Comments on: Self-interested, myopic hot-air

By: samv

samv — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:24:52 +0000

These are all very good questions to ask the Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues. Because the obvious answers at the moment are that to make the “10-20%” reduction, credits will need to be purchased on the world market, out of the public purse.

However unless the National Government is going to propose stealing Kyoto credits from foresters without a sale (ie, counting forestation as credits but not paying the foresters for them), foresters could simply bank the credits until the intellectual tide in government is back in and they can be sold at market rates. As forestry assets have a much longer maturation date, this might work – should the appropriate investors be convinced…

By: scaddenp

scaddenp — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:50:30 +0000

Sorry, coming very late to this, but if NZ ring-fences farming from ETS, how to make a commitment of 20% reductions by 2020? This is a 40% reduction below current levels. Because half of emissions are in farming, if you dont create sinks, then this means 80% reduction in non-farming section – in 11 years (and assumes farming will emissions constant). Making big strides in getting rid of fossil fuel from electricity and direct home/industrial use is indeed possible but 25% of our emissions are from transport. An 80% reduction in the amount of fuel used for transport in 11 years? This is NOT going to happen. We cant electrify transport that fast. So we have to look to sinks. 1 million ha of new kyoto forestry would make it feasible I think. Is this going to happen? If farmers start paying for emissions, then this will make dairying less attractive and forestry look a better. Farming has to in.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:52:39 +0000

False dichotomy.

By: R2D2

R2D2 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:14:32 +0000

OK, so just to complete the circle, if a properly designed ETS is prohibitively expensive, does it make sense to implement a poor ETS?

By: Gareth

Gareth — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:10:56 +0000

All you’re doing is making my point for me. A properly designed system will send the right incentives down to farm level. A bad one won’t. So let’s not design a bad one…

As I’ve said before, about the only good reason for delaying agriculture’s entry to the ETS is the need to sort out this sort of issue. But it is not, and will never be a sufficient reason to keep agriculture out of the ETS in the long term.

By: CTG

CTG — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:47:23 +0000

But you then went on to talk about end-of-the-world predictions. I wanted to make it clear that Malthus was not in that category.

By: R2D2

R2D2 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:59:35 +0000

Read my comment again, “Thomas Malthus predicted catastrophe due to unsustainable growth in 1798, this is nothing new.”

By: R2D2

R2D2 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:49:15 +0000

Claiming you are right does not make it so.

OK, one point at a time.

Point 1: Flat tax

Fonterra “The assessment of emissions at an individual
farm level will be required to recognise the individual use of mitigation technologies”

http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/D77E0EC9-9AB5-4BA6-ADE3-872AED31734F/103579/FonterraCoOperativeGroupLimited_183_1.pdf

Meat and Wool, Meat Industry Association

“It is the very strongly held view of M&WNZ and MIA, and others in the agricultural industry, that any trading scheme for agriculture will not be efficacious and transparent in promoting direct incentives to pursue innovation, technology and emissions efficiency relating to on-farm GHG emissions if meat processors and fertiliser manufacturers / importers are the participants responsible for on-farm emissions.”

“Another option that has been advocated by various government departments is a hybrid model that incorporates farm and processor level options and information. M&WNZ and MIA’s view is that it is not practical to implement a hybrid model apart from on a very small scale as a pilot for farm level.”

http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/C387DE61-F0C0-4315-94CD-21F61764B537/103639/MeatandWoolIndustries_220_1.pdf

Fed Farmers (I know you don’t like them Gareth but they do know a thing or two about this)
“The end result under a processor as point of obligation
is that any efforts undertaken on-farm, any distinctions between producers, would be averaged out on a per kg of product basis. This is effectively a flat tax. One has to ask where the incentive for behaviour change can be found in a situation like that.”

http://www.parliament.nz/NR/rdonlyres/236B1BDA-8C00-4A23-B6DD-E6C181C1E8E8/103573/FederatedFarmersofNewZealand_198_1.pdf

By: CTG

CTG — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:39:51 +0000

Malthus himself did not predict “the end of the world”. What he said was that population growth was exponential, whereas resource growth was linear, and that therefore population growth would at some point exceed the ability of resources to support it. He said that “positive checks”, i.e. disease, famine etc, would then reduce the population back to subsistence level, i.e. at the resource limit, not all the way back to zero.

This is represented in today’s population models by the logistic function, where exponential growth is tempered by the carrying capacity.

But yes, plenty of other people have predicted the end of the world and have been wrong.

By: R2D2

R2D2 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:47:27 +0000

Thomas Malthus predicted catastrophe due to unsustainable growth in 1798, this is nothing new. People have been predicting the end of the world since we can remember but they are yet to be right.