Fossil Award to New Zealand for disappointing Saturday night statement on Loss and Damage Finance Facility

New Zealand acts ambitous, and then on Saturday night releases a disappointing statement on Loss and Damage Finance. 

Saturday night a perfect time to make an unsavoury statement expecting people to be winding down from a hard week and not paying attention. 

We see you New Zealand.

Fossil awards today to the UK on loss and damage finance, and to New Zealand squibbing on ambition in their NDC

Host country, the UK gets a fossil award for failing to do their homework on loss and damage finance. And they had a year extension to do it. 

The second award to New Zealand, thought that appearing green would disguise their lack of NDC ambition and they  literally said that just because a refreshing of the NDC has been asked of countries "it doesn't mean we have to.”  Come and join Australia in the (coal) sin bin neighbours.

New Zealand zero carbon Bill shows bipartisan leadership

Historic moment for New Zealand as the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Ardern calls near unanimous support for a Zero Carbon bill as acting on the biggest challenge of our time.

"I continue to stand by the statement that #ClimateChange is the biggest challenge of our time and for us here in Aotearoa New Zealand that means for this generation, this is our nuclear [free] moment."

New Zealand rebuked for unambituous and conditional climate change targets

Green fields north of Rotorua and the cooling tower of Ohaaki Geothermal power station in the middle distance. Photo: John Englart

New Zealand has released it's post 2020 climate targets, but already they are being heavily criticised by civil society and scientists as far too low, even given the specific national circumstances of the high proportion of agricultural sector emissions in the nation's greenhouse gas inventory.

The New Zealand INDC (PDF) was submitted to the United Nations on Tuesday 7 July 2015. The primary post 2020 target is set at 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (which equates to 11 percent below 1990 levels).

New Zealand also has a longer term target of reducing emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. While 80 percent of it's electricity is already produced from renewables, it has pledged to increase this to 90 percent by 2025.

Goodbye Mountain Glaciers, hello sea level rise

Photo: Fox Glacier in New Zealand (2007) by Andrew Turner

New research from Canada says that most mountain glaciers are on the retreat. Many glaciers in Europe, New Zealand, Africa and the US Rocky Mountains will lose up to 75 per cent of their mass by the end of the century. The study reveals that the melt from mountain glaciers will contribute up to 12 centimetres of sea level rise by 2100.

Climate tipping point: Global Atmospheric Methane on the rise

The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is rising, according to measurements made by the New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) at its Baring Head Station near Wellington.

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas whose affect on climate is 21 times as strong as Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and is the second most important contributor to global warming behind carbon dioxide. It is produced naturally mainly by biological breakdown of organic substances in oxygen-deficient conditions, such as the digestive system of ruminant animals and the decay of plant material in swamps or landfills. It is also prevalent in fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas (which is mainly methane).

Measurements released in December 2009 from its globally significant Baring Head station showed that southern hemisphere atmospheric methane increased by 0.7% over the two-year period 2007-08. The increase amounted to about 35 times more than all the methane produced by New Zealand livestock each year.

"The evidence we have shows that methane in the atmosphere is now more than double what it ever was during the 800,000 years before 1700AD" said NIWA Principal Scientist, Dr Keith Lassey. This analysis is based on examination of ancient air trapped in polar ice that has been extracted and dated.

The rise in methane follows a three-year period of no growth, and accounts for more than half of the growth observed over the ten years 1999-2008 (1.2%). The data is consistent with global trends with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reporting that global methane concentrations rose in both 2007 and 2008 after a ten-year lull.



Image Caption from NIWA: "The atmospheric methane measured at Baring Head near Wellington since August 1989. The graph shows the methane mixing ratio in parts per billion (molecules of methane for every billion molecules of dried air). Methane concentrations grew strongly in the 1990s then tailed off. There was even a hint of declining concentrations (negative growth) for 2003-06. Growth resumed in 2007 and appears to be persisting."

The increase has been attributed to unusually high temperatures in the Arctic and heavy rains in the tropical forests especially in the Amazon and Indonesia, after a decade of near-zero growth. Burning of forests contributed about 20 percent of the total methane released into the atmosphere in 2007.

The increased tropical rainfall was at least partly a result of a La Nina weather pattern of 2007 and 2008. Other factors are at work include global growth in commercial livestock farming, mining of fossil fuels, leaks from urban gas networks, and continued burn-offs of tropical rainforest.

As yet global warming has not triggered release of massive trapped carbon in permafrost or methane hydrates on the seafloor to methane according to the NOAA study that said their observations "are not consistent with sustained changes there yet."
"The most likely drivers of the CH4 anomalies observed during 2007 and 2008 are anomalously high temperatures in the Arctic and greater than average precipitation in the tropics. Near-zero CH4 growth in the Arctic during 2008 suggests we have not yet activated strong climate feedbacks from permafrost and CH4 hydrates." says the study published in the Geophysical Research Letters.

But research continuing in the north of Russia led by Professor Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks indicates methane seepage is increasing "Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be]," said Igor Semiletov in a BBC news report "It is important now to understand how fast it is being released and how much is being released," he said.

Release of these methane reserves is a major climate tipping point, that could have a runaway affect on global temperatures and climate. Global warming may cause Siberia's subsea permafrost to thaw. Estimates of carbon trapped in shelf permafrost range up to 1,600 billion tonnes which is roughly twice as much carbon as in the atmosphere now.

Background:

• Yale University Environment 360, Oct 30, 2008 - Melting Arctic Ocean Raises Threat of 'Methane Time Bomb'

Sources:

• National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) Media Release, Dec 222, 2009 - NIWA says greenhouse gas methane is on the rise again


• NOAA, Sep 25, 2009 - Unusual Arctic Warmth, Tropical Wetness Likely Cause for Methane Increase


• Geophysical Research Letters, Sep 17, 2009 - Dlugokencky, E. J., et al. (2009), Observational constraints on recent increases in the atmospheric CH4 burden, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L18803, doi:10.1029/2009GL039780.


• BBC, Jan 6, 2010 - Methane release 'looks stronger'. See also a December 2008 media release by the International Arctic Research Center: Scientists find increased methane levels in Arctic Ocean and WWF report, Nov 2009 - Arctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications

Takver is a citizen journalist from Melbourne who has been writing on Climate Change issues and protests including Rising Sea Level, Ocean acidification, Environmental and social Impacts since 2004.