Tag: NZ

Lip service: NZ government infested with climate denial

Over the last few years I’ve documented the current NZ government’s lackadaisical attitude to climate change policy. They’ve gutted the emissions trading scheme and dismantled sensible initiatives, ensuring that NZ emissions are on course to grow steeply. Last night, TV3 News asked three senior cabinet ministers whether they believed in the reality of climate change, and two of the three couldn’t quite find it in their hearts to endorse simple reality. Here’s my transcription of their responses:

Gerry Brownlee (minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery, Transport, Leader of the House, #3 in the hierarchy):

Well, I think climate change is something that has happened always, so to simply come up and say, look, it’s man-made, is an interesting prospect.

Bill English (deputy PM, finance minister, #2 in the hierarchy):

There’s some impact… [edit] we should uncritically follow the Green’s extreme views about these things, well, many of us don’t.

By way of contrast, climate change minister Tim Groser was unequivocal:

Absolutely, the evidence is overwhelming — you’d have to be denying reality…

Given that I’ve been critical of Groser’s stance on NZ climate policy, it’s refreshing that he feels free to be so blunt in his acceptance of the reality of the problem. He is, after all, a skilled diplomat, and knows that if he were to tell the world that climate change was “an interesting prospect”, his peers in the international community would consider him to be a complete tit. It’s perhaps a good job that English and Brownlee don’t have to front up to the world on climate matters, or their self-esteem might suffer.

Continue reading “Lip service: NZ government infested with climate denial”

Westward Ho: With the Anadarko Flotilla – day one

JeanetteTiama

I’m really pleased to welcome Jeanette Fitzsimons to Hot Topic as a guest blogger. The environmentalist and former co-leader of the NZ Greens is on board the yacht Tiama, sailing out into the Tasman to protest against deep water oil exploration. She will be providing us with regular updates on the flotilla’s progress.

What a fabulous send off. A dozen kayakers, wearing penguin suits, lined up and waved us on our way as we left the harbour. Several small boats sailed with us. About 100 well wishers gathered on the wharf; speeches in support from Green and independent MPs, oil free Wellington, Ora Taiao (climate and health council); two sails spread out on the ground covered with signatures and messages in support of our mission; and home baked cookies and chocolate cake delivered to the wharf by old friends.

I’m on the Tiama, a 50 ft cutter-rigged steel sloop built by skipper Henk, veteran of many campaigns. With us is Bunny from Greenpeace, Barclay who will make a sailor of me by the end of the voyage, and Pascale from France with the camera and the laptop. Later tonight we will pick up two more before heading out to the site 120 miles west of Raglan where Texas oil giant Anadarko has been invited, nay begged, even subsidised, by our government to try a repeat exercise of what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

The Baltazar is sailing with us, skippered by Andy Whittaker, and we plan to rendezvous on Saturday on site with four other boats which left from Auckland, Bay of Islands and Bluff.

Anadarko says that coming out to their drilling site is dangerous. Yeah, right. Who’s causing the danger, drilling under 1500 m of water, knowing the very similar Macondo Prospect they part-owned in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, spewing 650,000 tonnes of oil?

If that happened here, it would take weeks for emergency clean up equipment to arrive from overseas. While we waited the oil would spread, contaminating our coast from Taranaki to the Hokianga and poisoning the whole marine web of life: including our fisheries, seabirds, whales, the Maui dolphin and coastal communities.

Continue reading “Westward Ho: With the Anadarko Flotilla – day one”

Crusaders of the lost wallet: NZ’s climate cranks lose costs case

News reaches HT (hat tip to Rob Taylor) that the Appeal Court has rejected the NZ Climate “Science Education” Trust’s appeal for a reduction in the costs awarded against them when they lost their original case against the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research over the New Zealand temperature record. This latest judgement finds that the NZCSET “did not act reasonably”, and has “mounted something of a crusade against NIWA’s records” (excerpts courtesy of Rob Taylor here).

The judgement comes as no surprise to members of the reality-based community, but the final failure of their futile finagling leaves Barry Brill, Richard Treadgold and the trustees of the NZCSET with questions to answer. I posed three, as yet unanswered, questions last time I covered this issue. To keep things simple for these bears of little legal brain, this time I’ll only ask two.

Are you planning to meet the costs awarded against you? If not, why do you think you should be above the law you so egregiously abused in bringing the case in the first place?

The trustees of the NZCSET are Bryan Leyland, Doug Edmeades and Terry Dunleavy. One rather hopes they have deep pockets…

Poland or Coaland? Climate talks about to begin in Warsaw

Will the sun rise over progress at the climate talks (is that a coal fired power station in the distance?)
Will the sun rise over progress at the climate talks (is that a coal fired power station in the distance?)

Another year, another round of climate talks.  It’s the 19th Conference of Parties to the UN Climate Convention and we’re back in Poland, the scene of an almost complete non-event in 2008, the year before Copenhagen.

It’s Eastern Europe’s turn to host another meeting, and nobody else was prepared to put their hand up, so we’re back in the land of coal, in the country that has rallied their biggest coal companies to sponsor the conference, and which is dragging the whole of the EU down to their level as they refuse to accept stronger targets.  I suspect #coaland will be a well-used hashtag by the end of this.

Usually when you come to a meeting like this, the town is full of banners and signs that a climate meeting is being hosted, but there’s not much sign of it here in Warsaw, except this rather confusing industry advertisement at the airport.

Next weekend there’s a World Coal Association conference in town, being addressed by UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christian Figueres, who turned down a talk to youth at the Powershift conference in favour of talking with Big Coal.  She’s assured them it’s because she wants to “talk frankly” – let’s hope she does.

Last month the Polish hosts were caught posting a news piece heralding the melting of the Arctic as a new opportunity to explore for yet more fossil fuels.  While The YesMen (in a specacular own-goal, in my opinion) tried to claim the piece as their own, it was indeed the Polish Government’s own work. Given this government is chairing the talks, it’s not looking terribly hopeful.

Meanwhile in the Philippines, Cyclone Haiyan, the strongest tropical cyclone ever recorded, has caused a terrible loss of life that’s still being counted – and major damage.  With winds at 195mph as it made landfall, it beat the 1969 record,  according to Jeff Masters’ blog.  Sea surface temperatures were up to 1.5degC above normal.

What role will the science have in these talks?  Will the IPCC’s recent working group 1 conclusions make a difference?  Figueres has already confirmed the IPCC’s carbon budget figures will not be on the agenda. Continue reading “Poland or Coaland? Climate talks about to begin in Warsaw”

TDB today: no clue, no plan, no future

There’s a huge gap between the emissions reductions the New Zealand government says it wants to achieve, and what its current emissions trading scheme settings will deliver, according to modelling by the Ministry for the Environment. In this week’s post at The Daily Blog — No Clue, No Plan, No Future — I examine the disconnect between words and actions — and the lack of common sense on display on the government benches. Comments over there, please…