The ETS Review
August 31st, 2009 at 9:02 pm by David FarrarIt is 132 pages long and can be read here.
The main recommendations are:
- Accept IPCC 4th assessment report as consensus of the science, noting there are uncertainties but not enough to delay action
- The point of obligation for agricultural sector should initially be at the processor, not the farm gate, as administratively too costly to do for now
- An ETS is preferred over a carbon tax as it can better link up internationally.
- That all sectors be included in the ETS long-term
- Important to have certainty legislated for forestry asap to ensure further planting not inhibited
- Consider a price cap in the short-term while the market matures
- Agriculture to be in the ETS but no date specified
- Will support changing rules to allow offsetting for forestry, but need international agreement
Labour, in its minority report says:
- Supports an all gases all sectors ETS
- Are against capping the price of carbon initially
- will support delaying entry of stationary energy, industrial and transport sectors until 1 July 2010
- all other sectors to enter by 1 Jan 2013 (status quo)
Greens say:
- Used to support carbon tax but ETS now preferable
- ETS should be all sectors and gases
- Against a price cap
ACT say:
- says response to climate change should be based on actual measurable change, not projections of future change
- If one has to respond, prefer low rate carbon tax to ETS
- Much of NZ emissions come from producing food for export, not domestic consumption.
- Does not accept there is a strong chance of trade reprecussions, as seen by Singapore and Hong Kong
Maori Party say:
- Against ETS as won’t sufficiently lower domestic emissions
- Prefer carbon tax
To my mind there are no big surpises here. And from what I can see, the ETS will proceed. It will be amended from what Labour and passed, but not in a fundamental way. The three big issues appear to be:
- Do you have an initial cap on the price of carbon? I actually tend to favour the Labour/Greens view that you should not. A price cap will make the ETS less effective, and more importantly may not get the forestry sector sufficient incentives to increase plantings.
- What date do sectors enter the ETS. The big two sectors politically are transport and agriculture. The first will put up the price of petrol and the second will see an increase in costs for the agricultural sector. And if you bring agriculture in too soon, you risk merely exporting the emissions overseas making it a lose-lose. Remember that when Labour/Greens demand a 2013 entry.
- How many free allocations in each sector? A sector will be given an allocation of credits initially, so that you don’t have sudden and massive price shocks. Key issue is how big that allocation is, and when does it run out.
The ball is now clearly in the Government’s court. There is little doubt we will have an ETS – in fact we already have one – passed into law. The Government will want to make some changes to it. ACT look unlikely they will support changes as they don’t want an ETS at all. However they might be reluctant to vote against (for example) a delay in Agriculture entering the ETS.
Labour and Greens are relatively happy with the current ETS and unlikely to want to vote for changes. So this means the Maori Party is pretty important for getting any changes made.
It is possible National will not be able to get agreement on any changes. Unlikely, but possible. If that happens it does not mean there is no ETS. It means the one passed in 2008 will continue.
August 31st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
“Accept IPCC 4th assessment report as consensus of the science”
No. It is a consensus of the politics.
Leave science out of it.
They have!
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Petal, my thoughts exactly!
Vote:What clever thing will the government think of next? Maybe they will try King Canute’s method of preventing the tide from coming in?
August 31st, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Very interesting.
The nats are between a rock and a hard place.
Most of the parties rightfully think that this is not enough, ACT think that climate change is caused by moonbeams and no-one can ascertain what Dunne thinks.
National is on a loser here. This is their wedge issue where they can piss everyone off, supporters and opponents at the same time!
Welcome Key to the joys of leadership. Bet your respect for Helen just grew.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Just goes to show what airheads politicians are – either that or crooks.
How the fuck anyone believes that trading a phantom product can influence weather patterns 100 years hence is beyond me.
Well it isn’t beyond me really – we all know that the people who like this idea want a piece of the action for themselves or their pals. Since you don’t have to produce anything real that people would want to buy or use – just soak the people who do produce real things that people actually want to buy or use without adding anything of value in the process.
