THE COST OF PUBLIC E.V. CHARGING

DRAFT DISCUSSION PAPER ON THE COST OF PUBLIC E.V. CHARGING

A POTENTIAL IMPEDIMENT TO RAPIDLY DECARBONISING ROAD TRANSPORT

SUMMARY

 Rapid decarbonising of the transport fleet, and especially light vehicles, is a paramount climate strategy.

The pricing structure for charging electric vehicles (EVs) at public charging stations could (and should) provide a major incentive for the transition off fossil fuels (by rewarding the currently higher capital outlay with lower running costs[1]). However, current pricing structures potentially represent serious over-pricing of public charging, with a common cost starting at well over 60 c/kWh (over twice a typical domestic tariff and perhaps four or more times the commercial tariff station operators are likely to pay).

This level of cost then becomes a significant, but at present under-recognised, impediment to the widespread uptake of EVs, and is especially likely to act contrary to a just transition by further penalising the lower socio-economic sector.

 Preliminary calculations (below) suggest there is considerable scope for reduction in the overall cost/kWh to the public, with an associated substantial increase in incentives to change rapidly to EVs.

 This is seen as worthy of urgent investigation and policy consideration. The thrust of such policy would ideally match a typical domestic tariff (say 30c/kWh) but otherwise a) tie delivered kWh charges to a realistic increment above relevant commercial purchase rates, and b) relate time-based costs to fair returns on capital outlay, site rental etc.

 CURRENT SITUATION

 Climate imperative

 Rapidly decarbonising our transport fleet is recognised as one of New Zealand’s most pressing climate issues, with transport emissions being close to those of the dairy sector but rising much more rapidly. The Climate Change Commission’s Advice to Government gives emphasis to this.

 Resilienz Ltd. is active on climate issues across a wide front, has engaged in many ways with decarbonising our transport system, and regularly champions the role of New Zealand’s “team of five million” in adopting various personal climate strategies.

 A major intersection of the above issues (decarbonising transport and motivating individual action) is in the uptake of electric vehicles.

 Potential issues relating to public charging infrastructure.

 Currently, of the various historical impediments to EV uptake, some have been at least partially overcome[2], while motivation to overcome others may be helped by potential government policy (such as the feebate scheme on vehicle imports, EECA support for low-emissions initiatives, or through ETS and carbon price impacts on fossil fuel costs[3]).

However, for some time ahead, and notwithstanding government incentives, the cost premium of buying an EV is likely to be significant, and that will be a barrier to purchase, especially for less-well-off sections of the community. Highly competitive recharging facilities have the potential to mitigate this cost premium, and so make EV purchase and operation more attractive.

But what is currently less well-known is that typical public charging stations, through a tariff basis that integrates electricity delivered with time spent connected, can result in dramatically higher charging costs than would normally be expected.

Typically, these charges are of the order of 25c/kWh delivered plus 25c/minute connected, which in our experience commonly result in rapid[4] charging rates (say up to 80% of full charge) of about 64c/kWh but as high as 82c/kWh. The new Hypercharger at Bombay is reported as 60c/kWh plus a (shorter) time-based charge.  Given that most EVs drive from 5 to 7 km/kWh, that equates to a price/km of around 10-13 c/km, or broadly comparable with a very efficient small petrol car. (By contrast, an EV charged at home at a tariff of say 30c/kWh would be driving at about 5 c/km.)

Escalating factor, especially on seeking a just transition

However, there is a sting in the tail: for technical reasons EV charging slows dramatically, typically above 80% full, meaning that the time-charge component of the cost becomes progressively, and sometimes dramatically, greater. At times, charging can then cost several times the “rapid” rate. (This cost escalation is one of the reasons why, along with prudent battery management, it is common to stop charging EVs at 80% on public stations)

This aspect is especially relevant to seeking a just transition, because it is a greater issue for the shorter-range EVs that may be the most accessible to less-well-off sections of the community. (Because EVs with smaller, or partially deteriorated, batteries will be lower in price. Consequent range limitations then lead to more frequent charging and/or a greater incentive to charge right up to 100% rather than stopping at 80%).

Although evidence shows that battery performance over time is generally better than originally expected , declining at about 3% p.a. an 8-year-old 24 kWh Leaf would have an expected best range of maybe 100 km (down to say 75% of say 130 km), a distance that can readily motivate recharging to 100% (rather than the recommended, more cost-effective 80%). 

Additionally, poorer sections of the community may be less well placed to have safe home-based charging options, and thus may be more dependent on public charging stations. 

Notional example.

This is generally based on conservative figures (i.e. not penalising the EV charging structure).

