The Hoon

TL;DR: Here’s the top news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:* Two new academic studies attempt to pinpoint tipping risks. One modelled tipping risk from four interconnected tipping elements, based on current policy paths that overshoot 1.5˚C, and estimated the tipping risk to be 45% by 2300, even if temperatures are brought back below the target this century. Climate action this decade can have a significant impact on the level of risk, they say. * Another study, yet to be peer-reviewed or published, modelled just one tipping element, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Shockingly, it found a greater-than-even chance of an AMOC collapse before 2050. The impact of such a collapse would profoundly affect much of the Northern Hemisphere.* Energy Minister Simeon Brown has offers up his grand plan for importing LNG that solves neither the immediate nor the long-term electricity supply crisis, while the country’s largest gas and energy customers, Methanex and Tiwai Point ramp down their operations (and their associated exports), to offset the short-term pain.* Propublica has a great scoop this week, gaining access to training videos for The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and its secret 180-day Playbook for getting an army of political appointees in place to fight the deep state and rapidly advance a right-wing agenda should Trump win the US election. The videos include plans to “eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere”.(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)1. Some ‘hard to ignore’ research into the looming tipping pointsIn international science news, research attempting to pin down more specific information on tipping points and their timing is emerging. An article published in Nature magazine says that if we were to follow current policies in place this century, which overshoot 1.5˚C, it would commit the world to a 45% tipping risk by 2300, even if the temperature is subsequently brought back below 1.5˚C. The tipping risk increases for every 0.1˚C of temporary overshoot. The study uses an Earth System Model of four interconnected climate tipping elements. The paper emphasises that planetary stability relies on stringent emissions reductions in the current decade. One particular tipping element (one of the four included in the modelling above) that has been receiving a lot of attention in recent years is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or (AMOC), a vital system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that have profound impacts on weather around the world. 2. When might the AMOC tip?News about the AMOC has been increasingly concerning and a new, yet to be peer-reviewed study, is the most dramatic and worrying yet, suggesting that a tipping point may be much, much nearer than 2300. The research uses a state-of-the-art model that focuses specifically on estimating the likely timing of a collapse. The results suggest that the AMOC is more likely than not to collapse by 2050.Like a conveyor belt, the AMOC pulls warm surface water from the southern hemisphere and the tropics and distributes it in the cold North Atlantic. The colder, saltier water then sinks and flows south. The mechanism keeps parts of the Southern Hemisphere from overheating and parts of the Northern Hemisphere from getting unbearably cold, while distributing nutrients that sustain life in marine ecosystems.The impacts of an AMOC collapse would leave parts of the world unrecognizable.In the decades after a collapse, Arctic ice would start creeping south, and after 100 years, would extend all the way down to the southern coast of England. Europe’s average temperature would plunge, as would North America’s – including parts of the US. The Amazon rainforest would see a complete reversal in its seasons; the current dry season would become the rainy months, and vice versa.An AMOC collapse “is a really big danger that we should do everything we can to avoid,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, a physical oceanographer at Potsdam University in Germany who was not involved in the latest research.The Southern Hemisphere would become warmer than currently predicted in the case of an AMOC collapse, as less heat would be transported northward.Rahmstorf said that five or so years ago he would have agreed that an AMOC collapse this century was unlikely, though even a 10% risk is still unacceptably high “for a catastrophic impact of such magnitude.”“There’s now five papers, basically, that suggested it could well happen in this century, or even before the middle of the century,” Rahmstof said. “My overall assessment is now that the risk of us passing the tipping point in this century is probably even greater than 50%.”The pre-print (yet to be peer-reviewed and published) of the paper can be read in full here. Specifically, it estimates the probability of an AMOC collapse before 2050 at 59 ± 17%. If the paper makes it through peer-review largely intact, it should cause a serious rethink of our global approach to reducing emissions as the scale of risk is almost unimaginable.3. Markets can’t solve it, and the Govt won’t - but it WILL import more gasHaving cancelled the previous Government’s oil and gas exploration ban, Energy Minister Simeon Brown now wants to start importing LNG. That won’t solve the immediate crisis, of course. Or the long-term one, for that matter.Brown has been quick to blame the previous government's ban on new oil and gas exploration for a shortage in gas to get us through the entirely predictable current dry year issue. But a great explainer in The Conversation by a group of Canterbury University academics points out that a record amount was spent on drilling new wells between 2020 and 2024. It just didn’t produce much new gas and now energy companies think there is less there than they previously thought. This, combined with policies that change with each new government, means that energy companies will be slow to respond to the new policy regime while both gas and electricity markets lack the ‘confidence to move’. Another way to put it is that markets can’t solve the problem and Governments won’t. What a pickle. According to The Conversation article,  every short-term solution involves a trade-off that impacts GDP (that shouldn’t be a surprise given how tightly correlated energy and GDP are). And that is what has eventuated with both Methanex (the country’s largest domestic user of indigenous gas) and Tiwai Point (the country’s largest renewable energy customer), both significant exporters, agreeing to ramp down their operations temporarily.The option to strategically toggle production up and down to off-set variable energy availability is one that has been under-explored until now. The situation with Tiwai Point and Methanex has evolved almost organically, but should we put a tail on it and call it a cunning plan? Where are the feasibility plans for strategically over-building renewable energy alongside industries that can export embedded or stored energy in various forms? It’s not a new idea, but thus far lacks sufficient strategic governance to bring it about in a more intentional form. Backing into Bernard’s call to exploit China’s cheap battery and solar production, Mike Casey this week made a case for a mini boom in distributed solar. Again, this requires strategic government action to ‘pull levers it’s just not pulling’. A more distributed energy grid would have the added advantage of building more resilience into a system that is facing increasingly strong and more frequent weather events. AND, in what would seem like something akin to magic at this point, it would tip the country into forward motion.4. Project 2025’s anti-science plansShifting to news abroad – Propublica has a great scoop this week on the secret/not so secret Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could ‘fight the deep state’ and accelerate a right-wing policy agenda under a future Trump presidency. There have been increasing calls from Democrats for The Heritage Foundation to release the “undisclosed fourth pillar of the project called the ‘180-Day Playbook’”, which has so far remained secret. Propublica has gotten hold of a set of training videos for it, including one on climate change that features some extremely retro thinking:In one video, Bethany Kozma, a conservative activist and former deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Trump administration, downplays the seriousness of climate change and says the movement to combat it is really part of a ploy to “control people.”