Kiwiblog

The talk in the UK is of when the vote on Scottish independence should be. Amusingly the UK Conservative Government wants it early and a straight up and down vote, while the Scottish SNP Government wants it in 2014 and a third option of great devolution. I suspect this is because they are realising what full independence may cost.

Losing Scotland would be great for the Conservative Party. The House of Commons is currently:

• Conservative 305
• Labour 255
• Lib Dems 57
• Others 33
• Total 650

You need 326 to govern.

59 seats are in Scotland. Remove them and you need 296 to govern. And the House of Commons would be:

• Conservative 304
• Labour 214
• Lib Dems 46
• Others 27
• Total 591

So the Conservatives would then have an absolute majority in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Scotland as an independent country would presumably not be able to keep the pound, and would adopt the Euro instead. Can’t see that being too popular.

That is why I suspect the SNP don’t want full independence anymore – it would cost too much. They want all the powers of independence, but none of the responsibility.

Cameron should stay firm and insist on a straight up and down vote.

Technically I suppose the England riots, as they are also in Birmingham.

Stuff reports:

Some have branded the disturbances as a cry for help from impoverished areas reeling from the government’s harsh austerity cuts to tackle a big budget deficit

A cry for help?

It sounds like it might take the Police days to regain control of the streets. I wonder if they may have to call the Armed Forces in to assist?

The wedding ceremony took place outside Lytham Hall. It was a superb location, and the sun shone all day.

The opening hymn was Jerusalem, which in the beautiful English countryside was so appropriate. Then there was a reading, of “Oh The Places You’ll Go” by Dr Seuss.

A second hymn was Amazing Grace – a favourite for weddings. Then we had the vows, and after the vows, a simply amazing rendition of Po Kare Kare Ana by Michelle Tufnell. Michelle had never heard it sung before, and learnt it by listening to recordings of others singing it. She got it absolutely perfect and I was not surprised to learn she is a professional singer.

Finally the ceremony ended with Vangelis’ Conquest of Paradise.

Afterwards we had Georgian Tea and Wedding Cake, plus a performance by the Fylde Coast Cloggers – who are basically Morris Dancers in Clogs. I joked to Shane that he had combined his wedding with the Green Party AGM

This portrait inside Lytham Hall made me think of Paul henry because at first glance it looks like a lady with a moustache. But in fact the portrait is of Sir Cuthbert Clifton, the original landowner.

Myself outside the hall.

Shane and Erica doing the first of many dances.

It was a wonderful wedding, and a great end to a very enjoyable 16 days in the UK. I’m now back in London, staying at the Sheraton Heathrow until my flight tomorrow.

Drove around 1,750 miles over the trip, or 2,800 kms. I think my right foot has a blister on it

On Thursday we left the Isle of Skye and drove to Glasgow. Just past the Kyle of Lochalsh, is the Eilean Donan Castle. It has featured in many films, especially the great Highlander.

On the road to Fort William is this memorial to the British Commandos who were established in WWII to attack behind enemy lines, and those who have served since. There’s also a section for photos and memorials, which include some who died very recently in Afghanistan.

We drove for many miles alongside Loch Lomond. Have been there before but can’t get enough of it.

We spent Thursday night in Glasgow and it was very pleasant. Our apartment was in the golden mile, so hundreds of cafes and restaurants around. Like Cardiff, Glasgow, has changed a lot from its traditional image.

On Friday arrived in Lytham St Annes for pre-wedding drinks. We are staying at The Grand hotel and I love the room with six large windows in a semi-circle meaning it gets lots of sun.

We are on the South Promenade next to the beach, so the views from the room is very English coastal.

Popped into St Annes for lunch, and found this nice pub called The Victoria. You get a massive lunch for three and a half pounds.

Is now Saturday and the wedding is in two hours so time to get ready!

I asked earlier this year on the blog where to visit in Scotland, and by far the most common response was the Isle of Skye which is the most northerly of the Inner Hebrides.

You really only appreciate how far north you are by the fact that it only started to get dark at 11.30 pm. No seriously.

The drive from Edinburgh to the Isle of Skye was six hours, but the scenery was magnificent Lochs and hills everywhere. This photo is of the Laggan Dam on Loch Laggan. Water from the dam flows three miles by tunnel to Fort William.

A typical view along the way.

In the distance is the Skye Bridge which connects Skye to mainland Scotland.

Many of the roads on the island are single width but two-way, so every 200 metres or so there are indents where you can pull over to let ongoing traffic through.

Went on a tour of the wonderful Talisker Distillery and learnt all about how crucial the shape and size of the stills are. Also got to taste their product and happily purchased a bottle of their 57 north single malt. I would have loved to have got their 30 year bottle but the price was rather steep.

