Press release - July 11, 2008
Greenpeace has welcomed a new survey showing most New Zealanders want the emissions trading legislation to pass and are willing to take action in their own lives to tackle climate change.
Exceltium public relations firm, which is run by National-Party
strategist Matthew Hooten, has released a survey into public
attitudes towards the ETS.
Almost 57 per cent of respondents say they think the legislation
should pass. 87.4 per cent are willing to act personally or accept
costs to reduce the effects of climate change.
"The results of this survey show how out of touch the National
Party is on this issue," said Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny
McDiarmid. "New Zealanders believe in climate change and want to
see timely action to tackle it and it's up to our political leaders
to make it happen."
However Ms McDiarmid said the questions to householders about
costs were misleading. "The survey makes it sound like householders
won't face these costs if the ETS is not in place. Which is not
true. Householders will face even higher costs if the scheme falls
over, because they'll have to pick up the entire Kyoto bill, rather
than polluters paying for their own emissions.
"The poll fails to inform respondents of this; instead
presenting the ETS as an extra cost, when infact it's designed to
shift the cost burden from taxpayers to polluters.
"The problem is that the ETS is inherently hard to understand
and many New Zealanders may not be aware that under it, they're
subsidising big business."
Ms McDiarmid said this uncertainty and lack of information was
demonstrated in the high number of "neutral" responses in the
survey.
"This confusion has not been helped by an orchestrated scare
campaign by big polluting business, which has wrongly painted New
Zealand as a world leader in this area and mislead over costs."
Greenpeace is calling for the ETS to be strengthened and made
fairer so that those doing the polluting pay, rather than ordinary
New Zealanders. Greenpeace is also calling for every political
party to set an emissions reduction target of 30 per cent by
2020.
Other contacts: Bunny McDiarmid– Greenpeace Executive Director – 021838183
Kathy Cumming – Greenpeace Climate Communications – 021 495216
Exp. contact date: 2008-12-16 00:00:00