A survey established that New Zealanders support incentives to encourage clean industries and technologies.
The survey, of 2829 New Zealanders aged 18-plus, taken between July 5 and 16, 2012, asked recipients about their attitude toward incentives to encourage technologies such as marine energy and fuel-efficient cars,Carbon News reports.
All received strong support – with home insulation topping the list with nearly 100% backing.
The results showed that:
• 98.8 per cent support further subsidies to insulate un-insulated homes (1.3 per cent oppose)
. • 78.4 per cent support incentives to develop biofuel from waste wood (2.8 per cent oppose).
• 74.5 per cent of respondents support reducing the annual registration fee for vehicles with smaller engines (6.7 per cent opposed).
• 72.3 per cent support incentives to develop wave and tidal power (9.1 per cent oppose).
• 64.7 per cent support cash incentives to buy fuel-efficient and lower-emissions cars (8.2 per cent oppose).
• 57.9 per cent support investing in alternative fuel technologies, such as those that capture and store emissions from coal-fired power stations (92 per cent oppose).
• 49.8 per cent support requiring standards on imported vehicles’ fuel efficiency to lift national fleet performance overall (10.7 per cent opposed).
The survey didn’t say if it asked respondents if they would be happy to pay for these incentives, nor if they were already doing what they could to support clean industries and technologies.
Saying they support incentives is a long way away from paying for them and given how few of us actually pay net tax a good proportion of recipients wouldn’t be expecting to contribute themselves.
The costs for not embracing green technologies are far greater. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment stated in her report on Lignite mining:
“In its current form the ETS exposes the Government – and therefore the taxpayer – to potentially enormous financial risk. This is because of the rules governing the allocation of free carbon credits. For ‘free carbon credits’, read ‘taxpayer subsidy’. New lignite developments may well qualify for significant subsidies under the scheme. The subsidy for one lignite-to-diesel plant would be likely to be billions of dollars over its lifetime. It makes no sense for taxpayers to subsidise new investment in carbon-intensive technology. This is the opposite of what the ETS is intended to achieve. The review of the scheme in 2011 provides an opportunity to address this and other serious shortcomings.”
http://www.pce.parliament.nz/publications/all-publications/lignite-and-climate-change-the-high-cost-of-low-grade-coal/
Rather than spending up large on energy that drove the industrial revolution we should be embracing the clean fuels of the future. Rather than mining lignite in Southland we should be mining smelting silica. Silica supports the high tech and solar industry and will be far less damaging to the local farmland than lignite and would employ thousands of well qualified workers.
The home insulation scheme has been found to be hugely cost effective with the health and financial benefits far outweighing costs: http://www.3news.co.nz/Insulation-scheme-saving-money-and-lives/tabid/1607/articleID/255970/Default.aspx
Spending over $12 billion on motorways that barely pass basic cost benefit analysis ( http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/doubts-worth-holiday-highway-4992534 ) is an extreme waste of money. We should be investing in rail and public transport instead: http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/rail-is-worth-investment.html
Actually the list you published above above seem incredibly sensible and the business coalition, Pure Advantage would support this too:
http://www.pureadvantage.org/blog/2012/06/11/new-zealands-position-in-the-green-race/
Dave – I’m not debating the merit of the proposals, just pointing out it’s easy to be in favour of someone else paying.
I had thought you were implying that they were expensive luxuries that someone would have to pay for and my response was that they were more cost effective than the status quo. My apologies if I had misinterpreted your intention.
We are currently paying a good amount of our tax to subsidise fossil fuels.