Kyoto Protocol carbon prices 2005 to 2015 used by New Zealand's Ministry for the Environment

Perhaps the first data set of New Zealand carbon prices was the Ministry for the Environment's carbon prices used to calculate New Zealand's net position (either financial asset or liability) under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Ministry for the Environment had a web page About the 2008-2012 net position under the Kyoto Protocol

There was also a web page providing the Latest update on New Zealand's net position.

The net position was updated monthly in the crown financial statements for New Zealand issued by Treasury. A monthly data set of carbon prices was needed. From 2005, international carbon prices from either the United States ($USD) or Europe (euro) were converted to New Zealand dollars using the relevant foreign currency rate.

Another web page displayed the historic updates of the Kyoto Protocol financial information in the form of a table of eight columns. The seventh column was the carbon price in New Zealand dollars.

Here is what the table looked like.

Some years ago I saved an html file of that web page. I read the html file into R and tidied it into a data set with one row for every month and seven columns of variables. I even made a couple of charts!

In 2017, the Ministry for the Environment redesigned their website and the net position pages and the data set disappeared. I had thought about preserving it for the public record. I didn't get around to it.

I have just noticed I still have a folder of my R analysis. So I created a Github repository called Historic updates of the Kyoto Protocol carbon price. This now records the original .html file, some R script, the tidied data as a .csv file, a 'Readme' file and some charts.

I updated my chart!

I can't remember how I chose the colour of the line. It's "#D2691E" or "hot cinnamon".

What key point does the chart make?

The international market was flooded with "hot air" emission units from 2011. As the Morgan Foundation report Climate Cheats sets out.

One type of Kyoto carbon credit (the Emission Reduction Unit) was overcome by fraud and corruption in Ukraine and Russia. Virtually all of the credits issued by these countries are ‘hot air’ – they do not represent true emissions reductions. (Chapter 2)

Proportional to our emissions, New Zealand has been by far the largest purchaser of these Ukrainian and Russian credits through our Emissions Trading Scheme. This was due to deliberate decisions by the National-led Government to – unlike any other country – continue allowing unlimited use of these and other foreign credits for as long as the international community let us. (Chapter 3)

This fraud has had several nasty side-effects: It sent the price of carbon units in our Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to virtually zero, hammering our nascent carbon forestry industry.

Minister for Climate Change Issues Paula Bennett and the surplus emission units

A wee while ago, back on 23 May to be precise, I wrote an open letter to Minister for Climate Change Issues Paula Bennett calling on her to cancel the surplus Kyoto emission units held by the Crown.

I received an undated reply from Bennett on Monday 4 July 2016.

To crudely sum it up, Bennett's reply is "No we won't cancel any surplus units. Those bad bad Ukrainian units! It was bad. But we stopped being bad, we won't be bad again, at any rate no more bad than any one else!"

Here is the text of Bennett's letter. For context, I have put the text of my open letter to Bennett at the bottom of this post.

Thank you for your letter of 23 May 2016 about surplus Kyoto Protocol assigned amount units.

As you say, the Government has a surplus of 123.7 million Kyoto Protocol emission units which were left over after we retired units to meet our target for the first Kyoto commitment period.

I accept that there were up to 97 million Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) bought and surrendered in the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ ETS) before the Government stopped accepting them. That was within the rules, but we now know many of the ERUs are likely to have had poor environmental integrity. We are not accepting international units now, and we are working hard to make sure any international units traded in the NZ ETS in the future are of high environmental integrity. We are reviewing the NZ ETS to make sure it will be fit for purpose in the future.

As we have said in the past, we will meet our target of -5 per cent by 2020 using a combination of domestic abatement, forestry removals, and some international purchasing. There is information about the target on the Ministry for the Environment website at www.mfe.govt.nz.

We have not made a decision about what to do with any Kyoto units that are left over after we have met the 2020 target.

Nearly all other Kyoto developed countries also have surpluses. Some of them have said they will cancel units, but haven't actually cancelled them yet. There is no urgency to do anything with these units, and the fact that we are not cancelling them at this stage doesn't put us out of step with other countries.

---

Let's look a little harder at three statements in Bennett's letter.

1. "We are not accepting international units now"
   Bennett is implying that the New Zealand Government made an express decision to stop the importing of some low-integrity international emission units. In fact, New Zealand ended up with no access to international carbon markets when Tim Groser told the UNFCCC that New Zealand was not going to have a formal emissions reduction commitment under the Kyoto Protocol for 2013 to 2020. Ms Bennett and the Ministry for the Environment should stop implying that some positive decision was made. Its just not true.
2. "we will meet our target of -5 per cent by 2020 using a combination of domestic abatement, forestry removals, and some international purchasing."
   The translation of this spin back into plain language is 'we will still be using creative carbon accounting' to pretend we are reducing emissions when we know we are not. Bennett should really stop saying such a disingenuous statement. The Ministry for the Environment's 2020 Net Position Statement still explicitly shows the 123.7 million surplus units plugging the gap.
3. "not cancelling them... doesn't put us out of step with other countries"
   Heaven forbid that New Zealand should be out of step with the many other countries who are also doing nothing about climate change!

My open letter to Paula Bennett - Your ethical duty to cancel 124 million surplus assigned amount units

Dear Minister,

I see that last Friday (20 May 2016) the Ministry for the Environment released New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2014 and the summary 'Snapshot'.

I see that in the Snapshot summary on Figure 5, page 5, that New Zealand is still intending to use 123.7 million emission units (Assigned Amount Units or 'AAUs') that were 'surplus' from the Kyoto Protocol first Commitment Period to meet the 2020 emissions reduction target and still have a surplus of 92.6 million units.

You are aware that the Morgan Foundation's report 'Climate Cheats' and the Stockholm Environment Institute report (Kollmuss, Schneider and Zhezherin 2015) set out a persuasive case that the 97 million Emission Reduction Units ('ERUs') that were imported to New Zealand were “questionable or of low environmental integrity”. Those ERUs were surrendered by NZETS participants into Crown holding accounts.

According to the Kyoto Protocol 'True-Up' Report, in December 2015, the Ministry for the Environment cancelled (transferred Crown-owned units to cancellation accounts) 373 million emission units to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. The numbers and types of units cancelled were: the 97 million imported ERUs, 16 million imported Certified Emission Reduction units ('CERs'), 81 million removal units ('RMUs'), and 179 million AAUs . The 'surplus' units remaining in Crown holding accounts were 124 million AAUs.

