I don’t think I’ll bother reading the PDF when you’ve summarised it so succinctly. Profit before planet. Excellent work, National. That’s the kind of moral leadership the world has come to expect from plucky little New Zealand.

That’s not so funny when positive environmental/tourist perceptions about NZ’s are being eroded

Not good being a laughing stock!

And slightly more morally defensible, the west figured it would allow the wider eastern european countries a much easier entry into the eu system – those countries would not have any difficulty in meeting eu mandated targets as much of their 1990 heavy polluting industry had fallen over long before the late 90s when most eu entry agreements were made. Again, voila – instant pain free “progress”

Between 1990 and 1995 emissions from the former eastern bloc fell by close to 30% whereas everyone else in the world was at best stable.

Ditto. Simpler and much clearer about lobbying effects

why was 1990 baseline chosen? It certainly helps certain players.

Because work on the Kyoto protocol was started in the mid-90′s and completed in the late 90′s. They picked 1990 as the reference year because there was reasonably good data (for the time)

The idea behind the cap’n'trade was to facilitate pricing based on a scarce commodity. However the governments have been doing an inflation effect by increasing the effective number of credits

The real issue is the lack of enforcability around emissions.

For the record, I think ETS is a crock and it won’t deliver what the vested interests are promising. For a start, follow the money. Who profits?

I would far rather see a carbon tax, but even then there would be problems with other countries taxing with one hand and re-subsidising with the other.

Here are some of the problems with ETS:

- there is no workable mechanism to ensure that corrupt countries (ie Russia) don’t cheat. The oligarchs will magically create carbon credits for sale to the west out of mid-air. We have the right to go into Russia and measure emissions directly, calculate forestry clearance rates etc?

- why was 1990 baseline chosen? It certainly helps certain players.

- If the EU can not even police itself, what hope is there? The EU cannot police emissions over the next 3 years – individual countries have the right to declare their net emission levels. Thats ok you say because after that the EU does have the right to police emission levels. But any net credits will be carried forward and added to the new EU mandated levels. So for probably 5 years or so, europe will effectively be a non-participant in the ETS, in fact I’ve just read a piece of research (from the DB Emissions Research group) suggesting EU emissions from the entire EU will grow over the next 5 years by around 10%. With their heavy reliance on coal and anaemic growth, who trusts the likes of Estonia, Poland etc to “do the right thing”.

- Explain this in economics 101 terms: EU emissions in 2008 2.1MT, available credits 2.0MT, deficit 0.95MT. What did the price of carbon do? Down 70%. Does that sound like a market where no one is cheating?

- In 2009 with a 5% increase in EU emissions, the carbon price is down 33% ytd.

- why are problematic heavy industries in two of the richest EU countries (France and Germany) exempt from emissions caps? In case you arent aware of this rort, Germany has exempted a whole range of heavy industries from the requirement to purchase credits between 2013 and 2020 lest they move production offshore to countries that are either outside or don’t enforce ETS. Plus they will likely subsidise those companies in 2010, 2011 and 2012 as well under the less onerous Phase 2 scheme! At least the Germans tell the truth about what they are doing whereas the French do the same thing but deny it. Nice one – thats in the spirit of ” we are all custodians of mother earth.”

- Offset calculations. Do you have any idea how fuzzy this process is? Even the squeaky clean Norwegians cant get it right. DNV anyone?

- and who profits from an ETS? I find it very ironic that many of the commentators (here and globally) decry the irresponsibility, deviousness and greed of the capitalist finance system. Well hello? Who do you think profits mostly from an ETS? Global financial intermediaries…….. in words of one syllable – banks, hedge funds, brokers. But now they are the good guys right because they are facilitating the ETS?

As the ETS scheme grows we will be introducing another volatility risk into global markets, that will impact mostly on those unable to manage it – consumers and the poor. A tax is far simpler, can be planned for by business and dis-intermediates the whole industry which has been created around carbon trading.

No, I’m not happy if National break their promises, but I have got used to it down the years. Mind you, i’m not entirely sure National promised anything this time aroiund, they were vaguer than usual about what they intended to do about anything. Except tax cuts, they were pretty definate about tax cuts. Whatever happened to that promise, Tim?

Wasn’t me. But I’d imagine less waste and burn off from straw harvesting than from wood harvesting. Then I guess it’s down to how well the house is constructed as to how long whatever CO2 there is remains locked up.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think there is too much problem when we manufacture long lasting products. Eg. houses that stand for hundreds of years instead of the current 30 year or whatever lifespan.

My gripe would be with the 90% plus of manufactured product that finds its way to the landfill within 6 months of being manufactured. My gripe would be with the 17 and 18 x more waste from manufacturing processes in relation to domestic waste; with inbuilt obsolescence; with stupid ‘kinder surprise’ production etc

I think what you mean is that National were elected on a policy of ‘keeping up with the world, etc.’ And, if so, you’d be wrong anyway. I doubt if they got a single vote on the basis of their platform on climate change, whatever it was at the time. It wasn’t a prime reason to vote National; anti-Aunty Helen was really the basis of their mandate.

A strong personal position on climate change was absolutely a reason to vote for Act or the Greens, depending on your POV, but hardly figured in John Boy’s result, in my opinion.

Also bright new idea to stop mud houses overseas crumbling under earthquake stress by putting layers of rubber from tyres round such houses can’t be stopped if found practical, because of emissions concerns. We are going to have to balance things out.

It seems the Left hasn’t yet accepted that we have a new government that was elected on the platform of keeping up with the rest of the world on climate change, rather than sacrificing our economy just so that we can have the moral pleasure that we’re doing more than everybody else.

a. most of it is harvested to put into paper (how much of your used paper do you have stored?), not buildings or furniture. Probably in excess of 80% of the trees in NZ is used for pulp and paper.

b. the waste factor on trees is very high. Typically non-pulp operations use at best 40% of the wood harvested. This is due to
1. discarded branches
2. bark and edge wood.
3. sawdust during milling.
4. breakages and spoilage during transport
5. offcuts during usage.

c. buildings and furniture don’t last indefinitely. My family has old wood from centuries ago as antiques. They are a fraction of the wood that was harvested and turned into furniture at the time. The rest has been burnt or decayed – most within a few decades. Similarly try and count the surviving wooden buildings that are over say 60 years old. They aren’t permanent in a process that will take centuries to undo.

Please take time to think before making such a obviously daft assertion. I’d be surprised if more than 5% of the harvested wood is actually still in existence a year after harvesting. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than 1%. This is all pretty obvious even to a student.

So what has happened is that fast growth forests sequester carbon from the air over 20-30 years, and almost immediately release most of that carbon as CO2 or CH4 a short period after harvesting.

Unless they are a forest put in to grow for century, you can treat them as essentially being zero sum in climate change gas equations on a process that will last centuries.

guess I should write faster. Yeah. Nice link.