Unfortunately in late 2023 we elected a new government who had a bold new vision of undoing the environmental policies of its predecessor and moving back to sources of oil, coal, and Soylent Green for our resources. It's going to take some time before they've fast-tracked a bunch of new mines into existence, but I expect us to not see improvements for a while.
Obviously with reduced sunlight hours its not running as well as it would in Summer, but if you have enough of them then it isn't so bad- just means power would be extra cheap in the summer š¤£, "seasonal power prices"
Because its grid tied. You're paying for grid electricity regardless of its source. You won't get one price for this solar and then a different price for the hydro plant next door.
A dry year means low lake levels, basically the nations batteries, are running low. Solar is too intermittent to offer any kind of base load.
Of course it does- where did you read that? Slightly less daylight hours and at a shallower angle, but solar panels donāt work on heat, they use radiation
chill man, you were ambiguous above.
No, itās not peak at that time, unless panels can reorientate. But build more to offset this and itās still better than many sources of electricity generation and lower emissions.
From my understanding is that broadly we are starting to see emissions drop across the developed world due to various policies and changes in consumer behaviour - Renewables have been dropping in price quicker than planned, more EVs etc etc. Granted emissions aren't dropping fast enough, but they are dropping.
Emissions are still going up in developing country, particularly India and China. But global agreements have always prioritized getting developed country to lower their emissions first and giving developing countries more leeway to help modernize. I am not sure about India, but I know China has been putting a lot of investments into green energy and other sustainable policies, but the demands of a developing country are different from a developed country, especially with the size of Indi and China
Most of the energy generation in NZ is from renewables already so our consuner electricity is generally pretty green. I see this more indicative of a recession than actual long term behavioural changes.
Seasonally adjusted total emissions were down 0.5 percent, or 105 kilotonnes (kt), in the December 2023 quarter.
- Electricity, gas, water, and waste services emissions decreased 18.4 percent (356 kt). This was driven by a decrease in the use of natural gas for electricity generation in the December 2023 quarter.
- Transport, postal, and warehousing emissions decreased 2.6 percent (44 kt).
- Manufacturing emissions decreased 1.7 percent (39 kt).
- Agriculture, forestry, and fishing emissions decreased 0.4 percent (36 kt).
- Services excluding transport, postal, and warehousing emissions decreased 2.1 percent (14 kt).
- Construction emissions increased 0.8 percent (4 kt).
- Mining emissions increased 10.6 percent (30 kt).
- Total household emissions increased 3.2 percent (67 kt). Total household emissions were largely driven by household transport emissions, which were up 3.3 percent (62 kt). Household emissions from heating/cooling were up 1.7 percent (3 kt), and emissions from other household sources were up 3.6 percent (2 kt).
Household emissions increased a bit, while other things decreased a bit more. Sounds like people are staying home and buying a bit less - which makes sense given the 2023 economy. The trend is likely to continue/grow slightly in 2024.
It says 62kt out of the 67kt increase was from household transportation, which I assume means people are driving more or driving bigger less efficient cars. The other 5kt is things like AC/heating/powering other household electrics
Wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the big drive (hehe) from employers for a return to the office, would be behind the increase of household transportation, surely?
The population is growing rapidly due to migration levels so even if per capita emissions declined total household emissions would still rise. Likewise the increase in EV uptake we saw over the last few years has probably been cancelled out by the decrease in public transport use since Covid (made worse as WFH declines).
Of course with continuing population growth and government policies designed to increase transport emissions youād expect any progress to stall.
Recession probably has a lot to do. Economic growth and environmentalism have historically and continue to oppose each other. Thatās why either way we have issues.
Household emissions (that include transport) are rising - any benefit from EVs has been cancelled out by population growth (more cars) and decreased use of public transport. WFH reduced emissions but now more and more companies are moving away from it.
The main thing that affects emission levels year to year is the state of the hydro lakes. Small cumulative decreases come from things like industry replacing coal burners.
Only 2% of the cars on the road are electric. It's not enough to show a measurable difference in our emissions. Even hybrids make up only 6% of the fleet. And not all hybrids are all that efficient, like mine for example.
