11/06/2021

(NZ Stuff) What Does The Climate Change Commission's Roadmap Mean For Our Lives?

Stuff - Olivia Wannan

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern lists some of the recommendations from the final Climate Commission report.

The Climate Change Commission has released its final advice to the Government, laying out a carbon-cutting roadmap that could change the way we live.

From 2022 onwards, the commission wants us to meet a shrinking “carbon budget”, which is essentially the amount of greenhouse gas the country is allowed to “spend” each year.

Our emissions grew in 2019 (our pollution went up, but we also changed the way we count them). If we’re racing to net zero, this means the starting line moved a bit further back.

To compensate, the commission adjusted the distances (or legs) we’ll need to run each year. So the annual carbon budgets have also risen in the commission’s finalised report:

  • 2022 to 2025: 69.5 million tonnes (67.7m tonnes in draft advice)
  • 2026 to 2030: 59.7m tonnes (57.3m tonnes in draft)
  • 2031 to 2035: 47.9m tonnes (44.6m tonnes in draft)

But that finishing line of net zero by 2050 hasn’t moved. We’ll have to cover a bit more ground in the first leg, though we’ll have to make up for the majority of the extra distance in future legs.

All up, we must knock 5.4m tonnes of emissions annually for the next four years, compared to 2019.

The cost of our transition – a subject that generated a lot of debate – has been refined. The draft advice found our GDP would grow at a slower rate, knocking off less than 1 per cent by 2050. That’s now 1.2 per cent by 2050. However, there’s also a cost if we do nothing, the commission warned – about 2.3 per cent of GDP.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the journey would be tough at times, but the numbers supported the country’s plan to decarbonise. “It’s a safer, smarter and cheaper choice to act now.”

The commission has no law-making powers, so the Government will need to decide whether to pass the plan into legislation. Ardern already pledged to uphold the budgets, though her ministers may tweak some of the proposals. We’ll find which ideas were thrown on the scrapheap when the Government releases an Emissions Reduction Plan in December.

But if the Government chooses to back all aspects of the commission’s roadmap, here’s what it means for cars, homes, energy bills and farmers.

On the road

Petrol and diesel car imports will be banned, ideally by 2030 – but no later than 2035. Electric vehicles will be an increasingly common sight on our roads. Half of all cars and motorbikes entering the country will be plug-ins by 2029, courtesy of a “feebate” or subsidy (the design of which is still to be announced).

By 2035, drivers who switch to electric will save more than $1300 each year. Electric charging stations will pop up on national and local roads. The Ministry of Transport has floated a petrol car ban in 2035. It’s not clear whether the ministry will bring the ban forward to better align with the commission’s roadmap.

Petrol will be mixed with an increasing proportion of biofuels. By 2035, 5 per cent of the petrol and diesel powering existing cars, trucks and planes will be sourced from organic matter, mixed in with fossil fuels.

Cars will be replaced with more bikes, scooters, pedestrians, buses, trains and ferries. One in seven journeys will be taken using these low-carbon modes by 2035, under the commission’s roadmap. Green transport campaigners were critical of a lack of ambition in the draft advice. For those who can, remote work will be common. We’ll also be less likely to own a car and more likely to subscribe to a car-share scheme. When urbanites do drive, they may pay a congestion charge. We’ll be more active and breathe cleaner air.

Publicly funded buses would become cheaper. Colin Smith/Stuff
Lower public transport fares for everyone. To boost demand, ferry, train and bus services will also be more frequent and reliable.

Some goods shipped on trucks will move onto ships and rail lines. Ferries and cargo ships will be electrified, in the commission’s roadmap.

Domestic flights will be powered by electricity by 2030. The commission wants electric planes on short-haul routes such as Wellington to Nelson.

What’s new? Electric planes by 2030 and electric ships after 2025 are significant additions. The commission wanted lower public transport fares for young people, now it’s asked for fare cuts across the board. The commission is now recommending the Government set its own targets to boost walking, cycling and public transport trips.

It’s possible an import ban on new fossil fuelled cars could kick in several years before used vehicles.

We’ll blend a little bit more biofuel into our petrol and diesel supply (5 per cent, up from 3). There’s ever-so-slightly more urban trips on bikes and public transport. There’s a slight delay as to when electric car imports overtake petrol and diesel cars – 2029, not 2027. The commission originally wanted to electrify the main rail lines, but it’s more open to other zero-carbon fuels (such as biodiesel) to power our long-distance trains.