A brilliant idea worthy of the parasitical class but like all parasites they eventually kill their hosts – in this case the productive.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 10:36 pm
There are many things I do not understand about this.
1. How is it that the cost and risks of large scale government intervention could go unmentioned? Was nothing learned from the 20th century’s experiments in planning? There are few exceptions to the disaster that was and is central planning. With its exemptions the ETS is central planning only weakly diluted by a trading scheme. Compliance costs and value of political connections – and of political contributions – will be massively increased by the ETS.
2. The main argument, given NZ contributes 0.1% of global emissions, is that we may face trade sanctions for non-compliance. But the costs of the risk of trade sanctions against us for non-compliance can be modelled taking into account the fact that if those threats materialise then we can come into line. Those costs can be weighed against the large and comparatively certain costs of an ETS. Has this comparison been done (properly)? If not, why not? I’ll bet good money the expected cost of the ETS, given its certainty, very substantially outweighs the expected cost of trade sanctions against an ETS-free NZ.
3. Does any informed observer think an ETS, even if adopted globally, will make any actual difference? Why is symbolism considered good enough when there are real and large costs? The relationship between greenhouse gases and temperatures is fairly weak (by which I mean it is real, but doubling CO2 only adds about 1 degree in direct forcing). Warming beyond 1 degree for doubling CO2 requires large positive climate feedbacks that scientists have great trouble establishing. It is far from certain that such warming will be bad (about 2/3rds of warming will occur by warming the coolest temps, and its the cold that hurts more people than heat, the air’s moisture carrying capacity will increase meaning more rain not less; growing seasons will increase and Earth’s biota will be increased by higher temps and higher CO2; humans will be more capable than ever to deal with these gentle increases 100 years from now). IPCC has an increasingly poor reputation – yes, it has a tough problem to solve, but it a) has a poor forecasting record that so far in its life has consistently overstated projected warming, and b) uses methods that many scientists now publicly question as frail or flawed. The precautionary is frequently and sensibly cited – but this cuts both ways. It seems to me a precautionary must also act against government intervention given the multiple devastation governments have inflicted on people in the last century. Even a small risk of eco-totalitarianism is rationally included in the calculation, in the same way climate catastrophe is.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 10:40 pm
The main argument, given NZ contributes 0.1% of global emissions, is that we may face trade sanctions for non-compliance.
How progressive.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 10:40 pm
andrei: How the fuck anyone believes that trading a phantom product can influence weather patterns 100 years hence is beyond me.
The phantom product is based on a measurable product (greenhouse gas emissions), paying for the product will influence a behavioral change towards less carbon intensive business activities. Therefore ultimately producing less greenhouse gas emissions now and into the future. Less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means the climate system can move towards equilibrium state again and hopefully avoid any runaway scenarios which could have devastating effects on the planet.
The main basis behind the government intervention on the issue of greenhouse gas emissions is that emissions are considered an externality because the atmosphere is treated as a commons (refer Hardin).
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:05 pm
How do you accurately “measure” the greenhouse gas emissions for a dairy farm, a whorehouse, a baked bean factory accounting for the increased flatulence that this product notoriously produces, an aluminium smelter given its appetite for electricity or parliament the biggest source of bullshit in this country. I guess less carbon intensive industries are in the eye of the beholder in many regards but one thing is for certain to produce tangible goods requires energy and this one way or another makes it an emitter and therefore suitable for stealing from legally.
Less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere means the climate system can move towards equilibrium state again and hopefully avoid any runaway scenarios which could have devastating effects on the planet.
This statement is beyond moronic and is typical of the mindless blather and double talk that has made the con so successful
Listen Mister: The Atmosphere is not now nor ever has been, nor ever will be in an equilibrium state
The runaway scenarios are just scary stories developed to scare fools into parting with their hard earned money. We could have a climate catastrophe, equally we could be struck by a giant meteor, the earths magnetic field could shut down etc etc.