A view from the “capital” Portree.

We drove around the north of the island, and it was all views like this. I stopped for so many photos I was asked if I intended to stop at every corner, and my response was only the corners with great views. The response to that, is that is pretty much every corner.

Looking down a very steep cliff, you can see the large boulders at the bottom through the clear ocean.

This is known as Kilt Rock.

We only discovered this by chance. As driving around the coast by Kilmuir, we noticed this cemetery inland a few hundred metres. This is the resting place of Flora MacDonald who as a 24 year old helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape the authorities by having him pose as her Irish spinning maid, Betty Burke.

Samuel Johnson said of her “a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour.”

This is the cottage we stayed in near Edinbane on the Isle of Skye. It was wonderfully remote.

The Three Chimneys Restaurant is not only the best food on the island, but is rated one of the top five restaurants in all of Scotland. They managed to fit us in for a late dinner at 9.45 pm. Normally might be weird eating so late, but as it stayed light until midnight, it was actually wonderful being able to gaze out the window at Loch Dunvegan, at 11.30 pm

This was my entrée – a haddock omelette. Words can not describe how divine it was. It was the best of food, helped down with some champagne, a Wild Earth pinot noir from Central Otago and finally some dessert wine. All with the sun setting over the beautiful loch. The highlight of the holiday.

The road home was one of those narrow single width ones, but even worse there were hundreds of sheep sleeping next to or even on the road. Crazy fun.

A typical highland cattle.

And when you combine rain and sun (which sorts of sums up Scotland), you get a rainbow.

On Monday driving from Darlington to Edinburgh and got distracted by a sign pointing to Hadrian’s Wall. So we turned off the motorway and headed to Chesters where they not only had section of Hadrian’s Wall intact, but remains of Cilurnum, a roman cavalry fort. This was the commander’s quarters.

This is the River North Tyne, and you can see on the far side the remains of the wall continuing on. There was originally a bridge here of course.

The location also has a museum with hundreds of well preserved artefacts, especially engraved stones.

Nearby was this lovely field of poppies.

And another section of Hadrian’s Wall.

The border between England and Scotland is well marked, unlike the Welsh one. They have some mobile retailers selling food and souvenirs at the border, plus large rocks with Scotland marked on one side and England on the other.

Had a well located apartment in Edinburgh, just up the road from Holyrood. My second visit to Edinburgh – a truly lovely city.

No caption needed!

Caught up with an old friend and colleague at Monteiths. Most of the bar was inside, but they had covered over this alleyway to create an enclosed outdoor area.

A statue of the great Adam Smith.

Had to head back into England for the stag party. We detoured off the M4 to Bath for lunch. Didn’t have much time to look around, but seemed quite a nice city.

The stag do was very civilised – a black tie affair at one of the private clubs.  Gin and tonics before dinner, wine during dinner and port after dinner. Lots of very funny speeches.

On Saturday headed to the famous Portobello Market in Notting Hill. It is huge, and has different sections ranging from antiques to fruit & veg to new goods to fashion to second hand goods.

We grabbed lunch at the aptly named Duke of Wellington pub, where this photo is from.

The apartment for the weekend was on Tower Bridge Road, and they lifted the bridge for this boat during our stay.

Sunday was the start of the drive up to Scotland. We drove via Cambridge and spent three hours looking around there. This is the Round Church, more formally known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In the UK they are very unimaginative with their street names. Almost every castle we went to in Wales was located on Castle Street. This church was on Round Church Road and the parking building was on, yes, Park Street.

This is inside Queens’ College, Cambridge. What a wonderful place to study at.

The River Cam. As you can see there is almost a traffic jam with all the punts. They have touts asking you every 50 metres or so whether you want to punt on the river. They were almost as bad as the touts in Egypt. It would be nice to punt on the river, but only if not crowded.

The famous Mathematical Bridge, at the back of Queens’.

After Cambridge we drove to Darlington, where we stayed the night. There are no photos of Darlington as there was nothing to see!

Drove west over to Swansea and the Gower Peninsula. Very amused to find these cows sleeping in the middle of a roundabout. This was not unique – unlike NZ, many Welsh farms are not fenced in. Cows, sheep and even horses roam next to and across some of the roads.

All along Gower, there are cliffs and the ocean. Magnificent views.

Many of the roads are what I call tree tunnels. They are barely wide enough for one car, but believe it or not are two-way roads. Beautiful roads to drive along, but you drive very slowly and should be prepared to reverse often.

These are the remains of Oxwich Castle. It is also home to a display about the history of Wales which was very interesting.