 Assumed parameters:

·       Rapid charge to 80%

·       Billing based on analysis of prior statements (@25c/kWh, 25c/minute charging).

·       Rapid charger Installation cost $70,000 (“Total installation costs range from $50,000 to $70,000 per Rapid Charger.” Source: ecotricity).

·       Notional charger usage: say 5 charges/day (low except at inception). 

·       Commercial electricity tariff 16c/kWh based on 2018 rates.

·       10% servicing cost is assumed.

·       Domestic tariff 30c/kWh (from MBIE).

·       All figures include GST.

Results:

Indicative charge cost to customer: $16.00 for 25 kWh. (Equates to 64c/kWh)

Installation cost of charger and site outlay: say $70,000.

Cost of servicing last: 10% p.a. (likely high), $7000 p.a., $140 p.w., $20/day

Electricity cost to charging company to deliver 25 kWh: $4.00.

Total notional cost to charging company: electricity + servicing = $8.00

Equivalent cost of same charge at home: $7.50 on domestic tariff of 0.30 c/kWh

Typical time connected to charger: 39 minutes (from charging records for 25 kWh).

Time needed to recoup servicing cost: 80 minutes @ 25c/minute. (i.e., two 40 min charges)

Conclusion on example:

Based on this conservative scenario[5], a $16 charge amounts to a 100% mark-up on the already-generous combined costs for both electricity and equipment, and over 100% above equivalent costs of charging at home. This differential will increase notably for slower charging above 80% of battery capacity and for more favourable costs to the charging company.

Transition and supplier issues

At the early stages of a major transition, such as electrification of the vehicle fleet, pioneering companies such as ChargeNet are to be complimented on their work in this arena, and they deserve for such enterprise to prove profitable. 

This is especially so early in the transition period when commercial uncertainty is greater and the customer base smaller.

However, this situation goes far beyond the profitability of a few companies and extends to our critical ability to rapidly reduce fossil fuel dependency, one of the major contributors to an existential threat, and to especially look after the most adversely affected sectors of society in the process.

In that context, and accepting the notional basis of the above example, there seems likely to be considerable room to move on the current pricing structure of public charging stations. There is also considerable incentive to do so, and to ensure that a resultant position is established that is strongly directed at maximising the quantitative transition off fossil fuels, while supporting a just transition and not being inequitable on the operators of public charging stations.

As a related supplier issue, it is noted that Government scrutinises margins on fossil fuels (which are lower than those described above), and additionally it would be expected to receive loud protest from the public if petrol stations started also charging for time on the pump! (The latter comparison must be treated with caution as the time to recharge an EV is far longer than filling the equivalent range at the pump.)

Furthermore, Government has a potentially influential stake in wholesale electricity prices and should be willing to exploit this if needed to ensure attractive rates at public chargers. As noted above, a notional $1200 p.a. energy saving is a significant help to covering the additional capital outlay of an EV and/or paying off a low interest (government?) targetted loan.

CONCLUSION

Rapidly decarbonising the vehicle fleet is a critical climate strategy, and doing so in a way that assists a just transition is not only prudent from an equity perspective, but will also assist maximising EV uptake, with resultant longer-term benefits to the wider community.

The above discussion indicates a situation that is potentially inequitable at large and, if not rectified, risks becoming a disincentive to EV uptake generally, and of specifically penalising poorer sections of the community.

Government is urged to consider this issue in advance of the major expansion of electrified transport that undoubtedly lies ahead.

[1] For comparison, a recent model 1.6 l Nissan Sentra is rated at about 12 km/l, or say 18c/km (@pump price of say $2.15/l). A recent Nissan Leaf is rated about 6km/kWh, or say 5c/km (@ domestic tariff of 30c/kWh). Over a year’s driving of say 10,000 km, the Leaf would save some $1200 p.a. in energy. Under current public charger tariffs, this saving dramatically reduces). 

[2] e.g.  EV range and battery life have both improved substantially – see graph above - and charging infrastructure is improving in many locations.

[3] At a current carbon price of say $NZ36/tonne (3.6 c/kg), and petrol emitting around 2.5 kg CO2e/litre used, the present raw carbon price impact on petrol would approach 10c/litre, or say 0.5-1c/km for most cars.

[4] Rapid charging is rapid delivery by DC power, as against slower options with AC power, including from domestic power points, that are converted to DC by the vehicle’s system. “Normal” rapid charging is at 50 kW, but the new Bombay “hypercharger” can deliver 300 kW – about equivalent to 150 domestic power points, and more than any single NZ vehicle can currently receive.

[5] Rapid charging with no slower-charging time premium; lower end of the typical rapid-charge tariff range; relatively few charges per station per day; high buy-in electricity tariff; high capex on charger and generous allowance for servicing capex.