And you could be run over by a bus tomorrow morning.
What ya gonna do about it?
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:16 pm
This is another measure of the serious disconnect that exists between the government/ bureaucracy/ media conglomerate and the middle class. One can only really draw one good thing from it, and that is that it will anger the people even more, and the revolution will be a step closer.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:21 pm
You can accurately measure the amount of coal, oil or gas burnt in a power generation plant to get the total greenhouse gas emissions there. A certain proportion of our electricity generated comes from these fossil fuel sources which the externalities of emissions are currently unpriced.
Similar concept with transport, every car/bus/train can be given (calculated) quantifiable emission levels per litre of fuel, which externalities of emissions are currently unpriced.
Agriculture is the tricky one though (yes, this makes up 49% of our total greenhouse gas emissions, NZ is unique in this respect), possibly done on a per animal basis? I am not up to speed on the current practices regarding potential pricing on livestock emissions.
MfE documents (available on the MfE website) also have emission coefficients for other activities, such as waste disposal.
Equilibrium is not meant by definition, of course the system, by nature, (no pun intended) can never be in a stable equilibrium. But it can be more or less stable relative to rapid temperature changes and or frequency of extreme weather events (2003 European heatwave, 2009 Australian heatwave – by mentioning these I am NOT attributing them to climate change).
Runaway scenarios are those causing positive feedback effects, look into ice-albedo feedback and permafrost methane.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:29 pm
mjanderson said…
towards equilibrium state again
Err! Do you know what you’re talking about ?
There is no such thing as Equilibrium (ie, stable ), meaning that if the system is not stable then it is not in equilibrium at all. If it is stable, then climate system becomes deterministic, so that all future time-evolutions of climate observables are predictable. The fact is, they’re not predictable, even with the sophisticated super-computers that are being used today in climate modeling. Yeah, the IPCC report is based on equilibrium models where in fact, equilibrium doesn’t exist, this is due to the 2 fundamental dynamics that disrupt climate equilibrium from being stable, first is emergent dynamics (ED) and second is the self-organized dynamics (SD). IPCC models don’t incorporate ED & SD at all, because they’re quite difficult. Some usually argue that if these dynamics are being included in the models then that would only lead to improved model prediction. Yes, it may improve the prediction, but it may also point to different causes , that we never thought of before.
If you want to read up on some concepts on complexity theory, then try the following article. Its an article from biology, but the same concepts of complexity (especially emergent and self-organization) has a wider application including other fields as climatology, economics, physics and so forth. It questions whether our reductionist approach in physics & philosophy might be wrong, because experimental observations don’t quite fit in with our theories.
Complexity in biology. Exceeding the limits of reductionism and determinism using complexity theory
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:44 pm
The best way of looking into these effects is to observe the past history of the planet when it has been hotter than now. These effects did not appear in the temperature record, we repeatedly entered ice ages after being warmer than today.
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:52 pm
How’s that consistent with the kind of predictable investment environment businesses say they need… ? So year on year, new targets might be agreed? Bullshit, I reckon these blokes are off the reserve…
Vote:August 31st, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Using the word equilibrium (probably not the best word, but the general concept could suffice) keeps the discussion relatively simple, so that discussion can remain on how, where and why compromises can be made between four minority reports on emissions trading (rather than the science, as AR4 is recommended to be accepted as consensus). So NZ can be balanced to produce a single piece of legislation on the issue and avoid going down the same path as Australia with regards to an ETS.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 12:39 am
The best way to use the money is not in trying to prevent climate change but in focused adaptation.
Focused Adaptation would cost less than $10 billion annually, as compared to trillions and trillions of dollars.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 12:44 am
We so need to scrap the whole ETS – the world needs to stand up and say NO to these people who don’t know wtf they’re doing.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 6:50 am
Mad Hatters Tea Party.
The IPCC is so discredited that its now unbelievable that anyone could take any notice.
