ETS review

You never give me your money

by Gareth May 28, 2009

Bill English’s first budget has disappointed many by ditching promised tax cuts, but pleased a few by reinstating a Green home insulation initiative. The Science Media Centre has a handy summary here. There’s $321 million of new money for R&D through a “Primary Growth Partnership” (details due on June 2), which goes some way to [...]

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The Minister Speaks

by Bryan Walker May 28, 2009

The Minister Responsible for Climate Change Issues Nick Smith’s address to the recent NZ Climate Change Centre’s conference Managing the Unavoidable appeared to be the first comprehensive public statement he has made since assuming ministerial responsibility.  I read it with interest and here offer comments on some of it. 

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Blackleg miner

by Gareth May 9, 2009

Solid Energy, NZ’s state-owned coal mining company, is promoting an alternative to an economy wide emissions trading scheme. According to Carbon News, the approach is being “heavily peddled to policy makers and others in Wellington”, and it is seen to have “great simplistic appeal”. Carbon News has made the document, A Durable Climate Change Strategy [...]

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Unreliable witness

by Gareth April 30, 2009

During my appearance before the ETS Review committee earlier this month I was asked by committee chairperson Peter Dunne to comment on the evidence presented by the submitters who appeared immediately before me — McCabe Environmental Services, being one Bruce McCabe and Kathleen Ryan-McCabe. ACT member John Boscawen was clearly wondering how two sets of [...]

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Sound of silence

by Gareth April 26, 2009

The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) has fired climate scientist Jim Salinger for “unauthorised dealings” with the media. Salinger has been one of New Zealand’s leading climate scientists since the 1970s, and his sacking has shocked many in the scientific community. The Dominion Post reports: The Crown agency’s long-serving principal scientist was [...]

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Shaking the money tree

by Gareth April 15, 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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Hows about telling a story

by Gareth April 13, 2009

Peter Dunne’s assurance that the ETS Review process won’t turn into a re-examination of climate science is set to run into a few problems. Looking through the full list of submitters who will make oral presentations to the committee (below the fold), I count no fewer than eleven (plus one “possible”) who will or have [...]

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Bob’s big lie

by Gareth April 13, 2009

Time to revisit events at crank central. In the course of researching the NIPCC (at the behest of Peter Dunne), I popped over to the International Climate Science Coalition site, and then on to their Australian spin-off. The Aussie crank collective is greatly enriched by the presence of Prof Bob Carter, known here as “the [...]

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Do you remember the first time?

by Gareth April 9, 2009

There’s a first time for everything, and today it was making an oral submission to a parliamentary committee — the ETS Review committee. I made my written submission public a while ago, so I won’t repeat that here, but in my 15 minute slot (5 mins for initial presentation, 10 mins for questions), I chose [...]

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The other side of the world

by Gareth April 8, 2009

Imagine this: the country’s leading business organisation — noted for its robust espousal of free markets and business freedom — takes the government to task for not doing enough, fast enough to get emissions on a downward path. So it releases four roadmaps, for the power, industrial, energy and transport sectors designed to deliver emissions [...]

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