New Zealand: All stories

How we tricked bacteria into making renewable propane
8 Sep 2014
Converting renewable energy into electricity is one thing; converting it into fuel is quite another.

Worth listening to ... The Nukes
8 Sep 2014
New Zealand band The Nukes captures the essence of the country's environmental problems in Last Kauri, found on their just-released album Lucky Ones.

Worth reading ... a lucky winner
8 Sep 2014
Our free copy of Dirty Politics, Nicky Hager's expose of how politics is practised in New Zealand, at least by some, goes to Amelia Guy-Meakin. Congratulations - your book is on its way.

Labour vows to scrap emitters' one-for-two deal
1 Sep 2014
The one-for-two deal that halves emitters’ carbon liabilities would be scrapped by a Labour government.

NZ First backs iwi $600m carbon claim
1 Sep 2014
New Zealand First supports an iwi leaders’ bid to raise carbon prices.

Ten more years is too late, says Nobel winner
1 Sep 2014
Negotiating a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol at climate change talks in Paris next year is critical to the survival of society, a visiting Nobel Prize-winning scientist says.

Forest owners welcome return of grant scheme
1 Sep 2014
Forest owners are welcoming the reinstatement of the Afforestation Grant Scheme – but say that lifting carbon prices would reverse deforestation overnight.

Foresters like look of climate commission
1 Sep 2014
Forest owners like the Labour Party's plan to set up an independent climate commission.

We're going off grid ... surely but slowly
1 Sep 2014
New Zealanders might be slow at adopting alternative electricity generation, but it does threaten the existing centralised model, a new report says.

Policy wobbles could slow renewable energy growth
1 Sep 2014
Power generation from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydro grew strongly last year, reaching almost 22 per cent of global generation, says the International Energy Agency.

Worldwide, public shows its support for renewables
1 Sep 2014
Public support for renewable energies across the world continues to grow, particularly in more advanced economies − with solar power being especially popular.

Sarawak’s logging roads would go round the Earth … twice
1 Sep 2014
Sarawak’s logging companies, known for their unsustainable practices, have created a road network 88,111 km long in the Malaysian state’s rainforest, says a protest group.

Australian transport stuck in the energy queue
1 Sep 2014
Australia has scored poorly in the energy efficiency of its land transport, and is well behind other major economies, a recent international scorecard has revealed.

The fact is we're making the emissions problem worse
1 Sep 2014
Challenging news for those climate campaigners who believe that renewable sources of energy are on the increase: they may be, but so are carbon dioxide emissions.

Aviation a microcosm of the emissions problem
1 Sep 2014
No matter what the aviation industry does to reduce emissions, it will be outweighed by growth in air travel, according to a new analysis.

Scientists claim fertiliser breakthrough
1 Sep 2014
Researchers in the UK think they may have found a way to produce fertilisers that should cut farmers’ costs and at the same time boost some types of renewable energy.

Labour vows to act on agriculture by 2016
25 Aug 2014
There is bad news for farmers, and good and bad news for industrial emitters under Labour’s climate change policy, released yesterday.

Sustainability council pushes puchasing power
25 Aug 2014
Some of New Zealand’s biggest companies are working out how they can use their purchasing power to drive the new economy.

First rule of green business: Keep it simple
25 Aug 2014
How do you turn your company into a green company – the type of company capable of doing business with organisations demanding sustainable procurement?

COMMENT: Jeepers, John, you forgot the environment
25 Aug 2014
Prime Minister John Key launched National’s election campaign yesterday without mentioning the environment.

Groser agrees to talk climate with Labour, Greens
25 Aug 2014
David Parker, Russel Norman and Tim Groser will go head-to-head on climate policy next week.

We're giving away a copy of Dirty Politics
25 Aug 2014
Missed out on a copy of Dirty Politics, the book which uses private emails between politicians, bloggers and PR people to shine a little light on the murkier side of our politics? We’ve got a copy to give away to one of our readers.

Watchdog rules ‘clean coal’ advertisement misleading
25 Aug 2014
Britain’s advertising watchdog has ruled that an advertisement for “clean coal” by the world’s largest private sector coal firm, Peabody Energy, was misleading and should not be published again in its current form.

G20 energy brains talk business in Brisbane
25 Aug 2014
This week Brisbane hosts the final meeting of the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group before the main G20 summit in November, when government officials and energy experts from 20 of the most powerful countries in the world will discuss how the world governs energy.