In a nutshell, the only reason New Zealand (the Crown) has so many 'surplus' AAUs is because of the inflow and use of the dubious ERUs in the NZETS. Each dubious imported ERU has allowed one additional AAU to be carried forward in a Crown holding account as a 'surplus' unit. Because the ERUs have no credibility, the AAUs no longer represent carbon safely stored out of the atmosphere. No emissions were reduced. Therefore to use these surplus AAUs to comply with the national 2020 emission reduction target is simply an exercise in creative carbon accounting. It is simply unethical.

I put it to you that as Minister for Climate Change Issues, you are morally obliged to cancel these surplus units owned by the Crown. Will you cancel the units? It may hopefully to some small extent restore New Zealand’s very tarnished reputation with respect to mitigating climate change policy.

Yours sincerely

Minister for Climate Change Paula Bennett denies climate cheating with dodgy Ukrainian carbon credits

In which Jack Tame conducts the toughest interview ever with a New Zealand Minister for Climate Change and Paula Bennett ends up denying that the Government cheated on it's climate change commitments.

Minister for Climate Change Paula Bennett has just been in New York signing the UN Paris Agreement. While in New York, Bennett was interviewed by TV One USA correspondent and general nice guy Jack Tame for Television NZ's Q + A news show. And we can read a full transcript.

I wonder if Paula Bennett thought she would get a soft jokey interview with that nice young man Jack Tame. She certainly didn't. Tame takes the interview 110% seriously. He does not smile. He delivers his questions and his interruptions through a taught stone-face. And his questions are good questions.

We perhaps need to remember about a year ago, Jack Tame stood in for Mike Hoskins on 'Mike's Minute' and gave us a month of refreshingly different short pieces to camera. In that month, Jack Tame talked about climate change. And he concluded with a minute titled climate tipping points. So Tame takes climate change and climate change policy seriously.

Tame gives Bennett a couple of minutes to gush enthusiastically about the signing of the Paris Agreement. Then he cuts straight to the Morgan Foundation's Climate Cheats report which alleges that the New Zealand Government was complicit in allowing dubious international carbon credits (Russian and Ukrainian and emission reduction units or 'ERUs') into the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme.

JACK

"I want to pivot quickly to the ETS. As you know, a report by the Morgan Foundation has concluded New Zealand, in their words, effectively 'cheated' its way to commitments made under Kyoto by trading in international carbon credits that were of dubious integrity at best. Do you accept that term? Cheating?"

PAULA

"I accept, actually, that there were dubious carbon credits last year when the Stockholm report came out. So, actually, the Morgan report's nothing new. So half of it is kind of right, you know? Yes, there were dubious credits. We found out. We're not using them now. We don't hold any of them. And we definitely won't again. And then, quite frankly, the other half of his report is factually incorrect."

Bennett's answer is mostly spin and I'll come back to that. But what happened next was that Jack Tame peppered her with about a half dozen really pertinent follow-up questions about the New Zealand Government's failure to stop the inflow of dodgy units.

• "what part of 'Climate Cheats' report is factually incorrect?"
• "we did continue trading on those credits for a long period when other countries abandoned them"
• "but the government allowed that trading"
• "So you don't accept that was cheating?"
• "it wasn't in the spirit of the commitments made under Kyoto"
• "but I think the question is how do we make up for that shortfall?"

Bennett eventually tries to 'flip' the questions onto a diversionary track; the undefined way forward with the Paris Agreement. Tame then flips her diversion back on her by implying she is being a hypocrite in grandstanding over the signing of the Paris Agreement when she knows that New Zealand has 124 million surplus emission units in the bank because of the influx of the dodgy Ukrainian units into the emissions trading scheme.

JACK

"But how do you come to New York and say, 'These are our commitments. Yeah, sure, the last time we had commitments, we reached them by purchasing credits of dubious quality when internationally, these things were slagged off.' Now you come here and say, 'Believe us this time. We're not gonna buy credits of dubious quality.'"

Bennett then hides behind a false statistic - that 80% of the units were okay. I have no idea where she gets that number from. And tries, again unsuccessfully, to move the interview on. Tame goes to the ethics of the matter in his next question and focuses on what would be the right thing to do.

JACK

"Would it not be a stronger thing for the government to come to New York and say, 'Yes, we've made a mistake. We're going to rectify this by either making up that shortfall in credits that were of dubious quality by purchasing extra ones, or making greater commitments in the future.' Wouldn't that be in the spirit of the Paris agreement and in the previous commitments under Kyoto?"

Bennett resorts finally to an old trick often used by Nick Smith and Tim Groser. She invokes the old canard that New Zealand is one of the few countries that has an emissions trading scheme! She then changes to some more waffle about what a big job it is. Which seems to be her preferred form of discourse. See for example her first speech as Minister for Climate Change to the National Blue-Greens.

I could keep going. Tame asks if she accepts that doing nothing will lead to 3 or 4 degrees Celsius of global warming. And if she accepts the New Zealand's targets match avoiding that. But you should really watch and read Jack Tame's interview for your self.

So I say "Bloody well done, Jack Tame! That's the best interview a New Zealand journalist has ever given a New Zealand Minister of Climate Change! Keep it up!"

Factcheck Appendix (wonky) on surplus emission units.

Now I will come back to this statement by Bennett.

"I accept, actually, that there were dubious carbon credits last year when the Stockholm report came out. So, actually, the Morgan report's nothing new. So half of it is kind of right, you know? Yes, there were dubious credits. We found out. We're not using them now. We don't hold any of them. And we definitely won't again. And then, quite frankly, the other half of his report is factually incorrect."

"We are not using them. We don't hold any of them" (the dodgy international units)

How many units are we talking about? According to the Ministry for the Environment's Kyoto Protocol 'True-Up' Report ME 1225, of December 2015, New Zealand cancelled 373 million units to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. The numbers and types of units cancelled were: 97 million imported dodgy ERUs, 16 million imported Certified Emission Reduction units ("CERs") , 81 million removal units ("RMUs") and 179 million Assigned Amount Units ("AAUs"). The surplus units kept by the Government, after the cancelling, were 124 million AAUs.

Back in 2014, the Greenhouse Gas Inventory ignored the dodgy imported units completely and showed that New Zealand would comply with the Kyoto Protocol and have a small surplus of only 8 million units (which would be AAUs).

The 97 million dodgy imported ERUs, 16 million imported CERs, and 10 million RMUs ended up in the Government's accounts as emitters imported them and gave them ('surrendered' them) to the Government to meet their NZ emissions trading scheme obligations.

