Hasta la vista Greenhouse Policy Coalition

Hasta la vista Greenhouse Policy Coalition, your work here is done - the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme really is now completely stuffed.

or , alternatively,

Hasta la vista Greenhouse Policy Coalition, so long and thanks for all the Clayton's climate change policy.

What would be one certain sign that New Zealand's climate change policy and its emissions trading scheme are both fatally flawed? Say you had a hypothetical pet lobbying body that has advocates for the big greenhouse gas emitters. It has been dedicated (largely successfully it seems) to making New Zealand's climate change and emissions trading policies emitter-friendly and emissions-friendly. If there was such a lobbyist, wouldn't we know their work was done when they stopped?

  

I just spotted this statement on the index page of the Greenhouse Policy Coalition of New Zealand.  Yes, it really does say

"The Greenhouse Policy Coalition wound up its operations on 31 March 2012. No changes have been made to this site since that date".

I guess they won't be commenting on behalf of their member company New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ Ltd winning the 2011 Roger Award for "milking the NZETS".

Helter smelter - NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ wins the 2011 Roger Award

Robin Johnson's Economics Web Page reports that NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ have just won the 2011 Roger Award for Worst Transnational Corporation operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand "for milking the NZETS".

Every year the group Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA) awards a Roger Award for bad multinational corporate behavour.

Past winners have been Warner Brothers for the Hobbit film employment law change and British American Tobacco.

Readers may recall I wrote some posts about the excessive allocation of free emissions units from the NZ Emissions Trading Scheme to NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ.

I concluded that in 2010 the Rio Tinto Alcon NZ received 135% more emissions units than it needed for its greenhouse emissions, as an undisclosed amount of units were to compensate it for undisclosed ETS-related electricity costs.

In other words, Rio Tinto Alcon NZ would pay a higher 'carbon' price if it was exempt from the NZ ETS, as they would at least be paying some 'carbon' price as a 'downstream' electricity user.

I rewrote the analysis from those posts and wrote to CAFCA nominating NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ for a Roger Award.

Well, the winner was announced on Saturday and it is..........NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ! I quote from the judges report.

1. New Zealand Aluminium Smelters Ltd (NZAS) has effectively undermined the purposes of the carbon emissions trading scheme...
2. NZAS has already been secretly compensated for any electricity price increases associated with the emissions trading scheme...
3. NZAS were provisionally allocated 423,047 New Zealand Units for 2011...
4. the New Zealand taxpayer is subsidising a transnational corporate rort of the emissions trading scheme.
5. NZAS has, effectively, abrogated any responsibility to mitigate the incidence of anthropogenic global warming... a major transnational player within New Zealand materially benefits from its non-compliance with a strategy to reduce global climate change...

And,

Of course, this raises fundamental questions about the efficiency of emissions trading, as compared to a tax-based model directed toward the largest CO₂ emitters.

I couldn't agree more. This is only a summary. The whole 26-page Judges report (PDF) is well worth a read. It includes a seven page history of the 'Comalco' smelter company that includes details of NZETS lobbying. There is also a ten-page analysis by Sue Newberry of the NZ Aluminium Smelters/Rio Tinto Alcan NZ finances and multinational corporate structure.

I leave the concluding point to the Judges.

With both Labour and National governments in thrall and with Greenhouse Policy Coalition lobbyists closely involved in the design and implementation of the ETS, it was only to be expected that Comalco/RTA would be at the head of the queue for its free handouts of emission units...Its milking of the Emissions Trading Scheme is entirely in character.  

Helter Smelter!

James Hansen and Te Radar part 1

Yes, I know. The combination seems a bit incongruous. Well, here are Dr James Hansen and Te Radar talking at Auckland's Town Hall at an event called "Festival for the Planet - A People's Assembly On Climate Change" held on 21 May 2011. This was James Hansen's final public appearance on his 9 day tour of Aotearoa.

The Science is Clear - new James Hansen talk from TED 2012

I have just found this recent 2012 TED talk by James Hansen. It has been on-line since 7 March. The number of views on youtube was 13,473 when I watched it. I bet that rises.



The talk is very polished. Hansen reads from a script and has obviously run through the talk several times. Hansen discusses the natural greenhouse effect, the Earth's energy imbalance caused primarily by fossil fuel combustion, sea-level rise, species extinctions, impacts on agriculture and the need to act for the benefit of future generations as represented by his grandchildren.

