Posts tagged as:

agriculture

Self-interested, myopic hot-air

by Gareth 26 September 2009

New Zealand’s farming leadership have not distinguished themselves in the debate about climate policy. Federated Farmers president Don Nicholson has called for NZ to set no target for emissions reductions and for agriculture to be excluded from the emissions trading scheme, and former vice-president Frank Brenmuhl is still ruminating on the need for more debate [...]

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Why did Nick Smith hide the facts on forestry?

by Gareth 21 August 2009

Government ministers have deliberately played down the role of forestry in meeting emissions targets, documents released under the Official Information Act suggest. Diligent digging at No Right Turn has uncovered a Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry paper [PDF] titled New forest planting and harvesting intentions under high carbon prices, which makes clear that forest planting [...]

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The size of a cow

by Gareth 12 August 2009

NZ’s farming leadership remains in denial about the need for action on climate change, as a remarkable speech [full text, Stuff report] by Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson demonstrates. Addressing the Plant Protection Society’s annual conference in Dunedin yesterday, Nicholson took swipes at Keisha Castle-Hughes, Greenpeace and the Green Party:

It’s not the reality that [...]

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Farming carbon: part of the solution?

by Bryan Walker 15 July 2009

 This column was published in the Waikato Times on July 14
Could New Zealand agriculture be part of the solution to climate change?  We know all too well that it is part of the problem –- and that’s not an accusation, by the way, just a recognition.  But problems are there to be tackled, and what [...]

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The first cut is the deepest

by Gareth 6 July 2009

This week climate minister Nick Smith and international negotiator Tim Groser start their 2020 emissions target roadshow, ostensibly taking the pulse of the nation on the question of what target New Zealand should commit to in the run-up to Copenhagen in December. Much of the argument will undoubtedly centre around the costs of taking action. [...]

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Shaking the money tree

by Gareth 15 April 2009

NZ Incorporated has moved from a Kyoto deficit to a surplus, according to the 2009 Net Position Report [PDF] released today. A reduction in agricultural emissions due to the 2007/8 drought, and an upwards revision in forest carbon have produced an expected surplus of 9.6 million tonnes of carbon over the first Kyoto commitment period: [...]

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Telling porkies to Parliament

by Gareth 24 March 2009

The Emissions Trading Scheme Review committee has released the first batch of submissions it has received — those made by organisations and individuals who have already made their presentations to the committee. There are some heavy hitters in there: from New Zealand’s science and policy community there’s the Climate Change Centre (a joint venture between [...]

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Melting Point

by Bryan Walker 14 March 2009

Eric Dorfman is an ecologist.  He has been aware of the science of climate change since his doctoral student days in the 1990s but he credits Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth with inspiring him to make a larger contribution towards addressing the issue. Hence his book Melting Point: New Zealand and the Climate Change Crisis, published [...]

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Nice weather for ducks

by Gareth 15 January 2009

A couple of days ago, NIWA published its climate summary for 2008 — a comprehensive overview of all the weather events that went together to make last year what it was. In general, 2008 was sunny and warm for New Zealand, but with many notable extreme weather events — a “rollercoaster” of a year, [...]

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Cloud nine (#2)

by Gareth 23 October 2008

Forty leading Australian scientists have issued an urgent call for action on climate change. Drafted by Barrie Pittock and Andrew Glickson, the statement says that there is a “window of opportunity to halt a climate crisis”, if Australia begins:

Urgently cutting carbon emissions.
Seizing the opportunity to fast-track utilisation of established and new clean energy technologies [...]

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