Heather du Plessis-Allan: Why are we wasting money on something we know we can't stop?

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we are being incredibly naive and frankly stupid in forcing farmers to pay for climate emissions. Or in fact, forcing anyone in this country to pay for climate emissions. 
Let’s look at the facts: 
New Zealand will not be able to stop climate change. 
We only contribute (at last count) 0.17% of the world’s emissions. 
We can stop emitting altogether right now, and climate change will still happen. 
Because China and India and other big emitters are still going hell for leather, opening coal power plants. 
In which case, why are we wasting money on something we know we can’t stop? 
Shouldn’t we take that money and instead use it to prepare for the inevitable: move houses away from eroding coastlines, build stop banks for low lying suburbs like Wellington’s Petone, lift exposed roads like Auckland's Tamaki Drive or redo the water infrastructure that will be inundated? 
That’s going to happen no matter what we do, so wouldn’t we be better off paying for it now, rather than wasting money on trying to stop it when we know we can’t? 
This will get one of two arguments back. 
Number one: we need to price our emissions if we want India and China to or they won’t listen to us. 
Number two: if we don’t do this, western consumers won’t buy our products. 
Firstly, India and China aren’t listening to us now and they're not going to listen to us even if we price our emissions. 
Secondly, BS to consumers not buying our products. When was the last time you went to the supermarket and considered the climate credentials of the country of origin before buying it. You didn’t. Exactly. 
And in any case, it’s not as if every other country’s farmers are doing this and we’re the laggard. Our farmers will be – as far as we can tell – the only farmers in the world paying for their emissions. 
That’s crazy right? It’s throwing good money at a problem we have no control over.  
What a waste.

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