WHY CLIMATE IS STILL MISSION-CRITICAL IN ELECTION 2020

“Get your heroes stuck up a tree,” goes the advice to creative writers, “then hurl rocks at them.” In other words, dear authors, don’t settle for one calamity, but compound it with another.

The object, of course, is to have our heroes dig deep, and summon the brilliance and resolve to prevail against impossible odds.

Were we scripting the drama of an entire civilisation at risk, we couldn’t do better than strand everyone up a climate-crisis tree, and then fling lethal Covid rocks at them, making the tension unbearable. Tragically, that’s exactly the double crisis humanity now faces.

“Compelling climate strategies are based on restricting global overheating to 1.5˚C”

For why a 1.5˚C limit is critical, see NASA . When Covid-19 struck, New Zealand was facing the challenging 30-year decarbonisation pathway set by our Zero Carbon Act (ZCA). Requiring 7-10% emissions cuts year-on-year, with enough massive investments in mitigation and adaptation (e.g. electrifying transport, and urban flood defences) to challenge even a robust, innovative society like ours.

Add spiralling Covid-19 debt, and climate funding faces an even greater crisis. Christiana Figueres, of Paris Agreement fame, spelled this out to RNZ listeners (here). Figueres was unequivocal: unless Coronavirus packages are also climate-recovery ones, the fiscal vacuum left by Covid will cripple essential climate strategies.

This urgency is heightened by scientists struggling to tell climate reality as bad as it is (refer seasoned climate advocate Bill McKibben or Australia’s thinktank Breakthrough discussing climate an existential security risk.). Even October’s “Acuity”, the staid magazine for Australasian Chartered Accountants, published a sobering scenario of a world warmed 4˚C and only able to support one billion people.

In that context, James Shaw’s announcement of businesses needing to report climate risk (Scoop) might seem small fry. It is, however, a world-leading initiative capable of propelling major shifts in investment strategy, while equipping commerce to better-weather unfolding climate storms. With world governments and businesses still largely myopic on climate, this offers a pioneering example needed far beyond New Zealand.

The overarching issue for Election 2020, then, is neither Covid-19, nor its economic fallout, but electing a government that doesn’t drop the climate ball as it faces down other challenges. And this seriously limits options for prudent voters.

With the stakes for the election off-scale-high, it’s salutary how few politicians have shown willing to grapple with the double climate/Coronavirus dilemma. To secure a half-decent chance of a half-decent future, this means the next government must have two paramount capabilities:

developing visionary climate strategies that also heal Covid wounds;

carrying us together along the challenging path ahead.

To give credit where it’s due, the withering crises that have confronted this Government have been handled with remarkable aplomb. And, thanks largely to the Greens, the Government has adopted milestone climate legislation, like the cross-party ZCA and ending oil exploration.

Overall, however, the PM’s once-celebrated slogan “climate change is our nuclear free moment” looks increasingly just that: a slogan. Marc Daalder’s comparison Ardern and Boris Johnson on climate, revealed our PM in a quite unflattering light (Newsroom).

Perhaps that light should have fallen more on other cabinet ministers. As Shaw battled for the climate with a coalition knot tying his hands behind his back, budget 2019 offered climate meagre pickings, with NZ First has been a persistent climate deadweight (see Stuff). And, while minister Damian O’Connor kept his balance on the critical ag-and-climate tightrope, Phil Twyford, minister for the other climate-critical sector, transport, was largely missing in action.

Cabinet also sidestepped chances to integrate Covid and climate recovery, with Grant Robertson and Winston Peters each side-lining Climate Change Commission advice as they “justified” why major infrastructure projects could not be green. 

But if Labour has fallen short, National has taken giant leaps into the past by appointing a climate demon to their top job. Judith Collins brings such a toxic legacy on climate I see her as unfit to lead any country into the 2020s. Doubting climate science and a 1.5˚C limit, maligning those championing such limits (Carbon News: Fanatics_overstating_climate_case_says_Collins), and regularly on record as pro-oil-exploration, Collins has next to no sense of the climate crisis, or doesn’t care, or both.

“Collins confronts her traditional voters with a profound dilemma: ”

With our business community better and better informed on climate, and an ag sector increasingly aware of climate impacts and strategies like regenerative agriculture (https://pureadvantage.org/ourregenerativefuturecampaign/ ), Collins confronts her traditional voters with a profound dilemma: should they remain loyal to a party led by someone with the climate sensitivity of Trump, or should they optimise our chances of a promising future, and reprioritise their 2020 vote?

That then begs the question for whom to vote.

