Carbon Dynamics in New Zealand’s Native Forests
Native forests play an important role in storing and sequestering carbon in the New Zealand landscape. They do not sequester carbon as quickly as pine forests but can provide significant carbon stores and sinks, as well as a range of other benefits.
Read MoreSubmission In Response To: Process Heat In New Zealand: Opportunities And Barriers To Lowering Emissions Technical Paper January 2019
One of the aims of the 2015 Paris Agreement is: “Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.” New Zealand ratified this agreement and therefore needs to play its part in achieving the agreement’s aims.
Read MoreFebruary 2019
– Applying technology to stave off climate change
– The inconvenient truth about carbon capture
– The carbon-capture era may finally be starting
– UK carbon capture project begins
– Carbon capture facilities (source from company websites)
– New plant-focussed diet would ‘transform’ plant’s future, say scientists
– A third of Himalayan ice-cap doomed
– Environment in multiple crises – report
September 2018
– Recycling, Germany
– Hydrogen fuel cells
– Electric scooters and motorbikes, Taiwan
– Biofuels for transport; tracking progress
– Global energy goal progress
– California clean energy law
– CO2 level at Mauna Loa update
– Seal level rise accelerating
– Landmines and Cluster Weapons
Submission On The Zero Carbon Bill
The Zero Carbon Bill is a critically important piece of legislation for New Zealand. Even though the importance of controlling global warming has become increasingly clear and more widely understood over the past 30 years, to date we have not set meaningful targets to significantly reduce emissions and we have not had any mechanisms in place that seem to have had any significant effect on driving reductions in emissions. Hence our net emissions have just continued to increase through most of this period.
Read MoreThe Kiwi Bottle Drive – New Zealand’s Grass Roots Campaign For The Re-Introduction of Bottle Deposits
A Container Deposit Scheme (CDS) would recycle an extra 750 million beverage containers each year, create over 2,000 new jobs and reduce the impact of plastic on our oceans. Yet the packaging industry continues to undermine the public’s desire and the political will for change. What can we do to ensure New Zealand catches up with other countries that are leading the way on reducing single-use packaging and the harm it causes?
Read MoreJune 2018
– The new food: meet the startups racing to reinvent the meal
– UN data suggests that the world’s population will hit 11 billion by 2100
– Climate change to drive migration from island homes sooner than thought
– New technology could slash carbon emissions from aluminium production
– California’s global warming solutions
– Netherlands to build world’s first habitable 3D printed houses
– World’s first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
– Auckland University of Technology’s comments on the Low-emissions economy draft
report by the New Zealand Productivity Commission
– ESR papers available on-line
Climate Change And The Long Term Plan
In the wake of recent coastal storm damage, it is surely now clear that councils need to take account of climate change in their planning, especially as it relates to sea-level rise and the frequency of severe storms. A recently-published study* shows that the pace of sea-level rise is increasing.
Read MoreFebruary 2018
– ‘Silver bullet’ to suck CO2 from air and halt climate change ruled out.
– Climeworks Carbon Capture Plants
– Carbfix
– Aviation Biofuels & Shipping Emissions
– Electric Vehicles
– New York City’s Fossil Fuel Divestment
– Emissions, Road User Charges and EVs – A Strategy: by ESR Member Cliff Turner
– Extracts from UNFOLD ZERO Newsletter, 25 February 2018
– Comment from the President: What can we do about Auckland’s recycling efforts?
– ESR 15 March AGM Notice. The AGM is to be followed by discussions by Sir Alan Mark and Rhys Williams on a Carbon Zero Act.
Climate Change – New Zealand and International Responses
Despite the critical need to address climate change, caused primarily by increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, response has been slowed by pressure from vested interests, a focus by some governments on short-term political objectives and the difficulties of reaching effective international agreements. Some countries are already taking effective action though, and the urgent need for others to join them is becoming extremely clear.
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