Govt unveils high-level policy changes it's considering to cut emissions

Detail around how NZ will reduce its emissions lacking 7 months out from the Government's Emissions Reduction Plan falling due

13th Oct 21, 10:51am by Jenée Tibshraeny

James Shaw. Press Gallery pool image: Robert Kitchin.

The Ministry for the Environment is seeking public feedback on what the country’s cornerstone plan to reduce carbon emissions should look like.

However, the consultation document presented by the Ministry doesn't include detailed policy proposals and is more high-level than the advice it’s drawing on from the Climate Change Commission. This advice was presented to the Government in June, following an extensive consultation process.

Members of the public have until November 24 to make submissions on action that needs to be taken across the board, including in the energy, transport, waste, agriculture, construction and financial services sectors.

After this consultation period, the Government will have until May 31 to design the Emissions Reduction Plan.

By law, the plan must include “sector-specific policies to reduce emissions”. It also needs to “improve the ability of those sectors to adapt to the effects of climate change”, and include a strategy to mitigate the impact reducing emissions will have on “employees and employers, regions, iwi and Māori”.

Policy suggestions

Some of the Ministry’s new suggestions, which come in addition to climate-related policies already being investigated or implemented by the Government, include:

- Introducing four transport targets:

reduce vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) by cars and light vehicles by 20% by 2035 through providing better travel options, particularly in our largest cities

increase zero-emissions vehicles to 30% of the light fleet by 2035

reduce emissions from freight transport by 25% by 2035

reduce the emissions intensity of transport fuel by 15% by 2035.

- Integrating land use, urban development and transport planning and investments to reduce transport emissions.

- Supporting local government to accelerate widespread street/road reallocation to support public transport, active travel and placemaking.

- Reducing public transport fares.

- Enabling congestion pricing and investigate how we can use other pricing tools to reduce transport emissions.

- Setting a maximum CO2 limit for individual light ICE vehicle imports to tackle the highest emitting vehicles.

- Investigating how the tax system should be used to avoid disadvantaging clean transport options.

- Introducing a vehicle scrappage scheme to support low-income New Zealanders shift to low-emissions transport.

- Developing an energy strategy.

- Reducing fossil gas use in buildings, including capping the emissions from buildings while allowing flexibility for potential low-emissions alternatives.

-Setting a date to end the expansion of fossil gas pipeline infrastructure and eliminate fossil gas in all buildings.

- Addressing fossil fuel usage for boilers used for space and water heating in commercial buildings.

- Regulating the import or sale of high-global warming refrigerants where alternatives are available.

- Identifying opportunities to divert households’ and businesses’ organic.

- Determining the role of forestry in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

- Establishing a long-term carbon sink.

The Ministry notes government policy alone isn’t enough to make the necessary change, so is also calling for “proposals and commitments from the private sector”.

The Emissions Reduction Plan was supposed to have been written by the end of this year under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. However, the Government last month announced that due to Covid-19, it would tweak the law to give itself another five months to draw up the plan.

Budgets set 'in-principle'

The Government has also decided “in-principle” to adopt the emissions reduction budgets proposed by the Commission, although it’ll make tweaks to account for the latest data on forestry emissions.

It’s first proposed budget for 2022-25 is a little looser than the Commission’s proposal, while its second two budgets for 2026-30 and 2031-35 are tougher.

Govt's proposed and Climate Change Commission's recommended budgets (Mt CO2e)
Budget period	2022-25		2026-30		2031-35
	Govt	CCC	Govt	CCC	Govt	CCC
All gases, net (AR5)2	292	290	307	312	242	253
Annual average	73.0	72.4	61.4	62.4	48.4	50.6

The Ministry said New Zealand is on track to overshooting the first proposed budget by 7.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) under current policy settings.

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150 Comments

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 10:59am 1634075968

And we will continue to 'overshoot' until we crash or fry.

We're getting down to the nitty gritty now - that which we have avoided for too long. Essentially the gap between physical realities (draw-down at the front end, failure to mitigate at the back end) is widening to the point where they cannot paper it over. And that's happening globally too - to wit the NH energy howls.

Interesting times ahead; gonna be an interesting year.

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 2:22pm 1634088158

Yep, what's our global coal/oil/gas subsidies up to now? $6-$7 trillion last time I looked, or just under 10% of the worlds GDP.

Bold action is required. This government will deliver bold reports on top of bold reports that do absolutely nothing but waste time that we don't have.

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 8:52pm 1634111552

Released just in time for James to take it to the upcoming COP meeting;

https://ukcop26.org/

So he can say ''but, but, but....look: we're working on it..." (or to quote Greta, "blah, blah, blah").

James Shaw having this portfolio and to be doing such a shocking job of it - is a real negative for the Green brand.

If some new political party (perhaps, Generation Zero or a re-birth of the Values Party) stood solely on a credible climate platform - with real 'bottom-line-everyone-in' policies reflecting the fact that there is a climate emergency - they'd absolutely wipe the Greens out to my mind.

Our heavy industries are subsidised to the tune of 90% with respect to their obligations under the ETS (altho granted that is a sinking subsidy over time) - and agriculture gets a totally 'free pass' until 2025 (and then it too will be heavily subsidised on entry).

The joke we are, on the int'l stage in this regard, isn't funny anymore.

by Mollie | 14th Oct 21, 11:09am 1634162980

OMG.

U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is cautiously embracing nuclear energy, despite lingering safety concerns, to help achieve its goal of a net-zero carbon economy for America by the year 2050.

https://www.voanews.com/amp/usa_white-house-cautiously-embraces-nuclear…

And Europe

https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN2BJ0F0

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Experts tasked with assessing whether the European Union should label nuclear power as a green investment will say that the fuel qualifies as sustainable, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

by Kate | 14th Oct 21, 2:18pm 1634174316

What people will do to resist our necessary and inevitable lifestyle change, eh? My mum used to refer to it as cutting off your nose to spite your face. She had a mountain of those little sayings - which she said so often - became etched in my memory, but really made no sense to me at the time.

by Casual Observer | 14th Oct 21, 2:33pm 1634175188

How do you see this requirement working Kate, include a strategy to mitigate the impact reducing emissions will have on “employees and employers, regions, iwi and Māori”. The last 5 mentioned groups basically covers everyone in NZ. So is not the govt hamstrung? Mitigating impact will be nigh on impossible. We are already seeing additional costs due to increasing fuel taxes etc. Those that can, are simply passing them on.

by Kate | 14th Oct 21, 7:21pm 1634192463

I don't think they are hamstrung - they're in denial would be a better way to describe it. The statement/aspiration quoted is laughable.

by solardb | 15th Oct 21, 9:26am 1634243209

They know what needs to be done , making it politically acceptable is the problem . No sense having it all done at the election , by some party rthat made desperate promises to do nothing , in a bid to survive.

by Waikatohome | 13th Oct 21, 11:02am 1634076175

I would be interested in more detail on the vehicle scrappage scheme. I have often thought that incentivising middle and lower income households to trade up to a more efficient (newer) petrol car could have more impact than a few higher income people going electric. Newer cars are also safer therefore the policy would improve road safety and climate at the same time. Could be paid for out of two government departments?

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 11:38am 1634078316

Don't forget to count in the build energy.

It is better to keep a 30-year-old corolla on the road, from say 300k to 400k, than it is to buy a new-built, technically-fragile (complex) SUV.

