Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, October 19th, 2009 - 15 comments
The current National led government clearly regards the processes of democracy is an inconvenience to which it must pay lip service, but nothing more. The first signs appeared very early, with repeated abuse of the mechanism of urgency. This got to the point that even their fans at The Herald were moved to rebuke them: […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 21st, 2009 - 6 comments
Rod Oram, as usual, has set the standard in commentary with his piece on the National-Maori Party ETS. The full article is here but I’ll lift the core points: Oram argues a climate change policy package needs three things: Put a price on emissions to incentivise change. We chose an ETS as the most effective […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, September 20th, 2009 - 8 comments
I get sick of hearing our illustrious fourth estate refer to some piece of politicking as ‘good politics’. Who decides what’s ‘good politics’? The commentators, of course. And they define good politics as maneuvering to ones advantage, rather than getting good policies in place. Take the ETS issue. If they wanted, the commentators could say ‘National has […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, September 18th, 2009 - 15 comments
I’ve got no problem with the government helping out those who are genuinely in need but forcing the taxpayer fork out $400 million (or is it 1.6b?) to subsidise corporate polluters is a disgrace. http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/2864572/Public-to-pay-tab-for-polluters This is corporate welfare at it’s worst. These businesses are simply bludging off the taxpayer. While you’re doing your bit […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, September 18th, 2009 - 8 comments
Labour’s Charles Chauvel has released the paper records of Labour’s attempts to agree a bi-partisan ETS with National. In total, Labour presented three draft MOUs detailing possible agreements, each moving towards what they believed to be National’s position. Additionally, there was a letter from Phil Goff to John Key a month ago that clearly laid […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 25 comments
People who treat politics as a game annoy me. People who see it all in terms of power and cliques and scoring points and winning at all costs annoy me a lot. These people have lost the plot. Politics is not a game. Politics matters. It matters to society, the lives of individuals, and the […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, September 16th, 2009 - 27 comments
It never ceases to amaze me what short term thinkers National are. The plan (with the Maori Party) to gut the ETS highlights this issue very starkly. For the sake of short term appeasement of their backers in the polluting industries National are prepared to abandon the much more important long term considerations. Considerations like […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, September 15th, 2009 - 52 comments
National seems to be making a bit of a habit of shafting the taxpayer. Before the election we were promised significant tax cuts, “North of $50” per week. We had John Key’s personal guarantee. Key said “New Zealanders will be able to believe our tax cuts, they will be able to trust our tax cuts…”. […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, September 15th, 2009 - 22 comments
Hot Topic has obtained a copy of a draft memorandum of understanding for a meeting on the ETS that was meant to take place today. It shows that Labour was prepared to do more to help compensate polluters for the costs they would have faced while still paying a price for polluting, thereby still incentivising reductions […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, September 15th, 2009 - 6 comments
A few important passages from the special select committee report on the Emissions Trading Scheme: In the long term, price caps stand in the way of market development and shield business from the real price of carbon to the economy…[National and United Future] recommend to the Government that if a short-term price cap is introduced, […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:48 am, September 15th, 2009 - 36 comments
What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that an emissions trading scheme has two points: 1) encourage reductions in emissions 2) allocate the cost of emitting. The ETS does not, ultimately, create the price on carbon for New Zealand. That is created by our international committment, along with other countries, to limit our […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:15 pm, September 14th, 2009 - 78 comments
Nick Smith has just announced a deal with the Maori Party to replace the existing Emissions Trading Scheme with a do-nothing joke. The new ETS will allocate polluting rights (carbon credits) free to polluters for the first years and then at a low capped price thereafter. Agriculture, source of 50% of our greenhouse pollution, will not be […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, September 1st, 2009 - 62 comments
ACT as part of its coalition agreement, and probably as a result of their funders conditions, forced a review of the Emissions Trading Scheme last year. The review has concluded that the science is valid and chosen to go with the IPCC 4th report as a basis. This is of course extremely conservative and doesn’t […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:06 am, August 28th, 2009 - 25 comments
National is attempting to re-write the Emissions Trading Scheme. The new version it has come up with through the special select committee would be weaker than the already weak version Labour passed. But they’ve got a numbers problem. ACT won’t ever vote for doing anything about climate change, the Greens, the Progressives and Labour won’t vote for the […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:14 pm, December 9th, 2008 - 55 comments
Rodney Hide on National and ACT’s select committee into the ETS: “I am especially pleased to see that the issue of the scientific and trade implications will be considered alongside the impacts on the economy. “There is definitely not a monolithic view on the fact of human induced climate change and I welcome this government’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:49 pm, November 19th, 2008 - 73 comments
The National Party’s decision to resurrect the idea of a carbon tax is one of the most cynical plays I’ve seen in a while, coming from a party that opposed a carbon tax from day one. In fact, for all their hollow attacks on Labour’s climate change record it’s been National that has campaigned harder […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:23 am, August 27th, 2008 - 21 comments
The Greens have won some very good improvements to the ETS in exchange for their support. The most important is $1 billion over 15 years to insulate low-income homes and subsidise upgrades to insulation of higher income homes. That’s a really positive development; all New Zealand homes will finally have decent insulation (Labour has done well […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, August 26th, 2008 - 48 comments
The Greens have decided to back the government’s emissions trading scheme saying in a press release that it’s a start but there’s more to do: We reported on Thursday that we had achieved virtually nothing in two areas – agriculture, and protection of important biodiversity from pine plantings. We have now made some progress on […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, May 19th, 2008 - 26 comments
National has pulled its support for the emissions trading scheme which is intended to set limits on the emission of greenhouse gases and penalise polluters. This is the latest in a long line of Key’s shifting positions on climate change. First climate change was a “complete and utter hoax”. Then as the environmental mood gained momentum […]
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