New Zealand's coal exports to China were labelled 'hypocritical' by audience members at a public meeting on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)in Blenheim last night.
Climate Change Minister Nick Smith addressed the meeting - part of the Government's road show on the scheme - and was adamant that the scheme was New Zealand's best option.
"The sooner we start an ETS, the easier the transition will be," Mr Smith said. "Also it will protect our clean, green image and market access."
While the global community is fighting wars on many fronts, the Commonwealth Secretary-General has said that there is no greater fight than climate change, "where the battle for the forest represents the front line, and the very thick of the action."
Finally, the primacy of the forest in combating climate change is admitted
THE Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) presents unique opportunities for many rural landowners in New Zealand; carbon forestry will allow landowners to use the scheme to their advantage and gain a new income stream.
Marginal farmland throughout the country can be converted into forestry and as long as any conversions are undertaken in an informed manner, landowners potentially have a lot to gain.
June 2010: The UNFCCC Secretariat has published the report of the informal meeting of experts, which took place in Bonn, Germany, from 25-26 May 2010, on enhancing coordination of capacity-building activities in relation to using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) guidance and guidelines as a basis for estimating forest-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals, forest carbon stocks and forest area changes.
FARMERS are managing an enormous amount of carbon in their landscapes, but get very little credit for the fact under the current Kyoto greenhouse gas accounting rules.
That was the finding of a study by the Lower Apsley Landcare Group in the southern New England, which attempted to quantify carbon flows and sinks across the 16,500 hectares managed by the 20 farmers in the group’s catchment.
The Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC) has condemned Malaysia's booming practice of converting tropical forests into rubberwood plantations, arguing that the conversion threatens Malaysia's biodiversity, endangered species, and releases significant greenhouse gas emissions.
Wellington, June 25 NZPA - Agriculture Minister David Carter has promised the nation's farmers that they will not be made accountable for the greenhouse gas emissions through the Government's emissions trading scheme (ETS), unless trading partners are also feeling some of the financial pain.
The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is complex, confusing and difficult to get agreement on, but as New Zealand prepares for its impact from July 1 Climate Change Minister Nick Smith is confident the right balance has been struck. CHRIS ORMOND of NZPA reports.
The ETS is a typical can't-please-everyone piece of legislation, but the complexity and wide-reaching impacts of it mean every political party and lobby group has at some stage wanted to play a part in shaping it.
At least consumers can cap our oil! This summer, as Americans anguish over the Gulf gusher, watching BP and the government point fingers while things get worse, we're also doing some navel-gazing--and not just at the beach. We're facing our addiction to the petroleum we consume in fuel and daily products.
