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© Thomson Reuters 2021.New Zealand introduces climate change law for financial firms in world first
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2020hindsights
Bjorn Tomention
That's why we have agreements like the Paris accord.
It is economically prudent to combat climate change. Firstly, there more jobs in renewables (and coal doesn't make a profit anymore), and secondly, the enormous cost of disruption due to adverse climate effects eclipses the costs to mitigate and reverse climate change.
Bjorn Tomention
The green argument is floored, simply in the way they continue to allow other nations to produce everything using filthy old poluuting methods while hamstringing their own economies and people so as to send signals of virtue out. Simpletons trying to control the masses.........the worst part is half the people fall for it.
2020hindsights
Wolfpack
It has increased by about a third since the industrial revolution. That's a lot.
As I said before, poison was an analogy. Sure, CO2 is essential for life. It is also greatly heating up our planet.
Actually, it is. The main reason for being very concerned is that the increase in temperature causes more CO2 to escape from the oceans which in turn causes the temperature to rise. It will get out of control very quickly with no chance of reversing it. Also, the vast majority of that temperature change has come in the last few decades; the increase is accelerating.
No. An increase from 1.9 ~ 4.5 degrees will put us in a position of no control.
No. Nor would more extreme weather and increased sea level.
About 1 degree less than now.
I'm not.
Wolfpack
The point of the basketball example was to demonstrate the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere despite the increases since the industrial revolution. CO2 is not poison - it’s essential for life. Minister Shaw’s touting of a policy that will do virtually nothing to change the increase going forward is akin to fake heroism. China will drive the increase in CO2 emissions all while pocketing the majority of the economic windfall of the West’s fixation on solving a problem that doesn’t amount to all that much.
A 1 degree increase in average global temperatures during a period in which the world emerged from the Little Ice Age isn’t all that much to be concerned about. So many politicians are raising alarms about the rising temperatures but none will tell us what the ideal average temperature is? Just that increases are bad. We know that cold causes more deaths than heat - wouldn’t less cold be beneficial? What is the ideal average temperature? Don’t shut down debate and say such questions are irrelevant. If the ideal average temperature is five degrees cooler that is an argument in favor of mans efforts to regulate the worlds climate.
2020hindsights
Zaphod
No, it isn't cyanide, that was an analogy. A small amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has a massive effect on the temperature of the planet.
2020hindsights
Wolfpack
True, but as a percentage of total atmosphere is a meaningless figure. You obviously missed the poison analogy. A tiny amount has a big effect. Pre-industrial CO2 was around 280ppm and now is 416pp. That's about a third more. And that increase has greatly warmed the planet.
Wolfpack
Yes, you are correct - I miscalculated. That was a mistake on my part - thank you for the correction. According to NASA, CO2 levels are now 416 ppm.
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
That was about 300 ppm 140 years ago. A good increase to be sure but still a small volume of the total atmosphere. Still not even close to massive. Imagine you placed a million ( 1,000,000 ) orange basketballs in a field and randomly painted 416 of them black. That’s not a lot of atmospheric volume. 416 parts per million of a trace gas that isn’t even the most abundant green house gas. Think about it.
Zaphod
2020hindsights
I think the 0.0004% that Wolfpack mentioned refers the CO2 part that is supposed to be man-made. And CO2 is not cyanide, it is part of the natural carbon cycle, which is the basis for life on the planet. You do realize that we could not live in an atmosphere with zero CO2 because there would be no plants, or is that new to you?
Zaphod
2020hindsights
Lifetime president Xi says a lot of things, how many of them do you believe?
In the real world, China commissioned more coal power plants in 2020 than are in operation in entire Europe. And of course the CCP loves virtue-signally Western governments who actually act on this propaganda.
2020hindsights
Wolfpack
Try to get your facts right. CO2 makes up 0.04% of the atmosphere (100 times your figure). That's massive. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it's like poison, a tiny amount of cyanide will make a glass of water lethal.
Umm, no. It is increasing by around 3 parts per million annually.
Again, that's massive. And the problems is that it is a positive feedback loop. The hotter it gets ice sheets melt and it gets even hotter. It could increase by up 5 degrees by 2100 if nothing is done, and that would be catastrophic.
2020hindsights
WilliB
President Xi Jinping pledged last year to make China “carbon neutral” by 2060, and said in December it would boost the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 25% by 2030 from a previous commitment of 20%.
Wolfpack
I think the answer has less to do with logic or common sense and everything to do with a belief system that is no less than religious in nature. When it got to the point where the media said that it was no longer acceptable to subject science to criticism the Left had turned off its collective critical thinking skills and embraced a belief system that could not be doubted. Heretics are even being cast out of their social circles, jobs and are subject to Maoist style shaming and forced apologies. We are living through a period of forced conformity not seen in the West in hundreds of years.
Wolfpack
I think many Western nations have no problem handing China their economic power while continuing to treat them as a developing country that doesn’t need to abide by the same standards they hold themselves to. All of this green technology that Minister Shaw and the US’s Biden are pushing require materials, mines, and manufacturing capabilities that the West has long since ceded to the CCP. They want the technology but don’t want the mines in their backyard necessary to build it.
