Monday, May 23, 2016



Climate change: The latest inventory

The annual inventory report [PDF] of our greenhouse gas emissions was released on Friday. The headline data: emissions are still increasing:
NZemissions2014

There's been another "recalculation" in the last 12 months, making year-to-year comparisons difficult. Naurally, this seems to have shifted everything lower: while the difference between 2014 and 2013's estimated emissions from the two reports is only ~150,000 tons, this years report says that there has in fact bene an 800,000 ton increase in emissions in the last year. Meanwhile, they report net 1990 emissions as being two million tons lower than they did last year - suggesting some serious fiddling going around with forestry numbers. And even then, our net emissions still appear to have increased by two million tons.

And keeping the comparisons within the same data set, it is clear that emissions are not dropping, and that National's emissions control policy has failed. That's hardly surprising, given that they subsidise pollution, but when we've committed to decreasing emissions, its the wrong way to go. But its been clear for a while that the only way National is going to meet its targets is by outright fraud.