Mainpower’s consent application for a wind farm on the Mt Cass ridge above Waipara (and on my skyline) has been turned down [HDC news, PDF of judgement, earlier posts: one, two, three.]. The commissioners found that arguments that the Mt Cass ridge was a site of nationally significant ecological value outweighed the benefits of the renewable energy generated and jobs created. Mainpower managing director Alan Berge was “deeply disappointed”, according to The Press, but conservationists were predictably pleased (I know a few who’ll be celebrating tonight). It remains to be seen whether Mainpower will either appeal the decision, or prepare a revised scheme that takes into account the commissioners findings. On my quick reading of the judgement, it looks as though they might have been able to consent a scheme which took better account of the ridge layout, avoiding sensitive areas, and which was more definite about the types of turbine to be used and the turbine sites. One of Hot Topic‘s regular readers, Andrew H(urley), the project manager, will no doubt keep us informed.
Author: Gareth
Contention city
One of Hot Topic’s regular readers, the estimable Cindy Baxter, is in the Greenpeace team in Bonn keeping a weather eye on the latest round of negotiations to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Here’s her first guest blog: an insider’s view of events so far.
Bryan’s quoted Stern’s speech at length — I won’t bang on about it, but it’s still worth a mention. Stern’s not known for his charisma — the rumours going round here are that Obama’s speechwriter may have been involved. It was certainly in that league. Pressed all the right buttons.
After so many years of witnessing the Bush delegation’s wrecking ball, it was quite a moment to hear the US say: “You will not hear anyone on my team cast doubt upon or downplay the threat of global climate change. The science is clear, and the threat is real. The facts on the ground are outstripping the worst case scenarios. The costs of inaction—or inadequate actions—are unacceptable.”
It brought extended applause from the whole room; an audible sigh of relief. Some were in tears.
We Kiwis noted with glee the reference to anyone planning a high carbon economy being “losers” — wondering what Mr Brownlee thinks about that.
Yet on a more sober note, Waxman’s bill in Congress, released today, is a mixed bag. Sure, 7-8% by 2020 (at 1990 levels) is better than Obama’s 0% – but certainly nowhere near what we need from the US. The offsetting provisions (2bn US tons) would mean the fossil fuel industry could continue to pump out C02 for the next 20 years. But it’s early days and there may be another, better bill tabled before long.
Meanwhile back in Bonn, as Stern wowed his new fans, Bush’s former climate delegation leader Harlan Watson (originally recommended by ExxonMobil to work with the Bushies on climate) sat on the balcony of the plenary, headphones on, pretending he was typing. He’s here with a US congressional delegation, working for Republican sceptic Sensenbrenner. Why don’t I find that surprising?
He may have been coaching the OPECs. My top quote of the week so far was from Kuwait: “Let’s get real. We all need C02”.
Meanwhile the whole negotiations go along at a snail-like pace. Have they made progress? Not yet. Are they likely to? Debatable. The developed world’s focus seems to be on process – anything that means they can avoid the hard discussion on narrowing down the Chair’s proposal to resemble anything like the negotiating text that needs to be legally tabled by 17 June if we want to get a deal in Copenhagen.
The developing world is, meanwhile, still waiting for the action they were promised in – erm – 1992…
[Calexico]
The inner mounting flame
The rapid climate change underway in the Arctic has the potential to disrupt weather patterns around the planet, and brings with it the risk that methane bubbling out of the permafrost that rings the Arctic Ocean and from gas hydrates under the sea floor could make our attempts to restrain emissions and stabilise atmospheric greenhouse gases completely irrelevant. These concerns will not be news to Hot Topic regulars (try the methane and Arctic tags for earlier posts and background), but a thorough overview by Fred Pearce in last week’s New Scientist (Arctic meltdown is a threat to all humanity) pulls all the threads together and presents them in a compelling fashion. Pearce begins by looking at the experiences of Katey Walter:
“I am shocked, truly shocked,” says Katey Walter, an ecologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. “I was in Siberia a few weeks ago, and I am now just back in from the field in Alaska. The permafrost is melting fast all over the Arctic, lakes are forming everywhere and methane is bubbling up out of them.”
Back in 2006, in a paper in Nature, Walter warned that as the permafrost in Siberia melted, growing methane emissions could accelerate climate change. But even she was not expecting such a rapid change. “Lakes in Siberia are five times bigger than when I measured them in 2006. It’s unprecedented. This is a global event now, and the inertia for more permafrost melt is increasing.”
Not good news.
A good thing
There are signs that sanity might be emerging from the nitty gritty of the ETS review. On Friday Carbon News reported that Labour and the Greens had approached National to offer their support for an amended ETS, undercutting any influence ACT may have sought. Charles Chauvel, Labour’s climate spokesman, told Carbon News that it was a serious offer:
“It’s serious and thought-through,†he said. “We had a talk in our caucus and think it’s got to the point were they (the Government) have got themselves so tied up and captive to one side that if we don’t offer to be the circuit-breaker we won’t have an ETS.â€
According to CN, climate minister Nick Smith had responded positively. That’s excellent news, because as I said in my submission to the ETS Review, the country really needs to build a long-term cross-party consensus on climate policy.
Also on Friday, in a press release about NZ’s stance in the next phase of K2 negotiations at Bonn, Smith took the opportunity to confirm that the government was still committed to “50 by 50”, and a global target for greenhouse gases:
“New Zealand supports a global goal of long-term stabilisation of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a concentration of no higher than 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalents. This goal will be kept under review based on latest available intergovernmental assessments of science,†says Dr Smith.
Good. That’s the first time I’ve seen Smith commit to a global target, but I’m not sure he realises what 450 ppm CO2e really means. Consider the more than slightly inconvenient fact that we’re already at 450 ppm CO2e, but much of that is being masked by aerosols (aerosols bring the warming effect back to about the same level as current CO2 levels — 387 ppm). He might have meant 450 ppm CO2, or perhaps be factoring in a substantial overshoot before achieving stabilisation. In any event, if New Zealand is going to accept emissions targets similar to other developed countries, we’ll have to do better than 50 by 50, or risk being seen as free-riders.
Finally: two good articles on what ETS “harmonisation” with Australia might mean. There’s a thorough analysis by top law firm Chapman Tripp here, and an interesting piece by Brian Fallow in the Herald here. Bottom line? Linking the schemes is possible, but given Australia’s very different emissions profile and scheme design, could mean watering the NZ ETS down significantly. It would also mean much more support for “trade exposed” businesses — so expect the usual suspects to rush to support linking the schemes.
We can run, but we can’t hide…
This article appeared in the Perspectives section of The Press yesterday, as part of the paper’s build up up to Earth Hour this weekend. I haven’t seen the letters page today, but I expect the usual suspects will be out in force… 😉
The news isn’t good. Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) advised two years ago that the evidence for global warming was unequivocal, the pace of change has speeded up. Summer sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has seen a dramatic decline, and in a worrying foretaste of what may be to come, methane — a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide — has been found bubbling out of the ocean floor off Siberia. Down south, analysis of a core drilled into the seabed under the Ross Ice Shelf by a team including scientists from New Zealand (using Kiwi drilling expertise), demonstrates that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is unstable and likely to collapse if warming continues as we expect over the coming century. Experts are revising their projections of sea level rise upwards with each piece of bad news. A metre or more by the 2090s is now a real possibility.