But it's much better than either, to bike....

by AndrewRiddell5886 | 14th Oct 21, 7:43am 1634150607

Shouldn't the emphasis in cities and towns be to change from cars/SUVs/tanks to electric bikes, not change to electric cars?

by Kate | 14th Oct 21, 2:28pm 1634174900

Agree and there are sit-down scooters and golf carts for the elderly - the principle mode of transport in all the retirement communities down FLA way in the US. But these EV-lite transport modes need a dedicated lane of their own. And we've got it already waiting there - currently used as road-side parking spaces. Easy enough to decide there will be no roadside parking in any residentially zoned land going forward. All it takes is a National Policy Statement under the RMA. Done.

by xingmowang | 13th Oct 21, 11:18am 1634077108

cutting emission while not reducing living standard equals the need a great deal of innovation or even a revolution in new energy and new techs.

these are NOT something that NZ is even remotely capable of doing. So, this government's plan or announcement is no more than a cow's fart.

by Plutocracy | 13th Oct 21, 11:11am 1634076676

It's probably something no country is capable of doing.

by JimboJones | 13th Oct 21, 11:25am 1634077549

Rubbish. Ever heard of public transport? One electric train with 500 people on it uses a lot less energy than 500 cars do.

by GV 27 | 13th Oct 21, 11:29am 1634077789

It also triggers 500 connecting journeys at each end unless you happen to live or work on top of a train station.

So the energy for that also needs to be considered before you can consider as a like-for-like. But more importantly, the extra time taken to take a journey by PT usually makes it unworkable for most people.

by Believer1980 | 13th Oct 21, 11:42am 1634078542

Also, if you leave outside the very CBD, you would get one bus an hour if your are lucky (outside pick hours) that goes around a massive areas to get some more passengers. I love public transport, but our public officials have proved incapable of doing anything to improve it.

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 1:22pm 1634084546

Why travel at all

WFH.

Its already the new normal for most office workers in said CBD.

by GV 27 | 13th Oct 21, 1:56pm 1634086575

It's a good thing that there's no possible conceivable human existence other than 'CBD Office Worker'.

But let me know how your next emergency plumbing callout goes over Zoom.

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 8:07pm 1634108858

Obviously it's not going to work for every occupation on the planet.

But the reference above is for people commuting long distances to work in the CBD. Most people doing this type of commute work in offices. Most of this work can be done Remote.

Plumbers I'm assuming should start to buy electric powered vans. That way I can save the planet via my (lack of) daily commute AND in my next emergency plumbing call out.

But no seriously it's a complete waste having half of the CBD travel back and forth from the suburbs to do roles they can easily do online.

by xingmowang | 13th Oct 21, 11:30am 1634077812

well. just hope the additional electricity needed is from a renewable source but not coal.

hear hear

by Chris-M | 14th Oct 21, 9:23am 1634156608

Reading through that list I did not see one word on how all the extra electricity will be generated so that all this new non fossil fuel transport can be supplied. Currently 19% of our electricity is supplied by fossil fuels and increasingly by coal. If the power system is rationally set up all the renewables will be fully utilized, with non renewables bought into supply in their order of CO2 emissions. (All renewables in NZ have zero cost energy so economically and enviromentaly must be used first. Any thing otherwise amounts to market manipulation and distortion) Accordingly coal fired power from Huntly should be the last cab off the rank. As we have been told the coal fired generation from Huntly has been steadily increasing over the last few years, so it is safe to assume that renewable supplies are fully extended and the large majority of any extra demand must come from the last cab off the rank fossil power generation fuel, i.e. coal. The net effect will be that while we will all feel virtuous driving around in our electric cars, the power generation system will be generating twice as much CO2 to supply them than would have been the case if we had all bought increasingly efficient hybrid cars.

This lot are absolutely hopeless and have their priorities totally stuffed up. "But hey; it sounds good, gets votes; so stuff the real environmental impacts and stop confusing me with the facts."

Even if they did have plans to crank up the large scale hydro power that would be one way to supply this extra power, the lead times are huge. When we were competent and efficient it would still take 15 to 20 years to get from concept to commissioning of a hydro dam. This lot cant even manage something as simple as a few thousand extra houses so you will be lucky to see anything inside 40 years. Two generations of electric cars will be scrap by then.

by waymad | 13th Oct 21, 11:18pm 1634120331

Hey, no fair. You are using solid engineering and physical arguments. Shame on you.

/sarc off

by Carlos67 | 14th Oct 21, 5:11am 1634141478

To be far it could be done right now but the cost would have to be shouldered by the user. So basically like a $30K solar system at your home and a spare electric car sitting in your garage being charged while you alternate cars because ones always on charge during the daylight hours. It is all just a question of money and as pointed out if you watch "The Dark Side of Green Energy" you will see there is still plenty of pollution making all this stuff but its usually left in all the 3rd world countries doing the rare earth mineral mining so we don't care about them. Of course the Greens think everyone has a spare $150K to go renewables so its not a problem.

by solardb | 14th Oct 21, 11:31am 1634164304

I suspect you know there are several wind turbine farms been built and planned, but it does not suit your narrative.

by Chris-M | 14th Oct 21, 12:49pm 1634168945

Without storage. it probably doesn't suit the load either.

by solardb | 14th Oct 21, 2:45pm 1634175959

everyone knows more storage or load shedding is going to be necessary .The grid has to handle a daily peak from 6 pm to 9 pm now . and it does.

by Waikatohome | 13th Oct 21, 11:36am 1634078197

We cant even get funding for a Railway Station in Tuakau. New build South Auckland suburbs prioritised over existing North Waikato Communities. Without an integrated transport policy that crosses regional boundaries there is no hope of getting people out of their cars.

by Believer1980 | 13th Oct 21, 11:39am 1634078386

I think a fast, cheap and reliable public transport is so very excellent. But you are very unlikely to get all these three together. In reality most public transport are neither.

by Squishy | 13th Oct 21, 12:28pm 1634081280

Suburbs are too lower density for efficient public transit. You'd be better off building new cities adjacent and progressively bulldozing the old structures.

Auckland has a population density of about 1200 people per square kilometer whereas a city like London or Berlin has a population density of 5000+ people per square kilometer and a really well planned city like Barcelona is over 15,000.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 1:33pm 1634085233

Only well-planned while fossil energy brought processed resources into those cities, and took wastes away. This is where the greenies miss the point; post FF, big cities are in trouble. Not surprising; from a physics POV they were just giant heat-engines, and we're about to apply orders-of-magnitude less energy to them. It's hardly rocket science.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Creating-Sustainable-Cities-Herbert-Gira…

He was Thinker-inChief for Adelaide - nobody has come close, that I've found. Well worth the read.

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 9:08pm 1634112517

Here's an idea to super-charge a mode shift in transport emissions.

All PT is free-of-charge.
All road-side parking is cancelled - everywhere. Existing parking lots (e.g., supermarkets, malls, parking buildings, etc.) can stay.
The previous road-side parking lanes become electric-only uber/taxi lanes.
The government to import and sell electric uber/taxi vehicles to (what would become a burgeoning market) people wishing to get into this business and offer these services at cost + shipping + ORC for the vehicles.
An app should be developed such that all uber/taxi services become ride-share (i.e., they can make multiple passenger pick ups on the way from one place to another). All such ride-share service providers must be government registered/licensed.

by imhenry | 14th Oct 21, 8:23am 1634152998

Exactly, well said. Commonsense

by keithwoodford | 13th Oct 21, 11:19am 1634077190

The talk up to now has been relatively easy. Just words!

The walk is going to be much more challenging. And divisive within the community!

