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The place for NZ oriented news releases on climate change and related energy policy.
Outstanding response for climate-friendly projects
More than 40 large and small organisations have put forward proposals for projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in return for a share of Kyoto Protocol ‘carbon credits’ on offer from the Government.
A total of 45 project proponents have submitted bids for the four million emission units or ‘carbon credits’ being offered in the first tender round for Projects to Reduce Emissions.
More than 40 large and small organisations have put forward proposals for projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in return for a share of Kyoto Protocol ‘carbon credits’ on offer from the Government.
A total of 45 project proponents have submitted bids for the four million emission units or ‘carbon credits’ being offered in the first tender round for Projects to Reduce Emissions.
Fiji Youth Ambassador Assignment
Starts March 2004
World Heritage Assistant Officer
The National Trust of Fiji/ Department of Culture and Heritage
Suva, Fiji Islands
Duration of assignment: 12 Months
Description of the Host Organisation:
The National Trust of Fiji is a statutory organisation charged with the responsibility of the protection of Fiji's heritage.
The broad responsibilities of the Trust lie in the following areas:
Cultural heritage management
Natural heritage management
Biodiversity research
Endangered species protection and management
Protected areas
Tourism
The closing date for applications is Thursday 30 October 2003.
This is an AUSAID position. They are normally open to New Zealand citizens.
Starts March 2004
World Heritage Assistant Officer
The National Trust of Fiji/ Department of Culture and Heritage
Suva, Fiji Islands
Duration of assignment: 12 Months
Description of the Host Organisation:
The National Trust of Fiji is a statutory organisation charged with the responsibility of the protection of Fiji's heritage.
The broad responsibilities of the Trust lie in the following areas:
Cultural heritage management
Natural heritage management
Biodiversity research
Endangered species protection and management
Protected areas
Tourism
The closing date for applications is Thursday 30 October 2003.
This is an AUSAID position. They are normally open to New Zealand citizens.
New Zealand's National Business Reviewon Kyoto
In New Zealand, the government is on the side of the NGOs, with the mild exception of its highly regulatory Erma regime for GMOs. It has unwisely bowed to the Kyoto Protocol that threatens the future of all New Zealand's extractive and heavy industries, such as aluminium, methanol, pulp and paper, oil refining and dairy processing.
To survive, these industries now have to spend much time working with government officials for handouts and concessions when all of them know it is a flawed policy that makes no sense.
For example, the energy sector is in disarray because priorities are being driven by Kyoto-linked priorities to reduce carbon emissions rather than to secure the country's future needs and create more wealth-producing industries. "
In New Zealand, the government is on the side of the NGOs, with the mild exception of its highly regulatory Erma regime for GMOs. It has unwisely bowed to the Kyoto Protocol that threatens the future of all New Zealand's extractive and heavy industries, such as aluminium, methanol, pulp and paper, oil refining and dairy processing.
To survive, these industries now have to spend much time working with government officials for handouts and concessions when all of them know it is a flawed policy that makes no sense.
For example, the energy sector is in disarray because priorities are being driven by Kyoto-linked priorities to reduce carbon emissions rather than to secure the country's future needs and create more wealth-producing industries. "
TrustPower optimistic over dam
TrustPower says there is hope yet for the Dobson dam hydro project, despite losing a vote in Parliament on Thursday.
National MP Nick Smith tried amending the Reserves and Other Lands Bill to remove the ecological reserve status over the land coveted for the proposed dam, 10km inland from Greymouth.
The amendment was lost by five votes.
Dr Smith said Green and Labour MPs had 'defeated' the dam proposal. But the enabling legislation that will decide whether it can go ahead has yet to reach Parliament. "
TrustPower says there is hope yet for the Dobson dam hydro project, despite losing a vote in Parliament on Thursday.
National MP Nick Smith tried amending the Reserves and Other Lands Bill to remove the ecological reserve status over the land coveted for the proposed dam, 10km inland from Greymouth.
