Now that one election’s out of the way, (a good result: Obama’s committed to 80 percent reductions by 2050) time to focus on what’s happening in New Zealand. I’ve promised several times to offer an analysis of the major parties offerings on climate change and emissions reductions, but I’ve been pre-empted by a very useful summary by Vote for the Environment (a joint effort by Eco and Greenpeace). They set up an “ideal” set of environment policies, and then surveyed the parties and scored their answers. The results are pretty close to my impression of the state of the parties…
Tag: ETS
Roll up, sign up, save money
Thanks to a brief encounter at last weekend’s Amberley A&P Show (I was in truffle mode, manning a table in the PGG Wrightson tent), Hot Topic is pleased to be able to offer registered readers an exclusive $200 saving on a one year subscription to Carbon News – the premium New Zealand-based carbon and climate news and analysis site. Carbon News is especially valuable for anyone working with the ETS and carbon trading, with comprehensive national and international news and trading information. A one year sub is normally $500 + GST, but thanks to the Carbon News team I am now able offer Hot Topic readers a special price of $300 + GST for the first year. I think that’s terrific value for an excellent service.
This special offer goes hand-in-hand with the introduction of registration at Hot Topic. Until now, commenters have been able to leave comments without logging on to the site, but that seems to encourage spammers. Not many spam comments make it onto the site because I use the excellent spam filtering service Akismet, but I have to wade through piles of rubbish every morning in case a real comment has been misidentified. From now on, to leave a comment you’ll have to log in to the blog. Registration is simple and painless, and your confirmation email will include the special code you’ll need to take advantage of the Carbon News offer. Let me know if you have any problems…
Pleasant (Silicon) Valley Sunday
I sometimes describe my self as a techno-optimist, something of an ecogeek. I like the idea that there are technologies which can help us to deal with climate change – new and interesting stuff that can make decarbonising the global economy a reality. To illustrate what I mean, there’s an excellent (and long) article by Jon Gertner in the New York Times, discussing the activities of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the powerful venture capital firm with substantial “greentech” interests. Gertner was given an inside look at some of the more visible of KPCB’s investments (FloDesign – that’s their wind turbine above, Ausra, & Bloom Energy amongst others), but I found the following section particularly interesting. Gertner interviews Al Gore, and discover’s he’s become more optimistic about our ability to deal with climate change:
“My previous optimism involved an act of will that occasionally was hard to reconcile with the worsening reality,†he told me. His optimism had recently grown considerably, partly because of the prospect of new policies on carbon emissions, and partly because of innovations he’d seen at Kleiner. Some of these were green-tech companies, Gore said, that were in “deep, deep stealthâ€; they were known to no one except for a few V.C.’s and the entrepreneurs themselves. I heard a similar point elsewhere. John Doerr’s speech last spring at M.I.T., for instance, was notably more upbeat than the emotional one he gave at the 2007 technology conference, where he said, “I don’t think we’re going to make it.†I recently asked Doerr how he felt now. “I’m more optimistic about the innovation that will occur,†he replied. “I’m more humbled by the scale of what has to be done. Or more sober. And I’m particularly concerned about the speed.†The green-energy technologies Kleiner was investing in, Doerr continued, “won’t impact the problem at scale in the next five years, just because they have long development times associated with them. In the 5-to-15-year period of time, I think they’ll demonstrate, and clearly point the path to, lower costs than we would have otherwise imagined possible.â€
That has to be good news. Technology is not the only answer to the problem, as Lomborg might insist, but it is a key part of the response we have to make. There’s a race on – climate change against human ingenuity. We’re smart enough to win, but we’re greedy enough to make the job difficult. And we need to be lucky…
The Dreaming
The final version of the Garnaut Climate Change Review on Australia’s response to climate change was released today. I haven’t had time to read it (it’s big, and detailed), but I will be taking it into account when I finish my long-promised post on targets. Money quote (from the synopsis):
There are times in the history of humanity when fateful decisions are made. The decision this year and next on whether to enter a comprehensive global agreement for strong action is one of them. Australia’s actions will make a difference to the outcome, in several ways.
The chances of success at Copenhagen would be greater if heads of government favouring a strong outcome set up an experts group to come up with a practical approach to global mitigation that adds up to various environmental objectives. On a balance of probabilities, the failure of our generation on climate change mitigation would lead to consequences that would haunt humanity until the end of time.
Quite. Barry Brook’s blog (Brave New Climate) will be a good place to go for informed analysis and comment over the next few weeks. And there will be considerable interest in Wellington and from our politicians.
[Title reference: Kate Bush at her daftest (with Rolf Harris on didgeridoo)]
The green green grass of home
Back at my desk briefly (it’s a hectic week), some catching up in progress. The Going West panel session on Saturday morning was fun to do, and well received. There will be a recording available (for download, I hope) and I’ll link to that if/when it’s available. The climate change legal summit in Te Papa was a fascinating couple of days, with excellent speakers. Some of it was fairly dry stuff, as you might expect when considering the legal minutiae of carbon trading, and how the ETS might interact with the RMA process, but there were really useful sessions on dealing with greenwash, checking out the quality of offsets, the pitfalls of carbon trading, and so on. Highlights for me were Judge Shonagh Kenderdine on how climate change is being treated in the Environment Court (with special reference to sea level rise), Karen Price on the process (and contractual pitfalls) of carbon trading, and Professor Martin Manning on climate science and politics. Prof Manning had some interesting thoughts on targets – which luckily for me, reinforced the message I’d given in my morning introduction. There were also interesting and challenging presentations on agriculture and its future from Guy Salmon and Chris Ward (Hort NZ). All good stuff: would be great if it could find a wider audience, because this is where the real debate about climate change is – dealing with it, and moving forward.