immediately at a cost to the insdustry of 1.49 billion dollars. The fact that these groups get heard and we do not should be a caution to anyone who thinks this National led Government is going to help agriculture.
National has said agriculture will be included in an ETS and the more the statements by groups who oppose agriculture being excluded from a scheme are allowed to go unchallenged the harder it will be for National to keep agriculture out. And it is PFCR that is challenging these statements. It is vital our arguments get traction so please forward this website address to all your friends so that we can become an organisation too big for select committees to ignore.
Our submission has not been released to the public yet and I will let you know when it has.
To view submissions so far released to the public follow this link
You are welcome to use any of the Centre’s material on this web site.
Everything we produce is in the public domain. Our supplementary submission to the ETS select committee has had a considerable impact and it looks as though some research funding is now going into the methane issue.
IT is hard for them to explain why the pastoral farmers of the US, Canada, and Australian can now claim credits for their mitigation while only NZ farmers cannot and are to be fined instead.
Go to item one at:
http://www.rmastudies.org.nz/index.php/issues/42-climate-change-and-the-kyoto-protocol