The Greens must be in the mix: they’ve achieved more for climate strategy than the rest put together, offer well-qualified and visionary incumbents (like Shaw, and associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter), and stand out in policy assessments as having the best nouse for integrating economic, social and climate issues (e.g. Ora Taiao here,)

But who else?

·       Labour has earned its leadership badge, but not (yet) that for climate commitment;

·       ACT competes with National for the most retrograde climate thinking (NZ Herald);

·       TOP’s climate policy is in damage control after leader Simmons dismissed 1.5˚C, rejecting the Paris Agreement, ZCA and science in one fell swoop; (Ora Taiao didn’t know that when compiling their scorecard below, but I attended the meeting where Simmons spoke).

NZ First has consistently applied the handbrake on climate policy

·       and Sustainable NZ seems oblivious to climate change altogether, giving it no mention at all on their website’s list of “top policy priorities” or “ten policy areas”, and “reducing emissions” is the very last item on the second list.

Which makes life easy for climate-savvy voters as they have just one realistic option in 2020: The Greens strong enough to have real climate clout in a Labour-led government.

In these extraordinary times, party vote Green becomes the standout choice for a promising future.

Election policy scorecard from Ora Taiao (here).

NELSON'S CLIMATE EMERGENCY DECLARATION SETS A NEW COURSE

Hard on the heels of the Zero Carbon Amendment Bill, Nelson City Council and Environment Canterbury have taken the pioneering steps of declaring New Zealand’s first states of climate emergency.

2009 Climate protest, Canberra.

climatecodered.org

Like the Bill a week earlier, these are milestone events intended to propel climate responses to much higher levels, and, hopefully, spur others to follow suit.

In the bigger picture, these strategies should reset our priorities to match the seriousness of the climate crisis, and help us to sustain vibrant societies during the times of great change stretching out ahead.

Declaration of climate emergencies as at 13 05 19. (the timing of declarations in Quebec not available)

Although these declarations are the first in New Zealand, they are far from new globally, with escalating adoptions elsewhere, ranging from the 2016 trailblazer, Victoria’s Darebin City Council, to the entire UK this month.

Nelson’s declaration was founded on a remarkable weight of submissions to the Annual Plan, plus the aspirational Local Government Leaders’ Climate Change Declaration of 2017. It also recognises irrefutable science around the climate crisis, as well as resounding calls for action from such well-informed movements as Extinction Rebellion and School Strike 4 Climate.

While the decision was a decisive 10/3 majority, that concealed serious challenges to the proposal. Various councillors sought extra consultation, more time for deliberation, and increased operational detail. Ultimately, though, there was no escaping the mood that this was a critical proposal whose time had come.

Additionally, councillors and submitters highlighted the importance of following through with correspondingly ambitious action, and so served notice on elected members that tangible action will be critical to proving this declaration is more than mere political theatre.

So, what does the declaration mean?

Above all, it signals to every one of us that, to maintain an appealing way of life into the future, we will be making significant climate-friendly changes on many fronts.

While largely aspirational, it commits Council to giving climate issues strategic priority. We might not welcome the climate crisis itself, but we should definitely welcome such intensified efforts to safeguard our long-term wellbeing.

Let’s be crystal clear, though: Nelson’s declaration is not creating the need for tough measures - that need is here, like it or not, from a climate crisis already in train. What the declaration is doing is improving our chances of sustaining thriving communities into the future, and that makes exceptionally good sense.

There’s no universal definition of “climate emergency”, and council is clear this declaration is not made under the Civil Defence and Emergency Act. However, the impacts of climate change still tick all the boxes under that Act’s definition of “emergency”.

Nelson’s own declaration is more about paving the way for ambitious action than defining the action itself, whereas declarations elsewhere have often been more definitive (such as targetting carbon zero by 2030). This places a heavy burden on the council team, who must quickly crystallise the underlying concepts into visionary actions that are, in turn, both robust and far reaching.

While there might be no single definition, several features characterise such declarations:

o Ambitious carbon zero targets, (frequently by 2030, echoing calls from the UN’s 2018 climate summit in Poland). Nelson has yet to set targets, but has almost completed important emissions profiling as a key foundation for that.

o Telling the climate crisis as it is. Most governing bodies, including Nelson City Council, historically downplayed the crisis, and overplayed their own climate responses. This declaration holds real promise of breaking that mould.

o Making climate change a priority in all council decisions. Nelson’s declaration is limited to strategic matters, but these should soon flow into more detailed actions.

o Engaging and informing the community. The Nelson declaration sends strong signals on this.

o Collaboration to maximise effective responses. This, too, is strongly signalled.

o Setting tight timeframes for planning and implementing. This is a major challenge now facing council, and, ultimately, facing us all. Council is now heading out on the tightrope between urgent, large-scale action on one side, and manageable rates of change on the other. We each have a strong interest, and an important role, in helping council keep its balance out there!

