National tricky on climate change aid

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, March 19th, 2016 - 10 comments
Categories: aid, climate change, Environment, global warming, International, john key, national, paula bennett, same old national, slippery, sustainability, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags:

Remember our beloved Prime Minister standing up at Paris and saying that the New Zealand Government was pledging $200 million towards aid to address the effects of climate change?  Well it appears the announcement actually reflects a cut.  National’s “generous” announcement looks like it may actually rexult in a reduction in the amount spent in the Pacific addressing the effects of climate change.

This is how the pledge was reported in December last year:

New Zealand will commit up to $200 million to support countries’ climate change efforts – and $20 million toward ground-breaking research to slash agricultural greenhouse gases.

Prime Minister John Key announced the new funding at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21), where close to 200 nations are meeting to thrash out a new agreement to tackle global emissions.

Mr Key told delegates New Zealand would provide up to $200 million for climate-related support over the next four years, the majority of which will benefit Pacific nations.

This would build on the $65 million New Zealand has already spent over the last three years to help Pacific Nations secure reliable and clean energy.

But Andrea Vance at TVNZ has reported that things may not be quite the way they appear.  The Government had been spending $63 million a year on assisting Pacific Islands address climate change.  The proposed spend was over four years and would actually result in a $14 million a year reduced spend.

As Greens co leader James Shaw notes, it appears that New Zealand’s aid commitment is going down.

Paula Bennett responded by saying that the previous spend was well in advance of the previous pledge and this will happen again but Shaw’s claim that the Government is using dodgy numbers strikes a chord.

It is not the first time that the Government has anounced a multi year spend to make the amount appear bigger, and dressed up a transfer of money as a new spend.

That really is tricky man.

10 comments on “National tricky on climate change aid ”

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  1. saveNZ 1
    19 March 2016 at 8:36 am

    C,uon folks Saudi Businessmen bribes, Sky City convention center real estate deals and $15 mill in consultant fees in Brownlee’s vanity ChCh convention centre deal (not even started to be built yet) are FAR more important than investing in Climate change…

    Get your priorities straight here, short term crony welfare increasing our carbon footprint, trumps the planet, in Planet Key Accounting.

  2. ianmac 2
    19 March 2016 at 9:30 am

    It would seem that we NZers accept that National are great managers of the economy and any evidence to the contrary is of no concern. Flags!

  3. Bill 3
    19 March 2016 at 11:00 am

    This might be an unpalatable truth. I say might be because there’s a chance I’m missing something.

    Anyhoo. Any aid money being designated towards mitigation is going to have to be generated in the shape of profit that comes into being by way of market economics…and since the growth that market economics demands drives energy use that in turn drives up emissions…

    Tying mitigation to the availability of money is hugely stupid; we need to just ‘do it‘ and dispense with the notion that stuff only moves or gets created in the presence of money.

    Somewhere about, there’s a link to a recent study that looked at economic growth and energy use in relation to CO2 and temperature. I’ve had a look for the link, but of course, can’t find it. Maybe someone will oblige? Anyway, even if we take average historical growth levels from the fifties onwards and extend that into the future in combination with energy use (it correlates with economic growth), then we wind up busting +2 degrees C by, I think, around 2030 (it may have been sooner – hazy recollection thing going on here).

    How sad and stupid that we have the knowledge and wherewithal, but won’t apply it without first of all doing more of the thing that is causing warming in the first place so that we can generate money because we’re apparently incapable of moving “A to B” without it.

    The amount of aid is irrelevant. Trying to get things done by way of affixing a cost or price to anything and everything, and not doing anything without the relevant payment being made, is precisely what’s driving us ever deeper into the quicksands of catastrophe.

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      19 March 2016 at 11:12 am

      The amount of aid is irrelevant. Trying to get things done by way of affixing a cost or price to anything and everything, and not doing anything without the relevant payment being made, is precisely what’s driving us ever deeper into the quicksands of catastrophe.

      QFT

      Capitalism and capitalists causing damage and collapse again all to cater to their greed.

