Climate change – that ship has sailed

Written By: - Date published: 9:55 am, April 18th, 2016 - 57 comments
Categories: climate change, global warming, uncategorized - Tags: , , ,

These days I am struck with a bizarre sense of unreality when I read pieces like this:

NZ planners’ think-tank on climate change impacts

New Zealand’s top planners will be holding a think-tank on climate change impacts this week at the New Zealand Planning Institute’s (NZPI) annual conference in Dunedin which started today.

A new era of international and domestic action to tackle climate change has begun and ongoing international agreements aim to keep global temperature increases below two degrees.

New Zealand’s need to produce a 30 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, or equivalent to an 11 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2030. …

Or this:

Paula Bennett to head to New York to sign historic climate agreement

Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett will head to New York next week to sign New Zealand up to a historic climate agreement.

Mrs Bennett said the signing ceremony at the United Nations on April 22, which 130 countries will participate in, was another step towards ratifying the Paris Agreement.

There is no deadline for the ratification, which covers emissions obligations after 2020 and commits all countries to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C this century.

Once the agreement is ratified, Mrs Bennett said, the more difficult task of moving New Zealand to a low-emissions economy would begin. …

warming-2016We’re not going to hold the temperature increase to 1.5C this century. We’re not going to hold it to 2C.

The climate ship has sailed, and like a supertanker, it has massive inertia.

If we were wise (we’re not) we would start preparing now for a very different planet.


Here’s some recent headlines / pieces worth reading:

Welcome to the climate emergency: you’re about 20 years late
Earth Sees 11 Record Hot Months in a Row
Summer-Like Temperatures Smash Ice Melt Records For Greenland
Arctic warming_ Why record-breaking melting is just the beginning
Our Planet’s Temperature Just Reached a Terrifying Milestone
Seas Are Rising at Fastest Rate in Last 28 Centuries
At Arctic summit, climate change is inevitable and irreversible
Risk of multiple tipping points should be triggering urgent action on climate change
Govt cheated on international climate commitments
The Climate Change in Our Veins


https://twitter.com/VeronikaMeduna/status/721244143545004032

57 comments on “Climate change – that ship has sailed ”

  1. Bill 1

    If we were wise (we’re not) we would start preparing now for a very different planet.

    Well, no. We would prepare for a warmer world and pull out all the stops to make sure that warmer world isn’t any warmer than need be. If we take no action, anthropocentric global warming will become just plain warming and will likely warm to a level that’s utterly inimical to human survival.

    So the first order of the day ought to be facing up to the reality (stop underplaying it) and stop suggesting we take inadequate action.

    eg

    New Zealand’s need to produce a 30 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, or equivalent to an 11 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2030.

    …is no where near enough and is being touted off the back of underplayed figures. I’ve written about this before…the predictions for future warming and cuts to CO2 being based on magical thinking around our ability to develop and roll out immense infrastructures to capture CO2 from the air.

  2. Sabine 2

    oh well, all is good one of the National do nothing Ministers gets a free trip to NY.

    Whats not to like, and she does not even have to show something for it.

  3. roy cartland 3

    Agriculture is by far a bigger emitter than the transport sector, and that is a curlier question. How many jobs revolve around the agri-industry in this country? Even if we stopped fossil fuel today, we’d still bust our pathetic 2˚ target.

    But it’s still not impossible, at least according to these two:

    http://www.cowspiracy.com/blog/2016/4/12/potus-can-do-one-simple-thing-to-help-alleviate-climate-change

    http://www.monbiot.com/2015/11/19/pregnant-silence/
    “A survey by the Royal Institute of International Affairs found that people are not unwilling to change their diets, once they become aware of the problem, but that many have no idea that livestock farming damages the living world.”

    • Bill 3.1

      Almost all warming is a result of the external CO2 we have flung into the natural carbon cycle. The source of the external CO2 is fossil.

      Bring fossil to zero and we have a slim chance of avoiding dangerous levels of warming/climate change.

      And yes, simultaneously work away at land use (agriculture, forestry etc). Refusing to separate highly measurable fossil contributions from land use contributions that are nowhere near as measurable and impossible to bring down to zero, allows for fudged figures and the promotion of inadequate policies.

      • Colonial Viper 3.1.1

        Halving NZ’s cow herd would do a lot of good things full stop.

        • Bill 3.1.1.1

          It’s not quite a ‘full stop’ CV. Halving cow numbers would do a lot of good things. But halving cow numbers and then trading that off in such a way as to do nothing or less about fossil would be hugely fucked up and irresponsible. I expect ‘fucked up and irresponsible’ to come to pass.

