Tag: Labour Party

Something old, something blue, something borrowed, not much new: Labour’s climate policy

Mr February (aka Simon Johnson) looks at the Labour Party’s climate change policy and concludes it’s not exactly innovative.

As I was saying in my previous post Labour do have a seven page climate change policy that is at first look pretty comprehensive.

Labour will

  • begin the transition to a low carbon clean energy economy
  • set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets and plans to achieve them
  • set up an independent climate change commission
  • will implement a comprehensive risk assessment framework in order to develop a comprehensive climate change response plan
  • establish a carbon budget process
  • achieve 90% renewable electricity generation target by 2025
  • reduce per capita domestic transport emissions 50% by 2040 from a base year of 2007
  • ensure that there is no retail carbon price gouging of consumers
  • manage the transition to ensure social justice particularly with respect to low income families
  • restore the carbon price to the NZETS (NZ Emissions Trading Scheme)
  • require emitters to cover at least half their emissions with NZ issued Units (not the cheap international ‘hot air’ units).
  • bring agriculture into the NZETS from 1 January 2016
  • give agriculture a free allocation of NZ units equal to 90% of 2007 production

Continue reading “Something old, something blue, something borrowed, not much new: Labour’s climate policy”

Memo to Labour: Calling fossil fuels “transition fuels” doesn’t make the carbon go away

The New Zealand Labour Party announced their climate change policy on 24 August; the Sunday before last Sunday.

At first glance, it sounds refreshingly like a policy that takes anthropogenic global warming seriously. From the announcement:

A Labour Government will put in place a comprehensive climate change strategy focusing on both mitigation and adaptation, establish an independent Climate Commission and implement carbon budgeting, says Labour Climate Change spokesperson Moana Mackey.

“This is about future-proofing our economy. Making the transition to a low-carbon clean technology economy is not a ‘nice to have’ as the current Government would have us believe. It is a transition we must make and the sooner we begin, the easier that transition will be.”

How did the media respond? Well they ignored it. I haven’t seen any reporting of Labour’s climate change policy in the Herald, or Stuff/Fairfax, or Radio NZ or TV1 or TV3. I only stumbled onto it via Scoop a week after the release.

Like the 2011 election, the issue of climate change has been notable for it’s absence (the snake swallowing the elephant in the room).

However, some climate change focused NGOs responded positively to Labour’s policy. Simon Terry at the Sustainability Council said a carbon budget was the single most important reform. Generation Zero and the Iwi Leaders Group and forest owners welcomed the policy. The mainstream media of course also ignored these NGO views.

However, before I get into the detail of Labour’s climate change policy (a topic for another post), it’s important to ask “are the dots connected with Labour’s energy policy?” Unfortunately, the dots are not connected and the energy policy is 180 degrees contrary to the concept of a carbon budget.

Continue reading “Memo to Labour: Calling fossil fuels “transition fuels” doesn’t make the carbon go away”