Green Party

A snake swallows the elephant in the room and then flogs a dead horse – climate change politics in NZ Election 2011

by Mr February November 16, 2011

Possible the longest ever title on a Hot Topic post: Simon Johnson continues our series on the NZ election by examining the entrails… So whats happening with climate change in the election? I was originally thinking about writing a wonkish post comparing climate change policies between parties. You know the sort of thing. Which parties [...]

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The scientific yardstick for political policy

by Bryan Walker November 14, 2011

I was pleased to see the Labour Party’s announcement that it is opposed to the Southland lignite development planned by Solid Energy, and went looking for more detail in the party’s climate change policy.  The opening paragraph of the policy statement struck me as more direct than I expected: Climate change poses an enormous global [...]

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Oxfam NZ Election Debate: Climate change

by Gareth November 9, 2011

Environment minister Nick Smith, Labour’s David Parker and the Green Party’s Kennedy Graham debate climate policy in these edited highlights from the first of Oxfam NZ’s election debates, held last week in Auckland. Debate ranged from whether New Zealand can become carbon-free to the likelihood of a cross-party agreement on long-term issues that last more [...]

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Dismissing Greens’ plan out of hand not justified

by Bryan Walker September 22, 2011

The immediate government reaction to the Greens’ announcement yesterday of their “100,000 green jobs” policy was to defend the economic status quo. The Prime Minister John Key: “They are talking about putting enormous taxes on New Zealand that would send a lot of businesses bankrupt.” Transport Minister Steven Joyce weighed in: “What they’re proposing is [...]

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Hansen in NZ: final roundup

by Gareth June 5, 2011

Here’s a high quality video of Jim Hansen’s talk at the University of Canterbury last month (excellent work by the audiovisual team at UC). Well worth watching, if only because it provides a succinct summary of Hansen’s current thinking. As Dr. Chuck Kutscher of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the US said: If you [...]

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10:10 trumps 50:50

by Gareth September 6, 2009

Imagine this: the prime minister and his entire cabinet, the opposition front bench and the largest other party in Parliament all sign up to make personal emissions cuts of 10% in 2010. Not 10% in 10 years, — 10% next year. Not in NZ, sadly, but that’s what has just happened in Britain. The 10:10 [...]

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ETS report: wishy-washy and a waste of time

by Gareth August 31, 2009

The ETS review committee has published its report [PDF here], and recommends that an all sectors, all gases emissions trading scheme should be the “primary economic mechanism” in the government’s response to climate change. However the report makes very little in the way of substantive recommendations about how the current ETS legislation should be amended. [...]

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The size of a cow

by Gareth August 12, 2009

NZ’s farming leadership remains in denial about the need for action on climate change, as a remarkable speech [full text, Stuff report] by Federated Farmers president Don Nicolson demonstrates. Addressing the Plant Protection Society’s annual conference in Dunedin yesterday, Nicholson took swipes at Keisha Castle-Hughes, Greenpeace and the Green Party: It’s not the reality that [...]

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Some cuts are bigger than others

by Gareth August 4, 2009

Nick Smith and the government’s insistence that a sensible emissions target for 2020 is too expensive to even contemplate is coming under more pressure with the release today of a report [PDF] prepared by the Green Party, which they claim shows that big cuts are affordable. Announcing the release of the report, Greens climate spokesperson [...]

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The first cut is the deepest

by Gareth July 6, 2009

This week climate minister Nick Smith and international negotiator Tim Groser start their 2020 emissions target roadshow, ostensibly taking the pulse of the nation on the question of what target New Zealand should commit to in the run-up to Copenhagen in December. Much of the argument will undoubtedly centre around the costs of taking action. [...]

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