The government's new biofuel targets won't stop hundreds of New
Zealanders dying every year from motor vehicle pollution, according
to a visiting Australian medical expert.
Ray Kearney is in New Zealand as a guest of The Warehouse founder
Stephen Tindall, who supports biofuel and says we must do more to
enhance the country's clean green image.
The search for environmentally friendly fuel has led Tindall to some inconvenient truths.
"What we've realised is that some of the things that we have in New Zealand right now are actually killing our people," he says.
It is estimated that motor vehicle pollution kills more than 400 Aucklanders every year.
But an Australian scientist Ray Kearney believes deadly emissions could be slashed in half if vehicles used at least 10% of clean burning ethanol.
And Kearney, of the University of Sydney, is critical of the government's biofuel target of 3.4%.
"That is tokenism. It will have no beneficial impact on these health costs," he says.
Tindall says home-grown biofuels could wipe billions off the country's fuel bill.
He also wants to see every vehicle running on biofuel or electricity within 30 years.
"It's really essential that we focus on making New Zealand cleaner," he says.
But The Warehouse founder also has a vested interest in biofuel. Tindall owns 26% of Lanzatech, a company that's looking to produce ethanol from waste produced by the Glenbrook steel mill.
"My investments in clean technologies is being fuelled not from profit, because none of them have made any money at all yet. It's been a genuine concern for making New Zealand a better place.
And Kearney says pollution could be reduced dramatically if the government imposed strict new guidelines to measure the fine invisible particles that cause deaths.
"And unless you do that you don't know how toxic the atmosphere really is," he says.
The Climate Science Coalition says there's no specific evidence to verify deaths caused by vehicle pollution, and the coalition also questions whether biofuels will solve the problem.
