This is the third post in our Energy Future Series. New Zealand’s electricity system faces a real challenge. In dry years, when inflows into hydro lakes are low, the system can come under pressure, particularly through winter. This is a well-understood risk, and it deserves to be taken seriously. But how we respond to that … Continue reading Dry-year risk: What critics get right, and wrong
Weeks after the government's announcement to build an LNG import terminal in Taranaki, the decision doesn't look good. The Israeli-U.S. war on Iran is exposing the risk of fossil fuel dependency. And here in Aotearoa the Lawyers for Climate Action are taking the government to court about deficiencies in climate policy. New Zealand is being … Continue reading Why LNG is the wrong solution for Aotearoa’s energy future
The New Zealand government’s decision to build a port for gas imports feels designed for a world with a 1999 use-by date. Only those financially invested in preserving the extractive economy of the twentieth century, or those who have swallowed its kool-aid, persist with the fantasy that that world can continue. It is clear that … Continue reading A port for the past — a call to stop the LNG terminal
The top image of the Berlin Wall by Sharon Emerson is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The previous post on this topic commented on the implications of Mark Carney's Davos speech. I am encouraged that the vision he began to articulate about a multipolar world raises the possibility of collective global action that … Continue reading The Return of “Middle Powers”
For much of the past three decades, climate change has been treated as a policy problem sitting alongside others: environment, energy, development. That framing is no longer adequate. Climate is now entangled with food systems, energy security, migration, public health, finance, polarisation and conflict – what many now describe as the meta-crisis: overlapping systemic stresses … Continue reading Climate policy and the rise of the middle powers
Climate Action Tai Tokerau 