      • Bill 3.1.1
        19 March 2016 at 11:48 am

        What I find amusing, well…frustrating and amusing, is that one of the most effective actions we could take (individually and collectively) would be to sit on our collective fat chuffs. That would mean no market economic activity, and that in turn would mean bugger all energy related CO2 adding to that invisible dark cloud that’s hanging over all of our futures.

        If the call of 19th and 20th century revolutionaries was a call to action, then the call for 21st century revolutionaries might be best encapsulated as a call to inaction.

        The days where there was any hope of taking over the means of industrial production are long gone and, anyway, we can’t run industrial production off the back of fossil if we want any kind of future. So, fuck it. Bring it down.

        In two or three generations, when we’ve had the time to lay in any necessary fossil free energy systems, we can start enslaving ourselves and our children to industrial processes run by elitist arses who’s only concern is profit… if that’s what we want.

        Alternatively, we might discover that we actually like our new found commons with its strong sense of freedom, community and purpose and that we’re rather quite content with society providing to and for itself without states or markets calling the shots.

        But, I guess, all that means we have to (in)act now. Or else climate change will be taking away what we could have brought down today – with the difference being that those people and institutions that are in control today, will ineptly, and probably rather cruelly, insist that they should continue to call the shots.

        Unfortunately, or perhaps cynically, I’m picking ‘creatures of habit’ that we are, we’ll go out to earn the crust to pay the mortgage or rent and clear the bills tomorrow just as we did yesterday, and “Oh look over there!” our way to a repressive, chaotic and utterly fucked day after tomorrow.

        • Grim 3.1.1.1
          19 March 2016 at 12:10 pm

          I would like to politely disagree, not on the enslavement and greed of the elite, completely agree there.

          What I disagree with is the view that humans can only have a negative effect on the environment, as this is a view that can only exist if you first believe that humans are above the system and not a part of it.

          The left are being sold the idea that inaction is better than action, the system is broken so we should do nothing, don’t vote, don’t work don’t breed.

          This is what the elite want, they want the poor to roll over and die.

          Planting a tree creates a net carbon sink, so it is better to plant a tree and aid nature to recover than to do nothing.
          It is better to produce all your own food locally in a sustainable manner and turn the “waste” into biomass to feed back into the ecosystem.

          • Bill 3.1.1.1.1
            19 March 2016 at 12:32 pm

            What I disagree with is the view that humans can only have a negative effect on the environment..

            I agree with your disagreement. But then, I didn’t claim that we only have a negative impact on the environment.

            I think you’re misconstruing my suggestion that we all sit on our big fat chuffs. I only mean that in relation to contributing to, or participating in the market economy, because such an economy demands growth and that growth is presently based on fossil fuel use and fossil fuel use…yeah, you get the picture.

            Withdrawing our labour and cutting our ties with money/debt would crash both carbon emissions and the market economy, and free up entire days, weeks and months for most people. That time could then be spent on some of the things you mention in the second half of your comment and a lot more besides.

            • Grim 3.1.1.1.1.1
              19 March 2016 at 3:25 pm

              yes I did indeed misconstrue what you said, my apologies for my hasty assumptions,

              I agree completely with you.

    • Lloyd 3.2
      21 March 2016 at 12:09 am

      Our wonderful Prime Minister “Understands Banking” unlike Andrew Little. Anyone who “Understands Banking” knows there is nothing other than money and all this hoohah about “climate” doesn’t have anything to do with money and isn’t really worth worrying about.

  4. Grim 4
    19 March 2016 at 11:51 am

    Does the aid result in solutions or take the form of corporate welfare
    i.e taxpayer sponsorship of corporations that would otherwise not be able to capitalize on a crisis.

    This report works as propaganda on several levels, Vance appears to be balanced re her Little attack yesterday, prompts labour to call for more monetary Aid and allows National an opportunity to publicize how they have given more than required and are generious in the build up toward an election year, Nation now only have to “correct labours claims” “well acully we gave twice as much and will do it again, the $200 commited is additional to what we have already planned” or some such bullshit.

    as said above , it is not the amount, is is the effectiveness and implementation.

    Otherwise it’s charity that only benefits the suppliers and provides no permanent solution.