It’s been a long day in Palmerston North at the NZ Climate Change Conference for 2013. There’ll be nothing particularly cogent in this post, but I have recorded interviews with two of the VUW 3 — Jim Renwick tells me about the southern annular mode,the ozone hole and sea ice, and Dave Frame gives me his take on TCS, ECS and Oxford — plus Professor Barry Smit from the University of Guelph in Canada talks about Inuit, wine and uncertainty. I’ll be posting those interviews later this week, along with some more I hope to grab tomorrow, and I’m lining up some guest posts for the future. All fascinating stuff — and I have to say it’s a great relief to find a bunch of really smart people who are focussed on the nuts and bolts of the issue, not the sceptic sideshow.
11 thoughts on “NZ Climate Change Conference 2013 day one”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Not quite off topic and certainly related to Climate Change in NZ is this petition, currently open:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition
/Save_New_Zealands_solar_industry_from_accidental_death/?bbKxbab&v=25450
Here’s what we’re asking:
– introduce a clear, safe, nationwide standard for the installation of solar power systems that is specific to New Zealand and doesn’t let power distributors make up the rules as they go along;
— eliminate application fees for solar installations and reduce soft costs as much as possible ;
— introduce a national financing strategy for enabling private citizens and businesses to install solar power, and fair pricing and billing for solar power generators to encourage people to install solar panels and earn money on excess power they produce (a net-metering law).
Hi Richard, do you have a copy of that standard? I would be quite interested to learn more about this. Also Enasolar, the ChCh based manufacturer of inverters should have a statement on this. Do you know more about it?
Found you excellent Google Docs write up. All clear now.
Roof disconnects are certainly an interesting issue. A German company SolteQ has an interesting solution:
http://www.solteq.eu/Flyer_SolteQ_BFA_ENG.pdf
with a single wire trigger panel isolation switch.
Hi Thomas, I pasted directly from an Avaaz.org email alert, it includes link to the google doc:
As an investor in a NZ solar company, I was shocked to discover that a careless change in the rules — forcing solar companies to use a particular inverter technology that hasn’t even been invented yet — could come into force any day now and stop our solar industry dead in its tracks. The regulators would never try something like this with the dirty fossil fuel industry — but if we all speak out now, we can make this into a media scandal they won’t be able to ignore!
Solar panels are not just a green technology, they’re also a great financial investment for New Zealand homes and businesses. Even John Key called for reducing “the Pacific region’s reliance on expensive fossil fuels for electricity” a few weeks ago — let’s hold him to his word and cut the red tape so the solar industry can shine!
New Zealand has almost unlimited potential to generate clean energy from the sun. And if we create a huge outcry now, we can wake up the regulators and set a new agenda that reduces costs for installing solar and supports people to sell back their solar power production with a net-metering law — these measures would give so many more people access to this smart, environmentally beneficial investment! Please add your name and tell all your friends, and I’ll make sure the law-drafters get our message loud and clear.
Join us! Click below to sign the petition and forward to everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_New_Zealands_solar_industry_from_accidental_death/?bbKxbab&v=25450
The draft law calls for solar panel installers to use an inverter with special features that hasn’t even been invented yet, or they’ll fall afoul of the law. The drafters know they made a mistake, which is why they’ve written an amendment – but it’s anyone’s guess when this amendment will pass, and it could be after the new standard comes into effect! This is crazy, and just a symptom of the risks to the solar industry and consumers in New Zealand. There are other major problems with the standard, too, impacting safety and driving up costs for installers. We can do better, for our economy, small business and the environment.
As it is, lines companies already have almost unlimited discretion to set the rules for solar installers in their districts, making it tough for solar companies to know what is expected of them and keep their businesses afloat. But if enough of us raise our voices, we can wake up the regulators and together we can give clean energy a fair chance, with a plan to save the solar industry.
Here’s what we’re asking:
– introduce a clear, safe, nationwide standard for the installation of solar power systems that is specific to New Zealand and doesn’t let power distributors make up the rules as they go along;
— eliminate application fees for solar installations and reduce soft costs as much as possible ;
— introduce a national financing strategy for enabling private citizens and businesses to install solar power, and fair pricing and billing for solar power generators to encourage people to install solar panels and earn money on excess power they produce (a net-metering law).
This is ground zero for making a meaningful local impact for combating climate-killing fossil fuels. The oil and gas lobby is so strong it can shove legislation through Parliament that erodes our environment and basic rights. It’s time for us to show them that clean, solar energy has its own people-powered lobby!
Join me now to call for making solar simple and accessible for us all!
Sign here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Save_New_Zealands_solar_industry_from_accidental_death/?bbKxbab&v=25450
Here’s a brief I wrote with industry professionals on the regulatory framework and highlighting other key issues: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TcVQ5IHd_t-aaZqKCTXi9IJQGj_Fyj3_idnoo3K6NZk/edit
If you have questions or want more details, please email sbrancaforte@gmail.com. Thanks!
For more information, see http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/8734499/Solar-generation-gains-momentum
Say hello to Salinger for me, but remind him to practice telling difference between Marmite and Vegemite.
Too late to pass on your regards, sadly – I’m back home now. But Jim S was in fine form – one presentation on patterns of drought in NZ, a poster on a new index for the Pacific intertropical convergence zone, and lots of questions and comments. Being his own boss is suiting him right down to the ground…
Good to see you there, Gareth. I thought it went really well – lots of good grounded stuff. I felt sorry for the folks who obviously had loads of stuff to present but not so long to present – eg Adolf Stroombergen’s manic tour de Computable General Equilibrium Model and Garth Harmsworth’s talk being prime examples. Loads to learn from every slide, but not enough time to digest them!
Highlights for me included the sconomics & science modelling sessions, as well as the session on Maori & Community Resilience. Also fun was the Marsden-rejects-sob-a-thon on Tuesday evening (over a beer), and attempting to pick winners while watching the racing channel last night with my 4-year-old son. Lowlights include not being able to get dinner at the hotel restaurant because they’d given all the family-sized tables to parties of one – they clearly just didn’t want a 7-month old in there…
Anyway… on the whole it was a very good conference. Richard Nottage and David Wratt ought to be really proud of producing it.
Yes – a very interesting couple of days. I’m going to have download quite a few sets of slides to be able to dwell on the content (Adrian Macey’s was a classic of that genre) – and to cover some of the schedule clashes. I’ll be posting our chat in the next 24 hours – this evening, perhaps…
I prefer Vegemite 🙂
Marmite (whether UK or NZ varieties) and Vegemite are all acquired tastes … from which most people run in terror of ever acquiring.
(Last Fall, we had Jim & Kerry over for afternoon tea, and my wife included two kinds of toast, one with Marmite and one with Vegemite … as we actually keep both around. We ski every year at Big White, owned by Australians, the only ski resort I’ve seen where ski shops pile the Vegemite high.)
While minor in the overall scheme of things, has the Marmite factory in Christchurch resumed production? (I’m still sad for Christchurch, we’ve had good visits, and Kevin (Trenberth) still has relatives there, quite a mess.)
Christchurch-produced Marmite went back on the shelves in March.
Of course, NZ Marmite is not the same as UK Marmite, so for completeness the gourmet home needs those as well as Vegemite. I have no real preference, except for getting my yeast unmediated from the source (beer, originally).