I appreciate Jordan Carter’s response to my blog post on the ETS. While we disagree on a fair number of issues, I always feel like I can have a intelligent conversation about things with him, and that he’ll answer honestly what he thinks, even when this doesn’t flatter Labour.
I thought that my response was harsh, but not unfair. I don’t like taking pot-shots at people, and wouldn’t have written it if I felt I was doing so. It was written out of frustration however, and I normally try and keep posts of frustration succinct – short rants are bad enough! The price for this however is that I didn’t get the chance to go into the detail I would have liked about my suggestions. I’m accused of being unreasonable, of wanting the pure driven snow in climate related policy, rather than dealing with than the more muddy reality.
There are a few climate related things that the current Government deserves credit for. The thermal moratorium is one. I’ve congratulated the Government in the past on my blog for doing so, and will do so again for things that deserve recognition. This morning Frog has revealed Government is considering ending the moratorium however…
Labour is constrained. Of course. But Labour is constrained in large part because of years in which it has consistently resisted making changes which would have created room to move on climate.
Take electricity prices for example. If you decide to put electricity into an emissions reductions instrument straight away, prices will rise, and people will be pissed off. They’ll be forced to use less electricity and endure cold winters, and their mood and health will suffer. The public, already struggling with interest rates, rising food and transport costs, and much else, will tell you they’re not happy, kick you out, and you’ll have a National Government, which will be worse for the climate and worse for people sitting in cold houses. I’m opposed to measures which hurt ordinary New Zealanders – I’m a environmentalist, not a sadist.
So what is my suggestion to this particular problem (and that of the Greens and others, who have been advocating this since 1999 and been ignored since 1999)? Insulation. Most of New Zealand’s houses are extremely poorly insulated. I count among my friends Swedish architects who’ve lived in Wellington – and their complaints about New Zealand’s cold houses are manifold. I know what its like to have the glass of water on your bedside table freeze overnight. Until recently, proper insulation was a mere afterthought for most houses.
By providing insulation you:
a) make people warmer and more comfortable and happier with their situation (and thus more likely to vote Labour)
b) reduce their heating bills
c)improve their health
d)reduce their doctors bills
e)reduce costs and strains on the health system from preventable diseases
f)improve Maori health and reduce the gap in life expectancy
g)reduce demand for electricity
h)reduce the strain on the national grid and the need for new generation capacity
i)and finally, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions
j)and means your Kyoto obligations are reduced, saving taxpayers money (I have no idea how much – it could be substantial, it could be insignificant)
The Government doesn’t have the money to insulate every house in NZ at once – the demands on a Government’s budget are essentially limitless, while money is quite limited. So you target this initiative to those who need it most first, with the promise that it will continue and eventually everybody will have insulated houses. You start where it’s coldest, probably Southland. Those who want it sooner will receive a partial subsidy and can pay for most of it themselves.
I should note that $1 billion would pay for 100,000 homes (at $10,000 per home – I have no idea if this is realistic, it could be half this, or twice this for all I know). This amount is half the price of a new tunnel, which will do nothing for the health of New Zealanders, and increase our ballooning greenhouse gas emissions.
I could do the same exercise for other potential initiatives – giving people money to go out and buy themselves a bike, for example. How cool would it be for the Government to work with bike retailers to provide a subsidy for purchase or maintenance of bikes? Imagine “a bike for every New Zealander”. After all, we already massively subsidise car users – by spending billions and billions on roads. Or perhaps increased funding of public transport, to take a less radical idea.
There are many initiatives that would or could gather public support, or at least require the spending of little political capital (considerably less than the Government is currently spending on a pathetic ETS)
The point of this is that Labour has put the cart before the horse – you support measures that reduce greenhouse gas emissions before you apply taxes. I’m not dumb enough to think that tackling climate change will be painless. Not every suggestion is sunshine and lollipops. I’m not suggesting that Labour would take every initiative the Greens suggest – just that it actually examine them seriously. Nor am I naive enough to think that a government inflicting pain on the population is electorally sustainable or something the Labour Party has any intention of doing. There are low hanging fruit, and the Government has been largely immune to advice on these issues for close to a decade now. The Government lies in a bed of its own making.
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“After all, we already massively subsidise car users – by spending billions and billions on roads.” When did “we” start spending money on roads? Ok, so we, as ratepayers, used get lumbered with the entire cost of roads, which might explain why they were “dray-width”, gravel or dirt, and unusable in winter. Except in Traranaki where dairy farmers were prepared to pay for all-weather local roads, but they insisted the main roads had to be tolled if they were tarsealed.
When the motorcar ended the tyrany of distance it also brought a willingness to pay for good roads. The bicycle could have done this too but in 1898 Parliament rejected the Cycle Traffic Bill and it’s registration fee funded cycle tracks. Those billions of dollars being spent on roads is what motorised road users are paying to use the roads on which the billions are being spent. Actually it’s only $1.5b a year and $1bn of that is spent on maintenance, only 50% more than in 1950 despite roads carrying six times more traffic, thanks to the laws of physics and economies of scale.
Me thinks you have been suckered by Labour’s changes to the Fund that prevents major projects from being funded till LTNZ has the cash in the bank, and the way Labour times it fuel tax increases to pretty much ensure that that results in a leap in spending in the financial year ending just before the next election.
Oh, and the bad habit common to all politicians to talk about roading revenue as “government” money when they don’t say that about electrcity revenue. Especially not when Meridian wants to spend billions on controversial power stations. Did Cullen ever brag that “this government is spending billions on Project Aqua”? Not that I can recall hearing. But they certainly make those claims about LTNZs investments when LTNZ is a SOE (or CE) with it’s own statutorily indepndent funding, ie funds appropriated by the sole authority of a statute.
The current Labour Government is spending billions building new roads, and has plans to spend billions more. It has already spent more on roads than any New Zealand Government previous.
I stand by my statement. In fact, when you factor in the externalities that road users don’t pay for, the subsidy is even greater. Auckland road users alone kill 400 through air pollution, and harm the health of us all. Half the carbon dioxide released from a car will be active in the atmosphere in 100 years, and a third in one thousand years.
As for your other point; the Government takes revenue from the road tax, and shouldn’t have to apologise for that. But that’s not the point of my post. The point is about how the Government should best allocate revenue, and that they aren’t looking at different priorities.
Insulate households? Have you not heard of EECA?
Pardon? EECA is a worthwhile initiative, certainly. But at current rates it will take many years before every house in New Zealand is insulated. And in the meantime, children will grow up cold and sick. And that is not acceptable.
We are seeing the failure of soft encouragement on every front – partial rebates that have seen limited uptake, and which are out of the reach of those who need it most, and of little interest to rental managers. So we need to see the intervention of the Government, either through legislation – requiring rental properties to have insulation and efficiency, or through the roll-out of a massive subsidy scheme. I don’t care which. Whichever gets the job done.
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[...] insulation debate is raging however, and it’s a topic close to my heart. I’ve already written at length about why I care about this policy, and why it is such a good idea to do something about [...]