And day to day differences?

Scotland has already given us a glimpse. Barely a week after their 28th April declaration, their government controversially scrapped plans to cut airport departure taxes. The cuts were predicted to increase flights, and so also, unacceptably, increase emissions.

This reveals just how much it’s about a new way of thinking, and how a responsible approach to the climate will influence detailed decisions in our lives.

The range of potential effects is enormous, from the long-term planning of towns and transport, to how we buy our food. But the key effect will be a change in mindset, from “our lifestyle determines our emissions” to “our emissions determine our lifestyle”. That change need not be as scary as it might seem, but what has been scary is rushing headlong into the crisis without a good plan. This climate emergency declaration holds the potential to change that.

This article was first published by Stuff and the Nelson Mail on 22nd May 2019.

THE ZCAB: CLIMATE LEGISLATION TO BE PLEASED WITH

Comment 11 05 2019: This post has been slightly refined for clarification (e.g. that the step changes in emissions budgets are set so as to achieve the 2050 targets).

A legislative milestone.

The introduction of the Zero Carbon Amendment Bill to New Zealand’s parliament is of colossal importance, not only in the evolution of our own climate legislation, but also in blazing a trail for the world at large in regulating for the more ambitious 1.5°C Paris Agreement target.

Reaching this milestone with cross-party support is fundamental and, while clearly a major achievement of the Labour/Green/NZ First coalition, also casts a positive light on the National Party opposition.

Taking a lead from its UK precedent, a crucial objective of the legislation was defusing its potential to become a political time-bomb every election. The resultant document has skillfully blended the necessary compromises in a way that leaves it robust while still giving something for everyone.

The Labour and Green Parties clearly hold centre stage as champions of legislation whose time has come like no other, but there is concession enough, to the agricultural sector especially, to appease both National and New Zealand First.

Even ACT has found a point of difference, albeit by opposing the Bill in total, and so also distancing itself from perhaps the greatest reality check of the 21st century.

Overview

The proposal preserves key elements of the original Zero Carbon Bill, and none of the adjustments or concessions seem major game changers for climate, even though agricultural has got off too lightly. The main features of the new Bill are:

o Reduce all greenhouse gases to zero by 2050, except lesser targets for gases of biological origin;

o Reduce national emissions budgets in 5-yearly steps with settings to achieve the 2050 target;

o Obligations on government to develop and implement timely climate policies.

o Establishing a Climate Change Commission of experts to advise government.

Given that agricultural emissions are officially some 48% of our national total, the biggest concession is to require the reduction of the biogenic methane component (about 75%) by only 24%-47% below 2017 levels by 2050. This is not ambitious enough when methane offers our biggest and quickest means to drop our emissions.

Source MfE

Although this lets the agricultural sector too much off the hook, there are some mitigating factors. These include the relatively low emissions intensity of NZ agriculture compared to other countries; and joint research by Victoria and Oxford Universities showing the “GWP100“ metric used by the IPCC significantly over-estimates the impact of biogenic greenhouse gases once their role in the “short carbon cycle” is factored in.

However, the use of a 2017 baseline for biogenic methane (as against previous dates of 1990 or 2005) gives real concern, as the same VUW/Oxford research shows methane from changes in stock levels cause huge changes in warming effect.

Given that gross agricultural emissions increased by almost 20% from 1990 to 2015 (see graph), including major emissions from the intensive application of nitrogenous fertilisers (which do not have concessions and must reach zero by 2050), the 2017 reference is an additional reason the agricultural target is too soft.

Changes in area of forestry source: MfE “Environment Aotearoa 2019”.

Even so, Newshub reports National’s leader, Simon Bridges, as claiming that even the proposed methane reductions are too tough. While he might be playing to the farming sector, the reality is the world seriously needs large and speedy emissions reductions, and rapidly cutting ruminant numbers (especially those requiring intensive use of fertilisers) is one of our key strategies for that.

Factor in harvesting the “wall of wood” from our entrepreneurial ETS forests of the 1990s, and we also face major inroads into the CO2 absorption in our emissions profile (black in the diagram below). In that context, “tough” may well become “tougher” for all of us, and that may also apply to Bridges’ own approach to the agricultural sector.

Reductions in forestry and agricultural targets puts the focus on energy. Source MfE Greenhouse Gas Inventory

The flip side of “softer on agriculture”.

The inescapable outcome of lowering the bar for agriculture, compounded by the negative effect of the “wall of wood”, is the spotlight turning quickly onto energy as the major way for New Zealand to meet its emissions targets. This, in turn, means a steep trajectory to get right off fossil fuels – mostly in transport (around half of energy’s emissions, and the fastest growing), but also in manufacturing, heating buildings, and electricity generation.

