Shaun Hendy • Nov 27, 2019 •
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz How much does our use of air travel contribute to the problem of climate change? And is it more damaging … Read More
Eric Crampton • Sep 28, 2018 •
MBIE’s advice on Labour’s ban on Taranaki oil and gas exploration suggested that global emissions could go up. Could that happen? It depends on what you think’s going on in the rest of the world. Suppose that the whole world were under a binding emissions cap under a global cap and trade regime. If New Zealand produced less natural … Read More
Public Health Expert • Apr 17, 2018 •
Prof Nick Wilson, Prof Tony Blakely, Dr Amanda Jones, Dr Linda Cobiac, Dr Nhung Nghiem, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Cristina Cleghorn The New Zealand Government has set up a Tax Working Group to consider reforms of the tax system. In this blog we briefly discuss some of the opportunities for tax reform that will potentially improve health and lower … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 28, 2018 •
Ralph Sims, Massey University This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. New Zealand’s new coalition government has committed to introducing zero-carbon legislation that would set the country on a course to be carbon neutral by 2050. At the same time, it is not ruling out new permits for coal … Read More
John Kerr • Sep 19, 2017 •
The global warming limit set at the 2015 Paris Climate Summit is still possible, say scientists, but we need to redouble our efforts if the Earth’s atmosphere is to limbo under the ambitious boundary. In an article published today in Nature Geoscience an international team of climate scientists reports a re-assessment of complex Earth System Models. Crunching the numbers in light of new … Read More
Guest Author • Jul 19, 2017 •
James Dyke, University of Southampton By continuing to delay significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, we risk handing young people alive today a bill of up to US$535 trillion. This would be the cost of the “negative emissions” technologies required to remove CO₂ from the air in order to avoid dangerous climate change. These are the main findings … Read More
Guest Author • Apr 19, 2016 •
By Dr George Preddey In my 17th submission to all MPs and other worthies on Budget Day, 20 May 2015 (Budget Day), I suggested alternative proposals for New Zealand’s climate change INDCs (intended nationally determined contributions). These proposals dispensed with the pseudo-econometrics that characterised much of the discussion document and worked backwards from an essential goal of net carbon … Read More
Eric Crampton • Apr 18, 2016 •
I hadn’t quite understood New Zealand’s carbon emissions trading scheme before I moved to Wellington. The thing seemed a little dodgy with a fair bit of reliance on dubious foreign credits. But then the genius of the thing was explained to me. I’ve not looked at it properly myself, but the story is interesting, and seems plausible. It goes something … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 15, 2015 •
Steffen Böhm, University of Essex The Paris Agreement has mostly been greeted with enthusiasm though it contains at least one obvious flaw. Few seem to have noticed that the main tool mooted for keeping us within the 2℃ global warming target is a massive expansion of carbon trading, including offsetting, which allows the market exchange of credits between … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 13, 2015 •
Simon Lewis, UCL The UN climate talks in Paris have ended with an agreement between 195 countries to tackle global warming. The climate deal is at once both historic, important – and inadequate. From whether it is enough to avoid dangerous climate change to unexpected wins for vulnerable nations, here are five things to help understand … Read More