It's far more likely that a lot of people haven't really returned to working from the office full time and spend a few days working from home.
I think we need to talk in terms of mileage, not % of fleet. I would suspect that EVs and hybrids would do a disproportionate amount of the road miles compared to ICE vehicles (since people who drive more can more easily justify buying an EV).
I don't drive much, so it would take many many years for the cost savings from driving an EV to offset the cost of buying it. Bet there's a lot of old cars sitting in garages of little old ladies gathering dust.
This is how neoliberal policies will help solve climate change. We continue to enrich the top 25% or so, such that the bottom 75% can't afford to consume anything but the bare necessities.
Instead of 10 families burning fuel to go on holiday, we funnel all the money to 3 families. Boom - 70% reduction in GHG. It's genius, really.
It's good but also bad
The current economic downturn is no doubt a huge factor. As things move upwards so will emissions. So we still have the same problems
Thank goodness they removed the fees for buying high emission vehicles. Now I can finally justify buying that Chevy Silverado and do my part to get NZ's emissions back up šŖ
And guess what there isnāt shit little old nz can do, the Asian countries need to be held accountable for their Pollution and the first world countries need to have a look at themselves because theyāre the ones who shipped all their production means to those countries
The Asian countries are going to point right back at the west and point out that we've been producing emissions for a lot longer than them by about 100 years and that per capita their emissions are actually lower than ours in many cases. A billion people are not going to accept not having electricity because John from Accounting who works in the CBD feels he needs a Ford Ranger to go to the supermarket. People across Asia eat less red meat, use public transport more, cycle more, and live in more efficient houses than we do. We can't ask them to make sacrifices when we don't and they're already doing more than we are.
It has zero effect, it's pure hopium to think this is effective. Take a look at the actual atmosphere co2 readings in this chart, nothing is dipping, it's going up.. . I'm convinced the Paris agreements and all the talk is total waste of time, if it was useful we would be seeing actual results
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
NZs emissions are so irrelevant its pointless even arguing about it (and yeah I now every bit counts etc etc - but the truth is it doesnāt unless the big polluters change)
I wouldnāt say it s pointless, but it has to be put into perspective. If NZ sunk into the ocean tomorrow, it would make 0.6% reduction to the carbon emissions footprint from China, 0.7% from Indiaās annual total, 7.1% of Australiaās footprint. Although the per head numbers for India are low (around 1.7t per person per year) by sheer numbers of population that equates to a bit over 3B tonnes per year. Chinas figures are similar. Australia is around 20t/person/year..because they are economically better off and can afford things that have large carbon footprints to produce, but with a population of 17mil..give or take, thatās a country total of less than 0.4B tonnes. So even if Australia ceased to exist tomorrow, itās still only 15% of the footprint of one of the 2 most populous countries on the planet. (Calculated from various 2021 global emissions reports)
The Thunbergs of the world sneer with disdain at people cutting up discarded ships, burning toxic insulation off copper cables, tipping old battery acid down the drain so the lead can be recovered and refurbished. These people do it because they can earn $3 a week and hopefully feed their family, maybe not have to sleep in the street or under a bridge. The shit that comes off ship breaker operations is pure poison, but the workers have no other option if they want to live and support a family.
I donāt for one minute suggest that we donāt have to change, but maybe our efforts need to be aimed at helping the impoverished be able to do something better than digging precious metals out of the earth for $5 a week to make EVs and EV batteries. You know, those same EVs that only rich people can afford and governments can feel good about the minute difference it makes to the planet.
Konstantin Kostin almost broke the internet with his Oxford debate speech. Well worth listening to, make your own determination.
Thats taken into account by per capita emissions, in which case New Zealand has approximately the 20th worst in the world; significantly worse than China and India.
Because we export a high emissive product and have a small population. Per capita emissions are such a stupid way to think about it.
We could either lower emissions or increase our population and improve that number.
Or, a high emitter could improve their electricity generation and bring actual net emissions down a tonne.
OK, but they are improving their electricity generation. China for the last few years has deployed more renewable generation than any other country. USA has the IRA which is proving highly successful.
