Top Climate Scientists Opt for Carbon Taxes & Slam ETS
We live in an increasingly dangerous world with the greatest threat coming from man-made global warming. Our societal response to threats such as anthropogenic global warming (AGW) must involve rational risk management. This successively involves (a) getting accurate data, (b) scientific analysis (the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) sensible, informed systemic change to minimise the perceived risk.
Unfortunately human nature inevitably perverts rational risk management with (a) censorship, self-censorship, intimidation and dishonesty, (b) anti-science spin involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position) and (c) blame and shame politics with minimal systemic change and often discouragement of vitally required reportage (“shooting the messenger”).
This failure of rational risk management is most appallingly obvious in relation to AGW – what top climate change economist Sir Nicholas Stern has described as the greatest ever market failure.
Top climate scientists in the top scientific journal Nature recently stated that we have exceeded crucial planetary boundaries beyond which we are at high risk of unacceptable environmental change. These scientists, the Royal Society Working Party on Coral and other top climate scientists and biologists are clearly stating that the atmospheric CO2 concentration must be urgently returned to 300-350 ppm for planetary safety.
Unfortunately, world governments are ignoring the science and are committed to increasing CO2, evidently not understanding that there can be no negotiation with the laws of physics and chemistry.
Thus the opinions of top climate scientists and climate analysts are missing from the current very limited and stunted Australian political debate over the Australian Government’s Carbon Trading-based Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) or Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and derives 92% of its electricity from the burning of fossil fuels (mainly brown and black coal). These considerations have evidently highly constrained the political debate between the 2 major political groupings, the pro-coal Liberal Party–National Party Coalition Opposition and the pro-coal Labor Party Government (collectively known as the Lib-Labs and supported by about 90% of the electorate).
The Labor Federal Australian Federal Government has proposed a highly flawed ETS that involves selling carbon pollution permits by auctions in which the upper and lower prices are fixed, only major polluters can participate, major areas (such as agriculture) are excluded from consideration and most of the receipts are returned to the major polluters.
The Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition opposes the ETS in its present form. The Liberal Party climate change realists, scared by the possibility of an election after a double dissolution of the Parliamentary Upper and Lower Houses, want to negotiate changes to water down the already appalling ETS with even more concessions to big polluters. However the Liberal Party arch-conservatives and climate denialists are in agreement with their ilk in the National Party and are absolutely opposed to the ETS per se as a form of additional taxation on fossil fuel-based mining, industry, agriculture and business in a presently largely carbon-based economy.
In marked contrast to the pro-coal Lib-Labs, the anti-coal Australian Greens (with about 10% electoral support) are adamantly opposed to the deeply flawed ETS, and want renewable and geothermal energy to replace coal burning-based power as soon as possible.
In contrast to Australia, the US is 15 times bigger in terms of population and has a much more strongly entrenched tradition of free speech. Accordingly, there is much more and much better public discussion in America about President Obama’s equally flawed ETS as set out in the Waxman-Markey Energy Bill that has passed the US House of Representatives and must now face the US Senate.
Thus top US climate scientists and climate change analysts have been weighing in with expert opinions opting against Carbon Trading-based ETSs and opting for a revenue neutral Carbon tax to discourage carbon pollution by making it more expensive while not hurting the more vulnerable citizens. However, downunder in Australia the very concept of a carbon tax is essentially off the public discussion agenda.
For laypersons the best way of fast-tracking rational risk management is to take the advice of top scientific experts at the cutting edge of research in the relevant disciplines. Thus when confronted with life-threatening disease we turn to the expert opinions of top medical scientists who are leaders in the relevant medical disciplines. So too, in relation to man-made climate change, we must turn to the opinions of top climate scientists and analysts from Australia and around the world.
I have been a research scientist for 4 decades and am still involved in teaching theory and laboratory courses to second year science students at a leading university. I did research in areas related to climate change (photosynthesis and other areas of plant biochemistry) and, indeed, in addition to publishing over 100 scientific research papers I published a number of books variously related in some aspects to climate change. However, when it comes to the physics and chemistry of climate change I take the advice of top climate scientists and in relation to climate change economics I take the advice of top climate change economic analysts.
