Category: Climate business

People talkin’

targetWith the first week of 2020 target consultations out of the way, here are a few reflections on what I heard in Christchurch, what happened elsewhere, and what the world’s been up to. Perhaps most hearteningly, the G8 nations (USA, Russia, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada & Italy) agreed that they would aim at limiting climate change to 2ºC of warming, target 80% emissions cuts for rich nations, and 50% cuts globally. Even if that’s not enough (Ban Ki Moon wasn’t all that impressed), it is at least a start. Meanwhile, the G5 group (China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa), also meeting at L’Aquila in Italy, called for rich nations to adopt a 40% by 2020 target. The international dynamics in the run-up to Copenhagen are all too clear…

Reports from this week’s 2020 target consultation meetings suggest that Nick Smith and Tim Groser (replaced in Christchurch by Adrian Macey, NZ’s climate ambassador) have had to face up to pretty solid support for a 40% target. Greenpeace laid on a star-studded night in Auckland (Jim Salinger told me today he enjoyed his date with Lucy Lawless), and there were certainly plenty of Sign On and 350.org people in the Christchurch session, as well as another voluble Gareth. The ODT and 350.org.nz report that Dunedin was much the same.

My reactions to Nick Smith’s presentation in Christchurch were mixed. He made all the right noises about supporting action, and emphasised that he was willing to work with Labour to achieve a lasting policy consensus — which is a key step in delivering certainty on the long term direction of policy. I have no doubt, given his comments, that an emissions trading scheme will emerge from the ETS Review process, but remain somewhat sceptical about how watered-down it will be. Smith was too keen to emphasise how hard it would be to make emissions cuts, yet did little more than pay lip service to the carbon sink side of the equation, and seemed able to quote at will from the Greenhouse Policy Coalition’s recent “40% will be too expensive” economic forecast.

I sat with AndrewH, and saw more than a few familiar faces in the crowd. It may have been the only public meeting in NZ history when two alumni of St Catherine’s College made short speeches (hi Rhys). Did I imagine seeing Smith and Macey sit up a little when I challenged them to move from 50 by 50? Overall, I was impressed with the passion of the contributions made from the floor, except possibly for the poor soul who spoke last. He spoke glowingly of Ian Wishart’s Air Con (to a smattering of polite boos), only to be advised by the Minister that Gareth Morgan’s Poles Apart was the better, and more accurate, reference.

The targets roadshow continues next week with public meetings in Hamilton, Napier, New Plymouth and Nelson. The ministers also have a session at the Institute of Policy Studies at VUW on the 15th which is by invitation only (I’d love to hear the proceedings) and a meeting with the Iwi Leadership Group. You can make submissions direct to Nick at n.smith AT ministers.govt.nz, and he will be taking part in a webcast panel discussion live online on Monday 20 July at 7-30pm here. Questions in advance to: 2020target AT mfe.govt.nz. No excuses. Make your voice heard.

[Lucinda Williams]

Go with the flow: NZ algae pioneers spark US interest

algaeNew Zealand company Aquaflow, which I wrote about in this post, has received praise in an article in Yale Environment 360 describing a project to use the city of Minneapolis’s sewage as a feedstock for algae from which biofuel can be derived.  A University of Minnesota professor, Roger Ruan, is engaged in the research and speaks optimistically of its prospects.  Early in the article comes this acknowledgement:

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Time to worry: NBR editor lacks insight on climate change

nevil-gibson.jpg Relax everybody, NBR editor Nevil Gibson has conducted extensive research (read the Wall Street Journal), and discovered that we really don’t need to worry about climate change any more. In an astonishing “editor’s insight” this week, headed No worries: Climate change debate goes nowhere fast, he writes:

In the past year or so since you last worried about it, the climate change debate has moved on. In fact, it is in danger of extinction as the scientific “consensus” disappears and international agencies and governments backpedal on draconian measures to stamp out use of carbon.

Gibson repeats some of the arguments used by a WSJ columnist to support this view, including mention of the shonky (and repeatedly debunked) “700 scientist” list promoted by Senate denier James Inhofe, and then quotes the WSJ verbatim:

Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Oh really? This is counterfactual, an invention, an ideologically-inspired attempt to mislead, misdirect and misinform, and I’m being polite. The peer-reviewed research, as handily summarised in the Copenhagen synthesis report so extensively covered at Hot Topic (and see also RealClimate), shows that far from being debunked, “doomsday scenarios” are looking more likely than ever. Worse, if the business world that Gibson seeks to inform believes what he writes, then doomsday scenarios will be assured.

New Zealand’s business community does not need ideologically-inspired excuses for inaction, it needs clear-sighted assessment of the real risks (and opportunities) that climate change brings. Sadly, Nevil Gibson prefers to repeat nonsense from US ideologues. If that’s the quality of the “insight” he offers, then perhaps the NBR needs a new editor.

Hit the road, Nick

targetClimate minister Nick Smith and international negotiator Tim Groser have published the schedule for their recently announced consultation exercise on a 2020 emissions target for New Zealand. The hastily arranged exercise (announced only last month, and a surprise to many) has already drawn calls for an interim target of 40% by 2020 from the recently-formed NZ Climate Action Partnership and Greenpeace. In an interesting development, Carbon News is reporting that Green Party climate change spokeswoman Jeanette Fitzsimons has floated the idea that NZ could adopt a split target — setting separate 2020 targets for carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane:

Fitzsimons says that with the technology not yet available to reduce methane emissions from farmed animals – responsible for half of New Zealand’s total greenhouse gas emissions – this country should be thinking about setting separate targets for carbon, nitrous oxide and methane for 2020.

“If we set an overall target that is mainly determined by the difficulty of reducing agricultural emissions, it looks to the rest of the world like we are doing nothing,” she said.

It’s an interesting concept, at the very least, though I have to say I’m not keen on giving agriculture a wholly free ride. Federated Farmers like to insist that the “technology is not available”, but there are a range of options farms can use to reduce emissions, from the use of nitrification inhibitors to better handling of manure (not to mention shifting to low-carbon crops or carbon farming).

Full details of the public meetings below the fold. I’ll be making an effort to attend the Christchurch meeting next Wednesday evening.

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The moneygoround

NZETS.jpgBack in March climate change minister Nick Smith decided it was time to sort out whether the Emissions Trading Scheme was a recipe for economic disaster, as ACT and big emitters were insisting (using figures from a shonky report by NZIER), or affordable, as Treasury modelling (conducted by Infometrics) showed. Smith commissioned both economic consultancies to work together to arrive at a consensus, which they were happy to do (at a cost of $79,200 + GST). The result of this ministerial banging of heads was released yesterday [PDF], and it is simultaneously interesting, encouraging and profoundly disappointing.

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