Jeanette Fitzsimons

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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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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Jim Hansen to tour NZ: dates announced

by Gareth April 12, 2011

James Hansen will be touring New Zealand next month, giving a public lecture entitled “Climate Change: a scientific, moral and legal issue” in Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington, Dunedin, Gore and Christchurch (schedule below the fold). Coal and lignite will be a major focus of his visit, and he’ll be participating in a symposium on “the [...]

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Licking lignite

by Bryan Walker November 6, 2010

Jeanette Fitzsimons raised the alarm in a recent Herald op-ed over Solid Energy’s plans for Southland lignite. A very justified alarm. She wrote of well-advanced plans to use more than 3 billion tonnes of economically recoverable lignite from three fields in Southland. Big plans, of which New Zealanders are hardly aware. First off is the transformation of lignite, [...]

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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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Science rallies round Salinger

by Gareth May 2, 2009

The scientific community in New Zealand and around the world has been buzzing with the news of Jim Salinger’s dismissal by NIWA, and messages of support have been flooding in. This morning’s NZ Herald quotes former colleagues bemused by NIWA’s action: Former Niwa scientist Andy Reisinger, who now works at Victoria University, said the decision [...]

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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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A good thing

by Gareth March 29, 2009

There are signs that sanity might be emerging from the nitty gritty of the ETS review. On Friday Carbon News reported that Labour and the Greens had approached National to offer their support for an amended ETS, undercutting any influence ACT may have sought. Charles Chauvel, Labour’s climate spokesman, told Carbon News that it was [...]

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Sitting in limbo

by Gareth December 18, 2008

Parliament has risen for the summer recess, and New Zealand’s climate policy is reduced to a train wreck of repealed legislation and uncertainty about the emissions trading scheme. PM John Key confirmed under persistent questioning by Greens co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons yesterday that the ETS would not actually be put on hold. From Hansard: Jeanette Fitzsimons: [...]

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What have I Dunne to deserve this?

by Gareth December 9, 2008

Peter Dunne has been appointed chairman of the select committee being established to review climate policy, the Herald reports. Dunne, in an interview with Carbon News, indicated that he saw no reason to reconsider the science: “The science is pretty clearly established,” Dunne said. “It’s somewhat ludicrous and arrogant to expect a New Zealand parliamentary [...]

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