CO2 is a trace gas making up less than half of all greenhouse gases. CO2 makes up 0.0004% of the total atmosphere increasing a minuscule 0.0001% over the past 140 years. Think 1 part per million increase in over a century. The average temperature is up about 1 degree - that’s it. The control freaks on the Left are exaggerating the problem because it gives them control of the economy- which is what Socialists dream of obtaining. That gives them the rights that individuals and local communities should have for themselves. That and giving the CCP so much economic (and military) power is self defeating.
ushosh123
While interesting, but this isn't exactly the big push to stop climate change that people in the thread thinks it's gonna be. Perhaps this will generate more data on the impacts of climate change but doesn't offer anything in terms of prevention. Is it the lack of data that we are missing or is it lack of action. You tell me.
bob
China is having a very hearty laugh at the Baizuo handing them what's left of their economies.
Bjorn Tomention
BurakuminDesToday 03:29 pm JST
NZ was the first nation (along with Australia) to give women the vote.
BurakuminDes Yes NZ is the first nation in the world to see the light of each day, so it does lead the world, but in saying that it is also the first place in the world to fall into darkness as night falls............and here we are seeing the darkness of utter nonsense thinking coming into play.
Why would a nation vote for destroying its lifestyle when it makes not one iota of difference to the over all scheme of things, and they continue to buy goods from the largest most aggressive polluter in the world......China.
China fired up more coal powered electricity generators last week than NZ has ever had in its entirety .......how does the stupidity make sense?
Shipping the products from China to NZ does more damage to the environment each month than all the cars ever driven on NZ roads.
Please explain the reasoning in this to me if you are able to.
I am asking because from where I sit I cannot see the logic in this green experimental B.S. Argument
WilliB
Burakumin
There a a few countries in the luxurious position of having a tiny population and huge natural power ressources (Iceland and Norway come to mind, too). However, in the real world, mainland China in 2020 alone put into production more coal-burning power plants than the entire European plants in existance. How green is that?
And yes, that is what all these Western "green" plans are based on.
WilliB
Lazarus
Your declaring something wrong does not make it so, and name-calling is not an argument.
sf2k
Sounds like a great idea. Could suddenly make green home renovation accountable by banks
Yukijin
How can any country claim to be green whilst importing containers from China?
BurakuminDes
No electricity? You do realise that the vast majority of NZ energy is sourced from renewable sources? 82% in fact comes from hydropower, geothermal power and wind energy.
Please explain to us your "logic" behind your "no electricity" prediction? Or have you simply made it up to suit your far-right narrative?
BurakuminDes
NZ was the first nation (along with Australia) to give women the vote. Thats pretty significant Id say - and world leading.
Lazarus Knows
Wrong.
Wrong.
100% wrong.
You guys on the alt-right need to stop thinking of people you disagree with as being evil for the sake of being evil. That's not how people work. When you learn to stop pronouncing the "b" in "subtle", come back and speak again.
Bjorn Tomention
Its ridiculous , until the major players take part. NZ is a mere drop in the bucket and the virtue signalling over climate change coming out of this govt and their green coalition partners is a joke.
Mean while NZ'rs will suffer quality in life while china belchs out enormous amounts of pollutants, carbon and rapes the planet of all its resources.
WilliB
fxgai
Yep! Also outsourcing pollution and slave labour to China, so it is not our backyard. So we can get rich and posture as green to our media. Win-win-win!
WilliB
ifd66
I do not believe in the simplistic "climate change" narrative that is being touted. However, if you want to reduce carbon emissions across the board, I completely agree that a carbon tax is the way to do it, instead of more convoluted artificlal bookkeeping mathematics as described in this article.
However, a simple carbon tax is harder to fiddle with by the political hacks, so it is not attractive for the political class.
ifd66
Taking climate change as seriously as it should be taken. Well done NZ.
However, the ultimate tool to fight human induced climate change is still a robust carbon tax.
fxgai
... from China :)
Saving the world and making China great again, it’s perfect!
Hervé L'Eisa
This should backfire quite spectacularly. All of the "zero emissions" vehicles, how are they produced and at what cost? How about the sourcing of the requisite rare earth metals?
The horse drawn carriage is probably the most "green" of all.
Environmental wokism will lead to a return to the pre-industrial era. No petroleum-based products, no electricity.
Bjorn Tomention
Really ?
They had the closest thing to ever get to this years ago and the govt scrapped them. They were called Trolley Buses run off electric over head cables, guess now the govt in NZ is off its trolley.
No transport can be "Zero Emissions", every thing needs to be produced and fueled some how ...........................pixie dust thinking once again.
Sven Asai
Impressive...and the climate change already shivers from fear and will surely abide, even more the financial sector, that is famous for acting only between limits. ROFL
venze
Glad to note that New Zealand has become the first country to introduce a law that will require firms to report the impacts of climate change on their business.
Would more nations follow suit?
Peter14
Looks like the Kiwi's get the jump on the rest of the world on this issue. Who would have though ten years ago that the world would look at New Zealand as world leaders on anything but rugby? Handling Covid-19 - tick.
Now this issue as well. Congratulations New Zealand, and keep it up.