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

4x4s 'should carry health warning'
BBC: SUVs generally produce more carbon dioxide than normal cars
Four-wheel-drive vehicles, those rugged beasts designed for the open hillside but more commonly found doing the city school run, are so polluting and dangerous that they should carry a cigarette packet-style health warning.
That is the view of UK think tank the New Economics Foundation, which outlines its arguments about the vehicles - also known as Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) - in the magazine New Statesman.
'They're really Satan's little run-around,' NEF's policy director, Andrew Simms, told BBC News.
'They make an entirely unnecessary contribution to one of the biggest environmental problems we face - global warming - and there's a huge and unacknowledged health crisis which results from vehicle emissions.' "
.

- Living in Remuera or Fendalton is dangerous to your health

Scoop: Meridian withdraws Project Aqua applications
Meridian Energy withdraws Project Aqua consent applications
Meridian Energy has withdrawn its applications for resource consent for its discontinued Project Aqua hydro development on the Lower Waitaki River.
The state-owned power generator and retailer announced it would not continue with the project in March this year, but did not immediately withdraw its resource consent applications or land designations.
Chief Executive Keith Turner says the applications were left in place because of the major investment in them and uncertainty about the content and effect of the Government’s then newly-introduced Waitaki Catchment legislation.

Scoop: Meridian withdraws Project Aqua applications

LNG will put NZ on 'path to disaster'
State power company boss Keith Turner is damning a proposal to import liquefied natural gas to fuel power stations as disastrous for the New Zealand economy and its people.
Addressing the Rotary Club of Wellington, Dr Turner, chief executive of Meridian Energy, said importing LNG would 'place this country at the mercy of overseas forces over which we have no control'.
It presented a 'huge strategic, economic and, most importantly, social risk to New Zealand', he said in his comments on a proposal by sister state power company Genesis Power and listed company Contact Energy. "

Climate change a fact of life for business, too
Alexandra Thompson: As an atmospheric chemist I am fed up with defending established climate science against conspiracy theorists, religious crackpots in the backwaters of Oregon, and the uninformed who cite them.
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that the Earth is warming, and will continue to warm, and that this is a result of human activities. Even Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, says that anyone denying human-induced climate change is a fool. And the White House has finally admitted that climate change is real and has roots in human activity. Indeed, the only confusion about climate change exists in the minds of the public.
Let’s look at the facts. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global average temperature has increased 0.6deg in the past century, most of this in the past 40 years. Since the 1960s, there has been a 10 per cent decrease in snow and ice cover, and glaciers are retreating.

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- Home light replacement scheme.

Scientist's plan could bury global warming
A New Zealand economist is promoting a massive worldwide programme of planting crops and burying charcoal to avoid catastrophic global warming.
Dr Peter Read, a researcher at Massey University, has just convened a workshop sponsored by international agencies in Paris to stave off what he calls "the mother of all catastrophes".
He told the New Zealand Sustainable Energy Forum in Wellington on Saturday that the Earth's climate had warmed suddenly by 5C in only a decade or so several times in the past 400,000 years, when gradual processes tripped into abrupt climate changes.
He said the Kyoto Protocol, which requires most developed countries to cut back their emissions of global-warming "greenhouse gases" to slightly below 1990 levels, might be too modest to avoid disaster.
In contrast, a massive global programme of planting crops and ploughing organic matter back into the soil could cut carbon dioxide back to pre-1800 levels - and feed poor countries at the same time.

Climate Change and Business Conference & Trade Expo
Papers from the conference now available at the website.

State farmer makes ironic gains
It's ironic for a government committed to the Kyoto Protocol that one of its biggest gains for the year will come from cutting down trees and putting cows on the land.
State-owned Landcorp, the country's biggest corporate farmer, last year saw the value of its land portfolio rise by $96 million as it converted former forestry land to dairying.
That helped the company to post a $107 million profit, up from $36 million a year ago.
Landcorp made a sharply reduced operating profit of $15 million in 2003-04, down from $34 million a year ago but harvested a massive asset appreciation on behalf of us all. "