But the loonies and Moonies et al keep trying to lower our standard of living.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 6:54 am
We like to believe we live in an age of reason based on science. the global warming theory is dressed up as science, but it’s not science, it’s propaganda.
Take for example their first conclusion of accepting the scientific “consensus.” How can they possibly think a “consensus” exists when we have this http://www.petitionproject.org where 31,000 scientists including over 9000 with Phds have signed a petition saying AGW from CO2 is bollocks?
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 7:34 am
Maybe we could split the country. All the ‘believers’ stay/move to the North Island and get taxed out their arse for this maniac scheme. All the ‘non believers’ have the South Island.
We could mine the hell out of the conservation estate, garnering a huge war chest for when the believers bankrupt themselves with their shell game. Then we invade and split the believers between us, holding them and their descendants in permanent serfdom. It is mandatory for all serfs to have butt plugs inserted (methane ya know?)
We use our war chest to build a zombie serf/surf army and then we invade Australia, rinse and repeat.
Within a couple of centuries WE OWN THE WORLD.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Now that’s a legacy for our children.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 8:11 am
DPF said: Labour and Greens are relatively happy with the current ETS and unlikely to want to vote for changes.
Wrong – the Greens are very unhappy with the current ETS and see it as being hopelessly weak. One of the biggest debates within the Greens during the last parliamentary term was whether to support it at all. But the only changes the Nats are likely to propose will be to weaken it, so their proposed changes are unlikely to get Green support.
So this means the Maori Party is pretty important for getting any changes made.
I don’t think so. The Maori Party, like the Greens, don’t think the current ETS will be sufficiently effective. I can’t see them voting to water it down.
ACT rejects the findings of the IPCC and strongly opposes an ETS. As Jeanette Fitzsimons says, they could with integrity support repeal of the law, but not amendment.
But they have already shown with the Whanganui Fashion Police Bill that they have no integrity, having (or at least most of them) voted for that Bill, after vociferously opposing it earlier, apparently to get National support for Garrett’s 3 strikes bill.
A deal in return for National’s capitulation to ACT over the Auckland Maori seats, perhaps?
“Values, not politics” was the slogan they use to campaign under, wasn’t it?
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 8:31 am
Only one sector is currently in the ETS, and that is the forestry sector. Confidence has completely collapsed and there is no economic activity occurring within it. So, one industry in; one industry destroyed. Which industry is Nick Smith going to put in the scheme and destroy next?
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:17 am
Shame on the National Party and its Green fifht-columnist Nick Smith for forging ahead with the ETS monstrosity.
The country will regret the decision of this spineless government, since it will wreck our economy for no gain whatsoever.
It will make our goods more expensive, less competitive in the international market and will hike our domestic prices.
The Tories have lost sight of their guiding principles and John Key is the person to blame for this.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:39 am
Problem with forced adaptation is that it only work with warming up to a certain level, as beyond a certain point the earth becomes less and less habitalable. Also it is projected the areas which will be effected the worst are the poorer reagons of earth as they are generally closer to the equator.
Fail to see why some people refuse to acknowledge there is likely a link between the earth getting hotter and there being more greenhouse gases in the atmostphere.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:40 am
It is simply insane.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:41 am
Seems that this report guarantees a large swing to Act in the rural areas.
Amd athough the politics is NOW the financial pain will be impacting just in time for the next election.
Just as the pain of the Super City will be impacting at the same time.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:45 am
This whole thing is a bloody joke. The only industry that can actually have a realistic chance in removing carbon is being destroyed as we speak.
Vote:Copenhagen will go down in history as the stupidest thing to happen in a thousand years, “ooohhh lets all get together, and hand wring, and shoot ourselves in the foot, and then pass some laws ordering the environment to get better”.
Stupid stupid STUPID!!!
September 1st, 2009 at 9:46 am
The ETS will be a complete buggers muddle and mess, and will collapse under its own weight of paperwork, complexity and bureaucracy.