At home

Gas appliances will be switched for electric (and wood). The commission believes electricity is an efficient green fuel source to power our homes, so it recommends the Government set a date after which homes or business can no longer hook up to the natural gas network – 2025 is floated. The gas industry strongly opposed the proposal in the draft advice.

The commission also wants the Government to start phasing out natural gas appliances in the 2030s.

Natural gas, petrol and diesel will get more expensive. According to the commission’s modelling, the rising cost of carbon pollution under the Emissions Trading Scheme will make it increasingly costly to buy these fossil fuels. The average natural gas bill could be $300 higher by 2035. Petrol prices are expected to rise by 30 cents per litre.

Gas hobs would become less common, as the commission recommends they are replaced with electric elements. Kwon Junho/Unsplash
Solar panels on homes will be common. Communities will also run small-scale wind and solar farms, to help generate the electricity we need for our homes and cars.

New houses will be snugger, warmer and drier. By keeping our homes naturally comfortable, less energy will be required to heat them in winter and cool them in summer. Occupants will be healthier, and low-income households should enjoy cheaper energy bills.

Neighbourhoods will become increasingly dense. New houses will be constructed on existing transport routes, giving more people access to buses, trains, ferries, cycleways and paths.

Green bins will be commonplace. Our food and garden waste will be collected and composted, or sent to a landfill that captures the methane producing when organic matter rots.

What’s new? The draft advice told the Government to halt hook-ups to the natural gas network by “no later than 2025 and earlier if possible”. After public backlash, the commission has left it up to the Government to pick a date – though the commission’s roadmap still uses 2025. Landfills will capture more methane than under the draft plan. The household bills for those sticking with fossil fuels have been tweaked.

The organic waste we produce will be increasingly composted, or directed to landfills that capture and combust methane. 123RF
At work
Up to 1400 people in the oil and gas industries will retire or change jobs. The government will identify at-risk workers and offer financial support and advice for those transitioning to a cleaner industry.

Up to 2300 vehicle mechanics will also retire or change jobs. This is because electric cars require less maintenance.

Factories will substitute coal and gas for electricity, wood waste and (potentially) hydrogen. Coal boilers (except for businesses requiring very high temperatures) have already been banned, which is one of the first things on the commission’s to-do list. Food processing facilities, such as the factories using coal to dry milk into powder, will ditch coal between now and 2040. Buildings will stop burning coal for heat by 2030, and start phasing out natural gas after that.

Products and packaging will be re-designed. The stuff we make should be increasingly reusable and recyclable, to minimise emissions from manufacturing and waste. We’ll stop buying products containing hydrofluorocarbon gases, as these refrigerants are very powerful greenhouse gases.

What’s new? The impact on vehicle mechanics is new and significant: between 900 and 2300 fewer jobs by 2035 (though the commission warns this could be an overestimate). The jobs lost in the fossil fuel sectors are now modelled to be 1400, the draft advice gave the figure of 1100.

However, the commission also named the industries that should grow: electricity generation, battery refurbishment, waste and forestry. The commission gave the food processing industry a bit of wiggle room to phase out coal, from an end-date of 2037 to “before 2040”, though the major players and the Government have already started working towards the 2037 date. Methanex may stick around a bit longer, from 2029 to 2040.

Under the Climate Change Commission’s plan, farmers will select sheep breeds that breathe out less methane gas. 123RF

On the marae

New policies will be developed with iwi and Māori input. Any new schemes will need to work for Māori land that’s owned by a collective. Iwi will be able to calculate their collective carbon footprint.

Skills and re-training programmes assisting Māori will be designed by Māori. Tangata whenua may be more likely to switch industries, under the commission’s roadmap. However, more jobs will be gained than lost.

Iwi will receive assistance to meet new rules, particularly any restricting land development. For example, a collective developing land with older forests might get financial assistance to replant trees elsewhere as offsets.

What’s new? The final advice puts more emphasis on the Crown-Māori relationship in designing our low-carbon transition.

