He reckons it could be a better way of dealing with our cement problem than $60-million in corporate welfare.
The reason Golden Bay Cement needs a bailout is the cost of buying carbon credits from 2030 onwards. The cost of carbon credits is because of the ETS.
When your builder goes to lay cement, they will buy imported stuff because it'll be cheaper - no carbon costs included.
So how do you get around this? You could change the ETS to exempt cement and steel, as we largely do with agriculture, but then you undermine the system.
You could scrap the ETS, which would mean ditching the Paris agreement.
Or you could do as the EU does and go with a "Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism".
Basically, a carbon tariff on importers to level the playing field with local producers.
Chris Hipkins is saying this is an idea Labour would consider.
National won't because they say it'll mess with FTAs.
So we're a bit boxed in here.
If we want to be a country of free trade AND a climate warrior then we seem destined to lose a bunch of local production and industry.
Sure, we'll do better in some areas, but manufacturing and anything involving carbon emissions? Look out.
In the meantime, taxpayer-funded corporate welfare to the rescue.
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.
7 comments:
No liveable/economically productive climate means no economy, Ryan. We really should be doing something about that. Well, not you, of course. Your job is about as disposable as they come.
Labour are so dumb. They'll make it even more expensive to build anything here, it won't change the weather at all, and we are all poorer.
Vote Labour, vote stupid.
Just get rid of the ETS.
Ryan, Good on you. Few people will read your article - nor this comment - but this row over the Fletcher bailout exposes Labour for fully lying about its environmental credentials. Hipkins is covering up that lie at the heart of Labour. It was Labour that signed NZ up to a "free trade agreement" with China but without any charge on imports from that country to reflect the carbon emmissions created by them. The consequence of then implementing local NZ carbon charges via the Emmissions Trading Scheme (which was partly designed by my old Oxford superviser Paul Klemperer) put our nation at a competitive disadvantage. By doing nothing to price the Chinese emissions in our imports meant there was no overall beneficial environmental effect.
Hipkins is dishonest pretending he'd like to now tariff Chinese imports = he supported not tariffing them in the first place. He knows such imports will never be tariffed by NZ. He just voted for a trade agreement with India that has no such carbon charges. The best article on this subject ever written is by Klemperer and is linked to below. Its time someone calked Hipkins out for his rank duplicity and idiotic comments.
https://www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/ClimateChangePriority_Klemperer.pdf
What’s a climate warrior, I hope it isn’t some new made up term to distract people from real issues. It sounds needlessly emotive and divisive. Following the standard pattern.
Wow, speaking of price: 40% of kiwis are taking on debt to cover just living now under the National govt. That’s a price to pay for a real problem!
The only cement we should import is white cement used for finishing tiles etc . Have you ever seen the state of cement when contaminated by moisture and condensation on a ship through the tropics etc ?. Goes to rock hard cement . Funny that.
Is Andrew Webster coaching the climate Warriors or is he focused on the NZ Warriors. Are the climate warriors people that hate the climate? Or those that want to protect the climate from people who hate it? How can you even protect the climate anyway? Ryan, we need answers to these questions and more.
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