NZ Energy emissions showing the scale and growth of transport. Source MfE Greenhouse Gas Inventory

The Interim Climate Change Committee report on renewable electricity generation is imminent, and is expected to chart a plausible pathway to an all-but-100% renewable electricity grid by 2035. This will be a critical step in transitioning off fossil fuels – with other steps including the ability to actually access and sustain sufficient electric vehicles (when the entire world will be trying to do the same), and getting the energy infrastructure in place for the transport (the system might be evolving now with EV charging stations, but is still just a glow on the horizon for the hydrogen vehicles likely to prove critical to our heavy road transport sector).

Major expansion in public transport will also play a key role, especially in conjunction with intensifying urban densities. This necessary change is being helped by us progressively seeing public transport as a desirable way to travel, rather than a poor alternative to driving. We still have a way to go, however, to catch up with the vision of Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota: “A developed country is not a place where the poor drive cars, it’s where the rich use public transport.”

Economic impacts.

The Government’s summary of the Bill notes that all the economic modelling shows positive effects from the proposed measures (although a temporary decline might accompany the first, strong emissions reductions). That is in line with findings in many other parts of the world, and notably in northern Europe, but is no doubt dependent on certain assumptions that need to be upheld.

The summary goes on to emphasise that the Bill can help “build our global advantage”, a desirable and plausible outcome of pioneering legislation in a world desperately in need of change. However, it is regrettable the focus is just on competitive advantage, without making more of the enormous global benefits of acting as a role model and sharing information.

Hayden Montgomery, of the Global Research Alliance, recognises this. In speaking at the recent Agricultural Climate Change conference, he noted New Zealand is almost unique as a small, developed country with a strongly agricultural economy. Montgomery then highlighted the pivotal role of this country in leading the way in climate responses, especially in ways the many small, but less well developed, agricultural economies can follow.

Operational

Two key operational strategies are the Climate Change Commission (CCC) and the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

In specifying that the CCC will comprise a carefully-selected range of independent experts, the authors of the Bill have wisely resisted pressure to base it, instead, on stakeholders. This largely defuses issues of conflicts of interest, while still providing channels for stakeholders to be heard.

The CCC is predictably cast as an advisory body, which will irritate proponents of it having decision-making powers, but governments are expected not to depart from its advice except under special circumstances.

The ETS will be based on a series of 5-year emissions budgets, much as the original Zero Carbon Bill, and which will be set 15 years ahead (and subject to only minimal subsequent adjustment). This will not only give industry and the financial sector much-needed certainty for the path ahead, but will also go a long way towards defusing swings in response to political changes.

Actual emissions budgets will be set by Ministers on advice from the Climate Change Commission, and once the first three budgets are in place, governments will essentially be setting budgets in a 10-15 year future window, with only slight adjustments of the earlier budgets already in place.

The Bill proposes limited abilities to “bank” (carry forward budget surplus) and “borrow” (up to 1% from the next budget), subject to strict criteria.

Even though this approach has merit, it is to be hoped that encouragement will be given to not carry forward a surplus. This would then help accelerate overall reductions, to the extent that a given emissions “allowance” is relinquished rather than used in a subsequent period.

Legislation for individuals as well as big players.

It is too easy to see emissions trading schemes and panels of experts as relating to processes far removed from individual daily life. However, this legislation is a roadmap for critical processes that will shape our lives for decades ahead. The more we understand and engage with it the easier it will be for us and the better the legislation will work.

We’ve waited a very long time for climate legislation that held promise of being up to the job. This is a very good shot at it, and for my money a lot better than we might have been facing. While I feel we should press for our big agricultural sector to shoulder more of its share, I give this proposed legislation a good 8/10. Let’s give our parliamentarians the support and encouragement needed to fine tune it, get it in place, and make it work.

A VOICE THAT SO DESERVES TO BE HEARD

If you read my recent blog “50 Shades of Waste” you may recall my “unlikely new hero”, Johnny Baxter (who drove a Volvo truck an incredible 10% more efficiently than the best of the rest in the world). Well in following Johnny’s story I’ve also wound up as an unlikely follower of Dave McCoid, editor of New Zealand Trucking Magazine.

Dave doesn’t mince his words, but he doesn’t get stuck on ideology either. I probably spend more time than him trying to grasp climate change from every angle, but I wish I had Dave’s flair for expressing the issues. And he addresses the big environmental stuff much more often than you’d expect.

So while my writing tends to be a seasoning of right brain on a staple course of left, Dave’s comes out as pure right brain - though it’s not hard to read between his lively lines and realise there's much more scholarship in the background than his flamboyant style lets on.

