Move South

On Friday we cut across to Queenstown with Sustainable Wanaka to hear Climate Change Minister Nick Smith’s roadshow on what New Zealand’s target for Greenhouse Gas Emission reduction should be. Later in the year New Zealand must make a commitment at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December. The problem is real and close to home. Our friends and neighbours in the Pacific face losing their islands beneath the waves and Australia looks increasingly uninhabitable. Just imagine if we become host to thousands of Aussie climate change refugees! Our standard of living will be affected, economically and environmentally.

We told Nick that New Zealand needs to reduce its Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 40%. This would be a real challenge and yet, to me, it looks like we have no choice if we value our planet. The alternative does not look good. The public consultation was the first political meeting I have attended and it was enlightening.

Nick is a good speaker, and very personable. He must be a politician! He explained the issues and the science without being complex. New Zealand’s position is unique in the OECD, with half of our Greenhouse Gas emissions coming from the farming sector, offset by forestry and renewable energy sources like hydro-electric power.

Our problem is that the forests will be harvested around 2020, not much is being replanted, and our energy consumption is soaring, mainly due to immigration, and our improved standard of living.

To achieve any reduction in Greenhouse Gases by 2020, without compromising our farming industry which provides our standard of living, will be difficult. Achieving 40% reduction on 1990 Greenhouse Gas Emission levels, as demanded at the meeting, including replacing emissions offset by forestry will be a real challenge for New Zealand. Nick Smith said this would effectively mean a 64% reduction in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and this would be very difficult without compromising our standard of living.

What was unsaid was that hydro electricity was a major part of the solution for the National government. The Upper Clutha, currently almost a wild river, is scheduled to be dammed to provide more electricity, along with the lower Waitaki River. The National government will change the Resource Management Act to achieve this. More wind farms will be built in places like the Maniatoto. These rivers and mountains are sacred to many New Zealanders, it’s our identity. Think of the “Southern Man”, Mainland cheese, Lord of the Rings, Clean Green New Zealand. How on earth can we destroy these rivers and mountains with dams and turbines? The Upper Clutha Guardians, are determined to halt moee damming of the Clutha. In a sense the Clutha, Waitaki and Waikoto have given enough of their mauri to our country!

What I do not understand is why we do not build wind-farms in areas that are already compromised. For example, Tiwai Point is windy, the aluminium smelter is already plug ugly and uses lots of power, so surely that’s a good place to build a wind farm. Likewise, Auckland has a large industrial area with lots of wind and available land at Te Papapa, at Tiri, and around the airport. Surely when this kind of land is developed, provision should be made for small scale power generation by the developers?

These private individuals and companies would then be able to generate power for their warehouses and businesses and sell it back into the national grid when not using that electricity. “Distributed Generation” accounts for about 5%  of current electricity generation. The government  must make it a requirement for a building consent for industrial buildings as it would be particularly effective for warehouses and storage facilities that that have low power requirements. Power generated by wind at night when these buildings are unoccupied would smooth power consumption loads for private homes in the evening. The government must make it easy for private individuals and companies to provide power to the National Grid, by ensuring that there is a commercial return for such distributed generation projects, perhaps by subsidisation, as occurs in Europe. There is a government discussion document here.

Holiday homes in area like Central Otago, Taupo and Northland could also be required to generate power on a small scale and feed that power back into the national grid when empty, which they are for most of the year.

I rather suspect that the reason these initiatives and others like them are not used is because the electricity generated and saved is not taxable, there is no GST, and it is not measurable in terms of GDP. There appears to be no economic benefit to the government and none to the power companies. This is not an issue about profit but an issue of survival. We simply have to change this paradigm is we want to get anywhere near the emissions level the public and the planet needs and wants.

Nick Smith has invited comments and submissions, these issues will affect your standard of living one way or another, so make the effort go to his website and to the roadshow which is coming to a town near you soon! Click on the links to see all the issues!