Hello Climate Realists
Greetings from a chilly East Coast.
Thanks to all those who responded to our call for action last newsletter and, at very short notice, sent in submissions to the MfE regarding the governments 50/50 emissions target.
We have been sent copies of some excellent submissions!
[You might like to read the CCG submission while you’re about it. – RT]
The next call for action is to make submissions to
*The government’s ETS Review panel
This panel has had its first meeting and now has details and a timetable published on the Ministry for the Environment website.
Updates from the Panel
The Panel had its first meeting on 4 February 2011. It discussed:
conflicts of interest
the background to the NZ ETS and the Review
the timetable for the Review
how it will operate and work with its Secretariat
the key issues raised by its terms of reference
stakeholders and how it will approach consultation
The Panel agreed to produce an issues statement for consultation. It tasked the Secretariat with producing a draft issues statement and agreed to meet again on 1 March 2011, to discuss and finalise the document.
It agreed to release the consultation document on 11 March 2011, with submissions closing on 6 April 2011.
Timetable for the review
Date (2011) Key activities
11 March Written consultation opens.
6 April Written consultation closes.
Mid April Meetings with selected stakeholders.
May Analysis of submissions and drafting of report.
30 June Final Panel report submitted to the Minister.
July – December Panel maintains an advisory role to the Minister.
How do I have my say?
The Panel will be posting a consultation document on this website on 11 March. Submissions will close on 6 April 2011.
Everyone with an interest in the operation of the ETS is encouraged to make a written submission. Given the timeframes available, the Panel may not be able to meet with everybody who makes a written submission but they will meet with selected stakeholders. The Panel has set aside dates in March and April to do this.
Contacting the Panel
The Panel can be contacted by emailing the Secretariat:
ETSReview2011@climatechange.govt.nz
ETS Review 2011 Secretariat
Ministry for the Environment
PO Box 10362
Wellington 6143
The review will assess the operation and effectiveness of the ETS and how the ETS should evolve beyond 2012, given there is still uncertainty over the outcome of international climate change negotiations and what climate change action will be taken by our key trading partners.
The review will make recommendations to government on steps that can be taken to ensure that beyond 2012 the ETS:
helps New Zealand to do its fair share to reduce global emissions and meet any international obligations;
delivers emissions reductions in the most cost-effective manner; and
supports the long-term economic resilience of the New Zealand economy at least cost.
The review will focus on the high-level design of the ETS, particularly:
priority issues and questions for key ETS design settings arising from possible international frameworks post 2012, and considerations that government might apply in developing a response to these priority issues and questions;
whether the ETS should continue to scale up to a full obligation and whether new sectors should incur surrender obligations on current legislated timetables after 2012, taking into account the domestic actions of key competitors, or what conditions should be met before proceeding with further sectors entering into the ETS;
the inclusion of synthetic greenhouse gases within the ETS, taking into account alternative approaches to reducing such emissions.
In light of the Panel’s terms of reference, the review will not be revisiting the need for an emission trading scheme, or other responses to climate change outside the ETS.
SO- keep an eye out for the consultation document, to be released shortly. That last paragraph is a cause for much concern, but we will continue to hammer away at them!
In the meantime, there are other areas presenting themselves for Climate Realists action:
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*Beef and Lamb remits
The farmers among our membership will have received their Beef and Lamb voting papers by now. Please take note of the two remits proposed by Neil Henderson:
The first is to cut the Beef and Lamb funding to the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium.
The reasoning behind this is that the research our levy money is being used to pay for is to solve a problem which does not exist, i.e., biological methane emissions from livestock.
By putting money into this research the industry is buying into the fallacy that livestock emissions cause dangerous global warming and need to be reduced.
The second remit is that Beef and Lamb should embark on a high-profile campaign to promote the understanding that livestock emissions do not and can not cause significant global warming.
This remit is aimed at countering the pro-vegetarian, anti-meat stances being promoted by campaigns like ‘go veg, go green’, ‘Meatless Mondays’ etc.
