by frog
Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Heat Smart insulation programme, which the Greens negotiated first with the Labour, then with the National Government.
So far, it is an unmitigated success, with over 50,000 homes getting much needed insulation over the last fiscal year.
I want to pass the big kudos to Jeanette Fitzsimons, who had the foresight to establish EECA via her member’s bill in 2000, and who then helped them painstakingly set up a robust insulation programme with a well tested oversight system. Because of this, the ramp up to 50,000 homes per year has barely had a hiccup.
I also want to pass some kudos to John Key, who had the courage to ressurect the programme after Nick Smith’s ignorant off the cuff comment during an election debate forced National to kill the insulation programme after the election.
This insulation programme is a winner. The Greens have campaigned for years on the economic, social and environmental benefits of such a programme, and recognise it as a key plank in any Green New Deal as it is addressing both the climate crisis and the economic crisis at the same time.
Yesterday, our co-leader Russel Norman and the Prime Minister took a tour of TerraLana, a wool insulation manufacturer benefiting from the scheme.
If the Government had the courage to look at our other Green New Deal programmes, NZ would be well on the way to a brighter, healthier future!
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Health & Wellbeing by frog on Fri, July 2nd, 2010
Tags: green new deal, home insulation scheme, insulation, john key
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
How can it be extended to many of the houses that need it most – poor houses and rentals – who either don’t have the money or incentive to insulate?
Perhaps extra funding, (2/3s rather than 1/2 grant) and interest free loans for home owners on very low incomes.
And what about some regulation for rental houses i.e. houses have to be up to a basic standard which includes being insulated, with a reasonable deadline – say three years time.
It has so many benefits – saves on power, so effectively increases income, less carbon emmisions, and better health.
Well done Jeanette, Greens (& Key)
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gee..!…that pic brings to mind cameron/clegg….
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Thanks guys! Our 1950′s ex-state is nice and cosy now!
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Nice idea (I agree with the issue), although the question is whether or not it would be worth it for the landlords to actually insulate. Remember to get your insulation in, you are going to have to rip out the walls to stuff it in, and that costs a lot of money.
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@photonz1
The percentage of commuinity service card recipieants, who get 100% funding, is pretty high at the moment – about 60% of all retrofits. However, with no targetting going on, this percentage will drop and I agree we need better targetting. It is the people who are struggling, but don’t qualify for a Community Service Card that are really missing out at the moment. I don’t think this govt is ideologically predisposed for targetting. they cancelled that part of the programme we negotiated with Labour. Still, kudos to key for having the balls to reverse Nick Smith’s crazy comments and do the righ thing.
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Once all state houses have been insulated, you can set a requirement that rentals do the same. We would have convinced Labour to do this. Not so sure about the Nats.
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In theory, there is only about a year left until all the stae houses are insulated, according to the budget bid the Greens won a couple of years back. whether National ahs “reprioritised” that funding or not is a mystery shrouded in the mist. I hope not, given that they slashed the HNZC rennovation budget this year after bashing labour for the poor state of the state houses…
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I disagree with the current system too. Approved installers must be used before the subsidy is paid. Thus all the subsidy covers is the installing, not the insulation itself.
I’d have it set up thus…
Buy your insulation at full price from whoever, install it yourself if you wish (Kiwis are renowned DIYers) or get an installer. An inspection must then be done by an assessor (such as myself) using infra-red scope and other methods to verify the job has been done properly.
Homes that comply would get a rating and the owner would get $$$ back, as per the current subsidy.
Currently precious little auditing is done, the installers are self regulating, not a great idea in my mind.
Shouldn’t the first goal for any ETS money gathered out of the economy be to reinvest it in insulating our buildings to stop the completely unnecessary squandering of carbon to start with?
At present there is no incentive for power companies to sell less power. Sell more and buy trees to offset all sounds really dumb to me.
How can we make it work better?
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As for making it work better, the only solution would seem to be changing the govt.
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Changing the Govt isn’t the answer. I’m pickin’ were are stuck with an ETS of one form or another from now on regardless of coke or pepsi. The Greenz job is to get into which ever can of fizzy is in power and help develop policy. The ETS is going to be tinkered with for the foreseeable future. I want green tinkering with a sustainable long game in mind.
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There’s more than one way to change the govt. And it’s not about whether we have an ETS or not. Labour passed a halfway decent one with Green support. That’s what the Nats gutted. The only worse party to be in charge of this problem would be ACT. Tinkering there may be, but nothing meaningful will change with the ETS while the Nats are in charge, particularly given they’ve just put a huge carbon bill on the next generation’s credit card. They’d have to undo this, but their constituency is shitting bricks already. No, this is their time bomb for the next govt to become unpopular over.
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Isn’t money ‘gathered out of the economy’ spent via Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism – wherever there’s roughly the highest possible emissions reduction/mitigation? i.e. insulating houses in NZ where most electricity is already renewable is probably not going to qualify as higher reductions can be achieved elsewhere – probably not in NZ?
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No, the CDM isn’t meant to funnel money to the most bang-for-the-buck emissions reductions. It is meant to meet the dual needs of providing developed countries with an easy short-term way of meeting their obligations and developing countries (with a positive emissions account) to develop in a non carbon intense way. It is an ok idea only if considered one tool in the basket of solutions. If developed countries don’t also actually reduce their emissions as well, all will be for naught. The only real chance they have of doing this is to invest back into their own countries.
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@StephenR – it doesn’t matter that most of our electricity is generated from renewable resources. What counts is how the marginal generation is fuelled, i.e. what powers the last generator that needs to be started up to generate the power for the uninsulated houses. In New Zealand, that tends to be coal or gas, so insulating more houses will decrease our emissions, particularly for houses with gas (CNG or LPG) heating or other fossil fuel heating (coal, oil).
Trevor.
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TerraLana’s web-site is broken. Frog, do you have means to contact them, to fix it?
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