Indeed one very important thing you learn as a properly sceptical professional scientist is recognition of your own shortcomings and respect for the wisdom of outstanding scientists and scholars in your own and other disciplines.
Below is a representative selection of views from top climate scientists and climate analysts from Australia and around the world who are strongly dismissive of the Carbon Trading-based Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach and variously prefer revenue neutral Carbon Taxes to expedite the cessation of carbon burning in world economies. The top climate scientists quoted support rapid draw-down of atmospheric greenhouses gases (GHG), principally carbon dioxide (CO2), and rapid uptake of non-carbon renewable and geothermal energy sources. I have also included some further quotations from some significant climate change media commentators from Australia, the US and the UK.
Needless to say, the top climate scientists and climate change economists quoted here have vastly more expertise than any of the politicians presently dominating the carbon tax-free public discussion, such as it is, in Australia. The detailed references to these quotations are to be found in a compilations of such views by the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group and 300.org.
Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; adjunct professor, Columbia; University, New York, USA), February 2009: “The most honest effective way to achieve a carbon price capable of driving our economy and our society to the clean world of the future is “Carbon Tax with 100% Dividend” … This tax, and the knowledge that it would continue to increase in the future, would spur innovations in energy efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. The dividend would put money in the hands of the public, allowing them to purchase vehicles and other products that reduce their carbon footprint and thus their taxes… The worst thing about cap-and-trade [ETS], from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren… One of the biggest advantages of the Tax and Dividend approach is its simplicity, which would allow it to be introduced quickly. The Kyoto-like Cap & Trade is notoriously slow to negotiate and implement, as well as being ineffective in the end. A related point is that an effective international accord could be implemented with only a few of the major economies. Import duties on countries not imposing a comparable tax would surely bring broad rapid compliance.”
Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA), March 2009: “The international community is making huge wager on the Kyoto model. The wager is that the cap-and-trade structure contained in the model will do the job of slowing global warming. The new United States Administration advocated that the U.S. adopt this system as its contribution top solving the global problem, and the primary legislation in the U.S. Congress is firmly a cap-and-trade proposal. But, as I have suggested above, the cap-and-trade approach is a poor choice of mechanism. It is untested in the international context; it has been unable to attain anything close to universal participation; and it has the inherent flaws just described. It is unlikely that the Kyoto model, even if strengthened, can achieve its climate objectives in an efficient and effective manner. To bet the world’s climate system and global environment on an untested approach with such clear structural flaws would appear a reckless gamble. History is lettered with failed institutions. You need only to look today at the wreckage of the current financial system to see the latest example of the effects of failed regulatory and risk-management design. So, if the Kyoto model turns out to be another failed model, it has lots of company. But it would be better to recognize and change it now, rather than in one or two more decades of ineffective and inefficient efforts to slow emissions. The international community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade structure with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, UK), March 2009: "His [Nordhaus’] idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face."
Professor Daniel M. Kammen (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley), March 2009: “Evolving the field of climate solutions science: the economics of clean and sustainable energy must be supported for individuals and companies to achieve a shared vision; a price on greenhouse gas emissions is essential (but alone it is not sufficient); innovative financing is needed to advantage clean energy; innovation and implementation is needed in the North and South; scientific, and policy innovations open the door for quantified cases of clean development that, in turn, can reset the political landscape in favour of a low carbon future.”
Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), 2009: “1. A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy. 2. With a cap and trade approach, the target is everything as both the emissions cap and emissions floor are locked in. No one can do better than the cap, and so the cap must be a science based all consuming sustainable target pathway that won’t lock in failure. As we don’t yet have the widespread political and economic preparedness to commit to an all consuming sustainable target pathway (either nationally or internationally), the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).”