  4. adam 4

    I put this up last night, but it’s real home is with this post.

    https://youtu.be/hXqozz54-iU

    • Bill 4.1

      I could be wrong Adam, but I think things have shifted some what beyond ‘convincing idiots’ that bad shit is going down.

      My immediate reaction to Anthony’s post was that, like others, he’s given up. That’s just my reading of the post – I could have the wrong end of the stick. But let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that my reading of the post is accurate enough.

      That fatalism is a far more serious barrier to getting on with doing what we can/must, than some bullshit denialism.

      The courses of action are there. They’re devastatingly simple.

      Now sure, we may very well be too late on the 2 degrees front, but even if we are, we have to act as though we aren’t in order to avoid 5, 6 or 10 degrees or whatever.
      That’s said on the assumption that tipping points haven’t been crossed already, while also being fully aware that the jury is out on that and that a growing number of scientists in that jury are suggesting tipping points have already been passed.

      Regardless, fatalism just says we do nothing beyond putting up barriers and hunkering down. I’m way too angry at the hypocrites; the fuckwits and bastards (whose numbers include scientists, politicians and lobbyists), who for a number of years past, have expended huge amounts of energy in pulling the wool over our eyes and who still insist today that everything can and will be made okay by mere tinkering. I want them all rolled out the way, rendered irrelevant and openly despised by a rising up of ordinary people taking back control of life; of society. And even if that only results in a few short years of an emancipated humanity living well with itself and we all get wiped away by the effects of warming anyway, then those few years are absolutely worth fighting for.

      .

      • Colonial Viper 4.1.1

        I reckon the Archdruid has it right – the centres of political power in various countries’ capitals will not provide the people with any answers. It will all have to be done locally and regionally.

        Roman senators were still denying that there were any real problems even as they lost Briton, Gaul and Germania. Simply raise another Legion and beat back the barbarians, said the politicians.

        • Bill 4.1.1.1

          We know the fucking answer!

          Stop. Burning. Fossil. Fuels.

          The various business and political elites don’t want that simple and only solution executed though, because they lose their privilege and they lose the framework that delivers that privilege.

          Fuck them.

          • Colonial Viper 4.1.1.1.1

            knowing the answer and being able to implement the answer are two very different things.

            Personally I think there is far too much fossil fuel based economic activity going on and too little low carbon community activity going on. But damn if I can find any influential decision maker who will admit the same.

      • adam 4.1.2

        I agree Bill, but I think the deniers feed into that cult of despair and giving up.

        It is a negative fed back loop. Like discouraging a significant section of the population to turn off from politics. Making issues deeply visceral and then so nasty, people just give up. The same with the environment.

        Over and over with lies and misdirection. As the Pope says, time to see this a moral issue, stop procrastinating , and do something about it.

  5. esoteric pineapples 5

    No point just talking about “preparing for it” as if we don’t do everything we can to reduce climate change gasses, the changes will be so catastrophic that this planet will be in absolute mayhem.

  6. weka 6

    + 3,200,468,918 to Bill and Pinepples, that we need to do everything we can to reduce emissions as fast as we can. The good news, fwiw, is that the things we need to do to reduce can also be the things we need to do to prepare.

    R0b, I feel uncomfortable with headlines like ‘that ship has sailed’, because one of our biggest dangers is that people just give up and don’t try (and there are pressures on people to do that from a number of quarters). I know it’s depressing as fuck to read what you are reading. I still think we have to focus on what we can do as much as possible. As always, thanks for your continual work on this and keeping it in the public eye.

    • r0b 6.1

      Fair point! I’ll try not to let my frustration get the better of me next time…

    • Colonial Viper 6.2

      Unfortunately, we have to accept that political parties need to constantly under play to the electorate the reality of the climate change and fossil fuel depletion threat that we face as a civilisation.

      The politicians need to make sure that voters believe that current day life and current day practices can largely continue on with only minor tweaks here and there.

      A carbon tax here, an emissions trading scheme there, subsidies for hybrid and electric cars, encouraging public transport use etc. are about as far as we want to go

      There is no sense engendering a sense of anxiety in peoples lives or making people feel that what they enjoy as the modern world needs to be turned upside down.

      This is nothing less than political pragmatism. It is needed because the political parties need to get elected in order to make any real change at all. And Kiwi voters will never accept the truth of how truly dire the situation we are in now actually is.

      Over the next 10 or 20 years we can gradually get people used to the fact that a bit more action needs to be taken.

      It’s positive when you think that Kyoto was 20 years ago and attitudes have moved in the right direction since then. In another 20 years I am sure people will have accepted even more change in their attitudes.

