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The place for NZ oriented news releases on climate change and related energy policy.

Scoop: Kyoto Forest Owners misleading NZ over sink credit
Kyoto Forest Owners are making 'grossly misleading and self-delusional statements' about alleged nationalisation of forest sinks, according to the Environmental Defence Society (EDS).
Kyoto Forest Owners spokesperson Roger Dickie said in a statement yesterday that the government has 'nationalised' and 'stolen' forest sinks, thus depriving forest owners of some billions of dollars of value.
'This is the mantra the forest sector has been chanting now for some time. But they are quite wrong to suggest that government stole forest owners' rights."

New Zealand - 4 million careful owners
Your country needs you.
Earth is getting warmer faster, due largely to greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The resulting effects on our climate are already being felt across the world. In addition to the impact on our unique natural environment, New Zealand's economy is also vulnerable.

Climate change in 'ordinary' Kiwis' hands
Environmental officials preparing New Zealand to cope with effects of global warming and climate change, such as more extreme floods and droughts, say they want to persuade 'ordinary' Kiwis the problem is a grassroots issue.
The Environment Ministry today launched a nationwide campaign aimed at raising awareness that all New Zealanders have a role to play in reducing the impact of climate change. "

Scoop: Forest Owners Seek Payment For Carbon Credits
The Kyoto Forest Owners Association represents forest owners who have planted more than 200,000 ha in New Zealand since 1989.
Only forests planted after 1989 generate carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol. The Government projects that these Kyoto Forest sinks will generate $2.6 billion dollars in credits during the first Kyoto commitment period, 2008 to 2012.

Trans-Tasman action on climate change
The Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, Pete Hodgson, and the Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp, today announced details of the first projects to be undertaken under the Australia-New Zealand Bilateral Climate Change Partnership.
The Partnership, formally announced by the two governments in July this year, aims to focus on concrete ways to address climate change, particularly at a regional level. "

UN, EU slam Canberra on failure to sign Kyoto [December 12, 2003]
The United Nations and European Union yesterday condemned Australia's refusal to ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty, and Germany's environment minister suggested Australia needed a new government.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on countries to 'expedite the ratification process', in a reference to treaty-blockers Australia, the US and Russia. "

Sinking islands battle for climate aid cash - www.smh.com.au
A group of 40 small islands, many in the Pacific and under imminent threat of disappearing beneath the waves, last night blocked attempts by big nations to delay climate talks for 18 months.
The Alliance of Small Island States, some of the smallest countries in the world and the most vulnerable to climate change, desperately need the £30 million ($71 million) relief fund agreed on by the climate change conference in Milan to help them adapt to environmental changes."

Windfarm granted carbon credits worth $5m
A Tararua-Ruahine windfarm development has received a boost with the granting of up to 500,000 tonnes of carbon credits to New Zealand Windfarms, worth about $5 million on the international market.
The Te Rere Hau windfarm is expected to be generating in 2005. "

Meridian sells $5m credits to Dutch
Meridian Energy has secured a $5 million deal with the Dutch Government to sell it carbon credits arising from its planned wind farm at Te Apiti, one of the first carbon trades by a New Zealand company. "

Aust, NZ look at ways to profit from greenhouse law
A transtasman conference and trade expo in Auckland next November will explore the business opportunities arising from policies to address climate change.
Backed by the Climate Change Office and the Australian Greenhouse office, it would focus on opportunities in China and Japan as well, conference convener Gary Taylor said. "

Motorway project values Auckland's heritage
A historic flue, which has been rebuilt on the site of Auckland’s Grafton Gully motorway upgrading project, now serves as an archaeological reminder of the city’s early industrial heritage. It is part of one of the original furnaces of the 19th century Phoenix Foundry.
The flue has been rebuilt on the corner of Stanley Street and the new Grafton Road Bridge which is a section of the popular Coast-to-Coast walkway.

Australasian Emissions Trading Forum- New Zealand Review
A New Zealand Update
Stuart Frazer, Frazer Lindstrom Limited
New Zealand formally ratified the Kyoto Protocol
on 19 December 2002. In the first commitment
period (CP1) NZ is obligated to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions to 1990 levels. NZ has an
advantageous position as, through the increase in
forestry development post 1990, it will be a net
seller of carbon.
The government is looking beyond CP1 however,
and is setting policies to progressively expose the
economy to the international price of emissions. The
policy package, as outlined in the April/May 2002
AETF Review, was (with few changes) approved by
cabinet in October 2002. Climate change policy in
New Zealand is now managed by the Climate
Change Office (CCO) within the Ministry for the
Environment. This article focuses on elements of the
Price Based Measures work programme.

Forecast: Rain, drought
Weather forecasters are predicting a mix of tropical downpours and drought as the South Pacific feels the effects of global warming.
Pacific climatologists, who ended a four-day meeting in Auckland yesterday, said the warming was already producing more pronounced weather extremes. "

Climate change killing 150,000 a year, says WHO
Global warming killed 150,000 people in 2000 and the death toll could double again in the next 30 years if current trends are not reversed, the World Health Organisation said today.
One heatwave killed 20,000 people in Europe alone this year, the WHO said, launching a book on health-weather links at a UN environment conference. "

Bilateral climate change details announced
The Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, Pete Hodgson, and the Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp, have announced details of the first projects to be undertaken under the Australia-New Zealand Bilateral Climate Change Partnership.
The partnership, formally announced by the two governments in July this year, aims to focus on concrete ways to address climate change, particularly at a regional level.

