Tag: ETS

The gentle sound of axes being ground

The big emitters’ carefully co-ordinated campaign against the proposed NZ Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is having a big week. Following on from last week’s Castalia report, the Greenhouse Policy Coalition and the Major Electricity Users Group are now claiming that a survey shows the ETS will have big economic impacts [Herald , NBR]:

The relatively small survey of 32 firms, which includes some meat companies, pulp and paper mills, iron, steel, shipping, cement, dairy, mining and supermarkets shows that a carbon price of $30/tonne will cost those firms $241 million in increased direct energy costs, result in deferred investment of $1.5 billion, put at risk over 2000 existing jobs and 425 new jobs had planned investment gone ahead.

The survey cunningly ignores the government’s proposal to grandfather emissions in most sectors, presumably so that it could paint the worst possible picture of economic impacts.

Forgive me if I consider that a survey conducted by a lobby group, based on a tiny response and dubious methodology, that just happens to show exactly what the lobby group wants it show, is meaningless. But from the GPC’s perspective, any noise is presumably good noise. Which is about all that can be said for a column by Alasdair Thompson of the Employers and Manufacturers Association in the Herald. Fodder for the spin machine. Even Westpac got in the act, claiming that a carbon price would put inflationary pressure on the Reserve Bank, on equally flimsy grounds. And by some strange coincidence, the Business Roundtable just happens to have shipped notorious British sceptic Nigel Lawson over from the UK to sing for his supper on Thursday. No guesses about the tune Nigel will bellow… (I’ll be posting about Lawson later this week). Fortunately, Rod Oram’s around to demonstrate (in his Sunday Star Times column at the weekend) that there are plenty of businesses who don’t need a weatherman (or climate scientist) to know which way the wind is blowing.

All this PR activity is about framing the debate. If the big emitters can ignore the climate imperative and international consequences of our actions and spin this as about economics and prosperity and jobs, they presumably hope to be able to get the scheme watered down or delayed. Tactically, it may be about trying to separate National from its early acceptance of the ETS proposals. Can Key and Smith resist the siren call of corporates with deep pockets?

They would say that, wouldn’t they…

This week it’s the turn of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition to trumpet a report urging a go-slow on emissions trading. The GPC, of course, are the nation’s big emitters (NZ Aluminium Smelters, Holcim, Solid Energy, Fonterra etc), and they are lobbying hard on behalf of their members. The usual suspects (Business Roundtable, Business NZ) weighed in behind the report, while Greenpeace and the Business Council For Sustainable Development took the opposite view. Brian Fallow at the Herald provides an overview – but not much in the way of substantive criticism.

The report, The New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme: How do we make it work? [PDF], by Alex Sundakov at Castalia, is pretty obviously a bit of special pleading on behalf of big emitters – primarily agriculture – and in that respect its conclusions are hardly surprising. These are the key suggestions (from the press release):

Continue reading “They would say that, wouldn’t they…”

Towards credible offsets

Carbon offsets are often criticised as no better than medieval “papal indulgences” – pay a few dollars and have your sins forgiven, then feel free to sin again – but they have a valuable role to play in the transition to a low carbon economy. Provided, of course, that the offsets – the emissions reductions or carbon sequestration that someone undertakes on your behalf – are real. There are substantial moves afoot to develop credible international standards for offsets, and a seminar at the Institute of Policy Studies in Wellington last week (Carbon Neutrality and the Voluntary Carbon Market in New Zealand) looked at the issue in the NZ context.

Rod Oram’s column in the Sunday Star Times this week drew on his experience at the seminar, and paints a picture of what’s going on in the voluntary sector.

…if we leave climate change to mandated government actions such as treaties, caps, emissions trading and standards we will never achieve the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions needed to stabilise the global climate, argues Michael Molitor of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Australian practice. Even if you take all the existing mandatory national and international programmes in place and add in something of similar scope for the US on the assumption that the next president will act, “you do not get a reduction in timing and scale of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020,” he told a Victoria University Institute of Policy Studies seminar last week. “So, you have to engage everybody.” And that means developing voluntary carbon markets to incentivise people to change their behaviour and adopt better technology.

Many of the presentations given at the seminar are available at the IPS web site, and one well worth reading in detail is a paper (Carbon Neutrality, Carbon Footprints, Offsets… and Credibility [PDF]) by Murray Ward, Melanie Hutton and Jim Renwick. It provides an excellent overview.

Also worth noting: on November 19th, The Climate Group (a British NGO), the World Economic Forum, and the International Emissions Trading Association will launch a new global Voluntary Carbon Standard. No popes involved.

Friday on my mind

Meridian got the resource consent for its 176 turbine, $1.5bn Project Hayes wind farm on the Lammermoor Range, 70 km north west of Dunedin in Central Otago, but only on a split decision. Next stage: almost certainly the Environment Court. [Herald , The Press , Southland Times] Meanwhile:

  • Brian Fallow follows up on fast following in the Herald, and gets it right.
  • Desmogblog highlights an excellent NASA animation illustrating the sheer extent of this summer’s Arctic ice melt.
  • Technology Review covers MIT’s Smart Cities group design for a folding, stackable, electric city car (and scooter).
  • The Guardian [UK]reports on a list of the top 50 things to do to save the planet, drawn up by the Environment Agency [full list(PDF)]. Toppermost of the poppermost? Dramatically improve the energy efficiency of electrical goods. In the charts at number 2 (with a bullet)? Religious leaders to make the environment a priority for their followers.
  • The Guardian [UK] also has an interesting feature on plans to collect solar energy in space (thus avoiding the losses caused by passage through the atmosphere) and then beam it down to earth via microwave or laser beams.

Formerly the weekend roundup

Saturday’s promised omnibus extension never arrived, in part because of the arrival of a big cat on my computer, so here’s a Tuesday update.

Continue reading “Formerly the weekend roundup”