The Climate Change Commission has released a major report detailing draft proposals for what New Zealand needs to do to reach the Government’s emissions reduction targets.
The independent Crown entity suggests, among other things:
- livestock numbers need to be cut by 15% by 2030;
- the import of light internal combustion engine vehicles needs to be phased out by 2035;
- 300,000 hectares of new native forests need to be established by 2035;
- the use of coal to generate energy needs to be eliminated by 2035.
It drew up three emissions budgets, saying that between 2022 and 2025 all gases combined as CO₂ equivalent should fall by 2% (net) compared to 2018 levels. Between 2026 and 2030, this reduction should increase to 17%. And between 2031 and 2035, the reduction should reach 36%.
The Commission was clear: “Current government policies do not put Aotearoa on track to meet our recommended emissions budgets and the 2050 targets.”
Under the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act, New Zealand has until 2050 to both reach net zero emissions of long-lived gases and to reduce biogenic methane emissions by between 24% and 47%.
The Commission said gross emissions need to be reduced and the country can’t simply rely on offsetting emissions by planting forests.
It also said: “The Emissions Trading Scheme alone won’t get us to where we need to be. Action is needed across all sectors of the economy.”
The Commission estimated the total cost of meeting its proposed budgets would be equivalent to less than 1% of projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
It noted these costs won't fall evenly across society, with up to 1100 fewer jobs in the coal mining and oil and gas sectors projected by 2035 for example.
The Commission said the Government needs to signal changes ahead of time, design policies carefully and target support to those affected.
It recognised a transition would create new jobs. The benefits of a cleaner environment would also be far-reaching.
The Commission’s proposed budgets don’t rely on there being new green technologies available.
“As new technologies develop, this will allow the country to reduce emissions even faster,” it said.
This is how the Commission suggested emissions be cut across sectors:
Looking at electricity generation, the Commission suggested making much more use of wind.
Its advice doesn't support Labour's commitment of reaching 100% renewable electricity generation by 2030, as it recognises "some gas" is still required until 2035 at least.
"Gas generation provides flexibility to meet daily and seasonal peaks in demand and backs up renewable generation," the Commission said.
As for the other components of New Zealand's emissions profile, here are some graphs that illustrate the Commission's proposals:
Agriculture:
Land use:
Transport:
Interest.co.nz will look further at what the Commission’s recommendations mean for different sectors in coming days.
The public has until March 14 to make submissions on the Commission’s recommendations.
It’ll use this feedback to finalise its advice and present it to the Government by May 31.
The Government then has until December 31 to decide whether to accept the advice. If it doesn’t, it needs to publish an alternative plan to reach the targets in the legislation.
178 Comments
1. It's not enough.
2. It's late.
3. It envisages an economy, economic growth, and consumption as per BAU - with merely a hint at circularity.
4. It doesn't mention work do-able, energy available, entropy (apart from the circularity comment), or resource scarcity/competition. Or the build-energy and resource-supply required for this total transformation of just about everything.
5. It does not address debt, repayment of current and repayment of future (given less energy underwrite).
But it's a damned good stab. I particularly like electrification of rail - I've been yammering on about that for years; it's a no-brainer.
Wait for the howls...
No it dosnt address energy...and the proposal for electrifying rail is half arsed...do it or dont FFS, why have duplicate systems with all the additional costs' problems associated.
Better than the past but sadly lacking...and the gov will defer as much as they believe they can get away with.
And a strange emphasis on biofuels.....no reference to EROI
Let me be frank : this commission was handpicked to contain woke greenie Jacinda lovers .... they gave her the outcome she wanted .... and none of their findings , not a single one , will reduce our CO2 emmissions .... but , we will cripple & handicap ourselves in a misguided zeal to achieve the climate change commission's goals ...
It will never be "enough". Won't stop the commission milking this slush fund for all it's worth.
An outline of what China is doing to slash emissions:
"China currently has 249.6 gigawatts (GW) of coal-fired capacity under development (97.8 GW under construction and 151.8 GW in planning), a 21% increase over end-2019 (205.9 GW). The amount of capacity under development (249.6 GW) is larger than the coal fleets of the United States (246.2 GW) or India (229.0 GW)."
https://energyandcleanair.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/A-New-Coal-…
We have just driven our Tesla Model 3 today for 182km on open roads. The power cost was $5.40. Basically 3 cents per km. Tyres are 6 cents per km. RUC is zero but could be 6 cents per km from 1/1/22. Daily insurance is $5.60. It sounds good until you tell people the car cost $76,000. At this price it’s a niche solution. It would take some radical to change to meet the above plan. I can’t see what it could be.
The problem will be resource limitations, unforeseen consequences of same, competition for same, and junking-energy of the retired fleet. Watch for a lot of offshoring (pollution, costs).
Trying to create like-for-like, where they should be saying "phase out cars". Moving so much, so fast, is half the problem.
I biked to work for a couple of years in Wellington but too many cyclists were getting squashed so I had to call time - I have a family to provide for. Hills and weather tend to put people off too.
As to Kate's comment, public transport is great but won't replace cars so we had better plan for a future with them and figure out how to reduce the impact.
Cycling to work is simply not an option any more unless you have wide dedicated cycle lanes. Tried it for 6 months myself years ago and was nearly getting wiped out on an almost daily basis. Finally got taken out by a car that crossed right in front of me into a side street and had to give it up.
Not accessible to most people. In fact not even accessible to most able bodied people and workers. You are forgetting and ostracising the disabled of course in your assumptions I assume. Let them eat cake walk and cycle indeed. How can you do that without being able to breathe and with no skeletal muscles working?