This is the view from the Worm’s Head Tavern at Rhossili. Had a nice lunch here and the views are to die for. Which would happen if you fell over the edge.

This sheep is enjoying the good life.

If you walk for a km or so you get to the western most point, where you can descend down and at low tide cross over to the “Worm’s Head”. it does indeed look like a worm with a head. You need to time it carefully as if you stay over there for too long, you will be trapped for 12 hours.

Another view of the beach at Rhossili

These horses are at Cefn Bryn.

This is Arthur’s Stone. The legend is he threw a stone from Llanelli which landed here. In reality is is a burial site from the neolithic period, so is up to 10,000 years old.

The ruins of Swansea Castle in Swansea.

The interior of Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff.

Outside the cathedral they’ve got hectares of old cemeteries to rumage through.

This is Caerphlliy Castle, north of Cardiff. It is the second largest in the UK, and well worth a look around.

On the way out of Wales, popped into Caerleon. It was home to a Roman legion and fort, and one can see the remains of Roman baths plus this amphitheatre. There is also a free museum with artefacts from the era.

Caerleon is also where Camelot was located according to Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Leaving Wales via the second Severn Bridge – 5 kms long.

I was not planning to visit Wales as traditionally the reputation of Cardiff especially has been rather dour. But really glad we did. Cardiff is a lovely city, and South Wales is beautiful – the Gower Peninsula especially was just great to drive around.

I’m back in London for two days. About to head off to a black tie stag party tonight, and tomorrow night am hosting with Rotorua MP Todd McClay, a pub talk on the latest in NZ Politics.

The event is on Facebook.

If you are in London and free early Saturday evening, come along to the The Old Star pub next to the St James Tube. It’s address is 66 Broadway, Westminster, London SW1H 1DB. We’ll be there from 5.30 pm in the Upper Function Room and probably wrap up around 7.00 pm. I suspect a few of us will head out to dinner afterwards.

This is the front of the Lincoln Hotel where we are staying in Cardiff. It was ranked No 1 in Trip Advisor, and is great quality and service for rooms as low as 60 pounds a night. Very good location also.

Thee hotel backs onto the Sophia Gardens, which are huge and lovely. They run next to the River Taff.

You walk through the gardens to Cardiff Castle. The grounds are pretty large, and it took us 2 hours to get around it. During WWII up to 1,800 people used it as a bomb shelter.

This Norman keep within the castle walls. I would not have wanted to try and take that keep.

And also within the castle, is this Victorian mansion.

A view of the castle from the top of the keep.

The castle has falcons and owls. Isn’t he cute?

The interior of the mansion.

The famous Cardiff Animal Wall.

Anna, at the top of the Norman keep.

We then took the aquataxi down the river to Mermaid Quay in Cardiff Bay. As we get off the boat, we see this touching memorial. I wonder which local died here? It was Ianto Jones. Yes it is a shrine to a dead Torchwood character. I’m all for fandom, but that is getting creepy.

Had lunch at Demiros on the quay. I had two traditional Welsh faggots for lunch. They were in fact very nice. I think I might eat faggots more often in future. We also had pitcher of Blue Hawaii for lunch, as it was on special. Was a very nice lunch.

This is the Norwegian Church. It is famous as the place where Road Dahl was baptised. The church was for Norwegian sailors who were in port.

This building is the Welsh Assembly. It is right on the waterfront – a stunning location. I net you the Assembly Members voted on it. The building host basically just the debating chamber. Offices are elsewhere. The debating chamber is circular, as is the visitors gallery above it. There are glass panes so the assembly chamber is cut off from the visitors but they can see you easily. Each visitor seat has a TV screen in which you can watch either the Assembly itself, or the Westminster Parliament or various news channels. So I managed to observe the Welsh Assembly in front of me while also viewing the UK Parliament on the monitor with headphones.

Walking home back through the Sophia Gardens after we got the aqua taxi back to it.

Crossing the Rover Taff.

These were taken Tuesday (Wednesday in NZ). Cardiff is much more enjoyable than I thought it might be. My only complaint is the accent – I’ve never had so many conversations where I have not understood a single word they’re saying to me. Am getting very good at nodding and agreeing a lot. I just hope I have not accidentally agreed to take part in any bomb plots or the like.

This was the view from our apartment in Aldgate in London.

On Monday (Tuesday in NZ) we drove to Cardiff, but stopped off in Bristol for a couple of hour.  It’s a very nice place, and we shopped at the local market, walked through Castle Park, next to the River Avon.

This is the remains of St Peter’s Church. It was originally built is the 12th century and was Bristol’s oldest church. It was destroyed in the Bristol Blitz in 1940.

After Bristol headed back along the M4, and crossed the Second Severn Bridge which is the boundary of Wales and England. It’s a mighty bridge – a full five kms long.

