This is the second of my climate change blogposts on my journey to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP15).
I’ve been thinking about five things New Zealand could do to make a more responsible contribution to international climate change policy than we do at the moment with John Key, Gerry Brownlee, Nick Smith, Murray McCully and Tim Groser calling the shots. We need:
1. Real greenhouse gas reduction targets. Earlier this year, Nick Smith and Tim Groser announced targets of between 10% and 20% reductions over 1990 emissions levels. These targets were conditional on a deal being reached at Copenhagen, and on New Zealand getting concessions in a number of areas deemed important to our national interest, like land use change rules. So if neither of those things happen, we’ll have no target. Worse, John Key has admitted that we’ll achieve any reductions on a ‘net’ basis, by buying emissions credits from other countries rather than getting our own emissions down.
National wants New Zealand to have a free ride, and not have to actually do anything about reducing our emissions. The rest of the world sees through this and is starting to regard us as a freeloader.
This is shortsighted. We are not living up to the clean green image that we are cultivating to sell ourselves as a great tourist destination and a desirable food producer. No wonder we got a fossil award at Copenhagen today.
2. A better way to set reduction targets. When Nick Smith pushed his amended ETS through Parliament a couple of weeks ago under urgency with Maori Party and Peter Dunne support, I proposed an amendment, originally suggested by the Business Council for Sustainable Development, that would have provided for a transparent, consultative target-setting process. The amendment would have created a group of experts, to consult and advise on target setting. It would have enshrined reductions targets in legislation, and it would have required the Government to report against progress in meeting those targets. National, the Maori Party and Peter Dunne voted this amendment down. Targets – like the big subsidies that will now go to polluters – will be formulated in secret by Nick Smith. They will remain aspirational, rather than legislated-for, goals.
3. Domestic policies that actually reduce emissions. As noted, plans to meet even our modest conditional targets rely on buying credits offshore rather than achieving domestic emissions reductions. There’s no sector-by-sector plan to reduce emissions in agriculture, transport, energy generation or otherwise. Gerry Brownlee has rolled back each of the previous Labour-led Government’s initiatives in these areas – the renewables generation preference and the biofuels obligation were two early casualties under urgency late last year.
And Nick Smith’s “moderated” ETS won’t help. Because it adopts “intensity” rather than absolute reduction measures, lacks caps, and phases out assistance to polluters over a 90 year period rather than the 20 years Labour opted for, all reputable experts say that it will actually lead to an increase, rather than a decrease, in New Zealand’s emissions.
4. To keep focussed on issues that relate to our national interest, but not at the sake of losing sight of the big picture. It would be great for New Zealand to get more favorable rules on offset planting – but not if this incentivises a whole lot of new deforestation in the Amazon. It would be great for New Zealand to get amended land use change rules – but not if this actually increases the amount of greenhouse gas being released into the atmosphere.
5. To watch the messages we send by taking care over the company we keep internationally. We are members of the “Umbrella Group” – the non-EU industrialised countries that discuss issues together, chaired by Australia. It includes the US, Canada and Russia. Although the Umbrella Group members negotiate independently, you have to wonder why we associate so closely with them – and why Tim Groser seems to want to get even closer. We have a unique emissions profile for a developed nation (50% of emissions from agriculture; 66-75% of electricity generation from renewables). We just don’t have a lot in common with the coal-burning giants, which also makes you wonder why we do things like join international alliances on carbon capture and sequestration (MED officials told me last week this was more to do with ‘Trans-Tasman diplomacy’ than New Zealand’s actual technological needs!). And why on earth aren’t we more vocal in support of the AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States), that includes many of our nearest Pacific neighbours? Instead of bullying them at Pacific Islands Forum meetings to say and do what New Zealand and Australia want on climate change, we could live up to our (increasingly
self-imagined) image of being their friends and allies.
It seems to me that if the New Zealand Government doesn’t think carefully about these issues, we risk a double-whammy. Sophisticated consumers in our developed country markets increasingly won’t want to come to us as tourists, or buy our lamb, butter and wine, and we’ll get poorer, not richer, despite our determined open-ness to international markets. Developing countries, including the Pacific states, will increasingly see us as selfish and shirking of our responsibilities, and we’ll find ourselves – including in our own region, where our interests are strategic – increasingly resented.
New Zealand can do so much better.
Good report.
Charles, even though your criticisms above are valid, they completely miss the elephant in the room – oil depletion. Your “double-whammy” conclusion is correct, but possibly for different reasons than those you quote.
NZ is in fairly good shape in terms of electricity generation, but our transport and agricultural sectors are heavily oil dependent. Within the next 20 to 30 years (definitely; and very probably sooner) oil depletion will become an urgent and obvious problem. We’re a long way away from markets, and when fossil inputs increase in price, we’re in for a big slap upside the head, particularly in the ag world.
Sure, if we get moving, we could possibly build some sort of coal-to-liquids or biodiesel infrastructure to keep essential ag production and transport going. However, this will elevate costs, and in a world where transport-to-market costs become more significant, and where our customers will likely be suffering some economic disruption too, the strategy of importing fertilisers and exporting “premium” produce to a more distant world seems somewhat misguided. (Not to mention the fact that widespread CTL would completely destroy whatever is left of our clean green image by then).
Tourism is clearly likely to suffer in an oil-constrained world, too, which will further impact earnings. Even domestically, we’ll have some issues – we could replace some of our car fleet with electrics (but need then to divert from our convention of buying Japan’s hand-me-down vehicles), but one would have to ask what we plan to pay for these with, given our parlous trade balance of payments. We seem unlikely to build them ourselves, having long since forsaken our no-8 wire roots.