Yeah because our society needs no builders, no plumbers, no electricians, no medical staff, no emergency staff, no linesmen, no infrastructure for good and services, no farming equipment, no building vehicles etc. That is only a small small subset of the able bodied. There is more need for trades and remote work then there is for office workers in this country that depends high on trades, medical and transport to function at all. But you don't need a home and sewage infrastructure do they in Welly. Just dump it into the sea and camp on development land illegally.
Our experience with the Tesla is that when motoring is cheaper you use the car more. One Model 3 owner purportedly drove 60,000 km in 2020. We are aiming for 24,000 per annum. I can see the push for EVs to have unintended consequences e.g. more road use and congestion.
Yeah once you buy that Ev or electric bike or electric whatever, chances are you won't walk or run as much. There is no incentive then to walk to the local shop. You will get fatter. That is one side effect that has not been researched.
Whereas if you have a lovely big US muscle car, you will only use it once in a blue moon. Petrol will cost heaps but like an expensive fine wine, you will savor the journey. The bulk of your time you can walk or ride a pushbike to the shop and you will be healthy a very happy chappy.
Absolutely.
The official estimates for our population indicate that they expect it to grow something in the order of 700,000 to 800,000 in that period. If we continue at the crazy rate it has been going in the last decade we will probably dwarf this.
Currently with our 5 million this article says that we emit 69.2 mt/yr or 13.8 tone per capita per year. 800,000 people would add another 11.1 million tone of CO2 at this rate, so the net saving is likely to be reduced from 24.6 mt/yr to 13.5 mt/yr.
We need to be actively trying to reduce our population not increase it. Quite a few of the really wealthy and successful countries are doing this (probably not by design admittedly). I believe examples are Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan there are quite a few others so I don't think that we have much to worry about and I certainly do not buy the argument that we need to grow our population for economic reasons. The answer to labour shortages is by increasing productivity. If any particular employer cannot increase productivity and pay higher wages then goes out of business, I don't see that we should be worried. The total population will be employed in higher paying work and we are all better off with out anybody in our population on lower wages that they need to be.
Exactly. Plus I have no idea why its NZs responsibility to deal with cow farts for meat that is eaten overseas. Who made up that rule? Plus with deforestation that has occurred, there are probably less animals here than there would have been had the forests not been chopped down.
H to P - that's a sad little comment. Reminds me of Key, English.........
They were wrong. Wrong about economic growth, wrong about 'market forces', wrong about 'all boats', wrong about sustainability (they were 'un'), wrong about what they did and didn't count. Sounds a little like you are away back there somewhere too.
The planet is about half-emptied of both resources, and fossil energy. That means that any comments re / not in the economic situation' are invalid. We will never be again, planetarily. There was one big energy/work/grow/sprawl/dispose bonanza, but it was a one-off, never permanent. It's in the rear-view mirror. We needed drastic change, and this is at least an opening gambit.
Disagree. The science is long settled, but climate is only the exhaust-gasses of our frenzy - it's depletion, degradation and entropy you should be really scared of.
And the 'no due diligence' is what economics, as a profession and as reported, is guilty of. Watch and see if one - just one - NZ 'journalist' mentions the energy and resources required to build the EV fleet, and the recycling energy required of/by it? There will be none, but RadioNZ will tell us how to pronounce EV in Maori, you can be sure of that.
You're the one I asked about escaping an oncoming Tyrannosaurus, aren't you? Figured you'd have contemporary knowledge.
We evolved in a habitat where the carbon was locked away underground. We're busy putting it in our above-ground environment. At base-line, that's all the science you need.We're not the first species to s--- in its own nest (find our how atmospheric oxygen originated) but we're the first to be cognisant enough to be able to stop the process. Well, some of us are....
You are struggling; seem to need to keep believing a narrow narrative.
We burn 100 million barrels of oil a day. Let me put that another way: WE BURN ONE HUNDRED MILLION BARRELS OF OIL A DAY.
A DAY. Every day.
You and I clearly have a different idea of 'very small'.
Yes we do have different perspectives. IOOmbpd is very small given the vast natural carbon sink within the clouds, oceans ice and land . How much carbon does a volcano release multiplied by all land and undersea volcanoes and natural vents. If the science was settled you will be able to answer this, but it is massive compared 100mbpd
How much climate change? The question should really be "how much of the extra energy trapped on the Earths climate system is attributable to human emissions"? Answer? All of it. The Earth should actually be very slowly cooling now, as we have past the thermal maximum of the current interglacial period, so if you ask, "how much of the increase in global temperature is attributable to humans?", it's greater than 100%. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/chapter-1/
No, just answer the question as I have asked it. If you don't know just say so.
Your question is self-serving, as you could make that claim against anything that puts energy into the system, ie volcanic eruptions, as being 'extra,' if they haven't happened at all. Humans are part of the natural environment.
Do you want to point to the part in your link that supports that humans can be attributed to 'greater than 100%' in the increase in global temperature?
Also without Human influence, what would the temperature be today?
So Palmtree08 is saying more the 100%, you are saying less than 100%. Glad we have cleared that up.
And those bewildered folk - it could be just because they are Aussies.
We know the Govt. don't have to hide behind any convention or threat outside of this country to make meaningful changes. And having the Will to change is one thing, but not if the changes are wrong.
Eh?
Sorry, what other species is burning 100 million barrels of oil and an equivalent amount of coal, daily? That's stuff that wasn't 'in the envoronment' but now, due entirely to us, it is.