“If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere,” Kozma says.Despite Trump’s claim to have no connection to the project, Propublica found that 29 of the 36 speakers featured in the videos have worked for him in some capacity, in his 2026-27 transition team, his administration or his 2024 re-election campaign. The Project’s known threats to science were outlined in a Scientific American article in July, that claimed the Project sought to  “sabotage science-based policies that address climate change, the environment, abortion, health care access, technology and education.“...also mapped out in detail, is a plan to exert more presidential control over traditionally nonpartisan governmental workers—those Trump might describe as members of the “deep state,” or regulatory bureaucracy. For example, Project 2025 claims that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other scientific institutions are “vulnerable to obstructionism” unless appointees at these agencies are “wholly in sync” with presidential policy. To that end, it would reclassify tens of thousands of civil service jobs as political positions that answer to the president.“The independence of science is being attacked across the board in this document,” says Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy program at the nonpartisan Union of Concerned Scientists. “The importance of this science is that’s how we can ensure people’s health and the environment are being safeguarded.”5. So what are health implications of climate change?Another academic pre-print (yet to be peer-reviewed and published) makes one of the first systematic attempts to estimate the effects of climate change on human morbidity and mortality. The researchers calculate directly-attributable mortality between 2016 and 2023 as high as 271,000, although this figure encompasses only a small fraction of the presumed global burden given the lack of studies that address infectious and non-communicable diseases, or large-scale events outside of Europe or the US. They suggest that the field of health impact attribution is “poised to explode in the next decade, putting unprecedented pressure on policymakers to take action for human health”. MedRxiv6. The best (and worst) of the rest of the climate newsAmong the many other interesting stories this week:* A report has found that the UK’s Drax biomass power plant was the country’s largest carbon emitter in 2023, emitting more than the country’s largest remaining coal plant, despite receiving more than £7 billion in public funding subsidies available under the EU and UK Emissions Trading Schemes. The energy from biomass plants is considered renewable and their emissions don’t have to be reported as it is assumed that forest regrowth offsets the carbon dioxide produced. The plant’s own accounting relies on a significant contribution from Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), although the CCS part is yet to be built. All of the IPCC’s Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) that keep the world below 1.5˚C use BECCS as a negative emissions technology to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and bring temperatures back down after overshooting the 1.5˚C target. Contention remains over the feasibility and scalability of those plans. Source: The Guardian* Canada’s 2023 wildfires produced more CO2 emissions that would normally be expected over the course of a decade and were made three times more likely by climate change. Source: The Guardian* More marine heatwaves, responsible for a damaging cascade of impacts across critical oceans species, are predicted for Aotearoa this summer. The Herald* An opinion piece by Dan Hikuroa’s for The Herald argues eloquently for a shift in paradigms away from a mechanistic view of the world toward a kaitiakitanga paradigm that focused on being a good ancestor. He acted as an advisor for the producers of the play Scenes from the Climate Era, on at Tamaki Makaurau’s Q Theatre until 24 August. I’ve heard its excellent! The HeraldKa kite anoBernard and Cathrine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on the latest science of climate tipping points and Project 2025‘s plan to banish the phrase ‘climate change’ from a Trump administration;* Robert Patman on the latest from Gaza and the conflict(s) in the Middle East;* Journalist Hala Jaber from Beirut on those conflicts, and,* Civil Contractors NZ (CCNZ) CEO Alan Pollard on the association’s survey of its members showing a crisis because the new Government froze their pipelines of work.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey. (This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)Ngā mihi nui.Bernard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:* The WHO reports a 30% increase in heat-related deaths worldwide over the past two decades with numbers set to swell (as we all swelter).* Wait and see, says Zeke Hausfather: Climate scientists are holding out for as long as possible in the hope that global surface temperatures will self-correct to a level closer to their model paths in August.* A story about how oil companies sold the US on a fake climate change solution, simultaneously swindling billions of dollars of taxpayer money to support the grift, is gaining ground since hearings in the US Senate wound down last month.* As support for  ‘voluntary off-setting’ hits the skids, a replacement concept is now emerging to help corporates achieve their targets, even when they fail to sufficiently reduce their own emissions. Is it real, or just another way to greenwash?* The call goes out to make your voice heard, with submissions on the government’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) set to close on 17 August.* The Government announced it was looking to import LNG to generate elecricity after a surge in wholesale prices that is forcing factories to close. (See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)1. WHO warns of ongoing surge in heat-related deathsAs athletes and spectators alike suffered through sauna-like conditions at the Paris Olympics, the UN has pointed out that heat-stress is the leading cause of climate-related deaths in the region. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, there has been a 30% increase in heat-related deaths worldwide over the past two decades.A staggering 175,000 people die from heat-related causes every year in Europe and that figure is set to soar in line with our steadily warming planet. That’s the warning from the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which said on Friday that European countries are seeing temperatures rise at around twice the global average.[...] That message echoes the Call to Action on Extreme Heat by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who insisted that Earth “is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere”.In some places around the world, the climate crisis is already driving temperatures up to unbearable levels, WHO noted. Estimates show that globally, approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occurred each year between 2000 and 2019, with the European Region accounting for 36 per cent or on average more than 175,000 lives every yearMr. Guterres’s comments came in the week that saw the three warmest days recorded on Earth in recent history, according to one of the datasets that the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) uses to monitor the climate.Source: UN News2. ‘We’ll know by August’Meantime, climate scientist Zeke Hausfather pushes back against the dawning realisation that global temperatures have already established a new normal that is 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial level, suggesting we ‘wait and see’ what August brings.Temperatures in the southern hemisphere (the blue line in the chart below)  were pushed up in the last two weeks of July by a warming spike in Antarctica which soared nearly 30˚C above normal.Daily global and hemispheric temperatures in the NCEP GFS reanalysis product, including a 7-day forecast. Anomalies shown relative to a 1981-2010 baseline. Sourced from Karsten Haustein’s climate tracking site.Hausfather suggests that this anomalous situation in Antarctica, which is generally subject to high variability, is likely to disappear, leaving August temperatures to drop slightly below last year’s.Earlier this year NASA’s Gavin Schmidt and I separately wrote that the evolution of global temperatures in 2024 would be important to tell us if the “gobsmacking” conditions we saw in the latter half of 2023 represented a new persistent condition for the climate or more of a temporary phenomenon.Gavin suggested that we would have a better sense by August if conditions were stabilizing or the climate was heading into “uncharted territory”.With August almost upon us we remain in something of a liminal space. Both June and July were notably warmer than I expected earlier in the year (coming in 0.4C and 0.3C respectively above the last big El Nino year of 2016). At the same time, we have moved out of record territory, and we still expect some additional cooling influence from fading El Nino conditions and potential La Nina development.So I think we will still have to wait and see, though if the spike in temperatures over the past few weeks persists to push August 2024 to set a new record it would be a worrying sign.Source: The Climate BrinkThe problem is that temperatures in August last year were already 1.5˚C above the pre-industrial average according to the EU’s Copernicus programme.  