The amendment was lost by five votes.
Dr Smith said Green and Labour MPs had 'defeated' the dam proposal. But the enabling legislation that will decide whether it can go ahead has yet to reach Parliament. "
Wairakei to get new binary plant
Contact Energy is planning to boost generation at Wairakei Power Station, providing the country with an additional 14.4 megawatts of electricity - hopefully in time for winter 2005.
The plans are to build a new binary plant at Wairakei, increasing output but using the same amount of geothermal energy as at present. "
Contact Energy is planning to boost generation at Wairakei Power Station, providing the country with an additional 14.4 megawatts of electricity - hopefully in time for winter 2005.
The plans are to build a new binary plant at Wairakei, increasing output but using the same amount of geothermal energy as at present. "
Austrralia forecast to be 2% over Kyoto target
The national greenhouse gas inventory 2001 (inventory), released in September 2003, tracks Australia's progress towards reaching its greenhouse gas emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The inventory predicts that Australia will reach 110 per cent of its 1990 greenhouse emission levels by the year 2010, just two per cent above the 108 per cent target Australia agreed to under the 1997 Protocol."
The national greenhouse gas inventory 2001 (inventory), released in September 2003, tracks Australia's progress towards reaching its greenhouse gas emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol. The inventory predicts that Australia will reach 110 per cent of its 1990 greenhouse emission levels by the year 2010, just two per cent above the 108 per cent target Australia agreed to under the 1997 Protocol."
NBR Editorial
Coal cold-shouldered
Meanwhile, Business New Zealand has highlighted another dumb policy arising from Kyoto – the decision of two electricity generators, one state-owned and the other a listed company – to import LNG (liquid natural gas). Genesis and Contact say the options for electricity generation are coal (which is plentiful in New Zealand) or LNG but “LNG is likely to be the preferred option based on present policy settings.” There is no shortage of LNG but it won’t be cheaper than developing our own resources, as Shell makes clear in this story on the Stuff website.
GL: Actualy Shell doesn't mention coal in the Stuff story - Business New Zealand does. Nor do the Kyoto polices place any prohibition on coal. The carbon charge applies to emisisons from all fossil fuels. Burning coal costs a bit more because it produces less more CO2 for the energy produced. The large scale of coal plants to get efficiency is a much bigger disincentive than the carbon charge. Gas fired plants are smaller, much less capital intensive abd don't have the fly and bottom ash issues.
Coal cold-shouldered
Meanwhile, Business New Zealand has highlighted another dumb policy arising from Kyoto – the decision of two electricity generators, one state-owned and the other a listed company – to import LNG (liquid natural gas). Genesis and Contact say the options for electricity generation are coal (which is plentiful in New Zealand) or LNG but “LNG is likely to be the preferred option based on present policy settings.” There is no shortage of LNG but it won’t be cheaper than developing our own resources, as Shell makes clear in this story on the Stuff website.
GL: Actualy Shell doesn't mention coal in the Stuff story - Business New Zealand does. Nor do the Kyoto polices place any prohibition on coal. The carbon charge applies to emisisons from all fossil fuels. Burning coal costs a bit more because it produces less more CO2 for the energy produced. The large scale of coal plants to get efficiency is a much bigger disincentive than the carbon charge. Gas fired plants are smaller, much less capital intensive abd don't have the fly and bottom ash issues.
Putin confirms Kyoto still on Russia's programme
Persuading the Russian legislature to ratify the Kyoto Protocol will be no easy task for the Cabinet to accomplish, President Vladimir Putin pointed out as he addressed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Summit in Bangkok Sunday. But 'we want to make it, and will be advancing in this direction,' he stressed. "
Persuading the Russian legislature to ratify the Kyoto Protocol will be no easy task for the Cabinet to accomplish, President Vladimir Putin pointed out as he addressed the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Summit in Bangkok Sunday. But 'we want to make it, and will be advancing in this direction,' he stressed. "
Tuvalu, south Pacific At the end of our weather
I had been in Tuvalu for only two days when the first puddle of water appeared at the side of the small airstrip; more puddles soon joined it. The sea had welled up suddenly through thousands of tiny holes in this atoll's bedrock of coral. People gathered to watch the water flow down paths, around palm trees and into back gardens. Within an hour, it was knee-deep in some places. One of Tuvalu's increasingly regular submergences had begun.