On the farm

Cow and sheep numbers will fall by 13.6 per cent by 2030. The country will still produce roughly the same amount of milk and meat, but with fewer animals burping out the potent greenhouse gas methane. The commission is predicting herd numbers will drop by 8 per cent anyway, but its advice recommends stepping this shrinkage up by roughly another 6 per cent. Some farms will replace animals with horticulture. The remaining meat and dairy farms will track carbon stored in their trees, soils and wetlands, and adopt best-practice animal and feed management.

Low-methane sheep will be selected. This will help the country to meet its goal of cutting methane by 10 per cent by 2030. A similar programme for cows kicked off this year, but this isn’t factored into the commission’s first budgets.

Fertiliser use will decrease. When there’s too much nitrogen available in the soil, bugs produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, but selective fertiliser application can help break this cycle. The commission has floated the idea of pricing artificial nitrogen fertilisers as part of our Emissions Trading Scheme, rather than waiting to include them in the new pricing system for livestock emissions (known as He Waka Eke Noa).

A methane-cutting technology will need to emerge – or we may have to make greater cuts to herd numbers. Without a vaccine or food additive that reduces methane, we may just scrape into our 2050 targets but are unlikely to be on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the commission says. The commission wants to see a boost towards research into promising techniques.

What’s new? Feedback to the commission said it would be harder to cut agricultural emissions by improving how we farm. The herd reduction estimates have been revised from 15 per cent, down to 13.6 per cent. The idea to price agricultural nitrous oxide in one way (under our Emissions Trading Scheme) and agricultural methane in another wasn't in the draft advice.

Animal numbers in Aotearoa are expected to fall by 8 per cent, but the roadmap ramps this up by an additional 6 per cent. TOM LEE/Stuff

On the grid

The Huntly power station will ditch coal by 2030. The commission proposes that natural gas be used as a back-up fuel after that date, though that’s at odds with the Government’s plan to have a back-up power plant running on renewables by the end of the decade. Watch this space.

New wind and solar farms will appear on hills and sunny flats. Renewable power plants will need to generate 20 per cent more power to meet the new demand for electricity by 2035.

Geothermal plants play a role, alongside wind and solar. Owners of geothermal stations are hoping to come up with a technical solution (such as reinjecting greenhouse gases back into the ground) to reduce the emissions they produce.

What’s new? The commission originally thought geothermal generation plants with high emissions may be forced to close, but it now notes their footprints decreased in recent years, and should continue to.

In our forests


Native deforestation will be banned from 2025. Instead of losing native forest, the country will start to gain it: planting at least 12,000 hectares in 2021, rising to 25,000 hectares annually by 2030. These new forests will suck up carbon for centuries. We’ll start to notice more native birds and lizards and increasing water quality from the new forests.

Exotic forest planting will also ramp up between now and 2030. After that, new pines will taper off, with an increased focus on permanent native planting.

What’s new? No major changes. The commission agreed that pest control is essential to ensuring our newly planted forests survive.

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(USA NPR) The Drought In The Western U.S. Is Getting Bad. Climate Change Is Making It Worse

NPR - 

Warmer temperatures are leading to emptier reservoirs across the West, such as Lake Oroville in Northern California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

By almost every measure, the drought in the Western U.S. is already one for the record books.

Almost half the country's population is facing dry conditions. Soils are parched. Mountain snowpacks produce less water. Wildfire risk is already extreme. The nation's largest reservoir, Lake Mead, is headed to its lowest level since it was first filled in the 1930s.

The past year has been the driest or second driest in most Southwestern states since record-keeping began in 1895. Farms and cities have begun imposing water restrictions, but Western states are facing a threat that goes deeper than a single bad year. The hotter climate is shrinking water supplies, no matter what the weather brings.

Warming temperatures make it less likely for a raindrop or snowflake to reach a reservoir due to increased evaporation. As a result, the people who manage the West's complex water systems are realizing that with climate change, they can no longer rely on the past to predict the future.

That's creating a fundamental threat to the way Western water systems operate, because they were built around the idea that the climate would remain constant. Historical climate data such as river flows and rainfall totals told engineers how big to build reservoirs and canals. The data also told them how much water was available to divide up among cities and farms.

Climate change is putting that system under increasing stress, shrinking water supplies for tens of millions of people and for the farmland that produces most of the country's fruits and vegetables. Water cutbacks are reverberating through California's $50 billion agricultural industry, which employs tens of thousands of people in many small towns.

