Of course, the GWRC transport plans (PDF) are well worth protesting about: more roads, no light rail? Despite the hundreds (and the great majority) of submissions asking for the opposite?

As Wellington City Councillor and Greens’ spokesperson Iona Pannett points out…

The Plan ignores Wellingtonians’ huge support for more public transport, their opposition to new tunnels and Wellington City’s commitment to carbon neutrality … Over 4,500 people made submissions on the study the Plan is based on, with 3,750 people supporting light rail, more buses and walking and cycling options whilst opposing the two tunnels and flyover. In contrast only 480 people submitted that the tunnels should be built. So, by a ratio of nearly 8 to 1 there was huge support for public transport and opposition to roads…

Quite.

But, what really caught the eye was the many protesters’ placards. Not so much the front of them, but the back. It was heartening to see the Greens and their allies recycling (presumably) discarded Real Estate signage upon which to display their protest slogans. Nice.

I suspect that recycling was as much to do with economy as it was environmentalism, but we’ll take the praise thanks.

• Used alternative everyday travel options rather than use a vehicle – 25%
• Walked (rather than using the car) – 49%
• Cycled (rather than using the car) – 16%
• Used public transport – 31%

And then the survey asks respondents of their intentions for the next year

• Choose alternative everyday travel options rather than use a vehicle – 25%
• Walk (rather than drive) – 48%
• Cycle (rather than drive) – 22%
• Use public transport – 32%

Normally you would think that intentions would be significantly higher than previous commitments.  But not here.  In some cases they are lower. (Although possibly people may have read the question as what new are you going to do next year?)

The Herald quotes University of Auckland senior marketing lecturer Rick Starr:

“New Year resolutions are a good example. You need complete and total conviction to change behaviour. Green intentions are up, which is good. We need to then make realistic options available to people.”

The problem is that the alternatives transport options are not currently there for people to shift towards.  Many of our roads and towns are not designed with cyclists and pedestrians in mind.  Public transport is not always available, efficient or affordable. People who want to make changes are looking around, struggling to see what the obvious change is to make, realising there is no obvious solution and giving up.

Interestingly the survey notes the people who are most likely to consider changing their transport for environmental reasons are in households earning less than $20,000 a year, one parent families with one or two children, flatting or boarding – or living in an extended family. These are some of the people that can benefit most from the universal policy of improved accessible efficient and affordable public transport.

Last week, George Bush agreed to lend $25bn to US car manufacturers. It’s a soft loan, which will cost the government $7.5bn (1). Few people noticed; fewer fought it. The House of Representatives approved the measure by 370 votes to 58. The great corporate bail-out is spreading like the plague.

It has already crossed the Atlantic. Yesterday European car makers demanded that the EU hand them E40bn ($54bn) in cheap loans to match the US subsidy(2). Where will the public spending spree end?

Monbiot then has a fairly detailed look at car makers’ failure to get to grips over the last decade with simple environmental measures such as reducing the average emissions (grams of CO2 per kilometre) produced by their cars.

 What makes this dithering so frustrating is that to be talking, in 2008, about targets of 130 or 120g/km is a bit like discussing whether modern computers should have ten rows of sliding beads or 100. In 1974 a stripped-down 1959 Opel T-1 managed 377 miles to the US gallon (160km/l)(17), which equates to 15 grams of CO2 per kilometre(18). There is no technical reason why the maximum limit for mass-produced cars shouldn’t be 50g/km.

Meanwhile, one company that doesn’t need bailing out by governments, and whose products get a lot less than 120 g of CO2 emissions per kilometre is Giant Manufacturing, “the world’s largest bicycle-maker which sold a record 460,000 units last month and is heading for its best year ever.”

Sadly we don’t have a strong local Kiwi-made bike industry here in New Zealand to compete with Giant (or a car manufacturing industry either for that matter). Which is a shame, because it is the sort of high-skilled, future focused industry that should have a place on our shores if we could only give it the support it needed to get established.  Giant shares are slightly down about 5 percent on their value from this time last year, whereas the Dow Jones industrial is down about 40 percent. Ford and General Motors are down 75 percent and 85 percent respectively. I know which one I think looks the best bet for  future investment as peak oil arrives.

We will create a legal presumption that, so long as a cyclist or pedestrian is observing all road rules and common courtesy, in a collision with a vehicle the motorist will be held responsible.