Obama and State Department cork the Keystone XL pipeline

No really! Denial of the Keystone XL Pipeline Application, Media Note, Office of the Spokesperson, United States Department of State, Washington, DC, January 18, 2012.

And Obama's response: Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, January 18, 2012

Joe Romm notes that the oil would go to China, the jobs to Canada and the extra carbon dioxide would go to global temperature increases - and asks was the decision really that hard?

See News for Denial of the Keystone XL Pipeline Application

The Durban UNFCCC international climate negotiations

In which I discuss the Durban UNFCCC international climate negotiations through a historic lense of the Second World War and the Rio 1992 Earth Summit.

In a very considered comment on the Hot Topic blog , David Lewis questions whether the Durban UNFCCC international climate negotiations can come up with a binding treaty that effectively reduces GHG concentrations, given the existing public will.

"I don’t see how negotiations on an international climate treaty can proceed to an agreement that would actually stabilize the composition of the atmosphere at a level that would not cause [dangerous anthropogenic interference] without more demand for such an agreement coming from the global population"

.

David Lewis compares the global demand for action in the international climate change negotiations with the changing British attitudes to 'Total War' with Hitler's Germany in 1940. Lewis implies that in the climate change negotiations, each government is "trapped in a circumstance where it can’t generate the national will that’s necessary".

In terms of the purposes served by international climate change negotiations, I would go a step further than that thoughtful comment from David Lewis. I say that the negotiations have never had the goal of producing a binding treaty to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations. Governments instead use the negotiations as one of their reasons for not reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and for continuing with 'business-as-usual'.

Let me summarise my contention using another reference to the Second World War.

Q. Whats the difference between Neville Chamberlain's negotiations in 1938 with Hitler in Munich that lead to the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the UNFCCC international climate change negotiations?
A. Neville Chamberlain only went once to Munich.

In making my argument I am influenced by a paper my late father Robin Johnson wrote in 1992 about the political-economy of the Rio Earth Summit. Robin uses the term "political-economy" to indicate he is considering the various groups with interests in the Earth Summit and asking what interests were served by the outcomes.

Robin noted that the expected outcomes of the Rio Earth Summit were binding signed international conventions on climate change and biological diversity. However, the actual outcome was a "framework convention...full of resounding phraseology and generalities".

Robin says the reason for this outcome was the fundamental split between the 'North' (developed countries) and South (developing country) blocs. Neither bloc was was willing to put global interest ahead of national interests. Instead, the outcome of the Earth Summit consisted of "non-binding language ... adopted to get all major nations to sign".

No agreement except on non-binding rhetorical statements! Sound familiar, doesn't it? Isn't that whats happened with all the subsequent climate change talks?

Robin's paper uncannily predicts much of the next 19 years of inconclusive negotiations. He wrote "Prior to meeting in Rio, some governments expressed concern that the Earth Summit would become a "pledging conference" where world leaders would be expected to step to the podium and announce their country's contribution." Copenhagen 2009, anyone?

Robin concluded "The challenge for those seeking action will be to channel the outcomes of Rio into concrete action by member states". Substitute "Bali 2007" or "Copenhagen 2009" or "Cancun 2010" for "Rio", and we can re-use that conclusion for all subsequent international climate change negotiations.

So, from a political economy point of view, the climate change negotiations have had the effect of ensuring that international opinion stays "behind the demand curve” for decisive action. After all, that is the function they have served in the 19 years since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

So I think we need to let go of the idea that the negotiations as they are currently constituted and conducted will make any useful contribution to the kind of decisive international action that is required. We need to accept that the negotiations are just another forum for business and politics as usual.

Swallowing the elephant flogging the dead horse

A snake swallows the elephant in the room and then flogs a dead horse - The politics of climate change in the 2011 New Zealand Election campaign

So whats happening with climate change in the campaign for the 26 November 2011 election?

I was originally thinking about writing a wonkish post comparing climate change policies between parties. You know the sort of thing.

Which parties have policies that reflect the seriousness of the impacts the science predicts? Who has got the science wrong? Which politicians are all talk and no action? What are the minute details of the each party's NZ ETS policies. Such as delays to sector entry dates, partial price obligations and varying free unit allocation regimes...MEGO, anyone? (My Eyes Glaze Over....)

