Ian McLean Green candidate for Tauranga

The government staged a finely crafted public relations exercise last week, manipulating the media, trotting out an election bribe, and billing the taxpayer some billions of dollars.

All of the above was achieved without anybody noticing. Amazing.

The ETS – that stands for Emissions Trading Scheme. Just writing the letters causes eyes to glaze and readers to flip to another page. More news about the ETS is of little interest in a world over-hyped with sports and needing distraction from the malaise in our disaster-ridden country.

The ETS is code for ‘carbon trading' and we have been doing it here in NZ for several years now. They also do it in Europe, where they have governments who genuinely care about the environment and global warming. Australia is finally starting to kick it off as well.

For some time we have been promised a review of the ETS, apparently to ensure that it is doing the job of satisfying our Kyoto commitments. Really, it explores how to continue using taxpayer money to subsidise industrial pollution.

That review finally landed on the desk of the Minister for the Environment on June 30, 2011.

Its release was mysteriously delayed until last Thursday, September 15.

It was not by coincidence that the report was finally released one week into the world cup, and on the same day as the government announced a parliamentary investigation into the price of milk.

Milk pricing has been topical and generated a couple of minor articles on inner pages of our local newspapers.

Presumably, it was trotted out as an additional distractor just in case there were a couple of reporters left who were not writing about the RWC.

Election bribe? The report offers a carefully crafted compromise for the integration of farms into the ETS, specifically that the process be progressive (=delayed) with the taxpayer subsidising the difference. Similar subsidies are already in place for other carbon producers.

Farmers generate about 50 per cent of our total global warming gases.

Years ago we threw out the principle of ‘farming for the subsidy', run by the Muldoon government. Well, it's back.

If we really want business to take carbon emissions seriously, we have to kick them with a price signal in a place where they will notice.

If the government implements the recommendations in this report, then a ball that has already been dropped will bounce off the field.

The environment loses, and the public purse takes another hit. Business as usual.

Want to know more?

Visit: www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/15/