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Speeches and presentations
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Climate Change Issues: A Dissenting Voice
18 June 2009, David Henderson
David Henderson's contribution to a panel discussion on public policy responses to global warming, delivered at the 'Beyond Kyoto - Green Innovation and Enterprise in the 21st Century' conference, at the Said Business School, Oxford University.
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The Real Environmental Crisis
11 November 2008, Roger Kerr
The Business Roundtable has had a longstanding interest in environmental issues. We have been involved in debates over the Resource Management Act (RMA) and climate change from the outset. With the change of government it is pleasing that policies in both these areas are up for review. The election result suggests that voters at large are unhappy with them.
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Sir Ronald Trotter Lecture 2007 The Economics and Politics of Climate Change: A Cool Look at Global Warming
15 November 2007, Nigel Lawson
This year's Sir Ronald Trotter Lecture was delivered by Nigel Lawson on 15 November. Find the transcript, including questions and answers, here
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Climate Change: International Perspectives
16 February 2007, David Henderson
This speech was to a meeting of the New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Reforming Water Allocation and Supply in New Zealand
29 April 2005, Roger Kerr
Roger Kerr to the NZ Environment Summit in Auckland today.
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The Resource Management Amendment Act: Is it Too Little,Too Late?
18 September 2003, Rob Fisher
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Business, Trade And The Environment
12 February 2002, Roger Kerr
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Market Mechanisms and Conservation
6 March 1998, Roger Kerr
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The State of Humanity
6 November 1996, Roger Kerr
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The Economy and the Environment
21 August 1995, Roger Kerr
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Books and reports
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Carbon Mitigation Scenarios
5 February 2008, Adolf Stroombergen
The government's aspirations are for New Zealand to be 'carbon neutral' by
2050, with intermediate carbon neutrality goals for major sectors - electricity
(2025), stationary energy (2030), transport (2040), total energy (2040). On a
worldwide basis, carbon neutrality means carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)
emissions are offset by carbon absorption. For any given country, however,
carbon neutrality may also include the purchase of carbon credits from other
countries to offset domestic emissions, with neutrality being defined as
applying only to emissions above a given benchmark - 1990 emissions under
the Kyoto Protocol for the period to 2012...
A goal of achieving carbon neutrality at a date as far out as 2050 is difficult to
model meaningfully. Thus in this study we look at 2025 (also the focus of
previous work for the Emissions Trading Group) and select a milestone for
2025 that relates to the 1990 benchmark and is consistent with the 2050
objective.
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The Economics and Politics of Climate Change - A Cool Look at Global Warming: The 2007 Sir Ronald Trotter Lecture
15 November 2007, Nigel Lawson
In recent years Nigel Lawson has written extensively on climate change and has argued that policies enhancing the global community's ability to adapt, rather than just those seeking to limit greenhouse gas emissions, are the most affordable and effective response. He has criticised what he identifies as the "religion of eco-fundamentalism" and has instead emphasised the need to focus broadly on solutions that promote social and economic development. In his address Lord Lawson will canvas the problems inherent in the Kyoto Protocol and similar initiatives focused narrowly on the reduction of fossil fuel by-products, and make suggestions for a more sustainable and lower-cost approach to the global warming challenge.
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 to 1989. Earlier he was Financial Secretary to the Treasury and then Secretary of State for Energy in Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's first government. He was a key proponent of the Thatcher government's privatisation policy and his years as Chancellor were associated with tax reform, financial deregulation and his opposition to the poll tax.
NZ $12.50
incl GST
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Civil Society Report on Climate Change
1 November 2007, CSCCC
The science of climate change remains hotly contested,
with substantial disagreements over what impact
humanity might have on the earth's future climate (e.g.
McKitrick, forthcoming; Green and Armstrong, 2007;
Lindzen, 2005; Houghton, 2005). Nevertheless, there is
considerable pressure on politicians to take action.
Unfortunately, the organisation set up to advise
governments on what action to take, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has shown
itself to be heavily biased (Henderson, 2007; Holland,
2007; Peiser, 2007; Tol, 2007; Kasper, This Volume). This
report is an attempt to provide an independent
assessment of the implications of climate change for
humanity and the policy options that might be adopted.
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Environmentalism versus Constitutionalism: A Contest Without Winners
8 December 2006, Suri Ratnapala
NZ $22.50
incl GST
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Human Progress - And Collapse?