Jonathan Leake (Science and Environment Editor of the UK Sunday Times), March 2009: “Britain’s faith in carbon trading as a way of reducing greenhouse gases could be dangerously misplaced, according to an independent academic working with the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Dr Chris Hope of the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School … [has] a far wider conclusion: the current European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is deeply flawed and should be replaced – or at least augmented – with a green tax … For the ETS to work, the price has to be set at a level that makes it worthwhile for consumers to cut their energy use. According to Hope’s research, the minimum price needed is about £85 per tonne [A$173] , rising at roughly 2 to 3 per cent a year … Prices now stand at roughly £9.50 [A$19] per tonne of CO2 – less than 12 per cent of what Hope’s calculations show is needed.… He believes a market-based trading system such as the ETS is very unlikely to generate consistent high prices, and this instability could undermine the whole point of the scheme”.
Larry Lohmann (climate economist, The Corner House, London, UK); summary of book “Carbon Trading”, by Larry Lohmann, editor, 2006 [implicit in the GHG pollution cessation argument is taxing GHG pollution out of existence]: “The main cause of global warming is rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions — primarily the result of burning fossil fuels. Some responses to the crisis, however, are causing new and severe problems — and may even increase global warming. This seems to be the case with carbon trading — the main current international response to climate change and the centrepiece of the Kyoto Protocol… the “carbon trading” approach to the problem of rapid climate change is both ineffective and unjust. The bulk of fossil fuels must be left in the ground if climate chaos is to be avoided.”
Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair, U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration), January 2009: “A cap-and-trade system is very unlikely to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions — and more likely to introduce new, trillion-dollar risks for the financial system. The clearest illustration of the problems with cap-and-trade is the European Trading Scheme, based on the Kyoto protocols covering most of Europe. According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, there’s little if any evidence that the ETS has had any effect at all on emissions in Europe… Even more regulations cannot eliminate most of cap-and-trade’s inherent price volatility or the incentives for its participants, including governments, to evade or manipulate the system. These are the main reasons why the father of climate-change politics, Al Gore now prefers carbon-based taxes over cap-and-trade. A carbon tax system would apply a stable price to carbon, creating direct incentives to develop and use less carbon-intensive fuels and more energy-efficient technologies. President-elect Barack Obama is committed equally to fighting climate change and restoring economic growth. The best way to do both is to give up cap-and-trade and learn to love carbon-based taxes.”
Stephen Lendman (leading liberal US analyst and commentator), 8 July 2009: “On May 15, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) was introduced in the House purportedly "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy." In fact, it’s to let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy and fuel as well as create a new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation. It does nothing to address environmental issues, yet on June 26 the House narrowly passed (229 – 212) and sent it to the Senate to be debated and voted on… Overall, carbon trading is a scam, first promoted in the 1980s under Reagan. Clinton made it a key provision of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. He signed it in 1998, but it was never ratified. As of February 2009, 183 nations did both, but independent scientists call it "miserable failure" needing to be scrapped and replaced by a meaningful alternative… Contributing $4,452,585 to Democrats in 2008 (around $1 million to Obama) was mere pocket change for what it can reap from scams like cap and trade disguised as an environmental plan. The scheme was devised. GS [Goldman Sachs] helped write it. The House passed it and sent it to the Senate. Unless stopped, it will transfer more of our wealth to corporate polluters and Wall Street on top of all they’ve stolen so far from derivatives fraud and the imploded housing and other bubbles. And Goldman will lead the way finding new ways to do it until there’s nothing left to extract.”
Catherine Austin Fitts (US commentator), 1 July 2009: "If you think the housing and credit bubble diminished your financial security and your community, or the bailouts, or the rising gas prices did as well, hold on to your hat. The worst may be yet to come. Carbon trading is gearing up to make the housing and derivatives bubbles look like target practice.”
Greenpeace (leading global environment protection organisation), 25 June 2009: “As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.”
Kenneth Davidson (respected economics columnist for “The Age” newspaper, Melbourne; co-editor of “Dissent”), 2009: “The [Australian] Rudd Government’s environmental credentials are in tatters: the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has been exposed as sham. This shouldn’t be surprising. There isn’t one cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd’s cap and trade scheme benefits the worst polluters… Carbon taxes were imposed by Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Norway and Italy in the 1990s. Sweden is the most successful country in the world in reducing its carbon footprint, according to the German environmental group Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its emissions by 9 per cent, exceeding the target set by Kyoto, while at the same time real growth increased 44 per cent.”
