Category: Climate politics

Cap in hand on carbon trading

Brian Fallow took a detailed look at carbon trading and pricing in yesterday’s Herald.

Mark Lewis, a London analyst with Deutsche Bank, has raised eyebrows by forecasting a price of €35 ($63.31) a tonne for allowances traded on the internal European emissions market over the 2008 to 2020 period. That compares with a market price of around €20 for 2008. It is also about five times higher than the $13 a tonne carbon price the Government uses in estimating the value of this country’s Kyoto liability in the Crown accounts.

In a month or two the government will be announcing its design for a domestic emissions trading scheme, and the relationship between the NZ price and the international price will be an important feature. Another will be how the scheme phases in various sectors of the economy. Labour has signalled it wants an “all gases, whole of the economy

National to provide sunset home for climate cranks

HomerWhy would the National Party, newly wedded to its emissions target of “50 in 50

NZ’s low carbon cows: global warming heroes?

CowA new report from Lincoln University´s Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit finds that New Zealand’s dairy industry has a smaller global warming footprint than the UK’s, even after taking into account the emissions resulting from shipping products half way round the world. From Lincoln’s press release:

The Lincoln study´s central finding is that the UK produces 35 percent more emissions per kilogram of milk solid than New Zealand and 31 percent more emissions per hectare than New Zealand – even including transportation from New Zealand to Britain and the carbon dioxide generated in that process.

The report’s lead author, professor Caroline Saunders, explains the importance of this finding:

“Our report clearly demonstrates the fallacy of using a simplistic concept like `food miles´ as a basis for restrictive trade and marketing policies. It is obvious that production systems and not transport are the major contributor to the differences in greenhouse gas emissions and energy use.

The roof’s melting…

TibetThe high Tibetan plateau, sometimes called the “third pole

Howard’s carbon conversion

AusssiesmallThere’s an Australian federal election on the way, and – bless his cotton socks – John Howard has discovered there are votes in carbon policy. Over the last few days Howard has announced a national cap and trade programme for greenhouse gases as part of a new A$627 million climate change initiative, coupled with subsidies for solar hot water systems in schools, and an A$1,000 rebate for domestic installations. The carbon trading mechanism will not begin until 2011, covers only 55% of Australian emissions, and the administration has not announced how big the cap will be. Unsurprisingly, this has been criticised by environmental campaigners, as New Scientist reports:

Caroline Fitzpatrick, of Greenpeace Australia accuses Howard of yielding to pressure from another group – Australia’s powerful coal industry – by announcing what amounts to a delaying tactic in carbon trading, rather than an effective new carbon-reduction scheme.

No doubt NZ’s Greenhouse Policy Coalition will renew its calls for the government on this side of the Tasman to match Howard’s cautious approach. Meanwhile, the Australia Institute has released a paper (press release, full paper [both PDF]), that calculates Australia’s emissions budget for the 21st century based on a “contract and converge