Category: Climate politics

Swell maps, and other stories

GoogleBAS.jpg Time for another round up of climate-related news. Hot on the web today (for cartophiles, at least) is that Google Earth has gained a swag of new climate change related information, the result of collaboration between Google, the UK Government, the Met Office Hadley Centre and the British Antarctic Survey. The Climate Change in Our World project, launched at the Google Zeitgeist conference by UK PM Gordon Brown offers two new layers based on Hadley Centre predictions, BAS research in Antarctica, and impacts worldwide. You can animate global temperature changes, visit crumbling ice shelves, and view climate change impacts around the world. Google Earth blog here, download .kmz files here. Hours of geographical fun are guaranteed.

  • A major new study finds strong links between recent climate change and large scale changes in the planet’s natural systems. It’s our fault, in other words [Nature (behind a paywall), BBC, Science Daily News, Guardian]. Lead author Cynthia Rosenzweig from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York told the BBC “…look at all the effects this relatively low amount of warming has had. It reveals the sensitivity to relatively low amounts of warming in many physical and biological systems.” A key point for anyone who thinks that “only a few degrees” won’t make much difference.
  • The growing number of humans on the planet is having a dramatic impact on wildlife populations, according to the Living Planet Index compiled by WWF and the Zoological Society of London. Populations of land-based species have fallen by 25%, marine by 28% and freshwater by 29% since 1970. We’re losing about 1% of all other species every year, and one of the “great extinction episodes” in the Earth’s history is under way, the index finds. [BBC, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph].
  • More bad wildlife news: the 2008 Bird Red List “warns that long-term droughts and extreme weather puts additional stress on key habitats,” according to the BBC. “The assessment lists 1,226 species as threatened with extinction – one-in-eight of all bird species.“
  • RNZ National’s science programme Our Changing World is always worth a listen, but last week’s (15/5/08) was a cracker. Ice core expert Richard Alley on Antarctica’s future, an update on the University of Waikato’s UltraCommuter EV, and one of the most cogent overviews of biofuel options I’ve ever heard from Doug Cameron, Chief Scientific Officer of Khosla Ventures, the Californian clean tech company. If those streaming links expire, podcast versions are available here, and the programme’s archive is here.
  • Wired reports on Renault’s plans to make EVs for Israel, and then the world, and EcoGeek discovers that Audi intends to have EVs in production in ten years. They might have to hurry… (my son announced yesterday that “one day’ he intends to own a Porsche. I’m willing to bet that by the time he can afford one (if ever) it’ll be a hybrid or EV).
  • #35 with a bullet! Tim Selwyn’s latest NZ blogosphere survey (at Tumeke!) finds that Hot Topic has moved up from #68 in February to #35 in March/April. I’d like to thank The Listener for making it all possible… 😉

Tangled up in blue

NZETS.jpgJohn Key has announced that National will not support the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation in its current form [Stuff]. When the select committee reports back to parliament next month, National will vote against a second reading. The reactions are as you might expect: from praise at Kiwiblog to righteous indignation at No Right Turn. Hot Topic (for what it’s worth) is disappointed that climate policy is effectively becoming a political football. Key’s move doesn’t mean that the ETS is dead, but it does radically change the political landscape on climate issues. Helen Clark is insisting the ETS will proceed, but she will now need to ensure that the Greens and Maori Party are on side, and rustle up some votes from New Zealand First and/or United Future. Good luck with that.

It appears National, despite their fine words about being committed to emissions trading and firm action on emissions reductions, have made the crude political calculation that in the general clamour being raised by submitters on the ETS they can keep both their business constituency happy and lessen problems with the remaining sceptics in their ranks (and in a future support arrangement with ACT) by delaying the introduction of a scheme. Note the speed with which the climate cranks have been rushing out supporting press releases. I hope Key realises that he’ll need a long spoon to sup with that lot.

Delaying action on climate change is now an election issue. If National form the next government, it doesn’t take much of a crystal ball to see that substantive action will likely be years away as officials return to the drawing board for a third time. Those who aren’t bald already could be forgiven for tearing their hair out.

In the land of make believe

NZETS.jpg Today’s lesson is taken from Jane Clifton’s Politics column in this week’s Listener (full text on the web next week). Her take on the current fuss over the Emissions Trading Scheme perfectly illustrates how the debate around this issue is being misunderstood and misrepresented, occasionally wilfully, sometimes from ignorance. This is not Clifton’s fault. She is reflecting only a certain kind of reality – the perception of the issue that is driving press coverage and political actions. Here’s a key passage:

“… most people have gotten the drift by now: to reduce carbon emissions means to reduce activities we currently benefit from and enjoy. And we will have to pay handsomely for our lack of pleasure.”

She then considers why the government is struggling with the scheme:

“It’s the ultimate non sequitur. A government that addressed this crisis seriously would become massively unpopular and lose office. A government that didn’t would be hideously irresponsible and deserve to lose office. Hard to avoid a certain fatalism.”

If the first part of the argument were true, then her “non sequitur” would follow. Happily, her assumption is completely wrong, so it doesn’t have to. But you’d be hard-pressed to glean that from the current discussion in NZ (or indeed from Clifton’s column).

Continue reading “In the land of make believe”

So it goes

NZETS.jpg The cacophony of lobbying around the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), coupled with high petrol prices, has prompted the government to announce a couple of changes to the scheme. Liquid fuels were supposed to enter the ETS in 2009, but this has now been delayed to 2011, and the phase out of the free allocation of emissions units to big emitters will now be postponed five years until 2018 [Herald, Radio NZ, Dominion Post].

Announcing the changes to the proposed legislation, Helen Clark also released the latest figures for the Kyoto liability:

… the provisional net position is projected to be a deficit of 21.7 million units during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008-2012). This compares with the projected deficit reported in May 2007 of 45.5 million units, and is a drop of 52 per cent. This means the liability halves from $1 billion to $481.6 million.

When the ETS was announced last year, it was projected that the net liability would be about 22 million units after taking the expected effects of the scheme on emissions into account. The government is clearly confident that high petrol prices will achieve the same effect as the ETS over the two year extension period. That’s a defensible position at the moment, but if fuel prices fall the Kyoto liability could increase. It signals, perhaps, that the government is reasonably confident that petrol prices won’t fall. Or perhaps simply that in an election year contentious new policy is up for grabs. The word pusillanimous springs unbidden to my mind…

The fuel move is getting the most attention, but the five year extension on allocations of free units to big emitters is a direct response to intensive lobbying from those sectors. It will significantly reduce the business costs of cutting emissions in the longer run, but also amounts to an extension of a tax payer subsidy to those businesses. It will be interesting to see how they respond. Looking into my crystal ball, I confidently predict someone will say “it’s a welcome move, but not big enough”.

Cool for cats

FishThe second climate forecast for the next decade has been published [Advancing decadal-scale climate prediction in the North Atlantic sector, Keenlyside et al, Nature, behind a firewall but available here], and the world’s media – and a fair number of blogs – have jumped all over its suggestion that there might be some regional cooling over the next decade. Richard Black at the BBC headlined his piece “Next decade ‘may see no warming'” , the New York Times‘ Andy Revkin settled for “In a New Climate Model, Short-Term Cooling in a Warmer World”, which becomes “Next decade may see no warming” at frogblog and “Global Warming on hold until 2015 claim Germans” at Kiwiblog. So what’s going on? Is global warming really on hold?

Continue reading “Cool for cats”