Farmers: this is a straight-out vote as to whether you believe your livestock causes global warming or not, so please use the opportunity you have to cast a vote which will give a strong indication of how you feel about this issue. Encourage your neighbours to do likewise!
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*District Council Annual Consultation
I am unsure as to the timeframe used by all district and regional councils, but for those of you living in the Gisborne area, the District Council has released its draft annual plan summary 2011/12.
This draft plan contains summaries of the major areas of council involvement, and provides an opportunity for written and verbal feedback.
*******NOTE the section on page 4, Carbon Management Policy********
This is a great opportunity for Climate Realists within the Gisborne District to have their say.
Do you really want the council to have a goal of becoming carbon neutral in the future? Does the council have any idea what this actually would mean?
Climate Realists living in other parts of New Zealand, check out your local council’s timeframe for public consultation, there’s bound to be some environmental policy part of their annual plan.
Have your say!
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‘Climate futures – pathways for society’
31 March – 1 April, Te Papa, Wellington
The New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute invites you to be part of the next big New Zealand discussion on climate change. The forum will discuss pathways for addressing the climate change challenge and by so doing initiate this conversation with groups in society. The Forum will be policy relevant and interdisciplinary and designed to bring wider groups in society into an ongoing dialogue.
The two day Forum will cover four half day themes • Climate Change and society’s challenge • Communication between the science community and society • Human behaviour and the capacity to change • Towards durable decision-making.
To open the discussion further to a wider audience a café session for the wider public will be held on the evening of Day 1 chaired by Ian Wedde (6.00 – 7.30 pm) and the following morning a breakfast session of business participants will be hosted by Chris Laidlaw (7.00 – 8.30am).
More information at Climate Futures.
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Science and Environmental Policy Project:
Last Friday, the White House transmitted to Congress the 2011 Economic Report of the President (ERP) prepared by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. For purposes of science based environmental policy, the most crucial chapter is Chapter 6, “Transitioning To A Clean Energy Future.” Several specific issues will be discussed in the upcoming TWTW, however, this week’s discussion will be limited to two general concepts in the ERP: first, the concept of Social Cost of Carbon, suggested, but not fully calculated in the ERP; and, second, the calculated social cost of American’s dependence on foreign oil which demonstrates how the concept of Social Cost of Carbon can be easily used by bureaucrats to the detriment of the American public……
As suggested in the above quote, the concept of SCC is intentionally vague and lacks scientific precision. It is a bureaucrat’s dream. Any suggested harm from the use of carbon can be included no matter how improbable. Of course, the current objective is controlling all carbon-based fuels. But, SCC can be used for other purposes as well.
Humans are carbon-based life forms, all life on the planet is carbon-based. The use of vague concepts such as Social Cost of Carbon suggests life itself comes with a social cost……
To read the full article go to The Week That Was and click on the newsletter of 5th March 2011.
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Daily Telegraph 28 February
A lot you haven’t told us
DEAR Prime Minister Gillard, Thank you for making the weather nicer by forcing us to pay more for everything. Who knew that fixing the global climate was so simple? Still, one or two questions remain about your new plan and a few related matters.
Yours in climate justice,
Tim Blair
Some excellent questions posed here! Read the whole article.
Rob
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Clean, Green and Barefoot in the Snow
Greetings Neil & Esther, this submission is well worth a read, and sent to all our Climate Clown Pollies, I have already sent it to a number of them and suggest as many Realists as possible do the same.
Kind Regards….Maurice @ The Mount.
A submission on the proposal from the government of New Zealand to set an Emissions Reduction Target of 50% of 1990 emissions by 2050.
The submission may be read at http://carbon-sense.com/2011/02/28/barefoot-in-the-snow/
or, alternatively, at Climate Realists.
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Coastal Coalition
This is not Climate Realists’ business, but we have been sent this information by so many people it is obviously of interest and concern to a huge number, and with the limited time left to act, we have decided to include this in this week’s newsletter.
