Category: Climate business

The Climate Show #11: a trillion tonnes of trouble

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Glenn says he thinks this show’s “a cracker” (but he always says that), and despite the lack of a special star guest — though with the help of assorted luminaries from the Climate Futures Forum (David’s Karoly and Frame, Robert Gifford and Erik Conway –) we cover a huge range of issues, from Jim Hansen’s upcoming visit to NZ, the climate talks in Bangkok and Arctic ice, to why we need to think about our carbon budget, and why a trillion tonnes of the stuff might be a tad too much. John Cook joins us to discuss why there really is a scientific consensus on the reality of climate change and its causes, and in the solutions section we look at new developments in battery technology.

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The Climate Show

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Jim Hansen to tour NZ: dates announced

James Hansen will be touring New Zealand next month, giving a public lecture entitled “Climate Change: a scientific, moral and legal issue” in Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington, Dunedin, Gore and Christchurch (schedule below the fold). Coal and lignite will be a major focus of his visit, and he’ll be participating in a symposium on “the future of coal” in Wellington on May 17th. Solid Energy’s CEO Don Elder will also be there, which should guarantee an interesting divergence of opinion. Hansen will also visit Southland to see the site of Solid Energy’s proposed lignite developments. Hot Topic and The Climate Show hope to be able to catch up with Jim at some point on his tour. I want to ask him about the Eemian… 😉

Hansen’s tour is being sponsored by a number of groups, including 350.org, Greenpeace, Organic Systems NZ, Oxfam, The Pure Advantage (business leaders group), the Institute of Policy Studies, and a number of interested academics and individuals. Announcing the tour, Jeanette Fitzsimons, spokesperson for the coalition bringing Dr Hansen to New Zealand said “Dr Hansen will explain why we cannot get climate change under control and preserve a decent future for our grandchildren unless we leave most of the remaining coal in the ground”. Amen to that.

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Bearing witness: oil at sea

Pursuing the last drop of oil should not be on the agenda of any country which takes climate change seriously. That’s why I applaud the Greenpeace and Te Whanau a Apanui action in endeavouring – successfully for a time – to stop the Petrobas seismic testing vessel off the East Cape. Potential danger to the marine environment is one of the reasons for the protest, and in the thinking of Greenpeace climate change is the other. The action is part of their longer term campaign against new oil and coal development in favour of a clear orientation to the clean technology which would show New Zealand was serious about moving to a low-carbon world.

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The billion dollar gap

Dr Jan Wright, New Zealand’s parliamentary commissioner for the environment, today released her submission (pdf) to the Emissions Trading Review panel. It calls for a significant toughening up of the scheme that was so extensively watered down by the current government in 2009, in order to avoid a billion dollar per year cost to taxpayers. Wright’s recommendations make it clear that any further weakening of the scheme as the result of pleading by special interests can not be justified. She recommends that:

  • both the price cap and the two-for-one deal expire on 31 December 2012 as currently legislated.
  • a) a cap on the number of carbon credits freely allocated be put in place; and that
    b) the phase-out rates for allocation be increased, not expressed as a percentage decrease of the previous year, and that the latest year in which allocation of free carbon credits must cease be specified.
  • the ETS is amended:
    a) so that new industries that use lignite on a large scale are specifically excluded from receiving any free carbon credits;
    b) to provide criteria for deciding which new activities are eligible to receive free carbon credits, including a requirement that the new activity will reduce New Zealand’s national net greenhouse gas emissions.
  • agriculture is brought into the ETS by 2015 as currently legislated.

The submission contains a picture worth at least a thousand words: this graph makes it very clear why the NZ ETS needs toughening up:

PCEgraph

Current policy settings effectively guarantee that the government’s Copenhagen Accord commitment to a 10% cut in emissions by 2020 is nothing but an empty promise. The ETS is not delivering the goods — and it will be the taxpayers that pay the cost. Wright estimates that the “gap” between target and projected emissions “is likely to cost New Zealand over a billion dollars per year” by 2020.

Earth: The Operators’ Manual

Earth: The Operators' ManualRichard Alley’s splendid abilities as a communicator are well displayed in his new book Earth: The Operators’ Manual. Written as a companion book for a forthcoming PBS documentary he hosts, it provides a lively review of the science of climate change and of the renewable energy sources now able to be employed. The general reader who wants to understand why human activities are causing climate change and why it matters, and is prepared to put a little effort into the quest, will find the book an engaging explanation.

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