KeithW

by positivelywallstreet | 13th Oct 21, 11:32am 1634077976

I found it amusing the document rules out the possibility that a household can compost it’s green waste and therefore kerbside collection is required.

Most NZ households have some bare land and could grow some fruit and veg as well as compost their waste, as did our parents or grandparents.

An education program would do the trick, forget the fine words and get started.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 11:53am 1634079207

This is why an integrated Systems approach is needed; the health fraternity would presumably fret about the health implications of home composting (or home water collection, and wish to impose controls. In proportion, that would be like imposing controls on the temperature in staterooms and the qualiy of what comes out of the taps, onboard the Titanic. The problem is that the leaders - and leading advisers - in this system, are the winners in this system. They aren't likely to tell us that the problem is this system.

Interestingly, the best piece today has been from a member of the public (sigh):

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/pat-baskett-bring-forward-our-net-zero-goal

Telling us what the MSM should have been all over...... The SCAN document she references, should be food for thought for all:

https://www.issuesofsustainability.org/downloads/ThrivingWithinPlanetar…

The first four pages should be enough.......

by positivelywallstreet | 13th Oct 21, 12:10pm 1634080248

Yes, the composting education program needs to consider what we need to eat, what we can grow, and what is best to grow and eat given the limits of the home waste recycling.

And then the requirements for the external inputs, water, nutrients, sunlight, shelter.

It’s the circular economy applied to the household garden.

Sounds terrible but most modern ideas on food fit in well.

by pacifica | 13th Oct 21, 7:21pm 1634106084

Education is pointless as most households, especially young ones cannot compost, and the oldest ones have retirement gardening support that determines waste management. Most physically are not allowed to or cannot. You forget the lack of home ownership and higher density living cuts so many options away, like composting and growing vegetables sustainably. Tenants are penalized even for potted gardens as it affects what is beneath them and the higher moisture damage.

by positivelywallstreet | 14th Oct 21, 8:49am 1634154541

None of what I propose is hard work, in fact it avoids hard work by handling small quantities at one time, a suitable plan for the elderly.

It is not a plan for high rise apartment living but a good plan for most NZ domestic properties.

There are health benefits because fresh veg and fruit have more nutrition than stuff artificially ripened semi preserved and carted long distances.

Finally, while the older generations avoided gardening and embraced supermarkets, the younger generation have been taught an appreciation of growing fruit and veg and may look at domestic composting, using tumblers of course for their simplicity.

Lets give them a chance.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 12:19pm 1634080798

I shake my head when I see people driving a trailer of green waste to the dump. Next stop is probably the garden centre to pick up some bags of compost.

by positivelywallstreet | 13th Oct 21, 12:23pm 1634081039

I was doing that but as I was born lazy and getting old there had to be a better way.

by pacifica | 13th Oct 21, 7:16pm 1634105810

What are the rates of home ownership and how many landlords allow dumping of green waste on the yard space?

by pacifica | 13th Oct 21, 7:19pm 1634105979

Most households cannot compost. Most physically are not allowed to or cannot. You forget the lack of home ownership and higher density living cuts so many options away, like composting and growing vegetables sustainably. Tenants are penalized even for potted gardens as it affects what is beneath them and the higher moisture damage.

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 9:17pm 1634113068

I find it ironic that all these councils with 'Zero Waste' policies, provide us with up-to-three different waste bin choices, but don't provide the option of a composting bin (charge for via rates) in their fancy Zero Waste management plans;

https://www.bunnings.co.nz/products/garden/gardening/composting/compost-bins

by Jonny.Foe | 13th Oct 21, 12:39pm 1634081961

Indeed - surely the Govt would be better off fronting this and having an actual vision / plan for a low carbon future that it could pitch to the public - stumbling through the change required is political suicide?

Also, worth noting that the PM is still publicly committing to doing our bit to staying within 1.5 degrees of warming. Yet, the targets in the draft plan will blow our share of the IPCC's global CO2 budget for 1.5 degrees well before 2030. And, that's before we even factor in methane.

I am guessing you also spotted the radiata pine vs natives vs land use and jobs discussion in the plan?

by positivelywallstreet | 13th Oct 21, 12:47pm 1634082456

That is certainly worth discussion, a range of plans that let everyone do what they can, or want to.

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 1:53pm 1634086438

This is the main reason why I am so hugely disappointed with the current govt.

As much as we complain about present social issues (housing, Covid) its all immaterial in the face climate change and current fossil dependancy.

We have given a left leaning govt a outright majority to do more or less whatever they wanted, the opportunity to take bold, decisive, world leading, aggressive action on climate change. And to date actions amount to a continued kicking of the can down the road.

It makes me genuinely sad that if we cannot take firmer action with an outright left majority, when will we?

Likely I would say at points of no return.

How many millions of dollars have we just printed in order to simply continue the status quo? Such a Missed opportunity.

Change needs to happen and it won't happen voluntarily tinkering at the edges.

Hugely disappointed.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 2:03pm 1634086997

I wolddn't give up on them just yet . Part of the problem was the Greens weak (or rather Labour's strong) position at the last election. They had no bargaining power to push for more change.

I am hoping Glasgow will give us the push start , no new goals , just global pressure to meet the existing ones.

Labour been down in the polls will give the Greens potential bargaining power , hopefully Shaw will push through the party that it needs to be used on climate change.

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 4:23pm 1634095394

It doesn't matter who is in charge, or what the mix is, green, blue, red, purple with pink dots. Whoever it is should be driving this full steam ahead.

There are some big issues facing us right now & we should all be demanding results.

I personally don't need photo ops, diversity optics, nice words -> I want my kids to be skiing when they are my age. I'm prepared to accept some pain to make that happen.

And hopefully not in the South Pole.

Way I see it, if we took the same health-first approach to Climate control, as we did to covid, we wouldn't be catching up to existing goals, we'd be setting the tone for how to get it done.

Not a single death from covid? Zero tolerance, Health first approach?.

Well do the same for climate change. Be kind, think of your kids future, this is an actual emergency & we cannot make this problem worse... Not a single DEGREE HIGHER DAMMIT! not on my watch!

Most kiwis would get into that.

Obviously locking the country down in a global pandemic is easier than fixing decades long fossil fuel exploitation. But that's why I elected you. Give it a big kick in the right direction and bugger your popularity at the next election.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 7:11pm 1634105475

Thats where National and at need to take some responsibility. by pretending that they can get away with doing nothing , if elected , they are been irresponsible. Of course they have the luxury of been negative on it all , without telling us what their plan would be .

by Noncents | 13th Oct 21, 6:56pm 1634104587

I think you greatly overestimate the "Greens" commitment to being Green.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 7:13pm 1634105638

I'm pretty confident I have a good idea of their policy position , and actions.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 10:01pm 1634115674

What about the fact that some have clearly had enough - and are starting the degrowth Greens? No Party can hold that and Marama's socialism in the same tent; something's gotta give.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 11:37pm 1634121427

there are many factions within all political parties .

Having said that , I am surprised there is not a blue Green party , that could get 5 %. In some ways the Greens have been forced to cover the the far left / socialist position , due to the lack of any such party , since the demise of the alliance , and Mana.

i think the Green party probably would split , if they were more comfortably above the 5 % threshold.

by Noncents | 14th Oct 21, 7:31am 1634149885

"In some ways the Greens have been forced to cover the the far left / socialist position"

And that is why you overestimate the greens. They were not forced at all, they opted to go that way rather than be an actual "green" party. i.e. one that could have paired with any other party.