I’m going let Dave’s writing speak for itself - it would be dumb not to. So here are a few tasty morsels from his latest serving: the weekly editorial that came in today (Friday 13th no less – as good a date as he’ll find to hit us between the eyes with something momentous). 

And as you read it, remember these are from the editorial of a trucking magazine, My guess is it shows up big time the mags of us planners, accountants, architects, lawyers …

I take my hat off to you, Dave - your voice deserves to be heard far and wide. Kia kaha. We need you. (Check in at NZ Trucking Magazine support@nztrucking.co.nz if you want a weekly stir-up from Dave!)

"Any volunteers? I thought not.

The youth and newborn babies in today’s first world societies will live an amazing life…they’ll be among the most privileged generation ever to have lived…. By the end of their lives however, they may well be seen as those who sacrificed on a scale normally reserved for war generations. The concept of getting on a plane for a mere holiday in Bali, to see Mickey Mouse, or the Eiffel Tower, may be as foreign by the end of their time as the thought of a weekend trip to Mars is for us now.

...

It’s likely as they age they’ll look back on sprawling, extravagant houses … with the same disdain we view medieval sanitation. We look back on the Vandals and Huns…will they see us as the Gluttons?

...

 What a significant extension of the planet’s life actually means is today’s youth at death will barely comprehend liberties and the waste of the world into which they were born. It’s that simple. They have less than a generation now to achieve that. Beyond that it’s a case of hoping the creationists get to say ‘I told you so. But then we’ll have to explain why we wrecked it, and who’s going to volunteer for that one? "

50 Shades of Waste

“Some of the greatest opportunities to reduce cost, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the least visible.”

“What does ‘efficient’ mean?" asked one of my grandsons the other day. We’d been discussing how best to carry garden cuttings to the compost heap. Like any self-respecting kid doing chores, he pounced on the idea of efficiency the moment he realised it meant doing the same job in less time and with less effort (i.e. with less waste).

But intuitively we think of “waste” less in terms of lost time or effort and more as seemingly useless bits left over from doing something (scrap paper, wallboard offcuts, broken TV etc.), so let’s start there.

Eden Project's "WEEE Man": one lifetime's electrical waste. Photo: Lindsay Wood

The “WEEE Man” sculpture at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, helps put it in perspective. It represents the estimated 3.3 tonnes of one lifetime’s “Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment”-  incredibly, the equivalent weight to discarding a smartphone every day for 90 years.

And of course, a lot of waste isn’t “waste” at all, but stuff we haven’t yet found the right use for. (I once designed a factory for colour coating sheet metal. With a bit of encouragement, the operators worked out how to recover the waste toxic solvents they’d been discharging into the air for years, and then how to use them to run their furnace and heat the whole process line. Environmental wins are so frequently also financial wins.)

With slashing trash increasingly in the spotlight, I was taken with the innovative trend reported at the June 2018 Green Building Summit in Auckland. In a "National-Park-philosophy-meets-the-construction-industry” situation, some building sites now have “no rubbish skip” policies.

This means that building team members must remove their waste themselves – and are reportedly more careful as a result. (I like the innovative – and counter-intuitive – thinking behind the “no bin” idea. And it doesn’t seem that long since recycling skips themselves felt like a breakthrough!) Given that some 12% of residential construction waste is cardboard packaging, clearly there’s lots of room for improvement.

We’ve also had recent wake-up calls on “recycling”, much of which looks increasingly like waste in drag. With China less welcoming of the rest of the world’s plastic scraps (and who blames them?) we’re suddenly in need of other options. These must include the Circular Economies (there are several) that are increasingly in the news, and whose approach centres on integrating the biosphere and technosphere, as well as rejigging the old “reduce/reuse/recycle” mantra to “reduce/reuse/repair”. 

The Cradle to Cradle certification logo (depicting circular economy loops that integrate the biosphere and technosphere).

And as some form of circular economy is an essential cornerstone of a truly sustainable society, we must embrace the zero-waste approach that underlies such systems.

The idea is captured well in the name and logo of the global “Cradle to Cradle” movement, an education and certification scheme aiming not only at ensuring every product has a completely ethical supply chain and a new use at the end of its life, but also to identify that use before the product is even made.

Then there’s the astonishing statistic in Project Drawdown’s list of strategies to tackle climate change: the third most powerful strategy in the world is cutting food waste. Check it out! https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/reduced-food-waste .

       Invisible waste

But, as noted at the start, waste is about much more than stuff, and some of the greatest opportunities to reduce cost, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the least visible.

