KEY POINTS:
Nuclear power is unlikely to form part of New Zealand's energy future, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment believes.
In April, Australian Prime Minister John Howard committed his country to nuclear power, promising to remove all excessive restrictions on mining, processing and exporting uranium.
In recent years there
have been sporadic calls for New Zealand to relax its staunch anti-nuclear stance and allow nuclear power generation.
However, Dr Jan Wright - who was sworn in as Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in March - said she did not believe New Zealand would have to look towards nuclear power as energy demands rose.
"I think that the climate change debate has certainly changed the way we look at nuclear power globally, but I don't think we will need to consider nuclear power in New Zealand.
"We are a very well-endowed country, but I do think that we need to seriously look at using energy much more efficiently and much more cleverly. However, any energy source that you try to develop has environmental impacts. Just because something is renewable doesn't necessarily mean it isn't going to upset somebody."
Dr Wright, who has a masters degree in energy and resources from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate in public policy from Harvard, returned to New Zealand nine years ago to teach at Victoria University in Wellington.
She served as chairwoman of Land Transport NZ and Transfund NZ and as a board member of Transit New Zealand, the Accident Compensation Corporation and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority before taking up the commissioner's role this year.
The commissioner is an independent officer of Parliament who provides environmental scrutiny, advocacy and advice.
The office was set up under the Environment Act 1986, the first piece of legislation to use the term sustainability.
Dr Wright said it was an indicator how fast thinking had changed that sustainable development was now a part of mainstream thinking.
"I think in a lot of cases we don't actually know what the right thing to do environmentally is. We tend to focus on certain things because they seem environmentally the right thing to do, but I think there is somewhat of a dearth of analysis that underlies that. One of the things that always interests me is prioritisation, where would you get the biggest bang for your buck.
"Of course, that doesn't necessarily synchronise with perception, and if you are a business and selling yourself as green, it is perhaps somewhat more about perception.
"I think the challenge is to get the reality and the perception, the right thing to do and the perceived right thing to do, to marry up."
Climate change was one area Dr Wright said she wanted to focus on during her five-year term. With most political parties agreeing action was needed, she said, cross-party legislation modelled on British climate change laws might be possible.
