Cited environmental
benefits of Meridian Energy's proposed Project Hayes wind
farm were based on misleading scientific information, an
Environment Court appeal hearing in Cromwell was told
yesterday.
Prof Bob Carter, of Queensland, Australia, appeared as a
witness for appellant Roch Sullivan to give evidence at the
hearing on issues of climate change.
Prof Carter said the Government's justification of its
support of Project Hayes - in order to reduce global warming
- was a waste of time and money.
"No significant increase in global average temperature has
occurred since 1998 despite an increase in carbon dioxide
over the same period of about 5%."
Information used by Meridian and the Government to justify
the relatively expensive development of wind energy was based
on reports made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), which suggested fossil-fuelled energy
generation created global warming, he said.
The IPCC's processes were flawed and there was a large body
of independent scientists around the world who discounted its
policies on climate change, Prof Carter said.
"There are alternative, very soundly based views on the
effects of carbon dioxide and warming of the climate.
"A human effect on global climate change has not yet been
distinguished and measured . . . meanwhile, global
temperature change is occurring, as it always naturally does,
and a phase of cooling has succeeded the mild late 20th
century warming," he said.
Prof Carter said the available scientific data on global
warming did not justify the belief carbon dioxide emission
controls could be used as a means of managing or stopping
future climate change, which the Government believed Project
Hayes could do.
Therefore, the Government's notion of global warming, which
prompted its 10-year moratorium on new fossil fuel power
stations, would cost taxpayers dearly for no additional
environmental benefit, he said.
Changes in temperature preceded parallel changes in carbon
dioxide and, therefore, carbon dioxide could not be the
primary driver of global temperature change, he said.
"Natural climate change will continue with some of its likely
manifestations, such as sea-level rises and coastal change in
particular locations. Adaptation to that will not be aided by
imprudent restructuring of the world's energy," he said.