On a scale far grander than my compost heap, efficiency is also what the Productivity Commission is about. Early June saw the closing of its consultation on draft strategies for New Zealand to move to a low-emissions economy to help address climate change.

You’d be excused for thinking the almost-1000-pages of documentation might be inherently inefficient, but they traverse a vast array of issues critical to the future of life as we know it, so somehow seem worth it.

But two things the Commission should not want to waste are time and opportunity (we’ve already squandered alarming quantities of both in readying ourselves to tackle climate change).  Astonishingly, though, I found the Commission scoring poorly on both counts, and aspects of its own process seem to be wasting opportunities in themselves. They, too, seem to have fallen into the exponential time-trap.

Spectacular rise in difficulty from delayed response to exponential growth. Source: Resilienz

The Commission’s core thrust is a revamped Emissions Trading Scheme (like adding emissions costs to the price of things), with a trajectory of increasing emissions (carbon) prices making our wallets drive us harder and harder to change our ways.

However, necessary as an ETS may be, the documents themselves suggest little urgency, at times use dubious information (like assuming the uptake of public transport will actually slow down), and have gaps big enough to drive a rubbish truck through (e.g. silence on the vast educational implications of redirecting our entire business, transport, energy, construction and land use sectors).

The irony of a Productivity Commission reporting on climate change and not being mindful of urgency is highlighted by 2018 being exactly 40 years since Antarctic scientist J H Mercer first alerted us to global warming, and 30 years since NASA scientist Jim Hanson confronted the US Congress with stark warnings.

Thankfully, the Commission’s documents are only draft. They must thoroughly address these shortcomings in their final report.

There are also disturbing parallels with my hometown council at Nelson City. Their approach to actually implementing climate change action has historically been glacial. Now the council is increasing its efforts, but their negligible sense of urgency, and parsimonious drip-feeding of funding, suggest they still don’t recognize climate change as the most daunting challenge ever to face our city (or humanity). Nelson is far from alone in this, and in a world resounding with calls to accelerate investment in climate responses, we seem addicted to wasting critical time and opportunity.

Source https://e360.yale.edu/features/energy-hogs-can-huge-data-centers-be-made-more-efficient

Then there’s the sneaky waste stream right under our finger tips. Every keystroke in a Google search, every item of data stored on the cloud, every Netflix movie ends up sucking more energy through a huge IT network or data storage centre somewhere, and creating corresponding emissions.

According to Fred Pearce, writing in the April 2018 issue of Yale Environment 360, these massive data facilities are expanding so quickly their greenhouse gases emissions are now a surpassing those of air travel. And they continue to expand dramatically.

How “clean” their energy sources are varies hugely, and we often don’t know where our particular storage is happening.

    “Then there's the mother of all crazy waste"

And, of course, we mustn’t overlook the mother of all crazy waste - commuter car travel.

Amount of car fuel used to move a person. The red areas are "productive use"

Source: “Accessibility in Cities: Transport and Urban Form”, London School of Economics)

The inherent inefficiency of combustion engines should make any Productivity Commissioner weep (see the red "productive use" parts of the  illustration).

But it's even worse: our cars typically run with a around 75% of the seating unoccupied, and so commuters end up wasting vast quantities of time,  fuel and angst in huge traffic jams of their own near-empty cars.

If an airline or carrier proposed new trucks or aircraft were to keep operating a mere 25% capacity, its shareholders would crucify the directors!

But that's in essence what we do every time we build a new highway "to ease congestion". With the added irony that such highways almost invariably end up attracting more traffic than ever. (Counter-intuitive, isn't it! Try Googling "induced demand" or "generated traffic".)

So when we complain about congestion and lost time or the price of fuel, and when we know we should be dramatically cutting our carbon footprints, the term “Homo sapiens” (“wise man” in Latin) increasingly seems like an oxymoron!

“An opportunity not to be wasted”

But just to give “Homo sapiens”  a glimmer of hope, and to show it's not all doom and gloom, I'll close by introducing my unlikely new hero Temuka truck driver Johnny Baxter.

Baxter on receipt of his NZ award.

Source: NZ Trucking Magazine

Late last year Baxter won the on-road category of the International Volvo Truck Fuelwatch championship. This great achievement was all the more remarkable because he was over 10% more fuel-efficient than the next best drivers in the world.

Pause for a moment. Let it sink in. Baxter used 10% less fuel than the next best in the world!

How much might the rest of us ordinary drivers – truckies and the rest – learn from him about not wasting fuel and money? Or about saving a world dying from fossil fuel emissions? It’s MASSIVE.

I’ve urged the Productivity Commission to promote Baxter to national hero status and engage him at a huge salary to pass on his magic to us other drivers the country over. Or, better, the world over.

Now that’s an opportunity not to be wasted.