carbon

Australia’s carbon price mechanism in six dot points

by Gareth November 11, 2011

Rosemary Lyster, Professor of Climate and Environmental Law at the University of Sydney explains the most important features of Australia’s new emissions law. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the framework with the current ETS legislation in NZ, and what may happen to our framework if National form the next government. [Republished from The Conversation] [...]

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The Climate Show #11: a trillion tonnes of trouble

by Gareth April 14, 2011

Glenn says he thinks this show’s “a cracker” (but he always says that), and despite the lack of a special star guest — though with the help of assorted luminaries from the Climate Futures Forum (David’s Karoly and Frame, Robert Gifford and Erik Conway –) we cover a huge range of issues, from Jim Hansen’s [...]

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A ton too far (more bad news)

by Gareth April 12, 2011

At the Climate Futures Forum in Wellington a couple of weeks ago, David Karoly discussed the idea of considering carbon emissions as a “stock” problem, not a “flow” problem. If we want to give ourselves a 75 percent chance of coming in below a 2ºC rise in the global average temperature, then we (as in [...]

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Lester Brown and the water lilies

by Bryan Walker April 6, 2011

When I was reviewing Paul Gilding’s book The Great Disruption I was frequently aware of similarities with Lester Brown’s writing, most recently World on the Edge. The parallels were highlighted further for me when I viewed an excellent recent documentary on Lester Brown’s advocacy which has recently screened on PBS in the US. I recommend the film [...]

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Routefinding the future: reflecting on the climate futures forum

by Gareth April 5, 2011

Two busy days in Te Papa last week, and a lot to think about. The Climate Futures Forum organised by the Climate Change Research Institute at VUW was fascinating and disturbing in equal measure. Fascinating because it’s hard not to be interested when a lot of very smart people are feeding you information, and disturbing [...]

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The Climate Show #8: Kevin Trenberth and our shaky future

by Gareth March 3, 2011

The Climate Show returns with a packed show, featuring one of the world’s best known climate scientists, NZ-born, Colorado-based Dr Kevin Trenberth — star of the Climategate “where’s the missing heat” emails. He’s been in New Zealand to visit family (experiencing the Christchurch quake in the process) and to attend a conference, and his comments [...]

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Europe looks to bolder targets

by Bryan Walker February 22, 2011

No doubt the New Zealand climate change minister will point out that the New Zealand’s emissions profile is different from that of the EU and that the exchanges about reduction targets that have been taking place in Europe in recent days therefore have little relevance for us. Nevertheless I have taken heart from reading about [...]

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Russian roulette with a rainforest

by Bryan Walker February 11, 2011

I reported in a November post that it appeared likely that the 2010 Amazon drought was even more severe than the 2005 drought, itself identified as a 1-in-100-year event. Now Simon Lewis of Leeds University and Paulo Brando of Brazil’s Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM) and others have published a paper in Science with rainfall [...]

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An immediate halt to CO2 emissions is an absolute necessity…

by Gareth February 8, 2011

…if we are to maintain the health of ocean ecosystems, says Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in this video presentation, given to a symposium at the recent Our Changing Oceans conference in Washington DC. It’s sobering viewing. Here are the primary messages from the symposium: There [...]

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The Carbon Forest

by Bryan Walker December 24, 2010

A suburban section has long been the limit of my landowning ambition and I’m too old now to start thinking of anything more, but the prospect opened up by a newly published small book had me imagining I could well become interested if I were younger.  The book is The Carbon Forest: A New Zealand [...]

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