I’m just putting the final touches to my talk at tomorrow’s World Peace Summit: Climate Change – What To Do? in Wellington, at the Westpac St James Theatre. David Wratt, Pene Lefale and I will be covering climate science and local impacts, and Andrew West, Rod Oram, Rachel Brown and Nick Collins will handle the what to do part (full programme here). The day’s organised by the Yoga In Daily Life organisation, and their top man H. H. Mahamandaleshwar Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda (Swamiji) will be in the chair. The event runs from 9-00 to 5-30, and tickets are $75. Should be an interesting way to spend a Saturday for Wellingtonians, if you ignore my bit…
Tag: EV
Black is the new white
Once again the sceptic-friendly opinion pages of the Herald provide noted NZ denier Chris de Freitas with a platform to spout the most astonishing tripe. It seems CdF reacted badly to a Reuters report about Tuvalu’s concerns about sea level rise. So he rushes to assure the Pacific island nation that their problem has nothing to do with climate change:
There is some inundation evident on islands in Tuvalu, but global warming is not the cause. It is the result of erosion, sand mining and construction projects causing an inflow of sea water.
That’s a relief. An associate professor in the geography department at Auckland University knows better than the world’s climate scientists and the government of Tuvalu. I hope the people of Tuvalu are suitably relieved.
Unfortunately, Chris undermines his good deed by continuing to talk utter nonsense. And “utter” is a mild description.
Emissions trading: baby steps not big enough
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”
I heard it through the grapevine
Could vineyards be the “canary in the coalmine” for climate change impacts on agriculture? British wine writer Robert Joseph in the Guardian [UK] covers some of the ideas that emerged in last month’s Barcelona wine and climate conference:
For anyone who feels they have finally mastered the concept of postmodernist books and architecture, there is a new intellectual and linguistic challenge, in the shape of “post-classic” wines. The term was coined by the world’s leading viticulturist Dr Richard Smart, at the second World Conference on Global Warming and Wine in Barcelona last month before an audience of the great and good of the wine world and – via a carbon-saving video link – Al Gore. If even a few of the alarming predictions made by experts at that event prove accurate, many of the world’s most famous wines may either simply cease to exist or be altered beyond recognition over the next 50 years. The effect of climate change will not be restricted to wine – but for Smart, wine may be “the canary in the coal mine of agriculture”.
It’s an excellent piece, well worth reading even if your only interest in wine is drinking the stuff. (Declaration of interest: RJ is an old mate, and I have a small vineyard).
Sail on sailor
Pausing in my peregrinations in Nelson, where it rains (but not so much as in Golden Bay last weekend), I’m catching up on climate news. In Hot Topic I looked forward to the day when the first NZ wine clipper sailed into the Port of London, bringing the new vintage of sauvignon blanc to Britain’s drinkers (p156) – but I now find that the French have beaten us to it. The Herald reported (last month):
This month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 22,680kg of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol and Manchester in England and even to Canada are planned soon afterwards. The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin after a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days.
I like the words on the label: “Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.”
It’s a fast-moving world, this low-carbon image business. It would be a pity if the French beat us at more than the occasional rugby match…