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 11:43am 1634078582

Probably the best thing the government has done to reduce our per capita emissions is its plan to remove parking minimums next year. This will only help in the long term though.

by Believer1980 | 13th Oct 21, 11:44am 1634078643

By moving people further out to get somewhere with carparks?

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 11:52am 1634079130

Each to there own. I personally like the walkable, European styled city. Don't worry there will still be plenty of suburbia for people such as yourself.

I say let the market decide the price and quantity of carpark's provided on private land. Though you socialists may think differently.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 11:55am 1634079301

The market got us into this %#*^&&!_*& mess

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 12:02pm 1634079779

No governments did. Over regulation of our housing market has lead to market failure.

by AndrewRiddell5886 | 14th Oct 21, 11:43am 1634165013

Or it has been the result of the 1991-1992 changes from support to first home buyers to support for landlords.

by Believer1980 | 13th Oct 21, 12:04pm 1634079880

Good luck with getting a "walkable, European style city". You seem to think that you are building a new city and not affected by its historical development, geographical and demographic realities.

I am not attached to cars personally. But in my personal experience, if you have a family, you would need a car. Your circumstances may be different. Also, I am not against not requiring carparks. I just disagree with the outcome you attribute to it. Our future expecations of that outcome are different and that is it.

by Squishy | 13th Oct 21, 12:36pm 1634081793

If you're going to go for it why not go all-in and have a compulsory acquisition policy to facilitate total redevelopment? After all if we keep doing the things we've always done we'll keep getting the results we've always got. A clean break makes a lot more sense than some marginal changes.

by HouseMouse | 13th Oct 21, 1:15pm 1634084103

The potential for compulsory acquisitions exists under the Urban Development Act.

by pacifica | 13th Oct 21, 7:25pm 1634106321

Except very few can walk to work or are wealthy enough to have accessible transport to work without parking. Removal of parking is an elitist proposal that physically harms the most vulnerable and discriminates heavily against those disabled or in trade and shift work. Just remember that when you call up the serfs for fixing your plumbing and the lack of nursing staff & hospitality staff on hand for your laziness.

by pacifica | 13th Oct 21, 7:25pm 1634106331

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 9:23pm 1634113410

And now they need to remove road-side parking altogether, everywhere. See my post above :-). People will have to park in their actual garages or driveways - and that's it. If they need a third, fourth, fifth, etc car in the household - out-of-luck.

But, you have to combine that initiative with free-of-charge PT and a up-scaled ride-share initiative.

by Casual Observer | 14th Oct 21, 2:48pm 1634176139

Something like this Kate? https://www.winton.nz/our-neighbourhoods/sunfield/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIos…

by Believer1980 | 13th Oct 21, 11:52am 1634079155

"The Government wants to add two million tonnes to the carbon budgets proposed by the Climate Change Commission, the independent experts it appointed to chart a path to carbon neutrality. But it plans to more than make up for the excess by allowing 16m tonnes less climate pollution from 2025-35."

Is it not amazing? we are allowing ourselves to produce more CO2 now, but we would require people who may come after us to not only offset this, but reduce even more. You cannot make this up

by morepork | 13th Oct 21, 11:54am 1634079273

reduce vehicle kilometres travelled (VKT) by cars and light vehicles by 20% by 2035 through providing better travel options, particularly in our largest cities

And yet we keep building new motorways

by Squishy | 13th Oct 21, 12:41pm 1634082093

New Zealand was built for cars, we planned cities that had a very low population density. That's why we can't just stop using cars without major urban redevelopment.

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 1:06pm 1634083579

Exactly. Look at thes strip mall completed last year. On a prime corner site in Auckland's CBD.

It is borderline impossible to redesign a city away from the car once the original design has been implemented. Even though some great alternative transport technologies now exist i.e ebikes.

https://www.google.com/maps/@-36.8885182,174.8317711,3a,75y,70.45h,83.7…

by Squishy | 13th Oct 21, 1:29pm 1634084984

Yeah, urban densification is a joke as well because New Zealand will never have the population to fill sprawl in to any great extent.

by Plutocracy | 13th Oct 21, 1:34pm 1634085261

Just copy what the Dutch do for any future development. They're light years ahead of us in terms of urban planning and mixed modal transport.

by Waikatohome | 13th Oct 21, 2:08pm 1634087280

They also have excellent syrup waffles, great with a lockdown cuppa.

by CWBW | 13th Oct 21, 11:54am 1634079274

That's a long and diverse list for public consultation and I don't see how an overfilled list will solicitate genuine public submission other than pre-written papers from green advocates. Feels like a show to credify their mates' ideas through the process.

From light rail to 100K houses, solar planes to teleportation, it's not hard to see where this is going.

by nktokyo | 13th Oct 21, 1:09pm 1634083790

Chill out it's going nowhere.

by Squishy | 13th Oct 21, 12:11pm 1634080294

Integrating land use, urban development and transport planning and investments to reduce transport emissions.

They are going to have an absolute death match fighting New Zealand councils trying to abolish maximum building coverage, setbacks, parking requirements, height restrictions etc.

Our planning system favours sprawl and mall as much as the Europeans favour hypodamic planning and Al fresco dining. If they manage it I'll be the first to fire up the dozer but this will be a long, tough fight.

by waymad | 13th Oct 21, 11:24pm 1634120665

Let's hope that's an electric D10 dozer, otherwise the metaphor is more than a leetle, shall we say, Hybrid....

by AndrewRiddell5886 | 14th Oct 21, 11:51am 1634165472

A significant constraint on more intense development (with good public and social amenity) is the necessary supporting infrastructure, including real capacity in water supply and wastewater collection and disposal systems.

by Te Kooti | 13th Oct 21, 12:13pm 1634080436

Does anyone else have a problem with the entire de-carbonisation agenda? I like to think I am a thoughtful, educated person who cares about the planet, but I am deeply skeptical of the vested interests and how the media portrays it. From COP 26 being full of investment bankers spruiking "build back better" to John Kerry flying around the world in a private jet - the whole thing stinks. There is hardly a breeding pair of snapper left in the Hauraki Gulf and Crayfish are functionally extinct in the Coromandel, but no we have to cut carbon. NZ is going to become a pine forest where the owners are richly rewarded by the average Kiwi having to pay an additional 30c a litre for petrol to get to work, the kids to school or heat the home.

Can you imagine if Cyclone Bola happened today? God forbid we'd probably ban cars.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 12:21pm 1634080913

What about the vested interest that is the oil (fossil fuel ) industry ?

by youngdumbandbroke | 13th Oct 21, 12:47pm 1634082437

You mean the energy source that is entirely supporting every individuals existence in NZ?

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 2:08pm 1634087338

Yes , its done the job for the last 200 years , now we need to change. Gradual phase out and move to renwables , and more efficient technology .

by Te Kooti | 13th Oct 21, 2:41pm 1634089307

I'll sign up to that Solar when I stop hearing we are all going to perish in 10 years time and the uber-wealthy give up their private jets.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 9:29pm 1634113789

Thanks The Kooti. I don't see the need for the doom and gloom myself, I see it as moving to a better way of life for everyone. The only thing that concerns me is the lack of action over the last thirty years, that means we and our children have to move faster in the future. Or preferably now.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 1:44pm 1634085844

You seem to be more of an oxymoron, to me.

You can't fix the snapper and crayfish problem, without reducing population, and/or per-head consumption. Conservationists have worked hard for 50 years in this country, but every year we have gone backwards. Yet you want another of those years? That's not 'thoughtful', it's misguided.