Drove from London to Cardiff today. Took 90 minutes to get out of London onto the M4, and only slightly lomger than that to get to Cardiff once we were on the M4. I do like decent motorways.

Anyway I was happily cruising on the M4 and there were these helpful signs about speed cameras ahead. I figured I should slow down to the legal limit but didn’t actually know what it was – just that it was probably less than 96 m/h.

So I asked Anna to grab the iPad from the glove box and to google for the UK speed limit on motorways. She grabs the iPad and opens Sarfari.

Then just as she starts typing she starts giggling and asks why my last Google search was for “clitoral orgasm”. I start pissing myself with laugher because there was in fact an absolutely innocent, yet complicated, reason for why I had googled that term. It took me several minutes to explain why that term had been googled recently (and no I am not going to detail it here) and once again I got one of those stares.

Inccidentially for those wondering the speed limit is 70 m/h.

The flight to Auckland was very amusing as I was in Row 1, which has no screens to view the Richard Simmons safety video on. So we got assigned a stewardess to talk us through the safety demo (not that I need it). Anyway we convinced here not to do the boring safety briefing but to emulate the Richard Simmons video, and she did. It was hilarious as she did all the moves and recited the words off by heart.

It turned out she was one of those who starred in the video, so no wonder she knew it well. It is one of the things I like about Air NZ, that their staff are friendly, and have personality.

Very happy to have my standby upgrades confirmed in Auckland. Slept most of the flight to Hong Kong. Had 90 minutes in Hong Kong, most of which was spent in the Thai Air lounge massage chair. Those things are seriously good.

Didn’t sleep on the flight to London from HK, but got to see five movies and four TV episodes – plus emptied my e-mail inbox which had several hundred e-mails to file or reply to. There are some advantage to having no calls or incoming e-mails to distract your for a day.

At Heathrow had a stroke of luck as Anna’s plane landed at the same time as mine (was meant to land three hours earlier but was delayed), and we ran into each other in the luggage hall. As both our cellphones had flat batteries locating each other in the main terminal could have been challenging.

I had booked the rental car through Economy Car Rentals as they were so much cheaper. Basically 16 days rental for 450 pounds, including GPS. Their local partner was Easirent. We found out that they do not have an office at the airport. They send a car for you and take you to their office around 8 miles away. Office is not quite the right word – imagine a small piece of land, with a fence, and one of those portacom buildings in the corner of it. I started to work out how they get to rent for such a low price – almost no overheads.

Despite the cheapness of the lot, the car was fine. In fact it was brand new – only 300 miles on the odometer. The car was a Prius, which Anna (who votes Greens) was very happy about, while my focus was on more practical matters such as the fact there is no ignition key.

It takes a while to get used to a car with no ignition key – you just push the start button. It would be a bad key to leave unlocked somewhere. But once I got used to that, I have to say it handles very nicely and the built in GPS is excellent – even tells you which lane of traffic to be in for intersections.

Headed into Aldgate, staying at the Marlin Apartments there. Nice view from the 12th floor.

Caught up with Shane and Erica (whose wedding we have come over for) and after dinner went to two local pubs. The first was the Captain Kidd pub in Wapping, which has a garden bar next to the Thames. Very pleasant. Sadly the UK is third world with its closing times and despite being Saturday it closed around 11 pm.

We then popped into the Town of Ramsgate pub for a further hour. Both pubs are those classic English old pubs in neat brick buildings.

On Sunday went to Islington to try and arrange local connections for my Blackberry, iPad and laptop as paying roaming charges would bankrupt me quickly. Was planning to go to a Three store, but it was by a Vodafone store so I thought I would try them first as I was with Vodafone NZ for all three.

The store manager was brilliant, and he gave me just what I needed, for far less than I expected to pay.

For just 10 pounds I got a local sim card for the Blackberry which not just gives me free data for a month, but local prices for calls and texts. It is actually cheaper for me to call phones back in NZ from my cellphone in the UK, than it would be if I was back in NZ. A good reminder of how outrageously high local mobile charges are.

The iPad only cost 5 pounds to get me a mini-sim with 500 Mb of data. Compare that to $10/MB roaming charges.

The laptop was a bit more complex, as using a local sim would mean deleting my software for Vodafone NZ mobile connection back home. I decided to leave it as is, and just use hotel wireless.

If you are travelling to the UK in future for more than a few days, I absolutely recommend getting local sims. It will save you heaps.

People trying to contact me should note that my NZ phone number is effectively turned off for the next two weeks – calls and texts will not get through. If you need to call or text me, then e-mail me for the UK phone number.

