Tag: National

Last post for Lawson

Two more bits of Lawson in the media – the last, I hope. Brian Fallow gave him a free ride in the Herald, and Chris Laidlaw conducted a slightly more probing interview on his Radio NZ National Sunday morning show (podcast). In both cases he’s allowed to get away with his usual nonsense – no warming since 1998, adaptation is all that’s needed. Why neither interviewer felt able to challenge Lawson on his misrepresentation of the facts is a mystery. Due deference to an important elder statesman is one thing, allowing him to get away with telling porkies is quite another. To be fair to Laidlaw, Lawson was more than balanced later by an interesting panel discussion on climate change impacts in the Pacific.

[Update: Muriel Newman has posted Lawson’s Thursday night speech as a “guest column” on her NZ CPR web site, and used it as a springboard for her own thoughts. It is a farrago of nonsense, and she – and the Business Roundtable – should be ashamed of themselves for promoting as a sensible contribution to the policy debate.]

Lawson’s outrageous lie on national TV

On Thursday morning, TVNZ’s Breakfast Business programme included an interview with Baron Lawson of Blaby. It’s available here. Nigel’s opening statement is a shocker:

“There’s no global warming happening at the present time. That’s clear, accepted on all sides of the argument.”

I’ve got news for Nigel. The world continues to warm, and the only people who think it isn’t are a dwindling band of climate cranks and ageing curmudgeons. Greenpeace rather wittily demonstrated that last night outside the Auckland Museum, welcoming Lawson’s audience with a bunch of dummies with their heads in the sand.

I’m particularly disappointed with the TV interviewer, who gave him an incredibly soft ride. You’d think even TV NZ business journalists might be expected to know enough to spot blatant rubbish when it’s being spouted.

Meanwhile, the Herald (via NZPA) reports him as saying: “We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting.” I’m rendered speechless, which is something I might wish for the blue Baron.

Blah, blah, blab, Blaby (*)

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 more time with his family” (coining that phrase as he did so), but in recent years he has reinvented himself as a climate sceptic, a vociferous opponent of the Kyoto protocol and a scourge of what he terms “eco-fundamentalists”. Clearly, the Business Roundtable has brought in a wise elder statesman to provide much needed context to the climate debate, to better inform its members about the need for emissions reductions. Sadly, Lawson is far more likely to serve up a rousing speech packed with half-truths, distortions, and advice so bad it amounts to dangerous folly, if reports in the Sunday Star Times and Dominion Post are to be believed.

Continue reading “Blah, blah, blab, Blaby (*)”

The gentle sound of axes being ground

The big emitters’ carefully co-ordinated campaign against the proposed NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is having a big week. Following on from last week’s Castalia report, the Greenhouse Policy Coalition and the Major Electricity Users Group are now claiming that a survey shows the ETS will have big economic impacts [Herald , NBR]:

The relatively small survey of 32 firms, which includes some meat companies, pulp and paper mills, iron, steel, shipping, cement, dairy, mining and supermarkets shows that a carbon price of $30/tonne will cost those firms $241 million in increased direct energy costs, result in deferred investment of $1.5 billion, put at risk over 2000 existing jobs and 425 new jobs had planned investment gone ahead.

The survey cunningly ignores the government’s proposal to grandfather emissions in most sectors, presumably so that it could paint the worst possible picture of economic impacts.

Forgive me if I consider that a survey conducted by a lobby group, based on a tiny response and dubious methodology, that just happens to show exactly what the lobby group wants it show, is meaningless. But from the GPC’s perspective, any noise is presumably good noise. Which is about all that can be said for a column by Alasdair Thompson of the Employers and Manufacturers Association in the Herald. Fodder for the spin machine. Even Westpac got in the act, claiming that a carbon price would put inflationary pressure on the Reserve Bank, on equally flimsy grounds. And by some strange coincidence, the Business Roundtable just happens to have shipped notorious British sceptic Nigel Lawson over from the UK to sing for his supper on Thursday. No guesses about the tune Nigel will bellow… (I’ll be posting about Lawson later this week). Fortunately, Rod Oram’s around to demonstrate (in his Sunday Star Times column at the weekend) that there are plenty of businesses who don’t need a weatherman (or climate scientist) to know which way the wind is blowing.

All this PR activity is about framing the debate. If the big emitters can ignore the climate imperative and international consequences of our actions and spin this as about economics and prosperity and jobs, they presumably hope to be able to get the scheme watered down or delayed. Tactically, it may be about trying to separate National from its early acceptance of the ETS proposals. Can Key and Smith resist the siren call of corporates with deep pockets?

I don’t like Mondays

Lady Young, head of the UK’s Environment Agency, thinks that coping with climate change demands wartime urgency, as the Telegraph [UK] reports:

“This is World War Three – this is the biggest challenge to face the globe for many, many years. We need the sorts of concerted, fast, integrated and above all huge efforts that went into many actions in times of war. We’re dealing with this as if it is peacetime, but the time for peace on climate change is gone – we need to be seeing this as a crisis and emergency,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Observer covers a new report from a peace group:

This stark warning will be outlined by the peace group International Alert in a report, A Climate of Conflict, this week. Much of Africa, Asia and South America will suffer outbreaks of war and social disruption as climate change erodes land, raises seas, melts glaciers and increases storms, it concludes. Even Europe is at risk.

Greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, and the International Energy Agency sees “inexorable”growth in energy demand over the next 30 years with a risk of more coal being burned. It does suggests a 450ppm CO2 limit might be achievable, but:

“Exceptionally quick and vigourous policy action by all countries, and unprecedented technological advances, entailing substantial costs, would be needed to make this case a reality.”

Not much hope of that. And the China Post says EU officials reckon that China will reject binding limits on emissions in any post-Kyoto deal. The words “hell” and “handbasket” spring to mind…On the upside? Bryan Appleyard in the Sunday Times [UK] looks at options for “fixing” climate through technology (well worth a read), scientists at Harvard and Penn State reckon they’ve found a way to speed up a natural weathering process to neutralise ocean acidity and remove carbon from the atmosphere, and Technology Review reports on a Dutch biofuel company working with a California-based venture capital outfit to develop catalysts that can turn organic matter such as waste wood into biocrude – chemicals that can be processed to make biofuels. If you’ve got money to invest, the Observer [UK] reckons that one of a new breed of green investment funds might be a good place to put it.