What do you mean about votes? If they were cast with full knowledge, votes indeed would do great things. But they're also cast by the ignorant, the self-serving, the narrow, the belief-tainted.
I'm not ignoring what humans are doing, but anything from anywhere that is put into the environment that causes a change in climate can be seen as 'forcing.'
My question was, What % of that was due to Humans? You say less than 100% and others greater than 100%. Another question would be, what does our lifestyle look like if we were to have no impact on the climate?
Most votes cast by the self-serving are done so with full knowledge of what they are doing. That's how politics works.
I thought what I said was pretty clear. Obviously you skipped over it without letting it sink in. I'll say it again. The Earth without human intervention would be naturally cooling now. So it's commonly said humans have warmed the planet xdegC since the industrial revolution. But that's not correct, because the global temperature would not be a flat line from that point. It would be cooling, so the change in global temperature is X + the cooling = greater than 100% due to human intervention.
I read the other day about how way back it was so cold that a lot of the CO2 was absorbed in the oceans. This meant that plants couldn't grow and topsoil was depleted as dust clouds circled the globe because the plants weren't fixing it.
Completely irrelevant, but interesting.
I deny that the science is settled, climate related science is still in its infancy as every day new research and discoveries are being made and to ignore this is akin to burying your head in the sand and hoping that the facts that dont align with your political beliefs will just disappear
"Science is never settled". That's not true. There are plenty of areas of science that were up for debate a century or two ago that are completely agreed now.
In the climate space, I think it is mostly that the arguments are complicated and not easily explained that leaves room for doubt. But there are basics which are completely agreed. Like no serious scientist would disagree that the earth is much warmer than it would otherwise be because of a greenhouse effect and that carbon dioxide is one of the main causes of that effect.
Much of the disagreement over the last couple of decades has been about how much of an effect putting additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would cause, relative to other possible effects like extra radiation from the sun.
I'd encourage you to research it. I was once a bit of a sceptic myself but am mostly convinced now.
Hah this report had no science. The science on whether there is anthropomorphic climate change is settled but this report was a bunch of mush ideas and assumptions with no research and no data to back any claims for fairy tale policies that need magic and fairies to work without directly killing people.
At some stage in hundreds of thousands of years this planet will be gone but at this small moment in time the earth is experiencing great prosperity in plant and food, humans are benefiting from medicine technology and power and all this will continue long into the future with carbon being one of the main drivers of life. Sit back and be thankful. Some people have an alarmist mindset and require everyone around them to be like minded.
Bollocks.
The number of scientists contributing to the peer-reviewed IPCC reports surpasses anything I've ever seen - and I'm in pensioner territory. And I've read a great deal of it.
The problem is that many of them - like you - are in fear-driven denial. They have cushy 'jobs', incomes, status, and don't want to relinquish. So they take a conscience-salving pathway, driving EV's etc. But that STILL doesn't address the Limits to Growth/Entropy/Overshoot problem(s).
From my POV, both they and you are the same, drawing-down resources at an unsustainable rate - just one lot avoid accepting responsibility and the other lot salve their consciences. At the end of the day, the physics of the matter doesn't care about either type; it just reacts to what you put in the beaker and how far you turn the Bunsen up.
Why the need for the disingenuity?
The keep updating an monitoring - thats what you do with data. That's what research is all about.
Again, why? There will be a vested interest. Either your income/mana/standing is directly threatened, or those in that boat are paying you. There tends not to be a third option, I've found.
Do you have children? Grandchildren? Do you ask what they might think of you in the future?
Sure because severe anemia and nutritional deficiencies are real healthy after you are dead. https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/teach-me/300216275/how-soc…
Some people have the health leeway they can wreck their health and gamble with certain diets some people literally medically need to eat meat to get by. Recognize it is not a choice so much as a cost cost proposition where many literally cannot afford the diets their bodies need. We can medically harm a great many by forcing them out of eating meat but in general the medical harm costs more as it harms them, the taxpayer costs to medical care and the harm to their families in as well. Congrats you are lucky to have the ability to go vegetarian. Now have the basic decency to recognize not everyone can medically be like you and some literally do need to eat meat. We cannot afford private healthcare, specialist high cost meal plans and personalised supplementation (which in most medical arenas still is meat based). We can barely afford to eat at all and meat is the only source for nutrition that we have to stave of even more severe illness. Congrats you are tyring to kill us through medical deprivation and bullying.
Anemia is not common in vegans. You are right many do suffer and need meat. Blocked arteries through animal foods is the biggest killer of men. High levels of iron in men is leading to early deaths. Research shows men's iron levels are through the roof. Our bodies store iron and unlike women who lose blood monthly men store their iron. By age 45 they have 4 times the amount of women.
Newsflash those who risk their health going vegan often don't go vegan. We do not kill ourselves on purpose flippantly as if we were trying a new diet. Anemics are less likely to go without meat and medical supports. You know because it is not a day in a park to be crashed out on a floor and unable to function normally. However most who do suffer nutritional deficiences are vegans and starving themselves to death. Often also those countries with the highest rates of veganism also have the highest rates of nutritional deficiences, stunted growth, poorer outcomes for children and literal severe diseases that cripple them due to diet lacking meat. It is not as common in wealthy countries can you guess why, and those who are supported in high paid medical countries generally get issues treated before they do too much damage. Also protip avoid spinach, almonds, quinoa and soy like the plague in general. If you want a vegan lifestyle do the science research for it like we did decades ago (prior to disability illness). There is a massive cost and risk to the body, to the environment and the community you get the food from (although spinach is just a large health risk which you can avoid by eating much much less of it with some dairy). Men also suffer a lot more from bowel trouble than women but women have more risk to immune related gut diseases, but hey please recognize we are not all clones and there are thousands of diseases and illnesses and billions of immune & gut systems which do not respond in the same way and when touching plant proteins will try to kill the body. Have a nice day you one of millions. Be thankful your gut is not bleeding. It is a hassle to clean up after and be seated for so long.