Had a nice walk around Islington. They had a flea market operating so I hit the second hand bookseller’s stand. Islington is a very nice suburb – hadn’t been to it before.

Now back in Aldgate. A quiet dinner tonight and off to Cardiff tomorrow. We deliberately haven’t planned the trip in advance (apart from the wedding) – we choose each new location from the one before. So probably in Cardiff for a couple of nights and then might head to elsewhere in Wales.

The NO campaign has had a massive victory in the UK, with a move to Alternate Vote (where you rank candidates in order and the lowest polling drops off until someone gets over 50%).

The vote is not final, but at this stage it looks like 69% voted NO. My mate Matthew Elliott (The NO campaign chief) will be a very happy man tonight.

The other big news from their elections, is that the SNP has gained a majority in the Scottish Parliament, which will probably mean a vote in the next three years on whether Scotland should secede from the United Kingdom.

Ironically many conservatives also support Scottish independence. Scotland votes massively left. If Scotland left the UK, then the Conservatives would get to be in Government far more easily. They would become the natural party of Government in England.

In Wales (which could leave also if Scotland did), Labour did well picking up 30 seats, but are one short of a majority.

And in England, despite the unpopularity of the spending cuts, the Conservatives polled 1% higher than Labour. This augurs well for the next election, which of course is not until 2015.

On Tuesday I blogged a “fact sheet” by the NZ Greenhouse Policy Coalition which compared the NZ ETS and the European ETS,

On Thursday I blogged a response to it, from the British High Commission, pointing out NZ’s high emissions per capita, and what Europe is doing on top of having an ETS.

Today, I’m happy to present a response to that response, from the Greenhouse Policy Coalition. Personally, I’m finding it a very useful debate as the NZ ETS will have its first formal review next year – and a key issue will be comparing what NZ is doing, to what other countries are doing.

The GPC responds:

NZETS and EUETS

Response to Kiwiblog item “British High Commission on European ETS”

29 October 2010

The British High Commission’s comments on the differences between New Zealand’s and Europe’s emissions trading schemes and wider climate change commitments require a response.  Specifically:

• The focus on per capita emissions is deeply misleading in understanding New Zealand’s situation, especially the role of agriculture;
• New Zealand’s experience with an ETS is much less than Europe’s; and
• New Zealand performs well in its own commitments outside the ETS.

Per capita emissions and agriculture

Focusing on per capita emissions is a standard approach used to make New Zealand and some other developed countries (e.g. Australia) look bad on climate change while making more populous countries (particularly China and India and some EU countries) look relatively good.  It helps avoid the real issue, which is the total amount of carbon going into the atmosphere.  New Zealand accepts its responsibility to do its share, but New Zealand isn’t the problem – action (or inaction) by the major emitters (China, the US, India, Russia and Japan) will determine whether global emissions keep rising or start to fall.  Per capita figures are a red herring.

What if we measured emissions in terms of each country’s consumption of goods, i.e. the amount of carbon embedded in the products used in an economy?  By this measure, New Zealand’s per capita figure would fall significantly, while that of the EU and the UK would rise dramatically.

The central issue to consider is why, with 73% renewable electricity generation (as against the UK’s 2020 target of just 30%), New Zealand rates so high on an emissions per capita basis.  The answer is simple – our super-efficient agricultural sector.  Our relatively small population produces a huge amount of highly-nutritious, high quality food largely for export to feed a booming world population.  We do this so efficiently that the productivity (and hence emissions of agricultural greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide) per person is very high by world standards.  The carbon footprint of our agricultural produce is not bettered by any of our competitors.

So, why don’t we just do something to reduce emissions from stock (methane) and fertilizer (nitrous oxide)?  Many options for this have been suggested but none has yet proved cost-effective (methane) or they have limited regional application and are not yet recognised by the UN (nitrification inhibitors).  New Zealand is doing more than its share in this respect.  We have put $45 million into the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases, which we are leading with the UN’s blessing.  The challenge facing this group is to produce more food while reducing the intensity of emissions.  The bottom line is the world needs New Zealand to keep producing food, but at the moment the only way to cut agricultural emissions is to cut stock numbers, which is no solution at all.  If we stop producing, other, less efficient, producers will simply take over.

Efficiency is an important point.  It’s not just about being efficient in terms of emissions per unit of production, which this country’s agriculture sector certainly is.  New Zealand also produces food without subsidies that, in other parts of the world, such as Europe, soak up huge amounts of money.

It’s also worth noting that New Zealand has the only ETS with agriculture in it.  While the agricultural gases methane and nitrous oxide are not due to come into the ETS until 2015, farmers are already paying a price for their emissions through increased fuel and electricity bills.  Our food processing sector is fully in the ETS and gets almost no allocation of free emission credits, which will cost these companies tens of millions of dollars over the next year and more in future years.