Guy Pearse (Australian climate and energy commentator), 2008: “[Australian government commissioned economist] Garnaut had recognized Indonesian and PNG rainforests as the perfect place to hide greenhouse pollution on the cheap and avoid emission cuts in Australia. Annual emissions from deforestation in these two countries alone were 3 times Australia’s total emissions. Paying landholders not to log could effectively offset pollution in Australia – and various estimates cited by Garnaut – from the Stern Report and the World Bank – suggested the price might be US$1-3$ – perhaps less than 1/10th of the price of a tonne of carbon otherwise… Their glossy PR material claimed that “under the scheme, Australia’s biggest polluters will pay for the pollution they generate”. But, what the government carefully didn’t say was that the biggest polluters would only pay for on average one tonne in every 5 tonnes of their pollution – the rest of us paid for the other 4 tonnes.”
Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University; 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate; former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank), December 2007: “The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments – for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it. Economic efficiency requires that those who generate emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do so is through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that every country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the global social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would increase global efficiency. Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade, and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights.”
Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; adjunct professor, Columbia; University, New York, USA), February 2009: “The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well. This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won’t get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests. For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" [ETS] scheme … There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the "fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead … The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It’s less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation”.
Carbon Tax Center (US organization demanding the pricing of carbon efficiently and equitably), 2009: “Why revenue-neutral carbon taxes are essential,
what’s happening now, and how you can help. The Obama Administration and the new Congress are being called upon to address 21st Century climate realities.In a carbon-constrained world, a permanent and increasing U.S. carbon tax is essential to reduce the emissions that are driving global warming. A carbon tax is a tax on the carbon content of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas). A carbon tax is the most economically efficient means to convey crucial price signals and spur carbon-reducing investment and low-carbon behavior. Our spreadsheet shows how fast emissions will fall. Carbon taxes should be phased in so businesses and households have time to adapt. A carbon tax should be revenue neutral: government can soften the impacts of added costs by paying back the tax revenues ("dividends") or reducing other taxes ("tax-shifting"). Support for a carbon tax is growing steadily among public officials; economists; scientists; policy experts; business, religious, and environmental leaders; and ordinary citizens.”
Dr Vandana Shiva (Indian physicist, feminist, founder of eco-feminism, author of several books and of hundreds of scientific and technical papers, and a very prominent environmental analyst and activist), 2009: “The science of climate change is now clear, but the politics is very muddy. Historically, the major polluters were the rich, industrialised countries, so it made sense that they should pay the highest price… Such [Carbon Trading ETS] schemes are more about privatising the atmosphere than about preventing climate change; the emissions rights established by the Kyoto Protocol are several times higher than the levels needed to prevent a 2°C rise in global temperatures… Carbon trading uses the resources of poorer people and poorer regions as "offsets" for richer countries: it is between 50 and 200 times cheaper to plant trees in poor countries to absorb CO2 than it is to reduce emissions at source. In other words, the burden of "clean-up" falls on the poor… Thanks to industrialisation, the rural poor in China and India are losing out on their land and livelihood. To count them as polluters is doubly criminal. When global firms outsource to China or India, they need to be responsible for the pollution they carry overseas. Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns… We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to "free-market" fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice”.
Dear reader, informed by these comments from top climate scientists and analysts, please attempt to insert these authoritative opinions into the public debate (such as it is ) in the lead up to the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, an event that is looming as potentially one of the most monumental failures in human history. We are running out of time.
John.Humphreys
October 7, 2009 at 3:02 am
Double & other
You’ve doubled counted Hansen, and missed a range of Australian commentators — including Warwick McKibbon (ANU), Richard Denniss (Australian Institute) and myself (Centre for Independent Studies).
http://www.cis.org.au/policy_monographs/pm80.pdf
Dr Gideon Polya
October 7, 2009 at 6:03 am
Top climate scientists opt for Carbon Tax & slam ETS
My apologies for omitting yourself and the Australian commentators you mentioned from my wide-ranging international compilation (no apologies however for the 2 quotes from top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen).