14 September 2005, Wolfgang Kasper
Abstract
Against the human experience of long-term stagnation and misery, the record of
growing prosperity over the past two centuries and, in particular, the last 50 years, is
astounding. Economic growth owes much to the mobilisation of resources and
structural flexibility, but this depends on the 'software of economic development' -
institutions, which change slowly. Now, old fears and growth-impeding policies are
being justified on environmental grounds. One example is Jared Diamond's recent
book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which discusses the possibility of a
swift descent of the world into social disintegration. To anyone familiar with longterm
economic history and the theory of growth, the book is pure millennial pessimism.
It could become self-fulfilling if environmentalist doomsayers win the political argument
with the doers - the engineers, entrepreneurs and economists.
NZ $12.50
incl GST
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The Real State of the World: The 2003 Sir Ronald Trotter Lecture
8 October 2003, Bjorn Lomborg
Economics has been called the dismal science.
But, in modern times at least, it has tended to be environmentalists rather than economists who have put forward a dismal view of the world.
Beginning with a sceptical view of his work, I discovered that the late American economist Julian Simon was right. As the first chapter of my book says, things are getting better. Simon emphasised what became a crucial message of The Skeptical Environmentalist: mythmaking prevents us from using our judgment wisely. We will panic and fail to prioritise if we believe that the world is falling apart. If people worry too much about the small problems, they will not worry enough about the big ones.
There is only one pot of money, and it must be spent wisely. We need to concentrate on the facts. The myths about the environment have convinced many people that we are headed in the wrong direction. I believed them before I wrote The Skeptical Environmentalist.
Then I realised that these myths were like holding a gun to our heads, stopping us from being able to prioritise. The analogy is with a street
criminal pointing a gun at you and demanding your money. You would not pause and wonder whether you would prefer to buy a new toaster;
you would simply hand over the money.
NZ $12.50
incl GST
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Natural Resource Law, Property Rights and Takings
1 September 1999, Richard A Epstein
There is no summary available for this publication.
NZ $12.50
incl GST
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Conservation Strategies for New Zealand
1 December 1997, Peter Hartley
Many factors influence the effectiveness of government institutions in achieving desirable results in conservation. Consistent with its former traditions in other areas, New Zealand has used command and control approaches to conservation rather than approaches that rely more on private property rights, markets and prices. This book recommends practical, moderate reforms to existing institutions that will result in better arrangements for preserving New Zealand's unique environment.
NZ $39.95
incl GST
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Submissions
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Emissions Trading Scheme Review
6 April 2011, New Zealand Business Roundtable
A submission by the New Zealand Business Roundtable to members of the 2011 Emissions Trading Scheme Review Panel.
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New Zealand’s 2050 Emissions Reduction Target
3 March 2011, Ralph Matthes and Roger Kerr
This is a submission by the Major Electricity Users’ Group and the New Zealand Business Roundtable on the paper “Gazetting New Zealand’s 2050 Emissions Target - Minister’s Position Paper” released 29th January 2011 by the Minister for Climate Change Issues along with a media release “50 by 50 emissions reduction target proposed”.
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Pan-Industry Letter to Prime Minister on the Emissions Trading Scheme
5 March 2010,
Recent events show that the international climate change context is less certain than
previously anticipated. We think that the current emissions trading scheme is too rigid
and may in fact frustrate the delivery of the outcomes sought from it. Therefore, we
seek an assurance from you that in light of recent events the Government is taking
stock of whether the current climate change policy settings which focus primarily on
an emissions trading scheme remain appropriate for New Zealand.
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Submission on the Climate Change Response (Moderated Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill
16 October 2009, New Zealand Business Roundtable
The Business Roundtable believes that policy development on climate change has entered a more constructive phase over the past 12 months. We were critical of the previous government’s ‘carbon neutrality’ ambitions because of their enormous potential adverse economic impact; the lack of an adequate regulatory impact analysis as a basis for policy; many design features of its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS); and the rushed process. We were pleased that the select committee reviewing the scheme abandoned the unrealistic March deadline for a report, and we believe its deliberations over a longer period contributed to a better understanding among policymakers and the public of the difficult issues New Zealand is grappling with.
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NZIER/Infometrics Report on Climate Change Policy
1 July 2009, New Zealand Business Roundtable
We regard the NZIER and Infometrics as reputable consultancy organisations. Having said that, we cannot emphasise too strongly that the NZIER/Infometrics report isnot a Regulatory Impact Statement.