Every unit imported and surrendered enabled the Government's 'Kyoto position' to grow significantly from the 8 million unit surplus as noted in 2014 above, to the December 2015 surplus of 124 million Assigned Amount Units.

The Government had a little flexibility in which units could be kept as a surplus. There was a limit on ERUs, a prohibition on having surplus RMUs and no limits on surplus AAUs. So the Government preferentially cancelled all the ERUs, all the CERs and all the RMUs and kept (as surplus) as many AAUs as possible.

So every dodgy Ukrainian ERU that entered the NZ emissions trading scheme allowed the New Zealand Government to have an extra 'credible' AAU in the number of surplus units carried forward. To use an analogy, the Kyoto cancellation process allowed the Government to 'launder' the dodgy international units into a 'credible' currency, the Assigned Amount Units.

The Ministry for the Environment's 2020 position report shows that the Government intends to use 123.7 million surplus units from Kyoto's Commitment Period 1 to plug the gap as expected emissions will be above the 2020 emission target.

So back to Bennett's statement on the dodgy units "we are not holding them". That is spin and semantics. The Government is holding an extra large surplus of 'credible' AAUs ONLY because millions of ERUs were cancelled.

And the statement "We are not using them". That is double spin. Firstly, the Government used the dodgy units to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. And secondly, the Government is using the surplus of AAUs, which it has in such large numbers only because of the dodgy units, to claim compliance with the 2020 target even while emissions increase. That is just grossly unethical.

NZ greenhouse gas emissions march steadily onwards and upwards to 2030

A previous post was about an inaugural press release from the new Minister for Climate Change Paula Bennett.

From a public relations point of view Bennett's release aimed to sow and spread and cultivate 'talking points' that support the Government's preferred climate policy narrative. Which is of course that:

New Zealand is doing enough on reducing anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. New Zealand complies with its climate target obligations (via 'carbon credits') under the Kyoto Protocol and the UNFCCC. New Zealand has a moderated balanced emissions trading scheme and is doing research on agriculture and helping out in the Pacific and 'punching above our weight' in the international negotiations. All in all New Zealand is doing enough about climate change!

However, New Zealand (irrespective of who was in Government) has historically always sought to use loopholes to comply with emission reduction targets.

So for the talking point "We are meeting our obligations", the reality is "we used creative carbon accounting to obscure the fact that gross and net emissions of greenhouse gases have increased by 21% and 42% since 1990 respectively".

One of the reports referred to by Paula Bennett was the Second Biennial Report to the UNFCCC. This included a spreadsheet of data on projected New Zealand emissions until 2030. So of course I had to create a graph of it.

The creative commons license is CC BY-SA 4.0

I used the R programming language and the script is available on the Wikimedia Commons page. Anyone is free to use the graph, it is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence, via Wikimedia Commons

Categorising the emissions by sectors of the economy makes it very clear that pastoral agriculture by far and away contributes more than any other sector. Emissions from agriculture are twice as large as the second largest sector, energy. I added the projected growth of each industry sector by percent since 1990; agriculture, + 22%; energy, + 19%; transport + 60%; industry + 101%; waste, + 4%.

The upward emissions trend is in stark contrast to the Ministry for the Environment's web page on how New Zealand is meeting the 2020 emissions reduction target.

Minister for Climate Change Paula Bennett's first act is confirming 'Hot Air' creative accounting with surplus Kyoto Protocol units

New Zealand's new Minister for Climate Change Issues, Paula Bennett, has just confirmed New Zealand will be "carrying forward" 127 million "Hot Air" emissions units (or offsets) under the Kyoto Protocol rules. These units mostly do not represent a tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced somewhere else and yet the Government intends to use them to allow New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions to continue to increase.

On Thursday 17 December 2015, Ms Bennett released a statement stating that New Zealand had met it's 2008 to 2012 Kyoto Protocol emissions reduction target and was well on the way to meeting the 2013 to 2020 target.

The Minister's statement linked to four reports on the Ministry for the Environment's website;

1. the Biennial report and net position snapshot 2015,
2. the Biennial Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
3. the Report upon expiration of the additional period for fulfilling commitments by New Zealand and finally
4. the updated Latest update on New Zealand's 2020 net position

.

In two scathing posts No Right Turn assesses the dubious use of the Ukrainian and Russian units derived from coal stockpile projects; Climate change: A policy based on fraud and Climate change: How bad is New Zealand's climate fraud?.

My previous estimate of the amount of surplus units was 86 million units. The reports confirm 127 million units. I did a back-of-envelope calculation to relate the numbers of units cancelled (to match 2008 2012 emissions) and the numbers left over as 'surplus' which may be carried forward.

The updated Latest update on New Zealand's 2020 net position explicitly confirms that New Zealand is 're-using' the surplus units in assessing compliance with the 2020 target of a 5% reduction in emissions from a 1990 gross emissions base. So we will 'meet' the 2020 target in spite of projected increases in both gross emissions and net emissions. Gross emissions in 2020 are estimated to be 83 million tonnes, or 24% higher than 1990's 67 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Net emissions in 2020 are estimated to be 59 million tonnes, or 54% higher than 1990's 38 million tonnes.

Manipulating accounting rules like this, so that an adverse trend is systematically misrepresented is as it's opposite, a positive trend - is the text-book definition of creative accounting. I agree with No Right Turn that this is another example of New Zealand's completely unethical climate change policy.

Is it ‘doing our fair share’ to use creative accounting to meet the 2020 climate change target?

I look at how the National Government intends to use creative carbon accounting to ensure that New Zealand meets it’s 2020 climate change target (a five percent reduction from 1990) in spite of a projected trend of increasing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) to 2020.

On 10 April 2015, when he was releasing the latest inventory of greenhouse gases, the Minister for Climate Change Issues Tim Groser made this very confident statement about the New Zealand 2020 climate change target; “We’re well on track to meet our 2020 target"

That target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to five per cent below 1990 levels by 2020.

When this was announced in 2013 the ambition (-5%) of the target was criticised as useless, pathetic and inadequate.

The five percent reduction stands in stark contrast to the Ministry for the Environments projections of increasing emissions out to 2020. The Ministry estimates that the increase in gross (total) emissions in 2020 will be 29% above the 1990 baseline (from 60 to 77 million tonnes) and the increase in net emissions (gross less any increase in the stock of carbon stored in forests) to 2020 will be 130% (from 33 to 75 million tonnes). So why is Tim Groser so confident that the target will be achieved?

