NZ rated 'insufficient' on climate action, again (excerpt): Stuff

New Zealand abandoned policies that would have made a difference, 

like electrifying the Government fleet, notes the report.

"New Zealand won’t be carbon neutral by 2050 without much stronger policies, says an independent analysis by Climate Action Tracker.

The non-profit highlighted a lack of active policies for cutting methane, spurring electric vehicles and boosting renewable energy.

Despite capping emissions, reforming the Emissions Trading

methane

Scheme, and passing the Zero Carbon Act, the Government is well off track for meeting a climate goal of curbing heating below 2 degrees Celsius, let alone 1.5C (the goal of the Zero Carbon Act), the analysis says.

Our target under the Paris Agreement is rated “insufficient” – the same as last year. Climate Action Tracker says if all countries followed our example, the world would reach 3C hotter than pre-industrial levels.

New Zealand joins Australia, the European Union, Mexico and others in the insufficient group. India and the Philippines are among the small group rated compliant with a 2C goal or better.

On the positive side, a combination of new Government policies and lockdown brought New Zealand’s expected emissions in 2030 down 8-17 per cent from where they were headed last year, and the 2020 projections down 14-23 per cent."

Eloise Gibson10:41, Aug 05 2020

Related: Gillard on climate action: “It was done. And … we can do it again in the future”: RenewEconomy

New Zealand, carbon, Paris Agreement, #jailclimatecriminals, #climateaction, #bigbusiness, 

 

Successful Elimination of Covid-19 Transmission in New Zealand: New England Journal of Medicine

New Covid-19 Cases in New Zealand

and Implementation of

Epidemic-Response and Support Measures.

Soon after initial descriptions of an outbreak in Wuhan, China, were shared, reports in late January 2020 (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30260-9/fulltext. opens in new tab) confirmed that Covid-19 was almost certain to become a serious pandemic. 

Despite New Zealand’s geographic isolation, we knew that introduction of SARS-CoV-2 was imminent because of the large numbers of tourists and students who arrive in the country each summer, predominantly from Europe and mainland China. Our disease models indicated that we could expect the pandemic to spread widely, overwhelm our health care system, and disproportionately burden indigenous Maori and Pacific peoples. New Zealand began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in earnest in February, which included preparing hospitals for an influx of patients. We also began instituting border-control policies to delay the pandemic’s arrival.

New Zealand’s first Covid-19 case was diagnosed on February 26 (see Figure 1). That same week, the WHO–China Joint Mission’s report on Covid-19 (www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf. opens in new tab) showed that SARS-CoV-2 was behaving more like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) than like influenza, which suggested that containment was possible.

Read the complete NEJM article 

See also:

Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage : The Guardian (excerpt)

There is an answer to post Covid-19 economic chaos.

Climate Explained: What the World Was Like the Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were at 400ppm: EW

climate change

What was the climate and sea level like at times in Earth’s history when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at 400ppm? 

 

The last time global carbon dioxide levels were consistently at or above 400 parts per million (ppm) was around four million years ago during a geological period known as the Pliocene Era (between 5.3 million and 2.6 million years ago). The world was about 3℃ warmer and sea levels were higher than today.


We know how much carbon dioxide the atmosphere contained in the past by studying ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. As compacted snow gradually changes to ice, it traps air in bubbles that contain samples of the atmosphere at the time. We can sample ice cores to reconstruct past concentrations of carbon dioxide, but this record only takes us back about a million years.


Beyond a million years, we don't have any direct measurements of the composition of ancient atmospheres, but we can use several methods to estimate past levels of carbon dioxide. One method uses the relationship between plant pores, known as stomata, that regulate gas exchange in and out of the plant. The density of these stomata is related to atmospheric carbon dioxide, and fossil plants are a good indicator of concentrations in the past.


Another technique is to examine sediment cores from the ocean floor. The sediments build up year after year as the bodies and shells of dead plankton and other organisms rain down on the seafloor. We can use isotopes (chemically identical atoms that differ only in atomic weight) of boron taken from the shells of the dead plankton to reconstruct changes in the acidity of seawater. From this we can work out the level of carbon dioxide in the ocean.
The data from four-million-year-old sediments suggest that carbon dioxide was at 400ppm back then.

Sea Levels and Changes in Antarctica 

 

During colder periods in Earth's history, ice caps and glaciers grow and sea levels drop. In the recent geological past, during the most recent ice age about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were at least 120 meters lower than they are today.


Sea-level changes are calculated from changes in isotopes of oxygen in the shells of marine organisms. For the Pliocene Era, research shows the sea-level change between cooler and warmer periods was around 30-40 meters and sea level was higher than today. Also during the Pliocene, we know the West Antarctic Ice Sheet was significantly smaller and global average temperatures were about 3℃ warmer than today. Summer temperatures in high northern latitudes were up to 14℃ warmer.


This may seem like a lot but modern observations show strong polar amplification of warming: a 1℃ increase at the equator may raise temperatures at the poles by 6-7℃. It is one of the reasons why Arctic sea ice is disappearing.

Impacts in New Zealand and Australia  

 

Read the complete EW article

The Covid-19 crisis creates a chance to reset economies on a sustainable footing : The Guardian

New Zealand climate minister says governments must not just return to the way things were, and instead plot a new course to ease climate change

James Shaw

Thu 23 Apr 2020 10.18 AEST

James Shaw, New Zealand’s climate change minister, has asked the country’s independent climate change commission to check whether its emissions targets under the Paris agreement are enough to limit global heating to 1.5C. He explains why he’s prioritising the issue during a strict national lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, which could send New Zealand’s unemployment rate soaring.

To say that we find ourselves in an unprecedented moment is so obvious and has been so often repeated it’s almost become white noise. What is less obvious, however, is where we go from here.

In any significant crisis, let alone one as catastrophic as the Covid-19 pandemic, it is an entirely understandable human reflex to want things to “return to normal”, to “go back to the way they were before”.

And, when faced with economic headwinds – in recent decades, the Asian financial crisis, the global financial crisis and, in our own case, the Christchurch earthquakes) successive governments the world over have directed their efforts to meeting public expectation and getting back to business as usual.

Unfortunately, one of the features of business as usual was a highly polluting and ecologically unsustainable economy on a pathway that was locking in catastrophic climate change.

Successive responses to economic crises have seen climate change and the natural environment we depend on for life on Earth as a nice-to-have, something to think about once we’ve got the economy back on track and there’s a bit more money to go round.

Read the complete The Guardian article