Bay of Plenty letters: Carbon credits and Phoenix carpark site

We will all need to pull our weight to reduce carbon emissions, says a reader. Photo / File

Unless you are President Trump, every citizen on the planet now knows it is at serious risk from warming as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, that have for millions of years locked up the carbon that once was in the atmosphere before life existed in the form it does today.

To reduce carbon use will require sacrifices by all people.

The limits of rationing carbon by price have been shown by the riots in France at the unfairness of putting the major sacrifice on the middle and working class, while the wealthy continue their lifestyle unaffected.

Only an equality of sacrifice will be accepted by the citizenry such as a rationing system, such as existed in World War II with food rationing.

Each adult would have a carbon ration to spend as they wished. Each time a person filled the car with fossil fuels, their total would be reduced.

Want an overseas trip? Fine, but a person may have to go easy on car use to save enough carbon credits to cover the air travel.

Freight companies would also have a carbon quota. We may see newer more fuel-efficient trucks on the road and more rail freight as they have to adapt. Air freighting food would probably end.

Forget planting trees as carbon sinks, and other feel-good projects, carbon emissions will only be reduced by direct limits on emissions by each citizen, and then market forces will determine the technologies to cope with the new environment.

Alan Dickson
Tauranga

Phoenix carpark site

Peter Williams' piece in Saturday's Bay of Plenty Times Weekend (Opinion, December 1) reiterates a few known facts about the redevelopment of the old Phoenix carpark site: there wasn't a problem that needed to be solved, the budget was poorly managed, other parking projects will have to be cut to cover the 25 per cent cost over-run, the suggested name is not suitable, and only lip service has been paid to the interests of the city stakeholders – the ratepayers and business people.

Displeased ratepayers can vote out badly-performing councillors at the next election and vote in people who have the proper skills.

However, to be sure the same mistake isn't made all over again it would be good to know what the candidates truly stand for, and to find that out they should be asked to provide answers to a set of specific questions about topics such as how they would ensure that adequate time and opportunity would be given for open consultation with ratepayers and other stakeholders before projects were ticked off as ready to go.

Maybe the Bay of Plenty Times could provide a list of questions to every candidate and publish their replies. That would help voters make up their minds.

Barry Scott
Papamoa Beach

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