      There is nothing productive in political party leaders trying to engender a sense of urgency and alarm in people.

      • weka 6.2.1

        I largely agree with that. My own feeling is that the politicians will have to follow (and will follow). Many politicians are in the same boat as the rest of us, struggling with our fear, denial, cognitive dissonance etc. Once more people are on board, then that will include them. Which means it is up to us. That’s potentially a useful thing.

        I agree it happens over time. Not sure about the urgency/alarm thing. I agree if that’s all that happens then it’s counter productive. But if we give people a path they can move on that allows them to not just get scared, but to take action, that’s a different thing. We have to give people skills, resources and plans on what can actually be done. Change is much easier then there is something to work towards.

      • Bill 6.2.2

        Please don’t turn this thread into a sniping zone CV. Cheers.

      • BM 6.2.3

        Wise words.

        Especially when climate change is completely out of our hands.
        That’s not to say we shouldn’t make an effort but until China and India get on board we could cut our emissions to zero and not even create a blip.

        All you’ll end up doing is do is creating a feeling of hopelessness.

        • weka 6.2.3.1

          “Especially when climate change is completely out of our hands.”

          That’s a lie. NZ can be part of the influential leading edge (not the first time). And every block of 4 million people is critical to building a mass movement of change. And China is changing in ways we are not. And we have to cut our emissions now as part of the transition to a post-carbon world. Everyone has to. If we don’t we will waste the last precious bits of dense energy we have on useless things instead of making use of our current wealth to transition.

          The fact that politicians aren’t going to lead the way, frees us up and potentially empowers us. That’s liberating not hopeless.

          • BM 6.2.3.1.1

            You can try and influence China and India but they’re always going to put the economic well being of their countries before climate change.

            China accounts for around 30% of global emissions and doesn’t look like it’s really making much of an effort to curb their emissions.

            http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/11/11/chinas-coal-bubble-155-new-overcapacity/

            • Bill 6.2.3.1.1.1

              Or…being that we live in NZ, we could influence NZ governments and insist that long term social well being and climate change trump any economic component of decision making.

            • Macro 6.2.3.1.1.2

              Yes BM lets blame China…
              But just remember BM where everything is now made and who imports it…
              The West cut their emissions and their jobs and their economies by exporting them to China.
              We (the western economies) are as much to blame for China’s emissions as is China.
              Fortunately China (unlike the laissez faire western economies) is a country with a managed economy and as such is in a position to do something about it. So your comment above is actually only half true. Yes China has had burgeoning emissions and continues to build new coal fired power stations but in recent years their emissions have begun to decrease and China is burning less coal and continues to decrease its consumption (why else has the price of coal fallen through the floor?)

              China’s coal imports also fell by a whopping 30 percent in 2015, including a 35 percent year-on-year reduction in December alone compared to the previous December

              As a result of the drop in China’s coal consumption, analysis suggests that China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption dropped by a record-breaking 2 percent in 2015, equivalent to about 200 million tons of CO2, more than the total for entire countries like Argentina, Venezuela or Poland. That is roughly equal to the cumulative emissions from the 100 countries with the lowest emissions. This decline is striking given the fact that China’s annual emissions had been growing by an average of 6.7 percent per year over most of the last decade.

              You can read more here

              • BM

                China only imports 4% of it’s current coal consumption.
                They use so much coal that 4% accounts for 15% of the world coal trade.

                https://webberenergyblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/why-does-china-import-coal/

                • Colonial Viper

                  Economic decline and consumer spending collapse is good for reducing the use of fossil fuels.

                  Odd however that the Left prides itself on being able to get more economic growth and more consumer spending going than the Right.

                  • Macro

                    Yes economic downturn is good CV – we just have to find a fairer way to redistribute the wealth.

                    However the downturn in China’s emissions is not just accidental concomitant upon the downturn in the western economies. Since 2013 China has made some very important and significant changes to its Energy profile and is well ahead of the pack in progressing towards its COP21 targets of reducing emissions.*
                    It has done this by:
                    a Curbing the use of Coal – we are already seeing the effects of that from last years 30% reduction
                    b. Heavy investment in alternative energies for both transportation and manufacturing.
                    c. Investment in energy efficiencies. eg. China reduced its energy intensity (energy consumption per unit of GDP) by nearly 20 percent from 2006-2010, and is on track for another 16 percent reduction below 2010 levels by 2015.