Tuvalu is one of the world's smallest and most obscure nations: 10,000 people, scattered across nine tiny coral atolls. Sea-level rise here is a crisis of national survival: very little of Tuvalu is much more than 20 inches above the Pacific and its coral bedrock is so porous that no amount of coastal protection can save it.
According to Professor Patrick Nunn, an ocean geoscientist at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, atoll nations such as Tuvalu will become uninhabitable within two or three decades, and may disappear altogether by the end of the century. Pleas by a succession of Tuvalu's Prime Ministers (and those of other atoll nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives) for dramatic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions have been ignored by other, more powerful states. Tuvaluans will have to move.
The first batch of evacuees, 75 of them, is scheduled to migrate this year to New Zealand, 2,000 miles to the south. But many of the older people say they will refuse to leave.
I had been in Tuvalu for only two days when the first puddle of water appeared at the side of the small airstrip; more puddles soon joined it. The sea had welled up suddenly through thousands of tiny holes in this atoll's bedrock of coral. People gathered to watch the water flow down paths, around palm trees and into back gardens. Within an hour, it was knee-deep in some places. One of Tuvalu's increasingly regular submergences had begun.
Tuvalu is one of the world's smallest and most obscure nations: 10,000 people, scattered across nine tiny coral atolls. Sea-level rise here is a crisis of national survival: very little of Tuvalu is much more than 20 inches above the Pacific and its coral bedrock is so porous that no amount of coastal protection can save it.
According to Professor Patrick Nunn, an ocean geoscientist at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, atoll nations such as Tuvalu will become uninhabitable within two or three decades, and may disappear altogether by the end of the century. Pleas by a succession of Tuvalu's Prime Ministers (and those of other atoll nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives) for dramatic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions have been ignored by other, more powerful states. Tuvaluans will have to move.
The first batch of evacuees, 75 of them, is scheduled to migrate this year to New Zealand, 2,000 miles to the south. But many of the older people say they will refuse to leave.
The stonethrower in the greenhouse
Brian Fallow on the Lomborg visit:
The moral argument for Kyoto goes like this:
Our emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to climatic changes, some of which will prove costly.
But those costs are not sheeted home to those responsible for them. They are diffused over the whole planet and accumulating.
The result is a free ride, in effect a subsidy flowing from poor countries to rich ones and from future generations to the present. Kyoto would begin to give us energy prices that tell us the environmental truth.
Lomborg's response is that future generations will be richer and technologically better-armed than we are to deal with this problem.
And if the concern is for the Third World, it has more pressing problems, more urgent claims on the developed world's resources than climate change.
'It's true that we are leaving future generations with environmental problems,' says Lomborg, who visited New Zealand as a guest of the Business Roundtable.
'But we are also leaving them with an immense amount of technology which enables them to be much richer. We are, in that sense, the poor generation. "
Brian Fallow on the Lomborg visit:
The moral argument for Kyoto goes like this:
Our emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to climatic changes, some of which will prove costly.
But those costs are not sheeted home to those responsible for them. They are diffused over the whole planet and accumulating.
The result is a free ride, in effect a subsidy flowing from poor countries to rich ones and from future generations to the present. Kyoto would begin to give us energy prices that tell us the environmental truth.
Lomborg's response is that future generations will be richer and technologically better-armed than we are to deal with this problem.
And if the concern is for the Third World, it has more pressing problems, more urgent claims on the developed world's resources than climate change.