Southwestern states recently negotiated a temporary agreement to use less water as reservoirs keep falling. But tough conversations remain about how the West and its complex system of water rights will adapt to a future for which it wasn't designed.

"We can really no longer look at the past and say: The amount of water we've had in the last 100 years is what we can expect in the future," says Eric Kuhn, an author who worked on water policy for decades at the Colorado River Water Conservation District. "That is no longer true because of climate change."

As the West grew, states divided up water held behind the Hoover Dam, outside Las Vegas, but they allocated more water than the Colorado River typically provides on average. Ansel Adams/National Archives

"A painful reduction"

The Colorado River is the main source of water for much of the Southwest. In late April, Arizona water management officials held a public meeting that everyone had hoped to avoid. The Central Arizona Project, which supplies Colorado River water to millions of people in the state, announced it expects to take 30% less water than usual.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, just outside Las Vegas, has been falling rapidly, and was just 38% full by late April. When water supplies get so low, some states are required to cut back on use. Arizona's reductions will primarily hit farmers. Some will be made up through groundwater pumping or with water previously stored in reservoirs and banked for future use.

The cuts are "a painful reduction to Arizona," says Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. "If the reservoir continues to decline, more aggressive actions will be taken by the lower basin users, including California, to slow the decline in the system."

That decline in the Colorado River's flow is exacerbated by both a 20-year drought and climate change. But it has been a century in the making.

As cities from Denver to Los Angeles began growing in the early 1900s, planners knew they'd need to secure a reliable water supply in such an arid region. Engineers drafted plans to build a massive reservoir in a steep rock canyon that is now Lake Mead.

But with seven states vying for Colorado River water, officials met in 1922 to negotiate how they would share it. The first step was determining how much there was to share.

The officials looked at the previous 20 years of the Colorado River's flow, which was high due to above-average precipitation. They divided up the river water anyway based on those atypical numbers despite warnings from a hydrologist.

"They ended up appropriating more water than the river could actually produce," Kuhn says. "Once the commissioners negotiated the compact, which was very difficult, they just didn't want to hear that they'd overstated the amount of water supply."

The promise of that water spawned a vast network of reservoirs and canals, carrying it hundreds of miles through the desert and eventually reaching millions of homes. Anyone in the U.S. who eats lettuce during winter has likely tasted Colorado River water, which irrigates the fields in Arizona and California that produce most of the season's crop.

Yet since the water was divided up, the Colorado River has been shrinking. Average flows have been drier, compounded by a drought beginning in 2000. The water level in Lake Mead has fallen around 140 feet, leaving a telltale white "bathtub ring" around its perimeter.

Climate amplifying bad luck

Like a run-of-the-mill streak of bad luck, droughts are normal in the West. Now, climate change is exacerbating their effects.

"Over the last 22 years or so, there's been quite a bit of bad luck because precipitation totals have on average been low," says Park Williams, associate professor of hydroclimatology at UCLA. "But the effect of that bad luck has been really amplified because of warmer temperatures."

As farmers in California's Central Valley face drought restrictions, some are removing almond trees to reduce water use, especially in aging orchards. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A hotter atmosphere is thirstier, drawing water out of plants and soils and into the air. Snowpacks melt earlier, which in turn boosts that evaporation, because without the reflective surface that snow creates, soils heat up faster. And when soils are dry, they act like a sponge. They need to soak up more moisture before they're saturated enough for the water to run off into rivers and streams.

Studies show that since 2000, about half the reduction in the Colorado River's flow has been due to warmer temperatures. For every degree Celsius of warming, the river's flow is expected to shrink by 9%, according to another study.

The same climate impacts are being felt elsewhere in California, where a massive network of reservoirs and canals connects the water-rich Northern California mountains to the Bay Area and Southern California, where most people live. That water also flows to the Central Valley and other agricultural areas, which grow two-thirds of the country's fruits and nuts.

The state's snowpack in the Sierra Nevada up north is a vital source of water. But in a hotter climate, it's shrinking and melting earlier in the season. And as in the Colorado River basin, less of that snowpack is turning into water supply.

"We're getting a lot less streamflow coming off the same amount of snowpack," says Andrew Schwarz, climate action coordinator at California's Department of Water Resources. "We're not seeing as much water showing up in our rivers as we would have expected with the same amount of rain or snow that we had gotten historically."

