Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Climate change: be careful what you wish for

We've all heard the saying: "be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it". Those whose squealing resulted in the government delaying the entry of transport into the ETS might be about to find out just what that means.

While it is central, the ETS is not the sole component of climate change policy. The government has planned and implemented a number of supplementary measures (e.g. vehicle fuel efficiency standards, home insulation schemes and the ban on thermal electricity generation) to provide backup, and they're looking for a few more. And now that the ETS has been effectively gutted, they will be looking harder at regulatory ways of reducing transport emissions.

One of the measures they're considering is lowering the speed limit. This idea has been floating around climate change policy since 1990 (when the New Zealand Climate Change programme proposed it in its initial list of policy proposals), though it was used as a fuel efficiency measure in the 70's. It's firmly grounded in physics - driving at high speed is significantly less efficient, and therefore uses more petrol and emits more carbon - and has significant co-benefits (a reduced road toll) as well. But how effective it is overall depends on the average usage profile of New Zealand vehicles - how much time our cars actually spend driving at high speeds. And taking that into account, the carbon saving is reportedly only 1.4%.

OTOH, how much difference would it make to people's lives? The average Auckland driver spends their life bumper-to-bumper on the Auckland motorway, moving at scarcely more than walking pace. The average urban driver (and that is the vast majority of the country) drives around in a 50 km/hr zone. The people it will affect are those who travel a lot (it would add 15 minutes to my regular trips to Wellington, for example), and the transport industry, whose hulking big rigs were limited to 80 km/hr until just a few years ago anyway. So for most of us it will mean nothing, while transferring the regulatory "cost" onto those responsible for emissions. And I don't really have a problem with that. Those who do might want to consider the benefits of paying the full price for their carbon.

The other measure they're looking at is urban congestion charging. This would reduce emissions by shifting people to public transport, but of course it requires that there be public transport in the first place. It’s probably workable for Wellington, not so workable in Auckland where it is really needed (OTOH I found their bus system pretty efficient a few years ago, but I wasn't using it to get over the bridge). But this will change if Auckland ever gets to build its trains. I'd expect a bill enabling councils to apply such charges sometime, but I wouldn't expect to see it implemented anytime soon.