A new record would be really alarming, but one would think that anything near to last year’s “gobsmacking” conditions would still represent a worrying ‘persistence’. The  requirement for a ‘new record’ to spark concern sounds like the goalposts are being shifted.3. Eyes on fossil fuel companies’ cynical ‘solutions’ ployAward-winning investigative journalist, Amy Westervelt’s piece, supported by the Pulitzer Centre and published in Vox, as well as her own site Drilled at the end of July is gaining traction. The report shows how fossil-fuel companies have been heavily marketing solutions, such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and biofuels, that they don’t really believe in themselves. Her reporting has been closely following revelations from a three-year US House and Senate Democrat investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s role in climate disinformation.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said carbon capture might be necessary to reduce the emissions of certain “hard to abate” sectors like steel, concrete, and some chemical manufacturing, but noted that in the best-case scenario, with carbon capture technology working flawlessly and deployed at large scale, it could only account for a little over 2 percent of global carbon emissions reductions by 2030.That hasn’t stopped major oil companies from claiming that carbon capture and storage “will be essential for helping society achieve net-zero emissions,” that they are delivering “carbon capture for American industry,” working on reducing emissions in their own businesses (also referred to as “carbon intensity”), and delivering “heavy industry with low emissions.” But internal documents obtained during the federal investigation, as well as information that industry whistleblowers shared with Drilled and Vox, reveal an industry that is decidedly more realistic about the emissions-reduction potential of carbon capture and storage technology, or CCS, than it presents publicly.[...] While Shell’s optimistic projection envisions 10,000 large-scale CCS facilities operational by 2070, with more than 2,500 facilities by 2050, Exxon predicts somewhere between 250 and 500 facilities by 2050. Elsewhere in the scenario, Exxon also envisions that “global scale is limited” for CCS and hydrogen tech by 2050.Exxon’s past projections were much more in line with what critics of CCS have been saying for years. The IPCC, for example, has said that even if realized at its full announced potential, CCS would only account for about 2.4 percent of the world’s carbon mitigation by 2030. In its fact sheet on CCS, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank in Ohio that produces market-based research on the energy transition, states: “It’s worth noting that not one single CCS project has ever reached its target CO2 capture rate.”It has also been revealed that Exxon’s own carbon capture project at its LaBarge Shute Creek gas facility, often touted by the industry as one of the largest successful, working projects has been venting half of its captured emissions back into the atmosphere, after selling most of the other half to various oilfield operators for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Just 6 million tonnes (around 3% of the captured emissions) have been permanently sequestered underground during the facility’s 35 years in operation.Thanks to prolific lobbying and a campaign promoting “CCS enabling narratives” by fossil fuel companies, US taxpayers are now funding CCS through a tax credit that pays as much as $85 per metric ton of carbon that is sequestered and up to $60 per ton for carbon that is stored, then used for EOR, a longstanding practice that makes oil and gasfields more profitable! The stored emissions for which the tax credit can be claimed are entirely self-reported and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not verifying how much carbon is actually being stored. Westervelt’s reporting includes, among many other startling revelations, what happens when CO2 pipes transporting captured carbon leak (you may not want to know if you enjoy sleeping at night). The whole report is well worth reading before the industry narratives take root here in Aotearoa.4. A new mechanism in favour, but is it more greenwashing?In other news, The Financial Times is reporting on a new financial mechanism to ‘unleash the power of capital’ and aid companies to meet their emissions targets as carbon offsets go out of vogue.The certificates sound a lot like carbon offsets, the controversial voluntary credits that companies buy to prove that they have helped cut emissions somewhere else, often by planting trees or distributing cleaner cooking stoves. But there is a crucial difference that avoids some of the problems that led the world’s leading arbiter of corporate climate targets to declare carbon offsets were mostly “ineffective”. The certificates are “carbon insets” — they reduce carbon in a traceable way from the relevant supply chain, rather than through some unconnected activity. [...] The US Treasury department said using insets was preferable to offsets for corporate buyers in its recent paper on voluntary carbon markets.The example used in the FT article involves a third-party company paying to subsidise an airline’s use of biofuels, made from used oils, fats and renewable energy to make fuel, that reduces emissions by as much as 70% (such approaches have been criticised elsewhere for their lack of scalability). The biofuel is more expensive than regular aviation fuel, so airlines won’t use it without a subsidy. This sounds a lot like a plan to have one set of unsustainable (but profitable) industries subsidise another unsustainable industry so that they can all stay afloat for as long as possible. Indeed, the FT article admits that “[s]ome environmentalists warn that they could set back the ultimate goal of curbing global warming because they remove pressure on companies and people to change their behaviour. With certificates, companies voluntarily pay more to fly rather than flying less. They also can be subject to the same fraud and abuse as offsets” before proclaiming the approach a win.The underlying approach is ‘same, but different’ to that being trialled in Aotearoa by the Toha Network, to much better effect. Toha is focused on shifting funding to frontline communities engaged in repairing and regenerating local landscapes. Toha’s MAHI is a digital token that is used to pay for work that is verified through a system known as ‘action- or output-based funding’. The premise is considerably more promising, but still highly dependent on the integrity of the executing organisation. While the ‘carbon inset’ concept described by FT seems, at best, an incremental improvement on carbon off-sets, a critical difference with Toha’s approach is that it doesn’t aim to provide a claimable emissions reduction for the purchasing entity. It simply enables organisations to support activities such as nature repair and restoration, land stewardship, and invasive species management in a verified and measurable way.5. Speak up on the emissions planAnd finally, public submissions on the Government’s Emissions Reduction Plan close on 17 August 21. Catherine Knight’s excellent opinion piece in Newsroom this week reiterates New Zealand climate scientist James Renwick’s call to make your voice heard. We further encourage you to make your voice heard beyond the submission process, which can be a very controlled form of public feedback with no guaranteed response. Use it but go further.  