According to state research, California's water supply, which reaches 25 million residents through two state and federal water projects, will shrink with every degree of warming, even if the state gets more rain than average.

Bumpy road ahead

With long-term decline on the horizon, water managers across the West are grappling with a system that wasn't built with flexibility in mind.

Water rights follow a pecking order of "first in time, first in right," with the oldest water rights taking priority over others. For many, those rights are considered untouchable, and any effort to curtail them spawns numerous lawsuits.

Seeing the writing on the wall, states on the Colorado River negotiated a hard-fought plan in 2019 to deal with water shortages. As Lake Mead drops, Arizona and Nevada face cutbacks first. If water levels continue to fall, other states such as California will also face restrictions.

The solution is temporary, however. States will need to negotiate another plan that would start in 2026, and reservoirs are projected to keep dropping over the next two years. Reexamining the water allotments in the original agreement in 1922 is a far thornier prospect. It was ratified by both states and Congress, making it federal law.

"It's difficult," Kuhn says. "It creates a lot of legal conflicts. It's a bumpy road, but we'll get there because we have to."

Western snowpacks are melting earlier, which in turn boosts evaporation and leads to less runoff reaching reservoirs such as California's Lake Oroville. Kelly M. Grow/California Department of Water Resources

California has its own system of rights where water users have claimed more water than is available on average. During the state's last drought, some water users challenged the state's authority to regulate them. California officials released a report this year identifying a need to have more adaptable water rights in a changing climate as well as better water use data.

"California's water system was designed for a climate we don't have anymore," says Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. "What we are seeing, especially in some parts of California, is that we have been using more water than we have. And that's causing problems. So the reality here is that we have to make a reduction of water use over the long term."

Conservation will be critical in a hotter climate. The vast majority of water used in the West goes to agriculture, and some regions have conserved by investing in more efficient irrigation. Other regions, with older water rights less at risk, have had less incentive to do so.

The good news is that some drought measures seem to stick. Since California's last drought from 2012 to 2016, residential water use has remained lower than it was before the drought hit. It's more than just shorter showers. Residents made investments such as water-efficient fixtures and low-water landscaping that lock in water savings for years to come. 

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(AU Canberra Times) Scott Morrison And G7+ Leaders Implored To Act On Climate Change As 'Colossal' Risk To Humanity

Canberra Times - Karen Barlow

An unprecedented grouping of 126 Nobel Prize winners including the Dalai Lama and ANU Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt are imploring the major G7-plus world leaders meeting this week to act on climate change, warning of 'colossal risks' to humanity.

It comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison warns, ahead of the summit, that Australia is going to chart its own path to net zero.

So, Mr Morrison is among the leaders targeted by the statement which has been led by Professor Schmidt.

"Without transformational action this decade, humanity is taking colossal risks with our common future," reads the Nobel grouping statement.

ANU Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt is among an unprecedented grouping of 126 Nobel Prize winners imploring G7-plus leaders to act on climate change. Picture: Sitthixay Ditthavong

The large Nobel Prize grouping includes climate science experts, Nobel Prize winning scientists and Peace Prize laureates, including Northern Ireland peace activist Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, Australian immunologist Professor Peter Doherty, the Dalai Lama and Australian gastroenterologist Professor Barry Marshall.

"As I've said previously, Australia is on the pathway to net zero," he is expected to tell the Perth USAsia Centre.

Mr Morrison insists Australia should chart its own path, a nod to his favoured technology-focused approach.

"Australia does not support setting sectoral targets or timeframes for decarbonising particular parts of our economy or setting false deadlines for phasing out specific energy sources."

"It's not an argument about climate change," he is expected to say. "It's about how Australia best advances our interests as part of a world that is dealing with climate change. It's not about if or when. Protecting and advancing Australia's interests is about the how."

Mr Morrison leaves Perth on Thursday for Singapore before heading to Europe for the G7-plus summit. He'll be under pressure from other leaders, who are more progressive over climate change such as US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to join the global shift towards a net-zero energy economy by 2050.

"Time is running out to prevent irreversible changes," they said the statement.

"Ultimately, this means valuing the resilience of societies and the resilience of Earth's biosphere."

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