By Brian Fallow
Critics and defenders of the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan will be able to agree on one thing at least: now is not the best time to embark on such a plan.
Critics will point to the fact that inflation is running hot and threatening to become entrenched. They will question the wisdom of adding costs to households, businesses and, eventually, farmers.
Defenders will say that the best time to get serious about curbing emissions was years ago. Deferring action even longer will only make the inevitable reductions steeper, more disruptive and more costly.
In aggregate terms New Zealand’s contribution to global emissions is small but, as the International Monetary Fund has just reminded us, in per capita terms one of the worst. There are potential trade costs in being, and being seen as, a free rider.
In any case as Climate Change Minister James Shaw puts it: “The climate crisis is no longer something that is happening to someone else, somewhere else, at some point in the future. It’s happening to us. It’s happening here. It’s happening now.”
Making the case for the plan he emphasises local benefits:
· More options for getting around cities, with less exposure to global oil prices.
· Warmer, healthier homes with lower power bills.
· New clean tech industries with well-paid jobs. If you do it right, one man’s cost should be another man’s livelihood; the trick is to be the other man.
The carbon budget (emissions cap) agreed for the first period, which runs until the end of 2025 represents a 2.7% cut from the average over the past five years, or 3.1% less than projected emissions with existing policy measure only.
But over the next two periods the carbon budgets get a lot more challenging. Between 2026 and 2030 emissions will have to be 18% lower than the average of the past five years and between 2031 and 2035 35% lower. The statutory target, after all, is net zero by 2050, albeit with a less stringent limit for biogenic methane.
Much of the plan announced on Monday is for officials to keep working, and consulting, on specific plans. An example: “In the second half of 2022 the Government will decide whether to progress legislative changes to enable congesting charging….Legislation development will then take two years.”
But some actual spending decisions have been made, out of the Climate Emergency Response Fund (CERF), which is to be funded form the hypothecated proceeds of auctioning units into the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Finance Minister Grant Robertson, inexplicably, said it meant “polluters are paying, not households” as if companies which are points of obligation under the ETS don’t pass their carbon costs on, or that there is no opportunity cost to the Government in earmarking this source of revenue.
In the current, first period, transport, energy and industry are seen as the most promising areas for early progress.
Transport, the second largest source of emissions after farming, is responsible for about 20% of national emissions and 43% of CO2 emissions. The Climate Change Commission has recommended cutting transport emissions by 13% by 2030 and 41% by 2035.
Transport will get the biggest chunk, $1.2 billion, of the $2.9 billion of CERF money committed at this stage. It will include $569 million for a scrap and replace scheme “which will provide targeted assistance to lower- and middle-income households to shift to low emission alternatives upon scrapping their old vehicle.” Transport Minister Michael Wood said the threshold for eligibility was expected to be around the median income.
Another $350 million is earmarked for projects to encourage more use of public and “active” transport modes (cycling and walking). For the energy and industry sector, which make up 27% of total emissions, $650 million of CERF money is allocated to a much expanded Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry fund. It will include funding for infrastructure upgrade for the national grid and electricity distribution networks.
Energy Minister Megan Woods said the expanded programme was estimated to deliver about a sixth of the total emissions reductions required by 2025 and about a third of what would be needed in the 2026 to 2030 period.
The other big chunk of CERF money, $710 million over four years, is for agriculture and forestry.
About half of that is for research and development – with the emphasis on development – to give farmers the tools to deliver the statutory goals of a 10% reduction in methane emissions by 2030 and between 24% and 47% by mid-century.
That still leaves the vexed issue of how farm emissions (as conventionally measured for international carbon accounting purposes) will be exposed to an emissions price signal by the start of 2025. He Waka Eke Noa, the process of negotiating that, has yet to be completed.
Another $256 million of CERF money is earmarked for forestry, both to scale up production of native seedlings for long-term carbon sinks and to stimulate private sector investment to add more value in the wood processing sector.
There is, of course, much more to the plan than allocating some of the proceeds of auctioning units into the ETS.
Shaw makes the point that 15 different ministers with 18 portfolios between them have responsibilities under the plan. They include not only transport, energy, agriculture and forestry but also housing and urban development – where much will depend on the outcomes of replacing the Resource Management Act.
Although carbon pricing through the ETS will remain a central policy tool Shaw said it was expected to deliver only about a third of the necessary emissions reduction over the three budget periods.