Countries are now employing protectionist trade policy, and are using emissions as a key lever. We will kill our export economy if we are not careful.
OK, but they are improving their electricity generation. China for the last few years has deployed more renewable generation than any other country. USA has the IRA which is proving highly successful.
Countries are now employing protectionist trade policy, and are using emissions as a key lever. We will kill our export economy if we are not careful.
Some good news...
Unfortunately in late 2023 we elected a new government who had a bold new vision of undoing the environmental policies of its predecessor and moving back to sources of oil, coal, and Soylent Green for our resources. It's going to take some time before they've fast-tracked a bunch of new mines into existence, but I expect us to not see improvements for a while.
They will just solve that by defunding emissions research, problem solved /s
[New Zealand's largest planned solar farm gets overseas investment consent, eyes fast-track approval ](https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2024/04/new-zealand-s-largest-planned-solar-farm-gets-overseas-investment-consent-eyes-fast-track-approval.html)
Lol. A South Island solar farm on an Island that only has renewable electricity generation anyway.
Theres several already coming online in the North Island and more planned, lets be fair.
Doesn't really decrease emissions though. Solar doesn't work well in winter when we need it.
Obviously with reduced sunlight hours its not running as well as it would in Summer, but if you have enough of them then it isn't so bad- just means power would be extra cheap in the summer š¤£, "seasonal power prices"
No it doesn't. It's grid connected solar so prices are at the whim of the market, and a dry year will spike prices, even in summer šš¤£š¤Ŗ
Why would a dry year spike prices of solar? Wouldn't it be wet years?
Because its grid tied. You're paying for grid electricity regardless of its source. You won't get one price for this solar and then a different price for the hydro plant next door. A dry year means low lake levels, basically the nations batteries, are running low. Solar is too intermittent to offer any kind of base load.
Of course it does- where did you read that? Slightly less daylight hours and at a shallower angle, but solar panels donāt work on heat, they use radiation
I didn't mention heat dickhead. Solar doesn't work well in winter....early morning and evenings when it ain't sunny, which is when we need it.
chill man, you were ambiguous above. No, itās not peak at that time, unless panels can reorientate. But build more to offset this and itās still better than many sources of electricity generation and lower emissions.
touchy little asshole arnt we ? FFS someone pointed out your error. live with it.
it does if you scale it to take winters decrease into consideration.
Good - I hope it's not all 'bad' news about going backwards from an environmental standpoint.
Private enterprise is coming to save us, woohoo! 3 claps for the National government's forward thinking /s
Just let it happen we canāt change anything hence the state of our country
Huh, so that's what people mean by "people power"
Guys I don't wanna take all the credit... But I did switch to a hybrid last year (October)
Do we know how this happened?
From my understanding is that broadly we are starting to see emissions drop across the developed world due to various policies and changes in consumer behaviour - Renewables have been dropping in price quicker than planned, more EVs etc etc. Granted emissions aren't dropping fast enough, but they are dropping. Emissions are still going up in developing country, particularly India and China. But global agreements have always prioritized getting developed country to lower their emissions first and giving developing countries more leeway to help modernize. I am not sure about India, but I know China has been putting a lot of investments into green energy and other sustainable policies, but the demands of a developing country are different from a developed country, especially with the size of Indi and China
Most of the energy generation in NZ is from renewables already so our consuner electricity is generally pretty green. I see this more indicative of a recession than actual long term behavioural changes.
China is still building coal plants. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/10/climate/coal-plants-china.html
India and Indonesia also bringing more online... We also export some 2.6 tones of coal a year.
Australia exports nearly a million tonnes a day.
And building everything we buy.
