The New Zealand
Climate Science Coalition

19 September 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NZ cap & trade policy "silly" - Viscount Monckton

The Government of New Zealand's cap &trade policy is silly and is exploiting needless public alarm about global warming, according to Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, a leading UK commentator on climate change issues.

"The Government of New Zealand has at last made real the dream of every tyrant - to tax the very air we breathe," wrote Lord Monckton in a message to the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

"Carbon dioxide occupies just one hundredth of one per cent more of the atmosphere than it did before the Environment Minister's ancestors came down from the trees. Yet, from now on, every time you exhale you will be paying through the nose for it, literally as well as metaphorically.

"The international classe politique seems intent on discovering ever sillier ways to enrich itself at our expense by exploiting needless public alarm about global warming.

"So we could offer some constructive suggestions:
o A tax on jogging, cycling and swimming, because sportsmen breathe out more carbon dioxide than the rest of us.
o A bread levy, because the holes in bread are made by carbon dioxide from the baking powder.
o A fizzy drinks volumetric charge, calculated by counting the size and quantity of carbon dioxide bubbles emitted when the can is opened.
o A champagne super-tax, levied at five times the fizzy drinks charge, because tax is all about making the rich poor without making the poor rich.

"None of these suggestions is as silly as the carbon trading which the Government proposes. Only last week the carbon trading scheme in New South Wales ignominiously collapsed. The European Union's carbon trading scheme has collapsed twice.

"So the Government is introducing a charge that's doomed to fail, costs an arm and a leg, won't bring in any revenue, and isn't needed anyway.

"Hasn't the Environment Minister noticed how cold New Zealand has been in recent winters? Your country needs all the global warming it can get," Lord Monckton's message concluded.

ENDS

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