MOTORING ISSUES

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AA Members may have divided views on climate change, but they are unied over the prospect of an Emissions Trading Scheme, as Peter King discovers
AA Members hate the Emissions Trading Scheme. The scheme was passed into law by the previous Government and is due to start affecting fuel prices from the end of next year. The National Government has said it will review the scheme. Emissions trading is a bit like a sheries catch allocation. It requires anyone making a product which produces a greenhouse gas to hold an annual unit licence for every tonne emitted. Businesess are issued units and may trade them. This applies to forestry, electricity production, manufacturing (especially paper, steel, cement and aluminium), liquid fuels and agriculture. Naturally, the costs of units are passed on to consumers. However, unlike sheries quotas, businesses can also buy units from foreign carbon markets. Because of our growth since the Kyoto base year of 1990, we will need more units than our Government can issue. This means that under Emissions Trading the price for a unit will trend towards that set by the huge European market effectively importing into our economy the prices set by the climate politics between European capitals. The AA began researching its Member views on climate change in 2007 and carried out a survey on Emissions Trading with 500 respondents in March 2008. Following the oil price spike, credit crunch and change >
Autumn 2009 AA Directions 23

ILLUSTRATION: S COTT KENNEDY

Emissions trading is a bit like a sheries catch allocation...

MOTORING ISSUES
of Government, we repeated and extended that survey in November-December 2008, with a further 800 randomly selected respondents. We can be fairly condent of the representative nature of the surveys, as they match key New Zealand demographics as well as one another. The purpose of the surveys was to nd out how much people were concerned about climate change and how they thought New Zealand should respond to it. Also asked was how much we should pay as a community and personally and where we think the money collected from any climate charges should go. Kyoto treaty decit (about $27 each per year); while 36% felt we shouldnt pay anything at all. Interestingly, respondents were split on the need to protect agriculture and industries at risk from competitors not facing carbon costs. Some 45% felt agriculture should be exempt, but 36% disagreed. Over half felt industries at risk should be exempt and 27% felt they shouldnt be. AA Members showed a high degree of scepticism about carbon trading mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol.

WHY OPPOSE EMISSIONS TRADING?

Opposition was from both those who wanted action on climate change and those opposed to it but for very different reasons. Those who wanted action tended to see trading as a cheats way of avoiding obligations (15%), while others saw trading as sending money offshore to carbon credit holders for no real benet (44%). Combined, this meant around two-thirds opposed trading. Some, however, saw carbon trading as a form of international aid (20%). The remainder believed we should only resort to trading if we could not reduce carbon emissions ourselves. When it came to a direct question about how much extra AA Members would be prepared to pay for fuel to meet climate change costs, almost half said nothing at all. A surprising 20% nominated rates over 15 cents a litre, while a third nominated lesser rates between 2.5 and 10 cents per litre. Crucially, when asked what they felt was the best use of funds collected from carbon charges on fuel, an overwhelming 86% said that it should be retained in New Zealand to develop carbon absorbing forests. Only 2.7% supported the use of carbon trading mechanisms to send the money collected on fuel sales to other countries to buy carbon credits. This research shows that while opinion is divided on climate change, New Zealanders are highly practical. They dont want to shirk, but they dont want to kill their economy for climate change either. They believe encouraging forestry is the best way to sustainably reduce our net emissions, and see little merit in paying foreigners to pick up our climate change tab on a year-by-year basis. It just remains to be seen whether the Governments review group will agree. <

WHAT AA MEMBERS THINK

About an eighth of AA Members are actively involved with an environmental group or political party and a quarter have been involved at some stage. In terms of personal concern, an eighth said climate change was a major concern in their purchases; a third said it was a minor concern; a further third said they had thought about it, but not really done anything. The remainder either didnt believe climate change was a serious issue or that it didnt affect them. New Zealanders were split on where our country should stand on climate change. In the November survey, a small minority (6%) thought we should lead the world. This had halved since the March survey, perhaps indicating the growing nancial anxiety of Members. As in March, about a third thought we should match the European and Nordic nations, while a quarter thought we should match Asias far lesser commitment. The rest expressed a very wide range of opinions, many of which were sceptical of climate change science.

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New Zealanders were split on where our country should stand on climate change
Asked what they thought the biggest risk to New Zealand from climate change was, a quarter either didnt know, or thought it would not have much effect. A further 18% were more concerned about losing trade with climate-conscious markets than any effects, but the remainder were concerned with the physical damage of climate change for themselves or their children. Opinion was divided on how much extra we should pay for climate change. Almost 15% believed we should pay $398 or more per person per year (a gure roughly equivalent to the recommendation of the British Governments Stern Review); 18% felt we should pay the market cost of carbon (roughly $132 each per year at the time of the survey); 26% felt we should simply meet Treasurys estimate of the Governments

THE EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME IS UNDER REVIEW

> 1300 AA Members were surveyed for their opinions on the Emissions Trading Scheme. > 2/3 of those surveyed opposed Emissions trading. > New Zealanders dont want to kill their economy for climate change.
24 AA Directions Autumn 2009

ILLUSTRATION: S COTT KENNEDY