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Submission on the Review of the Emissions Trading Scheme
19 March 2009, New Zealand Business Roundtable
Most business organisations are saying that now that Australia, and perhaps the United States, are planning to put a price on carbon in some way, New Zealand should do likewise. But the issue is a political one, given that all New Zealanders will ultimately bear the costs of policy action.
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Submission on the Climate Change (Emissions Trading
and Renewable Preference) Bill
1 February 2008, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Overview Submission on the Government's Discussion Documents on Climate Change
30 March 2007, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Comments on the Oil Security report prepared for the Ministry of Economic Development by Covec and Hale & Twomey Limited
2 February 2005, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission on the Foreshore and Seabed Bill
28 July 2004, New Zealand Business Roundtable
The foreshore and seabed should generally be publicly owned with open access, subject to existing private rights.
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Submission on the Resource Management
(Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill
12 February 2004, NZBR
This proposed legislation is an ad hoc and backward step for water management, promoting a central planning approach that is out of line with international best practice.
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Submission on Walking Access in the New Zealand Outdoors
25 November 2003, New Zealand Business Roundtable
The proposals discussed in the report entail a substantial erosion of private property rights which is detrimental to prosperity. Land-based industries, such as farming and forestry, and tourism are directly affected.
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Submission on the Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Bill
1 November 2003, New Zealand Business Roundtable
The measures in the Bill are inconsistent with the government's prime economic objective - securing faster economic growth.
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Submission on the Foreshore and Seabed of New Zealand
6 October 2003, New Zealand Business Roundtable
Property rights, including Maori customary rights, are at the heart of the issue of ownership of the foreshore and seabed.
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Submission On The National Interest Analysis Of The Kyoto Protocol
4 December 2002, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission on the Climate Change Response Bill
1 September 2002, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission on Climate Change: The Government's Preferred Policy Package
1 May 2002, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission On Kyoto Protocol: Ensuring Our Future
1 December 2001, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission on Review of the Public Works Act: Issues and Options
1 May 2001, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Submission on the Preliminary Report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee: Bio-What?
1 June 2000, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Climate Change: Domestic Policy Options Statement
1 April 1999, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy: Our Chance to Turn the Tide
1 April 1999, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Climate Change and CO2 Policy
31 October 1996, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Developing A Strategy To Reduce CO2 Emissions: A Scoping Paper
1 May 1991, New Zealand Business Roundtable
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Articles
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The 'Climategate' Scandal Should Not Be A Surprise
19 November 2010, Roger Kerr, Otago Daily Times
Last month I heard Professor Kealey speak at an academic conference in Australia. His topic was the ‘Climategate’ scandal at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. Subsequently, other global warming claims have been shown to be flawed, such as the disappearance of glaciers in the Himalayas predicted in the last IPCC report.
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Why the ETS Should be Deferred
15 June 2010, Roger Kerr, Muriel Newman Weekly online
Calls are mounting for the next phase of the government’s emissions trading scheme, due to commence on 1 July 2010, to be deferred.
There are strong arguments for a temporary suspension of the scheme. The world has changed since the ETS legislation was passed in November last year.
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Global Warming No Longer Cool Even in New Zealand
13 March 2010, Roger Kerr
From north America and western Europe to east Asia and Australia,
politicians are raising doubts about the costs of reducing carbon emissions
to combat climate change. But who would have thought that even in New
Zealand, which likes to parade its environmental credentials, global
warming is no longer cool?
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‘Business As Usual’ Not Sound Climate Change Policy
8 March 2010, Roger Kerr
Business organisations have been taking stock of New Zealand’s climate change policy following the failure of the UN conference in Copenhagen last December.
Many urged the government not to rush the emissions trading legislation through parliament before Copenhagen and to await Australian and US decisions before finalising New Zealand policy.
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Is the Road to Copenhagen a Dead End?
23 December 2009, Roger Kerr
It has been obvious for months that no substantive agreement would be reached at Copenhagen. The government’s unseemly rush to pass the emissions trading legislation before the meeting and before decisions by the United States and Australia was folly.
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Pull Up Pull Up on ETS
24 November 2009, Roger Kerr
Once again we are seeing an unseemly rush to enact climate change legislation.
When will we learn that more haste often means less speed?