It's OK though; our wonderfully suited Minister of Conservation (well, gender and ethnicity are all you need, right?) has - with a telling smile on her face - announced a fantastic aquaculture effort for Stewart Island. Even sank so low as to align with 'jobs' as a reason.

So don't you worry, the 'environment' is in safe hands. We can turn a buck out of this here soil.....

Oh -and if we don't sort the carbon/energy/overshoot problem - we're dead.

Minor point, granted.

by Te Kooti | 13th Oct 21, 2:02pm 1634086953

I'm not a fan of culling people tbh and the fish stocks will bounce back quickly if trawlers are banned from inshore waters and bag limits cut. The trawlers come in very close at night. What's wrong with Kiri Allen and aquaculture in SI?

I'm not anti reducing CO2 emissions either, nor EV's. What I am cynical of is the likes of JP Morgan, Goldmans, Maquarie and banks in general piling into the Green agenda so they can make money out of it.

Honestly, I'm not impacted. I can afford to travel wherever and whenever I want and I will. I just think life for the average Kiwi is going to get increasingly miserable so as a select few can continue to get wealthy.

by Plutocracy | 13th Oct 21, 2:03pm 1634087012

Decarbonisation is going to happen one (voluntary) way or another (involuntary - depletion).

I personally think it would make sense to build the infrastructure for a post-carbon future now while resources are still somewhat available to do. The longer we wait the harder it will be, and if we wait too long it's possible we'll run the risk of making any transition impossible due to lack of sufficient resources.

In saying that, we could wait for 'technology' to solve our problems but I'm very skeptical this will solve all of the problems coming our way. It's now 2021, we were 'supposed' to have cracked nuclear fusion, be living on the moon, and commuting in our flying cars by now. Physics says 'yeah, nah' . I'd sooner plan for the worst and hope for the best. Ignoring this will not make the problem go away

by CWBW | 13th Oct 21, 2:16pm 1634087819

Al Gore and gang showed the world a new way of making money- green money. Being first mover, it has made them really rich.

I think you deserve compensation for the common agony of the common men.

Here's the tip, bank on ETS- you get to ride the wave of its prices perpetually going up and you get to milk the green wokes like cows through escalating commodity prices.

2 birds in 1 stone- satisfaction guaranteed.

by fat pat | 13th Oct 21, 8:11pm 1634109069

There's no evidence that CO₂ is the "control knob" for the worlds temperature. It's the other way around. Core sample data going back a few hundred thousand years shows that temperature changes actually cause a change in atmospheric CO₂ with a lag time of around 800 years. This is probably because the oceans are a major reservoir of CO₂, and the gas solubility in water is temperature dependent.

Going back further in the geological record we see that before the carboniferous period 360 million years ago the CO₂ concentrations were 6000 ppm (compared to 417 ppm now). There's no long term correlation between temperature and CO2. For long periods of time CO2 and temperature are inversely correlated. Temperature changes do however seem to be caused by fluctuations in the earths orbit - Milankovitch cycles.

In the very long term the earth might "die" because of a lack of CO₂ because it's constantly being sequestered in the form of carbon rocks or limestone. Sea creatures are constantly turning CO₂ into CaCO₂ which is lost virtually forever. If CO₂ ever falls below 150 ppm then all plant life will die. It got close 22 thousand years ago when it reached 180 ppm.

Fossil fuel is to precious to waste but climate change / CO₂ agenda seems like a lie.

I know this paper relates to covid19 but it's equally applicable to climate change -> COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 9:39pm 1634114377

I really get where you are coming from Te Kooti. The problem is the "agenda" includes subsidising heavy industry and agriculture (i.e., the status quo). And you're right - people driving petrol cars are expected to take the majority of pain where the ETS is concerned (and I think air travel is exempt, i.e., not counted by the UN, the world over, isn't it)? What a joke.

Current talk is a major have (as in take advantage) of the have-nots, for sure.

But that doesn't mean there is no actual climate emergency - although it would be better called an energy emergency.

And I couldn't agree more about the state of our in-shore fisheries and habitat. We need to immediately implement a massive seagrass restoration project nationwide;

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2020.00617/full

Yet another reason to establish a nationwide, paid Conservation Corps. It needs more recruits/numbers than we have in our defence forces. Until we get it in our minds that our health depends on the health of our environment, we will continue to fail to innovate - at a time when high levels of innovation/change are needed.

by waymad | 13th Oct 21, 11:29pm 1634120992

Those Conservation Corp bods are gonna need a lotta dive tanks, electric boats and support to plant all a that seagrass. Inshore fishing is, as always, location dependent.

Certainly off Kaikoura, easy to get a quota of Cray's, cod, sea perch and barracouta......electric reels rock....

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 12:23pm 1634081001

Yeah , what people arent getting is that we are actually have to do something . No fancy accounting schemes , or political posturing is going to reduce our carbon equation .

by nktokyo | 13th Oct 21, 1:08pm 1634083695

Government is not about doing. It is about announcing and polling.

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 1:53pm 1634086434

Same as houses prices. Poliical suicide to tell the truth and act on it .

by Brock Landers | 13th Oct 21, 12:36pm 1634081787

If carbon emissions are such a problem it boggles my mind why we are wasting time locking up our land with god awful pine trees instead of building industrial carbon capture plants.

It's the same idiot luddite green movement that bought about the climate problems to start with because they managed to prevent nuclear plants being built or the technology advancing from the late 1970's onwards.

And what exactly happens to all that carbon when the forest burns down? And what happens with all the carbon credit money the owner pocketed?

by solardb | 13th Oct 21, 12:56pm 1634082963

Do your research , carbon capture plants are way more expensive , and less efficient than using trees as carbon sinks .

by Brock Landers | 13th Oct 21, 1:06pm 1634083562

So get a bunch of smart engineers and economies of scale working to make them cheaper and more efficient?

What does "efficient" even mean anyway? Is locking up your entire country in pine trees for a one-off carbon-sink an "efficient" use of land?

by Plutocracy | 13th Oct 21, 2:08pm 1634087316

Still at the 'magical thinking' stage I see. How much energy would your carbon capture process use, and what will supply this?

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 2:33pm 1634088801

Brock, efficiency in this instance is about the amount of energy required to both build and operate a carbon capture plant. There are very clear physics involved in judging efficiency.

The others are right, it's magical thinking to believe we will beat out nature, who through a billion or two years of evolution has produced incredibly efficient "machines" for extracting carbon out of the air for minimum amount of energy input from the sun. It is laughable that we believe we can get some spinning fans (all made from fossil fuels note), have some clever carbon splitting mechanism, deploy and operate it (all using fossil fuels, most likely) at enough scale that we could make a difference. It's total magical thinking.

Trees/soils and the ocean are the best carbon capture devices we have and probably will have in the time required to act. We may be able to enhance their operation through doping and genetics, but to build an entire industry with the amount of steel/aluminum/cabling/operational energy inputs that beats simply putting a seedling in the ground and waiting, is folly. It should be right up there with "crazy solutions" like a sun shade for the entire planet.

by Brock Landers | 13th Oct 21, 3:37pm 1634092630

According to these guys it's 366kWh per ton of CO2 with their current process (and surely that could be improved over time).

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3

New Zealand currently produces 80M tons of emissions per annum which would therefore require ~29,300GWh of energy per annum to capture. For reference, Tiwai point consumes 5474GWh per annum. So about 5 Tiwai points worth, give or take.

It's quite a bit, but as a nation we are going to be serious about this climate change thing right?

