Tag: National

Government to consult on emissions targets

Key.jpgNZ negotiators at the UN climate talks in Bonn have let slip that the government is planning “public consultation” on the emissions targets the country will set. David Williams at The Press broke the story yesterday:

New Zealand’s climate change ambassador, Adrian Macey, told a United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany, yesterday that New Zealand had been improving data collection and using economic modelling and analysis to help with greenhouse-gas reduction targets. “We are also undertaking a public consultation process,” Macey told the 3000 conference delegates.

This comes as news to most people, but Williams obtained confirmation that consultation was planned from climate minister Nick Smith’s staff:

“The Government will consult with the public prior to setting medium-term targets in August,” the minister’s spokesman said. “No announcements have been made.”

Except to the rest of the world, obviously. Expect the usual suspects to immediately start lobbying for do-nothing targets. Meanwhile, government climate policy continues to look as if it’s being decided on the hoof.

Do you remember the first time?

NZETS.jpgThere’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 to emphasise four key points:

  • That the effects of climate change are being observed now, ahead of expectations. I quoted from the recent Copenhagen conference closing statement in support: For many key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
  • That the emissions reductions New Zealand will have to make are likely to be much steeper than currently envisaged, because the science is beginning to suggest we need to move beyond stabilisation of GHG levels into active sequestration (I mentioned Hansen and 350 ppm), and because simple equity demands that the developed world adopts a “cap and converge” approach to emissions in order to engage China and India.
  • That the climate commitment — the fact that we have 20 to 30 years of warming in the pipeline whatever we do means that New Zealand has place considerable emphasis on adaptation. We need to build resilience to the direct impacts of climate change here (which with luck won’t be too bad), and to the actions that other countries take to address change (counter food miles arguments and so on).
  • Finally, that early action on reducing emissions would be significantly less costly than making drastic forced changes later.

I closed by reiterating my first recommendation: that the government should seek to build a consensus of business and consumer interests on both the need for action, and the direction to be followed.

The questions were interesting. Charles Chauvel, Labour’s climate spokesman, asked me to elaborate on the matter of targets. John Boscawen (ACT) commented that my evidence flatly contradicted the previous submitter, Dr Bruce McCabe (which appears to have been along the lines of “cooling since…”), and asked if I would examine that evidence and explain to him why it was wrong. Peter Dunne asked me to do that on behalf of the whole committee, and I happily agreed. Should be an interesting exercise… 😉 Jeanette Fitzsimons (Green) then asked me to explain the significance (if any) of 8 year trends in climate data — obviously making a point to Boscawen. Finally, Nicky Wagner (National) asked me to elaborate a little on why regulatory action was required to complement the emissions trading scheme: I mentioned efficiency measures.

Looking at the full list of submitters the committee is hearing (available at Carbon News), it’s clear that more than a few of the usual crank suspects have got through: Bryan Leyland’s there, as is Vincent Gray and the NZ CSC. Plenty of debunking to come, as their submissions are made public… 😉

[Pulp]

Stern talking (but not Nick)

At the UNFCCC Climate Change talks currently under way in Bonn the US Envoy Todd Stern has unequivocally announced the role the US will be playing in the time ahead.  It is an extraordinary transformation. The hopes raised by Obama still look strong.

Some extracts follow. First, the opening remarks:

Continue reading “Stern talking (but not Nick)”

Telling porkies to Parliament

NZETS.jpgThe Emissions Trading Scheme Review committee has released the first batch of submissions it has received — those made by organisations and individuals who have already made their presentations to the committee. There are some heavy hitters in there: from New Zealand’s science and policy community there’s the Climate Change Centre (a joint venture between the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington, plus all the Crown Research Institutes – from NIWA to AgResearch), VUW’s Climate Change Research Institute, and GNS Science, and from the world of commerce, we have the Business Roundtable‘s “evidence”. Why the quote marks? Because the Roundtable’s submission is a fact-free farrago of nonsense.

Continue reading “Telling porkies to Parliament”

Ignorance in high places

BrownleeThe Minister of Energy, Gerry Brownlee, was reported on National Radio this morning as stating that the energy strategy policy of the last government is going to be altered, because it subsumed energy policy under climate change.  I was appalled by what I heard and tracked down the text of his speech, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.  It was. Here is the section in which he dealt with the subject:

The current Energy Strategy represents the high point of the total subsuming of energy policy into climate change policy.  The whole Strategy is an idealistic vision document for carbon neutrality.

You need only read the foreword of the NZES to get a sense of this. “Sustainability” and “sustainable” are mentioned thirteen times, “greenhouse gas” is mentioned four times, and “climate change” is mentioned three times. That is all very good, but security of supply rates only one mention. Affordability is not touched on at all. Nor is economic growth.

The National-led Government believes a refocusing of the Energy Strategy is required. The new strategy will focus on security of supply, affordability, and environmental responsibility, with the overriding goal of maximising economic growth.

The Energy Strategy  involved widespread public consultation.  I certainly made a submission on it.  It is an overly cautious, but still relatively hopeful document, carrying the subtitle “Towards a sustainable low emissions energy system.”

There is an air of ignorant complacency to Brownlee’s statement. Energy policy can’t be decoupled from climate change policy.  They belong together. The whole world knows this. The new Secretary for Energy in the US, Steven Chu, is in no doubt about it. He states quite clearly that his interest in energy has grown out of his concern about climate change. But much of what Brownlee has done so far reveals how threadbare his understanding of climate change is. He has lifted the ban on fossil-fuel powered electricity generation. He has reversed the decision to ban incandescent light bulbs. He has wiped the biofuel obligation only months after it was legislated. And now this statement.

Is this an example of what John Key meant when he said during the election campaign that economic growth takes precedence over environmental policy?  I wrote about that at the time.

The government needs to bring itself up to date with the science, or even with what policy makers in some significant countries (like the US) are now saying.