Climate change news from Aotearoa and around the World.
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Polls shows climate change high on NZers' priorities
A nationwide poll of 3377 people, conducted between February 26 and March 3, shows 82% of New Zealanders believe climate change is a problem, up from 73% in November last year. Support for the emissions trading scheme policy rose from 46 % in November 007 to 57 %. More than half of those surveyed (55%) Zealanders also support imposing a carbon tax on imports from countries which don't impose carbon charges on their own emitters.
NZ 'running late' on carbon targets - 38 years late, the New Zealand Institute says.
The think tank's chief executive, David Skilling, in a report entitled "Actions speak louder than words", says the measures the Government has announced over the past few months, including an emissions trading scheme, a 90 per cent renewable electricity generation target and tighter fuel efficiency standards, are steps in the right direction and will reduce emissions. "Overall, however, we estimate that the various policies will only serve to reduce domestic emissions in 2050 to about their 1990 level." New Zealand's Kyoto target is to reduce emissions to that level by 2012, but they are now about 25 per cent above it, or 13 per cent if allowance is made for the offsetting effects of new forests.
Greenpeace NZ launches the 'Target Climate Change' tour of New Zealand
Greenpeace NZ launches the 'Target Climate Change' tour of New Zealand with the release of a hard hitting report into the Government's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). We've said in the past that the Government's climate change policy is little more than hot air and, while the ETS was an improvement, it still lacks teeth. The report titled 'New Zealand's Expanding Carbon Footprint - Analysis of New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme: Major flaws and barriers to emission cuts highlights some major shortcomings in the ETS.
The single most important thing we could do as a country to tackle climate change is set a domestic emissions reduction target. An overall target is needed if New Zealand is to achieve any significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. As it stands the scheme will fail to produce any substantial reductions. That's why we are calling for all political parties to set a target of 30 per cent reductions by 2020.
EU, US must engage emerging powers, UN climate chief says.
The European Union and US must boost their support for emerging states such as China, India and Brazil in the fight against climate change, in order to make an international deal viable, the head of the UN's climate body said Monday. "Europe has to begin thinking now about the kind of financial architecture it can put in place that will make it possible for large developing countries like China, India and Brazil to engage" in a world deal on climate change, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said. That support should be organized on a government-to-government level, as well as via international market tools, he stressed.
Compost that carbon.
Applying organic fertilizers, such as those resulting from composting, to agricultural land could increase the amount of carbon stored in these soils and contribute significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, according to new research published in a special issue of Waste Management & Research One estimate of the potential value of this approach – which assumed that 20% of the surface of agricultural land in the EU could be used as a sink for carbon – suggested it could constitute about 8.6% of the total EU emission-reduction objective. "An increase of just 0.15% in organic carbon in arable soils in a country like Italy would effectively imply the sequestration of the same amount of carbon within soil that is currently released into the atmosphere in a period of one year through the use of fossil fuels," write Enzo Favoino and Dominic Hogg, authors of the paper.
In Brief
Australia, New Zealand to cooperate on climate change.
Trustpower sells 300, 000 carbon credits to Japanese at 15.5 euros a tonne.
Interesting compilation of international direct actions against coal.
Alaskan village sues energy firms for climate change.
Specialist news service launching for New Zealand carbon market.
Vatican lists pollution as one of seven new sins.
Comment: Climate Change Is Killing Us. It's Time for a Body Count
The UK's first Energy Saving Day has ended with no noticeable reduction in the country's electricity usage.
China's Killer "Yellow Dust" Hits Korea, Japan
Eat whale and save the planet" says Norwegian lobby.
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