Tag: election

In the land of make believe

NZETS.jpg Today’s lesson is taken from Jane Clifton’s Politics column in this week’s Listener (full text on the web next week). Her take on the current fuss over the Emissions Trading Scheme perfectly illustrates how the debate around this issue is being misunderstood and misrepresented, occasionally wilfully, sometimes from ignorance. This is not Clifton’s fault. She is reflecting only a certain kind of reality – the perception of the issue that is driving press coverage and political actions. Here’s a key passage:

“… most people have gotten the drift by now: to reduce carbon emissions means to reduce activities we currently benefit from and enjoy. And we will have to pay handsomely for our lack of pleasure.”

She then considers why the government is struggling with the scheme:

“It’s the ultimate non sequitur. A government that addressed this crisis seriously would become massively unpopular and lose office. A government that didn’t would be hideously irresponsible and deserve to lose office. Hard to avoid a certain fatalism.”

If the first part of the argument were true, then her “non sequitur” would follow. Happily, her assumption is completely wrong, so it doesn’t have to. But you’d be hard-pressed to glean that from the current discussion in NZ (or indeed from Clifton’s column).

Continue reading “In the land of make believe”

So it goes

NZETS.jpg The cacophony of lobbying around the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), coupled with high petrol prices, has prompted the government to announce a couple of changes to the scheme. Liquid fuels were supposed to enter the ETS in 2009, but this has now been delayed to 2011, and the phase out of the free allocation of emissions units to big emitters will now be postponed five years until 2018 [Herald, Radio NZ, Dominion Post].

Announcing the changes to the proposed legislation, Helen Clark also released the latest figures for the Kyoto liability:

… the provisional net position is projected to be a deficit of 21.7 million units during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012). This compares with the projected deficit reported in May 2007 of 45.5 million units, and is a drop of 52 per cent. This means the liability halves from $1 billion to $481.6 million.

When the ETS was announced last year, it was projected that the net liability would be about 22 million units after taking the expected effects of the scheme on emissions into account. The government is clearly confident that high petrol prices will achieve the same effect as the ETS over the two year extension period. That’s a defensible position at the moment, but if fuel prices fall the Kyoto liability could increase. It signals, perhaps, that the government is reasonably confident that petrol prices won’t fall. Or perhaps simply that in an election year contentious new policy is up for grabs. The word pusillanimous springs unbidden to my mind…

The fuel move is getting the most attention, but the five year extension on allocations of free units to big emitters is a direct response to intensive lobbying from those sectors. It will significantly reduce the business costs of cutting emissions in the longer run, but also amounts to an extension of a tax payer subsidy to those businesses. It will be interesting to see how they respond. Looking into my crystal ball, I confidently predict someone will say “it’s a welcome move, but not big enough”.

White light/white heat

NZETS.jpg The proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is under intense scrutiny at the moment. Lobbyists, economists and politicians are all pounding their respective beats, and as is usual in these matters, a great deal more heat than light is being shed on the proposed legislation. At the beginning of the week, the government’s climate change leadership forum – the great and the good of the business world – announced that it supported the broad outline of the ETS with some caveats (announcement, Herald), only for Business NZ to promptly withdraw its support. Then the Sustainability Council of NZ published a report [PDF] criticising the way that the ETS transfers revenue from consumers to key industries – especially agriculture – and warned that it wouldn’t do enough to reduce emissions. Not to be outdone, the NZ Institute for Economic Research produced its own report [PDF], warning that the scheme would do little good and cost the economy billions, and advising that we shold do nothing except buy Kyoto compliance on the world market. ACT leader Rodney Hide then announced that “the Government’s ETS is a crock and should be dumped.” There are now rumours that the government is running scared, and might delay implementing the petrol and fuels part of the scheme to avoid frightening consumers in the run up to the election. So, who’s right? Is Rodney’s incisive analysis on the money?

Continue reading “White light/white heat”

A rainbow (warrior) in curved air

RW08.jpg Second conference in a week in Wellington: this time the LexisNexis climate change symposium with lots of lawyers and a very impressive speaker list – and an invite to the Rainbow Warrior for a webcast climate change debate between David Parker, Nick “for Nelson” Smith, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Hone Harawira, with Sean (Jeepster) Plunket in the chair. Thanks to Greenpeace for getting me in (Susannah, Cindy, Kathy). It was most interesting. I’m planning to dissect the various parties promises in the run up to the election, so it was good to get a head start. Nick Smith was keen to get as many hits on David Parker as possible, but perhaps sensed he was on a sticky wicket given recent history. Hone was content to defer to the Greens on all matters of direct policy, and even DP did the same when I changed the subject from emissions to adaptation policy. Not satisfactorily answered, in my view, but watch the webcast and decide for yourselves.

I have a talk to give tomorrow, and so to bed.

Emissions trading: baby steps not big enough

NZETS.jpg As parliament starts to get stuck into the serious business of legislating for the government’s proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS), the tempo of criticism (from all sides) is increasing. Owners of pre-1990 forests have weighed in, and in the past week Greenpeace has launched a broadside:

“The current proposal for the structure of the ETS will deliver no significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, will act as an impediment to the rapid implementation of less carbon intensive production technologies in the manufacturing industry and will do nothing to slow the destruction of forests to make way for increasingly greenhouse gas intensive forms of dairy farming.” (Full report here [PDF])

At the same time, the New Zealand Institute has produced its second report on climate change policy (Actions speak louder than words: Adjusting the New Zealand economy to a low emissions world [PDF]), and isn’t impressed either…

Overall, however, we estimate that the various policies will only serve to reduce New Zealand’s domestic emissions in 2050 to about their 1990 level. The level of emissions reduction is not sufficient to adjust the New Zealand economy so that it is well positioned to compete in a low-emissions world.

Herald report here. Meanwhile Brian Fallow considers some more complex fishhooks in the proposed ETS, particularly as they affect cement manufacturers Holcim.
Both new reports make good points (and are well worth reading), but both also suffer from real problems, some general and some particular.

Continue reading “Emissions trading: baby steps not big enough”