A consultation document on the emission reduction plan released last October says that although the cost of the ETS on transport fuel prices is 10 times what it was five years ago, the impact on travel has been minimal, which is consistent with overseas findings.
Reliance on the ETS alone to deliver the necessary changes to transport behaviour would require eye-wateringly high ETS prices. It cited a recent study by Concept Consulting and Retyna which emanated that relying on the ETS alone to boost electric vehicle uptake would requires a carbon price of $595 a tonne.
Full details of the Climate Emergency Response Fund can be found via the link below.
156 Comments
The unintended consequences are that : -
1 : prices will go up , households will pay more
2 : consultants will salivate all over this , they will be the ones to get rich ...
3 : Labour & the Greens will pontificate how they're meeting our obligations , and are solving climate change ...
... yes ... lots of blah blah blah ... a waste of $ 4.5 billion ... more blah blah blah ...
Had Robbo picked a tangible goal which actually affects Kiwis , had he focused on ending child poverty ... great ... I'd get behind that ... directly help Kiwi kids ... brilliant ! ...
... instead ... we get more waffle waffle , blah blah ... $ 4.5 billion .... save the planet ... end climate change ...
GBH,
I don't always agree with you, but here sadly, you are on the money. Vast amounts will be spent on consultants, more bureaucrats will be 'employed' to shuffle yet more paper around.
Imagine the effect on health, education and emissions if some of this cash went to making our housing stock warmer and drier. landlords, including the state! would be forced to quickly ensure that their properties meet healthy homes standards. Then the entire Pharmac board could be replaced by those less supine and then given a large increase in funding to both save and improve the lives of Kiwis.
I am no fan of Luxon or National for that matter, but I am now willing to bite the bullet and chuck this bunch out on their ears.
Keith Woodford has touched on that in some of his articles here, the gist is that they used to be allowed, but companies were buying up essentially fraudulent credits. I don't think there are any fundamental barriers to joining say the EU scheme, but their carbon price is much higher than ours so it would be a bit of an own goal, unless we just want to be a carbon credit exporter until all our land is covered in trees again.
Lets not forget that practically all of Europe, USA will also fall desperately short of achieving their CO2 reduction goals, and will similarly be looking to hoover up carbon credits from other countries... give a thought to what that will do to the prices. We do NOT want to be needing to buy credits from offshore.
It's hard to imagine any countries having a generous surplus of credits unless there's some breakthrough carbon capture tech in the future (which needs to be energy efficient as well).
Yes, there we somewhat corrupt credits available in the past. This distorted the market, and did little to correct our fossil fuel consumption. Credible governments are now scruitinizing the legitimacy of their CO2 credit sources.
I'd previously seen researchers claim that a carbon price of US$900 would be needed before people would be hurting enough to change their consumption... We're currently paying about 5% of that amount, so lots more price pain still to come.
Carbon credits are weird. Financial assets that increase in value as pollution worsens. Held and traded by completely amoral large financial institutions, carbon credits seem to represent a profit incentive to kill the planet. I think they will go up and be encouraged to go up until the end.
It's interesting but depressing watching Carl Sagan's testimony to Congress on Climate Change from 1985. He pretty much nails the issues and yet, almost 40 years later nothing has been done about the issues raised. He gives a very succinct speech highlights the problem.
OMG : just stop enough.
We have these types of announcements each year which contradict the announcements of the previous year or just say nothing and nobody can keep up any more
Last year it was announced gas connections to be phased out - now they are not
Last year the government said they would not ban high emissions vehicles- just tax them - now they will ban them but they wont say which vehicles
Last year the government said they would not require families to move to Low emissions vehicles - but now they will and some people will get an incentive to do so - but not others - and again there are no details,
People need certainty - not vague announcements
I'm merely reading the NZ Herald article
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/climate-change-plan-high-emitting-vehicle…
"Last year it was announced gas connections to be phased out - now they are not"
About three years ago I wanted to dispense with gas entirely. I used it for water heating and space heating. Switched to electrics for water heating but still had gas for space heating. Asked the govt via the relevant minister if they would pay for the total disconnection. I costed it via the gas retailer at about 800-$900. No subsidy or paying the complete disconnection. It would have cost me about $4000 for a heat pump without me fronting the disconnection.
This govt lot have no idea what they are doing. As far as I'm concerned they can talk the talk on CC but no walk the walk.
As an engineer who has worked on government projects, the last thing we need is more consulting. Projects spiral to three times the necessary cost on bloat workers (change managers, communications advisors and project managers for subprojects) to waste years talking and talking and talking.