Kyoto: 90 days and counting
The Kyoto Protocol is to enter into force on 16 February 2005, becoming legally binding on its 128 party countries. The 90-day countdown to the protocol's entry into force was triggered today by the receipt of the Russian Federation's instrument of ratification by the United Nations Secretary-General.
Putin breathes life into Kyoto
A period of uncertainty has closed. Climate change is ready to take its place again at the top of the global agenda, said Joke Waller-Hunter, Executive Secretary of the Climate Change Secretariat, which services the UN Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol.
The protocol sets a commitment period of 2008 to 2012. The 30 industrialised countries that signed up to reduce their emissions must prove they have done so as an average over the five years. The target for those 30 countries is a cut in greenhouse gas emissions of 5.2 per cent on average."

EECA funds growth solar hot water heating market
The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) announced this week the launch of a revised incentive scheme designed to grow the solar water heating market.
Under the scheme, an ongoing Government initiative, money can be borrowed on an interest free basis to pay for the purchase and installation of a system.
Solar water heating has huge potential to reduce electricity demand, but that depends on New Zealanders’ awareness of solar as a viable option for households and businesses said Heather Staley, Chief Executive of EECA.

Smelter wise to energy realities
The Manapouri power station is the jewel in the New Zealand hydro-electric system's crown.
Huge volumes of water drop through a mountain from Lake Manapouri to sea level at Deep Cove.
But it is remote. So Comalco's aluminium smelter was built at Tiwai Pt near Bluff to provide it with a relatively local market. For 30 years, the Manapouri-Tiwai nexus has been a machine for turning Fiordland rain into export dollars - lately, about $1 billion a year.
Comalco does not own Manapouri, however; Meridian Energy does. Comalco buys electricity from Meridian at a price linked to the average spot price over the previous year"

Tiempo Climate Newswatch
Tiempo Climate Newswatch Interview with Jim Salinger"
Jim Salinger discusses the development of the global temperature record, a key stage in the acceptance of climate change as a serious threat.

Wind’s Up – Planning the Future Now
NZWEA Report 2004
The Resource Management Act, plans
developed under it, and RMA processes are
capable of facilitating wind energy
development and of dealing with the range of
effects associated with a wind farm. However,
if wind energy development proceeds at the
pace and reaches the levels experienced in
places such as Western Europe, an ad hoc
approach to the planning issues will not
maximise benefits and minimise problems.
Sustainable development needs integrated
management, and integrated management
requires a strategic approach at all levels of
government.

Alasdair Thompson: The costly fallout of Kyoto Protocol
Mixed messages are drowning out reason and understanding over climate change and global warming, for businesses and the public alike.
The Government is leading the charge with its confusing messages: on the one hand, it has praised Solid Energy, appropriately, with a Trade and Enterprise Export Award for increasing sales of coal overseas; on the other, it signals that the local use of coal will soon be subject to a carbon tax.
This, despite forecast shortages of energy, which electricity from coal generation could do much to assuage. Also, a number of of Solid Energy's exports go to China, which won't face carbon regulations.
The anomalies arising from the Kyoto Protocol, the treaty New Zealand has signed obliging us to reduce our carbon emissions below 1990 levels before 2008 or suffer financial consequences, do not end there.
Bellamy cites a petition signed by 18,000 scientists organised by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which states: 'Predictions of harmful effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are in error and do not conform to experimental knowledge.'
He argues that climate change is brought about mostly through natural causes such as the warping of the Earth's"

Comment

- New Zealand does not face penalties.

If Thompson whats to have some influence on climate policy he has to accept first the case that there will be human made adverse effects on the world.

"On the local front, emissions from animals are to be excluded, although their methane is held responsible for climate effects seven times worse than carbon dioxide, if the science is upheld. "

Actualy 11 is the adopted 100 year timeframe forcing multiplier over co2.

"Along with evidence of Kyoto's impotence, we could also suffer a greater loss: respect and care for the environment would likely diminish as misrepresentation surrounding climate change increased our levels of cynicism. "

The EMAs interest in the environment does no go much beyond the business environment.

What is his proposal?