                    *What China has pledged: China has committed to peak its CO2 emissions by 2030 and to make best efforts to peak earlier. It will increase non-fossil energy to 20% of its energy consumption by 2030, which will require it to install 800 to 1,000 gigawatts in non-fossil capacity, equivalent to the entire current US generating capacity. China has shown leadership in putting a price on carbon by committing to build a national cap and trade system, which will launch in 2017 and become the world’s largest. It has also pledged 20 million RMB ($3.1 billion USD) to the South-South Climate Cooperation Fund to help developing countries address climate change. Other China climate commitments relate to carbon intensity, adaptation and forestry.

            • roy cartland 6.2.3.1.1.3

              @BM Your use if the term ‘always’ is perplexing. (Human-induced) climate change is relatively new, so obviously no one cared about it before now.
              Economic wellbeing is no use if there’s no actual wellbeing, or even existence. They’ll come to change or disappear, like all of us.

            • pat 6.2.3.1.1.4

              “You can try and influence China and India but they’re always going to put the economic well being of their countries before climate change.”

              do you think the Chinese and Indians are stupid?….am sure they are as aware as anyone what doing nothing (or insufficient) will result in….IF someone can demonstrate some workable systems they’ll follow and adapt to suit….(he said hopefully)

        • Bill 6.2.3.2

          You do understand why it’s called anthropogenic global warming, yes? So, it’s not out of our hands.

          And why do you make the groundless assertion that hopelessness would flow from making deep and radical changes to how we live?

          • BM 6.2.3.2.1

            if New Zealanders are told the world is pretty much doomed unless emissions are drastically cut but it won’t matter how much we do cut it’s not going to make an iota of difference to the world climate.

            Then, that will create a feeling of hopelessness and people won’t bother.

            • Bill 6.2.3.2.1.1

              But since the CO2 problem is one of accumulation, then not adding to the accumulated total does matter.

              Meanwhile, if not adding to that total requires a huge or unprecedented change in how we live our lives and that change turns out to be generally more fulfilling and empowering…

            • weka 6.2.3.2.1.2

              if New Zealanders are told the world is pretty much doomed unless emissions are drastically cut but it won’t matter how much we do cut it’s not going to make an iota of difference to the world climate.

              Then, that will create a feeling of hopelessness and people won’t bother.

              Just as well as no-one is saying that then. You’re the only person saying NZ doesn’t matter. Everyone else knows it is and have given multiple rationales for why. Is there are reason you are ignoring that?

  7. Bill 7

    A little bit of good news – a government moving beyond rhetoric.

    She (Nicola Sturgeon) said the SNP would raise Scotland’s 2020 climate target from the current 42 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions to more than 50 per cent– a move which has been welcomed by climate campaigners.

    The new target will be contained in a Climate Change Bill, which will be put before Holyrood if the SNP is returned to government at the May 5 election. Setting a target of beyond 50 per cent by 2020 will exceed the EU’s aim to make a 40 per cent cut by 2030 and the UK’s pledge of a 35 per cent cut by 2020.

    That’s still too little. And I suspect there’ll be ‘devil in the detail’. Nevertheless, streets ahead of what other governments talk about talking about…

    Oops. Forgot the link.

    http://www.thenational.scot/politics/snp-gear-up-for-manifesto-launch-with-raft-of-new-policies.16461

  8. The amount of energy/heat needed to melt ice is the same amount of energy/heat to bring that melted ice up to 80C .
    Humans have supposedly done in about 100 years, what last time took something 10,000 years. Specifically push CO2 above 400 ppm.
    In past periods of CO2 increasing all the global ice would have melted long before it reached 400 ppm, I’m only guessing but maybe by 350 ppm the ice would have been melted?
    CO2 is still increasing, and more scary so is CH4. When the energy/heat is no longer going into melting ice, then there is the potential for the oceans to go above 80c.
    Nature is going to keep adding to the atmospheric CO2 for a very long time.
    There is supposedly over 2,000 GT of CH4 sitting below the melt level around the planet, most of which is caped off with catherates, which are fast melting, especially the East Siberian Shelf.
    50 GT of CH4 is equal to about all the CO2 we have injected into the atmosphere in the past 100 years.
    https://robertscribbler.com/2015/09/10/new-study-risk-of-significant-methane-release-from-east-siberian-arctic-shelf-still-growing/ …. there are lots of articles out there on this stuff. It is happening off the coast of Gisborne, and california.
    We are screwed.
    But all hope is not lost as we also have the green party and Kiwisaver.

  9. Steve Wrathall 9

    Sssssh. Don’t mention the increasing Antarctic ice http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png

  10. maui 10

    Ok, so it’s taken the New Zealand Planning Institute about 65 years to figure out the suburban dross that they’ve been party to designing, that litters our cities and towns might have some large negative effects on the climate and people’s general wellbeing?

