Labour

Things are gonna change (the morning after)

by Gareth November 10, 2008

On the morning after I was more interested in the rugby than agonising over the entrails of Saturday night’s election result, but today it’s worth traversing what new Zealand’s new political landscape might bring for climate policy. For the wider picture, I recommend Russell Brown’s take at Hard News and Gordon Campbell’s at Scoop; they [...]

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Take care the road you choose

by Gareth November 6, 2008

Now that one election’s out of the way, (a good result: Obama’s committed to 80 percent reductions by 2050) time to focus on what’s happening in New Zealand. I’ve promised several times to offer an analysis of the major parties offerings on climate change and emissions reductions, but I’ve been pre-empted by a very useful [...]

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No matter who you vote for the government always gets in

by Gareth September 13, 2008

We have an election date – November 8th – and an Emissions Trading Scheme on the statute books. The next eight weeks are going to be fascinating, probably messy, and certainly noisy. Hot Topic will be watching the campaigns, focussing on what the parties have to say about climate change, climate policy and the ETS. [...]

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You’re the (NZ) first, the last, my everything

by Gareth August 6, 2008

So what’s happening to the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation? It seems to be stuck in the parliamentary back rooms, presumably because the government is struggling to put together enough votes to get the bill (or a version of it) passed before the election. No Right Turn has been keeping tabs on progress, and is of [...]

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In the land of make believe

by Gareth May 13, 2008

Today’s lesson is taken from Jane Clifton’s Politics column in this week’s Listener (full text on the web next week). Her take on the current fuss over the Emissions Trading Scheme perfectly illustrates how the debate around this issue is being misunderstood and misrepresented, occasionally wilfully, sometimes from ignorance. This is not Clifton’s fault. She [...]

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A rainbow (warrior) in curved air

by Gareth April 2, 2008

Second conference in a week in Wellington: this time the LexisNexis climate change symposium with lots of lawyers and a very impressive speaker list – and an invite to the Rainbow Warrior for a webcast climate change debate between David Parker, Nick “for Nelson” Smith, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Hone Harawira, with Sean (Jeepster) Plunket in [...]

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Blah, blah, blab, Blaby (*)

by Gareth November 15, 2007

Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, a British Tory politician who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet during the 1980s, is visiting New Zealand as a guest of the Business Roundtable to give this year’s Sir Ronald Trotter memorial lecture. Lawson withdrew from the mainstream of Conservative politics in 1992 “to spend [...]

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Big emitters bite back

by Gareth October 24, 2007

NZ’s big greenhouse gas emitters have begun a push back against the government’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and energy strategy. Last week an industry group including the Greenhouse Policy Coalition, Federated Farmers, the Major Electricity Users Group, Business Roundtable, the Chambers Of Commerce, and others wrote to Helen Clark warning that, as Colin Espiner in [...]

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Tuesday linkfest

by Gareth October 20, 2007

Labour weekend means just that, chez Hot Topic. Catching up with farm work, planting the vege garden, getting a sore back – all in a weekend’s work. But climate change waits for no man, so here’s a compendium of stuff that caught my attention over the last few days. Contact Energy has announced plans for [...]

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Cap in hand on carbon trading

by Gareth August 10, 2007

Brian Fallow took a detailed look at carbon trading and pricing in yesterday’s Herald. Mark Lewis, a London analyst with Deutsche Bank, has raised eyebrows by forecasting a price of €35 ($63.31) a tonne for allowances traded on the internal European emissions market over the 2008 to 2020 period. That compares with a market price [...]

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