I have quoted some further opinions (including an important statement by you in your excellent analysis: John Humphreys, “Exploring a Carbon Tax for Australia”, Perspectives on Tax reform (14), Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) Monograph 80, 2007, Executive Summary, p ix: http://www.cis.org.au/policy_monographs/pm80.pdf ) in my compilation for the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group quoted above (see: "Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS):
http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/carbon-tax-needed-not-cap-and-trade-emission-trading-scheme-ets ). Thus the following:
Richard Denniss (executive director of the Australia Institute, Canberra, Australia), 18 February 2009: “Many Australians have waited a long time for a government to do something about climate change and no doubt some of them would be reluctant to see the CPRS [proposed the Australian ETS] fail for that reason. However, most of these people are unlikely to understand that the 5 per cent emissions reduction target is not a step in the right direction but a legislative barrier to reducing emissions any further. The CPRS [ETS] locks us into failure, in that it will prevent emissions falling below the timid targets proposed by the Rudd Government. So, where to from here? A simple way to get the ball rolling without locking in the worst features of the CPRS {ETS] is to introduce a carbon levy of $25 a tonne. This is the same price the Rudd Government expects to flow from its CPRS [ETS] and it has already done the work figuring out how to provide compensation. An important benefit of such an approach is that we don’t need to start from scratch. The administrative capacity required to collect a carbon levy is consistent with that required to introduce the CPRS [ETS]. That is, both systems require the monitoring of emission levels, the determination of liability and the reconciliation of who has paid their carbon bills. The other benefits of a carbon levy are its simplicity, its compatibility with simple measures such as investment in household energy efficiency, and the fact we don’t have to set our targets until international agreement is reached in Copenhagen. Unlike the CPRS [ETS] , a carbon levy would not discourage individual action.”
Paul Taylor (Reuters economics columnist), 22 July 2009: "Cynics say the French never saw a market they didn’t want to regulate, or an economic activity they didn’t want to tax. Now this levy-happy nation, with one of the highest fiscal burdens in the world, is eying a new target for taxation: carbon. And in this case, they may just be right …Most experts agree that a carbon tax, based on a global price for carbon, would be the simplest and most logical way to use market forces to bring down greenhouse gas emissions. But it is not politically feasible in most countries. The French, with their Cartesian logic and their tradition of a strong, dirigiste state, are among the few nations outside the Nordic area with the political will to impose one. We can only hope that other countries will follow in their slipstream."
John Humphreys (Economist, Research Fellow, Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, Australia), 2007: “With growing public concern and constant calls for action on climate change, it is important that we have a full debate about what is the best response. Many politicians have rushed to support poor climate change policy. Our government is currently using an approach of regulation and subsidy while considering the possibility of implementing a carbon trading scheme. We would be better served if the government replaced all of these options with a revenue-neutral carbon tax. A carbon tax is preferable to a carbon trading system because it is more efficient, effective, simple, flexible and transparent . More importantly, a carbon tax has the added benefit of providing revenue that can be used to cut other taxes. Indeed a revenue-neutral carbon tax may have little or no economic cost.”
ACT New Zealand Finance Spokesman Sir Roger Douglas (Father of Rogernomics”; urging the Government and the Emissions Trading Scheme Select Committee to read Centre of Independent Studies Report): "The report states, quite rightly, that an ETS is the wrong approach and advocates a carbon tax – not as the best option but, rather as the best option currently available. At least a carbon tax would result in revenue for the Government, which can be used to reduce company and personal income tax rates. Linking climate change policy to tax cuts will ensure that it does not significantly damage the economy. The report also outlines that agriculture should be excluded. Taxing agriculture does little to facilitate a sustainable low-emission economy. A carbon tax which excluded agriculture would still provide important incentives toward new technology without harming the economy. If the Government feels it must be seen to be addressing climate change, it must do so in a manner that causes the least possible harm to New Zealand’s economy and those who drive it – especially our farmers and other primary producers."
Dr Gideon Polya
November 2, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Dr Clive Spash slams ETS approach