I remembered hearing former Olympic cyclist Donna Wynd (she’s also an economist, policy analyst for the Child Poverty Action Group, and now Green Party candidate for Manukau East) talk powerfully on this topic back in March.  So thought I’d ask her for her thoughts. Here’s what she said:

The purpose of a dominant vehicle law is, in essence, to impose strict liability for collisions between motor vehicles and cyclists, or say cyclists and pedestrians, onto the dominant vehicle – the motor vehicle and the bicycle respectively in this case.

For most urban dwellers one of the most effective Green things they can afford to do is minimise their car use. Currently a large proportion of car trips are over distances that can easily be walked or cycled by most of the population. And we know from numerous local body surveys that many people would like to cycle safely around their communities.

One of the reasons they do not is because cycling is perceived as unsafe. Yet we know that the more cyclists there are on the road, the safer it is. So we need a circuit-breaker, and we need to start seriously debating how to do this.

At present there are two solutions to cycle safety permissible in the limited debate that exists. The first is campaigns asking motorists to be nice, please. But the reality is they do not change driver behaviour.

The other permissible solution is infrastructure, for example cycle lanes. We have a problem here, however. Cycling infrastructure is the responsibility of local authorities, and as the Auckland City Council is so ably demonstrating at present, councils can block cycling initiatives for a Very Long Time.

While other countries have enviable levels of cycle use, and more developed infrastructure, a significant factor in the EU and Japan is laws that assign strict liability to the dominant vehicle in the event of a collision. Here in New Zealand, someone needs to be prepared to take on the car lobby and demand that motor vehicle drivers take greater responsibility for their actions. This would be a step towards making New Zealanders feel confident they and their children can cycle in safety around their communities.

For more on strict liability for the dominant vehicle see this discussion paper [pdf] from the British group RoadPeace, which quotes Lord Denning:

In the present state of motor traffic, I am persuaded that any civilised system of law should require, as  matter of principle, that the person who uses this dangerous instrument on the roads – dealing death and destruction all round – should be liable to make compensation to anyone who is killed or injured in consequence of the use of it. There  should be liability without proof of fault. To require an injured person to prove fault results in the gravest injustice to many innocent persons who have not the wherewithal to prove it.

Here’s the problem:

This year we are spending just under $2 billion on roading work, and only $337 million on public transport infrastructure and services combined. Even if you add in money spent on cycling and walking facilities and on travel demand management and community programmes like walking school buses and work place travel plans, that’s still only 20 cents for every dollar spent on roads.

And here’s Jeanette’s solution:

The Greens will progressively increase the proportion of the Fund spent on public transport, walking and cycling facilities and community travel demand programmes from one third in our first year in government to two thirds five years later. So from 5:1 now it will go to 2:1 in our first year and 1:2 five years later.
That would mean in the first year, slightly more than doubling the funding for alternatives to roads, while maintaining the whole current budget for maintaining and renewing roads and a sizeable chunk of funding for new road projects that are already underway. Over the following five years building new motorways would take lower priority to completing public transport systems and cycling and walking networks.

If you read the whole speech you’ll see she also has a ‘how will we pay for it’ section.

We believe this is the most comprehensive programme ever put forward in New Zealand to protect the travelling public from high prices at the pump and congestion when they travel to work. It will significantly reduce our climate change emissions and prepare us to cope with much more expensive and scarce oil in the future.

Key elements of the policy include:

• Introduce $1 ‘anywhere for 2 hours’ off-peak fares on all public transport.
• Create cheaper day, week and month passes for public transport, usable on all services, with a 50% discount for children, beneficiaries and students.
• Shift responsibility for funding walking, cycling and public transport from councils to government, creating more choice without more rates.
• Reduce urban speed limits and give cyclists and pedestrians better legal protection.

It’s another very detailed policy document from the Greens’ policy team which also includes existing transport plans for both Auckland and Wellington cities. But of course you can’t stop some people hearing what they want to hear. Or others who will claim they are also sustainable and are going to do much the same thing, they just haven’t quite got to around to it yet.

The photo shoot was organised by Gareth Hughes at the Green Party’s transport policy launch in Wellington yesterday (which I’ll blog about shortly). From what I hear he and his team had to work the phones quite hard to find 50 Green Party supporters who could survive the irony of driving their cars into the city to highlight Car Free Day.

Sadly for us, it never has been that simple, because ‘sustainable’ Labour has continually tried to water down the legislation to favour agricultural and transport polluters making it not only harder to support but at risk of being counter productive and damaging to the environment.  Jeanette and her team have been negotiating for improvements for a long time now and have won some changes:

“On some of the issues we have not been able to make progress. We have not been able to get agreement to phase in transport instead it will come in in one lump in 2011, so this has not changed. We have made very little progress on agriculture but we are still talking about this. Very importantly we have not found a way for Government to accept a biodiversity standard to ensure that planting pines does not destroy biodiversity.

