The Kyoto Protocol is to be extended another 5 years. Tim Groser has acknowledged to me in the past he accepts there are problems with the way agricultural emissions are calculated and the problems associated with this and the implications of this for NZ. Yet in Durban The EU and a few other developed countries have signed up to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, that ends in 2013. Whethre these few rich developed countries include NZ I don’t know. If it does he has sold us down the river agreeing to bind NZ to legally binding emission reductions including livestock emissions and using these flawed calculations. In return for us accepting these binding targets the big emitters, USA China and India don’t have to do anything until 2020.
Talk about shoot yourself in the foot. Groser is supposed to be negotiating for NZ not against us.
Details are still skethchy and I hope I have got this wrong but if what I have read is true I can’t think of a worse outcome for NZ and I can’t think why Groser would do this to NZ.
With our emissions increasing and forestry offsetting starting in 2013 I can see this costing us all a lot of money. The ETS is bad enough but at least most of that money stays in NZ. This deal Groser may have agreed to will see money going from the hands of a NZer to overseas interests.
With a government not actually formed yet is it appropriate for Groser who is effectively only acting for a caretaker government to sign away NZ’s future prosperity with a deal that no one in NZ has given him authority to do?