It is not as though there is any serious opposition, including within the business community, to New Zealand’s taking additional action now that Australia and the United States have come to the Kyoto party.
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Cool Heads Still Needed on Global Warming
30 July 2009, Roger Kerr
This year a cooler approach to climate change policy has gradually taken shape. For a time, it looked as though the government might make the same mistakes as its predecessor and take rushed, flawed decisions. Initially, the parliamentary select committee set up to review the emissions trading legislation was to report in March. Sensibly, it has extended its deliberations and is now not expected to report until next month.The committee and the government still have much work to do.A regulatory impact analysis assessing the case for government action and the form it should take has not yet been completed.
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Breathing Space Available on Climate Change Policy
24 April 2009, Roger Kerr
The recession is likely to remain the dominant issue for international policymakers this year. Governments will almost certainly not take costly action until economies recover.
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Fixing the RMA: Short and Long-term Solutions
30 January 2009, Roger Kerr
Long term, we should start afresh. If the RMA were repealed we would be left with what regulated much of our development prior to the Town and Country Planning Act 1953, the common law. A good starting point is to ask: what's wrong with leaving regulation to this regime of property, contract and tort, with its focus on quantifiable harms to third parties?
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Reality Bites on Climate Change
19 December 2008, Roger Kerr
If climate change is likely to be insignificant or moderate - and therefore beneficial for New Zealanders for many years - our interests will be different from those in a scenario in which it would be very costly.
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Climate Change Policy is Becoming a Shambles
9 May 2008, Roger Kerr
This week the wheels fell off the government's climate change juggernaut - yet again.No end is in sight to this sorry saga of grandiose plans foundering on practical realities.
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Saving the Planet Must Not Cost the Earth
28 March 2008, Roger Kerr
Shortly a select committee of parliament will begin hearings on the bill to implement an emissions trading scheme (ETS).This is the centrepiece of the government's contribution to international action to respond to global warming.
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Apocalypse Now and Again
28 December 2007, Roger Kerr
A self-proclaimed 'megalomaniac' writer from New York is leading his wife and child on a quest to have a 'carbon footprint' of zero. Among the extreme measures adopted by 'No Impact Man', as he calls himself, is a ban on using toilet paper in his home. It's just one of many bad ideas and terrible policy decisions arising from climate change hysteria included in a study published recently by the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute.
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Climate Change: Minefields Ahead
1 October 2007, Roger Kerr
At first sight, the government's response to the challenges of global warming looks responsible and moderate.
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Kiwis and Tigers: Lessons in Conservation
10 August 2007, Roger Kerr
One of the worst of many mistakes made by European colonists in New Zealand was the introduction in 1885 of stoats. The idea was to control the soaring population of rabbits and hares introduced some 50 years earlier. But today stoats kill, amongst many other things, 40 North Island brown kiwi chicks on average every day. That's 15,000 per year and 60% of the total of North Island brown kiwi born. Another 35% of the chicks are killed by ferrets and other introduced predators.
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Not so Fast, Minister
15 June 2007, Roger Kerr
Unveiling plans for an emissions trading scheme last month, climate change minister David Parker declared it would be up and running next year, would apply to all sectors of the economy, and would have a "negligible" impact on economic growth. And while noting that no final decisions have been made, he said the government was doing "no work" on alternative policies.
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It's Time to Cool It
20 April 2007, Roger Kerr
This article was first published in the Otago Daily Times 20/04/2007
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It's Getting Better All the Time
9 March 2007, Roger Kerr
This article was published in the Otago Daily Times today.
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Stern Review on Climate Change is Bad Economics
26 January 2007, Roger Kerr
This article was first published in the Otago Daily Times, 26 January 2007.
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Achieving the Dream
17 January 2007, Roger Kerr
This article was first published in the Otago Daily Times (12 January 2007)
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Contest of Environmental Policy Ideas Welcome
20 October 2006, Roger Kerr
This article was first published in the Otago Daily Times
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Energy Efficiency: Another Central Planning Failure
21 April 2006, Roger Kerr
Last month the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) released a Situation Assessment Report on the National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy.
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Reality Breaks Through With Axing of Carbon Tax
27 January 2006, Roger Kerr
The government's decision to scrap the proposed carbon tax marks another (and more positive) phase in a sorry saga of policy making on climate change.