I assume the comment was a joke but I have done a bit of research on this anyway. If the body is lost at sea and does not have any clothing on sure. But in general the body disposal and funeral transit components make it not environmentally friendly. We also have a crunch on available land for traditional funerary rights. Although when comparing it to resources not used over the remaining life it can easily balance out. However those considering suicide tend not to have environmentally costly lives, (smaller footprints and resource use in general) or much time to live when compared to the general population. In addition long term sick people often lose friends and family connections over time due to isolation so funerals later can be much smaller environmental costs though as well. Often there can be also accidental suicide in which medical service access was delayed or the winner of the darwin awards e.g. Mt everest climbers without oxygen because they want to go hard etc. In those cases it can be variable as often healthy travelling high environmental footprint people die alongside those who can be quite poor and just not have good access to counselling or accurate medical support for dosage & medicine counter interactions e.g. accidental overdose or medicines which are not suited to person (which in NZ can often occur and while many survive with just organ damage, internal bleeding etc many do often die). It would be better to as the song put it "Eat the rich" and discourage any form of festivals and tourism at all. However that was meant as a joke.
You seem to not have read the early sentences, please do so. For those chronically ill they would die often sooner than general population but if they live longer the funerals can be much smaller then say if they died earlier e.g. as children, teens, young adults. It is less tragic if a grumpy older so and so who no one likes because the grumpy never attends social family functions (for some reason perhaps lack of access to and into buildings and medical pain fatigue etc) and they never get to go do things with friends anymore hence connections broken smaller funeral, more environmentally friendly than if they died earlier and no airfares needed, no massive function, no event bookings, massive car travel etc. Since those often very ill people are living below the breadline living often on waste food that is thrown out (given to foodbanks instead of landfill), often cannot travel much anywhere and cannot afford new things and horde waste products for reuse beyond what most people consider reasonable (extreme poverty the mother of invention) there is often a much smaller living environmental footprint. But a big flashy funeral paid at much higher environmental costs when they are younger and it is far more than the resources they would have purchased new over the next ten years, whereas later they can be often burnt and dumped in a small box as ashes or ditch somewhere. The living environmental footprint is not the same and the choices available to those poor and chronically ill are much smaller, including those who often cannot connect with others because they are isolated. Hence a pensioner at 80-90 can live much more frugally than those in 20-30s with kids. It is a matter of looking at it from a perspective of the grave and the choices available. We all will die but what is the smaller footprint post death arrangements, what does it take to get there and how much of a footprint does life really have when you live on trash others throw away. Obviously the issue at hand though is do you place a different value of life on those chronically ill who cannot choose their life compared to those with a chosen large environmental footprint and whether you deem the death of the poor to matter as much. If it was just numbers then what would be best is to never buy anything new much, do not ever participate in a community, see no festivals, go nowhere and die by sea, however it must be after burning all bridges behind you to the point they are obliterated otherwise those remaining will host events and indeed the ripples continue. You could assume all suicides are those with high wasteful lives but that is often rarely the case and indeed many never make the news in fact many premature deaths are footnotes that are hidden and often those disabled and chronically ill deemed better off out of society as society considers them a drain. But they often have the smallest environmental footprints of all with their poverty. Protip do not read health reports they are very very depressing and also why NZ has a horrible early death rate for some sectors. Had some family and friends go early and it is never natural to die from MS in your 20s or die in your sleep between 18-35. Large funerals for those not already chronically ill for years. Hundreds of people. Not so much for the long term chronically ill most family do not even attend. Hence burning the bridges if you are really concerned for the environment and cutting yourself off leads to a more environmentally friendly post death. Many people do not think past death but it is one thing which is culturally important to all families.
The end of the year. Nothing is going to happen until the end of this year. And then presumably another year while the legislation is drafted, then debated and at some point after that there will be an election. So by the time actual implementation happens, we're talking an even more compressed timeframe to meet those 2032 goals.
'Emergency'
Or ...
We've just had preset an enormous energy crisis that started with Ardern's reckless, un-analysed (as here) oil and gas exploration ban, which has increased our carbon footprint (fact) as we're importing dirty coal for Huntly ... and it's all for nothing.
Even if climate change is more than an existential threat, all these hits into our economy and standard of living, will change nothing. And there simply isn't enough cobalt - mined by child labour - in the Earth to convert every car to an EV.
But my chief complaint is: all these huge changes forced from on high, but on no analysis. No analysis if these changes are even viable. No cost benefit.
Reckless.
MH - no, you are the one who does no analysis.
If you did, you wouldn't be talking of 'cost benefit' or 'hits on our economy and (and?) standard of living'.
That's just rate of consumption and rate of failure to mitigate. Do some real homework
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02499463/document
and let's have a meaningful discussion when you're through it..
