Tourism at risk from carbon policy?

A somewhat alarming report on NBR about the effect on tourism to NZ from Government policy.  To quote:

New Zealand’s adoption of a carbon neutrality policy, and the world’s toughest emission reduction targets, will have a disastrous effect on its biggest foreign exchange earner, tourism, and there are no solutions in sight, university experts say.

… Physics researchers Dr Inga Smith and Dr Craig Rodger say their findings on the sheer size of the emissions and difficulties in offsetting them have far-reaching implications for both the tourism industry and efforts to achieve carbon neutrality.

Awareness of the environmental impact of long-haul flights is increasingly influencing tourists destination decisions. As tourism is New Zealands number one export earner, these findings are cause for some concern, Dr Rodger says.

… We investigated several domestically-based offsetting scenarios involving either increased reliance on sustainable energy sources or reducing emissions. Unfortunately, none of the scenarios currently appear to be economically or technically feasible, Dr Smith says.

For example, the installation of 4,250 one megawatt wind turbines to replace existing fossil fuel-based power generation would offset the visitors emissions, but only at a cost of at least $10 billion, or $4150 per visitor, she says.

Such a switch would be highly challenging both in cost and finding acceptable places to put them.

Helen’s aspirational goal is carbon neutrality.  So the question is do we stop tourists coming to NZ (which would kill many sectors of the economy) or do we spend $10 billion offsetting it?