Demand for 'Kyoto tax' on the US
Scientists say the climate is warming
Countries refusing to cut their emissions of greenhouse gases should face trade sanctions, according to a British independent think-tank.
The United States has not signed the Kyoto agreement on climate change and Russia has indicated it may follow.
The New Economics Foundation wants the EU to tax imports from these countries because they enjoy a competitive disadvantage as energy costs increase.
Signed-up countries are currently meeting in Italy to discuss the treaty.
New Economics Foundation spokesman Andrew Simms told BBC Radio 4's Today programme EU countries would be within their rights to "work out the cost of the free ride America is getting" and raise that amount.

Energy Efficiency & Conservation Strategy on target
New Zealand is on track to meet the targets set by the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy, with a 1.9% improvement in energy efficiency in the Strategy’s first year.

Energy Minister Pete Hodgson today released the first full year’s results since the launch of the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. The benefits include 536,000 tonnes less carbon dioxide emitted due to the energy efficiency improvement.

15 climate-friendly projects win Kyoto carbon credits
Fifteen projects, including wind farms, hydro-electricity schemes and industrial heat plants, have won a share of Kyoto Protocol ‘carbon credits’ from the Government for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

The credits, or Kyoto Protocol emission units, have been awarded in the first tender round for Projects to Reduce Emissions, a key plank in the Government’s climate change policy. The Government received a total of 46 bids for the four million emission units on offer.

"This tender round, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, has produced a great result," says the Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, Pete Hodgson.

"Some of these 15 projects could start reducing emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as early as next year. What’s more, the bulk of them will help to make New Zealand’s electricity supply more secure in the next few years. This is a great result for the environment, the owners of these projects and New Zealand as a whole."

Other successful tenders include proposals for generating electricity from geothermal activity and gas from landfills. The owners of the 15 projects include large and small organisations in both the private and public sectors.

The Government expects to sign the first agreements with project owners this month, at which stage further information about each project will be available.

Forestry to get Kyoto spinoff
The forestry industry expects to conclude an agreement soon that will give it Government cash, in recognition of forestry's role in enabling New Zealand to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
Despite rising emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, New Zealand expects to meet its obligation under the climate change treaty because of its expanding plantation forest estate.
This is because Kyoto's rules allow credits for the carbon dioxide which growing trees in new forests take out of the atmosphere.
But the industry is in a cyclical downturn and new plantings have shrunk dramatically.
A joint statement by the Government, the Forest Industries Council, the Forest Owners Association and the Farm Forestry Association yesterday said they expected to conclude within the next few months a "Forestry Industry Framework Agreement" that recognised the sector's contribution to climate change initiatives.

Recycling the carbon charge

New Zealand could similarly benefit, Ecologic's report suggests. For example, the government plans to introduce a carbon tax in 2007 as a way to curb fossil fuel use and thus emissions of carbon dioxide. The aim is to help us meet our commitments under the Kyoto climate change protocol.

In addition, New Zealand will have surplus credits for the carbon dioxide absorbed by forests planted since 1990. These credits are a potential source of revenue for the government.

Coupled with the carbon tax revenue, the government could make some worthwhile tax cuts elsewhere in the economy, the report suggests: reducing corporate tax from 33% to 27%; or GST from 12.5% to 10.5%; or the bottom personal tax rate from 19.5% to 16.5%; or a 1.5% cut in all corporate and personal rates.

Hodgson to international climate change conference
Pete Hodgson, the Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, departs New Zealand on Monday for an international climate change conference in Italy.
The conference in Milan is the ninth full meeting of the nations that are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent agreement of the Kyoto Protocol. It will refine the operational rules of the Protocol, which New Zealand ratified in December last year.
Mr Hodgson said he expected discussion at the ministerial segment of the conference about future greenhouse gas commitments beyond the end of the Protocol's first commitment period in 2012, including for developing countries.
Emissions reduction targets in the first commitment period apply to developed countries only, on the basis that they have historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and more economic and technical capacity to mitigate climate change.
"This conference will also be an opportunity to talk further with my counterparts from the United States and Australia about our climate change partnership arrangements with those countries," Mr Hodgson said.

href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0312/S00153.htm">Hodgson to international climate change conference
Pete Hodgson, the Convenor of the Ministerial Group on Climate Change, departs New Zealand on Monday for an international climate change conference in Italy.
The conference in Milan is the ninth full meeting of the nations that are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the parent agreement of the Kyoto Protocol. It will refine the operational rules of the Protocol, which New Zealand ratified in December last year.
Mr Hodgson said he expected discussion at the ministerial segment of the conference about future greenhouse gas commitments beyond the end of the Protocol's first commitment period in 2012, including for developing countries.
Emissions reduction targets in the first commitment period apply to developed countries only, on the basis that they have historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and more economic and technical capacity to mitigate climate change.
"This conference will also be an opportunity to talk further with my counterparts from the United States and Australia about our climate change partnership arrangements with those countries," Mr Hodgson said.

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