New facts show importance of Antarctic ice
25 Aug 2014
The IPCC is under-estimating the impact that melting of the Antarctic ice sheet will have on global sea-level rise, a visiting American scientist says.

It's happened before ... a long, long time ago
25 Aug 2014
It doesn’t take much to change a planet’s climate – just a little shift in the Northern hemisphere glacial ice sheet and a bit more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. After that, the response is rapid.

Companies call for politicians to get serious about sustainability
18 Aug 2014
Companies representing a quarter of the New Zealand economy are calling on all political parties to make a long-term commitment to sustainable business.

Business needs to make climate change stand
18 Aug 2014
There is still an element of climate change scepticism in New Zealand business, says a leading policy analyst.

Experts pinpoint what emissions cost economy
18 Aug 2014
For the first time, economists have put a financial cost on the impact of greenhouse gases released by the industrialisation of developed countries.

High-altitude winds could help to power the Earth
18 Aug 2014
Researchers have discovered that the world’s energy needs could easily be met by harnessing the power potential of high-altitude winds.

Cathay Pacific plugs into biofuel producer
18 Aug 2014
Cathay Pacific Airways is investing in American sustainable biofuel company Fulcrum Bioenergy as part of a drive to achieve carbon-neutral growth from 2020.

Ranking shows we are kind to the planet
18 Aug 2014
New Zealand is the seventh-kindest country to the planet, according to a new ranking system.

Don't waste your money on oil and gas
18 Aug 2014
If you want a safe bet, don’t invest in some of today’s tempting oil and gas projects. That’s the message from a UK-based financial think-tank that aims to align the global energy market with climate reality.

Climate change the enemy of ancient cities
18 Aug 2014
New research supports the growing body of evidence that many past civilisations have collapsed because of climate change. So is history repeating itself?

Scientists see problems with tar sand pipeline
18 Aug 2014
European researchers say a 2000-mile pipeline designed to carry controversial tar sands oil from Canada to the southern US may lead to much more pollution than previously calculated.

Norway finds the wells have run dry
18 Aug 2014
Statoil, the Norwegian state-owned company, has announced that it has failed to find commercial quantities of oil and gas in the Barents Sea this year.

So, what is this thing called perovskite?
18 Aug 2014
By JON MAJOR.- Whenever I tell people I work with solar cells, I am asked the same two questions: are they ever going to be really cheap? And can you get me some?

The climate change world according to Piketty
18 Aug 2014
French economist widely debated Thomas Piketty and his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century are a global publishing phenomenon. But while Piketty’s writing on wealth inequality has been widely debated, far fewer people know that he has some useful things to say about climate change and public capital.
Who has the courage to take on transport taboos?
18 Aug 2014
Transportation continues to generate a large proportion of emissions worldwide, even as emissions from other areas of the economy fall.
Debate heats up as US looks at gas emissions
18 Aug 2014
Groups for and against US government plans for new regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions have been slugging it out at a series of heated debates across America.

Flower power one way to bring new life to broken mill town
11 Aug 2014
Kawerau might have a new future as a flower town as part of a drive by Maori to build sustainable green businesses on their land.

Our leaders missing as world talks climate tactics
11 Aug 2014
Xi Jinping is going, and so is Barack Obama, but John Key is staying home.

Gases importers pay $1.5m carbon taxes
11 Aug 2014
Importers of synthetic greenhouse gases paid nearly $1.5 million in carbon taxes in the past financial year.

Greens have a tempting carbon tax idea
11 Aug 2014
A carbon price is still the best and fairest way to achieve emissions cuts, but as Australia and New Zealand show, it’s not easy to get it right. How could carbon pricing be improved?

Is natural gas fracking the answer to our energy problems?
11 Aug 2014
FEATURE: As climate talks heat up, experts debate whether natural gas fracking will turn brown economies green.

Fishers waking up to dangers of acidic oceans
11 Aug 2014
Research has highlighted the negative effect acidification of oceans can have on marine life, but now fishing communities are waking up to the big threat it poses to their livelihoods.

It looks like air fares will have to rise ... and rise ... and rise
11 Aug 2014
Researchers warn that the cost of airline tickets will need to rise steadily to decrease demand and counteract the effects of aviation’s growing carbon emissions.

Airports super-inefficient, says emissions study
11 Aug 2014
Airports are disastrously inefficient buildings which belch greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contribute hugely to climate change, a European study has found.

Science eyes role of water in beating climate change
11 Aug 2014
Should we pick and choose our climate strategies based on how water-wise they are?