'It's true that we are leaving future generations with environmental problems,' says Lomborg, who visited New Zealand as a guest of the Business Roundtable.
'But we are also leaving them with an immense amount of technology which enables them to be much richer. We are, in that sense, the poor generation. "
Shell NZ warns of gas costs
Imported liquified natural gas (lng) would provide a stable gas supply, but at a price, Shell New Zealand says.
Two big electricity companies, Contact Energy and state-owned Genesis Power, have announced they will make a feasibility study into importing lng, after concerns about short energy supplies by 2008.
Debate has intensified within the energy industry over the importation of lng with one school saying it would kill an already small gas exploration industry and others believing it would encourage exploration.
The cost of lng storage and a required regasification plant was estimated to be about $1 billion."
Imported liquified natural gas (lng) would provide a stable gas supply, but at a price, Shell New Zealand says.
Two big electricity companies, Contact Energy and state-owned Genesis Power, have announced they will make a feasibility study into importing lng, after concerns about short energy supplies by 2008.
Debate has intensified within the energy industry over the importation of lng with one school saying it would kill an already small gas exploration industry and others believing it would encourage exploration.
The cost of lng storage and a required regasification plant was estimated to be about $1 billion."
Hodgson backs down on fart tax
The Government looks set to back down over its controversial flatulence tax.
In a joint statement yesterday Environment Minister Pete Hodgson and Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton said a new research plan put forward by an agricultural industry group should be sufficient to avoid the need for a statutory levy on farmers. "
The Government looks set to back down over its controversial flatulence tax.
In a joint statement yesterday Environment Minister Pete Hodgson and Agriculture Minister Jim Sutton said a new research plan put forward by an agricultural industry group should be sufficient to avoid the need for a statutory levy on farmers. "
New Zealand Sustainable Business Conference 2002 - Hosts
Climate Change Workshop
Have you considered just what impact climate change will have on your insurance policies?
This workshop will develop a theme, establishing climate change not just as a scientific or political debate but a very real risk management issue.
The workshop team will include: Jeff Patchett, IAG and Rick Humphries; Ecoscorp,Australia.
Climate Change Workshop
Have you considered just what impact climate change will have on your insurance policies?
This workshop will develop a theme, establishing climate change not just as a scientific or political debate but a very real risk management issue.
The workshop team will include: Jeff Patchett, IAG and Rick Humphries; Ecoscorp,Australia.
"'Flatulence tax' key report due:
Protesting farmers are awaiting this week's updated report on the so-called 'flatulence tax' that will be a key factor in the government's decision on whether to adopt the levy."
Protesting farmers are awaiting this week's updated report on the so-called 'flatulence tax' that will be a key factor in the government's decision on whether to adopt the levy."
Environmental Defence Society
New Fossil of the Month - Business New Zealand
New Fossil of the Month - Business New Zealand
Pete Hodgson
Uncertainty doesn't mean paralysis
Uncertainty is often deployed as an excuse for inaction and it has become the mantra of those who oppose the Kyoto Protocol - or indeed any attempt to do something about climate change. "
A nyet from Russia to NZ's benefit
The Kyoto Protocol has always been a flawed agreement. If it goes ahead - now a big 'if' - it is unlikely to achieve much except constrain growth and place big chunks of the economy under central command.
GL: How can you make a claim for influence on an article so full of errors as this one? What is the alternative?
The Kyoto Protocol has always been a flawed agreement. If it goes ahead - now a big 'if' - it is unlikely to achieve much except constrain growth and place big chunks of the economy under central command.
GL: How can you make a claim for influence on an article so full of errors as this one? What is the alternative?
Russia keeps everyone guessing on Kyoto
Russian dithering on whether to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is keeping much of the New Zealand Government's climate change policy up in the air, and corporate planning with it.
