New Zealand’s Prime Minister: Climate Change bill a “load of rubbish” and “hoax”

By Anthony Watts

Via Andrew Bolt in email, some surprising revelations about New Zealand’s Prime minister and his previous opinion of the ETS. It appears he has done a complete about face from his very strong opinions of 2005.

The Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, has just introduced the world's first Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) today for new Zealand. It is not going over well with voters.

This is the same man who, when in opposition, described anthropogenic climate change as a hoax on the 10th may, 2005. See Hansard debates at:

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Debates/Debates/3/2/8/47HansD_20050510_00001115-Climate-Change-Response-Amendment-Bill-First.htm

EXCERPTS:
JOHN KEY (National--Helensville) : "I rise on behalf of the National Party to give the good news to the people of New Zealand--that is, the Climate Change Response Amendment Bill is a load of rubbish and the National Party will not be supporting it, for very, very good reasons indeed."

… "Yet here we are down in New Zealand, a very little country with about 0.2 percent of the world's emissions, putting a self-imposed straitjacket on our businesses, and waving a huge flag that says: "Foreign investment, don't come anywhere near us. Australia is over there--the West Island. Go over there to pour your dollars in." To the Chinese we are saying: "Come in and buy as much coal as you like from our West Coast. We'll sell it to you and you can burn it without a carbon charge--but, by the way, to those back here in Aotearoa New Zealand we will be slapping on a carbon charge and you won't be able to operate." …

"This is a complete and utter hoax, if I may say so. The impact of the Kyoto Protocol, even if one believes in global warming--and I am somewhat suspicious of it--is that we will see billions and billions of dollars poured into fixing something that we are not even sure is a problem. Even if it is a problem, it will be delayed for about 6 years. Then it will hit the world in 2096 instead of 2102, or something like that. It will not work."
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Meanwhile, carbon trading in the USA flatlines.