Simon Johnson (aka Mr February) reviews ‘Climate Cheats II’ and concludes that while it’s about time we had more transparency over Government and corporate shenanigans with emissions trading, we mustn’t forget that these are symptoms of the root problem – the uncapped design of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme.
Newsflash shock horror! The Morgan Foundation and Geoff “Wild-Shirt” Simmons have done it again. They have just released another tell-all critique of corporate emissions trading shenanigans, a sequel to the franchise they launched in April 2016 with the report Climate Cheats. As we know, ‘Cheats I’ outlined this sad course of events:
- a ‘flood’ of low-cost and low-integrity Russian and Ukrainian emissions reduction units into the NZ emission unit market
- which then crashed the domestic emission unit price
- which allowed NZ emitters to meet emissions trading obligations for next to nothing
- which allowed the Government to own large numbers of surplus (but dodgy) units
- which meant Paula Bennett could claim ‘form over substance’ compliance with climate charge targets out to 2020
- not withstanding the real increases in both gross and net NZ emissions of greenhouse gases.
Weighing in at a thankfully concise 16 pages, the wonderfully named ‘Who’s the Real Cheat Here? Climate Cheats II: The Dozen Dirty Businesses’ starts with a simple question. Which companies had the most dodgy Russian and Ukrainian emission units? Well, here they are.