It is increasingly clear that a proportionate response to climate change will not arise from governments or institutions embedded in the status quo, but from the actions of a concerned public.6. Always going for fossil fuels firstThe Government announced it was looking to import LNG to generate elecricity after a surge in wholesale prices that is forcing factories to close. We talked more about that in this week’s Hoon.Ka kite anoBernard and Cathrine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the week’s news with:* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on this week’s explosion in wholesale electricity prices;* Robert Patman on the latest on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, the conflicts in Gaza and the Middle East, and on the debate about Aotearoa joining AUKUS;* Sanjana Hattotuwa, Research Director at The Disinformation Project, on the role of disinformation in civil unrest in Bangladesh, the UK and Aotearoa, and,* Kate Day, the co-director of Common Grace Aotearoa, who helps run EveryoneConnected, a campaign to end electricity disconnection fees and end higher prices for pre-pay electricity, on this week’s announcement from Contact that it had stopped charging such fees for non payment and on the problems in the electricity market.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded on Thursday night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey. (This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)Ngā mihi nui.BernardPS: My apologies for the late delivery of this Hoon. Life got in the way, including the most wonderful walk on Rangitoto Island with my daughter yesterday, during which we took this picture of a Tieke (Saddleback). Thanks for your patience. It was flitting around in a group of three. I’d never seen one before. This was special for me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about revolts against the Government over austerity and disinformation by directors and staff alike at Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ, adding to the Kāinga Ora board revolt last monthThey also spoke to:* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on a big new global study on the dangers and opportunities from Aotearoa’s surge in methane emissions from cows, along with Air NZ’s decision to pull out of a global emissions reduction compact. She referred to The Kākā’s weekly climate wrap out for all today and we talked about comments in 2011 by then PM John Key;* Special guest Vic Crockford on housing and homelessness. Vic was the CEO at Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) and is now the chair of the Coalition to end Women’s Homelessness, which just published this blog post on the issue. She referred to these two Listener-$$$ articles about women’s homelessness here and here; and,* Whangārei A&E doctor Dr Gary Payinda on the health crisis.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded last night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey. (This is a sampler for all free subscribers and anyone else who stumbles on it. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)Ngā mihi nui.Bernard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:* A new study published this week in the journal Frontiers in Science shows methane emissions are growing much faster than projected and that rapid reductions are necessary if the world is to stay on track to limit warming to 1.5˚C or 2˚C.* The research emerges at a critical time for Aotearoa as two reviews of methane targets are currently underway, one by the Climate Change Commission and another by a panel newly formed by the Coalition Government.* The researchers argue that the alternative climate metric GWP* has been misused to support inequitable claims that current levels of methane emissions cause ‘no additional warming’. The coalition Government’s newly formed panel, tasked with reviewing the country’s methane target has the principle of ‘no additional warming’ embedded in its terms of reference, suggesting that the Government, and an agricultural industry that is eagerly anticipating a downward revision to its targets as a result of the panel’s work, are unlikely to welcome the latest research.* Air New Zealand announced that it was abandoning its 2030 targets and withdrawing from the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) this week. It is the first global airline to join the headlong rush out of the SBTi as 2030 gets uncomfortably close.* The SBTi itself released a set of reports as a first step toward reviewing its standards, after indicating earlier this year that it was considering reversing its advice against the corporate use of voluntary carbon offsets to achieve Scope 3 emissions targets, causing uproar and a staff revolt. Far from clarifying the organisation’s position, the reports find ‘mixed evidence’ for the effectiveness of carbon offsets.* Pressure is growing to provide more ways for organisations and states to obscure the confronting reality that they are failing to take sufficient action to remain on track to achieve Paris Agreement targets.(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)1. Methane emissions under increasing scrutinyNew research out this week shows anthropogenic methane emissions have been growing much faster than projected, particularly since 2006. They have been responsible for about half of planetary warming between the pre-industrial period and the 2010s but have received far less attention compared to carbon dioxide. It is now becoming increasingly clear that reducing methane emissions is a critical component, alongside decarbonisation, of achieving global climate goals. The article by lead author Professor Drew Shindell of Duke University and a group of 14 other international climate scientists says that methane emissions need to drop rapidly, if we are to limit global warming to 1.5˚C or 2˚C.2. Research comes at critical time for NZThe study has emerged at a critical time for policymakers in Aotearoa. Two reviews of our methane emissions targets are currently under way – one by the Climate Change Commission and another by a separate panel newly formed by the Government as part of their coalition agreement. The terms of reference for that panel are to provide advice on what the target should be that ‘is consistent with the principle of no additional warming’. That framing has been called into question by the latest research.The researchers argue that the alternative climate metric GWP* has used to support the claim that current levels of methane emissions are not a pressing issue requiring targeted action.The GWP (Global Warming Potential) index was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases, in order to decide how much effort should be put into reducing the levels of different greenhouse gases. It compares the ability of the various gases to trap extra heat in the atmosphere over time relative to carbon dioxide (CO2). GWP* is a new measure that takes account of the different atmospheric lifetimes of short- and long-lived gases, better capturing their different warming effects.Responding to the study, Professor Robert McLachlan, Distinguished Professor in Applied Mathematics at Massey University commented,"Shindell et al. suggest that the alternative climate metric, GWP* has been misused to argue that current levels of methane emissions cause 'no additional warming', and that this 'ignores emissions responsible for roughly half the warming to date and appears to exempt current high methane emitters from mitigation. This is neither equitable nor consistent with keeping carbon budgets within reach.' Two of the five members of the new methane review panel were authors of the original GWP* study.3. NACT Govt has latched onto that narrative like a life raftThe narrative of ‘no additional warming’ was sold to the current coalition government ahead of the last election and they appear to have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. The agriculture industry has been hoping to reel in reduced methane targets, just as the world wakes up to the increasing threat posed by short-lived gases. The new research will likely go down like a cup of cold sick across the current government and the agriculture industry, as their preferred narrative comes under fire by an influential group of international climate scientists.The article suggests that the likely source of the recent and abrupt acceleration in methane emissions is from wetlands, in a worrying response to increased warming, along with additional contributions from fossil fuel use. Both of these results mean that anthropogenic emissions must decrease more than expected to reach warming goals. The researchers support a split gas approach, as has been implemented in Aotearoa New Zealand, saying that a net-zero target specifically for methane is neither necessary nor plausible. Acknowledging the additional difficulties of reducing agricultural methane emissions, they nonetheless suggest a global sectoral target that reduces emissions 20% by 2030 and 30% by 2050.Also worth reading is a viewpoint on the article