Simon Terry of the Sustainability Council has commented on the ‘kicking the can down the road’ features of the Government’s climate change policies: the mismatch between the emissions target and the predicted emissions, the absence of a credible plan or carbon budget approach and the deferring of liabilities into the future.

Taking Simon Terry’s work as a starting point, I am going to look at how the Government intends to apply the accounting rules for carbon credits to achieve the 2020 target in spite of the likely predicted increase in gross and net greenhouse gas emissions.

So how is New Zealand going to reduce emissions by five percent by 2020?

In December 2014, at the Lima, Peru, climate change conference, the New Zealand climate ambassador Jo Tyndall was asked that specific question. Her answer was that New Zealand plans to meet its 2020 target through a combination of;

1. domestic emissions reductions,
2. removal of carbon dioxide by forests,
3. participation in international carbon markets and,
4. recognising surplus achieved during the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

Domestic emissions reductions are unlikely. In 2013, Tim Groser told the Herald that his "strong advice" from officials was that the 2020 target could be met without any changes to settings of the NZ emissions trading scheme (ETS). The relevant Cabinet Paper for the 2020 target also states that the 2020 target can be met without changing policies or ETS costs. In other words, the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme will remain in its current induced coma, and stay ineffective in reducing domestic emissions.

New Zealand can’t meet the target by buying carbon credits from international carbon markets as access was blocked at the Doha meeting because we didn’t sign up to a formal Kyoto Protocol second commitment period target.

That leaves two ways of meeting the 2020 target; removal of carbon dioxide by forests, and recognising surplus units from the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. I will look at the removal of carbon dioxide by forests next.

Forest carbon and Kyoto gross-net carbon accounting

By saying “removal of carbon dioxide by forests”, politicians and officials actually mean that carbon credits will be accounted for using the Kyoto Protocol’s gross-net forest carbon accounting rule. This sounds innocuous, if a bit sleep-inducing. It is in fact a method of creative accounting that New Zealand has already relied on to meet the 2008-2012 Kyoto first commitment period target.

The 'baseline’, 1990 emissions, is “gross” - the sum of all emissions without subtracting any “credit” for carbon absorbed into sinks such as growing forests and land use changes. The target (2008 to 2012) emissions are “net", as credits for carbon absorbed in growing forests are recognised and are subtracted from the gross emissions. This is called gross-net accounting. This makes the comparison between baseline and target inconsistent - it is not an “apples with apples” comparison.

I have blogged on this before but Professor Martin Manning, an IPCC author and formerly of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, explained it better in 2012.

..achieving the Kyoto Protocol target can be quite misleading because it compares net emissions over the first commitment period, 2008 – 2012, with the gross emissions in 1990. If one compares the net emissions in 2012 with those for 1990, then the increase in New Zealand has actually been more than 100%.

The National Government intends to repeat this gross net accounting for the 2013 to 2020 target. As long as forest growth exceeds deforestation, this will allow both net and gross emissions to increase up to the quantity of carbon absorbed in forests that was ignored in the 1990 baseline.

The Climate Action Tracker website thinks the credit for carbon absorbed in forests could be up to 25 million tonnes CO2e a year and the ‘recognition’ (under Kyoto rules) of all the units would allow New Zealand gross emissions to increase up to 35% above the 1990 baseline.

Surplus Kyoto units from first Commitment Period 2008 - 2012

Jo Tyndall’s final method of achieving the 2020 target is to recognise surplus units from the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. According to the latest Ministry for the Environment’s net position statement for the Kyoto Protocol, New Zealand will finish the first commitment period (2008-2012) with a surplus of 123.7 million units.

Even though New Zealand has no formal 2013-2020 Kyoto ‘commitment’, the Government intends to ‘carry over’ millions of these surplus Kyoto units to the 2013-2020 period in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol rules.

The carry-over rules are of course complicated, but I calculate that New Zealand will be able to ‘carry over’ almost all of them - 86 million units of the various types of units (see final paragraph - Appendix ‘Carry-over’ of Kyoto first period units).

What’s wrong with having a surplus of units? An effective emissions trading scheme with a real cap would never have surplus units. Units would be scarce and realistically priced. A surplus of units is of itself evidence of a failed implementation of cap and trade frameworks such as Kyoto and the EU ETS.

A surplus of units is one consequence of emissions trading with no cap, unlimited access to international carbon markets and over-allocation of units to industry and a rock-bottom unit price. Which is exactly what we have had with the NZ ETS.

We need to remind ourselves why New Zealand has a surplus of units for the Kyoto Protocol first period. Although net and gross emissions increased, New Zealand gained surplus units by using the gross-net forest carbon accounting rule and allowing the nearly unlimited import of low-priced international units with dubious integrity which were surrendered by ETS participants to match their emissions.

According to Climate Analytics, internationally, the Kyoto first commitment period ended with 14 billion surplus units; enough to allow all the signatory countries to “comply” with their 2020 targets without restricting business as usual emissions growth.

And this is exactly what the Government intends to do.

Each Kyoto unit carried forward will be counted towards New Zealand’s 2020 target and will allow an additional tonne of domestic greenhouse gas emissions above the 1990 baseline.

Similarly, each carbon credit recognised for carbon absorbed in forests between 2013 and 20120 will be counted towards New Zealand’s 2020 target and will allow an additional tonne of domestic greenhouse as emissions above the 1990 baseline.

Conclusion

Our politicians and bureaucrats could have focused on policies to reduce domestic emissions to meet the 2020 target. Achieving the 2020 target won’t be an outcome of policies to reduce emissions. Like fixing the emissions trading system. It will be an outcome of the accounting rules chosen for the carbon credits the Government can hold. That’s called creative accounting.

Appendix “Carry-over” of Kyoto first period units

The Kyoto Protocol has “carry-over” rules for unused units at the end of the 2008 - 2012 first commitment period. Some surplus units may be 'carried over’ to the second commitment period and then be used to comply with a country’s official commitment. Although New Zealand has not taken up a Kyoto second period commitment, New Zealand none the less intends to mimic the application of Kyoto rules designed to carry over surplus units from CP1 to CP2.

New Zealand will have a surplus of 91 million units after transferring 378 million units to a cancellation account for the 378 million tonnes of emissions between 2008 and 2012.

There are limits on which and how many units can be “carried over”. All assigned amount units (AAUs) can be carried over; forest removal units (RMUs) cannot be carried over, carry-over of Certified Emission Reduction units (CERS) and Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) are limited to 2.5% of New Zealand’s initial assigned amount or 7.7 million each. See the UNFCCC Reference Manual

The Government will probably prefer to retire units that cannot be carried over in order to maximise the number it may carry forward.

