National

Three years of “very serious” climate policy failure

by Gareth November 9, 2011

A damning review of the climate policy of the current government by three leading academics finds that it has made “little substantive progress” on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that work on adapting to climate change impacts has been “even more deficient”, and that current policies are likely to be “economically wasteful”. End-of-term review of the [...]

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Oxfam NZ Election Debate: Climate change

by Gareth November 9, 2011

Environment minister Nick Smith, Labour’s David Parker and the Green Party’s Kennedy Graham debate climate policy in these edited highlights from the first of Oxfam NZ’s election debates, held last week in Auckland. Debate ranged from whether New Zealand can become carbon-free to the likelihood of a cross-party agreement on long-term issues that last more [...]

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Brash in pocket

by Gareth May 2, 2011

Confirmation that new ACT Party leader Don Brash still considers himself a climate sceptic comes in an interview he gave to arch-libertarian commentator Lindsay Perigo shortly before he launched his takeover putsch (starts as about 24:10 on the Youtube video). Brash happily confirms his scepticism, saying: “I don’t believe the case has been established that [...]

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Don’t Hide your love away: Don Brash, climate and a very particular kind of coup

by Doug Mackie April 30, 2011

The most right wing political party in New Zealand that is represented in parliament is the Act Party. This blog post by Bryce Edwards, a political scientist at the University of Otago, is a little long and a little out of date now (November 2009) but it gives a reasonable summary of the state of [...]

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Zero net emissions by 2050 – preferably sooner

by Gareth March 1, 2011

I’ve just sent my submission on the NZ government’s intention to make a formal commitment to a target of a 50 percent reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to the Ministry of the Environment — barely squeaking in before the published deadline. My original intention was to submit a closely argued case for [...]

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Brownlee’s energy strategy: dig and burn

by Bryan Walker July 26, 2010

The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one: “You need only read the [...]

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Weakened ETS now law

by Gareth November 25, 2009

The government’s amendments to the Emissions Trading Scheme became law this afternoon, thanks to support from the Maori Party [Stuff, Herald, Reuters]. Nick Smith called the changes “workable and affordable” and said that they struck “the right balance in protecting the future of our economy and our environment”, but Labour climate spokesman Charles Chauvel was [...]

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Fomenting unhappy mischief…

by Gareth October 14, 2009

I usually stay out of the fray at NZ’s political blogs, but sometimes it’s impossible to resist a brief plunge into bracing waters. Yesterday, David Farrar at Kiwiblog posted approvingly about the impending launch of a movie called Not Evil, Just Wrong, apparently intended as a counter to Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. Here’s Farrar: The film [...]

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Take a giant step

by Gareth October 14, 2009

The UK’s Committee on Climate Change, established to advise the British government on emissions targets and to report to Parliament on the progress being made towards achieving those targets, has just published its first annual report: Meeting Carbon Budgets – the need for a step change. It warns that the current rate of emissions reductions, [...]

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National’s nine ways to stuff up: Oram on climate policy in NZ

by Gareth September 21, 2009

Rod Oram’s column in yesterday’s Sunday Star Times so perfectly captures my own feelings on the government’s proposed watering down of the emissions trading scheme that I asked Rod if he would allow me to post it here as a guest blog. I’m glad to say he agreed… To understand how the government is destroying [...]

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