These issues are not very controversial: although it’s not possible to know 100% the remaining oil reserves on the planet, the evidence is fairly decided. The 20-30 year window I’ve quoted above is the insanely optimistic view – the pessimistic view says it’s a problem now, with quite a body of evidence to back that up.
I realise it’s hard to discuss these things while in government (but still resent the fact that Labour wasted so much time with it’s head in the sand, and didn’t enable the Greens to have more of a platform to get this across), but if ever the topic can be breached, surely when in opposition and way back in the polls is the best time. Someone has to deal with this – and history will surely judge us badly for not having the fortitude to do so.
It’s a pity then that the biofuels thing that Labour was going to implement was scrapped.
Spud, dont think so. We need our jungle and forests to remain jungles and forests not Palm Oil plantations. And Tallow is too expensive.
Besides, dont you care about the Orangutans?
Yes I do care about Orangutans and our forests. I was only thinking that we do need an alternative to oil if we’re not going to go back to the horse and cart.
@Spud: how about actively designing our lives and economy to need less of the stuff?
@rainman – That to me is like going back to the horse and cart. Wouldn’t it be great if we could have all the stuff that we have now with a new, clean kind of fuel?
I do agree with being more environmentally friendly in general. I’d like to see a wider range of things being recycled and our waterways kept clean.
Also, why do third world countries get those wind up laptops that never need plugging in and not us?
David: In NZ, we don’t make our biofuels out of Orangutans. Tallow was looking viable at present petrol prices with the obligation, and Fonterra could have done a nice line in bioethanol from their waste, but the real source was looking to be trees. Unfortunately, we’re now looking at an n-year delay before we get that online and able to ease the pain of oil shortages – assuming that the present policy doesn’t result in the whole project being garbage-binned.
What happens to our nuclear-free policy the day that nuclear fusion is discovered possible?
Nuclear waste, Rich
@Spud: Sure, and while you’re at it I’d like a pony.
More seriously: we already have a problem in that we can’t really afford the stuff we have now, even under today’s rules. (What happens to our trade position and indebtedness when our creditors lose faith in our future growth prospects?)
Perhaps if we want all the shiny stuff we have today, the freedom of individual personalised transport and all the rest, we should be doing something to build that ourselves? Our culture of entitlement is a huge obstacle here.
There is much we could do: more local food resilience (organics, f’rinstance), better bulk transport in and between major cities (not much you can do about rural, population density is too low), development of our renewable energy sources, development of local industries/jobs…
Pity we’re a financial basket-case.
@Richard: Does our nuclear free policy prohibit nuclear for energy purposes? I thought it was just warships and the like. Not a fan, mind you: we would lose all credibility, and it’s not so suitable for NZ anyway.
Oh, you said fusion! That’s still 50 years away, I’m told.
We’re islands, where would we go in a meltdown? @rainman – I accept what you’re saying about bulk transport and stuff, I don’t mind that kind of thing. But I do think that life would be sweeter if we could, in addition to doing the things you suggest, find some clean fuel.
Spud, I think you are confusing nuclear fusion with nuclear fission, which is the dirty one. Fusion is the same process the Sun uses, there is no waste.
Rainman, Yes probably still 50 years away, mores the pity. It will be the biggest and cleanest source of energy ever discovered.
Okay Rich.
charles which countries are making bigger commitments than we are?
Mel, the following countries with obligations to adopt reductions targets (limited at the moment to developed countries in Annex 1 of the Kyoto Protocol that have signed and ratified that agreement) have taken on a higher range than we have:
Australia, up to 25% (base year 2000)
EU, up to 30% (base year 1990, ditto for others below)
Japan 25%
Norway, up to 40%
Russia, up to 25%
Rainman, it seems to me there are 2 reasons for moving to a low-carbon economy. One is to avoid disastrous climate change, the other is because fossil fuels will become so rare as to be uneconomic to extract. Far from doing nothing, Labour recognised this when in office in the NZ transport strategy – setting out via biofuels, more public transport, more coastal shipping, more rail, more electric vehicles – a pathway to reduce transport emissions by 50% over the next 30 years. Ditto in the NZ energy strategy – a pathway to reduce non-renewables electricity generation to 10% of baseload by 2025. We’d immediately restore, update and strengthen these and other strategies in office, as opposed to diluting or rolling them back as the current Government is doing.
@Richard: Sorry, but I actually LOL’ed at your shameless techno-optimism. Fusion’s a dream, which won’t be real for ages, if ever; who knows if it will be the “biggest and cleanest”, or even if we’ll have the available energy to ever make it real?
@Charles: My apologies, I had not read that. Will seek it out and do so before bashing any further
I want an electric car
Rainman, Agreed, but there is nothing wrong with being an optimist. People from even 100 years ago would have trouble understanding the technical advances of today. Nuclear fusion IS still a dream, but so was the steam engine once. I prefer to look forward with hope for the world and it’s peoples, and history shows that those with ideas for the future are the engines of progress. Unfortunately there will always be Luddites, but I don’t tar you with that brush. Happy Christmas.
@Richard: True words – as long as we keep our collective eyes on the more near-term issues too.
Happy Festivities to you (and everyone else) too.
Merry Christmas rainman, Rich and everyone else
People WAKE UP!,the people driving this are pure evil who care nothing for you.The CFR,Trilateral Commission,COR,Sierra Club,Bilderburg Group and many other elitists are the people you need to know about!.
Some quotes to digest:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.”
- Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution 1991(Al Gore is a member!)
“To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas.” – Brock Adams, Director UN Health Organization
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
- Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
- Professor Maurice King ,UNEP
“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
- Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
“We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent.”
Statement by Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member James Warburg to The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17th, l950.
If you research these groups and their influence over governments and policy you will see there is no conspiracy,it’s fact.
Gary, You are a Conspiracy Theorist Idiot. I wouldn’t bother wasting my time. Are you real?