Climate change sceptics to protest emissions scheme
By Dan Satherley Campaigners opposed to the Government's emissions trading scheme will be taking their concerns to the steps of Parliament next week. National's ETS kicks in on July 1, when the energy and industrial industries will have to start paying for the right to pollute. Costs will likely be passed onto consumers. Agriculture, currently exempt, will come into the scheme in 2015. Next week's protest aims to put a stop to the scheme. "The ETS will cause a lot of undue hardship to New Zealanders, and not have any measurable benefit to the climate," says protest organiser and East Cape farmer Esther Henderson. Ms Henderson and her partner Neil are the founders of Climate Realists , a lobby group that argues manmade climate change is a myth. Protesters will gather at the Civic Centre at 12pm before marching to Parliament at 12:30pm, where Ms Henderson says they will hand over a card to "whichever Government minister we can persuade to meet us". She is not sure how many people will turn up, but hopes it will be enough to persuade a rethink of the scheme. "We have no idea. We will know on the day. We've had a lot of interest." Prime Minister John Key said last month the total cost to households of the ETS would be a "modest" $3 a week, or around $267 million a year. Climate Realists say the true cost will be closer to $527 million "based on fuel and electricity costs and flow-on effects". The figure was supplied by Federated Farmers. The Government's official estimate, included in the Budget, is $378 million. "The trouble with the figures is that they change all the time," says Ms Henderson. Federated Farmers wants agriculture's entry into the ETS delayed until 2043 , by which time many environmentalists believe it would be too late to prevent global warming. That is, if global warming is even happening – Ms Henderson isn't so sure. "We certainly believe the climate is changing, has always changed and will continue to change," says Ms Henderson, who admits she has no scientific qualifications beyond "high school chemistry". She says the recent few decades of warming are "not out of the ordinary", and now, "temperatures if anything are slightly cooling". A statistical study commissioned by the Associated Press last year found no evidence of global cooling since 1998, the year commonly cited as the turning point by climate change sceptics. Whatever the direction the world's climate is headed in, Ms Henderson says natural forces are to blame, not carbon emissions. "I assume Greenland was called Greenland because it was once green," she says. Greenland's ice sheet is in fact estimated to be up to 110,000 years old, forming long before any settlers arrived. Though, it is said to appear green in winter. 3 News source: newshub archive