Climate change science stands up to scrutiny, says Fitzsimons

Green Party leader and climate change spokeswoman Jeanette Fitzsimons says the science around global warming has already stood up to rigorous scrutiny.

"I think science should always be challenged and there should be rigorous debate, but there has already been that within the IPCC [the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]," Ms Fitzsimons said.

She said there were often reasons why some people or groups played it down.

"There are some very entrenched vested interests that don't want to change ... they're just not credible any longer," she said. "Supposing the sceptics were right, what would we have lost by trying to prepare to reduce our greenhouse emissions?"

Ms Fitzsimons said there would be financial costs but it would help make the economy more efficient.

"What do we lose if the sceptics are wrong and we sit around and do nothing? We lose everything," she said.

Government climate change spokesman Pete Hodgson summed up the coalition in a sentence and said he didn't want to go into it further.

"These people present a viewpoint that is now diminishing as fast as the Arctic ice-cap," he said.

- NZPA