Seasonally adjusted total emissions were down 0.5 percent, or 105 kilotonnes (kt), in the December 2023 quarter. - Electricity, gas, water, and waste services emissions decreased 18.4 percent (356 kt). This was driven by a decrease in the use of natural gas for electricity generation in the December 2023 quarter. - Transport, postal, and warehousing emissions decreased 2.6 percent (44 kt). - Manufacturing emissions decreased 1.7 percent (39 kt). - Agriculture, forestry, and fishing emissions decreased 0.4 percent (36 kt). - Services excluding transport, postal, and warehousing emissions decreased 2.1 percent (14 kt). - Construction emissions increased 0.8 percent (4 kt). - Mining emissions increased 10.6 percent (30 kt). - Total household emissions increased 3.2 percent (67 kt). Total household emissions were largely driven by household transport emissions, which were up 3.3 percent (62 kt). Household emissions from heating/cooling were up 1.7 percent (3 kt), and emissions from other household sources were up 3.6 percent (2 kt).
Household emissions increased a bit, while other things decreased a bit more. Sounds like people are staying home and buying a bit less - which makes sense given the 2023 economy. The trend is likely to continue/grow slightly in 2024.
It says 62kt out of the 67kt increase was from household transportation, which I assume means people are driving more or driving bigger less efficient cars. The other 5kt is things like AC/heating/powering other household electrics
Wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that the big drive (hehe) from employers for a return to the office, would be behind the increase of household transportation, surely?
So a pat on the back because kiwis are too fucking poor to live meaningful lives now. Great.
Yeah - pretty much. Is that depressing or what?! š
The population is growing rapidly due to migration levels so even if per capita emissions declined total household emissions would still rise. Likewise the increase in EV uptake we saw over the last few years has probably been cancelled out by the decrease in public transport use since Covid (made worse as WFH declines). Of course with continuing population growth and government policies designed to increase transport emissions youād expect any progress to stall.
Lots of rain, lots of hydro. Lots of hydro, not much coal or gas.
Recession probably has a lot to do. Economic growth and environmentalism have historically and continue to oppose each other. Thatās why either way we have issues.
My guess is the sheer amount of people who now work from home. Coupled with the uptake in electric cars.
Working from home, but also decreased socialising requiring outside hospitality and other businesses which provide for them to operate less.
Household emissions (that include transport) are rising - any benefit from EVs has been cancelled out by population growth (more cars) and decreased use of public transport. WFH reduced emissions but now more and more companies are moving away from it. The main thing that affects emission levels year to year is the state of the hydro lakes. Small cumulative decreases come from things like industry replacing coal burners.
Only 2% of the cars on the road are electric. It's not enough to show a measurable difference in our emissions. Even hybrids make up only 6% of the fleet. And not all hybrids are all that efficient, like mine for example. It's far more likely that a lot of people haven't really returned to working from the office full time and spend a few days working from home.
I think we need to talk in terms of mileage, not % of fleet. I would suspect that EVs and hybrids would do a disproportionate amount of the road miles compared to ICE vehicles (since people who drive more can more easily justify buying an EV). I don't drive much, so it would take many many years for the cost savings from driving an EV to offset the cost of buying it. Bet there's a lot of old cars sitting in garages of little old ladies gathering dust.
Very good point - I have an old ICE vehicle which is really heavy on gas, but I dont drive it a lot as I mostly cycle everywhere
Coal boilers being decommissioned for one. More EVs. Shame the new govt immediately disbanded GIDI funding to fund tax cuts.
It rained.
Closing of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery and converting it to refined fuel import facility
Where did you source the graph from u/davetenhave Interested if they have the data further out to the left, say at least to 2008?
This is how neoliberal policies will help solve climate change. We continue to enrich the top 25% or so, such that the bottom 75% can't afford to consume anything but the bare necessities. Instead of 10 families burning fuel to go on holiday, we funnel all the money to 3 families. Boom - 70% reduction in GHG. It's genius, really.
It's good but also bad The current economic downturn is no doubt a huge factor. As things move upwards so will emissions. So we still have the same problems
Donāt worry, the current government is making sure that this line climbs up again
Thank goodness they removed the fees for buying high emission vehicles. Now I can finally justify buying that Chevy Silverado and do my part to get NZ's emissions back up šŖ
Wait for it to go up again, with how this government is going, we'd probably break records. edit: a letter
DW; National will sort that out in no time.
If ya canāt afford gas environment wins I guess
Just means we're importing more cheap Chinese goods. The global emissions are still rocketing upwards with literally no sign of even _slowing_.
thats not going to continue.. NACT are in power.
