Kyoto

ACT come National cheerleader (funny how the wind changes) Aaron Bhatnagar has taken a swing at a few Labour bloggers, including yours truly, for not jumping on to our computers in a flash to talk about the fact that that New Zealand may need to purchase aroud $500 million in carbon credits over 2008-12 because we will not meet our commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

I consider myself suitably remonstrated for thinking that things like work, family, and on the ground election campaigning are more important!

Anyway, this is an issue worth commenting on. It's simple really. If you accept the reality that carbon emissions are resulting in serious climate change (as all of the serious players and nearly every single national government do), then you have two choices:

1) Do nothing and leave future generations to clean up the mess.
2) Work collectively to begin addressing the problem now.

New Zealand, along with around 150 other countries has chosen to take action. We would be absolutely crazy not to as with an agriculturally-based economy such as ours, we have an enormous amount to lose. Remember the drought suffered in many parts of New Zealand during the late 1990s that wiped billions of dollars off our economic output? Well recently published research suggests that climate change could lead to such events occurring 2-4 times more frequently. Make no mistake, our standard of living is at serious risk if the problem of climate change is not addressed.

Importantly, the nature of the problem requires an international effort. It isn't a case of each individual state being able to take measures and then say "I'm OK Jack". This is a global problem that can only be tackled on a global scale. That's what Kyoto is about. It's not a perfect mechanism, but what it does is pull together around 150 countries and actually requires them to modify their behaviour by reducing the carbon emissions that cause climate change.

Even in countries that haven't ratified like the US and Australia, the Kyoto consensus is having an effect. In Oz, while the conservative federal government has refused to ratify, most of the state Labor governments are moving to restrict carbon emissions to Kyoto levels, while in the US, California Governor Arnold Schwarzanegger has just announced carbon emission targets for his state that go beyond the reductions envisioned by Kyoto.

Kyoto works in quite a simple way. Countries commit to reducing carbon emissions, and if they don't, they either have to show that they are doing enough "good things" (like planting forests) to make up for this, or they have to pay for their pollution by buying carbon credits. Because it looks like we may be over our targets for 2008-12, we are in the position that we either need to quickly reduce emissions, or we will have to buy carbon credits.

It is essentially a market approach - we pay for the mess we create. Do the right-wing opponents of Kyoto who so freely propose user pays for every thing else seriously think that we should not have to pay for the economic and social damage of climate change?

One thing's for sure - someone will pay. If we don't use mechanisms like Kyoto to address the issue now, it will be our children and our granchildren who suffer. I believe it is our duty to take responsibility.

Further interesting commentary on frogblog