Author: Gareth

NZ emissions trading scheme announced

NzetsDetails of the government’s planned emissions trading scheme (ETS) have been announced. Scoop has all the government speeches and press releases. I’m reading them at the moment, and will comment more later, but here are some highlights:

  • Foresters will receive the full value of carbon credits on new growth (from 1/1/2008) in post-1990 forests.
  • Agriculture will not be brought into the scheme until 2013.
  • NZ emissions units will be Kyoto-complaint and internationally tradeable (subject to some limits).
  • Some units will be allocated free, others auctioned.
  • Forestry will be first into the scheme in Jan 2008.
  • Transport’s next, in 2009, basically through fuel prices
  • Stationery energy (power generation) and heavy industry will enter in 2010, with no free allocation for electricity generators.
  • Farmers will get free allocation of units based on 90% of 2005 emissions, but details to be worked out

The government hopes that 90% of power generation will be from renewable sources by 2025. In transport, they want to cut per capita emissions in half by 2040, and encourage the wide use of electric vehicles. Goals for agriculture are more nebulous: to be the world leader in emissions reduction research, and to lead the world in agricultural emissions reductions. In forestry, they would like a net increase of 250,000ha in forest area by 2020.
The government has also released an update on our expected Kyoto deficit – up to 45.5 millions tonnes from 41.2 mT, mainly from increased dairy production. In the absence of any emissions reduction policy, the government projects this could rise to 65mT, but believes the ETS will cut the 2008-12 deficit to 25mT.
My first thought? Politically astute. By getting foresters on board with what amounts to a taxpayer subsidy, they get enough trees planted to offset a large chunk of the Kyoto liability, and buy time to bring agricultural emitters in to the scheme. More later.

Thursday build-up

With only a couple of days to the government’s big emissions trading announcement, the media are getting all excited. Colin James in the Herald grumbles about the lack of consultation and the need to build a consensus outside of Parliament, and then switches tack to suggest that the really important negotiations are to do with what follows Kyoto. Rod Oram in the Sunday Star Times suggests (rather more cogently) why there’s hope of action by the US, Australia and China. The Press, meanwhile, fears that some power companies might make windfall profits under emissions trading (step forward Meridian), and predicts that forestry could be the next big thing.

Shop’n’save

An excellent, thought-provoking article by Mark Lynas in yesterday’s Guardian [UK] examines the greening of the High Street that is transforming British shopping. Lynas points out many of the inconsistencies inherent in green consumerism, and then asks the big question:

At the heart of green consumerism lies a single unanswered question: can ever-increasing resource consumption be truly reconciled with the ecological constraints of a fragile planet?

Tesco supermarket boss Terry Leahy thinks so, and is making his company as green as a supermarket can be, but this doesn’t impress some environmentalists. George Monbiot, ever the master of the pithy phrase, sums it up:

“No political challenge can be met by shopping.

More ice/less ice

PolarsternMore on the Arctic melt: the National Snow and Ice Data Centre updates its commentary on this year’s record ice minimum. As of yesterday, the five day moving average of ice was still moving downwards, but slowly. Their comment on the North West Passage is interesting.

The main, deep channel of the Northwest Passage (Lancaster Sound to M’Clure Strait) has been open, or nearly ice-free, for about five weeks (since August 11, approximately). Of note is the northernmost ice edge ever recorded, at 85.5 degrees North, near the 160 degrees east longitude line.

Meanwhile, the RV Polarstern (see pic), near to completing a voyage through the Arctic as a contribution to International Polar Year, reports that large areas of this year’s ice have only been 1m thick – a 50% reduction on only 6 years ago. When the ship got close to the pole, it started raining. Ursula Schauer wrote (in early September):

A whole day of rain within 150 km of the North Pole came somewhat as a surprise! For the past few weeks, one low-pressure system after another has continuously carried warm air from northern Siberia (15°C at the Lena estuary!) towards the central Arctic Ocean. In this way the sea ice disintegrates more and more right before our eyes.

Meanwhile, I’ve bet Stoat (aka William Connolley) that 2008 will beat 2007’s record low. But only £10…

The not-so-lucky country

Australia-Bondi-BeachThe New South Wales government has decided that Sydney’s current water restricions are going to be permanent, because climate change projections suggest long term reductions in rainfall [Daily Telegraph(AU), ABC]. Meanwhile, CSIRO has released a report suggesting that three of the city’s great beaches could be lost to sea level rise. The Daily Telegraph reports:

[Waverley mayor George] Newhouse launched a climate-change marker today at North Bondi Children’s Pool, which he said was forecast to be under water by 2030. The marker indicates to beach visitors the predicted water height by 2100. “At Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte, we will just lose the whole beach and at other beaches like Collaroy and Narrabeen (in Sydney’s north) we will see houses falling into the water,