Kyoto, ETS etc, even if fully implemented, will make no substantive difference to climate change.
It’s the most ridiculous boondoggle in history.
The real issue is too many people on the planet. What we need is tradeable breeding permits, with a target to reduce human population to say 3 billion over time instead of the projected 9 billion. But that’s another debate. Who believes that any ‘protocol’ or pollution trading system is going to prevent ruination of the planet with 9 billion people?
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 9:49 am
As my 3 year old says “what bwuddy rudddish”
Vote:Smarter than the lot of em.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:50 am
Fail to see why some people refuse to acknowledge there is likely a link between the earth getting hotter and there being more greenhouse gases in the atmostphere.
It is simple the people who do not go along with this BS analyze the evidence for AGW and see that it is totally lacking.
And that the loudest noisemakers are usually barely literate in science.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 10:39 am
I wonder if your 3yo realises that you think current economic growth is more important than having a habbitat which humanity can continue to exist on.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 10:43 am
Chicken Little 7:34 am,
I like your thinking!
I personally think the demarcation should be Auckland city for ‘believers’; the rest of the country for ‘non-believers’.
But when you really boil it all down, if you turn your proposal on its head and apply a little logic, you can see through the AGW promoters weak arguments and get to the real nub of the issue. That being, firstly, wealth transference from first world countries to the emerging economies of the likes of India and China. The UN will drive this through the AGW lie by essentially taxing and bankrupting the so-called wealthy west. The UN becomes the global police over-riding the laws of existing nation states. And we ultimately end up living under a totalitarian one world government system founded upon socialist doctrine. The leader of this system becomes nothing short of Emperor/god of this world state; he who must be obeyed and worshipped.
Viva le resistance!
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 10:58 am
freedom101 9:46 am,
Are you serious? “tradeable breeding permits”?
Why not be done with it and just force sterilisation on the poor/retarded/blacks, etc. Introduce euthanasia for all non economic worker units. And I could go on.
Sadly, there are people out there who promote such thinking. Some believe the global target should be as low 500 million. For the good of the planet of course!
Vote:Scary shite.
September 1st, 2009 at 11:01 am
I think we all need to be a lot more realistic about Climate Change and its effect on our natural resources – the majority of all Scientists believe Climate Change is real and is seriously accelerated by the continued release of carbon dioxide.
- Melting ice-caps, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns and climates, more frequently occurring natural disasters, decaying forests, dying coral reefs and increases in respiratory illnesses and insect-bourne diseases ARE just some of the visible signs responsible for concern globally.
I don’t believe however that this ETS policy is the answer…Especially in a recession or its immediate aftermath.
I look forward to the government’s response.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 11:07 am
Because there isn’t.
The Level of CO2 is something like 385ppm, but the levels have been as high as 7000ppm the Earth’s distant past; however, the global temperature has never gone above 22 deg C; in fact, sometimes when the level of CO2 has risen the temperature has dropped!
CO2 is good for plants anyway, that’s the weird thing about it: the Greens seem to be so concerned with plants etc, and yet when the gas that helps plants thrive is increasing they get all worried about it.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 11:11 am
ps, I see that The Warehouse is now getting in on the act and selling ‘Sign On’ t-shirts, and shirts that say something like, Come On John, Sign On.
Someone needs to start a ‘Sign Off’ campaign, or some sort of campaign with a catchier name.
Vote:There really does need to be a campaign to inform the public about the truth, not the liberal PC ‘truths’..
September 1st, 2009 at 11:13 am
It’s interesting how the Maori party appear reluctant and skeptical about Climate Change and the government’s response when if I recall as a child in school – Maori history often dictates the important Maori cultural element to “respect the land and the land will respect you”.
If anything I was expecting more support from the Maori party leadership and this simply exposes the hypocrisy that proves the Maori party are not universally representing all Maori nation-wide, nor are they even a “Maori” party – they are only out for themselves and its a huge shame for all Maori.