Planned dairying exports fall of 15%
Those exports pay for imports - what will pay for mass EV imports
Fonterra business reduced by 15%
Z petrol business impacted
Obsolete Service Stations become a property play
Watch Govt planning for increased power consumption
Or lack thereof
Transition to an all ev fleet sounds good when it is said quickly. If Tiwai Point closes we may have enough surplus electricity to power the fleet, but unfortunately the surplus is in the deep south and most of the need is in the north, so an upgrade to the national grid will be required. A liquid fueled vehicle can be refueled and on its way in five minutes; how many charging stations will be required in Auckland alone to cope with recharging demand? And how long does recharging take? Will local electricity networks be able to cope or will upgrading be required? We will still need a diesel refueling network for heavy trucks and associated machinery- diggers etc. The govt presently receives significant revenue from fuel tax and excise; how will this be replaced? And what will they do if the populace wakes up and installs solar panels and batteries and becomes self sufficient? And if we have reduced livestock numbers by 16% without reducing income ?? ( if it was that easy we would be doing it already) how will we generate sufficient overseas exchange to pay for all these trinkets?
We use a Mercury EV plan and a normal 3 pin plug between 9pm and 7am, so overnight. That’s adds 120km of range for $3.00. Upgrading to a 15A plug socket would up that to 180km of range For $4.50. We typically drive 30km per day on week days and 300km on the weekend. We only use public chargers if we are on road trips. Paying RUC would be a pain but it would not alter the economics. I have no idea how they would make up the fuel excise loss unless they made the RUC usurious. Alternatively they could keep on loading up fossil fuels until the EV hate dam breaks.
I voted for Jacinda because I thought she needed another term to prove she could deliver. I massively regret that vote and don’t doubt that she could do as you say. I have ICE cars as well and use them when they are the best choice. Maybe I should get a hybrid and see what contortions the bureaucracy gets into working out how to tax them.
Good questions, and all easy enough to answer.
Once you have been committed, ie no choice then they will just increase the tax, if there are environmental costs to battery recycling, you will pay those, etc., etc.
And if we haven't been paying the environmental cost (real or imagined) until now, then we surely will under the new model, irrespective of what we do.
Electricity capacity will be a huge issue. One I have raised before (https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/94183/jen%C3%A9e-tibshraeny-question…).
The likely constant nightly charging will
1. increase the peak load at "hometime", and
2. will lead to a significantly higher baseload overnight.
This will be further compounded by the reduction in Gas/Goal generation which is how we currently manage the peaks.
We do - it's almost half price on the Meridian EV plan. According to Transpower (https://www.transpower.co.nz/power-system-live-data) load drops off substantially overnight.
Not fast enough to match the climate emergency declared. Stop Huntly from using coal. Force them onto gas. If no gas or gas too expensive then they can shut down of there own accord. Likely to require rolling blackouts. No problem. Couple of industries will take a hit so what.
Transpowers under frequency load shedding can be re-adjusted to give some warning.
Govt can build a few wind farms and solar to meet the loss of Huntly. They own 51% of a few of the generators so can give orders from high.
Joe Blogs in the street won't mind the disruptions or worry about the odd industry having to tolerate shutdowns. After all Orr can print some more money.
Eezy peezy. Not much more than a stroke of the pen. Wish we had the equivalent of POTUS executive order. Could get things done much more quickly.
It's not like they aren't spoiled for choice: http://www.windenergy.org.nz/consented-wind-farms
That Wairarapa one (Castle Hill) needs to be built, almost completely replaces Huntly. I talked to one of the people who were delivering it years ago, it was all set to start construction, a new CEO came along and bombed it. Later they found out he had a family batch in the Wairarapa...
Huntly does not provide baseload electricity. It’s hardly ever in operation now. It’s a peaker that turns on briefly on some days and is mostly kept as backup for the regular 5 yearly dry season when hydro levels are low.
Turning hydro into a peaker is the key. Use wind, solar and geothermal during the day and let hydro fluctuate to meet peaks. That approach will also conserve lake levels.
All over this policy they have literally ostracised the disabled and propose plans that would literally cut them out of society denying them the ability to be part of NZ and denying them the right to life outside or even access to hospitals and medical care. HOW ABOUT NOT BEING THE FAR RIGHT FOR ONCE AND ACCEPT THE DISABLED ARE PEOPLE TOO AND NEED ACCESS. No we cannot walk and, cycle, No we cannot submit to this impossible policy using their inaccessible consultation hub, and No we literally physically cannot travel via electric vehicles and buses. When they cut the literally ONLY form of transport for disabled and the most vulnerable they are in the WRONG and even the most abhorrent countries that abuse the disabled still allow them transport to leave. THE CLIMATE COMMISSION AND THIS GOVT ARE LITERALLY CUTTING THEM OUT OF NZ and denying them the right to submit to their obscene policy consultation. THANKS FOR BEING A LARGE PART IN KILLING US IN FUTURE. Really needed that reminder to update the will and stock more pills because it is impossible to afford disability transport itself. Many have as their only transport option large vans with hydralic lifts & large cars to allow for joint failure mobility & putting rigid body wheelchairs in to actually enter vehicles are needed and literally NO COUNTRY AS IT STANDS HAS ELECTRIC VEHICLES FOR DISABLED AND NOWHERE IN NZ IS THERE DISABLED ACCESSIBLE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I have been researching this for decades and in the EU their is less than 3% EV vehicle uptake at all only for the able bodied. You want EU living then get used to killing the disabled and imprisoning them even more. People with my severe physical disability are often put in prisons on the basis of their disability alone there. But it is a toss up whether prison and food is better than homelessness and peanut tea. There is not even transport to hospital in NZ if you cannot afford LUDICROUSLY EXPENSIVE DISABILITY TAXIS unless you or family drive a petrol vehicle with large access you will not see a hospital. SO again thanks perhaps anaphylaxis is the easier way out than pills but don't worry there won't be hospital access for rescue so if it doesn't work then being incapacitated on the floor for a while without medical carers should do it abet in a long drawn out and painful end. Because newsflash disability carers need petrol powered vehicles to transport the disabled as well. Not only theat the government offers literally no disability housing or transport support to the disabled and only those who are denied any savings at all are allowed to live in emergency housing. IF YOU EVER BECOME DISABLED PRAY IT IS BY CAR ACCIDENT BECAUSE IF IT IS BY DISEASE OR GENETICS YOU WILL HAVE ZERO TRANSPORT SUPPORT FROM GOVT AND ZERO HOUSING SUPPORT That even when homeless for years with nowhere to go and no income to afford rent the govt will still deny disabled access to the housing waitlist because ho they are not older than 65 yet. Many don't even get to live to 65 yet they are denied housing access, denied rentals, denied transport, denied education, denied work. THEN AGAIN CONSIDERING THE EU MANY DISABLED WOULD BE BETTER OF IN NZ PRISONS IN THIS COUNTRY AS THAT OFFERS ACCESS TO FOOD, HOUSING, EDUCATION, AND MEDICAL CARE MORE THAN OUTSIDE OF PRISON. Which unfortunately has become the case. That this country is more focused on killing disabled access and having them commit suicide then actually considering the impact of policies like these. Most disabled under 65 have less than $360 a week in income, most cannot even access the accommodation supplement and less than 25% can even find work, much of that paying less than $3 an hour. Many families only have enough for a second hand petrol car and support for that but NOT ENOUGH TO BUY AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE THEY CANNOT EVEN ENTER THE VEHICLE WITHOUT A HYDRAULIC HOIST IN THE FIRST PLACE. Given the govt has no intention of providing accessible public transport to the disabled or transport to hospitals and literally no city in NZ has that as of now there is very little likelihood they will ever allow access when pushing through these cuts on disabled vehicle imports and use. Even Australia has far far far better accessible transport and transport support for the disabled, Australia even recognizes carers exist and are a key support and has been recognizing they exist for decades. NZ seems to take the path that if the disabled kill themselves or die through lack of care (because food prep and bathing aid was cut off for severely young disabled recently to the point no food and no bathing support most days is common), then that is an environmentally friendly tick for them. When you are cutting disabled access and the ONLY transport option out then sorry mate you are the far right.
I read your whole comment and it pretty much sums up the basis of govt action (or inaction) which others have commented on...
- reckless, no due diligence, not costed, no science.
Virtue signaling once again and expect the people and producers to pick up the pieces, be able to afford it and make it work.
Yeah right.
sorry yes, old dsylexia often has me typing in many different editors first and then trying to copy and paste. But often lines and format is removed. So it can be different. Next time I will try paragraphing more but it is a massive difficulty when so much anger after reading what they propose is the death of hoping to live and have access to life in NZ that I had been saving for. I never thought I would have a disability this bad when this young. No insurance company allowed employment insurance in NZ due to preexisting unrelated conditions but now all those plans to finally afford transport one day for our family are dashed with no imports allowed when we will finally reach enough money and the certain knowledge of all the others in worse positions than us who face worse.
Emotions are overwhelmingly hopeless. Well time sleeping in a car or flooded garages and basements and massive injuries due to lack of wheelchair access is not much worse but is hard when you get a bunch of disabled folk in a room and we all trade homelessness stories, what to do when your ramshackle life is then flooded out and rejection for employment tales (yet even disabled on more than 100k a year jobs like we used to be could be homeless for years until injury from floods throws work out as an option), or days with no food prep help and no way to cook or get food. Only only transport access being petrol vehicles you could run on a rag, sleep and get the wheelchair in. It is like time travelling into our 90s in body but not mind. To be fair being denied the right to medical care, denied access to food and housing, denied access to businesses and parks, so many times being abused or denied access because we could not walk and needed a chair or collapsed on the floor and could not get up... after the first 20 or so times... the lack of life and living in NZ can get to anyone and the dream of having a home, having a cooked meal each day, having transport to a place of work or to a park fades. I cannot remember what it feels like to have human contact and I think people stare often at me when I try to become human again.
Paragraphs blur as much as the vision does. But hey just keep the investments going I guess since we will not be able to buy a mobility vehicle anymore it can be a prewake blowout and we could have cooked dinners from restaurants delivered at high cost (since most all takeaways have allergens) and then blow out of here. Why save when there is nothing left to save for right. Why care for a future that is denied to you.
I knew this report was coming but I prayed they would consider the pain they would inflict and have a plan to mitigate it. But in the report it is clear they had no plan to mitigate for the most vulnerable and poor or even those in middleclass. They did not even have plans for the changes for power infrastructure just blankly glossed over massive costs paid by residential consumers, massive taxpayer funding and more profits for power companies to get subsidies on maintenance work they put off and massive transmission network changes/charges. The report is so baseless in science, engineering and maths it is a joke and the charts are such a muppets work I doubt anyone who took high school maths was in charge of them. They have literally no analysis of the suggested policies, no costings, no research and consultation with stakeholders. Ah but they spent lots of money on branding which is only an insult to Maori whanau.
