Taking climate seriously

You can take climate change seriously, or you can behave like the New Zealand government.

Item the first: the government is not keen on authorising some EVs that are popular overseas. 

Minister Wood gave some cautions about their safety ratings, which could be fair enough. 

But then there's this:

The two-seater Citroen Ami has a top speed of 45km/h, can be driven by unlicensed 14-year-olds, and retails for under NZ$10,000.

Paradoxically, [Transport Minister Michael] Wood says the potential popularity of micro-EVs could be in conflict with the government’s commitment to reducing the total number of kilometres travelled by privately owned automobiles.

“There are questions there about whether you help that by bringing in additional modes of car and do you potentially sometimes unhelpfully transfer potentially active modes into that mode.”

So. 

Climate change is the most important thing and warrants government taking dirigiste control over every decision made everywhere in the economy. 

But it's also so unimportant that it can be ignored if one option might encourage people to use a small EV if they might otherwise have used a bicycle. Because what really matters, more than climate change, is government transforming people's lives to fit this government's unique vision of the only permissible good life. 

Item the second: Remember the government throwing money at DB to put in some lower carbon solutions? And my warning that this was either subsidising them to do something they'd have done anyway, or paying for something that wasn't worth it? 

Here's Jeremy Rose:

Heineken – the owners of DB – has committed globally to reaching 100% renewable energy by 2030. And DB has pledged to do the same here.

As reported in an earlier article in the Beer Diaries, Heineken’s Gos Brewery in Austria achieved carbon neutrality as long ago as 2016.

So, at best the government’s $500,000 contribution – about 12% of the cost – towards the new industrial high-temperature hot water heat pump will have only brought forward the purchases by a few years.

If you're taking climate change seriously, you're not paying companies to do stuff they'd already have done on their own. The job is too big to be able to afford doing that. 

Rose's piece also has an extended bit from me on carbon offsetting in brewing.