Sustainable Energy Futures Project
NZBCSD
The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development (NZBCSD) in conjunction with
a number of energy companies has established a Sustainable Energy Futures Project.
The project seeks to develop a long term energy industry perspective on what a sustainable
energy sector might look like. This is important if the industry is to provide for New Zealand’s
long term energy futures and manage the transition from the existing asset base to the next
generation of technology.

Sustainable Energy Forum: Conferences: "Sustainable Energy Forum Conference 2004
'Sustainable Energy Futures - Think BIG or Think SMART?'
Dates: Friday 19th & Saturday 20th November 2004
Venue: Rutherford House Campus, Victoria University, Bunny Street, Wellington.
Jointly organised by SEF, Energy Management Association of NZ and Climate Defence Network NZ, to promote sustainable energy and climate friendly policies and practices in New Zealand.
Program highlights:
Key note paper: 'Making markets work for distributed energy resources' - Hugh Outhred, Director, Centre for Energy & Environmental Markets, UNSW, Australia.
Public Lecture: 'Understanding the Energy Efficiency Resource Base' - Alan Pears, Adjunct Professor, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. "

Gore cashing in on green issues
Former US Vice-President Al Gore and a previous chief executive at Goldman Sachs Asset Management have launched an investment firm to seek out companies taking a responsible stance on big global issues such as climate change. "
Gore said climate change was rapidly rising up investors' agendas, underscored by Russia's decision to sign the Kyoto Protocol.
It was impossible to analyse car company shares properly without taking the issue of vehicle emission standards into account, particularly for greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
"The carbon intensity of profits is an approach that needs to be adopted," Gore said, referring to the practice of measuring how much carbon is used in producing energy.

Coal power 'cheaper than wind'
Coal is better than wind power to tackle electricity shortages and cheaper as long as there is no carbon tax, according to a new report by state coal miner Solid Energy.
Solid Energy's views pit it against state power company Meridian Energy, which says wind power is economic, cheap and attractive, though it acknowledges it is not the whole answer to power shortages.
Solid Energy's report, released yesterday, says wind power would not solve security of electricity supply problems in the longer term because it could not provide enough power.
Solid Energy prepared the report, Energy Options, with the support of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and Concept Consulting.
The Solid Energy report says a carbon tax favours renewable power (wind, hydro, geothermal) but causes electricity prices to be up to 20 per cent higher. 'Coal is best positioned to provide energy security for New Zealand at the lowest total cost.' Coal reserves were abundant.
Wind power was economic if the Government introduced a carbon tax from 2008 under its Kyoto Protocol commitments"

Comment "If"? The constraint on fossil fuels is not the reserves but the atmosphere. Dumping CO2 to the atmosphere is a current externality which is going to be sheeted home to polluters. Solid Energy still doesn't seem to believe it.

Global warming 'will redraw map of world'
Maps of the world will have to be redrawn, as global warming melts the Greenland ice-cap inundating coasts and major cities, the Government's chief scientific adviser warned last week.
Sir David King told ministers, senior officials and leaders of industry at a top-level conference on climate change in Berlin that there was a 'real risk' the ice sheet would not survive and that 'humanity had better be prepared for a complete realignment of the coastal zones, where most of the world's major cities are sited'.
He added that parts of the ice-sheet had already retreated by up to 30 feet in the past few years, compared to 10 feet during the entire period between 1890 and 1950. "

Climate change 'big threat'
Farmers received a warning from across the Tasman last week about the likely impact of climate change on agriculture.
At the Climate Change and Business conference in Auckland, Garry English, of the Western Australia Farmers Federation, urged farmers to 'wake up'. 'Of all the threats to our industry, this is the biggest,' he said.
After his workshop on land use and resource economics, English said too many farmers dismissed global warming as an environmental issue, rather than a serious issue facing the industry. "

Kyoto can't do the job alone says expert : "
One of the world's top thinkers on climate change, Eileen Claussen, says more than just the Kyoto Protocol is needed to tackle the issue.
The protocol must be buttressed with other approaches, Claussen told the Business Herald in Auckland.
Claussen is the head of the highly regarded Pew Centre for Global Climate Change in the US.
The Kyoto Protocol is set to come into force in three months, after President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed Russia's ratification of the treaty and delivered the critical mass of international support it required to become binding.
But the Kyoto community (Europe, Japan, Canada and New Zealand) accounts for only about a third of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases. "

