Posts tagged as:

election

The price of a policy

by Gareth 4 August 2009

In the run up to last year’s election I devoted a lot of coverage to the ACT party’s descent into climate denial, and in particular to the outrageous statements of its leader Rodney Hide. It wasn’t clear to me at the time why Hide was ditching the party’s carefully constructed “Smart Green” positioning on environmental [...]

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Woodman, spare that tree (foresters attitudes to the ETS)

by Piers 25 November 2008

As one would expect from a rurally based sector, foresters are a conservative lot. I don’t say that disrespectfully, because societies – for the sake of stability – need a balanced mixture of change-makers and change-resisters. But it did mean that, when in 1989 I started work on Climate Change and forestry, I met [...]

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Knock on wood

by Gareth 25 November 2008

Rumblings about the forestry industry’s disappointment with the “suspension” of the ETS have not been slow to surface, but as I’m no expert on the business (though I do like trees) I asked well-known forestry consultant Piers Maclaren if he could provide Hot Topic’s readers with an overview of what’s going on. I must [...]

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Two worlds collide

by Gareth 24 November 2008

On the one hand, we have Brian Fallow in the Herald providing a cogent analysis of the new government’s decision to do a deal with ACT and put a carbon tax back on the table:

In any case it represents further delay and uncertainty to follow the three years wasted as the previous Government failed to [...]

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Wagging the dog

by Gareth 16 November 2008

John Key has just announced the deal he has signed with ACT, allowing National to form a minority government. It looks – at least in terms of the agreement on climate policy, very much like Hide’s tail is wagging the National dog, and New Zealand’s stance on climate change is about to take a big [...]

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When will they ever learn?

by Gareth 12 November 2008

“Forget global warming. The cold, hard facts point to another threat on the horizon – severe cooling.” That’s the strapline over an opinion piece in yesterday’s Dominion Post business section (Sunspots spell end of climate myth), contributed by Bryan Leyland, one of the more vocal of our local climate cranks. It’s an astonishing piece, given [...]

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Things are gonna change (the morning after)

by Gareth 10 November 2008

On the morning after I was more interested in the rugby than agonising over the entrails of Saturday night’s election result, but today it’s worth traversing what new Zealand’s new political landscape might bring for climate policy. For the wider picture, I recommend Russell Brown’s take at Hard News and Gordon Campbell’s at Scoop; they [...]

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John, I’m only dancing

by Gareth 7 November 2008

You gotta to hand it to Rodney Hide – his bumptiousness knows no bounds. Yesterday he sent a public “letter” to John Key: What Rodney’ll tell John If You Give Him Enough Act Mps! And in it he repeats his now-familiar climate crank schtick:

John, you gotta get the country out of this Emissions Trading Scam.
I’ve [...]

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Take care the road you choose

by Gareth 6 November 2008

Now that one election’s out of the way, (a good result: Obama’s committed to 80 percent reductions by 2050) time to focus on what’s happening in New Zealand. I’ve promised several times to offer an analysis of the major parties offerings on climate change and emissions reductions, but I’ve been pre-empted by a very useful [...]

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You can’t Hide (your policy from me)

by Gareth 22 October 2008

A few months ago, Rodney Hide decided that he and his party had little to lose and votes to gain by declaring themselves to be climate sceptics. I’ve roundly criticised this stance in earlier posts, and this week I’ve been joined by The Listener’s Ecologic columnist Sarah Barnett, who takes Hide to task here (full [...]

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