that accompanied its publication in the Frontiers in Science journal, penned by Climate Change Commissioner Andy Reisinger. Reisinger points out that the sectoral targets above were derived from scenarios that assumed rapid and deep cuts in all emissions from 2020 onwards. As these have not yet materialised, future emissions reductions, including those for agricultural methane may need to be even stronger than the article suggests. He also emphasises the relationship between methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions, the value judgements that drive their related targets and explains why competing narratives about methane can be challenging for policymakers to parseThe many connections between CH4 and CO2 that Shindell et al. discuss also make clear that if individual countries or sectors do adopt separate emission targets for long- and short-lived gases, such targets cannot be set in isolation from each other to achieve an overall climate goal. How we slice the global emissions pie to serve a highly uneven world depends on value judgments about equity and pathways for sustainable development, not physics. Separate targets for short- and long-lived gases provide greater transparency in emissions and actual climate outcomes but also imply dual political fronts for lobbying and renegotiation. Separate targets also reduce flexibility for accommodating underachievement in individual sectors and therefore increase the risk of failure. Whether combined or separate targets lead to a more durable and ambitious climate response overall will thus depend on country- and sector-specific circumstances as well as uncertainty about future technologies to achieve individual targets decades into the future.A media release accompanying the article’s publication provides a final word from its lead author,The scientists lay out three critical imperatives for action, backed by analyses of satellite remote sensing data, reported methane emissions, and the interaction of abatement options with market forces. Firstly, we need to bring methane emissions down. Secondly, we need to coordinate efforts to tackle methane and carbon dioxide emissions—only cutting carbon dioxide won’t stop warming quickly enough, but only cutting methane just delays global heating. Thirdly, we need to incentivize and enforce methane abatement.This is a life-saving, cost-effective measure. Estimates indicate that every tonne of methane emitted in 2020 caused US$470-1700 of damages. But this may be a significant underestimate: taking into consideration the effect on air pollution that damages human health, the true cost could be up to $7,000 per tonne—and rising.“The benefits of methane mitigation nearly always outweigh the net costs,” explained Shindell. “Many methane mitigation options provide net economic gains even without accounting for environmental impacts.”Adding that,“People can make sure they avoid over-consumption of beef and dairy, and compost their organic waste whenever possible,” said Shindell. “If it’s not possible where they live, they can vote for those who’ll create programs for composting in their towns. They can also vote for those who will make polluters pay for methane emission rather than letting them profit while society picks up the tab for the damages they’re inflicting.”4. Air NZ leads the way … not in a good wayIn other news this week, Air New Zealand announced it was abandoning its 2030 targets, becoming the first airline to join the rush to exit the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). The SBTi (jointly run by the United Nations Global Compact and NGOs including the World Resources Institute, and WWF) supports large organisations to take meaningful climate action by ensuring their targets are aligned with the science that aims to limit global warming to well below 2˚C. The SBTi requires companies to have targets for both 2030 and 2050, with many companies feeling the pressure as the former approaches.5. STBi reports find ‘mixed evidence’ on offsetsIn March, SBTi removed 239 organisations from their net zero commitments dashboard, having failed to validate their “commitment”. The list of removed companies included industry giants like Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Walmart and Unilever. Commitments relating to Scope 3 emissions (those emissions in a company’s supply chain that it does not directly control) proved to be the major obstacle. This was closely followed in April by the SBTi Board’s disclosure that they were considering reversing the organisation’s long-standing opposition to the use of carbon offsets by companies to achieve their Scope 3 targets, in an approach favoured by one of its key financial backers the Bezos Earth Fund. The announcement caused an immediate revolt amongst internal staff.  This week the SBTi released a hotly anticipated set of reports in its first step toward revising its standards. Far from clarifying the next steps for the SBTi, the review finds ‘mixed evidence’for the effectiveness of carbon offsets, pulling up short of any actual recommendation for changes to the SBTi’s Corporate Net Zero Standard. In between events, a United Nations taskforce leaked their draft report, revealing that they were about to come out in opposition to the use of carbon credits from the voluntary market by companies, as reported here last week.6. Pressure & division grows over reduction targetsClimate Commissioner Andy Reisinger makes an appearance in this saga as well. He is the lead author of a paper published in the journal Nature last week, criticising the Science Based Targets, arguing:Such a narrow conceptualisation of science to guide and justify targets for individual companies or countries is misleading. Simplistic use of global averages taken from IPCC reports, used out of context and generically applied to a broad diversity of individual actors, leads to inefficiency and inequity, higher emissions and more warming than intended. Indeed, such a generic approach is the very opposite of using science to inform actions consistent with the objectives of the Paris Agreement.Further, Reisinger et al. argue strongly for the inclusion of social sciences and humanities in target setting,To address the multiple dimensions of equity associated with climate mitigation targets for individual actors such as companies or countries, social sciences and humanities need to become a core part of the science that informs target setting, including economics, political science, socio-technical transition theory and ethics. This requires embracing the wide range of actions that can contribute to the mitigation goals of the Paris Agreement, as opposed to hobbling acceptable actions by narrow and arbitrary decision-making rules.The temperature is rising as 2030 approaches and one-by-one, organisations and countries are being forced to reveal whether they are actually on track. The fierce battle being fought over emissions reduction targets will determine whether society faces up to the confronting reality that we are failing to address climate change sufficiently to keep warming below 2˚C (let alone the still official target of keeping it near 1.5˚C) or whether spin and greenwash will be enabled to continue obscuring that harsh truth.Ka kite anoBernard and Cathrine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, and a discussion above between Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer:* A draft report from a UN taskforce on the use of carbon offsets was leaked this week, revealing the UN plans to reject companies’ use of carbon credits from the voluntary market, following a seemingly endless run of reports detailing serious integrity issues. Outrage from fossil fuel company representatives, quoted by the Financial Times, is already brewing in anticipation of the announcement.* Rumblings about the current New Zealand Government’s offsetting plans are continuing to grow, following the release of last week’s Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP). Dame Anne Salmond lashed the proposed ‘tree planting frenzy’ in Newsroom, while the President of the New Zealand Institute of Forestry said it was good, but the Government had got the modelling wrong. In an RNZ interview, James Treadwell pointed out that the industry was only set to plant about half of the Government’s afforestation forecast over the next two years, leaving a big hole in the plan.* The market’s next ‘black swan’ could come from climate risk gouging more than 40% from global equity valuations creating a ‘lost generation’ in equity returns.* Fonterra is accused of spending more on advertising than research in a new global study looking at how big meat and dairy “delay, distract, and derail action on transforming the food system” mirroring strategies used by tobacco and fossil fuel industries.