Last week I called for 1.3 million hectares of new forest in New Zealand. That’s nearly 5 per cent of our total land area. The obvious question is: How do we pay for it? In my view, the only feasible way is to take a “smorgasbord” approach—that is, to put on the table as many different funding sources and revenue streams we can think of. This is partly because the scale of the target is so vast...
Pure Advantage was founded in 2011 on the conviction that New Zealand is in a global race for green growth — and we cannot afford to slip behind. Since then, not enough has happened—and, in certain respects, things have only got worse. In 2011, for example, the Global Green Economy Index (GGEI) had New Zealand ranked number one in its assessment of 27 of the world’s leading economies. By 2012, we...
Some wise head once said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” So it is with climate change in general—and New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in particular. Friday 5pm is the deadline for public submissions to Stage One of the current ETS Review. You can make your submission here. But if the thought of formulating an opinion on the ETS fills you with dread...
Looking toward Paris from the vantage point of New Zealand, one issue lingers: integrity. Will the Paris Agreement be translated into genuine action? Will the world walk the talk? It counts for something that the international community has declared its intention to keep global warming “well below 2°C”. But there’s an old adage in management theory that a target is not strategy. If pledges aren’t...
Do you have the feeling that COP21 is profoundly important, but you’re not entirely sure what’s at stake? No worries! I’ve been following the lead-up to COP21 throughout the year—from Our Common Future Under Climate Change, the major science conference in Paris prior to COP21, to the Australia-New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference in Auckland. Here’s ten things to keep an eye on over...
No sooner did “resilience” become the word of our times, so too the concern that it is just another vacuous buzzword. The cynics say that resilience, like so many other buzzwords, simply lends a purposeful sheen to the routine dithering of planners. It justifies their salaries and, worse still, justifies their inability to fulfill their promise of managing our economies and environments. Such...
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