New Zealand’s short ETS experience

The High Commission makes much of the EUETS having a cap on emissions, which the NZETS does not have.  This is misleading on two counts.  First, New Zealand does operate within a wider cap – its binding commitment to keep net emissions (total emissions less the carbon taken up by trees) at 1990 levels for the period 2008-2012.  Furthermore, New Zealand’s ETS, like the EU’s, phases out the support of companies via free carbon credits – and at almost the same rate.  Second, emissions trading is a brand new experience for New Zealand companies.  The EU has been doing it for five years and has made some huge mistakes along the way.  Its initial effort crashed the price of carbon because of over-allocation of emission credits.

Yes, it’s true the EU is on track to meet its 2020 target of a 20% reduction on 1990 emissions.  However, this is due to the recession cutting production in emission intensive areas and not the ETS.  Recent publications point to minimal gains from the EUETS.  Michael Jacobs, a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics, says analysis shows the EU scheme is projected to cut just 32 million tonnes of carbon emissions in the period 2008-2012, which is tiny alongside annual European emissions of over 3500 million tonnes.  The Climate Spectator (5 October 2010) reported recently that the EUETS had also failed to deliver a move towards renewable energy.  The story reported on a survey of investment managers conducted on behalf of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, called Shifting private capital, suggesting this failure stemmed from the piecemeal nature of EU climate policy.

On balance, the NZETS isn’t looking too bad.

New Zealand’s climate change commitments outside the ETS

The High Commission focuses a lot on what the EU is doing outside its ETS to cut emissions.  As noted above, most of the success here is due to the recession.  The EU’s commitment to renewable energy is much less than New Zealand’s – an overall 2020 target of having 20% of all energy coming from renewables (i.e. including transport).  The figure for the UK is lower – 15%.  This compares with New Zealand’s renewable electricity generation last year reaching 73%, with a national target of 90% by 2025.

New Zealand’s international leadership of agricultural emissions research is also evidence of this country not sticking solely to the ETS in responding to the risk of climate change.

Finally, one contextual point leaps out as we consider New Zealand and the EU on climate change.  The EU is a collection of 27 countries, which largely trade with each other and are all in an emissions trading scheme together.  New Zealand is on its own; its major trading partners do not have a price on carbon.  This is a dangerous spot to be in when your entire economy rests on trading with the outside world.

The things I am also interested in, in this debate, are:

1. What will China do? If China does not sign up to anything meaningful, then by 2020 I estimate their emissions will exceed total global emissions in 2005
2. What will the US do, if it does not do an ETS?
3. Will there be a formal post-Kyoto agreement?
4. Will the next few years of climate data strengthen or weaken the projections with regard to future warming
5. what are the relative costs and benefits of mitigation vs adaptation.

I blogged on Tuesday a comparison between the NZ ETS and the European ETS, concluding the NZ ETS is more “pure” as it includes all gases and all sectors.

The British High Commission has sent me this response, articulating the European view:

Same Game – Shared Targets

Many people note that New Zealand generates only a small proportion of global emissions and ask whether it matters if NZ acts or not. It very much does matter. If New Zealand – with its clean, green image – can’t make the move to low carbon, what hope for other countries? The important statistic in terms of global responsibility is greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per person, that puts New Zealand near the top of the global league table.

Accurate figures vary depending on the source but the global average is around 7 tonnes of GHG per person per year. The UK and EU average is about 10 tonnes per year while New Zealand is around 19 tonnes GHG per person per year. To meet our global target of reducing emissions by 50%, everyone in the world needs to be at around 2 tonnes per capita by 2050. This shows the scale of the challenge facing New Zealand and all other countries.

The EU’s Game Plan

The ETS is only part of Europe’s response (more on this below). Commentators can only sensibly critique the European approach if the ETS is viewed in this context. More generally, no comment on European efforts should be made without acknowledging what Member States’ are already committed to. For example, by 2050 the UK is committed in law to having GHG emissions 80% less than those in 1990 (and so move from 10 to 2 tonnes per capita). In the nearer term the EU as a whole is committed to 20% (or possibly 30%) reductions by 2020.

It is misleading to make too much of a direct comparison between the EU and NZ ETSs. The crucial fact is that action to reduce an economy’s greenhouse gases requires a portfolio of policies. This is what we have in the EU. The key issue is to look at the best policy tool for reducing emissions in each sector. For example, the EU has looked at light vehicles (cars and vans) and recognised that they produce 12% of the EU’s emissions and so need to be tackled. So the EU passed legislation on the fuel efficiency of cars. It is now EU law that the fleet average for all cars registered in the EU is 130 grams per kilometre (g/km). This is being phased in over the next few years and there are hefty fines for companies that exceed the limit (up to 95 Euros per extra gramme of CO2 over the limit!). This is a sensible and effective approach to tackling transport emissions. So the fact that it is not in the EU ETS does not mean action is not being taken.