“On the other hand, it appears there will be substantial financial assistance to help people make their houses warm and dry. We have also made good progress on ensuring that the ETS does not lock our economy into old technology and that there is room for innovation. There will be better rules about allocation plans.

And now she’s seeking feedback from others on whether to vote for it or not:

At the beginning of this process we said we wanted to be as open about these negotiations as we could be and now we have reached a point where the Green Party caucus has to make a decision about this next Tuesday and we would like some feedback from New Zealanders before we do.

We are now keen to hear from New Zealanders any views they have before we make our decision on Tuesday.

People can email their opinions to ets@greens.org.nz

Detailed measurements from a Greenland ice core showed pollutants from burning coal–the toxic heavy metals cadmium, thallium and lead–were much higher than expected.

Luckily things have improved from the beginning of the last century when some really dirty coal was being burnt. But that’s still a lot of heavy metal potentially finding its way into our food chain. Well, not my food chain, because I don’t eat food from the Arctic, but all those North Americans and Europeans. But guess it will make our clean Antarctic food chain look more appealing?

Hat tip – Treehugger

Kevyn, – my briefing on the $148m saved on power bills since the MEPs came in was an oral one but you could write to EECA and ask for the evidence. (Note that this was not about cars, but about standards for appliances.)

samiam – yes, we are working on the HERS funding and accreditation issues. It always was a “pilot” to be refined as we learned.

Kevyn – the Government’s proposed vehicle fuel efficiency standard of 170g/km carbon by 2015 is published in the NZ Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy 2007 and you will find papers about it here on the MOT website – they are leading the policy development, not EECA.

- yes, mandatory fuel efficiency labeling came in April this year. That’s a very good start as it gives consumers information but it’s not the same as a standard.

How would the Green Party set such a standard? (Strings, please give your vote pause for thought.)

First, the standard is for cars entering the country. You can’t do anything about the fuel efficiency of the cars already here other than keep them well tuned (which actually can achieve quite a bit in some cases.)

The objective is to increase the efficiency of the cars coming into the country, and so progressively raise the efficiency of the whole fleet as less efficient cars are eventually retired out the other end. It’s a slow process, which is why it is important to start soon and start bold.

There are 2 ways to do it: a Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFÉ) standard, which the US has had for many years, where importers or manufacturers have to meet the standard as an average across all their sales. Trading of overs and unders between firms is possible and desirable. It tends to increase the price of gas guzzlers and reduce the price of highly efficient cars, but as a market reaction rather than a regulation. The US stuffed up (or rather gave in to the car manufacturing lobby) and excluded light trucks so everyone just bought pickups instead of cars to evade the rule. I’ve seen them in Seattle – you can park my car in the tray and it would rattle around. They never pick up anything but a dog, two flags and two guns. But they are parked on all the streets while their owners do the shopping. It is easier here with no local manufacturing lobby, though the importers’ lobby is strong enough.

The other way is to set the average and charge every car that is worse than that a fee on registration, which pays for every car that is better to get a rebate. The two should balance out and be revenue neutral for government.

The Greens don’t have a very strong preference for either – the actual design of the system is more important than which one you use. So pragmatically, we would go for whichever other parties were prepared to support. Though the feebate risks not hitting the target, as people just choose to pay instead, so my preference is for the CAFÉ standard.

Important question is, how fast would we raise the standard? We think that 170 g/km by 2015 is not good enough, when the Europeans are already at 150 now. There is plenty of choice of cars to meet that standard. We think we should plan to catch up with the Europeans over ten years (to where they wil be then, not to where they are now) which is quite a stretch, but our kids won’t thank us for a country full of gas guzzlers when oil hits $500 bbl and when they could have had a country full of cars they can afford to run. And then there’s climate change, of course.

Seasonally adjusted motor vehicle retail sales are down nearly 15% between April and May this year.  Total retail sales fell for the month by $69 million but that can mostly be attributed to people buying less cars (down by over $100 million). In the meantime sales of supermarket goods, groceries (up $35 million) and fuel (up $19 million) continued to rise. It looks like many people are looking around for alternatives to a new motor car, or are putting off such an expensive purchase as they face a probable recession.  The government needs to do more to give those people options by investing in comprehensive, affordable efficient public transport.

Meanwhile those increases in retail sales of groceries and fuel appear to have been driven by rising costs, with transport prices increasing 4.9 percent, and food prices rising 2.2 percent in the last quarter year.  Bread prices continued to rise (1.5 percent for the month of June and 15 percent for the year) but luckily chocolate biscuits fell 2.8 percent – which might allow for some possible solutions from any later day Marie-Antoinettes.

