[singlepic=158,240,180,,left]
Belching cows, flatulent sheep and a cocky prime minister. What do these have in common (apart from the obvious)? Together they determine whether New Zealand will meet its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to cut emissions to pre-1990 levels.
Picture: "Dude, did you just let one go?" Astronauts on board the International Space Station pass over New Zealand. Courtesy of
The Big Picture.
In 2002, New Zealand signed the Kyoto Protocol, formally committing to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions - or pay the consequences. The latest report card released by the United Nations (New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2004) show that the Kiwis have - along with many other countries - an uphill battle ahead. Between 1990 and 2004, New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions increased by 26.7% or 33% - depending on how you calculate it:
Emissions from road transportation increased 63% (hardly surprising as the country's rail network becomes a thing of the past). Chemicals industry emissions increased 34.6%. The Kiwi love affair with fridges and airconditioning saw emissions from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) increase by a stunning 284% - though a lot of this is due to the replacement of CFCs and HCFCs with HFCs in the 1990s. Emissions from the solvents and other products used in paints and similar products increased by 15.2%.
The only sector bucking the trend is waste, where emissions have dropped 26% below 1990 levels primarily due to improvements in solid waste disposal.
Pretty boring stuff, really. Until you dig a bit deeper. Read on...
Flatulent sheep, lazy forests
Nearly one-half of New Zealand's total emissions (49.7%) are produced by the agricultural sector. In most developed countries, emissions from this sector account for only 12-15%.
[singlepic=159,240,180,,left]So who are the culprits? Ten million belching cows and 40 million farting sheep. The Government has looked at everything from special grass to fitting stock with gas masks and nappies to capture all those, um, emissions.
New Zealand's forests also present a problem. More than a third of the country is covered with forest. About two-thirds of that is protected native forest. Under New Zealand's strict conservation laws, only Maori can cull native trees - and even then only in very small numbers. Less than 0.1% of wood comes from native trees.
This is good news. Trees thrive on carbon dioxide, effectively eating up all that cow flatlulence. But there is a problem. New Zealand is not planting anywhere near as many trees as it did in the 1990s. For the past two decades, the average planting rate has been 40,000 trees a year. That has dropped significantly to 10,000 a years. Why is this a problem? Young growing trees consume a lot more carbon dioxide than mature trees - nearly twice as much. In a perverse twist, young trees are worth more than mature trees - at least as far as the Kyoto Protocol is concerned. A dramatic increase in the size of the country's already substantial forests would be necessary for them to be consuming carbon dioxide at 1990 levels.
Houston, we have a problem...
The electricity sector in New Zealand uses mainly renewable energy sources: predominantly hydropower and geothermal power. More than 70% share of energy comes from these sources, making New Zealand one of the most sustainable countries in terms of energy generation.
[singlepic=160,240,180,,left]Since the early 1990s, the country's dams have failed to meet growing energy demands. When the dams run low (an annual phenomenum), the grid turns to the country's gas, geothermal and (the last remaining) coal-fuelled power stations. The last four years have seen a dramatic increase in energy generation from coal (more than 10 times the annual average) for this reason alone. To address this, the Government has been building wind farms as fast as it can, including two of the world's largest wind farms near Wellington and Dunedin.
When completed, this will bring New Zealand well within sight of its goal to secure 90% of energy from renewal resources by 2025. This is all well and good, but is building expensive new wind farms the only way to achieve this? Not according to
Greenpeace, which has labelled New Zealand as one of the least energy efficient countries in the OECD. For example, Kiwi homes lose up to 40% of energy through poor insulation. At present there are no plans afoot to address this.
Loud mouth idiots
Outgoing Prime Minister Helen Clark has been the driving force behind many of the initiatives to make New Zealand carbon-neutral, including signing the Kyoto Protocol in the first place. But Helen is no longer with us. We have a new Prime Minister, a businessman, and he seems to have different ideas.
[singlepic=161,240,180,,left]New Zealand has been developing a carbon market which would allow "polluters" (e.g. transport companies) to buy "carbon credits" from others (e.g. forest owners) to offset their liability to the New Zealand Government for the greenhouse gases they create. The scheme was to be the first carbon cap-and-trade scheme outside of Europe and had been designed to help the country meet its obligations under the Kyoto climate-change protocol.
There has been much interest in the the scheme from business, and the public generally. According to the consulting firm Carbon Market Solutions, emissions liabilities are in the order of over US$55 million for some businesses.
Forestry is the first industry ready to participate, and geared up to plant millions of trees to generate carbon credits. According to the New Zealandd Forest Owners Association there has been substantial investment in the scheme.
All that has been thrown into doubt by the newly elected Prime Minister, who has put the scheme on hold. The Prime Minister, a retired businessman who (somewhat ironically) made his millions trading foreign currencies will apparently be softened with exemptions for some of the bigger emitters, such as steel makers and power firms. Moving in the wrong direction? Maybe. But the bigger issue is the Prime Minister's plan to delay implementaton of the scheme for two years - until 2010. The scheme was to be up and running by the end of this year.
Couple this with comments made by the Prime Minister suggesting that he may examine the science behind climate change, and things don't look too rosy.
Where to from here?
Whether or not New Zealand meets its Kyoto commitment isn't likely to have a significant financial impact on the economy. The estimate of New Zealand’s obligation at 30 September 2008 is NZ$583 million - or about 0.3% of GDP. This is small stuff when compared to the really big commitments, like Waitangi Tribunal settlements with Maori tribes.
What can't be quantified is the impact all this has on New Zealand's clean green image, which makes up a
big part of the country's vibrant tourism industry. The Tourism Board's advertising platform,
100% Pure New Zealand, draws heavily on this, with a massive NZ$7 million spent on a single campaign for China earlier this year. Last year, two million tourists visited New Zealand, making tourism the country's biggest "exports". Tourism contributed nearly 10% of the country's GDP last year, a figure that is expected to rise - even in the face of global recession.
Tourists are fickle. It doesn't take much to destroy a tourism industry. Just ask the Balinese. Let's hope that the new Prime Minister's mouthing off is nothing more than hot air.