Central to the policy is the 'carbon' tax on non-farm greenhouse gas emissions planned for 2007, but it will be adopted only if the Kyoto Protocol is in force and without Russia that treaty will fall over. "
Russian dithering on whether to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is keeping much of the New Zealand Government's climate change policy up in the air, and corporate planning with it.
Central to the policy is the 'carbon' tax on non-farm greenhouse gas emissions planned for 2007, but it will be adopted only if the Kyoto Protocol is in force and without Russia that treaty will fall over. "
Softly, softly way to go on Kyoto treaty
New Zealand rushed headlong into ratification of Kyoto, creating huge uncertainty among companies in this country interested in investment in the energy sector but at a loss to determine the effect of yet-to-be-set international carbon credits. That precipitous action was followed by the hollow sound of the 'flatulence tax' to fund research into livestock methane emissions - in effect forcing farmers to pay for studies that will increase their tax burden. All in the virtuous name of protecting the planet.
All but a few argue the need to reduce "greenhouse gases" and, irrespective of whether one accepts the theory of global warming as opposed to climatic cycles, it makes clear common sense to reduce emissions to 1990 levels. The World Climate Change Conference, the venue at which President Putin poured cold water on swift ratification, has seen scientist after scientist warn of future calamity unless trends are reversed. Many would say it is folly for countries such as the US and, perhaps, Russia to stymie moves to reduce global warming. That may be so but there is a more immediate reality. The New Zealand Government's folly was to commit itself to the obligations of Kyoto long before it was clear that the treaty would survive.
GL:Is the ratificaiton and coming into force proceedures of the Protocol that hard to understand? Even leader writers should manage. New Zealand has no obligations if the Protocol does not survive. Not having ratified would have left bigger uncertainties.
New Zealand rushed headlong into ratification of Kyoto, creating huge uncertainty among companies in this country interested in investment in the energy sector but at a loss to determine the effect of yet-to-be-set international carbon credits. That precipitous action was followed by the hollow sound of the 'flatulence tax' to fund research into livestock methane emissions - in effect forcing farmers to pay for studies that will increase their tax burden. All in the virtuous name of protecting the planet.
All but a few argue the need to reduce "greenhouse gases" and, irrespective of whether one accepts the theory of global warming as opposed to climatic cycles, it makes clear common sense to reduce emissions to 1990 levels. The World Climate Change Conference, the venue at which President Putin poured cold water on swift ratification, has seen scientist after scientist warn of future calamity unless trends are reversed. Many would say it is folly for countries such as the US and, perhaps, Russia to stymie moves to reduce global warming. That may be so but there is a more immediate reality. The New Zealand Government's folly was to commit itself to the obligations of Kyoto long before it was clear that the treaty would survive.
GL:Is the ratificaiton and coming into force proceedures of the Protocol that hard to understand? Even leader writers should manage. New Zealand has no obligations if the Protocol does not survive. Not having ratified would have left bigger uncertainties.
Putin aide casts doubt on Kyoto climate science
An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin cast doubt on Wednesday on the scientific work underpinning a UN pact on fighting global warming that will founder without Moscow's backing.
'We need answers,' Andrei Illarionov, an adviser to Putin on economic affairs, said in posing 10 questions to a World Climate Change Conference that may help Moscow decide whether to ratify the UN's 1997 Kyoto Protocol. "
An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin cast doubt on Wednesday on the scientific work underpinning a UN pact on fighting global warming that will founder without Moscow's backing.
'We need answers,' Andrei Illarionov, an adviser to Putin on economic affairs, said in posing 10 questions to a World Climate Change Conference that may help Moscow decide whether to ratify the UN's 1997 Kyoto Protocol. "
Guide to estimating Projects GHG reductions
Energy Federation of New Zealand Incorporated (EFNZ)
Energy Federation of New Zealand Incorporated (EFNZ)
Russia's delay not the end for Kyoto - Hodgson
The Government still believes Russia will sign up to the Kyoto protocol
The Government still believes Russia will sign up to the Kyoto protocol
