Climate politics – Page 89

The Climate Show #21: carbon, coal and Cook on BEST

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Bad news on carbon emissions balanced by good news on solar photovoltaics, a Medicane bringing dramatic flash flooding to Italy and France, a scientist who thinks the Arctic could be effectively ice free in late summer in only four years, and the inside story on what the New Zealand election might mean for climate policy down under. John Cook joins us to talk about the new BEST temperature record (great gifs, Dana!), and in the solutions section Gareth and Glenn talk about solar powered airships, China’s plans to ban incandescent light bulbs, and a continent spanning €400bn solar thermal power plan for North Africa, Europe and the Middle East. All this and more as The Climate Show comes of age with its 21st show…

Watch The Climate Show on our Youtube channel, subscribe to the podcast via iTunes, listen to us via Stitcher on your smartphone or listen direct/download from the link below the fold…

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Let the sun shine in

Soon after writing the post in which I reported Carbon War Room CEO Shigar Khan’s prediction that within this decade incremental energy will all be coming from renewables I saw Paul Krugman’s latest column in the New York Times. He draws attention to the rapidly falling cost of solar power:

If the downward trend continues — and if anything it seems to be accelerating — we’re just a few years from the point at which electricity from solar panels becomes cheaper than electricity generated by burning coal.

That, of course, is the point at which there’s no longer any question of continuing with new coal or even gas powered electricity generation.

Not that it’s a matter of simply waiting for that to happen. Krugman points out that it would likely already have happened if fossil fuels were priced to take into account the external costs they impose. And he sees the fossil fuel industry fighting hard to oppose and delay the transition.

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Three years of “very serious” climate policy failure

A damning review of the climate policy of the current government by three leading academics finds that it has made “little substantive progress” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that work on adapting to climate change impacts has been “even more deficient”, and that current policies are likely to be “economically wasteful”. End-of-term review of the New Zealand Government’s response to climate change: a public health perspective by Nick Wilson, Ralph Chapman, and Philippa Howden-Chapman, published in last week’s NZ Medical Journal ((NZMJ 4 November 2011, Vol 124 No 1345, http://journal.nzma.org.nz/journal/124-1345/4949/ (behind a paywall))), looked at five main policy areas — NZ’s contribution to international action, giving carbon price signals to the market, supporting domestic R&D (for example, into renewable energy), supportive regulation and policy development, and supportive infrastructure investment. In each area, the National-led government’s actions were found wanting. Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

In summary, in this last electoral term there appears to have been little substantive progress by the current government on reducing greenhouse gas emissions (via work internationally or domestically), despite government targets (2020 and 2050) requiring material action. Government responses towards adapting to climate change impacts seem to be even more deficient (hardly more than some guidance documents). This lack of attention may be considered to be very serious given the potential size of the climate change threat — to public health and for the whole of society. It can also be considered economically wasteful in that the New Zealand economy is placed at increased risk of having to make a more abrupt and disorderly transition in the future. Also if other nations react to this lack of response by imposing carbon tariffs on New Zealand exports, this could also have serious economic consequences given the economy’s dependence on trade.

Lead author associate professor Nick Wilson of the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago commented:

“Action on climate change needs to be considered as an urgently required form of catastrophe insurance, but we are clearly not seeing this with minimal government action in recent years.”

Full paper available here. See also: Scoop (press release), No Right Turn, TV3News.

Oxfam NZ Election Debate: Climate change

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Environment minister Nick Smith, Labour’s David Parker and the Green Party’s Kennedy Graham debate climate policy in these edited highlights from the first of Oxfam NZ’s election debates, held last week in Auckland. Debate ranged from whether New Zealand can become carbon-free to the likelihood of a cross-party agreement on long-term issues that last more than an election cycle, and from the effect of investing in roads to the question of bringing agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

More on the debate from Oxfam NZ’s Jason Garman below the fold…

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Baby steps: Australia’s carbon tax passes Senate vote

Today could be viewed as an historic day for Australia, where the carbon tax has just today been voted through the Senate. Historic, yes, because it’s taken 20 years for Australia to finally implement this legislation. Finally, a price has been put on carbon in Australia. O my, what a fight it has been. If the NZ Herald thought Robyn Malcolm’s attack on John Key at the weekend was “vitriolic”, I’m not sure how they’d label the toxic politics across the ditch.

Tony Abbott has vowed in blood to repeal the package. He’s been obsessed with blood, baying for Julia Gillard’s all year. But it doesn’t seem to have got him anywhere — his unpopularity has reached new heights today, according to a news poll today.

I’m not going to go into the details of the tax and how it compares with NZ, as Mr February has covered that far better than I ever could in two excellent blogs here and here.

The tax has rallied the right. And boy have they rallied, with anti-carbon tax rallies up and down the country, festooned with abusive placards like “ditch the bitch” – and much, much worse. At one point even Tony had to distance himself from these, his most avid supporters.

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