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Why the Greens' Charm Offensive Failed
7 October 2005, Roger Kerr
Last week the Green Party invited representatives of business to a briefing aimed at demonstrating that there was no reason to be frightened about its influence on the new government.
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Is the Kyoto Protocol Now a Dead Letter?
29 July 2005, New Zealand Business Roundtable
What look like significant recent developments in the fate of the Kyoto Protocol aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have gone largely unreported in New Zealand. This article was first published in the Otago Daily Times (29 July 2005)
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Hard-headed spending decisions not cold-hearted
2 July 2004, Roger Kerr
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Running out of oil - again
19 December 2003, Roger Kerr
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Making sense of sustainable development
4 April 2003, Roger Kerr
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Kyoto ratification - another Kiwi own goal
10 December 2002, Dr Bryce Wilkinson
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Perspectives
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Issue 407 Saving energy will tie us in green tape
27 October 2010, Henry Ergas
SCHEMES to cut power consumption should not cost more than the benefits they bring.
IN public policy, bad ideas never die: they go to second editions. The recently released report of the Prime Minister's Task Group on Energy Efficiency is a striking case in point.
Credit where credit is due. The report is well-written, logically presented and thoroughly referenced, virtues no longer common in government documents. But its mistaken premises lead to recommendations that would reduce productivity, cut incomes and tie us up in unending green tape.
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Issue 397 Scrap ‘Cash for Clunkers’ Scheme, Not Older Cars
14 September 2010, Oliver Marc Hartwich
Germany is not only the country in which cars were invented. It's also the country that invented the policy to destroy them while they are still fully operational.
And it is also the best example to study why "cash for clunkers" schemes are a piece of economic lunacy.
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Issue 394 The Myth of Food Miles
25 August 2010, Diane Katz
Consumers are increasingly being told that “local” foods—typically regarded as those grown within 100 miles of the point of purchase—are environmentally superior to foods that are grown farther away. But research suggests that this is not the case. The transport of agricultural products actually accounts for a relatively small proportion of the total energy-related emissions generated in food production. In fact, in many instances, imports have a smaller environmental “footprint” than locally produced food.
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Issue 391 Catastrophism Collapses
13 August 2010, Lawrence Solomon
One year ago, the G8 talked tough about cutting global temperatures by two degrees. In Toronto, they neutered that tough talk, replacing it with a nebulous commitment to do their best on climate change--and not to try to outdo each other. The global-warming commitments of the G20 -- which now carries more clout than the G8--went from nebulous to non-existent: The G20's draft promise going into the meetings of investing in green technologies faded into a mere commitment to "a green economy and to sustainable global growth."
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Issue 386 Down with Doom: How the World Keeps Defying the Predictions of Pessimists
28 July 2010, Matt Ridley
When I was a student, in the 1970s, the world was coming to an end. The adults told me so. They said the population explosion was unstoppable, mass famine was imminent, a cancer epidemic caused by chemicals in the environment was beginning, the Sahara desert was advancing by a mile a year, the ice age was retuning, oil was running out, air pollution was choking us and nuclear winter would finish us off.
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Issue 379 Dark Thoughts on Earth Hour
29 June 2010, Peter Day
As the doomsday cult frets about the planet, Peter Day mourns the decline of institutional science in Australia
From the hills over Hobart’s Sandy Bay, the lights from at least one house will be blazing even more brightly than usual during Earth Hour on Saturday night.
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Issue 370 Cap and Flee
28 May 2010, John Fleischman
California, that former land of opportunity, was one of the first states to pass its own version of "cap and trade" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007 when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law, called AB-32, he said it would propel California into an economy-expanding, green job future. Well, a new study by the state's own auditing agency—its version of the Congressional Budget Office—has burst that green bubble.
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Issue 359 The Business of Climate Change
13 April 2010, Pete Geddes
Global warming has created a breeding ground for political capitalists. These are businesses that are expert at manipulating the political process to gain profits they can’t make in the competitive marketplace. The opportunities for political capitalism increase with the size and scope of government. When government allocates resources and imposes constraints it is generally to serve the strong and entrenched; the weak and aspiring suffer. The recent health care reform clearly exemplifies just this sort of mischief.
