Tag: National

Taking tiger mountain (by strategy)

NZETS.jpgWith a final decision required next week, the Green Party has asked for public feedback on whether it should support the government’s emissions trading scheme legislation, and people have not been slow in coming forward. Jeanette Fitzsimons announcement on Thursday explained the dilemma facing the party:

“We set out to achieve a number of things, such as including transport and agriculture into the scheme earlier, a fund to insulate homes to keep power bills down, targets for emissions reduction and support for new innovations that offer significant carbon reduction. […] On some of the issues we have not been able to make progress. We have not been able to get agreement to phase in transport instead it will come in in one lump in 2011, so this has not changed. We have made very little progress on agriculture but we are still talking about this. Very importantly we have not found a way for Government to accept a biodiversity standard to ensure that planting pines does not destroy biodiversity.”

The usual suspects have not been slow to chip in. Business NZ wants them to vote against the scheme; Greenpeace believes they have no choice but to support it. The debate at frogblog and Chris Trotter’s new blog has been interesting, while No Right Turn provides a characteristically concise summary of the situation.

Continue reading “Taking tiger mountain (by strategy)”

Cloud nine

NZETS.jpg National’s new energy policy [PDF], released yesterday, includes a promise that it will “introduce an emissions trading scheme within nine months of taking office that balances our environmental responsibilities with our economic opportunities.” Other highlights of the policy document include lifting the government’s moratorium on development of baseload thermal power generation (preferring gas over coal) but accepting the goal of 90% renewable generation by 2025, more seed money for oil and gas exploration, reform of the RMA, and a $1,000 grant for domestic solar hot water installations. Also released yesterday: the government’s proposed National Policy Statement on Renewable Energy Generation, designed to smooth the consent process for new renewable schemes. As you might expect, No Right Turn and Frogblog (one, two) are unimpressed, while David Farrar seems to think more hydro’s the answer (though his commenters are rabidly pro-nuclear).

There’s been plenty of attention paid to the end of thermal moratorium, but I’m particularly interested in how National plans to get a revised ETS ready within nine months of forming the next government. In the absence of any legislation before the election – which is looking more and more likely – the announcement suggests that National will take the framework of the existing scheme, tinker with the details, and then reintroduce it to parliament. The “tinkering” is reasonably predictable. There will be some sort of cave-in to the big emitters on “economic” grounds. This could involve bigger allocations of free credits and a longer phase out period – and there will be some sort of attempt to make the scheme line up with Australia’s. Agriculture might even be able to push for its entry to the scheme to be delayed even longer, once again on “economic” grounds.

In the absence of an ETS before the election, it is clearly good news that National has publicly committed to introducing some form of trading scheme early in its first term. Any ETS is better than none – any carbon pricing is better than none. The bad news is that the whole economy is left in limbo in the interim. What advice does National have have for the forestry sector, who are – at least theoretically – already in an existing scheme? I hope that before the election National will provide more detail on its ETS plans. This is a hugely important piece of policy with wide-reaching effects, and the electorate deserves to know more – much more – about Key & Co’s plans before deciding whether to support them.

Celia of the seals

sealhat.jpg It appears that my wish is someone’s command. Last month, blogging on the continuing break-up of the Wilkins ice shelf, I noted a reference to “seal hats” as data gathering devices and expressed a wish to see them. And here they are! Little devices glued to the heads of elephant seals that gather data as the seals as they go about their daily business. A new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science explains:

Here, we show that southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) equipped with oceanographic sensors can measure ocean structure and water mass changes in regions and seasons rarely observed with traditional oceanographic platforms. In particular, seals provided a 30-fold increase in hydrographic profiles from the sea-ice zone, allowing the major fronts to be mapped south of 60°S and sea-ice formation rates to be inferred from changes in upper ocean salinity. […] By measuring the high-latitude ocean during winter, elephant seals fill a ‘‘blind spot’’ in our sampling coverage, enabling the establishment of a truly global ocean-observing system.

Abstract here, full paper here[PDF]. More coverage at New Scientist, e! Science News.

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

NZETS.jpg 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 the opinion that time is rapidly running out.

My own totally unwarranted speculation is that the government has calculated it needs NZ First to get the bill through, and that certain well-publicised problems faced by that party’s leader are holding things up. Labour could probably do a deal with the Greens and Maori Party, but that would mean a tougher scheme and lead to loud squeals from the big emitters. It would give National another stick to beat them with… So Winston it is. Or perhaps isn’t. Whatever, negotiations probably involve a lot of pompous blustering…

I usually try to steer clear of party politics on Hot Topic, and I went to some lengths to make the book as non-partisan as possible. I don’t care who my readers vote for, but I do care that our political parties have sound climate-related policy. I would hope to encourage people to take that into account when voting. When we have an election date, I plan to put together a handy guide…

Anyway, please use this post for all pre-election political commentary.

Ice ice baby

CTarctic4808.jpg The fat lady’s not yet in the building, but her limo’s outside the theatre. There’s another five or six weeks of melting to go, but there’s more than just sea ice melting in the Arctic, and more than my few meagre wagers riding on how summer turns out ‘oop North. Here’s a compendium of interesting recent stuff…

Continue reading “Ice ice baby”