The same argument applies to housing, agriculture and waste. Each country also has a binding renewable energy target and their own range of policies (energy tax, feed-in tariffs etc) to ensure those targets are met. In addition the EU is contributing EUR 7.2 billion to climate finance over the next three years. Ultimately when comparing and contrasting the response to climate change of different economies the most important fact is the overall impact on GHG emissions. This shows that the EU is on the right track – 2009 emissions were around 17% below their 1990 level.

If forced to compare the NZ and EU ETS one key difference is that the EU ETS sets binding caps on emissions. So participants in the scheme will have their allocations gradually reduced to 21% below the 2005 level by 2020. There is currently no similar cap in the New Zealand scheme.

Climate change matters

Every country in the world will face stresses from climate change. Increased frequency and severity of floods, storms I and droughts will have a direct impact on New Zealand’s agriculture sector and infrastructure. The faster we all move to a low carbon economy – and there are a whole range of policies to get us there – the better.

Its great to get a response on what is a complicated and challenging issue.

Our per capita emissions are high, but that is partly because of the large number of cows we have, relative to humans. I have not calculated what it would excluding the cows, but suspect we would then be close to the UK average.

The UK response does impress upon me that doing nothing is not a viable option. Even Tony Abbott is not a proponent of doing nothing – he just proposes direct Government spending on climate change mitigation rather than an ETS.

But it was younger brother Ed, not the favourite David. This effectively sees the death of New Labour, as Ed Miliband is from the traditional left.

What I find interesting is that breakdown of the voting. UK Labour assigns 1/3 of the votes to the unions, 1/3 to rank and file members and 1/3 to the MPs (incl MEPs).

On the 1st round of voting amongst MPs, David got 42% to 32% for Ed. In the final round he got 53% to 47%.

Amongst rank and file members, in the 1st round David got 44% to 30% for Ed. The final round saw it 54% to 46%.

So how did Ed win? The vote of the union affiliate members.

In the first round they backed Ed 41% to 28%. And in the final round they went for him 60% to 40%.

That gave him an overall victory of 50.65% to 49.35%.

So the new Labour Party leader was not the preferred choice of his caucus, or his members. But he was the preferred choice of union members.

The Telegraph reports:

The tax authorities are consulting accountants, lawyers and businesses on the plans to reform the pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) system. …

To make PAYE more accurate, Treasury ministers have suggested that employers should provide HMRC with monthly updates on workers’ salary payments and other financial details.Such “real time information” could then be used as the basis of a new “centralised deductions” system that would give HMRC an unprecedented role in workers’ monthly salary payments.

Under the centralised deductions system, employers would pay workers’ monthly salary into a central calculator run by HMRC.

There, income tax deductions would be made automatically and the net salary then passed on to the worker by HMRC.

Body … dead … over.

Stuff reports:

A UK politician has been left red-faced after the secret life of his wife was exposed.

Tory MP Mike Weatherley, 53, was at a loss to explain how he did not know his wife, Carla Weatherley, was a prostitute.

The Sunday Mirror claims that as Mr Weatherley was campaigning to join parliament earlier this year, his wife was working at a south London brothel .

According to the Daily Mail, Mrs Weatherley previously worked in three brothels in Brazil and now charges £70 ($150) an hour for sex.

I’m not sure what is worse. Finding out that your wife is a prostitute, or finding out that she only charges £70 an hour.

Oh these are good. The Telegraph reports:

During the week we caught up with one of Dad’s old school mates. He went on from Wellington College to become the inaugural JRR Tolkien Professor of English at Oxford University. Normally I skip lunches with my parents’ friends, but I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to chat to him about Oxford, and Tolkien (whom he met).

We asked for the apartment manager to recommend a nice place for lunch, and ended up at one of those very fancy Kensington cafes, where the food and the service are top class. As you can see above, they even tie bows through the potato chips!

The food looked so ood I had to keep taking photos of it. Tasted great also.

If you are in London, and have not done so, check out the Hyde Park Tube. Lots of these great sketches there.

There are permanent protesters opposite Parliament, and they are often colourful, or just nuts – like this one. For the record I do not think the Royal Family or freemasons killed Mark Quinsey, but the Real IRA.

