By Pattrick Smellie
New Zealand faces a big decision on whether to support Europe or the developing countries, along with the US, Canada, Japan and Russia on how to forge new global rules to combat climate change.
Climate Change Ministers Tim Groser and Nick Smith said the new global direction hammered out at the annual global meeting on climate change action, in Durban, had delivered important improvements to rules governing forestry and land use, which will benefit New Zealand.
But there were “still important questions left unanswered.”
“The date for the next Kyoto commitments still need to be finalised; the negotiations for the long-term regime beyond 2020 will be long and arduous,” they said. “The Durban texts themselves, which were deep and complex agreements put together under great pressure, will unquestionably contain problems and issues which cannot be seen clearly at this stage.”
The key elements of the Durban deal extends the Kyoto Protocol by between five and eight years; agreement to a new global pact to include developing economies, and rich countries such as the US and Canada who’ve resisted being part of a global deal in the past.
However, it stopped short of promising a “legally binding” agreement, as sought by the European Union and low-lying island states. Instead, the agreement will seek “a new protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force” that will apply to all parties to the United Nations climate convention. This new agreement would be adopted in 2015, for implementation in 2020, and is crucial for including the big three emitters: the US, China and India.
The Durban agreement also paves the way for the US$100 billion annual “green fund” in which rich countries will provide funds to assist developing nations respond to climate change, to be operational by 2020.
Groser said one of the big decisions for New Zealand and Australia, now that it had an emissions trading scheme, would be whether to “join Europe in inscribing our next set of international commitments within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol or to join all the developing countries, the US, Canada, Japan, Russia and others, in making those commitments under the alternative transitional arrangements described in different texts.”
“It is not a matter of whether we make commitments - New Zealand will - but where they are made and how ambitious we should be,” he said.
“Like all countries, we will need to take account of our national circumstances and compare our efforts to the efforts of others. We want to do our fair share, but it will not be clear for some time what exactly others will be committing to,” the Ministers said.
(BusinessDesk)
12 Comments
Australia does not have an emissions trading scheme (until 2015 in accordance with present legislation enacted).
In the meantime it has put a fixed-price (a tax) on carbon dioxide emissions at a starting price of $A23 per tonne (metric ton). Initially, some industries will receive a percentage of their permits free depending on their degree of trade exposure. Agriculture and private transport are excluded from the scheme. The latter was excluded in order to secure passage through the lower house.
So, they are not "trading" carbon - they are taxing it (on a very targeted basis). Which means the "market" for New Zealand units is New Zealand and the EU member states (until 2015 anyway).
Emissions trading schemes - are (I think) dead in the water.
Time for the NZ government to dump the credit purchase requirements for all NZ emitters. Leave the trading instrument system in place for carbon sequesters to register units and sell them to Europe, if they can.
Our focus should be on energy self-sufficiency - that is, policies which lower our dependence on imported fuel.
Dig a hole and just keep on digging. This going to be fun to watch from the safety of southern China, just a stone's throw from where there were supposed to be 50 million climate refugees in 2010.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10771132
An opening of the nation's carbon books has finally been forced upon the Treasury and the results are truly shocking.
There are two shocks to absorb:
* How little has been disclosed when the stakes are so high, ecologically and financially.
* How far off the Government's own emissions targets New Zealand is: tens of billions of dollars in payments overseas will be required to bridge the gap unless the Government gets serious about cutting emissions.
First the secrecy. Governments are legally required to provide an update of the nation's financial position just before elections but those accounts do not recognise carbon obligations until they are in an international agreement, hence there is nothing concrete on the books until after 2012.
Canada to pull out of Kyoto. Question: When does NZ follow suit, or have we all got 10's of billions of spare dollars to pay the "fines"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/12/kyoto-in-the-past-for-canada/
NZ is tracking OK for the first Kyoto committment period, thanks to all those pine trees sequestering carbon. It was in later committment periods that NZ would have had difficulties. It's no surprise that Canada is trying to get out of Kyoto, making oil from shale gas is extremely intensive, from memory it requires something like 3 barrels of oil to make 5 barrels of oil from shale.
I think that Kate might be right about emissions trading schemes. The one advantage of an ETS over a tax is that if output drops during a recession, then the price of carbon also drops, which is what is happening now. It does look as if Kyoto is dead and will be replaced by more regionalised, bottom up schemes. Time will tell as to whether this will be sufficient. Hopefully we'll have a cooling multidecadal natural fluctuation....
Hopefully we'll have a cooling multidecadal natural fluctuation.
The evidence seems to suggest that. No one is disputing that the world warmed modestly but even BEST shows no warming since 1998. Still if we are going to commit economic suicide then we may as well do it in style.
Wrong, there is no reason to assume it will be multi-decade....right now we are in a cooling decade that will end in 2012 or maybe 2013...Wrong because even if that multi-decade occurs all it does is hide/delay the climb that will come after it its a short term effect/run....that will make it worse....in the longer run.
BEST was done to disprove that the records were in fact correct, what it has proved is the record is correct....rather funny considering the deniers paid for it.
"1988", forget 1998 as a unique year (and 2005 rivals it) ..this is a plataeu in temp, ie we have had the hottest decade ever. So you are cherry picking, thats the equiv of kneeling and praying to a make believe invisible being...similar in effect to hoping for a multi-decade cooling cycle, that simple delays things.
"No one is disputing that the world warmed modestly" yeah right...now that one has been put to bed the deniers are trying to claim oh no we didnt deny it was rising.....
"modestly" round 2 in the denial machinery saga....if we cant prove its not occuring claim its not important.
regards
That we had a record warm year in 2010 in the midst of a strong la Nina is extraordinary and ominous. Just wait for the next big el Nino, especially if it is 2013 when the sun's warming effect is also likely to be higher than normal.
That said, there does seem to be an underlying cooling fluctuation. It could end any time.
Cheers
There is something called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation which is the partial cause of the La Nina weather pattern that we've had over the last couple of years, and the humid weather that we're stuck under at the moment. La Nina is supposedly net cooling for the planet, 1998 was the last big El Nino. 2010 and 2005 rank higher than 1998 in the temperature record, despite 2010 being the largest La Nina since the 1970s. 2010 was a big anomoly which climate scientists are still analysing.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.