    Actually that’s me asking that, not them, they seem to only be focused on mitigation and heavily still in denial of the problem.

  11. Jenny 11

    Is it too late to fight climate change?

    Anthony Robins, (R0B) is at least getting to the heart of the matter.

    Few are prepared to look into the abyss as he has.

    And gaze on the heart searingly deadly crisis revealed there.

    Fossil fuels are changing the chemical composition of our atmosphere, the slow dawning realisation of this awful fact and its full implications will change all political parties and all governments.

    Whether Anthony Robins is right or wrong we will fight anyway.

    Just as an animal caught in a jin trap will struggle at the approach of the hunter.

    This is an escapable fact., it is in our nature.

    Talking about another entirely different existential crisis, Churchill put it this way:

    If you don’t fight when the fighting is easy and your loses are few and your victory is certain.

    Then you will fight when the fighting is hard your losses will be many and even with all this sacrifice your victory is not guaranteed.

    There may even be a third option. You will fight when the fighting is unbearably hard your losses are overwhelming, and your defeat is certain.

    Because it is better to die standing and fighting, than it is to die on your knees surrendering.

    In my discussion with Labour MPs, I tell them that climate change needs to be made an election issue. They just as adamantly insist that climate change will not be an election issue. According to the these MPs the next election will be fought over the economy.

    This sort of denial can only go on for so long. Change or prepare to be changed.

      • Pat 11.1.1

        @ 3 minutes…

        ‘the weight of the ice is so heavy it depresses the earths crust almost half a mile”

        what will happen to tectonic activity as that weight reduces with melting?

        • lprent 11.1.1.1

          It will get messy. Antarctica shouldn’t be a problem due to a lack of population and its plate boundaries. Greenland is likely to have considerable earthquake activity and volcanism

          • pat 11.1.1.1.1

            was thinking more in a global effect…..would expect it to have a significant impact on the entire plate dynamic….it may already be having, it is a little understood field.

  12. pat 12

    “In my discussion with Labour MPs, I tell them that climate change needs to be made an election issue. They just as adamantly insist that climate change will not be an election issue. According to the these MPs the next election will be fought over the economy”

    and therein lies their failure to grasp the reality…..the two are linked, not separate

  13. Jenny 13

    “The Great Grief: How To Cope with Losing Our World”

    http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/14/great-grief-how-cope-losing-our-world

    “Climate scientists overwhelmingly say that we will face unprecedented warming in the coming decades. Those same scientists, just like you or I, struggle with the emotions that are evoked by these facts and dire projections. My children—who are now 12 and 16—may live in a world warmer than at any time in the previous 3 million years, and may face challenges that we are only just beginning to contemplate, and in many ways may be deprived of the rich, diverse world we grew up in. How do we relate to – and live – with this sad knowledge?”

    “To cope with losing our world,’ writes Stoknes, ‘requires us to descend through the anger into mourning and sadness, not speedily bypass them to jump onto the optimism bandwagon or escape into indifference.”

    The fightback will come. If not by us, then by then by the next generation.

    Of course by that time it will be far too late to make a difference. Nevertheless they will try, unlike us they will have no choice.

    • Jenny 13.1

      UNEARTHING THE ATROCITIES

      Why a fightback will come.

      All three of the Operation Reinhard camps were located within a few hundred miles of each other in formerly central (now eastern) Poland, and some 500 miles from the notorious Auschwitz death camp. Of the approximately 1.7 million Jewish people who arrived at the three Reinhard camps, scarcely a hundred survived the war, and they only made it because they staged desperate breakouts that succeeded against all odds.

      Beec, Sobibór, and Treblinka have receded into the historical background compared to Auschwitz, likely because the Nazis razed all three Reinhard camps and buried or burned the corpses long before the advancing Red Army overtook the area. At Auschwitz, Soviet liberators found gas chambers and thousands of inmates, skeletal but still alive; at the Reinhard sites, there was little to see but open fields and twists of barbed wire embedded in trees. Since the Nazis destroyed most written records and so few Reinhard prisoners survived, previous studies of the sites have leaned heavily on the firsthand testimony of just a handful of prisoners and perpetrators—which, while important, conveys only certain aspects of what happened at the camps.

      To most people who knew about the camps, it seemed few traces of the Nazis’ crimes remained. But Sturdy Colls, now an associate professor of forensic archaeology at Staffordshire University in the United Kingdom, suspected hidden evidence lurked underground, just waiting to be exposed. “There was a feeling,” she says, “that Treblinka had been erased off the face of the earth. I just couldn’t believe that could actually be true.”