Kyoto tree planting credits won't be much help
Predicted gains from selling surplus carbon credits globally is a pipe dream, writes Chris de Freitas
With the Kyoto Protocol set to come into force, does the New Zealand government have a credible set of policies and measures to meet its obligations?
The government has committed New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2010 to what they were in 1990. Based on current trends, emissions in the year 2010 will be about 30% higher than 1990 levels. Thus, to meet the requirements of the Kyoto protocol, New Zealand must get rid of up to a third of its greenhouse gas emissions. "

Hodgson's praise for drivers that save
Motorists can cut their fuel bills by around 25 per cent by changing their driving style. That's the result of EECA's EnergyWise rally that finished on the evening of Friday, 05 November 2004.
Drivers of a four litre, turbo charged Ford Falcon XR6 beat the expected litres per 100km numbers by 24 per cent (9.8l/100km), while the drivers of a three and half litre Holden Commodore beat its by 28 per cent (8.0l/100km).
Many smaller cars can do half as many kilometres per litre again over the Falcon and the Commodore (less than 6.0l/100km).
Thirty six teams took part in the rally to promote fuel efficiency over a 1600 km course around the North Island.
'The savings that ordinary drivers can make by modifying their driving style are very impressive. I would expect most people would be able to knock at least 10 per cent off their fuel bills by driving more carefully and ensuring they keep their car's tyres at the correct pressures,' says Energy Minister and Convenor, Ministerial Group on Climate Change, Pete Hodgson. 'Who wouldn't want to knock 10 per cent off their fuel bill?' "

Speech to Climate Change and Business conference
Hon Pete Hodgson
Good morning. I am delighted that this conference is taking place. I am delighted also to have a chance to make a few remarks.
I convene a group of Ministers responsible for developing climate change policy and it has been one of my more challenging tasks for two main reasons.
First, the issues of climate change seem to cross almost every area of endeavour, almost all areas of government policy and certainly every jurisdictional boundary that exists. It is a pervasive area of policy and I'm not yet sure that I know where its outer perimeter lies.
Second, climate change is an unusual public policy challenge because if policy is going to be effective than it must be developed and implemented years or decades before the main effects of climate change are seen. Usually policy is developed in response to something; climate change policy must be developed in anticipation of the effects arriving and starting to bite. But they will arrive and they will bite. "

Joint Australia, New Zealand action on climate change
Seven projects have been announced today under the Australia-New Zealand Bilateral Climate Change Partnership. The new projects create more opportunities for Australia and New Zealand to work together to respond to climate change.
The Partnership, formally announced by the New Zealand and Australian Governments in July 2003, focuses on concrete and practical ways to address climate change.
Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, said the Climate Change Partnership was enabling New Zealand and Australia to work closely together on climate change.
'We are already seeing progress on the first round of projects. The projects we are announcing today will build on this work and importantly include initiatives involving our Pacific neighbours, he said. "

Putin adds signature to Kyoto Protocol
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a bill confirming Russia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, it emerged from the Kremlin Friday morning.
The Associated Press reported that Putin signed the document on Thursday, thus removing the last barrier for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol."

Meridian rejects the spin on wind
Electricity prices will rise more slowly if wind power is developed rather than coal or imported liquefied natural gas, says Meridian Energy's chief executive.
Dr Keith Turner believes the public is being softened up by thermal generators to accept either imported LNG or coal as the fuel for future electricity generation, on the grounds that renewables such as wind power are too expensive, too unreliable or too small a resource to deliver the security of supply consumers demand.
He said it was none of those things and would avoid the costs and risks of emitting greenhouse gases in a world increasingly inclined to put a price on doing so.

EnergyWise Rally
EnergyWise Rally 2004 is a public demonstration of the fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness of new cars, conducted over a challenging mixture of roads from one end of the North Island to the other. "

Climate-related Risks for Energy Supply and Demand 2004 Workshop - NIWA
Papers from workshop.
Climate-related Risks for Energy Supply and Demand 2004 Workshop"

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