* The social inequities of New Zealand’s transport emissions are unveiled in a new report showing some groups are ‘privileged’ by the current transport system, while it disproportionately harms the environment and other peoples’ health.* Global temperatures hit fresh record highs in the last week.(See more detail and analysis below, and in the video and podcast above. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)1. Integrity issues of the vast carbon trading marketA UN task force is rejecting the use of carbon credits by companies to off-set their greenhouse gas emissions, outside of government regulated markets, according to a draft report leaked to the Financial Times. The task force, established by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, says companies should focus on reducing their own emissions rather than participating in vast and growing voluntary carbon trading markets.Many industries, including carbon intensive industries, rely on carbon off-setting to meet their net-zero carbon targets, claiming that it provides a critical stream of climate financing. This includes highly polluting fossil fuel companies, as well as tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple. The Financial Times article quotes an outraged Jeff Swartz, vice-president at BP’s trading and shipping arm, which buys and sells carbon credits, “I would hope and I would expect that serious organisations that are committed to protecting ecosystems . . . don’t shut down an avenue for channelling that carbon finance.”However, in recent years, report after report has emerged detailing serious integrity issues with carbon off-setting. Criticisms include vast over-statements of the emissions reductions achieved, the use of poor verification methodologies, impermanence of emissions reductions, and failure to obtain free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) from indigenous and other local communities. While the bulk of these criticisms have applied to voluntary markets, government sanctioned schemes including the UN’s own clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI) that operated under the Kyoto Protocol, have also come under fire.2. Growing scrutiny of NZ’s tree planting planSuccessive governments in Aotearoa have heartily endorsed carbon trading, both as a domestic policy tool for achieving emissions reductions, and as an international mechanism allowing the country to achieve its climate obligations through international off-setting. Both approaches are coming under increasing scrutiny as challenges emerge. This week, Dame Anne Salmond issued a stern condemnation of plans by Minister for Climate Change, Simon Watts to promote “a tree-planting frenzy”, claiming that the strategy has proved to be an unmitigated disaster in the past:After Cyclone Bola hit Tairāwhiti in the late 1980s, the government decided pine plantations were the answer to widespread erosion. Farmland was sold to international investors and converted to pine trees, hollowing out rural communities. While the profits flowed offshore, the costs stayed with ratepayers and taxpayers, in the provision of port infrastructure, the losses associated with workers killed and injured in the forests, and damage to the regional roading network.When the trees began to be harvested, some of the most erodible landscapes in the world were left bare, with predictable outcomes.In a series of severe weather events, culminating in Cyclone Gabrielle last year, sediment and forestry waste (including trees that toppled in the storms) swept down local rivers, destroying bridges, roads, fences, powerlines, farm buildings, paddocks, orchards, vineyards, crops and family homes. Riverbeds rose, increasing the flood risk to rural communities and Gisborne city. A little boy was killed by a pine log on Waikanae beach.Agriculture, horticulture, viticulture, tourism, education, health and service industries in Tairāwhiti all suffered severe damage, and even the forestry companies themselves, many of which have been successfully prosecuted in the courts.  Source: NewsroomCriticism of the country’s forestry strategy in a report on land-use change issued in May by Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Simon Upton has bounced around in international media, reported by Bloomberg News and turning up in PhysOrg.  Upton has long been critical of the use of afforestation as a cheap way to offset fossil emissions, suggesting they should only be used to offset short-term gases such as methane.In addition, it emerged last week that the forecast tree planting in the Governments modelling for the draft Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) overestimates by a factor of two the planting that is likely to occur in 2024 and 2025. New Zealand Institute of Forestry President, James Treadwell says that the government’s numbers are wrong and the projections unrealistic in an interview with Ingrid Hipkiss on RNZ, leaving a big hole in the ERP.3. Beware the next black swanIn other news, a new study from the EDHEC- Risk Climate Impact Institute shows that failure to address climate change could gouge 40% from global equity valuations in what Bloomberg News describes as “the market’s next black swan”. According to lead author Riccardo Rebonato,“After Covid we had a massive GDP loss but then a rebound. Here it seems to be like a headwind, a continuous headwind, without a rebound,” Rebonato said. “It could be the Climate Lost Generation in equity returns.”The EDHEC paper forecasts much bigger stock-market losses than most other studies do, Rebonato noted. That’s partly because those other studies focused on the costs of transitioning the global economy to renewable energy rather than the far greater havoc climate change will inflict on growth.[...] Weather disasters cost the global economy $1.5 trillion in the 2010s, according to the World Meteorological Organization, up nearly tenfold from the 1970s after adjusting for inflation. The reinsurer Swiss Re has suggested insured losses from natural catastrophes will double in the next decade.But such numbers drastically understate the potential effects of climate change on economic growth. As Rebonato notes, extreme heat, sea-level rise and other long-lasting impacts of global warming will do much more damage to human health and productivity than individual disasters like hurricanes or wildfires.“Perhaps we are focusing too much on catastrophic events rather than on chronic damages,” Rebonato said. “There is a chronic aspect in terms of the loss of productivity, the loss of efficiency, which is less visible and more insidious and will create a continuous drag.”Hence the Lost Generation.The EDHEC study is another reminder that the $215 trillion (and rising) estimated price tag to avoid the worst global heating will eventually pale in comparison to the cost of not bothering. And as big and fuzzy as these estimates may seem, Rebonato considers them conservative. Bloomberg4. Big meat and dairy spend up to ‘delay, distract, derail’Another international study out this week looks at the tactics used by big meat and dairy companies to avoid climate action. The report from the Changing Markets Foundation claims that the  companies’ efforts to “delay, distract, and derail action on transforming the food system” mirror strategies used by tobacco and fossil fuel industries. One of the 22 companies investigated in the report is New Zealand’s Fonterra, accused of spending more on advertising than it does on research.This investigation shows that companies spend much more money on advertising than they do on low-carbon solutions. Despite featuring techno-fixes in their PR and marketing materials, our research shows that they spend on average 1% of their revenues on research and development. The actual amount that goes into low-carbon solutions is probably only a small fraction of this, as most companies do not break down where their R&D spending is going.Three companies – Fonterra, Nestlé, and Arla – all spend more on advertising than they do on research and development across their business.  