Your link to the ‘later comment’ doesn’t answer anything except the level of your ignorance on the issue. “sequester them for a long time by using them as building materials”, you seem to miss the point here. The reason we are announcing a target is for the Bonn UNFCCC negotiations, leading up to Copenhagen. It therefore makes zero sense to not base that target on UNFCCC rules.

“but there’s nothing to say that such a crude approximation needs to continue with Copenhagen”

Don’t under estimate the power of the status quo. This is a political issue as well as a scientific one now. Take the current Annex-1 non Annex-1 distinction. Latvia Lithuania etc in and Korea Taiwan etc out. 100% : 0% distinction. Very poor method to have an agreement. But the method is established so it will be kept.

But on the topic of “NZ being only a small part of the world”; I think you’re underestimating the effect of saying “15% if the rules don’t change, 40% if they do”.

Yes, we could negotiate all kinds of things but unfortunately its not that simple! Its a big world out there and NZ is only a small part of it. We have to wait and see, the NZ govt has put in the following submission:

http://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/nz_lulucf.pdf

The Australians have backed us up:

http://unfccc.int/files/kyoto_protocol/application/pdf/australia060309.pdf

So maybe it will get through.

But its not the answer to everything. HWP would smooth the bumps, but it would still mean production forest emissions are net zero in the long run. Afforestation will only sequester emissions for a limited time. And soil carbon will reach a maximum.

Burning 200 million year old carbon can not be reversed by sequestering carbon for 25 years. Or 100 years. Even if the carbon was stored for 100 years it doesn’t come close.

All these measure, forestry, soil carbon, etc, only postpone our liability. Usually they mean that when it does it hits harder, because we have the double whammy of gross emissions and net emissions from LULUCF.

(Look at figure 5, year about 2025:
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/publications/climate/nz-2020-emissions-target/nz-2020-emissions-target.pdf

So I think anyone who supports an aggressive target (of say greater than +15%, because I think thats about the best we can reach) needs to think of a better way than just planting trees.

NICK “I do. Look we’re in the middle of a recession, we’ve got a thousand people a week losing jobs, if we go for a target one I don’t think is achievable, I don’t think you’d get there, I think you’d do more damage to New Zealand’s reputation and certainly you’re not going to get. When I look at the track record of what’s been achieved, the analysis that I’ve been getting from Ministry of Economic Development about how much progress we can make in the electricity sector, how much progress we can make in improving transport and getting a better efficiency there. If I look at the agricultural sector where New Zealand’s got a ginormous challenge.”

Clearly the articulate words of a man with a real grip on the ginormous challenge we face. I don’t need to finish my sentences, it is economically unaffordable for ministers to speak intelligibly in the midst of a recession!

The category 1 from the SRES scenarios tables has a 2050 global emissions reduction range of -85 to -50, from 2000 levels. I guess this is where Nick Smith get’s his 50 by 50 from.

Given that NZ is amongst, the highest per-capita emitters, it seems somewhat inequitable to suggest that we only have to meet the global average. If National is advocating that strategy, they are advocating to force countries such as Kenya to also reduce it’s emissions by a significant amount. i.e. say 300 kg/yr CO2 to 150kg/yr, while we reduce from 20 tonnes/yr CO2 to 10 tonnes/yr CO2. This is obviously unjust and will not lead to any agreement with developing world in Copenhagen.

If countries such as Kenya are to develop their emissions will likely rise, because of this the developed world will have to make reductions beyond the global average in-order to accommodate their continued development.

(Btw – I’m not sure what Kenya’s emissions are exactly, as they were just a flat line at the bottom of the graph, so these figures are just a demonstration.)

Looks like the feedback from the public consultation round has not been fully taken on board.

At the Nelson meeting there was talk of negotiating a change in rules so that forestry turned to timber products could be counted as sequestered for the lifetime of the product. Where is the mention of that? NZ could probably easily count an extra 10% down with that rule changed, and such a term would boost NZ forestry’s profitability no end.

There were soil experts who pointed out that NZ agriculture could become net producers of carbon credits, not consumers, through soil management. The ground can hold more carbon than forests, and we have the expertise and conditions to capitalise on it through the global ETS markets. NZ’s emissions profile is not a “special circumstance”, it is an opportunity.

Businesses emitting carbon need such information added to their shareholders’ reports, balanced by credits received from the government or purchased on ETS markets. In the EU, the “free” allocation of credits will be auctioned off by 2020; in order for that to work, we need to know who are getting which allocations.

Instead of enabling these Free Market approaches we’ll just be seeing more Big Government. Say hello to increased taxes to pay the bill and corporate welfare giving businesses no economic advantage to enact change. The worst thing you can give to a business that isn’t competitive is a hand-out and that is exactly what this government is planning to do.

He was talking about the cycleway though. I wish I were joking.