However most of that energy is required in the form of heat, so our abundant geothermal resources would be ideal, and failing that modular nuclear.

Put another way, we could capture 20% of our current emissions by converting Tiwai point into a carbon capture and sequestration facility.

I know New Zealand has an entrenched can't do attitude. But surely we can do better than this.

Now could somebody please perform the back of the envelope calculations for what percentage of New Zealand's land area must be planted in new pine forests to deal with 80 million tons of emissions per annum? That should be a proper laugh.

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 3:57pm 1634093873

And how would you build such a plant of sufficient scale? It would be absolutely massive and be made from steel and concrete to anchor it (https://media.datacenterdynamics.com/media/images/climeworks_orca_icela…), producing enormous amounts of CO2 to start with. It would then need to take up a huge amount of space, somehow deal with downwind dead zone issues (no CO2 coming out the other side) and then store enormous amounts of their pellets or lime. And it won't be anywhere near as efficient as they state, they will be lucky to get half the efficiency they claim, as anyone can tell you who has built any complex machinery will tell you (heat/noise/mechanical/compression losses all add up hugely).

What you would end up doing is creating a massive industry which requires huge amount of carbon inputs, just to take the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere as they are putting in, or basically not making enough of a difference to actually matter. Again, the industrial engineering solutions for carbon capture simply never add up.

Look at the size of the one that is currently operating in Iceland and capturing 4000 tonnes per year (https://media.datacenterdynamics.com/media/images/climeworks_orca_icela…). We would need to scale that to be around 1 million times the size to have any measurable effect and by then you have likely created enough emissions in the construction to have caused devastating climate change. They are currently at $1200 per tonne on renewable energy (Iceland is lucky here) and 4000 tonnes covers 250 Americans, are hoping to get to $200 per tonne carbon capture in a decade. Even at a million times the size, if we could build that without the carbon emissions, we would need to build some massive renewables to back it.

Basically it's a huge boondoggle, which will make it look like we are doing something, while actually making it worse.

by Brock Landers | 13th Oct 21, 4:38pm 1634096335

The Climeworks people are still designing toy systems. The Carbon Engineering folks are looking at building at a bigger scale and estimate $100/ton.

They calculate that a facility to sequester 1 megaton of CO2 a year would occupy around 100-300 acres. For reference Tiwai point is around 200 acres. Marsden point refinery is 100 acres. The idea is to geologically sequester the carbon back underground, where it came from.

What downwind dead zone issues do you anticipate exactly? There is an awful lot of air to mix with. It's a nonsense argument.

There is 125kg of CO2 per tonne of concrete. A megaton plant could offset the emissions for the construction of the entire Hoover dam in under a year.

Now please tell us what percentage of the land area of New Zealand are we going to cover in new pine trees and sing kumbaya to offset our carbon emissions? And where are we going to live and grow our food and exports? I'm dying to know.

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 6:22pm 1634102573

Cool, so you now need 4 million hectares of CCS (towers of concrete/steel... i.e. carbon), just to capture what the world polluted per year, right now, i.e. without reducing CO2, that's just to hold it steady. That's if they hit their efficiency targets, which is highly unlikely, it's more likely double that (i.e. half as efficient), so 8 million hectares but 10 million hectares if we want to start reducing the CO2 level. But then we are polluting a LOT more because they require a lot of power, 85% of which is non renewable, so you are talking somewhere closer to 15 million hectares to get into negatives - that's about the size of the South Island.

To build it, you have had to add another ~2500 Manhattan Islands (including all the concrete and steel) resulting in another few years output of carbon emissions - so we just got a lot closer to using up our remaining carbon budget.

So in the building of it, we got very close to overshooting our emissions and have dramatically increased our pollution levels, but finally CO2 in the atmosphere is dropping.

If you think the human race could embark on such a project and be successful, I have some rarefied air to sell you. A FAR better bet is to do some serious geo-engineering, planting massive forests (particularly near deserts, like what the Chinese have done), doping the ocean to absorb CO2 more (algae or similar) or changing our soil health AND reducing our carbon footprint through changing diets, improving our transport systems etc. Pretending we can use industrial engineering to solve the issue is magical thinking. We don't have the ability to build such a system without tipping ourselves over the edge into climate runaway.

by fat pat | 13th Oct 21, 8:33pm 1634110434

Why would anyone want to reduce CO₂? It's precious gas that makes trees and plants grow more quickly. Getting rid of CO₂ is like building a machine to "dispose" of all the fossil fuel. CO₂ is constantly being sequestered in the form of limestone rock anyway.

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 8:53pm 1634111634

Maybe you have been living under a rock, but CO2 levels are growing and that's causing the world to warm at a speed at which our civilisation will be unable to adapt to the changes it will bring.

It's possible to have too much of a good thing. You are supposed to drink 8 glasses of water a day, drinking 20 however is probably toxic to most people, even though our bodies are mostly water. That's too much of a good thing and just like the earths biosphere, too much CO2 can be too much of a good thing. Trace gasses in our atmosphere need to be stable to avoid runaway changes to our climate and climate stability for humans means food security. Unless you want many metres of sea level rise, inundating coastal cities (which are all our major ones), we need to get our CO2 pollution under control.

Barking on about CO2 being amazing and that we should want as much as we can get is not helpful. For reference, see Venus's atmosphere and ground temperature.

by fat pat | 13th Oct 21, 10:01pm 1634115681

..and that's causing the world to warm at a speed

There is no evidence to support that claim.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 10:06pm 1634116010

What a pity we've lost the 'report' button.

I take it you're unvaxed, pie-in-the-sky religious and think the world is flat, too?

by fat pat | 13th Oct 21, 11:12pm 1634119940

I'm not vaccinated as it happens because I've already had covid, and it makes no sense to get vaccinated if you've already had covid.

Strange that you want a "report" button. Do you consider your position to be so weak that it can't withstand debate?

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 10:17pm 1634116663

If you can't understand basic science (that CO2 causes a greenhouse effect, as evidenced on other planets, earth and when we replicate it in labs), there isn't much hope. Delusional thinking won't help the situation.

by fat pat | 14th Oct 21, 12:06am 1634123190

Water also absorbs infrared radiation, and it's present at far high concentrations in the atmosphere. The effect of a few hundred ppm of CO₂ is a rounding error in terms of IR absorbtion. If you look back in the distant past say 360 million years there's no correlation between global temperature and CO₂. Here's a more detialed criticism of the CO₂ warming theory.

by blobbles | 14th Oct 21, 9:28am 1634156883

You find one person who steps outside their field of expertise and disagrees with 99% of the experts in the field of study, then expect to take it seriously. For a rebuttal by the experts, see here. One must wonder why Best consistently low balls his estimations, appearing to do so to get the results he wants. That's not scientific.

by fat pat | 14th Oct 21, 11:37am 1634164671

On the contrary, it's the IPCC that've apparently cooked the books by attributing all of the temperature increase since the industrial revolution to CO2. The link you posted is a little simplistic.

by blobbles | 14th Oct 21, 11:49am 1634165392

Maybe read comment 86 for the rebuttal of the same thing you posted? Where it outlines all the things he measured wrong and therefore his conclusions are wrong... Did you know Best stated quite clearly that we were in for a decade of cooling temperatures in 2014 based on his calculations? And we got the exact opposite... I guess it's lucky we didn't listen to him.

by Brock Landers | 14th Oct 21, 9:07am 1634155653

You are being deliberately obtuse. Humanity isn't going to go out and build 4 million hectares worth of plant all at once, wait for it to be completed and then go switch it on. That's very low IQ thinking.

