New Zealand must protect image, says Tourism NZ

11.50am

New Zealand should not underestimate the value of its clean green image overseas when considering a new carbon tax, tourism leader Wally Stone said today.

A proposed carbon tax would add up to $5 a week -- $260 a year -- to a typical household's electricity and petrol bill from 2008 under the Government's commitment to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

The new tax has been criticised by business, farming and union groups who are worried it will cost jobs and leave key industries uncompetitive.

Some industry groups have argued against New Zealand ratifying the treaty until the positions of key trading partners, such as Australia and Japan, become clearer.

The United States has refused to ratify, and developing countries such as China and India will not have to meet initial greenhouse emission targets.

But Mr Stone, Tourism New Zealand chairman, said New Zealand must protect its clean green image.

"The clean green image is a tag that visitors have given us. As New Zealanders we love this clean and green country compared with so many other countries around the world.

"It contributes to our quality of life. Equally we have to be really conscious of the value of that and protect it," Mr Stone told NZPA.

"We shouldn't forget what that image contributes to the economy. It helps our agricultural sector with primary products overseas.

"People who begin to debate the carbon tax should not underestimate the value of a clean green image," he said.

New Zealand needed to preserve its clean green brand as a strategic point of difference so visitors could perceive it as being better environmentally cleaner than any other country.

However, the road transport industry slammed the proposed tax saying it would represent a 7c a litre increase on diesel prices.

Road Transport Forum chief executive Tony Friedlander said higher fuel prices result in higher freight costs.

"Higher costs mean less production and so less freight to cart. Increased freight costs will impact on export industries."

He said the next generation of trucks on the roads in 2005 will produce about 60 per cent less emissions than many current currents.

Energy Minister Pete Hodgson said the farming sector, which produced more than half of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions from belching livestock, would be exempt from any emission charge.

He added a proviso that the sector join the Government in investing in research to find ways of reducing agricultural emissions.

Similarly, energy-intensive industries such as steel mills or cement plants, considered most at risk if they were forced to pay the full cost of greenhouse emissions, would be allowed to negotiate greenhouse agreements with the Government.

Submissions on the policies close on June 14.

- NZPA

nzherald.co.nz/climate

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

United Nations Environment Program

World Meteorological Organisation

Framework Convention on Climate Change

Executive summary: Climate change impacts on NZ

IPCC Summary: Climate Change 2001