You could achieve three times as much at half the cost and a third the time by ignoring the plebs and just getting the work done.
That's right. 'Consultant' is an umbrella word these days that is intended to conjure up the image of hard hat-wearing engineering experts in the minds of the public but often encapsulates PR advisors, "management" consultants and bean counters.
I have worked with enough consultants in the energy sector to know that the non-technical ones usually also have leafier brand names and come at higher charge-out rates.
So your plan is to ignore the plebs to get stuff done faster, then inevitably the government will get voted out for ignoring the people, projects will get cancelled and changed and overall costs will likely be the same. I guess we could go the way of Russia or China, if that's what you want?
Cycling and public transport are often not a practical alternative for the intended journey. Electric cars are too expensive for the average punter. A quick answer is very fuel efficient motorcycles. A 250cc bike will safely manage motorway speeds and use a third of the fuel. However the current rego fee is over $400 a year because that pays for the big bike riders who splatter themselves. For low hp commuter bikes, drop the rego fee, give free parking, and allow use of bus lanes.
How do i drop my two kids at daycare/school on my way to work on a 250cc motorbike? Can you get child seats for a motorbike? Two of them?
I'll stick with my bicycle thanks.
BTW motorcycles have always been allowed in bus lanes
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/walking-cycling-and-public-transport/cycling/c…
Like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Vic1Skvzs . I think the plan is to devolve our evolution back to just before 'peak horse,' but with electric bikes.
New clean tech industries with well-paid jobs
These well-paid job claims are overstated for importer nations such as ours. The clean tech economy has job potential but the bulk of higher-paying jobs are upstream at the technology design and manufacturing stages.
One could even argue that the present economic damage caused by knee-jerk climate policies with a promise of future jobs in clean-tech is best-explained with the broken window fallacy.
Have a listen to NZI's take on hefty corporate handouts are being dished out in the name of decarbonisation.
https://www.nzinitiative.org.nz/reports-and-media/podcasts/podcast-clim…
why not ramp up electric engine replacement investment if thats the only problem - seems scrapping the entire car when we could benefit from an engineering industry of creating electric swap kits based on tesla model 3 engines would be more environmentally friendly
Pretty tough ask I think. Even manufacturers who have tried to shoehorn EVs into existing chassis have found that the design requirements are different, and you can do a lot better with a fresh EV design. Also, car body and chassis are for the most part genuinely recycleable, so not sure it's worthwhile.
Can't disagree with that! ;)
Actually the best things we can do for the environment are to have fewer kids, or to kill ourselves, or to consume less (in that order).
Maybe Russia and Ukraine have the right idea (sorry, this is disgusting and crass). Destroying each other, (excepting the enviro cost of all the infrastructure destruction and rebuild) is maybe the best thing any of them (individually) will ever do for the environment.
im not suggesting a DIY kit that you can put under the tree at christmas, obv would require going to a confirmed regulated auto electrical mechanic :
i.e https://www.evolutionaustralia.com.au/electric-ev-car-conversion-kits
Yeah, and ditch the coolant system (still need a radiator to do stuff properly), exhaust system, and everything relating to an alternator and a drive belt (except the air con).
Ditch the transmission. Complications come with stuff like brakes, that traditionally have benefited from vaccuum from the engine... now needs a motor of its own, likewise power steering and aircon.
You need space for inverters and charging systems in addition to the batteries. Tesla keeps them under the back seat, but with a decent cover and other protections to ensure a fatty bouncing on the back seat won't get 800v up the you-know-what.
Because tailpipe emissions are only a small part of the transport issue. Adding more cars will not solve the issue. Building more roads, maintaining existing roads, air pollution from tyre and brake wear, space for parking, extracting resources to produce batteries all produce emissions. Electric vehicles are not the solution to the climate crisis. They let rich people and countries think they are doing something while not actually doing anything.
We need to consume less, travel less and when we do travel it needs to be done lightly. More walkable neighbourhoods where people do not need to drive, safe cycling facilities for those that need to make slightly longer trips. Better public transport for everything else. *Some electric car share schemes for those who absolutely need to drive.
we would all be much better off if we used the money for mitigation works - dams and river control maybe.
The world is getting warmer so best we get prepared rather than believing the fairy story that anything we do will stop the process
Oh and save some $$ for a matariki party - its time for less doom and gloom and more celebration - apparently before the ship goes down which in reality is never going to come to pass
2030 is the latest estimate, based on present useage. Presumably demand will reduce, pushing that date out.i would think if they thought gas will be economic beyond that, the fossil fuel companies would be still searching onshore. Or they would have still been searching up to the ban taking place, which they were not.