What we could do is start building these installations, with ever increasing scale, that suck thousands, then millions of tons CO2 out of the atmosphere each year, instead of locking up millions of acres of productive land with pine trees. If enough power is available one can even produce green hydrocarbons (Jet Fuel) out of the captured CO2 and water. We are still going to need hydrocarbons for long haul aviation. Let's not burn fossil fuels for that. Tiwai point is the perfect example of somewhere that we have the power and the industrial land to construct such a plant. If it works and it's economical, build more of them. And let's get over our neurotic fear of nuclear energy if we think we don't have enough electricity. We live in the future now and humanity knows how to build safe, affordable modular reactors.

There is certainly room for all the other things you mentioned as well. But locking up every single square centimetre of our limited land area with pine trees is not a good solution. We need industrial solutions to industrial problems.

by powerdownkiwi | 14th Oct 21, 10:40am 1634161247

Actually, you need an energy solution to an energy problem.

And there isn't one which replaces fossil fuels.

So you need to construct a different lifestyle; one requiring less energy.

So many people put so much assumption into the mix........

by blobbles | 14th Oct 21, 10:52am 1634161965

No, I totally understand what you are thinking, I actually used to think the same. Then I did the math and read a lot more about it from experts in the field. Read half of PDK's links and you will start to understand, you are battling physics for energy (85% of which is carbon based) being pushed by the hard carbon limits and decreasing amounts of time to act.

What you don't seem to realise is that it doesn't matter how long it takes to build massive carbon capture, we have a carbon budget which we shouldn't exceed, else we get runaway. The amount of carbon required to build those industrial solutions to even think about moving the needle is enormous and the carbon cost of the build at the start is so enormous, the CO2 levels would shoot up hugely, further exacerbating the problem.

Go nuclear, sure. Do you know how much carbon it takes to build a nuclear plant and then transport the energy to where it needs to be? Again, it's enormous and with nuclear reactors being shut down faster than they are being built, it looks like the world is turning away. Hopefully ITER is successful and we can have a new source of energy, however it will still be an enormous carbon cost to build a fusion plant and get energy to where it's needed. And it's probably going to come on line too late anyway. Small nuclear might be the way forward, hopefully the companies that are doing this are successful, but you should note "small modular reactors" have been just around the corner for about 50 years.

Again, geo-engineering is our best bet as they use free energy from the sun to activate. Pretending an industrial solution will work by discounting the costs of implementing one is being obtuse or it's magical thinking. Being aware of the costs required to create an industrial solution at the scale needed is thinking about the problem correctly, by taking into account all costs of creating such systems.

by Brock Landers | 14th Oct 21, 11:42am 1634164974

Agree that big nuclear plants aren't a very good solution.

How do we go about geo-engineering somewhere like the Australian outback?

by Computer | 13th Oct 21, 2:24pm 1634088269

We're tiny - we could carpet the entire country with trees and it wouldn't make a jot of difference globally. A 100% reduction of sod-all to begin with.

What would make more of a difference is developing solutions that have application beyond NZ where even a small reduction, scaled out globally, would beat anything we could achieve in-country. Like this:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-18/csiro-super-seaweed-cattle-suppl…

by positivelywallstreet | 13th Oct 21, 2:34pm 1634088877

It makes me laugh when there are proposals to plunder the sea when we have not finished plundering the land.

Those seaweed schemes are an example of get rich rich quick sea farming in order to support our get rich quick dairying.

Could we not just reduce our production of cheese?

by Computer | 13th Oct 21, 2:59pm 1634090380

I was using that as an example of the futility of trying to save the planet with our meager acreage, but fair enough - so let's take that discovery CSIRO made and isolate the components of interest so we can synthesize them instead.

As for cheese, if we can do it with less environmental impact than elsewhere then maybe we should make loads more of it and put them out of business.

by totara | 13th Oct 21, 3:59pm 1634093970

Maybe trees are not a carbon sink for everything. Can they sink all of our greenhouse gas emissions? Three types of emission elimination are needed to get back to zero, Green Vegetative carbon(native trees, tussock, wetland, peat etc. from past clearance of native forest and draining of wetlands), Brown carbon (animal emissions including CO2, NO and methane), and Black Fossil hydrocarbon that is currently embedded in everything that we do(Coal, petrol, diesel, gas, volatiles, synthetic urea, tar as it decomposes, plastic as it decomposes). If we keep living here we can not put back all of the Green Vegetative carbon, let alone all the Brown emissions and Fossil carbon emissions. If we sink Black Fossil carbon as Green Vegetative carbon that is just rearranging the deck chairs!!

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 10:08pm 1634116095

Well said

by CWBW | 13th Oct 21, 12:52pm 1634082723

On second thought, this might be good for house prices and has a potential to create a market for what I call 'green arbitrage'.

Just got an idea for my submission; residential zones should be carbon neutral and have their own carbon sink in the form of mandatory green areas with limited occupancy rate per square meter.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 10:10pm 1634116213

It's called a village.

Often complete with a community.

Wonderful places to live.

by nktokyo | 13th Oct 21, 1:06pm 1634083596

Friend around the corner is perhaps representative of a lot of middle-income NZ. Two car family, both SUVs (which seems common looking at how many Mums drive tanks to the school drop-off). Could afford solar but haven't because the "numbers don't stack".

If a family's get-around-town car is electric or hybrid, they double glaze, beef up insulation and look at solar and a wall battery then their carbon footprint plummets. Of course that is all expensive stuff to do so tax credits on multiple fronts would be a great idea.

I like the idea of an incentive to get old dungers off the rd. People will jump up and down about tax payer dollars, but unlike what the government is blowing on multiple failing housing initiatives this would lead to some net societal benefit.

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 1:12pm 1634083956

Times have changed. If you have 3 kids like I do, you can't just throw the oldest in the front seat when number 3 comes along like you use to do in the 80's. Kids are required to be in car seats/boosters till the age of 8 now. How do you fit 2 car seats & a booster in a sedan? The reality is you can't so you need to buy an SUV.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 1:47pm 1634086048

Actually, you should have read The Limits to Growth, and stopped at 2 maximum. As my partner and I did, 35 years ago (and I know many who abstained, away back then, too.

Your is just another Straw-Man argument - self-justification therefore........

by GV 27 | 13th Oct 21, 1:53pm 1634086427

I will likely end up with 2. But I'd have loved more. People need to realise that there are people who are going to have as many as they can and who don't care about any of this garbage. I wouldn't deprive myself of the love of a large family when others out there get to be far more reckless with their repdroductive choices and who will continue to do what they want regardless.

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 2:02pm 1634086921

We have 2. Happy for people to choose, and of course love and treasure those you have no matter the number.

But honestly, if we (globally) put the cap on 2 moving forward. Like right now. Just until we learn to live without overshoot... would that really be such a bad thing?

Personally I see that as better than pushing on towards a mass extinction event.

by GV 27 | 13th Oct 21, 2:14pm 1634087660

And the people who have more than two - what are you actually proposing happen there? Because what will undoubtedly happen is the same thing that happened under lockdowns: A lot of people will do what they're told, and a bunch will decide they don't have to care about rules and just do what they want. And then what? We've traded one of our fundamental natural processes for... what exactly - the right to be held to ransom by the same mob of idiots who do what they want anyway?

I'm sorry, but before I contemplate that, I'd like to see a lot fewer talk fests on the other side of the world that NZ apparently absolutely has to attend, a lot fewer foreign tourists flying into NZ and a much bigger shake-up within our public bodies like councils or transport planners who could actually make a real difference if they did the jobs we already pay them to do.