On that basis, all 72 million RMUs will be cancelled, 37.3 million CERs and 37.3 million ERUs will be cancelled, leaving 7.7 million each of CERs and ERUs carried forward. Then only 231.4 million AAUs need to be cancelled to make up to 378 million units.

The total carried over will be 86 million units composed of 7.7 million CERs, 7.7 million ERUs and 70.6 million AAUs.

The Kyoto New Zealand break-up - when unfaithful New Zealand said 'commitment' he never meant it

In this post I argue the best analogy for New Zealand's choice to opt out of a second commitment period (of reducing emissions) under the Kyoto Protocol - is: unfaithful men who won't commit to their partners!

New Zealand governments have behaved faithlessly towards Kyoto. The current National Government under Climate Minister Tim Groser won't commit to the Kyoto Protocol stage 2. And the 1990s National Government gave a commitment they had no intention of being faithful to. New Zealand politicians and diplomats intentionally negotiated the Kyoto Protocol so that New Zealand's Kyoto target would be met without reducing either gross or net emissions of greenhouse gases

I have argued before that New Zealand did not sign the Kyoto Protocol in good faith. As we seem unable to commit to Kyoto stage 2 in good faith, I have had another look at how faithful New Zealand's position was right from the the beginnings of Kyoto Protocol negotiations and at ratification in 2002.

According to a UNFCCC account of the Kyoto negotiations 'Tracing the Origins of the Kyoto Protocol: An Article-by-Article Textual History' on page 48;

"New Zealand was the only Party which made an early, more comprehensive proposal on the treatment of sinks, suggesting that sequestration of greenhouse gases from certain listed categories should be added to a Party's emission budget" (paragraph 226)

"New Zealand...faxed through a proposal for the treatment of sinks...sinks would not be included in a Party's baseline, but removals would be credited to a Party's budget (the so-called 'gross-net' approach)." (para 227)

(NB 'Sinks' meaning forests or land-use or land-use-change that sequesters carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So the New Zealand diplomats were 'ahead of the curve' in negotiating to get forest sinks recognised so they could offset other emissions.)

In October 1997,three weeks before the UNFCCC meeting in Kyoto, Simon Upton, the Minister for the Environment in Jim Bolger's National Government said in a speech:

"New Zealand has long been advocating" for Kyoto rules where "removing carbon from the atmosphere in future years will earn us credits"

Let's look at the advice the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gave the government in February 2002, prior to New Zealand ratifying Kyoto that year. It was in a document called National Interest Analyses - Kyoto Protocol Part II

"New Zealand has an initial assigned amount for the first commitment period currently estimated to be 365 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent. That is, New Zealand is allowed to emit 365 Mt of carbon dioxide (or equivalent in other gases) over the years 2008 to 2012...New Zealand is expected to emit between 50 and 75 million tonnes over its 365 Mt initial assigned amount during the commitment period...."
"Current estimates are that, during the commitment period: New Zealand will emit between 415 million and 440 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, and New Zealand sink activities (derived from forests planted from 1990 onwards) will provide an additional 110 million units of assigned amount, in the form of removal units."
"At a national level, New Zealand is therefore expected to have a surplus of assigned amount over emissions of between 35 and 60 million units over the five years of the first commitment period."

So the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade were saying:

1. New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions would increase (not reduce) through to 2012.
2. New Zealand would meet its Kyoto target by issuing itself additional forest sink removal units.
3. New Zealand would make an economic gain from having a surplus of emission units.

So New Zealand would meet a 'trifecta' of Kyoto-related goals, none of which were reduced gross or net emissions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade were especially proud of that last point, making a profit.

"New Zealand’s effectiveness in climate change negotiations means it is one of the few developed countries that stands to make a small net economic gain from the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period."

So what would the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade's predicted increased emissions and forest removal units look like on a chart? Assuming the maximum 75 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases is represented by a linear increase of 0.94% p.a. from a base of 73 million tonnes in 1990, and the forest removal units are issued equally over 2008 to 2012, it looks like this.

This is what 'gross-net Kyoto accounting' of emissions and emission units looks like. From 1990 to 2007, gross (or total emissions - blue dots) are the same as "Kyoto" emissions (the red dots). However, from 2008, you get the "Kyoto" emissions by subtracting carbon dioxide removed by 'human induced afforestation, reforestation and deforestation' (the violet dots) from the gross emissions. And the red dot Kyoto emissions suddenly dive under the 1990 baseline, even though both net and gross emissions have increased.

Except for the straight line, which is from my linear growth assumption, that looks very much like the current gross, net and Kyoto emissions, which I update below in a brand new animated 'Kyoto Escalator' chart

It's interesting to note that in the Ministry for the Environment's November 2012 calculation of the net Kyoto Protocol position, that although the ministry predicts a surplus of units (exceeding the target), this will happen in spite of an estimated 80% increase in annual net emissions since 1990 and a 27% increase in gross emissions. The actual gross and net emissions to 2010 have grown by 19% and 59% respectively, as shown in this chart

This is why whenever we hear Tim Groser or Nick Smith claim the New Zealand is meeting it's Kyoto target, we need to realise they are being the ultimate uncommitted unfaithful partner; in spite of their smooth rhetoric of caring about global warming, New Zealand's gross and net greenhouse emissions are showing an increasing trend. New Zealand needs to adopt policies that really do just stop emissions.

NB The original meme is Kyoto New Zealand break-up and all the images are at Picasa at Kyoto's Break-up with New Zealand where they can be viewed as a slide show. Feel free to use them and make up some more.

New Zealand breaks up with Kyoto Protocol over lack of commitment

I have made up a meme using a meme generator. It's about New Zealand and the Kyoto Protocol.

It is the break-up.

They were a nice couple. They met at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They set an example for the rest of the world. but..after five years, New Zealand broke up with Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto says New Zealand wouldn't give a second commitment...even though they set up international emissions trading together. Lately New Zealand is believed to be hanging around Durban Platform.

Here is another. NZ won't commit.

But we had an Emissions Trading Scheme together.

He's left me for China, India and the USA.

It's been so difficult since the Durban Platform.

I only asked him to reduce net and gross emissions.

I only asked him to stop fiddling with his forest sinks.

The collection is called the Kyoto New Zealand break-up. It's been so much fun!

