The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition

http://www.climatescience.org.nz

18 May 2008 For immediate release

Greens “away with the fairies”

Green Party leader Jeanette Fitzsimons is “away with the fairies” in her views on climate change and emissions changing, according to Terry Dunleavy, secretary of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition. He was commenting on Ms Fitzsimons’ criticism of the reservations expressed today by National Party leader John Key on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) Bill currently before a Parliamentary Select Committee.

“In calling for delay in the passage of this legislation because he sees the rushed timetable as reckless, Mr Key has given a ray of hope to the many New Zealanders who are appalled at the disregard for the questioning by so many scientists around the world of the hypothesis on which this whole scenario of so-called global warming caused by man-made emissions of carbon dioxide is based.

“It’s no longer enough for New Zealand to rely on opinions of government appointees to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), especially when some of those same appointees are now telling us that global warming is on hold until at least 2015,” said Mr Dunleavy.

“If Ms Fitzsimons and the Greens really believe that the next four years will be critical, they are away with the fairies, allowing their ideological fantasies to over-ride what science is telling us, and the sooner they are off the political scene in New Zealand the better for us all.

“While we welcome Mr Key’s call for a closer look at the ETS Bill, we are sorry his party didn’t take the more fundamental step of calling for a Royal Commission to undertake a detailed and independent review of the science of climate change. “Especially, as Bluegreens, the environmental group linked to National, for which I was convenor for four years, has as one of its five principles: ‘good science is essential to quality environmental decision making.’

“With global warming now on hold until 2015, we have the time to have another look at the science, as well as actual meteorological history of the last decade in which there has been no warming since the El Nino of 1998.

“There is no argument that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have continued to rise. But there is serious argument about the origins of much of that gas, whether from natural sources such as volcanoes like the recent eruption in Chaiten, Chile, as well as answers to the obvious question of why, if carbon dioxide is a cause, global temperatures have not risen for the last 10 years.

“Taking the horrific costs on New Zealanders implicit in the ETS Bill, as well as the restrictions on our lifestyle and the international competitiveness of industries that we rely on for our economic survival, John Key is absolutely right to call for a closer look,” said Mr Dunleavy.

ENDS

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