NZ battery project is due to report soon which will hopefully address that. You're probably aware last year's coal use was due to a dry year and we currently have no other way to store enough energy to deal with that - take a look at the stats and you see a gap in Hydro generation in 2021 being neatly filled by increased coal use.
We can blame both governments for failing to address this so far.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/128032984/wind-and-hyd…
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/building-and-energy/energy-and-natural-resourc….
For all the hideousness of Capitalism (<wrist to forehead/>), it occasionally has some useful outcomes (this time for the local community)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/waikato-news/news/huntly-receives-the-countr…
This battery will be physically delivered and in operation about the same time the Phase 1 – feasibility study should be drafted by the MBIE project.
This looks great, but it's answering a very different question to the NZ battery project. This battery will get 2,000 households through a day - useful for a bit of rebalancing of intermittent generation. Maybe you can store some solar for use in the evening, or some wind for calmer conditions overnight?
Something like Lake Onslow will store 5-7 TWh of energy, enough to provide 15-20% of the country's current electricity usage for an entire year. Enough to fill in the gaps when the hydro lakes have a poor year.
Both are necessary but they are very, very different projects. A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests you'd need over 100,000 similar batteries to store as much energy as Lake Onslow would, and that's assuming they are capable of storing energy over a period of years.
Agreed, not sure why you think I do not understand that? I made no claim other than to illustrate that moves were afoot to do what the government wants to review, study, workshop and then review again.
The economics for Lake Onslow are extremely simple but the longer we delay just getting on with it the more significant our miss on our environmental measures will be. Onlsow will take 7 years to get onto the grid from the time we start. That is start, not review and report.
The trick on a finite resource is to use everyone else's resource first, while it's cheaper. At worse it means our unused resource increases in value and we get to use it and at best then maybe there will be a technological improvement that means we get to keep it and our environment intact.
This whole emissions scheme is just a shell game, with most of us are just useful fools in the bigger scheme of things.
I appreciate that at a local level, Wellington for example is very walkable, but not commuting obviously. Public transport at scale (the London Tube for example) is excellent and uniformly used as it is not just the cheapest but most convenient transport mechanisim. Our population size across our geography is just not suitable for this solution.
for sure , not every journey could be walked , or even the majority. But where a trip to the dairy , kids to school , even to the letterbox for some, jumping in a 2 tonne car to go a few hundred metres is very inefficient. And taking public transport would be way more practical if the first /last 100 metres were in more favourable conditions.
I loved my stays in the Wellington region. Specifically Lower Hutt as I viewed it as a dormitory suburb to Wellington. Good public transport by train to Wellington CBD.
I know of a family living in Petone using the train but via a park n ride. Also a tremendous boon to the use of public transport.
Too many think public transport to be the be all and end all.
"Our population size across our geography is just not suitable for this solution." - spot on
Or plan suitable towns and cities , with public transport , and wakable/ cycle friendly living avaliable. Yes some people will still need to drive long distances , but the majority don't.
Here is an example form a "rural" area . https://teggtalk.com/category/public-transport/
And surprise surprise , its in the plan .
It's true. When you look at only carbon dioxide per capita New Zealand is very similar to other OECD countries (UK, Japan etc.) but because half of all emissions are from farming ours are much higher. Ultimately one suspects Bessie will have to go to the abattoir and food will be far more expensive and scarce in future.
What this comes down to is that any country that has an economy based on producing physical stuff will likely be substantially disadvantaged.
jao - you aren't comparing apples with apples
Per capita we are one of the worst, but in terms of total emissions we are not.
And no, we are NOT powered by 85% renewables - our electricity grid is what claims to be 85% renewable. That grid accounts for only 40% of our total energy use, so renewables only account for a mere 34% of out total.
:)
It's incredibly disappointing that the Govt is still using consultants to figure this out. How about starting with the small stuff - phase soft plastic out immediately; ban plastic straws tomorrow, change the building code to include all homes must install meters that are solar ready. Changing the laws so that all schools and public buildings are powered by solar; all parking lots have charging stations, ie so many charging stations per parking space. I'm so 'over' the talk and lack of action.
I suspect the lack of "action" in this plan is due to coalition politics. This is what Shaw and the Greens get for their 7% or so of the vote. The meat will be served up by Robinson in the budget , and spun out by the the minister in charge of the individual portfolios.