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Issue 345 The Copenhagen Conference: A Setback for Bad Climate Policy in 2010
15 February 2010, Ben Lieberman
The December 2009 United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen capped off what must have been a very disappointing year for global warming activists and their allies in Washington. The year began with high hopes that the new Congress and Administration would enact global warming legislation and sign up the U.S. to a new global warming treaty. It ended with that legislation stalled in the Senate and with the Copenhagen conference concluding with an agreement so weak that it represents a step backward for the U.N. treaty process.
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Issue 340 Copenhagen and the Demise of the Green Utopia
28 January 2010, Dr Benny Peiser
The failure of the UN climate summit in Copenhagen is a historical watershed that marks the beginning of the end of climate hysteria. Not only does it epitomise the failure of the EU’s environmental policy, it also symbolises the loss of Western dominance. The failure of the climate summit was not only predictable – it was inevitable. There was no way out from the cul-de-sac into which the international community has manoeuvred itself.
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Issue 334 The 'Science' Mantra
13 January 2010, Thomas Sowell
"Global warming" hysteria is only the latest in a long line of notions, whose main argument is that there is no argument, because it is "science." The recently revealed destruction of raw data at the bottom of the global warming hysteria, as well as revelations of attempts to prevent critics of this hysteria from being published in leading journals, suggests that the disinterested search for truth — the hallmark of real science — has taken a back seat to a political crusade.
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Issue 332 Trust the Public on Climate Change
23 December 2009, Clive Crook
It is not enough for climate scientists and environment ministers to go to Copenhagen and tell each other how right they are. They also need to convince the public. National politics – the democratic process – is awfully inconvenient sometimes, but cannot be waved away.
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Issue 333 Time for a Climate Change Plan B
23 December 2009, Nigel Lawson
The world's political leaders, not least President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in a state of severe, almost clinical, denial. While acknowledging that the outcome of the United Nations climate-change conference in Copenhagen fell short of their demand for a legally binding, enforceable and verifiable global agreement on emissions reductions by developed and developing countries alike, they insist that what has been achieved is a breakthrough and a decisive step forward.
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Issue 330 A Few Notes on Climate Change
18 December 2009, Andrei Illarionov
As the Copenhagen Climate Conference is taking place, it is appropriate to clarify once again what is more or less accurately known about the climate of our planet and about climate change.
Obviously, a brief post can not substitute for detailed studies of professionals in a variety of scientific disciplines – climatology, atmospheric physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and economics. However, a short post can summarize basic theses on the main trends in climate evolution, on its forecasts, and on its actual and projected effects.
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Issue 328 Climategate: Science is Dying
11 December 2009, Daniel Henninger
Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science.
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Issue 326 The Climate Science isn't Settled
7 December 2009, Richard S Lindzen
Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it does little that can be discerned.
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Issue 320 Palm Oil - Let's Inject Some Common Sense
20 November 2009, Katherine Rich
Reading headlines such as “Deadly Palm Oil In Your Trolley”, one could easily get the false impression that any New Zealand firm using palm oil is personally responsible for the demise of the orangutan and world’s rainforests. The use of palm oil has been treated like an industry “dirty secret” - somewhere on the environmental nasties continuum between baby seal clubbing and ocelot farming.
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Issue 318 The Great Global Warming Scam
13 November 2009, Melanie Phillips
Yet another scientific scandal has come to light which knocks another whopping crater in the already shattered theory of anthropogenic global warming. Eight peer-reviewed studies, which for years have played a significant supporting role behind the IPPC’s claims of AGW, have been shown to be fraudulent.
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Issue 287 When wind power blows, jobs will fall
31 July 2009, Dominic Lawson
Miliband's citing of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in support of his policy of subsidising the construction of many thousands of otherwise uneconomic wind turbines might appear grotesque, even comical; but not if you genuinely believe that Britain's switching from coal to wind power for its electricity generation will save the lives of countless Africans. I have no idea whether Miliband truly believes that it will - but if he does, he is deluded.
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Issue 274 Climate Change Issues: A Dissenting Voice
17 June 2009, David Henderson
In explaining why I take dissent to such lengths, I take as a point of departure a speech made last month by our Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, to a gathering which had much the same theme as this meeting: it was a Low Carbon Industrial Summit.
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Issue 270 The Climate-Industrial Complex
3 June 2009, Bjørn Lomborg
Some business leaders are cozying up with politicians and scientists to demand swift, drastic action on global warming. This is a new twist on a very old practice: companies using public policy to line their own pockets.
