Tag: NZ

NZ govt dumps national environmental standard for sea level rise

The New Zealand government has ordered officials at the Ministry of Environment to stop work on the development of a national environmental standard (NES) on sea level rise, enquiries by the Science Media Centre have revealed. Lack of an NES for future sea level increases will force each local authority to make up its own mind about how much to allow for ocean encroachment. A ministry spokesman told the SMC:

At this stage there are no plans to progress the proposed NES. The Minister for the Environment has made it clear that current guidance provides local government with both the information and the flexibility to plan locally for rises in sea levels.

An NES on sea level rise would have simplified sea level planning for local authorities, who currently may choose to rely on “guidance” provided by the ministry, based on work by NIWA. This currently suggests that authorities should allow for 0.5 m rise by the 2090s, and that they should consider the impacts of a 0.8 m rise in that time frame.

There are two major problems here: the current guidance numbers, first published in 2009, are increasingly out of line with the latest research, and the lack of a national standard means that climate sceptics can waste time and ratepayer money by forcing planning authorities to adjudicate on their minority views.

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Down by the seaside

This year’s NZ Climate Change Centre conference, to be held at Te Papa in Wellington next month, focusses on sea level rise, and how communities can adapt to the inevitable encroachment of the ocean. The organisers have laid on some excellent speakers, include Aussie oceanographer and sea level expert John Church, as well as many directly involved with the issues raised by sea level rise in New Zealand. The conference programme aims to:

  • Present the latest science of sea-level rise associated with climate change, including the role of polar ice-sheet melt
  • Present a synthesis of recent projections for sea-level rise and discuss the uncertainties associated with these projections
  • Identify anticipated impacts on New Zealand coastal environment and infrastructure resulting from climate change
  • Discuss whether adaptive risk management for adapting to sea-level rise will be adequate given the ranges projected and their uncertainties
  • Stimulate discussion of how end-users can manage present and future coastal issues and how social and bio-physical scientists, central and local government, and infrastructure operators can work together with communities to build resilient systems
  • Describe approaches that have been taken to planning coastal futures, which take into account community and resource-user needs underpinned by plausible climate change projections, adaptive approaches to manage uncertainties, and sound approaches to developing coastal policies.

Sounds like a very worthwhile couple of days. It’ll be interesting to hear what the “synthesis of recent projections for sea-level rise” suggests we’re in for, so if any HT readers are planning to attend, I’d be very happy to carry some conference reports.

For what it’s worth, in my view two numbers and one uncomfortable fact are of prime importance. We’re committed to warming, and therefore to sea level rise. The peak level of atmospheric CO2 that we reach (unless we can cut it very quickly after the peak by active carbon removal) will set the final quantum of sea level rise the planet will experience. The latest paleoclimate evidence suggests that current CO2 levels are putting us on course for an eventual 20 metres of sea level rise. Pick your final CO2 concentration, and calibrate against times past. At 300 ppm in the last interglacial, sea level was 6 metres higher than present.

The consequence of where we end up on the atmospheric carbon scale is a long term inevitable and uncomfortable commitment to continuously increasing sea level. It might be enough for some purposes to consider only a metre or two over the the next century, but if you’re planning to rebuild a city, perhaps you should look a little further ahead. Fascinating discussions are in store in Wellington, I confidently predict…

I was lucky enough to attend (and speak) at last year’s conference ((The proceedings of last year’s forum are now available from the NZ CCRI.)), and I’m sure that this year’s effort will be just as worthwhile.

[Zep]

Helter smelter: NZ Aluminium Smelters wins the 2011 Roger Award

Simon Johnson reports that NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ have just won the 2011 Roger Award for Worst Transnational Corporation operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand, for milking the NZETS.

Every year the group Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) awards a Roger Award for bad multinational corporate behaviour. Past winners have been Warner Brothers for the Hobbit film employment law change and British American Tobacco.

Readers may recall I wrote some posts about the excessive allocation of free emissions units from the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme to NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ.

I concluded that in 2010 the Rio Tinto Alcan NZ received 135% more emissions units than it needed for its greenhouse emissions, as an undisclosed amount of units were to compensate it for undisclosed ETS-related electricity costs. In other words, Rio Tinto Alcan NZ would pay a higher ‘carbon’ price if it was exempt from the NZ ETS, as they would at least be paying some ‘carbon’ price as a ‘downstream’ electricity user.

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Aquaflow: next-gen biofuels a commercial reality

Positive news this week from the Nelson-based algae company Aquaflow whose fortunes we have followed on Hot Topic over the past three years. I last reported on them in August 2011, when they had signed an agreement for joint testing and evaluation with Texas-based CRI Catalyst Company (CRI). Now they have announced a full technology cooperation agreement with that company which they believe leaves them poised to make refining next generation biofuels a commercial reality in New Zealand and in overseas projects within the two to three years it takes to build a refinery.

That’s big news if it comes to fruition. Director Nick Gerritsen says: “We should be able to produce renewable hydrocarbon fuel that is equivalent to fossil fuel at a cost that is highly competitive with the current per barrel price of crude oil.” He adds that New Zealand could turn its biomass into enough carbon-neutral biofuel to meet its renewable fuels requirement within ten years.

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Hansen’s righteous cause

The latest communication from James Hansen to his email list this week was a sharp reminder that the New Zealand Government’s commitment to the pursuit of unexploited fossil fuels is part of widespread malpractice.

The global stampede to find every possible fossil fuel is not being opposed by governments, no matter how dirty the fuels nor how senseless the energy strategy is from long-term economic and moral perspectives.

The specific case that Hansen focuses on is the Alberta tar sands. He has some chilling statistics.

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