I'll believe they're serious about single use plastic when "disposable" nappies are banned (a far bigger environmental problem than shopping bags).
At the risk of going over the tipping point "mansplaining", women have also managed for millennia without single use plastic period products (the reusable cups can be excepted).
No point in putting solar on every house if they don't have the capacity of storing it. Most people are using there power early in the morning or at night time where there in not a lot of generation happening. I think we would be better off going for more energy efficient houses for new builds. I do like solar on schools etc though as most a generally high power consumers when solar panels are generating the most power.
NZ is currently like a sinking boat with a rotten hull, full of holes. We have captain Adern at the helm, full steam ahead for open water, at the same time ensuring everyone that there are no holes but if there were it would be Nationals fault. As long as we are kind everything will be fine.
Chief Officer Robbo is concurring that indeed the vessel is "ship shape and sea worthy Captain" thanks to Labour and in fact they can now get some consultants on board (more weight) to advise them to replace the old Perkins Diesel with an electric motor. Meanwhile working class NZ is below decks frantically bailing water with a teaspoon with a water level rapidly approaching their necks.
Climate Change Idiocy 101 - NZ is to spend $billions consuming more billable consulting hours and increase the rate at which we consume newer manufactured goods (industrial plant, cars, planes). This all will result in us paying for other places to produce more global carbon emissions, while can reduce our local carbon emissions by a lesser amount.
NZs climate plan will cause more net global emissions and accelerate global warming. Absolutely insane.
The California experience is it’s flawed. https://www.eenews.net/articles/price-hike-marks-new-era-for-calif-cap-…
More waffley vague wishes. These people would not know what a reasoned concrete and achievable plan was if it hit them on the head.
How about.
Electricity
Achieve 100% renewable electricity supply for existing and future transport demands by 2010 by
1 Do not renew Aluminium smelter contract and use the power to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity from 19 % to 6%
2 Encourage the installation of solar power so that we are generating 10% of our needs by 2028 say. To achieve this :-
- Change the electricity distribution market so that people selling power back to the grid will receive 80% of the price that they pay for their power.
- All government owned buildings will have solar power installed
3 In conjunction with Iwi the crown will create a hydro power generating company that will hold licences to build generation on all the remaining major hydro opportunities.
4 Transpower will build and own the pumped storage power scheme at Teviot and any other other similar schemes as appropriate. They will operate this scheme a bit like the reserve bank. Buying and selling power on the market to stabilize power supply and market prices. They may investigate accepting energy storage for the generators for a fee.
5 Investigate opportunities to tunnel through the southern alps so that in periods of low rainfall on the eastern side the corresponding high rainfall on the western side can be directed into the hydro storage lakes to make up for the shortfall.
6 Electricity sourced hydrogen generated can only be used in New Zealand and only the excess may be exported.
Transport
#1 yes. But cloud computing and bitcoin mining may have just stolen a march here.
#2: yes, but insist on household battery, not just solar. Otherwise generation and usage are mismatched and local grid has issues with excess voltage necessitating complex fixes to transformers etc. Big problem in Oz where they intend to solve it by central switchoff of grid feedins.
#3: maybe, canoeists and trampers will pitch a fit at this....
#4: gotta Build it first, see #3.
#5: there'll be Snails. And a fault line. See #3. Good idea, though, add irrigation to the mix.
#6: Assumes the stuff can be safely stored long enough to get Exported.
Amazing work. Is global warming really caused by emissions? Can motorway traffic (a narrow strip of roading) seriously heat the 100s of kms of vertical air above us all the way above the motorway and all the way across the pacific and down to antarctica? If you need a 5kw heat pump to heat a 25sqm living room wit a 2.45m stud ... well, should I say more? Was the melting since the last ice age caused by petrol cars 30,000 years ago? I would find it more believeable that the centre or core of the earth itself is heating up and there is some very lengthy cycle eg 40k to 100k years where ther world goes from high water levels to low water levels and vice versa, which would explain many ancient sites way above sea level or below sea level. Once again, we have to pay for this, along with eq strengthening, higher interest rates, tax changes, covid lockdowns etc, leaving the only thing we can do in our lifetime that we can afford is get support from WINZ.
The problem is it is cheaper to plant pines than make emissions reductions. Fine till you run out of room to plant pines, and the current ones no longer get credits. The Ets has not facilitated the need for urgent emissions reductions, partly because the price has been held down by the auction process.
