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

Climate control stalled by chilly Russian feet
It is touch and go whether the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and with it the Government's climate change policy, will survive the year.
Central to the policy is a carbon tax on non-farm emissions of greenhouse gases planned for 2007 - but only if the Kyoto Protocol is in force.
The Government last year concluded the first negotiated greenhouse agreement - conditional exemptions from the tax for companies whose international competitiveness would otherwise be at risk - with the Marsden Point oil refinery, and has named the next four candidates for such deals. "

PEU links Russia’s WTO entry to Kyoto
A senior European Union official has hinted at a possible trade-off in the coming months between Russia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and the EU easing Moscow’s path to joining the World Trade Organisation.
There are signs of a political link between finalising the WTO negotiations and Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol," European enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen told a German parliamentary hearing, reported Reuters.
In political contacts it has been noted that one could see it as a political package and I’m quite confident that on both issues we will see movement" in the first half of 2004, Verheugen added.
Russia has made no secret of the fact that its own national interests will have the final word on whether the country will ratify the Kyoto Protocol or not. EU’s woos have not worked so far, but Verheugen apparently feels that the WTO issue could be the decider, and that Russia has kept this in mind for some time.
I understand it as an attempt to get us to relax some of our demands for Russian WTO entry and then to compensate for that by signing the Kyoto Protocol," Verheugen said

Kyoto stand a lure for the green voter [January 30, 2004]
LABOR'S environment policy, and its decision to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, provided the 'clearest, sharpest' difference between the ALP and the Coalition government going into a federal election, NSW Premier Bob Carr declared yesterday.
'This is the most demanding issue of our time,' Labor's most senior and successful premier told delegates to the party's national conference in Sydney. 'The delineation between us and our conservative opponents is as sharp as any other policy area, possibly a good deal sharper.'
Mr Carr's comments follow a decision by the Howard Government earlier this month to halt work by the Australian Greenhouse Office on an international emissions-trading scheme because of uncertainty surrounding the Kyoto Protocol. Mr Carr had earlier described the decision as scandalous.
NSW now wants to enlist the support of other states for a national greenhouse emissions-trading scheme. "

Think small for power generation
An electricity generator and retailer says the solution to the country's long-term power needs lies in many small projects, not one or two big ones.
As opposition grows to the huge proposed Waitaki river scheme, Project Aqua, the company TrustPower is suggesting more needs to be done to generate power closer to where people live."

Symposium on Geological Sequestration of CO2

³A Viable Option for Achieving Large Reductions of CO2 Emissions²

Preliminary Notice of A Symposium on Geological Sequestration of CO2

Hosted by the Coal Association of New Zealand Inc.

Organized by CRL Energy Ltd.
Date: Monday, 23 February 2004
Venue: Lambton Room, InterContinental Wellington
Time: 9:00 am-4:30 pm
To be followed by the launch of the CRL Energy Ltd. Hydrogen Project
(details to be provided later)
Cost: $100/person (+ GST) - for members of Coal Association of NZ Inc.
(CANZ) and Energy Federation of New Zealand Inc. (EFNZ)
$130/person (+ GST) - for non-members of CANZ & EFNZ
Includes lunch, morning and afternoon teas
Speakers from: Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, UK, and USA.
IEA GHG R&D program (Overview on CO2 sequestration)
BP (Overview on the CO2 capture project)
Please direct all enquiries to:
Cito Gazo
CRL Energy Ltd.
PO Box 31-244, Lower Hutt
Phone: +644 5703712 Fax: +64 4 5703701
Email: C.Gazo@crl.co.nz

Aus states to have own greenhouse gas protocols?
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has called on state and territory governments to sidestepping the Commonwealth and ratifying their own greenhouse protocols, according to ABC.
The ACF said if the Federal Government will not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the states and territories should take matters into their own hands.
Executive director Don Henry said several states, including New South Wales and Victoria, have responded favourably to the idea."

The fight against the rising tide
It is possible that Kiribati has failed to make much of an impression on many people. The most easterly island in the world, it reached its apotheosis in popular recognition at the start of this millennium, when wealthy travellers flocked there to see the first sun rise on a new century.
The chances are the island will fail to make any impression by 2100. For Kiribati is one of a group of islands at risk of disappearing beneath the waves as a result of dramatic climate change - and the local people are facing a hard battle to have their concerns heard on a world stage.
Kiribati won't be the first casualty. One islet, Tebua Tarawa, has already disappeared. Another, Tepuka Savilivili, no longer has any coconut trees. "

Frazer Lindstrom Limited
Frazer Lindstrom is an independent company established by Stuart and Kerstin Frazer.
Frazer Lindstrom's mission is to provide high quality strategic advice
on Climate Change and Energy Sector matters.

Milk-chiller idea wins consultant top prize
Christchurch's Ian Bywater will be trudging around local dairy sheds this summer after his idea to chill milk and save power by turning cow effluent into bio-gas won him a top European award.
Ahead of a large overseas field, the energy consultant won the New Spirit Challenge from the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), Europe's largest engineering body.
Under his yet-to-be-tested system, bio-gas from dairy shed effluent would fuel a generator that would power an ice bank that could be recharged and stored over non-peak hours.
Milk needs to be cooled within two hours of milking.
Milking twice a day and chilling milk create a heavy demand on the electricity grid. "

Pair give $1.5m for research into sudden climate change
Thirty-five years after graduating from Auckland University, an American scientist has teamed with an Auckland manufacturer to endow a professorship at his old university.
Dr Hilton Glavish of US-based Zimec and Bill Buckley of Buckley Systems in Mt Wellington have jointly donated $1.5 million to fund a physics professor to lead research into sudden climate change.
Auckland University will provide a matching sum so that the professor and research project can be funded out of interest on the total $3 million. "

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