I started out to write a fairly detailed but understandable account of emissions trading – that is the ETS or the Emission Trading Scheme. In order to do that I attended two conferences and heard papers by at least two dozen experts.
I’ve read well over a thousand pages of reports – one report, The Carbon Challenge by the Sustainability Council of New Zealand was itself 140 pages. And I’ve searched the Internet almost daily trying to perfect my knowledge of the subject – emission trading.
But I failed!. I still don’t fully understand the subject and frankly I’m not too ashamed to admit that. I have learnt enough to know that some of the commentators in the newspapers don’t fully understand either. And some of the submitters to the Select Committee don’t understand and I’m sure a lot of our politicians haven’t come to grips with the subject.