Then I thought, Nah! I am looking through the wrong end of the telescope.

You know what really strikes me about climate change in the election?

It's the absence. It is as if climate change is nearly completely absent from the campaign. When climate change does pop up, it's portrayed in simplistic soundbites.

Nick Smith says anthropogenic climate change is real and complex and 'wicked'. But promises more moderating, balancing and delaying of the NZ ETS. Labour says anthropogenic climate change is real and we will fiddle with some NZ ETS details for agriculture slightly earlier than National as farmers don't vote for us anyway. The Greens say anthropogenic climate change is real and we have a detailed wonk-friendly exposition on our website, but for this election we are running with "jobs, kids, rivers". oh no...MEGO...

What's happened is that climate change, the 'elephant in the room', has been swallowed up whole by the 'snake in the room' -- politics. Along with all other serious political issues.

This snake is the real theme of the election. Russell Brown calls it the politics of absence. Brown says "cultivated political absence...shapes the almost unprecedented popularity of John Key". John Key's political success is because of this successful strategy of "de-politicising" himself. Key's politics-free radio chat show was the perfect example.

The media have largely just played along with the politics of absence. The election is discussed as a poll-driven horse race. Or a rugby game "of two halves" with "kicking for touch". Who looked confident? Who had the best sound bites? Who mispronounced his/her New Zild the least or most. Restructure or "reeshrukcha"?

The media have trivialised and objectified political debate. I give this example. The most discussed electoral contest in 2011 appears to be Auckland Central which the Herald calls "the battle of the babes" as the candidates, Jacinda Ardern and Nikki Kaye, are both relatively young women, whose shared Herald columns are called "Broadsides". Do I need to say more?

After the snake has swallowed the elephant in the room, the snake becomes the dead horse that needs some more flogging.

Climate change has been politically institutionalised. Its now "flogging a dead horse". Everyone has a policy (a horse). Everyone talks their policy. No one does anything.

These policies all have a narrative that explains the problem (the horse is under-performing) and a 'narrative' solution (keep flogging the horse).

It is here that the metaphor of "flogging the dead horse" fits so well. Firstly, the probability of the two main political parties really acting to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases is the same as the probability of the flogged horse springing back to life.

The second reason is that the best dead horses can be repeatedly flogged.

Take the Resource Management Act (RMA). It's the ultimate flogged dead horse of NZ politics. In its 20 years of life, it has been in an almost eternal state of being vilified from all sides: for environmental failures and for economic inefficiency.

Both National and Labour have both been subjecting it to interminable reviews and amendments. The basics remain the same. Plans are written with lofty goals. Plans don't reflect consent practice. But then consent decisions rarely reflect plan goals. Consents are needed for some activities not others. Some consents need more evidence and take longer than others.

The NZ ETS is the new dead horse in the flogging stable. Its perfect. Like RMA issues, the NZ ETS is fiendishly complex. To most people, the NZ ETS is a MEGO topic. My Eyes Glaze Over. A recital of any of the detail of the NZ ETS is usually enough to induce that response. Thus deflecting most criticisms.

Being complex, if not incomprehensible by design, the NZ ETS can be fitted, usually negatively, into any political viewpoint. Farmers can still oppose it with vitriol despite their generous treatment. It is just as good a political punching bag as the RMA.

National's 2009 amendments institutionalise that most Kiwi of practices -- a five yearly review by committee. To me this is the statutory recognition of the near-permanent state of "fixing" the RMA is subject to. Labour have said they will continue the 5-yearly reviews if they become Government. Thus they have bought into Nick Smith's approach of eternal moderating of the NZ ETS. Labour get a payoff of needing less specific policies.

So debates on the NZ ETS, like this one, between Nick Smith's soundbites and Russel Norman's observations on perverse price incentives, on TV One's Q and A programme, don't really matter politically. The debate itself is just more MEGO. The snake swallows the elephant.

Interestingly, TV One had Jeanette Fitzsimons as their 'pundit' for the Smith/Norman debate. She cut right through the snake punditry by analysing the NZ ETS on the meta level. She said the NZ ETS was now so weak and distorted that it no longer mattered what tinkering Smith did to it. "It's like driving a car fast towards a cliff and arguing whether to go in fourth gear or fifth".

The horse is dead and no amount of flogging will make it trot again.