Tag: ETS

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”.

Skating away (on the thin ice of a new day)

Mar-2008-Ice-Age.jpg A new forecast for this summer’s Arctic sea ice melt suggests that there’s a 60% chance that this year’s minimum will set a new record. Work by researchers at the University of Colorado’s Center for Astrodynamics Research shows that the current ice is much thinner than usual:

“The current Arctic ice cover is thinner and younger than at any previous time in our recorded history, and this sets the stage for rapid melt and a new record low,” said Research Associate Sheldon Drobot, who leads CCAR’s Arctic Regional Ice Forecasting System group in CU-Boulder’s aerospace engineering sciences department. Overall, 63 percent of the Arctic ice cover is younger than average, and only 2 percent is older than average, according to Drobot.

The image above shows the age of the current ice cover compared to average for this time of year (you can click on the image to see a larger version). Yellow is the same as average, red is younger. For the bigger picture, visit the Arctic Ice Forecasting System pages at UC.

This has prompted me to increase my sea ice bet with William “Stoat” Connolley by £10 to £30 (plus a signed copy of Hot Topic). With the seasonal melt speeding up, the race is on…

[Hat-tip to Eli Rabett]

White light/white heat

NZETS.jpg The proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is under intense scrutiny at the moment. Lobbyists, economists and politicians are all pounding their respective beats, and as is usual in these matters, a great deal more heat than light is being shed on the proposed legislation. At the beginning of the week, the government’s climate change leadership forum – the great and the good of the business world – announced that it supported the broad outline of the ETS with some caveats (announcement, Herald), only for Business NZ to promptly withdraw its support. Then the Sustainability Council of NZ published a report [PDF] criticising the way that the ETS transfers revenue from consumers to key industries – especially agriculture – and warned that it wouldn’t do enough to reduce emissions. Not to be outdone, the NZ Institute for Economic Research produced its own report [PDF], warning that the scheme would do little good and cost the economy billions, and advising that we shold do nothing except buy Kyoto compliance on the world market. ACT leader Rodney Hide then announced that “the Government’s ETS is a crock and should be dumped.” There are now rumours that the government is running scared, and might delay implementing the petrol and fuels part of the scheme to avoid frightening consumers in the run up to the election. So, who’s right? Is Rodney’s incisive analysis on the money?

Continue reading “White light/white heat”

The sincerest form of flat earthery

discworld.jpg I can’t resist a small (flat, disc-shaped) chortle. While the great communicator (Prof Bob) was readying himself to address an august audience at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron in Auckland last Saturday, a bunch of members of the NZ branch of the Flat Earth Society (dressed in clothing from their favourite historical period – the Medieval Warm Period) were handing out leaflets suggesting that the NZ Climate “Science” Coalition might like to join with them to resist the dark forces of rationalism. From the leaflet:

The Flat Earth Society and the Climate Science Coalition (with Bob Carter) have so much in common. While the NZ CSC is relatively new, we at the FES have had centuries of experience in battling against against a mass of overwhelming scientific evidence, and believe may be able to learn from and indeed support each other.

The NZCSC seems to have come to a critical point that appears to be tipping against you – a point where fewer people believe in your position. Believe us, we’ve been there, we know what it’s like.

Don Brash was there.

I’ll drown in my own tears

homer.jpg But tears of laughter or tears of frustration? I honestly don’t know whether to laugh or cry (but I’ve certainly got the blues) about a “Viewpoints” feature in this week’s Listener – here’s the intro that runs above two single page articles:

The latest UN climate change conference canvassed many opinions. The Listener asked people from opposite sides of the debate to share their views.

On the crank side we have Bryan Leyland and Chris de Freitas. The “balancing” view comes from Professor Dave Kelly, an ecologist from the University of Canterbury (previews only – full text available after April 19). As I’ve said before, framing the discussion about climate change as a “debate” and with only two sides (it’s real/it isn’t) is highly misleading because it misrepresents the balance of evidence – and I’ll be returning to that in more depth in a future post. But what really brought tears to my eyes were the outright lies from the cranks. CdF repeats some of the untruths in his last outing in the Herald, and BL adds a few more of his own. Here we go again…

Continue reading “I’ll drown in my own tears”