We have been notified that the National Party intends pushing the Marine and Coastal Area Bill through Parliament this week. National’s bill to privatise our coast to the Maori aristocracy is easily the most radical and controversial bill to come before Parliament in over two decades. Rushing it through while the country is still in mourning is totally unacceptable.
Not only that, but John Key promised he would withdraw the bill if there wasn’t widespread public support. With most people who have examined the bill being opposed, we are calling on John Key to honour his promise and withdraw his disastrous bill – An Open Letter to Kiwis has the details. Read it now at the Coastal Coalition.
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Some disturbing facts here
The adventures of Maurice Strong & Co. illustrate the fact that
nowadays you don’t have to be a household name to wield global power.
Do I see this fingerprint in the global warming debacle?
Alan
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Well done, folks
Now maybe it’s time to remove the ETS and get back on a proper footing… YEAH, RIGHT!
Alan
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Disasters happen
Palaeontologist Bob Carter points out that what are called natural disasters have occurred throughout history. There is little mankind can do to stop natural events, such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which significantly impacts on the weather of Australia and New Zealand. Rather than blame carbon dioxide emissions for natural disasters, government officials should focus on planning for natural disasters. He holds up New Zealand’s GeoNet hazard as an outstanding example of a national hazard management system.
Mike
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Dr Tim Ball
El Nino and La Nina
In the light of the Queensland floods, this is worth a read (pdf).
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Shocker!
This is tantamount to a tourniquet on the haemorrhage of nonsense coming out of the UN.
Andy
Climategate Fallout -IPCC No Longer Trusted By U.S. Policy Makers
America is to cut off all funding to the United Nations climate science panel (IPCC) under sweeping Republican budget cuts that seek to gut spending on environmental protection. –The Guardian, 21 February 2011
The Climategate scandal played a role in the passage of the amendment, introduced by Republican Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer, who successfully made the case that the Climategate emails discredit the UN’s claims to scientific integrity: “emails publicly released from a university in England showed that leading global scientists intentionally manipulated climate data and suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals,” he stated. “Researchers were asked to delete and destroy emails so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda.” –Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, 20 February 2011
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science, which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for at a time of out-of-control spending and historic debt, which is why I am extremely pleased that my amendment passed. — Blaine Luetkemeyer, House of Representatives, 19 February 2011
The most vocal climate scientists defending the IPCC have lost their objectivity. Yes, they have what I consider to be a plausible theory. But they actively suppress evidence to the contrary, for instance attempts to study natural explanations for recent warming. That’s one reason why the public was so outraged about the ClimateGate e-mails. ClimateGate doesn’t prove their science is wrong…but it does reveal their bias. Science progresses by investigating alternative explanations for things. Long ago, the IPCC all but abandoned that search. –Roy Spencer, 19 February 2011
Read full article at: http://www.climaterealists.org.nz/node/721
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The bankers have been the instigators from the very beginning. The ‘carbon taxes’ will go to the UN via the ‘World Bank’ – which along with the IMF – is controlled by banking dynasties based in the CITY of London and the US FED . Ken
This article spills the beans:
“Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to set a carbon price starting in July 2012 in preparation for a trading system that could begin as early as 2015.”
Australia Treasurer Says Carbon Price Essential to Economy
Introducing a carbon price to tackle climate change is “essential to the health and prosperity” of Australia’s economy as countries such as China take steps to curb greenhouse gas pollution, Treasurer Wayne Swan said.
“The longer we delay, the bigger the damage to the environment and to the economy,” Swan said today on Australia’s Channel Nine television. “We’ve got to make a start because if we don’t, the consequences over time are horrendous.”
“BlueScope Steel Ltd. (BSL), Australia’s biggest steelmaker, has called the government plan “economic vandalism” and said it would reduce the company’s competitiveness as it battles high raw-material costs and the stronger Australian dollar”
Keep in mind that this is coming from a ‘Labour’ government that is supposed to represent the workers and their JOBS…………Key will get his ‘Trading’ and his Knighthood – the crooks are in control…..
Ken
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