To know the consultation is a mere tick box effort but inaccessible to many of the most vulnerable and those who the policies would most affect... This is the let them eat cake stand they take. I cannot cook for myself and DHBs stripped young disabled food prep and bathing assistance, I am one of tens of thousands in this position and have been homeless for years and THIS FING CLIMATE REPORT AND WORK IS WHAT THE GOVT FUNDS?! CUTTING MORE DISABLED ACCESS TO THEIR COMMUNITIES IS WHAT THEY WANT TO PUSH THROWING BILLIONS TO FURTHER CUT US DOWN?! How about letting the disabled have access to work, access to homes (most not accessible to even enter), access to their communities and then they could buy cooked food before wasting billions on measures that only seek to strip disabled access and transport. We could pay for it ourselves if only we had work and often we have more tech and engineering knowledge to know that an exponential increase in EV sales is taking the piss esp when the govt knows most kiwi families have less than 10k saved ready to throw away on new cars many cannot even enter the vehicles at all anyway like us. The report writers are actively harming NZ society and a danger to us all.
They must be stopped in these policies because they cannot learn, will not mitigate the effects on the most vulnerable and are a danger to all NZders (if not a deadly danger to the most vulnerable). Please please help make them stop. I don't want to lose what little is left, all we have my close family, whanau, friends and the many hundreds of others in the community like me. Most of them cannot submit and cannot speak, many cannot even read the site itself. Please can you speak for us in the submission. It is beyond us to even access most consultation sites, when access has been denied to us.
Don't joke too much about the lack of oxygen thing. It happens often to me and on the Mt or under water it has killed too many. Standing is a marathon to my organs in general now and I am unable to walk even 50m or run without collapsing without being able to breathe (since birth I was on a breathing monitor for a long time). The number of emergency visits for being unable to breathe adequately and you learn that people who seek it out on purpose knowing the risk, those people they are playing with death. It is not a flippant statement but one made with the knowledge of the death behind it. I loved to scuba 20 m down (back before the major disability) but I knew I was taking my life on a gamble if the equipment failed, hence always took precautions in case of failure. Never to risk more than a bad taste in the mouth. Investing is much the same. You can start in a bad position and often have to decide the level of risk you can take. Except in investing death is rarely an outcome of higher risk investment and people recover from bankruptcy to be millionaires, not dead the second a decision goes wrong or when access to necessary medical services is cut further to nothing.
So the whole of humanity is facing an existential threat, the government is talking about high level moves to combat it, and you're raging that your group isn't being catered for when that level of detail hasn't been released.
Lots of details to come, and typically new laws involve concessions for various interests such as those with disabilities. Try lobby/influence, and consider other groups beside your own.
The report is the least scientific and can only best be described as a sad sad joke. Non scientific input from surveys from only "77 individuals and organisations" That has got to be a new low as even polling their linkedin friends and local shops would generate more than 77 responses. Even worse they are so contradictory in assumptions in this report they massively disprove their own proposals would ever work and disprove any basis for their proposals. Suggesting that a massive increase in power demand and the need for far far more in electricity infrastructure, massive added storage costs and reduced reliability in electricity infrastructure would bring down the cost of household electricity is beyond the pale as even the maintenance on existing generation and transmission methods has spiked the cost increases so much above inflation in Otago. Many companies actually have had to buy petrol and diesel generators just to keep the power going and run pumps, holding back sewage flooding. There is more petrol and diesel use in a single music festival night than an entire year of family travel (including overseas flights). Yet we want to ramp up the music festivals, tech company infrastructure, increase greenhouse & orchard planting power demands, increasing reliance on petrol and diesel generators while the price of power from power infrastructure companies goes through the roof. These people who wrote the report are not the smartest thinkers and their lack of research and data gathering from those 77 people really shows. Even if they took one sector say power generation in NZ they have really shown the data analysis and research capabilities of a 5 year old here. Not once did they think what is powering their microsoft 365 subscription, iphones, new home, fashion purchases and coffee production and they don't really care as they are rich enough that the drastic cuts that will kill many poor in this country will not affect them on their travel holidays when they can gad about the place. This is also why the health and disability review failed. Not once did they actually consult and research with people affected by disability and the report would have had a better effect for the nation if they hired at least one disabled person because at least one disabled person would not be living on less income than it takes to live in a hostel bunkbed. IF the climate commission had consulted even a sector of energy infrastructure they would have found that proposing massive complete redesign of NZs power infrastructure and redevelopment of the distribution country wide it would raise the costs for residential consumers. This report is written by such clueless muppets they think that exponential growth in EV uptake is possible when 90% of the country do not even have 50k in savings to throw away, they cannot even afford vehicles of 10k to spend on new or secondhand EV vehicles and even the EU for all its decades trying and easy access to the vehicle manufacturers have only achieved an uptake less than 3%. Gotta say there is something these report writers are smoking and I think they may be sniffing glue as well.
Good points made there.
I agree, large numbers of NZ barely have two sticks to rub together, are totally on the bread line or below it. Can see it in the dental quality... a lot of even working, middle class people in NZ have really bad teeth due to inability to afford dental care.
Was one of the first things I noticed after living in the western isle. Dental care is expensive there too but people earn more so working people can afford it.
NZ, the Switzerland of the South, land of the twisted faces (cos can't afford to get dental care so face caves in after teeth fall out) but it's OK because it's beautiful and we can all survive on its beauty and in the future won't have to breathe in so many cow farts and instead can eat guinea pigs for protein like Cuba, and don't get me started on housing if you can get it.
Yeah... nah....
Watch the exodus to Aussie in the next few years. NZs always been expensive but it's about to go exponential here I reckon. Once inflation kicks off how well the punters manage on their crap wages? One thing's for sure, even if we get consumer inflation guaranteed we won't get wage inflation.