Source: The New Merchants of Doubt: How Big Meat and Dairy Avoid Climate Action.A recent article in the journal Nature details how 80% of European agricultural subsidies support emissions intensive animal agriculture, pointing out that “[t]he same animal-based foods are associated with 84% of embodied greenhouse gas emissions of EU food production while supplying 35% of EU calories and 65% of proteins.” Previous research has shown similar patterns in global agricultural support “that channels heavily towards emissions-intensive food commodities, which harms planetary health and hinders the production and consumption of lower-impact foods such as fruits, vegetables and nuts”, according to the article.5. The winners and losers of transport emissionsAnd finally, another report from Otago University’s Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa, this time they are examining the social inequities linked to transport emissions. In a recently published study, they found that the most affluent households produce a tonne more emissions from travel annually than those in the most deprived areas. The top 20% of people were responsible for around 55% of weekly transport emissions, while the bottom 60% of people were responsible for only 20%. They conclude that“[c]learly, some groups are ‘privileged’ by the current transport system, since they drive and fly more, meaning they disproportionately harm the environment and other people’s health (e.g. through air pollution emissions)”. At the same time “low-income households spend proportionately far more of their income on transport (16% in 2016) compared to high-income households (9% in 2016).” They make several policy recommendations for moving toward both a more fair and lower emissions transport system, including demand management of the most inequitable mode of transport, flying.6. The planet keeps breaking recordsToo hot, hot, hot…For too long, long, long…Ka kite anoBernard and Cathrine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking about the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care report released this week, and with:* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer on a UN push to not recognise carbon offset markets and the rapid crumble of the Thwaites Glacier;* University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor Robert Patman on the likely Democratic candidacy of Kamala Harris for US President and any implications for US foreign policy on Gaza, Ukraine, NATO and AUKUS;* Special guest Green Transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter on Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s ‘Northern Expressway’ and speed limit increases in towns, around schools and on expressways, and Brown’s re-announcement of Labour’s plan for 18 new diesel-electric locomotives for Wairarapa and the Kapiti Coast, albeit less than National’s promise for 22 ‘tri-mode’ electric locomotives.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded last night during a live webinar for over 120 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey. (This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing in full.)Ngā mihi nui.Bernard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts Bernard Hickey and Peter Bale talking with:* The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;* University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor Robert Patman and special guest Dr Karin von Hippel, the Director General of RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute in London, talk about what the attempted assassination of Donald Trump means in Geopolitics and for Aotearoa-NZ;* Simplicity CEO Sam Stubbs talks about Simplicity Living’s progress building hundreds of apartments a third cheaper than others, and how tens of billions of KiwiSaver and other institutional funds could be mobilised to help solve Aotearoa’s housing crisis.The Hoon’s podcast version above was recorded last night during a live webinar for over 150 paying subscribers and was produced by Simon Josey. Near the end of the podcast, Peter referred to this cartoon in New Yorker. Robert wrote this article for Newsroom on foreign interference in New Zealand. Robert wrote this article for RUSI on New Zealand risking sending the wrong message to Ukraine.(This is a sampler for all free subscribers. Thanks to the support of paying subscribers here, we’re able to spread my public interest journalism here about housing affordability, climate change and poverty reduction other public venues. Join the community supporting and contributing to this work with your ideas, feedback and comments, and by subscribing.)Ngā mihi nui.Bernard This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe

TL;DR : Here’s the top six items of climate news for Aotearoa-NZ this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer, most of which they discussin the video above. * According to experts, the rate of ocean surface warming around New Zealand is “outstripping the global average threefold in some areas and twice on average”. They warn that the severity of storms like Cyclone Gabrielle and the ones that recently hit the East Coast are expected to grow even higher in the future as a result.* At the same time, a new briefing from Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa (PHCCA) claims the Government’s policy response is incoherent, saying that ‘clean-ups are not enough’!  Further,  “It is evident that the current Government is failing to make the connection between their climate change policies and increasing negative impacts on communities and the country.”* Their call for ‘policy coherency’ is echoed by carbon market expert Christina Hood, who suggested recently that key ministers appear to be operating under the misapprehension that emissions growth caused by their policies will be automatically offset by the ETS.* That same policy incoherency is replicated again in the government’s new ‘Five-point’ climate strategy as experts point to inconsistencies in the policy approach.* As if to put a pin in the risks to human wellbeing, ‘crazy’ ocean temperatures super-charged the earliest ever recorded category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricane Beryl slammed into Texas this week, turning out lights for two million households, after killing 11 people during its early season rampage across the Caribbean.* Canadian oil companies, lobby groups and third-party advertisers are scrambling to scrub their websites clean of carbon capture claims likely to fall afoul of new greenwashing rules.(See more detail and analysis below. Cathrine Dyer’s journalism on climate and the environment is available free to all paying and non-paying subscribers to The Kākā and the public. It is made possible by subscribers signing up to the paid tier to ensure this sort of public interest journalism is fully available in public to read, listen to and share. Cathrine wrote the wrap. Bernard edited it. Lynn copy-edited and illustrated it.)1. NZ waters warming more than global averageNew data sets released by Stats NZ this week show sea surface temperatures around the country in 2022 and 2023 were the hottest ever recorded. Areas to the west of the North Island were bathed in heatwave conditions for nearly 90% of the year.Dr Matt Pinkerton, Principal Scientist – Marine Ecology & Remote Sensing at NIWA points out just how dramatic and localised the increase has been:"Things are getting hotter because of climate change – we knew that already – but the accelerating pace of warming of the oceans around New Zealand is surprising. The rate of ocean surface warming round New Zealand is now outstripping the global average threefold in some areas and twice on average. This disrupts the narrative that New Zealand is well placed to avoid the worst that climate change will bring. More warming brings more marine heatwaves and the increase in these abnormally hot events since 2010 is dramatic.”Acceleration in the rate of ocean warming has consequences that extend beyond the marine environment itself, with the ocean being a dominant factor in the weather experienced in Aotearoa. Dr. Georgia Grant, climate scientist at GNS Science warns of increasing storm intensity.“It’s important for New Zealanders to be aware that, even if global warming is kept to 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures in line with the Paris target (which the world is not on track to meet), we should expect higher ocean temperatures here. As an island nation, the ocean dictates much of our weather, and increasing ocean temperatures are one of the factors as to why storms like Cyclone Gabrielle are expected to increase in severity under climate warming."Aotearoa’s ongoing vulnerability to climate-amplified storms has already been brought home to communities on the East Coast , forced  to evacuate once again last month  as widespread flooding, slips, power outages and 6-metre swells hit the region.2. The Govt’s incoherent climate approachYet government policy is failing to engage with the recurring and amplifying nature of the risks being faced. A new briefing from Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa (PHCCA), an independent organisation hosted by the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago takes aim at the government’s ‘incoherent response’ to climate change, saying that ‘clean-ups are not enough’!