New Zealand's double dealing and special pleading over the Kyoto Protocol second period Tim Grocer special

Is Tim Groser a Kyoto pariah? Or a Kyoto visonary? A global emissions reduction emissary or is he tar-sanded with a Canadian brush? I once more try to make sense of New Zealand's double dealing and special pleading over the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period and the Doha hooha. This time with the aid of Tim Groser, who has written an opinion editorial in the Herald.

Tim Groser, New Zealand's most forthright Minister for Climate Changes, has a shocker of an Op Ed in the New Zealand Herald.

When I first read it, I wrote down my responses to what seemed the most misleading claims. The headline shocker is that either Tim Groser is so out of touch with his portfolio that he has no idea what the current price of carbon in New Zealand, or he is so incompetent that he can't tell US dollars from NZ dollars.

But there are shockers for all of us. I present Groser's quotes in italics and in indented blockquote format, followed by my response in plain text and no indents.

TG: "It's time to move past Kyoto agreement"

Canada o Canada. Groser is channelling Canadian Minister of Environment Peter Kent "Kyoto for Canada is in the past."

TG: "The unrelenting emphasis (on Kyoto) has sucked energy out of debate, diverting attention from the real problem."

This is a classic PR spin tactic of diversion. Groser wishes to divert attention towards the USA, China and India and away from New Zealand's double dealing.

TG "The science, as I interpret it, remains pretty clear"

Yes, Tim Groser does not deny the science, it's just that National and Mr Groser have no intention acting domestically in any way consistent with the science. Perhaps that makes him a 'policy denier'

TG "The international community needs to develop a more robust approach involving far more of the major emitting countries. Whatever New Zealand does will be completely irrelevant unless the major emitters participate."

Canada o Canada "We support a new international climate change agreement that includes commitments from all major emitters. That is the only way we are going to achieve real reductions and real results" Canadian Minister of Environment Peter Kent.

TG "some of the confusion has been deliberate"

Ah the old fifth column within, the extreme green economic traitors, those awkward truth telling ecologists like Mike Joy, Ha I can just find some with other opinions.

TG "First, the ETS has not been "gutted" by the changes passed recently in Parliament"

No, because the NZETS was "gutless" from day 1, as it has no cap, and it always allowed unlimited importing of international units. In 2012, National did defer indefinitely agriculture's entry and extend indefinitely the provisions for half-price emissions for emitters (2-for-1 deal).

TG "No New Zealander - no household, no company - has to pay more, or subsidise anyone because of this decision"

Except New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Limited and Norske-Skog Tasman.

TG "Our top priority is to strengthen the recovery in extremely difficult international economic times."

That really means Groser's top priority always was to have an emissions trading scheme with a more-or-less zero carbon price.

TG "the (NZETS) legislation was, in effect a , a one-way bet taken on the last day of the Labour Government's life in 2008 that the 2009 Copenhagen Summit would deliver a 'single, comprehensive and ratifiable climate change agreement' (the political mantra of the day)."

That statement is a totally revisionist Chairman Mao-like rewrite of history to suit a political agenda. The staggered entry of sectors dates back to Helen Clark's MOU with agriculture signed after the Belch Tax debacle. It also reflects political lobbying by Business NZ and the need to find votes of support from Peter Dunne to get the legislation passed.

TG "We no longer have to pass amending legislation to avoid an automatic ramping up of the scheme, irrespective of either economic conditions or international progress."

By saying this Groser lets us know that for National the delayed entry dates and the apparent all-sectors design were a "Potemkin village". National never had any intention of bringing agriculture into the NZETS.

TG "At current low international carbon prices - they move around but they are clustered around $5 - there is indeed little petrol in the ETS tank. But that is exactly the way it was designed - to be aligned to world prices, whatever world prices are, up to a cap"

To me this is so gobsmacking it's...Hekia Parata. Groser has no idea what the current NZ carbon price is! Groser can't even read the price of a New Zealand unit (NZU) off the Bloomberg website without confusing US dollars and NZ dollars. What an idiot!

Here is the chart Groser can't read

The NZU price is NOT "around $5" Its around $NZ2.50/tonne

So Tim Groser says the NZETS is designed to import the international carbon price and thats a good thing. If it is so good being wedded to international prices, why has he taken us out of the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period?

TG "The domestic political debate has confused the structure of the policy with the international drivers of the carbon price."

Thats just adding insult to financial injury to the Kyoto forestry sector where some have has lost 80% of the value of the post-1989 Kyoto forests. It's a double blow, as the Government is keeping forestry removal units (earned for the same forests) to itself to fudge the Kyoto net position.

TG "watch what happens to the carbon price when the international recession is over and the EU moves to strengthen carbon markets and, hopefully, more countries start adopting carbon policies. You will then hear, no doubt, the exact opposite of the current political debate. Foresters will be happier as the carbon they sequester becomes more valuable (paper profits unless they sell them) and emitters will be less happy as they pay a higher carbon price."

Thanks for lecture on prices, Tim. By the time the Eurozone has dealt with the over-allocation their carbon markets, and if they ever do, it will be way past 2015 or 2016, and New Zealand won't even be in Kyoto's second commitment period and Tim Groser will probably have canned the NZETS by then anyway!

TG "NZ continues to make remarkable progress in increasing the share of our electricity coming from renewable energy - it is 77 per cent and climbing."

Tim Groser is taking credit for past Ministry of Works hydro projects. Does he really think the public are so stupid as to see that argument as in any way relevant to climate change mitigation? Meanwhile the younger generation are calling for the power shift to 100% renewable electricity. How long until Groser calls them 'extreme greens'?

TG "So is this a great time to put new costs on our major exporting industry when we have a huge need to increase our exports?"

I could say how else could a carbon price work if it is not a real cost? How can any NZ carbon price policy be effective if half the economy is out? This is Groser's and National's real policy bottom-line. Exports uber alles! Exports above all else! National truly and obviously have no intention of pricing New Zealand's domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

TG "Our agriculture sector is, by and large, the most carbon efficient agriculture sector in the world."

Thats very Bruce Wills of him. So agriculture will be fine with a no-exceptions emissions trading scheme or carbon tax.

TG "This is the Global Research Alliance on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, which we lead."

Great but what pays for it? Thats right, taxpayers. So that's a subsidy, then. Having agriculture in the emissions trading scheme would help pay for it.

TG "A few days ago we joined another international initiative on climate change - the Climate and Clean Air Coalition"

Great! so now we mitigate climate change by friending someone's Facebook page. I think I will let William Nordhaus know he doesn't need to run carbon pricing on the DICE global model anymore as it's all on Facebook.

TG "It is time to move beyond Kyoto and find a solution that can have a real environmental impact."

