​As the Zero Carbon Bill works its way through Parliament, it is clear that we’ll need to change the way we do things in order to reduce greenhouse emissions.
Petrol cars and trucks will be replaced by battery-powered electric vehicles.  Industrial heat for milk drying and heating buildings will switch from coal-fired boilers to electric furnaces.  Home heating will move away from gas and coal burners to electric heat-pumps and clean wood burners. 
There will be a fair bit of expense in expanding electrical generation and replacing and retrofitting hardware.  Who will pay for this transition?
Under the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, industry will make the transition by increased investment, in order to avoid spending money on emissions credits.  At some point, it will be more cost-effective to replace fossil fuel infrastructure, machinery and rolling stock with electric.  If all goes smoothly, money will flow from corporate coffers into either new equipment or ever more expensive emissions credits, or both, as our economy gradually weans itself off fossil fuels.
So, what about the people?  How will we make the transition?  At the moment, the personal cost-benefit economics of electric cars, heat pumps, and solar panels are marginal.  They all call for a significant up-front investment to be offset by savings in years to come.  Without low interest loans from our utility companies, councils or central government, most people will not be able to afford them. 
Here in Marlborough, we are lucky that our District Council has a low interest loan program to help ratepayers install clean home heating, insulation, solar water heaters and solar panels.  What about New Zealanders who aren’t so lucky?
So, here is the challenge: A good number of Kiwis, through hard work, good fortune or circumstance, live comfortable lives.  Many can make the investment in the low-emissions hardware our future requires with little financial pain.  Perhaps they can lead the charge by being the first to invest in our low-emissions all-electric future.
The economic benefits to our society are clear.  The more electric cars there are on the road, the more affordable second hand electric cars will be.  The more heat pumps and solar panels installed, the more suppliers there will be and the lower the price, due to increased competition and larger economies-of-scale in production.  More solar generation comes with the added benefit of producing more electricity to share without the need for additional wind farms, power plants and hydroelectric dams, all of which have shortcomings with respect to local communities, the environment and biodiversity.
On a social level, the signalling is also clear.  When we invest in these low-emissions technologies, we show our neighbours that we are committed to help in the energy transition.  We show our children and grandchildren that we care about their future.  And, we show the world that Kiwis are a special breed of creature who are ready to step up and do what is necessary when the world needs it.  We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

​Technology and the Kiwi innovative spirit will save us from climate change.  So why do we need to declare climate emergencies?  This is the message that Nicola Martin of the Waikato Times promotes in a recent opinion piece (“New Zealand science and tech, not climate emergencies, the biggest hope for global impact on climate change”, Stuff, 15 June 2019). 
While I am a big fan of technological innovation and believe it has tremendous potential in helping society prevent the worst of climate change, it won’t solve this problem.  Society already has the technology to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  What is lacking is political will. 
Solar panels and wind turbines to generate emissions-free electricity, electric and hybrid electric cars to reduce emissions from transportation, regenerated native forests to sequester atmospheric CO2; these are not new technologies.  They have all been around for decades now.  Why haven’t they proliferated?  It is because there is little economic incentive to adopt them.   We’ve all been living “business as usual”, while climate scientists have been pleading for action.  We have the technologies needed to limit emissions, yet global emissions continue to rise.
So, what good will a new cattle feed that lowers methane emissions be if no one spends the extra money to buy it?  These innovations won’t come cheap.  Innovators have to make a living too.  There have to be economic incentives, either through new taxes, government subsidies or through market forces.  New Zealand has opted to use market forces, through an emissions trading scheme, but with the price of carbon less than $25 per tonne, there is little incentive for businesses to limit emissions.  Emissions credits add only 3 cents to the price of a litre of petrol.  What incentive is there to limit fuel consumption by purchasing an electric or hybrid electric vehicle?
As a society, we need to act to limit our emissions quickly or condemn our children and grandchildren to a more difficult and unpredictable world, this much is clear.  We don’t have the luxury of waiting until some new, lower emissions technology becomes cheaper than what we are using today.  We need to start re-tooling our economy now, so that small boutique industries today, such as hybrid electric farm equipment, become large scale industries tomorrow. The fastest way to achieve this is through “economies of scale” – the more widgets people buy, the bigger the industry making those widgets and the lower the price.  This is the process that has been bringing down the price of battery storage and solar panels.
This is where declaring a climate emergency is important.  Only through recognising an actual emergency will our local and national governments get away from “business as usual”.  For example, when the next tender comes up to contract the council’s rubbish collection, the cheapest option will undoubtedly be with petrol vehicles.  Acknowledging a climate emergency, however, frees the council to explore other, perhaps more expensive but more “climate friendly” options. 
Right now, electric rubbish trucks are as rare as hen’s teeth.  After a few councils contract for them, there will be more.  Suppliers will get the message and there will be more companies building them.  New Zealand companies specialising in re-tooling heavy trucks to electric power may even find an export market, as the rest of the world follows our lead.  That is, “our lead” only if we are among the early ones making the change.
So, my hat’s off to the applied research focussed on limiting emissions.  It will only help us, however, if we have the political will to spend the extra to adopt it.  Councils declaring climate emergencies are leading this charge.  They have said that they will show the rest of us how we can limit our emissions and prepare for an uncertain future. 
Scientists and innovators will have their part in bringing us new tools and techniques, but in the end, it will be our political leaders who will guide us out of this mess.  That is, if we and generations to come, are so fortunate.