I've heard this repeatedely and it still makes no sense. If climate change is a literal catastrophe then who cares if the solution is to plants lots of pine trees? If there's truly a "need for urgent emissions reductions", just issue fewer carbon credits — that's exactly what this system is designed for.
Eric Crampton presages the stupidity inherent in Cash for Clunkers. RTWT.
"Oh - and remember - because the ETS has a binding cap, the scheme achieves precisely nothing for emission reduction. The only thing that cuts net emissions covered by the cap is a reduction in the cap. The regulations aren't necessary to cut the cap, and cutting the cap is sufficient to reduce net emissions - and presumably does so for a fraction of the cost of a Cash-for-CluNZkers scheme.
It just keeps getting stupider."
That's a spin piece from predictable source(s), Waymad. 'The only thing that cuts net emissions covered by the cap is a reduction in the cap.' Wrong. Emission are because of our energy-burn; we can just stop the burning. No need for the post hoc artificiality of addressing 'emissions', that was just a societal cop-out like wokeism is.
But it IS stupid - as is the Initiative most of the time.
The problem is that a global population of not-very-sapient primates levered itself overshot by several orders of magnitude, by burning a one-off store of buried sunlight. One of their flaws was an 'optimism bias' - of the kind that thinks we can convert to nuclear and party on (there are so many systemic reasons why that is not possible). Another is that the winners in a status-quo system, are not going to be the interrupters when change is needed.
As both Crampton and Shaw demonstrate. Both assume BAsomethinglikeU; both are wrong.
The cap was polítically necessary to get national onboard. Or was it nz first. Shaw would be happy to remove it, but ATM it would mean every farm converted to forest before large reductions. Plus [political suicide with the price of petrol. Someone should ask ACT how far Thier 250 a year payment would go. Probably 1 tank of fuel.
To replace a big old inefficient car with a new efficient one. The number of cars does not increase , the amount of fuel used decreases.
In our neighbourhood , i see plenty of elderly woman driving big old tanks , because it was the old mans car, they're still thinking of transporting the whole Whanau around , or just don't realise how much cheaper a smaller car is to run . So its partly education as well as cash. Done right it will have a big bang for buck .
Would have been great to get some specifics from him eg how we can have EV charging on every street in NZ eg millions of EV charging stations, for people who park on the street and cannot plug into their house. Or do apartment dwellers without car parks throw a 50m extension cord down to the street after work to charge their car?
The specific policies are the responsibility of the minister and head honcho of each ministry. so there is no overall summary of the plans. i admit its frustrating , but in the long run puts the onus on the various ministries and business units to achieve the targets.
As far as EV charging goes, unless your doing a really long commute , they don't need to be charged everyday . Chargers at workplaces , and public places (like supermarket carparks) are likely to be financed first . If a house only has one offstreet park for several cars they could be cycled through that charger.
Humans can pontificate all they like on dealing with this particular symptom (global warming) of the actual problem but until it is recognised that there are now just too many of our species (all wanting or aspiring to a 21st century lifestyle of excess consumerism) for our planet to support, then whatever laudable steps we take on this matter will always leave us one step behind an enduring solution.
This is going to play out like another season of Utopia https://www.netflix.com/nz/title/80063251?
Government keep peddling the line that insulation programmes = fewer emissions and cheaper heating.
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/3044-eeca-programme-review-warm-up…
found that insulation results in people taking the 'warmth dividend' and doesn't reduce their electricity bill. This has been known for a decade.
The crazy price of $595 for a (carbon) NZU for the ETS to boost EV uptake is the result of a single factor calculation based on observed elasticities of car use in relation to past observed behaviour.
This is a nonsense way to estimate the changes that will occur. In particular, it will have taken insufficient, if any, regard to the rapidly increasing supply, variety and falling price of EVs, in relation to ICE vehicles. That's why we just need to wait 3-5 years and everyone will want an EV because it will be cheaper - have a look at international automotive media on what is happening, not just Tesla fluff.
These two consultancies have damaged their reputations by not making it clear on what bases they have arrived at their conclusion. If in fact they did, and Brian missed it, shame on him. But the figure is simply nonsense,
not so sure about that . Fuel has nearly doubled in price , has fuel use halved ? Has it even reduced.
ETS on a litre of petrol is 18 cents , the price of fuel has gone up over a $ 1 recently . Thats equilvalent of carbon units rising to $ 412 , which has had neligible impact on fuel use.
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