      ….once permission came, they were able to uncover exactly what they’d suspected: demolished brick walls several feet underground, almost certainly the foundations of Sobibór’s gas-chamber building. “The Germans didn’t destroy everything of the remains,” Mazurek says.

      The team also uncovered an escape tunnel that prisoners began digging but never used. This is an especially notable find, Mazurek says, as the tunnel was found in the area of Sobibór’s Camp III, from which no inmates ever emerged alive. (As the extermination and cremation area, Camp III was under heavy guard and cut off from the rest of the camp; its inhabitants could not take part in the well-known prisoner revolt of October 1943, when about 300 inmates managed to escape—most were later caught and did not survive the war.) The tunnel’s existence had never been confirmed until the archaeologists found it. With the inhuman conditions and grim odds the Camp III workers faced, Mazurek knows what a challenge it must have been for them to try to to dig their way out: The Germans put barbed wire about 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) underground, he says, to prevent the inmates from escaping. “It was so difficult. Most important [is that] they tried to do it, and for everybody coming here I think it’s necessary to know the story.”

      That’s the story; against impossible odds and zero chance of success, they tried anyway.
      If we don’t try to escape climate change now, this is what we will leave our grandchildren.

  14. Jenny 14

    What should we do in the face of revelations like this about the ETS?

    The Government has been accused of “cheating” to reduce emissions and meet climate change targets, in an environmental report.

    The issue, outlined in research by the Morgan Foundation, was that fraudulent carbon credits bought from Russia and Ukraine didn’t represent real emission reductions. The sale of these foreign units were linked to corruption and criminal activity.

    The report raised concerns New Zealand’s use of the credits to reach 2020 emissions reduction targets damaged our international reputation.

    New Zealand was proportionately the largest purchaser of Ukrainian and Russian credits, according to the report

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/79031600/government-allowed-climate-fraud-to-reach-emission-reduction-targets–report

    David Parker had rushed in to defend the ETS.

    Labour’s environment spokesperson David Parker said the party had been calling on the Government to close down overseas trading in ‘hot air’ carbon credits from the likes of the Ukraine since 2012.

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/79031600/government-allowed-climate-fraud-to-reach-emission-reduction-targets–report

    Tellingly the Labour Party’s Climate Change Spokesperson makes no comment.

    This is not surprising because David Parker is the main driver of Labour Party policy on climate change, the pollution trading scheme is his baby. In government David Parker was the architect of the ETS. And was the person who forced the ETS on the Greens telling them it was the ETS, or nothing.

    Of all the Labour Party MPs I have personally met and talked with, David Parker is the most resistant and intolerant to the idea of doing anything meaningful about climate change.

    David Parker is a leading supporter of deep sea oil drilling, coal mining and fracking and motorway construction and general business as usual.

    Labour’s finance spokesman, David Parker, says his party’s policies on oil, gas and mineral extraction are close to those of the Government.

    “I don’t think we are much different from National,” Parker said. “They’ve continued on with the programme that we started in respect to oil and gas,”

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10822510

    A leading figure in the conservative ABC faction David Parker was hostile to David Cunliffe’s more considered (and Left) environmental approach, and led the attack on Cunliffe immediately after David Cunliffe’s famous Dolphin and Dole Queue speech that saw Cunliffe demoted to the back benches.

    In government David Parker strong armed the Greens into supporting pollution trading, the Greens have since changed their position to demand that the ETS be scrapped totally.

    What should we do in face of these revelations about the ETS?

    In my opinion the Labour Party could put climate change policy back on the parliamentary agenda by joining the Greens in calling for the complete and total repeal of the ETS.

    And support a private members bill to that effect.

  15. Jenny 15

    “We are now witnessing the fastest growth rates of the entire record of CO2 measurements. This record-breaking growth is an expected consequence of the near record-breaking fossil fuel usage combined with the largest El Niño event in several decades.”
    RALPH KEELING
    (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

    https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/atmospheric-co2-leaps-into-uncharted-territory-408-ppm

    On the local scene it is much the same.

    Corrupt from its inception, and even more decidedly corrupted now, the ETS, New Zealand’s pollution trading scheme has supervised and permitted the biggest measured rise in CO2 emissions in New Zealand’s history.

    “New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions increased 42 percent between 1990 and 2013. Total emissions increased 21 percent.”
    STATISTICS NEW ZEALAND

    http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-progress-indicators/home/environmental/greenhouse-gas-emissions.aspx

    To clear the decks to allow a more honest approach to limiting green house gas emissions in this country….

    The ETS has to go.