Canada o Canada. "Kyoto for Canada is in the past..","Copenhagen and Cancun agreements, which were negotiated in 2009 and 2010 as the world stared down the end of Kyoto, are the future." Peter Kent, Canadian Minister of Environment.

TG "We are on track to meet or exceed our Kyoto commitment to 2012."

Only because of the "Kyoto escalator" of the gross 1990 baseline for the net target forest fudge.

From 1990 to 2010, New Zealand's gross emissions grew by 20%, from 60 million tonnes (mt) to 72mt. Net emissions grew by 59% (from 32mt to to 52mt (data New Zealand's Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990-2010) So both gross and net greenhouse gas time series show a relentless upward trend.

So for my conclusion, I might just recycle some from a previous post. But with one difference.

1. When we hear Tim Groser talking of focusing on a global climate solution that involves 86% of the emitters that can have a real environmental impact, we now know he is just recycling speech notes from Canadian Minister Peter Kent and diverting attention from New Zealand's policy shambles.
2. Tim Groser and National have absolutely no intention doing anything domestically to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
3. Tim Groser and National also have absolutely no intention of imposing any real carbon price on New Zealand's industrial and agricultural emitters.

New Zealand's double dealing and special pleading over the Kyoto Protocol second period and the Doha hooha Part 1

Is Tim Groser a Kyoto pariah? Or a Kyoto visonary? A global emissions reduction emissary or is he tar-sanded with a Canadian brush? I try to make sense of New Zealand's double dealing and special pleading over the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period and the Doha climate change talks hooha.

I am very confused about New Zealand's climate change policy since the Doha international climate change talks (COP18) and New Zealand opting out of a second period of the Kyoto Protocol back on 9 November 2012.

The Kyoto part two opt-out is described as a lose-lose decision that shuts New Zealand out of the Kyoto international carbon markets and is a shambles and a disgrace.

So I have a question for all Hot-topic readers.

If Minister of Climate Change Tim Groser is serious about New Zealand's 2020 greenhouse gas target, why would he forego formally lodging the 2020 target into the existing Kyoto Protocol framework (where the national institutions and arrangements are already up and running), in favour of pledging to meet the target on a voluntary basis?

Let me break that question down into several parts.

1. Imagine you are the Minister for Climate Change in the government of a small developed nation.
2. This nation has signed an international treaty with a few other nations which states a short-term national target for emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
3. This nation enacts the treaty by creating some new institutions; a national register for emissions units, national inventories of GHG emissions, national surveys of afforestation, and public servants to report the predicted progress towards the national target.
4. The nation has adopted several policies relying on the treaty institutions; an emissions trading scheme, forest sink schemes, research alliances, and international trading of emissions units.
5. The nation has a second publicly stated medium-term target for GHGs for the years following the expiry of the first target.

If you are serious about that second GHG target, why would you pledge the target on a voluntary basis, when you could have formally lodged your target into the existing treaty (where the national institutions and arrangements already exist)?

Any answers? Anyone? Would you like to phone a friend?

Okay, here's a hint. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has said that we are on track to exceed the 1990 GHGs baseline by 30% rather than meet the 2020 target of reducing GHGs by 10 to 20% compared to 1990.

Figure 3.2 from page 18 of Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, “Lignite and climate change: The high cost of low grade coal”, December 2010. Data from MfE 2009. Fifth national communication under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ministry for the Environment, Wellington.

Now just because New Zealand's net emissions are likely to consistently increase through to 2020 doesn't automatically mean New Zealand would not meet the 2020 target if translated into a Kyoto second commitment period target. We could just buy extra emissions units from the international Kyoto carbon markets.

That is, if there was a sensibly designed emissions trading scheme. Such a scheme would be 100% "emitter pays", with emitters making their own market-based decisions to either reduce emissions or to buy the emissions units. Well we certainly don't have that.

So my conclusion is that it is not just that Tim Groser has absolutely no intention doing anything domestically to achieve the 2020 target of a 10 to 20% reduction in GHGs. Groser and National also have absolutely no intention of imposing any real carbon price on New Zealand's industrial and agricultural emitters.

Did anyone sign the Kyoto Protocol in good faith? The Kyoto Escalator shows that New Zealand certainly didn't

Robin Johnson's Economics Web Page introduces the Kyoto Escalator chart and argues that New Zealand was just as complicit as the major European countries in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol so that they complied with it without reducing either gross or net emissions.

New Zealand's Gross greenhouse gas emissions (blue) net emissions (brown) and 'Kyoto' emissions (red) 1990 to 2012. Double click on the chart to see it at 100% and in good resolution.

Professor Dave Frame is the new director of the Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington. He is a University of Canterbury-trained scientist who has worked for some years in Britain. He has just joined the climate change fray with a very interesting opinion editorial "International focus needed over climate" in the Dominion Post. Welcome to climate change issues back in New Zealand, David.

David Frame writes that New Zealand does not want to be thought of as the country that reneges on international treaties.

"Reputationally, accepting commitments and then failing to deliver on them is not a look New Zealand likes. "Doesn't honour the treaties it's signed" is not one of the few sentences we want people to remember about us."

So, yes, I agree, New Zealand should honour the treaties it signs. I hate to nitpick but, isn't New Zealand the country that was explicitly founded in 1840 on a treaty that was not honoured?

David Frame describes the history of the Kyoto Protocol climate negotiations

"...the Kyoto Protocol was a no-win situation for places like New Zealand. In the 1990s Britain and Germany were reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases for non-climate-related reasons (declining manufacturing and the collapse of the coal industry in Britain; technological substitution in the case of post-reunification Germany)."

"Kyoto's structure, reductions of emissions by some specific fraction compared with 1990 levels, were designed with this in mind, since it allowed Europe to appear to "take the lead" without actually doing anything very different from what they were going to do anyway. It was an approach so clearly aligned with the near-term reputational interests of some stakeholders that the Nobel prize-winning strategist Tom Schelling wrote of it: 'I cannot help believing that adoption of such a commitment is an indication of insincerity'."

Frame believes New Zealand's negotiators were innocent parties who acquiesced in these machinations while Britain and Germany portrayed themselves as "leaders" on climate change, even though their emissions reductions basically consisted of doing what they were going to do anyway.

While I am a little disappointed that Britain and Germany acted in such a self-serving way, I don't doubt that David Frame is correct about their motives. However, I don't think he is correct to say New Zealand was innocent. On 31 October 1997, the then Minister of Climate Change Simon Upton gave a speech about New Zealand's negotiating position three weeks before the UNFCCC meeting in Kyoto.

