Jim Eagles: Forget Kyoto, what about car emissions?

We should all take great moral satisfaction from the fact that research is under way into how to reduce the amount of methane our livestock produce. Burps and farts from cows, sheep and deer make up about half of the greenhouse gases produced by New Zealand.

Under the Kyoto Protocol we are obliged by 2012 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. Clearly, that won't be easy without tackling the problem of livestock doing something that comes naturally, so it is probably understandable that the Government has required the agricultural industry to spend some $8 million a year researching the problem.

But that's not all the Government is doing. It is also requiring industry to pay a carbon tax, designed to encourage companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, which was expected to cost $721 million over four years.

Now it appears the figures are wrong and Kyoto will require this country to buy carbon credits to the tune of $1.23 billion instead of our receiving a carbon credit.

Inevitably, all of that will be passed on, allowing the average household to contribute handsomely towards meeting our Kyoto obligations.

True, critics have pointed out that all of this is rather pointless. Any greenhouse gas reductions New Zealand achieves will instantly be offset by the booming industrial expansion of China, which is exempt from Kyoto's requirements.

Furthermore, scientists with the United Nations Climate Change Panel have calculated that if the protocol is fully implemented, it will slow the expected rate at which the Earth's temperature increases by six years. Instead of a global temperature rise of 2.1C increase occurring by 2094 it would be postponed until 2100.

Not much, some have argued, in return for an agreement likely to cost US$1 trillion ($1.4 trillion) to implement. For a fifth of that, it has been pointed out, you could provide universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation, which would avoid an estimated two million deaths a year.

Still, as supporters of the protocol have said, at least we are doing something to protect the planet from the insidious effects of carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, etc.

That lofty approach is not, however, being followed when it comes to the nasty emission being pumped out by cars and trucks, even though their ill effects are rather more clearcut than those of greenhouse gases.

Not only do exhaust fumes play an indirect role in global warming, they are also known to have serious health implications.

A torrent of research over the past few years has highlighted the problems they create. One study by the University of California and the Boston Medical Centre found four different pollutants in exhaust fumes that cause asthma.

Another by Germany's National Research Centre for Environment and Health, reported that travelling in traffic, either in a car or public transport, almost trebles the risk of a heart attack for at least an hour afterwards, largely due to the particulates spewed from exhausts.

A study by our Ministry for the Environment found vehicle emissions contribute to a raft of sicknesses, including heart disease, cancer, bronchitis and asthma. The report estimated emissions to be responsible for 400 deaths a year and to cost the health system $400 million annually.

But, for some strange reason, the Government seems reluctant to take decisive action to deal with the problem.

From March 2001 it has been an offence to operate a vehicle which emits excessive exhaust smoke for more than 10 seconds. But anyone who uses a motorway will testify that rule is rarely if ever enforced.

My wife, who has become asthmatic as she has got older, often has to travel with a handkerchief over her nose and mouth to try to filter out the fumes.

At least until now we have been able to look forward to the ultimate solution, compulsory emissions testing as part of the regular warrant of fitness checks, being introduced next year. However, that has been axed because the Government felt it would have been too expensive.

According to Associate Transport Minister Judith Tizard, the testing regime proposed produced an unacceptable level of false results and adequate testing would cost too much. As a result, she has put action on hold while officials look for another solution.

That decision is a little puzzling. The Government has generally been keen to keep in the forefront of the global environmental movement yet we are now one of the few countries in the developed world not to have strict controls on vehicle emissions.

The simple testing regime which has been dismissed as inadequate, and would have cost around $5-$10 a test, has been adopted by numerous other countries, which evidently consider it satisfactory. It might not be perfect but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

Even the estimated $35-$60 cost of a more accurate testing system is only equivalent to a few weeks of what the carbon tax will impose on the average household. Why the difference in approach between these two environmental issues?

A cynical colleague suggests it is because Labour would not want to go into an election with a policy that might put off the road many vehicles driven by its supporters.

I would have thought the cars most likely to be affected would be driven by Greens, because most of the cars I see puffing out smoke from their exhausts carry stickers proclaiming "Keep NZ GE free" or "Save the whales". But the Greens have strongly criticised the Government's inaction.

Whatever the reason, it is strange that we are rushing to implement one policy that will cost the average household at least $250 a year for a marginal benefit at some time in the future, yet are reluctant to implement another policy with much lower costs and the potential to save 400 lives and $400 million a year right now.

* Jim Eagles is the Herald's travel editor