Capping the reproductive ability of citizens should come far, far down that list and only as an absolute last resort.

by powerdownkiwi | 13th Oct 21, 2:29pm 1634088578

Another straw man comment.

We're ALREADY 5-6 billion overpopulated - how many has it got to be before you notice?

One of the sad repercussion is that the intelligent are having less children because they can see the problem. Clearly the dumb are just multiplying away. That means democracy is dead, as a means to effect intelligent change. It also means we're going to become less sapient - perhaps for the first time, global-averagely. Fascinating times.....

by Carlos67 | 13th Oct 21, 3:34pm 1634092475

Unfortunately PDK New Zealanders are really sheltered from the real problems of the world so we just carry on like nothing has changed or is going to change for decades to come. I mean seriously I'm overlooking the Tauranga CBD on a bright sunny day, the air is so crystal clean I can see the Kaimai ranges on the horizon what can possible be wrong ?

by Bananafishbones | 13th Oct 21, 5:47pm 1634100427

To be fair there is hardly anything to drive to the Tauranga CBD for.

by redcows1 | 13th Oct 21, 7:32pm 1634106748

Oh come on pdk, do you seriously only credit small families with intelligence. Western countries have been having small families for ages and yet it is them who are over consuming to the grossest existent. You surely aren't crediting them with intelligence?

by Kate | 13th Oct 21, 9:54pm 1634115287

to the grossest extent.

And yes, I agree.

My sister only had one. He's a Master of Electrical Engineering - works on design/development of the US grid. Three kids - three car seats fit in the back seat of this vehicle, apparently;

https://www.ford.com/suvs/mach-e/?gnav=header-electrified-vhp&fbclid=IwAR0tT9mh-J6kKgJBHIThaAQYqYKOLZgkP0xhyilHlcYoZKDzlfkBYGzmdrc

by paashaas | 13th Oct 21, 10:59pm 1634119199

.. so are both Green leaders dumb - or just one ?

by Fluffybunny | 13th Oct 21, 6:33pm 1634103188

GV -> It's an interesting question. Obviously we are talking theoretical & my comment intends to generate thought and discussion.

But for example : We are in the process of introducing taxation for carbon production. Extra kids = extra carbon use = extra tax.

Yes i'm sure there would be rule breakers, just like all those people who smoke pot.

But again, how bad would that be if it meant avoiding a mass-extinction event? If we are actually unable to catch up renewable supply with demand at present population levels?

The way I look at it, what happens in say 50 years, assuming that we cannot find synergy with our resources & when we actually do start to run out of things -> It's inevitable that distribution of resources would become more controlled, permits to procreate, penalties of some sort. Either that or life becomes too expense to have kids in the first place (or on the extreme side we face some kind of bronze-age collapse, or a WW3 style fight for the remaining puddle of oil).

One could argue we are already facing this restriction now -> Consider the astronomical NZ house prices (which is essentially just our basic human need of finding shelter) and that fact that NZ (without immigration) has a declining population.

Is that because the ladies of NZ actually like the grind of working 9-5? Or because no-one can afford the luxury of raising a family on an average single income?

Hint -> Only pro athletes or rock stars work for fun.

Note also that the avg female in NZ reproduces only 1.6 times at present:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018784771/nz-s-declining-birth-rate-is-changing-our-world

Not exactly the sign of an abundant system providing ample resources for those it needs to support.

by donny11 | 13th Oct 21, 3:06pm 1634090778

How is my argument a "straw-man argument"? I am saying it is more difficult today relative to 30 years ago for larger families today to get away with a small vehicle on account of laws around car seats. Just making a point.

What are you even rambling on about.

by blobbles | 13th Oct 21, 2:19pm 1634087958

Yes! Discounts on Solar PV on rooves and battery installations so as not to over-stress the grid when the sun comes out is completely absent from this government. Australia has done it for quite some time and now a quarter of all houses have solar on their rooves. While the EROI of solar isn't fantastic, it is still a lot better than burning black stuff and putting it into the atmosphere over a long period of time.

by waymad | 13th Oct 21, 11:49pm 1634122192

The grid gets overstressed anyway, batteries or no, because when all of the batteries are full - easy on a long cloudless summer day - the solar exports cause over-voltage, surges as transformers cannot tap up and down fast enough to track always variable demand (even if every tranny was so equipped, which 99% are not),and stuff gets fried.

It has gotten to the point in Oz that there is talk of having remote disconnection of solar export, to try to isolate the mess it causes.

And even the biggest battery fit for residential, say 30kwh capacity, is only good for a day or two of typical household consumption, so assuming electricity is actually needed on demand, the grid has to be tied to.

Clouds and night kill solar, lack of wind kills windmills. Neither are controllable, hence both are non-dispatchable. Try contracting for X kWh of solar between 2200 and 0500 anytime, or Y kWh of wind on November 23rd next. Disappointment beckons.

There are no simple answers....

by Carlos67 | 14th Oct 21, 5:23am 1634142184

Again nothing that cannot be solved it just takes more money and that's the fundamental limits of just about everything these days. Much bigger batteries at homes and a second electric car. Its not the generation that's such a problem its still the storage that's the problem, you need to be able to store everything from the peak generation periods to cover the troughs of very little to no generation. Essentially the solar system needs to be massively oversized.

by solardb | 14th Oct 21, 7:49am 1634150958

We still use a large amount of electricity to heat water, and this can be controlled to store electricity. Many grid connected solar systems do this already. Likewise for space heating, cooling , compressed air etc. EVs don't need to be charged every day few do 400 KS a day, so can be programmed to charge when there is a surplus. Plus intersession all storage of heat and strategic pumped hydro.

by blobbles | 15th Oct 21, 11:21am 1634250089

There totally are solutions to these issues and they are coming online in Aus, pumped hydro in the Snowy mountains is a big one. For us it will be Onslow and any others (I have submitted to the battery project that the area near the Mangahao station near Shannon can be dammed fairly easily, the upper dams made bigger and the station redone to become a pumped hydro scheme near the windmills).

There are also other options which we could explore (molten salt etc), but it seems our government doesn't really want to investigate it. Matched with more engineering around being able to spin some of our hydro turbines up/down quickly or in a more predictable manner based on current/imminent weather conditions in different parts of the country, should also be done. But this seems to be all but absent from discussions.

by Let me be Frank | 13th Oct 21, 2:00pm 1634086806

like the housing crisis, this governments rhetoric on the climate emergency is simply that...

by FCM | 13th Oct 21, 3:47pm 1634093260

I said it before and I will say it again, If the world really wanted a quick fix in reducing carbon consumption they should of let covid run it's course, short term pain but would of got the job done. All the comments on here going on about de-population etc etc..mother nature had your fix.

by mfd | 13th Oct 21, 4:04pm 1634094263

Barely enough to swing the needle of global population growth. No worries, there's plenty of people out there warning of more pandemics to come thanks to more widespread genetic engineering and factory farming acting as a disease melting pot. Some of the influenza style diseases out there have mortality rates closer to 50%, and MERS is running at about 35% but isn't too contagious at the moment.

If nature doesn't provide, a couple of bad actors with a few grand's worth of equipment could probably knock something up.

by Theoracle | 13th Oct 21, 9:52pm 1634115179

Should have, would have.

by solardb | 14th Oct 21, 3:03pm 1634177028

https://genless.govt.nz/stories/kiwi-businesses-and-government-invest-h…