Electrical measurements of freestanding multiwall carbon nanotubes using high resistance tunnelling contacts reveal a power law behaviour, I alpha V alpha + 1, with alpha as high as 5.2, followed by a transition to an offset ohmic behaviour. The freestanding electrode geometry allows for a distinction between the predictions from Luttinger liquid and environmental quantum fluctuation (EQF) theories to be made. The high values of exponents found are explained within the EQF formulism, where reflections resulting from the impedance discontinuity caused by the freestanding geometry are included.