NZ – land of climate change denial (‘clean’ coal is like ‘good’ cancer – it doesn’t exist)

Coal firm pays for emissions report
A report highly critical of the Government's climate change policy was partially bankrolled by one of the country's largest coal miners and state-owned companies.
Information issued under the Official Information Act reveals Solid Energy paid hundreds of thousands of dollars towards the report into the impact of the emissions trading scheme (ETS). To encourage use of more environmentally friendly energy sources, the scheme imposes taxes on anything that emits greenhouse gases. As a miner of coal, which produces greenhouse gas, Solid Energy faces higher operating costs and potentially dwindling demand. Solid Energy gave $240,750, including GST, to the $1 million project by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) on the economic impact of the controversial legislation. The final report said the emissions trading scheme would impose a heavy economic cost on the country, costing households about $3000 a year by 2025 and reduce average wages by $90 a week.

Un-fucking-believable, so not only do we have a coalition government that is holding a select committee hearing on the science behind climate change, championed by ACT who believe that CO2 is a misunderstood nutrient and that a 2 degree rise in temperature would be brilliant for NZ, we also have Solid Energy up to their old tricks again, not infiltrating protest groups this time (these days they leave that to the bloody cops who seem to think knowing who is sleeping with who in SAFE and Greenpeace is a threat to national security), but by paying taxpayer money into a report that Victoria University Climate Change Research Institute director Martin Manning criticized for being too narrow in scope with its economic modelling. How can Solid Energy be allowed get away with this?