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

  • At a glance – Does CO2 always correlate with temperature?
    On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
    35 mins ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Tuesday, March 19:Kāinga Ora’s dry rot The Spinoff DailyBill McKibben on ‘Climate Superfunds’ making Big Oil pay for climate damage The Crucial YearsPreston Mui on returning to 1980s-style productivity growth NoahpinionAndy Boenau on NIMBYs needing unusual bedfellows Urbanism SpeakeasyNed Resnikoff's case ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 hours ago
  • Relentlessly negative
    Negative yesterday, negative today. Negative all year, according to one departing reader telling me I’ve grown strident and predictable. Fair enough. If it’s any help, every time I go to write about a certain topic that begins with C and ends with arrrrs, I do brace myself and ask: Again? Are ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 hours ago
  • Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    Bryce Edwards writes –  It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 hours ago
  • Promiscuous Empathy: Chris Trotter Replies To His Critics.
    Inspirational: The Family of Man is a glorious hymn to human equality, but, more than that, it is a clarion call to human freedom. Because equality, unleavened by liberty, is a broken piano, an unstrung harp; upon which the songs of fraternity will never be played. “Somebody must have been telling lies about ...
    4 hours ago
  • Don’t run your business like a criminal enterprise
    The Detail this morning highlights the police's asset forfeiture case against convicted business criminal Ron Salter, who stands to have his business confiscated for systemic violations of health and safety law. Business are crying foul - but not for the reason you'd think. Instead of opposing the post-conviction punishment and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 hours ago
  • Misremembering Justinian’s Taxes.
    Tax Lawyer Barbara Edmonds vs Emperor Justinian I - Nolo Contendere: False historical explanations of pivotal events are very far from being inconsequential.WHEN BARBARA EDMONDS made reference to the Roman Empire, my ears pricked up. It is, lamentably, very rare to hear a politician admit to any kind of familiarity ...
    5 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Scoring 4.6 out of 10, the new Government is struggling in the polls
    It’s been a tumultuous time in politics in recent months, as the new National-led Government has driven through its “First 100 Day programme”. During this period there’s been a handful of opinion polls, which overall just show a minimal amount of flux in public support for the various parties in ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    5 hours ago
  • Bishop scores headlines with crackdown on unwelcome tenants – but Peters scores, too, as tub-thump...
    Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 hours ago
  • Will it make the boat go faster?
    Ele Ludemann writes – The Reserve Bank is advertising for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion advisor. The Bank has one mandate – to keep inflation between one and three percent. It has failed in that and is only slowly getting inflation back down to the upper limit. Will it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    9 hours ago
  • Bryce Edwards: Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi The fact that a ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    9 hours ago
  • Is Simon Bridges’ NZTA appointment a conflict of interest?
    Bryce Edwards writes – Last week former National Party leader Simon Bridges was appointed by the Government as the new chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA). You can read about the appointment in Thomas Coughlan’s article, Simon Bridges to become chair of NZ Transport Agency ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    10 hours ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' at 10:10am on Tuesday, March 19
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st Century The SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims Stuff Steve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    10 hours ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things on Tuesday, March 19
    It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    11 hours ago
  • New Life for Light Rail
    This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail  Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
    Greater AucklandBy Guest Post
    12 hours ago
  • Why Are Bosses Nearly All Buffoons?
    Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    14 hours ago
  • Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6.06 pm on March 18
    TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    1 day ago
  • Peters holds his ground on co-governance, but Willis wriggles on those tax cuts and SNA suspension l...
    Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    1 day ago
  • Labour’s final report card
    David Farrar writes –  We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how  went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promise The result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • “Drunk Uncle at a Wedding”
    I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    1 day ago
  • Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    1 day ago
  • Gordon Campbell on Dune 2, and images of Islam
    Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
    1 day ago
  • New Rail Operations Centre Promises Better Train Services
    Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
    1 day ago
  • Bernard's six newsy things at 6.36am on Monday, March 18
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: Wang Yi’s perfectly-timed, Aukus-themed visit to New Zealand
    Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    2 days ago
  • The Kaka’s diary for the week to March 25 and beyond
    TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    2 days ago
  • Bitter and angry; Winston First
    New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • 2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #11
    A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
    2 days ago
  • Out of Touch.
    “I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    2 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • Bring out your Dad
    Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
    More Than A FeildingBy David Slack
    3 days ago
  • The bewildering world of Chris Luxon – Guns for all, not no lunch for kids
    .“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
    Frankly SpeakingBy Frank Macskasy
    3 days ago
  • Expert Opinion: Ageing Boomers, Laurie & Les, Talk Politics.
    It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
    3 days ago
  • Manufacturing The Truth.
    Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet –  is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
    3 days ago
  • A Powerful Sensation of Déjà Vu.
    Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
    3 days ago
  • Can you guess where world attention is focussed (according to Greenpeace)? It’s focussed on an EPA...
    Bob Edlin writes –  And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    3 days ago
  • Further integrity problems for the Greens in suspending MP Darleen Tana
    Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    3 days ago
  • Jacqui Van Der Kaay: Greens’ transparency missing in action
    For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
    Democracy ProjectBy bryce.edwards
    3 days ago
  • Bernard’s Dawn Chorus with six newsey things at 6:46am for Saturday, March 16
    TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ Herald Thomas Coughlan Simeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • How Did FTX Crash?
    What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
    PunditBy Brian Easton
    4 days ago
  • Elections in Russia and Ukraine
    Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
    4 days ago
  • Bernard’s six stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15
    TL;DR: Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it:  We want our country to be a ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    4 days ago
  • National’s clean car tax advances
    The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    4 days ago
  • Government funding bailouts
    Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Two offenders, different treatments.
    See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading ...
    KiwipoliticoBy Pablo
    4 days ago
  • Treaty references omitted
    Ele Ludemann writes  – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • The Ghahraman Conflict
    What was that judge thinking? Peter Williams writes –  That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    4 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 15
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop: Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • The day Wellington up-zoned its future
    Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    4 days ago
  • Weekly Roundup 15-March-2024
    It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
    Greater AucklandBy Greater Auckland
    4 days ago
  • That Word.
    Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • The Hoon around the week to March 15
    Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Labour’s policy gap
    It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
    PolitikBy Richard Harman
    5 days ago
  • Skeptical Science New Research for Week #11 2024
    Open access notables A Glimpse into the Future: The 2023 Ocean Temperature and Sea Ice Extremes in the Context of Longer-Term Climate Change, Kuhlbrodt et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: In the year 2023, we have seen extraordinary extrema in high sea surface temperature (SST) in the North Atlantic and in ...
    5 days ago
  • Melissa remains mute on media matters but has something to say (at a sporting event) about economic ...
     Buzz from the Beehive   The text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary.  It can be quickly analysed ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    5 days ago
  • The return of Muldoon
    For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
    No Right TurnBy Idiot/Savant
    5 days ago
  • Will the rental tax cut improve life for renters or landlords?
    Bryce Edwards writes –  Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Geoffrey Miller: What Saudi Arabia’s rapid changes mean for New Zealand
    Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
    Democracy ProjectBy Geoffrey Miller
    5 days ago
  • Racism’s double standards
    Questions need to be asked on both sides of the world Peter Williams writes –   The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • It’s not a tax break
    Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • The Plastic Pig Collective and Chris' Imaginary Friends.
    I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
    Nick’s KōreroBy Nick Rockel
    5 days ago
  • Who is responsible for young offenders?
    Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    5 days ago
  • Gordon Campbell on National’s fantasy trip to La La Landlord Land
    How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
    5 days ago
  • Bernard's Top 10 @ 10 'pick 'n' mix' for March 14
    TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop: The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • No, Prime Minister, rents don’t rise or fall with landlords’ costs
    TL;DR: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
    The KakaBy Bernard Hickey
    5 days ago
  • Cartoons: ‘At least I didn’t make things awkward’
    This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
    5 days ago
  • Solving traffic congestion with Richard Prebble
    The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
    Greater AucklandBy Patrick Reynolds
    5 days ago
  • I Think I'm Done Flying Boeing
    Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
    David FarrierBy David Farrier
    6 days ago
  • Invoking Aristotle: Of Rings of Power, Stones, and Ships
    The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
    6 days ago
  • Van Velden brings free-market approach to changing labour laws – but her colleagues stick to distr...
    Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago
  • Why Newshub failed
    Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
    Point of OrderBy poonzteam5443
    6 days ago
  • Māori Party on the warpath against landlords and seabed miners – let’s see if mystical creature...
    Bob Edlin writes  –  The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they  follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
    Point of OrderBy Bob Edlin
    6 days ago

  • Government moves to quickly ratify the NZ-EU FTA
    "The Government is moving quickly to realise an additional $46 million in tariff savings in the EU market this season for Kiwi exporters,” Minister for Trade and Agriculture, Todd McClay says. Parliament is set, this week, to complete the final legislative processes required to bring the New Zealand – European ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    3 hours ago
  • Positive progress for social worker workforce
    New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    8 hours ago
  • Minister confirms reduced RUC rate for PHEVs
    Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April.  ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    10 hours ago
  • Trade access to overseas markets creates jobs
    Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand.  Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
    BeehiveBy beehive.govt.nz
    10 hours ago
  • NZ and Chinese Foreign Ministers hold official talks
    Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
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    24 hours ago
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