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Issue 258 California’s ‘Green Jobs’ Experiment isn’t Going Well
22 April 2009, Stephen Moore
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was all smiles in 2006 when he signed into law the toughest anti-global-warming regulations of any state. Mr. Schwarzenegger and his green supporters boasted that the regulations would steer California into a prosperous era of green jobs, renewable energy, and technological leadership. Instead, since 2007 -- in anticipation of the new mandates -- California has led the nation in job losses.
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Issue 254 Hour of No Power Increases Emissions
5 April 2009, Bjorn Lomborg
This Saturday, the World Wildlife Fund wants everybody on the planet to switch off their lights for an hour in a "global election between Earth and global warming", where switching off the lights "is a vote for Earth".
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Issue 241, Thoughts on green jobs
13 February 2009, Pete Geddes
"Imagine how much more productive these workers would be if they had access to more of Deere's machinery," I commented. "But then many of them would be out of work," one of my boys responded. I replied, "If the point is to provide maximum employment, why not replace the picks and shovels with spoons?"
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Issue 93, No Such Thing As a 'Perfect' Temperature
13 April 2007, Richard S Lindzen
This article was first published on www.msnbc.com
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Issue 74, Doing right things first
4 April 2006, Bjorn Lomborg
Global warming has become the preeminent concern of our time. Many governments and most campaigners tell us that dealing with global warming should be our first priority.
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Media Releases
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Infometrics Report Doesn't Support Government's Claims
19 October 2007, New Zealand Business Roundtable
"The Infometrics report released this week by the minister for climate change does not support the government's claims that its climate change policies will have little impact on economic growth, and that the proposed emissions trading scheme (ETS) is the best approach to reducing emissions at least cost to the economy", Roger Kerr, executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, said today.
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Climate Change Policies Need Better Analysis and Alignment With Key Trading Partners
30 March 2007, New Zealand Business Roundtable
"New Zealand should move cautiously and in line with key trading partners in response to concerns about climate change. It should not proceed with ill-considered actions that could involve large costs for firms and households, seriously damage the New Zealand economy, and have no discernible impact on global warming", Roger Kerr, executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable, said today.
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Faster Progress Necessary in Water Reform
13 April 2006, Business Groups
Frustration at the slow progress in water reform was expressed by business groups, following the Government's release of its water policy initiatives earlier this week.
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Review of Jared Diamond's 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed'
12 September 2005, New Zealand Business Roundtable
The Business Roundtable has released a third paper in its Occasional Paper series, a review of Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Wolfgang Kasper, professor of economics emeritus and a senior fellow of the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney.
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E-Connects
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Climate Change and Energy Security Policies: Are They Really Two Sides of the Same Coin?
23 August 2011, Peter R Hartley
Economist and energy expert Peter R Hartley gives the 2011 Reid Oration at the University of Western Australia. In it he discusses the relationship between climate policy and energy security.
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Climate Change Issues - New Developments in a 20-Year Context
23 November 2010, David Henderson, Royal Economic Society Newsletter
This note presents a personal sketch of the current debate on climate change issues, with special reference to the debate among economists. The opening sections, which give a 20-year perspective, draw in part on a paper of mine published earlier this year in the journal Energy and Environment. In the final section I comment on recent unexpected developments and their possible significance.
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The Decline and Fall of Cap-and-Trade
18 October 2010, Patrick J Michaels, Capital Research Center
For many months Al Gore and
other supporters of cap-and-trade legislation
have been predicting victory. It’s only a
matter of time, they said, before the federal
government regulates the U.S. economy to
reduce carbon emissions and end global
warming. Gore and company have been
investing their money in “green economy”
industries, anticipating a windfall of profits
from the changes in energy policy that
Congress will mandate. But something’s
happened. Without any fanfare the effort
has been stopped dead in its tracks. What
happened—and why?
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Seven Myths About Green Jobs
2 September 2010, International Policy Network
A study “Seven Myths About Green Jobs,” published in association with more than two dozens think tanks from all over the world concludes that green jobs are not as green as is being claimed by the politicians and advocates.
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Green Poverty - The Greenpeace Strategy on Forestry and Climate Change
11 December 2009, Green Poverty
Greenpeace has been active in the global climate change negotiations.
Its public message is “Stop Deforestation — save
the Climate.” But this is not the Greenpeace forestry strategy.
It is, as it was long before climate change became a global
issue, to “halt commercial forestry” everywhere.
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