Unless you're a govt worker.
We do have one of the highest minimum wages in the world, I’m not sure what else the govt can do to boost wages more. A couple both earning minimum wage get 1600 a week before tax and then probably WFF on top. Sure you wouldn’t exactly be rich but I think you’d have more than a few sticks to rub, it’s not far off what we earn and we aren’t struggling at all. I’m not saying that everything is rosy and there aren’t people struggling but I can’t see why large numbers would be below the breadline.
If the government could get house and food prices under control that would help more than anything. House prices will never go down while interest rates are so low. But breaking up the supermarket monopoly needs to happen.
Newsflash less than $3 per hour for disabled folk who work or their carers is not a high wage. It is legal to pay those most vulnerable with the highest costs of living upon them , facing the highest housing cost squeeze (with only 2% of houses accessible and most only for those over 65) less than transport to work would cost. There is no minimum wage for disabled people (written into law). Hence the very poor medical outcomes, lack to afford pricey luxury things like dinner, lunch, cleaning fluids etc and living off trash. That being said people do throw away a lot of good things that still work and clothes, there is so much clothing waste and I still keep grandmas clothing handed down to wear.
The whole idea of the budget is a mistake. I appreciate the need to move quickly, but have you ever seen what happens when laws are made quickly? Put the rules in place, and innovation (or retreat) will occur. Put the screws on too quickly and you'll get retreat. I worry about the effect on the poor -they'll pay the real price of anything. By 'real price' I mean the rich can afford to have fewer baubles but the poor can't even afford to eat, let alone have everything's price go up 10% (for example) because of the effects of rapid movement. Sorry Africa, you can't live like we do, so stay as you are while we enjoy our sunk cost luxury (while bemoaning how we're not doing enough to save the planet)
bone soup tea is afforded to the current costs of things (we get bones every fortnight and perhaps in a month or two a little offal), any less and it is just hot water and salt and we would not be able to afford to pay power so it will be cold water and salt (salt recommended in high amounts by specialists and cardiologists). Yep we will pay but hey at least hopefully salt will still be cheap... oh wait no. damn.
The problem in Dairy and perhaps to a degree in other farming systems is the operations on 'marginal land', any land converted outside traditional dairy areas recently, is most likely marginal. Needs water lots of N and P, on stoney soils prone to leaching, over 6 hours from a factory and so on and on and on. These guys also have the majority of the debt.
This Carr guy is what we used to call a 'Space Cadet', no doubt a nice guy but his grasp on reality is looking weak.
No, there's a couple up-thread I'd call space-cadets.
Carr is an interesting guy - somewhere he's had an epiphany; too intellectually smart to do what some do (argue for themselves, essentially) so he's had to address some stuff. And think.
The question is whether he gets the whole Limits to Growth thing (which will skittle the last half of his time-lines) and realises he'd lose folk if he went the whole way, or whether he only got halfway there in his thinking and still believes in growth as per Econ101. I reckon we'll find out.
No we would have more NZDERS DEAD. He combines affluence, ignorance and arrogance. Three very deadly things in anybody in a leadership position as Trump has proven. Let them eat cake walk and cycle indeed. How can you do that without being able to breathe and with no skeletal muscles working? It is a sad joke he is paid more than a schoolteacher or nurse who have more science acumen at 20 than he will ever hope to achieve.
From the Ministry for the Environment
“ Our international targets are:
5 per cent reduction below 1990 gross emissions for the period 2013-2020
30 per cent reduction below 2005 (or 11 per cent below 1990) gross emissions for the period 2021-2030.”
In 1990 the NZ population was 3.4m. In 2020 the population had reached 5.1m, a 50% increase.
So how with 50% more people, and more arriving, do we expect to achieve an 11% reduction? Does anyone have the total carbon figures?
Meanwhile in Australia, Microsoft are now buying carbon credits from cattle ranchers for their work sequestering soil carbon using cattle and grazing - which requires high density grazing, not a reduction in stock numbers. But despite the fact that NZ signed on for the 4 per 1000 initiative at COP21, nothing in the CCC report looks at soil carbon.
This government can't keep calling our farming so green and sustainable in the international market, but then at home tell farmers they're a dirty bunch of polluters.
Are we heading into an Ice Age?
Has anyone at the commission even thought or explored how construction has, and still is daily, contributing to the issue by requiring copious amounts of energy to sustain living/working inside those buildings? I work within the niche industry of providing a building product for the Passive House certified industry in New Zealand. And I am flabbergasted at the ignorance on display by government departments and any offical body that tries to come up with these ridiculous ideas and supposed 'implementations', if you can call them that. What if someone would tell you that we can build houses with Zero energy or even Energy+ in NZ without any major issue. You could even do for the same cost if you are prepared to cut out the triple garage. Simply insist on building to CERTIFIED Passive House standard and you are guaranteed the performance.
This industry is growing fast in New Zealand, but even in that space, so many people try to cut the corners by building a "high performance house"), it is really not funny. Reading this article in that context makes you weep.
Perhaps Interest could take up this issue and ask some hard questions of the right people in the various government departments. After all, cutting out your energy usage by 90% or even 100% on a long term structural basis for at least our living spaces. Same applies also for our work spaces and should make a huge dent in the overall total energy dependance, or eventual lack of it? That alone, in my opinion is a key financial advantage to be gained gain if pursuing this no brainer. Does this qualify as a being a key hot topic then for Interest.co to cover?
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