The LexisNexis legal symposium on climate change was an interesting couple of days. Some excellent presentations – including a particularly fine exposition of the science of climate from NIWA’s Katja Riedel, and a very good summary of the post-Kyoto options from Jonathon Boston. Peter Weir from the Forest Owners Association presented a characteristically direct assessment of the role of forestry in the ETS – and demonstrated just how challenging the business of forestry has just become. My own short talk covered New Zealand’s vulnerabilities to climate change, looking at potential winners in losers in a world where there’s a risk that rapid climate change is happening now. [PDF here – 4.5MB] One take home message: do not expect the price of carbon to go down. I’m not sure that investing in carbon is exactly a safe haven for retirement funds, but if I were a Treasury official considering whether to hedge against NZ’s 2008-12 Kyoto CP1 liability, I’d be buying now.
Category: Hot Topic
A rainbow (warrior) in curved air
Second conference in a week in Wellington: this time the LexisNexis climate change symposium with lots of lawyers and a very impressive speaker list – and an invite to the Rainbow Warrior for a webcast climate change debate between David Parker, Nick “for Nelson” Smith, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Hone Harawira, with Sean (Jeepster) Plunket in the chair. Thanks to Greenpeace for getting me in (Susannah, Cindy, Kathy). It was most interesting. I’m planning to dissect the various parties promises in the run up to the election, so it was good to get a head start. Nick Smith was keen to get as many hits on David Parker as possible, but perhaps sensed he was on a sticky wicket given recent history. Hone was content to defer to the Greens on all matters of direct policy, and even DP did the same when I changed the subject from emissions to adaptation policy. Not satisfactorily answered, in my view, but watch the webcast and decide for yourselves.
I have a talk to give tomorrow, and so to bed.
There will never be any peace (until God is seated at the conference table)
Some notes from Saturday’s conference. God may not have been at the conference table, but there was Swamiji, who is certainly revered amongst his followers. My presentation [PDF here: warning – 7MB] followed two Nobel prizewinners – David Wratt (NZ’s representative on the IPCC, who covered the basic AR4 findings) and Pene Lefale (lead author of the WG2 chapter on impacts in the Pacific). Pene’s talk was fascinating, based on a paper he’s preparing on what he’s called the “perfect political problem” – reconciling the differences between developed and developing countries views on how to approach climate change. All the other speakers were good, but it was Andrew West, CEO of AgResearch who made – for me – the most telling comments. Drawing on his background as an ecologist, he looked at the big issue – coping with 9 billion people. Not all of them will be able to eat a meat-rich diet… Andrew shares my enthusiasm for topoclimate studies as a means of adapting to climate change. Are you reading this MfE? Time for a full topoclimate survey of NZ…
Notes on my talk below the fold…
Continue reading “There will never be any peace (until God is seated at the conference table)”
(What’s so funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
I’m just putting the final touches to my talk at tomorrow’s World Peace Summit: Climate Change – What To Do? in Wellington, at the Westpac St James Theatre. David Wratt, Pene Lefale and I will be covering climate science and local impacts, and Andrew West, Rod Oram, Rachel Brown and Nick Collins will handle the what to do part (full programme here). The day’s organised by the Yoga In Daily Life organisation, and their top man H. H. Mahamandaleshwar Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda (Swamiji) will be in the chair. The event runs from 9-00 to 5-30, and tickets are $75. Should be an interesting way to spend a Saturday for Wellingtonians, if you ignore my bit…
Sail on sailor
Pausing in my peregrinations in Nelson, where it rains (but not so much as in Golden Bay last weekend), I’m catching up on climate news. In Hot Topic I looked forward to the day when the first NZ wine clipper sailed into the Port of London, bringing the new vintage of sauvignon blanc to Britain’s drinkers (p156) – but I now find that the French have beaten us to it. The Herald reported (last month):
This month 60,000 bottles from Languedoc will be shipped to Ireland in a 19th-century barque, saving 22,680kg of carbon. Further voyages to Bristol and Manchester in England and even to Canada are planned soon afterwards. The three-mast barque Belem, which was launched in 1896, the last French merchant sailing vessel to be built, will sail into Dublin after a voyage from Bordeaux that should last about four days.
I like the words on the label: “Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet.”
It’s a fast-moving world, this low-carbon image business. It would be a pity if the French beat us at more than the occasional rugby match…