“It is evident that the current Government is failing to make the connection between their climate change policies and increasing negative impacts on communities and the country. The Government is promoting more mining for fossil fuels, weakening existing protection for wetlands (key to effective flood mitigation and carbon sequestration), focusing on large-scale roading projects while reducing spending on public transport, and continuing to delay action on reducing agricultural emissions. In the wake of damage to homes in East Coast communities, it must also be remembered that the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill proposes to reduce the rigour with which major housing (among other) developments are considered and approved.”The briefing points to the resulting impacts on the health and well-being of citizens (for example from polluted drinking water and displacement) as well as the economic consequences from infrastructure damage and interrupted supply chains. Importantly, they note that the impacts are not experienced equally by people, with rural, Māori and low-income populations disproportionately affected. This was reflected in Wairoa Mayor Craig Little’s response to the storm,“I don’t know how we’re going to get through this one, to be honest. We are a poor community, and this is just another big kick”. The PHCCA are calling for more policy coherence, an approach being actively promoted by the OECD. Coherency in policy approaches suggests that consistent policies should be developed across government to ensure they don’t undermine one another and instead produce co-benefits from the alignment of mitigation and adaptation measures.3. Ministers’ false faith in ETSIn another example, carbon market expert Christina Hood recently pointed out in a post on Linkedin that government ministers appear to be misapprehending the way that the ETS operates, putting too much faith in its ability to offset the increased emissions that are resulting from their own policies being introduced across various sectors.Like the PHCCA, Hood is also calling for greater policy coherence in an op-ed article for The Post, suggesting that ALL relevant ministers need to be given responsibility and accountability for emissions.“Understanding that the ETS will not automatically constrain net emissions to meet the 2026-30 budget is one key reason that ministerial accountability matters. Failure to implement the policies agreed in the Emissions Reduction Plan could lead to the target being missed. Other decisions unrelated to the Emissions Reduction Plan that increase emissions could also lead to the target being missed [...].A robust accountability process would mean ministers assess the emissions impact of all major decisions, liaise with the Climate Change Minister to understand the degree to which the ETS is likely to compensate or not, and make Cabinet aware of any resulting emissions shortfall and its cost. Individual ministers could even be given responsibility to fill any holes that they have created.Responsibility for the emissions budget cannot sit solely with the Climate Change Minister. The Emissions Reduction Plan is the place to set climate change KPIs for all key ministers.” Source: The Post4. A ‘plan’ full of contradictions and inconsistencyAs if that wasn’t clear enough, expert reactions to the Government’s new ‘five-point climate strategy’  also point out the lack of policy coherency. Dr Luke Harrington, Senior Lecturer in Climate Change at the University of Waikato wrote:“There are several contradictions in the government’s plan. For example, the installation of more fast chargers is largely pointless if you simultaneously collapse the market by removing all incentives to purchase an EV and introduce new disincentives. EV sales have plummeted in recent months as a direct result of recent policy decisions.“Similarly, the government knows how to turn the Emissions Trading Scheme into a credible market – they just seem unwilling to make the necessary changes that were recommended by the Climate Change Commission.“Building resilience to future weather extremes sounds great, but this requires adequate resourcing to ensure councils can adapt to these ever-worsening climate extremes. There also needs to be targeted regulation to ensure we’re not building new things in places where they will just be destroyed by the next weather event.                  Source: The Science Media Centre NZThe Kākā reported yesterday on the watering down of emissions standards for car imports, a move expected to add millions of tons to climate emissions by 2030, on top of total societal costs of up to $15 billion in present value terms, caused by the removal of the Clean Car Discount and subsequent collapse of the EV market.Making solid progress in meeting its own goals will require more from the government than looking busy at it ticks items off its quarterly agenda. Incoherent policy approaches will ensure that many of those agenda items work in opposition to one another, fatally undermining results, wasting public resources and diminishing the wellbeing of citizens as they face compounding and intensifying climate change impacts.5. Beryl batters the Caribbean and TexasMeantime, the Northern hemisphere is counting its own costs from unchecked ocean heating this week.Predictions of a particularly intense hurricane season, resulting from record high Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures are proving accurate as Hurricane Beryl becomes the earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane ever. Beryl had already wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, killing 11 people, before slamming into Texas and taking out the power for more than two million households. Experts claimed the hurricane was supercharged by ‘crazy’ ocean temperatures.There has never been a category 5 Atlantic hurricane this early in the year before, with most major storms forming closer to September. Beryl, however, rapidly accelerated from a minor storm to a category 4 event in just two days.This deadly intensification was aided by unusually hot ocean temperatures along much of Beryl’s path, scientists say, with seawater heated by the climate crisis helping provide the storm with extra energy over the past 10 days.“Beryl would be astounding to happen anyway, but for it to form in June is completely unprecedented,” said Brian McNoldy, a climate scientist at the University of Miami. “It’s just remarkable to see sea temperatures this warm.“I don’t think anyone would expect an outlier like this to happen, it exceeded expectations. With a climate-change influenced ocean, we are making extreme storms like this more likely to happen.”Source: The Guardian International6. Scrubbing websites before greenwashing rulesIn other news, Canadian oil companies, lobby groups and third-party advertisers are scrambling to scrub their websites clean of carbon capture claims likely to fall afoul of new greenwashing rules. The revealing actions suggest the companies lack (and know they lack) evidence to support the stories they have been selling. Fines of up to $10million could be slapped on companies found to be misleading the public with false environmental claims under the new amendments.DeSmog recently reported that a coalition of Canadian tar sands producers — the Pathways Alliance— had scrubbed its website of all content on June 19, in anticipation of changes to Canada’s Competition Act [...] Pathways Alliance had been proposing a massive carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Alberta as its principal climate change mitigation strategy. Over the past year, the organization has engaged in a national media blitz promoting its project — including advertising on buses, trams, rental bikes, and bus shelters in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. This advertising campaign used slogans such as “The path to net zero begins with carbon capture and storage” – statements that Canadian environmental groups took issue with as they could be considered misleading or deceptive. Emilia Belliveau, Energy Transition program manager with advocacy group Environmental Defence, said in a statement that Pathways Alliance’s action to scrub its website suggests that “they don’t have evidence to support the story they’re selling on carbon capture, and that its member companies’ business plans don’t align with a net-zero future.” Ka kite anoBernard and Cathrine This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thekaka.substack.com/subscribe