Technology and the Kiwi innovative spirit will save us from climate change.  So why do we need to declare climate emergencies?  This is the message that Nicola Martin of the Waikato Times promotes in a recent opinion piece (“New Zealand science and tech, not climate emergencies, the biggest hope for global impact on climate change”, Stuff, 15 June 2019). 

While I am a big fan of technological innovation and believe it has tremendous potential in helping society prevent the worst of climate change, it won’t solve this problem.  Society already has the technology to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  What is lacking is political will.
 
Solar panels and wind turbines to generate emissions-free electricity, electric and hybrid electric cars to reduce emissions from transportation, regenerated native forests to sequester atmospheric CO2; these are not new technologies.  They have all been around for decades now.  Why haven’t they proliferated?  It is because there is little economic incentive to adopt them.   We’ve all been living “business as usual”, while climate scientists have been pleading for action.  We have the technologies needed to limit emissions, yet global emissions continue to rise.

So, what good will a new cattle feed that lowers methane emissions be if no one spends the extra money to buy it?  These innovations won’t come cheap.  Innovators have to make a living too.  There have to be economic incentives, either through new taxes, government subsidies or through market forces.  New Zealand has opted to use market forces, through an emissions trading scheme, but with the price of carbon less than $25 per tonne, there is little incentive for businesses to limit emissions.  Emissions credits add only 3 cents to the price of a litre of petrol.  What incentive is there to limit fuel consumption by purchasing an electric or hybrid electric vehicle?

As a society, we need to act to limit our emissions quickly or condemn our children and grandchildren to a more difficult and unpredictable world, this much is clear.  We don’t have the luxury of waiting until some new, lower emissions technology becomes cheaper than what we are using today.  We need to start re-tooling our economy now, so that small boutique industries today, such as hybrid electric farm equipment, become large scale industries tomorrow. The fastest way to achieve this is through “economies of scale” – the more widgets people buy, the bigger the industry making those widgets and the lower the price.  This is the process that has been bringing down the price of battery storage and solar panels.

This is where declaring a climate emergency is important.  Only through recognising an actual emergency will our local and national governments get away from “business as usual”.  For example, when the next tender comes up to contract the council’s rubbish collection, the cheapest option will undoubtedly be with petrol vehicles.  Acknowledging a climate emergency, however, frees the council to explore other, perhaps more expensive but more “climate friendly” options. 

Right now, electric rubbish trucks are as rare as hen’s teeth.  After a few councils contract for them, there will be more.  Suppliers will get the message and there will be more companies building them.  New Zealand companies specialising in re-tooling heavy trucks to electric power may even find an export market, as the rest of the world follows our lead.  That is, “our lead” only if we are among the early ones making the change.

So, my hat’s off to the applied research focussed on limiting emissions.  It will only help us, however, if we have the political will to spend the extra to adopt it.  Councils declaring climate emergencies are leading this charge.  They have said that they will show the rest of us how we can limit our emissions and prepare for an uncertain future. 
​
Scientists and innovators will have their part in bringing us new tools and techniques, but in the end, it will be our political leaders who will guide us out of this mess.  That is, if we and generations to come, are so fortunate.