Tuesday, 15 November 11

The New Economics Party candidate for Wellington Central, Laurence Boomert, said that along with other policies, redesigning the money system would be a powerful way of combating climate change.

Reacting to a recent International Energy Agency report which said ‘on planned policies, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change’, he said that all international climate change conferences had broken up because governments were scared economic growth would falter.

“So we need an economic system which doesn’t require incessant growth on a finite planet. It is time we asked the right question. The force that requires us to gobble up more and more of the planet and turn it into goods is a structurally unsound money system and it needs to change”, he said.

“We design our money as interest bearing debt money. This type of money requires economic growth or the whole house of cards will collapse, as it is doing in Europe right now”, he said.

The IEA report said emissions globally jumped 5.3% in 2010 he said and on current path we are all committing mass suicide.

He said the New Economics Party would introduce a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas at source and not wait till it is burnt into the atmosphere. “The potential buyers of Solid Energy would have to be frightened if our party was in power.”

 “We would limit expansion of airports, impose an aviation fuel tax, and reduce our oil country’s imports by 4-6% a year. Motorway building would cease overnight and we would only focus on improving our current roads and the coal would remain in the hole.”

For further comment phone Laurence Boomert 027 258 8807