This caused CPI to hit 4% for the year.  It’s interesting (or scary) that the drivers for inflation, food and fuel, are not things that economists can control using traditional means. People cannot simply respond to price signals and stop buying fuel or food.  And those prices could likely continue to rise in a recession because peak oil still looms.

Again the solution is about giving people choices.  We need to be able to choose from a widely available source of fresh, local, healthy food, where the price is not dictated so strongly by the price of oil and overseas food markets. We need to be able to choose get around our cities, towns and countrysides other ways than just by car.  If the Government invests in giving people options at least we have the tools to be able to avoid the worst effects of recession and inflation if we choose.

It’s hard to tell from these figures what is causing this.  The survey also says that new registrations of cars and station wagons fell 9.9 percent. It would be interesting to know if the impact of peak oil, as reflected in petrol prices, is playing a part. And I wonder if there is an inverse effect on the sale of trains and bikes?

Meanwhile:

Supermarket and grocery store sales rose 1.6 percent ($19 million) in February 2008, following a 2.4 percent increase in January.

The supermarket and grocery store sales trend has been rising at an average monthly rate of 0.6 percent since July 2004. However, since September 2007 this series has risen at an average of 0.9 percent per month.

Most of this increase in retail sales is being driven by rising food prices.  So we are not buying more groceries, they just cost more to buy.  And then there is this statistic:

Credit card billings in New Zealand (including spending using New Zealand and overseas issued cards) were up 12.7 percent compared with February 2007.

I will be interested to see whether some of our respected economic commentators, who incidentally work in the majority for banks, are pleased by this growth in the form of more personal debt.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded that supporting a 25% market share of light-duty (cars and SUVs) plug-in hybrid electric cars and trucks in 2030 could require either up to 162 new power generation plants (if recharged during the day) or no new power plants at all, if recharged after 10 p.m.

In aggregate, the model predicts an increase in demand, generation, electricity prices, and emissions from the utilities created by the introduction of PHEVs. It also suggests that by 2030 almost all regions (10 out of 13) will need to add capacity to provide for charging PHEVs, mostly in the scenario where PHEVs are charged at 6 kW in the evenings. In all likelihood, to avoid these problems the utilities in the regions would expand their capacity, increase their imports, or establish demand response programs beyond the level that NEMS had calculated, but these factors were not modelled in the scenarios.

Some assessments of the impact of electric vehicles assume owners will charge them only at night, said Stan Hadley of ORNL’s Cooling, Heating and Power Technologies Program.
That assumption doesn’t necessarily take into account human nature. Consumers’ inclination will be to plug in when convenient, rather than when utilities would prefer. Utilities will need to create incentives to encourage people to wait. There are also technologies such as smart chargers that know the price of power, the demands on the system and the time when the car will be needed next to optimize charging for both the owner and the utility that can help too. (Peak Oil News, March 14 2008)

Will New Zealanders be any different than Americans when it comes to plugging in at convenient times? I doubt it. We are going to need some serious demand side incentives to keep people from plugging in at will. Does our government have the courage to dictate to the market or will simple price mechanisms be enough? I don’t have an answer or a strong view either way. I just think that we should be discussing this now rather than waiting for the cars to roll off the ship from Japan.

The EPA argued that California is not suffering “compelling and extraordinary conditions” which would allow it to set its own vehicle emission standards, because climate change is not “unique” to California.

The argument now seems to be heading heading in the direction of whether or not California’s climate change circumstances are different to the other 49 states.  But, putting that to one side, it seems bizarre that the US federal government, with its record on climate change should be telling member states that they are not allowed to take action because the problem is too big for them to deal with and they need to leave it to the federal government to sort out.  But I guess it’s not a good look to have your inaction on climate change contrasted so obviously within your own borders.

Now you can cook your cow with petrol too, as well as raising it on oil-based fertilisers, pesticides and maize silage.

For the philosophically minded, the Nano comes with its own moral conundrum: What happens when the laudable, currently fashionable movement to improve the environment comes directly into conflict with the equally laudable, equally fashionable movement to improve the lives of the poor?

The Nano is better for the environment than most larger cars, but certainly not as sustainable as the cyclists and pedestrians it will be looking to replace. India’s emerging middle class, along with similar large populations around the rest of the world, don’t carry much of the blame for climate change compared to us in highly motorised countries. Equally however New Zealand and our peers can no longer provide the entire solution to climate change on our own either.