I’m a bit surprised that they have a statue of Oliver Cromwell up outside Parliament, considering his corpse was dug up, hung in chains and beheaded. Plus the Irish basically hate him as he killed lots of them, and sold 50,000 more into slavery.

Got invited to the Marquis of Granby for leaving drinks for a staffer from Conservative Central Office and had a fun time catching up with some old friends, and meeting some more staffers from CCO.

I love how in London the licenses allow people to drink outside on the street – you get more people drinking outside, than inside.

Also had a good catchup with various blog people at the Southerner – my only regret was I could not stay long as I had a bqq to attend also.

On Sunday, we flew out from Heathrow to Vienna.

Have been too busy to manage to blog every day on the trip, so here is the rest of the week in London in one condensed post.

The problem hasn’t just been the daytime activities, but also work has been very busy. When I scheduled the trip I thought July/August would be quite quiet, but have ended up having heaps of extra polls scheduled since the trip started. This has meant that most mornings I am having to analyse poll results and most evenings am having to prepare questions and databases.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is very useful to be able to still earn money, while out of the country. Helps cover the costs of the trip in fact!  But it does mean the holiday is not a total holiday.

Barclays have sponsored them, but they are universally known as Boris’ Bikes, and got launched this week. It’s a great idea, stolen from the French in fact. You register for a key, and the can grab a bike from any stand and use it, dropping it off at any other stand. If you use it for less than half an hour there is no charge.

This is the “green” at Parsons Green, where my Mum lived when she was a nurse in London. It’s a very nice place- less busy than most of London.

And this is St Dionis, where my olds got married around 49 years ago. Sadly the church wasn’t open (once upon a time churches were open all the time), so only saw the outside.

This is the apartment we stayed at in London. Around 500 metres from Gloucester Road or Earls Court Tube. A very nice area. The apartment wasn’t huge and they are expensive, but it was preferable to a hotel.

Foyles is one of the huge bookshops in London. I managed to restrict myself to just buying three books there. One of them is “Third Man” by Peter Mandelson which is a fascinating insight into New Labour, and the Blair/Brown relationship.

I also got three books at Heathrow, so adding those to the ten I started with, I am now travelling with 16 books. Have finished six of them so far.

This is the rear side of Buckingham Palace, seen from their gardens. It is the end point of the tour of the state rooms.

The state rooms tour is only available eight weeks a year, and by chance opened the week we were there. I’ve previously seen the Mews and the Gallery. This is a tour well worth doing if you visit from late July to late September.

There is an outdoor cafe at the back of the Palace. I declined to enrich the Windsors further.

The birds enjoy Her Majesty’s back lawn.

To exit the grounds, you walk for around 800 metres through the Palace garden, which is almost worth doing for itself.

A short walk away, by Hyde Park is this statue of the man our capital city is named after – Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington.

Most people know he defeated the French under Napolean at the Battle of Waterloo (which globally was very significant), but not so many know he also served as Prime Minister of the UK (twice) and also was elected to the Irish House of Commons earlier on. His major achievement as PM was giving Catholics full suffrage!

Wellington, ranks along Nelson and Churchill as one of the three great British war leaders.

As I have to be over at Docklands around 7 pm, an earlier start time for drinks seems prudent. So I’ll be at the Southerner at 5 pm now.

It’s at 46 Essex Street, WC2R 1AP and is also its penultimate day as it closes at the weekend.

On Monday night I popped along to a pub meeting with new UK Conservative MP Steve Baker. Baker was addressing a gathering of the “Progressive Conservatives”, which is the classical liberal group within the Conservatives.

The group was co-founded by my mate Shane Frith, whom I was in Young Nats with. I co-founded the equivalent group in NZ, the Blue Libs. So sort of amusing that we’ve both managed to set up classical liberal groups in two separate countries.

At the function, had a nice ego boost when one of the women there asked if I was David Farrar, and said how much she enjoys reading Kiwiblog. I thought I had finally gone global, until she mentioned she used to work in NZ.

The IYDU Chairman, Tim Dier, also turned up and I got him hooked onto Four square. So blame me for his location updates!

The following night I went to see Les Mis at the West End. I can only describe it as magnificent. No wonder it has been playing for 25 years. The songs are so good I am still singing them to myself a day later, and the cast were real stars.

Javert is the real figure of pity, unable to comprehend why his enemy saved his life.  I loved Gavroche, and his death is one of the few sombre parts of the production.

Wellington has great cultural events, but my God if I lived in London I would be going to shows every few weeks.

If you have never seen Les Misérables, then go do so the next time you are in London. If you don’t enjoy it, you need to seek medical help

For those I haven’t managed to catch up with in London, I’ll be at the Speights Bar, the Southerner (46 Essex Street, WC2R 1AP) from around 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm on Friday.