Upton stated that within New Zealand's negotiating position, using forest sinks to offset increases in emissions was just as important as the Protocol including international emissions trading, an all-gases approach and prompt acceptance of commitments by developed countries.

"Sequestration of carbon in sinks (such as forests) should qualify alongside emission reductions for the purposes of counting progress towards any targets that are agreed."

Upton contines.

"I want to say why sinks are important - spelling out in broad terms the economic benefits to New Zealand of counting sinks - and explain briefly how New Zealand considers they ought to be treated. Then I want to say why - even though the correct treatment of sinks is both fair in terms of the Convention, and good for New Zealand's economy - sinks nevertheless do not and cannot protect New Zealand emitters of greenhouse gases from adjustment."

"Adding to carbon stocks through afforestation should count positively; reducing stocks (through forest harvest, land clearance and such like) should count negatively."

"If - and I emphasise if - sequestration is treated in the way New Zealand has long been advocating, then the major contribution we expect to make to removing carbon from the atmosphere in future years will earn us 'credits'."

Upton and the New Zealand negotiators got what they wanted. Forest carbon sink credits were included as offsets. However, Upton provided several cautionary notes. If NZ's forest carbon credits were recognised in Kyoto, it may be perceived as special pleading. Also fairness suggested that forest owners should receive them, and be able to sell them. As opposed to the Government keeping them for compliance with Kyoto.

"New Zealand's stance on sinks has been treated with scepticism by some because, superficially, it looks as though it may be special pleading by New Zealand to take advantage of our sinks to reduce the pressure on emitters to make adjustments. We do not see it that way. New Zealand has been clear in responding to other countries that we do not see the accrual of sink credits as a way to insulate New Zealand from acting to reduce emissions. We see New Zealand's sink credits being an integral part of the international emission trading market. As such, we see New Zealand emitters facing the world price for carbon emissions provided that price is generated by a free market in emission permits."

"Let me now turn to a related question: why recognition of sinks nevertheless does not and cannot protect New Zealand emitters of greenhouse gases from adjustment. It might be suggested that New Zealand's interest in sinks stems purely from a desire to secure for itself a large buffer that would allow for significant growth in greenhouse gas emissions. That is not the case -- nor do I believe would it be credible to pursue such an objective."

"It would simply not be credible to advocate least cost tradeable mechanisms for the world and then seek to keep New Zealand's forest credits for domestic use only. Sequestration credits should accrue to the forest growers who earn them, and they should be free to place them on the world market."

So Simon Upton foresaw two problems with using the credits from forest carbon sequestration as a buffer to allow growth of GHG emissions. There was the reputational problem of New Zealand's insincere negotiating position in the Kyoto discussions. And there was the problem that the credits should accrue to the owners of the forests, not the Government.

New Zealand's climate change officials solved the "who's credits?" problem by inventing a new 'junk' currency to be issued to the commercial foresters instead of Kyoto units (and to buy off greedy emitters); the New Zealand Unit. The real Kyoto forest carbon removal units were kept "off the balance sheet". In the New Zealand Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990 2009 and in the Kyoto Protocol net position report, the carbon sequestration from 2008 to 2012 is estimated from forest surveys. The actual Kyoto removal units will not be recognised until after 2012. It is these as-yet unissued units that offset the 19% increase in New Zealand's gross GHG emissions since 1990.

It seems since Simon Upton's time, we have developed collective amnesia about intentionally negotiating the Kyoto Protocol so that we could rely on forest carbon sinks to buffer increases in greenhouse gases. Has any one of the Kyoto Protocol parties negotiated and acted in good faith? New Zealand certainly hasn't

How to chart the NZ Kyoto Protocol commitment

The post about Dr Nick Smith's junk chart has been on Hot Topic NZ, the Oil Drum Oz and NZ and hat-tipped on No Right Turn

Okay, so what would a good chart of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions and compliance with the Kyoto Protocol look like?

We mulled over that issue last year when we wrote a how to book on carbon forests.

I came up with this chart as a first draft.

Clunky and black and white. Add colour.

Paul Kennett said "hmmmm" and asked me for the data and he came up with this.


Not surprisingly, Paul's version appeared in the published version of The Carbon Forest (available now at the Kennett Bros!)

The NZ ETS Review 2011 and the Minister's Chartjunk

This evening I was intending to carefully read the Report on the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme that Minister for Climate Change Issues Nick Smith released today and write a considered review.

However, I only got as far as Nick Smith's forward on the the third page when I got stopped in my tracks by Figure 3, a misleading piece of chartjunk if I ever saw one, about New Zealand being on target to meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Here it is.
The chart legend says it shows "Kyoto net emissions (actual emissions)". This parameter trends upward to 2007 and then in 2008 and 2009 it suddenly drops below the blue line of NZ 1990 emissions. Thus showing we are meeting our emissions reduction commitment that we signed up in the Kyoto Protocol. Its enough to make you proud to be a Blue-Green.

This chart is junk because it misrepresents the underlying data on greenhouse gas emissions. Back to the legend: "Kyoto net emissions (actual emissions)". Why does it say "actual emissions" in brackets? Because Smith would like you to think that. Lets look at a real chart of real New Zealand greenhouse gas emissions.

This shows total real emissions up to 2007 and predicted emissions 2008 to 2012 - the green line. It looks nothing like Fig 3. The actual and predicted trend does not show a return to 1990 volumes of emissions. However, that legend also said net emissions, that is total or gross emissions in any year less carbon absorbed by forests. Maybe Fig 3 is based on net emissions.


The trend in net emissions (total less forest sink removals) or the blue line shows an even steeper rate of increase than the total emissions. So how can Fig 3 show that New Zealand reduced emissions to 1990 volumes? Two more clues are in Figure 3. The title is "Kyoto net" and there is a note under the data source says "Kyoto net 2000-2007 values are backcasted". So the Fig 3 data is not just "net", it is also "Kyoto net" and "backcasted". What does ''backcasted" mean? Another chart shows how Smith gets to Fig 3 from the real total and net emissions data.


Greenhouse gas emissions, as defined for compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, are gross from 1990 to 2007, and once the Kyoto commitment period starts in 2008, an Annex B country like New Zealand can meet its target by deducting removal units issued for carbon sinks - so Kyoto-defined emissions go net from 2008. Hence the red line. The removal units issued for afforestation (the increase in carbon stock in a forest planted since 1990) appear as if from nowhere in 2008 and disguise the growth in both the gross and net emissions.