In the words of Winston Peters – Separatism not Unification.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 11:16 am
Here’s a post by Andrew Bolt on Facebook from one of the groups that does agree with man-made climate change – 10 Myths
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
“I wonder if your 3yo realises that you think current economic growth is more important than having a habbitat which humanity can continue to exist on.”
Oh so ETS is going to save the planet? As an environmentalist I can tell you right now it is a crock.
Vote:Being on the “coal face” so to speak, is an interesting position to be in on this issue. For those of us not blinded by the social ideology of the world wide “green” movement it is clear that the ETS will do nothing and may even do more damage in certain cases.
September 1st, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Observation:
An ETS is the lowest cost method of meeting the requirements of the Kyoto Protocols.
The Kyoto Protocols are a set of productive controls agreed upon by an expert committee.
The world has progressed under the Kyoto Protocols to increase its climate change gas emissions by 30%.
Conclusions:
An ETS is the lowest cost method to increase climate change by 30%.
State production controls don’t work.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
This graph says it has continued to do so..
Well, here’s a recent press release from the BAS. A quote: “In the past 30 years seven floating ice shelves retreated, with very little of their area now remaining.” Another quote: “Since the 1950s, a total of 25,000 km2 of ice shelf has been lost from around the Antarctic Peninsula. ” So your quote about the BAS seems to be factually incorrect.
Here’s what NASA has to say: it was bad data. Quote: ‘“So the new Argo data were too cold, and the older XBT data were too warm, and together, they made it seem like the ocean had cooled,” says Willis.’
This one is tricky; from looking at the Jason-1 website (actually, Jason-2 launched recently), the sea level is rising in someplaces and falling in others (as you’d expect), so there’s no handy graph to agree or disagree. I did find this, in a press release: ‘”Sea level is rising at a rate of 0.13 inches per year, nearly twice as fast as the previous 100 years,” said Laury Miller, chief of NOAA’s Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry in Silver Spring, Md.’
It does help to check these things, y’know..
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Repton, it all depends where one gets the data from and how old it is. The latest report from the Science and Public Policy Institute says –
I’ve got a graph for you, too, showing –
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Sounds familiar. Oh wait, that was myth 5. Here’s what NASA has to say: it was bad data. Quote: ‘“So the new Argo data were too cold, and the older XBT data were too warm, and together, they made it seem like the ocean had cooled.”
Indeed — which is why it annoys me when people post these screeds they’ve picked up from a blog somewhere without bothering to check facts or see if it is still accurate (or if it ever was).
I notice that I didn’t pay attention to your data sources for myth 1, so let’s see. You said:
The Hadley Centre is here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/
The graphs show land-surface temperature rising steadily from 1975, with a couple of level periods around 1985 and 1990. Sea-surface temperature anomaly has dipped a bit, but it’s too early to declare definite cooling, and it’s still well above average; no where near wiping out half the warming from the last century.
Project Aqua is here: http://aqua.nasa.gov/index.php But I can’t find any temperature time series. Perhaps you can point them out to me.
Finally, this is the National Climactic Data Center: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/ncdc.html
Here’s their research on the global temperature anomaly, with a familiar-looking graph. I’m not seeing this “fall in temperatures from 2002″ that you talk about.
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Hm, have been commenting about this topic under general debate all day…
Vote:Basically my point is that the science is flawed, and there is no way that people can influence the climate the way that nature can. We only need one moderate sized eruption (say, Mt Ruapehu) to ruin all the “good work” of any carbon reduction scheme.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I always think the “Sign On” campaign is an exhortation to sign onto the dole.
Why would anybody want to encourage that?
Vote:September 1st, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Repton, as I can’t cut and paste from a PDF, I can only direct you to the PDF itself of the latest SPPI Monthly Report. The graphs there (of actual data, NOT computer modeled) are enough to prove to me, anyway, that the IPCC data is greatly exaggerated.
Really eye-opening…
Vote: