goonix

The carbon emission circus is coming to town

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Late last week the Government announced that they were running a public consultation on the emissions target for 2020.

The Government already have a long term goal of reducing carbon emissions to 50% of 1990 levels by 2050. Long term goals tend to work quite well for Governments as it gives the public the idea that they are proactively doing something but realistically they will never be held to account if and when they don’t meet the target, as they don’t align all that well with the three year election cycle. But I digress.

This consultation process is part of setting the ‘interim’ goal for the year 2020. Environment Minister Nick Smith has quite correctly identified that setting this target requires a trade-off between our economy, our international reputation and, obviously, the environment.

Ultimately this 2020 goal will be presented in international climate change conferences at the end of the year, including the post-Kyoto Copenhagen Conference. I’m sure we will all be waiting with bated breath to see what the outcome of this Conference will be.

Of far more interest are recent ‘cap and trade’ developments around the world. Obama *just* got his bill passed by the House of Representatives while in Australia the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is very much struggling to gain legs.

New Zealand’s version of cap and trade, which will aim to reduce emissions to the 2020 (and subsequently 2050) goal looks set to be determined sometime later this year, although early indications are that it will be somewhat like the Aussie model. To blatantly oversimplify things, the Aussie model is a more politically palatable version of cap and trade, with lots of pressure-group exemptions and handouts to favoured sectors, as compared with the version NZ originally had planned for under the previous Government, which was more of an economically pure ‘you pollute, you pay’ model.

The final design of New Zealand’s scheme will be very interesting indeed…

Matt Nolan

Cruelty to pigs, willingness to pay, and intrinsic animal rights

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Brad Taylor has an interesting post discussing how New Zealand pig farmers are using the issue of stall vs non-stall pigs as a way to increase protectionism in the New Zealand pork industry.

Now if all that matters is how humans value the issue then Brad is right – the efficient solution requires no regulation.

Why? If people value pigs not being hurt, they will be willing to pay to eat non-stall pigs. If all overseas pigs are stall pigs (as the farmers are saying) then this creates an opportunity for NZ farmers to differentiate and tap into this market. If people aren’t willing to pay sufficiently enough more, then there is no market for it.

As a result, as long as all that matters is how humans value and the choice of conditions is observable there is no need for “protection against overseas pork”.

However, we may instead believe that animals have some intrinsic right not to be tortured. As pigs don’t actually have a choice in the matter we may require regulations if we want their rights to be valued.

In this case, a tax on stall pig meat that captures the value of the pigs suffering WOULD be the solution – as there is a clear externality on pigs that cannot be solved through Coase bargaining.

As a result the key question we have to ask is, what intrinsic right to the lack of torture do pigs have?  If we can define that then a mixture of clear labeling and a tax on pork from stall pigs could be the solution.

jamesz

Global warming affects who?!

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Treehugger thinks that this chart means we’re all deluded. It shows the percentage of people surveyed who believe that global warming will harm the groups described.

I think the chart makes complete sense and shows people to be remarkably sensible. Read more

jamesz

Weight and global warming

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While searching for articles about fat taxes I came across this piece about fat and global warming:

Overweight people eat more than thin people and are more likely to travel by car, making excess body weight doubly bad for the environment, according to a study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

They estimate 10% increased emissions from being overweight. Sadly I don’t have time to read the original articel right now, but at least the newspaper’s conclusion sounds shaky. For a start, do fat people eat any more than slim people of the same weight? Are the decisions to overeat and drive more both explained by unobserved cultural factors, rather then one explaining the other? Read more

goonix

Plastic bags: industry-based solution versus regulation

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Foodstuffs have recently announced that they will voluntarily introduce a 5c charge per plastic bag consumed through their New World and 4 Square supermarkets, with the revenue generated being used for an “environmental initiative” (previous post on the issue here).

Foodstuffs account for over half of all supermarket sales in New Zealand through their New World, 4 Square and Pak ‘n’ Save brands, while supermarkets in general account for 80% of plastic bags. Foodstuffs has got its own warehouses and wide spread distribution chain. Maintaining a warehouse is a challenging task. Visit https://kljconsultingaz.com/choosing-dock-equipment/ for some tip.

This move follows the likes of the Warehouse and Borders who already charge for plastic bags (and North Island Pak ‘n’ Save stores have long charged for plastic bags, albeit for different reasons).

One might assume from this positive action by Foodstuffs that an industry-based solution to the perceived problem of plastic bag over-consumption would negate the need for any regulation. But the thing that jumped out at me from the article was this quote from the Greens Russel Norman:

“What we need now is for the Government to back up Foodstuffs’ good initiative by introducing mandatory product stewardship for plastic bags”

Why would the Government need to mandate anything to do with plastic bags when the industry is clearly finding a solution to the perceived problem? Regulation is costly, not just in terms of resources needed to enact a bill or other measure, but also due to unforeseen outcomes that may arise from such intervention. Regulation should always be a last resort. In this instance I think regulation is blatantly unnecessary.

One might argue that it is due to the threat of regulation that Foodstuffs took this action in the first instance. This may be true, we don’t know. But given the moves made by Foodstuffs and other retailers I think that to now clamour for regulation is just plain silly and unfortunately seems to be a reflection of the Greens approach to everything – regulate!

No matter what the issue, you should always give industry a chance to resolve a perceived problem before intervening.

jamesz

Nick Smith is the bag man

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It’s great to see the government taking economic incentives seriously. Their latest initiative considers imposing a 5c/bag tariff on plastic bags in supermarkets. The idea is that the market price for the bags doesn’t take into account the full environmental cost of non-biodegradable bags. By taxing the bags the government can adjust the market price of the bags to match their social cost.

What gets me so excited about it is that green regulations usually seem to take the form of rather arbitrary quotas and limits. Read more