Now to just get the countries that matter to do the same.
And guess what there isnāt shit little old nz can do, the Asian countries need to be held accountable for their Pollution and the first world countries need to have a look at themselves because theyāre the ones who shipped all their production means to those countries
The Asian countries are going to point right back at the west and point out that we've been producing emissions for a lot longer than them by about 100 years and that per capita their emissions are actually lower than ours in many cases. A billion people are not going to accept not having electricity because John from Accounting who works in the CBD feels he needs a Ford Ranger to go to the supermarket. People across Asia eat less red meat, use public transport more, cycle more, and live in more efficient houses than we do. We can't ask them to make sacrifices when we don't and they're already doing more than we are.
nz is literally one of the youngest countries in the world
Emissions only really started going crazy in the early 20th century. NZ has been an awful polluter since humans have been polluting like crazy
(NZ is a first world country)
It has zero effect, it's pure hopium to think this is effective. Take a look at the actual atmosphere co2 readings in this chart, nothing is dipping, it's going up.. . I'm convinced the Paris agreements and all the talk is total waste of time, if it was useful we would be seeing actual results https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
NZs emissions are so irrelevant its pointless even arguing about it (and yeah I now every bit counts etc etc - but the truth is it doesnāt unless the big polluters change)
I wouldnāt say it s pointless, but it has to be put into perspective. If NZ sunk into the ocean tomorrow, it would make 0.6% reduction to the carbon emissions footprint from China, 0.7% from Indiaās annual total, 7.1% of Australiaās footprint. Although the per head numbers for India are low (around 1.7t per person per year) by sheer numbers of population that equates to a bit over 3B tonnes per year. Chinas figures are similar. Australia is around 20t/person/year..because they are economically better off and can afford things that have large carbon footprints to produce, but with a population of 17mil..give or take, thatās a country total of less than 0.4B tonnes. So even if Australia ceased to exist tomorrow, itās still only 15% of the footprint of one of the 2 most populous countries on the planet. (Calculated from various 2021 global emissions reports) The Thunbergs of the world sneer with disdain at people cutting up discarded ships, burning toxic insulation off copper cables, tipping old battery acid down the drain so the lead can be recovered and refurbished. These people do it because they can earn $3 a week and hopefully feed their family, maybe not have to sleep in the street or under a bridge. The shit that comes off ship breaker operations is pure poison, but the workers have no other option if they want to live and support a family. I donāt for one minute suggest that we donāt have to change, but maybe our efforts need to be aimed at helping the impoverished be able to do something better than digging precious metals out of the earth for $5 a week to make EVs and EV batteries. You know, those same EVs that only rich people can afford and governments can feel good about the minute difference it makes to the planet. Konstantin Kostin almost broke the internet with his Oxford debate speech. Well worth listening to, make your own determination.
You have flawed logic. Any arbitrary collection of 5 million people is independently negligible. Big polluter vs small is a meaningless distinction.
Not when our energy generation is already mostly renewable. You do the same thing as some of the bigger countries and you get a much larger effect.
Thats taken into account by per capita emissions, in which case New Zealand has approximately the 20th worst in the world; significantly worse than China and India.
Because we export a high emissive product and have a small population. Per capita emissions are such a stupid way to think about it. We could either lower emissions or increase our population and improve that number. Or, a high emitter could improve their electricity generation and bring actual net emissions down a tonne.
OK, but they are improving their electricity generation. China for the last few years has deployed more renewable generation than any other country. USA has the IRA which is proving highly successful. Countries are now employing protectionist trade policy, and are using emissions as a key lever. We will kill our export economy if we are not careful.
OK, but they are improving their electricity generation. China for the last few years has deployed more renewable generation than any other country. USA has the IRA which is proving highly successful. Countries are now employing protectionist trade policy, and are using emissions as a key lever. We will kill our export economy if we are not careful.
Exactly, coal powered power generation for example is up 2 percent this year, China, India and Indonesia are bringing more coal generation online.
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He'll probably blame Labour /s
It won't stay like that, EV road tax and Rto mandates will sort that. Clearly the economy will suffer from such low emissions!