Cathrine Dyer and Bernard Hickey detail the latest climate news, including how the Government's 'least cost path' on climate will mean we fail to meet our Zero Carbon Act and Paris Agreement targets
What an excellent and informative summary of where we are currently as a nation in dealing (or not) with climate change. I wish so many more NZrs could would see and hear this.
It’s utterly depressing what this Govt is doing yet so few understand the ramifications of it. Are their ministry officials actually telling them or are they wilfully ignoring them & the trade agreements? It all seems so illogical & mad.
Thank you Bernard and Catherine, a really focussed analysis. My work closely relates to climate change and your podcasts are a great way for me to quickly stay updated and know where to focus more deeply.
So glad you guys are doing this important mahi - even if it’s just to have a record of just how deeply injust & short-sighted this (and so many other countries’ govts) government’s climate “policies” are. I’m hoping that soon there will be legal ramifications on behalf of future generations and the planet that will stop the ecocidal madness before full system collapse. A dark hope, but better than no hope - maybe our last hope?
What adds to the frustration is there are a lot of technically easy, do right now options, using wind + solar + batteries (mobile and static). Much is happening anyway, we could do more and faster if govt drove it (and potentially provided low cost financing). Especially with medium and light transport where the likes of Mainfreight, Linfox, Toll need a kick up the a** to electrify their fleets. And Genesis getting Huntly off coal now.
Having worked in energy modelling I have long been concerned by the lack of knowledge or care around the level fugitive emissions of methane from oil and gas extraction. With the climate warming impact of methane being so much higher than CO2 it takes only ~1.5% fugitive emissions escaping to render fossil gas as bad as coal for the climate. Jeanette Fitzsimmons was one of the few in politicians to see this risk - it has been more mentioned overseas in recent years but does not get mentioned when gas is proposed as a "transitional fuel" such as we are now claiming to be reverting to! The current estimate reported in energy statistics is a small figure self-reported by industry .....
I mention this because of the laughable mention of CCUS in the governments plan - while there is apparently great strides being made at some of our geothermal extraction facilities to sequest CO2 I question how the gas industry could possibly manage this when they have spent decades avoiding measuring or detecting methane fugitive emissions. All by 2027? (apparently at just $30 /tonne)
These guys
"An underwater pipeline which carries well stream fluids, including millions of cubic metres of gas condensate from an offshore well in Taranaki to an onshore production facility is temporarily out of action after "bubbles" were detected coming from the structure."
I see there is a lot more on the subject around Google reflecting new data from Satellite analysis in recent years
This reference is a good sensible discussion - so apparently attacking this unmeasured issue is a relatively cheap way to reduce emissions - much less so than the very costly CO2 extraction plans proposed by the government/Gas Industry
oh dear - now I have started looking at the "lack of a plan" and find that the ETS and someone's understanding of the "waterbed effect" colours the lack of ambition so prevalent.
" If you jump on a waterbed, it sinks in one place and rises in another, but the amount of water in the bed remains the same. The waterbed effect applies the same concept to emissions
in an ETS. If emissions are reduced by one participant, this frees up allowances for another participant to increase their emissions, such that total net emissions remain the same "
The minister..impenetrable...lost count obscure-rant- isms like "were working through that". Excellent questions evoked assertions, not arguments. Is that a lump of anthracite coal on wall adjacent to the ministers head?
Interesting recent commentary in Time by Brett Christophers, Uppsala University, China leading the way in green energy, because of central state direction.
What an excellent and informative summary of where we are currently as a nation in dealing (or not) with climate change. I wish so many more NZrs could would see and hear this.
It’s utterly depressing what this Govt is doing yet so few understand the ramifications of it. Are their ministry officials actually telling them or are they wilfully ignoring them & the trade agreements? It all seems so illogical & mad.
Thank you Bernard and Catherine, a really focussed analysis. My work closely relates to climate change and your podcasts are a great way for me to quickly stay updated and know where to focus more deeply.
"Cynical, cheap, nasty, fundamentally selfish" 💯
So glad you guys are doing this important mahi - even if it’s just to have a record of just how deeply injust & short-sighted this (and so many other countries’ govts) government’s climate “policies” are. I’m hoping that soon there will be legal ramifications on behalf of future generations and the planet that will stop the ecocidal madness before full system collapse. A dark hope, but better than no hope - maybe our last hope?
What adds to the frustration is there are a lot of technically easy, do right now options, using wind + solar + batteries (mobile and static). Much is happening anyway, we could do more and faster if govt drove it (and potentially provided low cost financing). Especially with medium and light transport where the likes of Mainfreight, Linfox, Toll need a kick up the a** to electrify their fleets. And Genesis getting Huntly off coal now.
Excellent discussion.
Having worked in energy modelling I have long been concerned by the lack of knowledge or care around the level fugitive emissions of methane from oil and gas extraction. With the climate warming impact of methane being so much higher than CO2 it takes only ~1.5% fugitive emissions escaping to render fossil gas as bad as coal for the climate. Jeanette Fitzsimmons was one of the few in politicians to see this risk - it has been more mentioned overseas in recent years but does not get mentioned when gas is proposed as a "transitional fuel" such as we are now claiming to be reverting to! The current estimate reported in energy statistics is a small figure self-reported by industry .....
I mention this because of the laughable mention of CCUS in the governments plan - while there is apparently great strides being made at some of our geothermal extraction facilities to sequest CO2 I question how the gas industry could possibly manage this when they have spent decades avoiding measuring or detecting methane fugitive emissions. All by 2027? (apparently at just $30 /tonne)
These guys
"An underwater pipeline which carries well stream fluids, including millions of cubic metres of gas condensate from an offshore well in Taranaki to an onshore production facility is temporarily out of action after "bubbles" were detected coming from the structure."
I see there is a lot more on the subject around Google reflecting new data from Satellite analysis in recent years
This reference is a good sensible discussion - so apparently attacking this unmeasured issue is a relatively cheap way to reduce emissions - much less so than the very costly CO2 extraction plans proposed by the government/Gas Industry
https://rmi.org/reality-check-natural-gas-true-climate-risk/
oh dear - now I have started looking at the "lack of a plan" and find that the ETS and someone's understanding of the "waterbed effect" colours the lack of ambition so prevalent.
" If you jump on a waterbed, it sinks in one place and rises in another, but the amount of water in the bed remains the same. The waterbed effect applies the same concept to emissions
in an ETS. If emissions are reduced by one participant, this frees up allowances for another participant to increase their emissions, such that total net emissions remain the same "
The minister..impenetrable...lost count obscure-rant- isms like "were working through that". Excellent questions evoked assertions, not arguments. Is that a lump of anthracite coal on wall adjacent to the ministers head?
Interesting recent commentary in Time by Brett Christophers, Uppsala University, China leading the way in green energy, because of central state direction.
https://time.com/6958606/climate-change-transition-capitalism/
Christophers is prolific, he did his Geography PhD at Uni of Auckland