From newsflash to carwash: climate coverage in the media
Last weekend’s Mediawatch story by Hayden Donnell – it’s really good, please do make time to read it – zoomed in on a particular paradox of our media at the moment.
Which is: while climate change is the overriding story, anything that makes the tiniest progress towards addressing it – like, say, swapping a handful of parking spaces for bus or bike lanes – is still presented as “controversial”.…
66 Comments Weekly Roundup – 23-July-21
Kia ora, here’s our weekly roundup for the week ending 23rd of July. Puhinui Opening and bus changes
Tomorrow the awesome new Puhinui station is being shown off to the public with an open day from 11am to 3pm. This part of the rail network is closed over the weekend however and so the first passenger services will start using the station from Monday 26 July.…
GA’s Low Emissions Economy Submission
Patrick wrote last month about Greater Auckland’s submission on a draft report by the Productivity Commission: “Low-Emissions Economy”. Our full submission is available here.
We looked at three chapters of the report – Land Use, Transport, and The Built Environment. Patrick’s post focused on The Built Environment.…
More on Kiwi Rail De-electrification
*This is a guest post by Roger Blakeley, Bob Norman, Alex Gray and Keith Flinders.
Dr Roger Blakeley, former Secretary for the Environment; Bob Norman, former Commissioner of Works; Alex Gray, professional civil engineer and Senior Project Manager; Keith Flinders, Electrical Services Consultant
KIWIRAIL’S NIMT DECISION EXPOSED IN LEAKED DOCUMENTS
Roger Blakeley, Bob Norman, Alex Gray and Keith Flinders
Leaked documents show that KiwiRail’s decision in December 2016, to replace electric locomotives on the electrified section of the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) with diesel locomotives, was based on flawed logic and justified by misleading information.…
Guest post: carbon taxes and the NZ economy
We don’t talk about climate change on TransportBlog that often, although we should – transport is a big contributor to emissions, and the most obvious opportunity for NZ to reduce its emissions.
But most economists would agree that the best starting point for tackling emissions is to price them properly, so people and businesses are incentivised to change their behaviour.…
Mid-week reading: California uber alles, road tolls, apartment design, and election reviews
I’m back to a mostly normal post-writing schedule, but mid-week reading will continue as an intermittent feature.
One of the most interesting things I’ve read recently was Jim Newton’s long interview with California Governor Jerry Brown (in UCLA Blueprint). Brown served two terms as governor in the 1970s and 80s, left politics for a while, and ultimately returned to serve another two terms as governor.…
Building a better city: Policies and perspectives (part 1 of 2)
This is the first half of a two-part series of posts. It summarises a few ideas that have been banging around the back of my head for a while – basically, an attempt to answer the question: “What can economics do for cities?”…
2015 – Auckland’s Watershed Year
The more I look at the events and data of 2015 the clearer it becomes that this has been a profoundly significant year for Auckland. It is my contention that this year the city reached a critical turning point in its multi-year evolution back to true city pattern. …
Twiddling thumbs on climate change
Under the National government, being the Climate Change Issues Minister must be the easiest job in the world. Sure, Tim Groser does also have the more demanding role of Trade, but if I had to guess the number of hours each week he spends thinking “what can I do to help New Zealand reduce its emissions?”…
Energy, transport and efficiency
Last year, the National Energy Research Institute (NERI) kindly gave us a free ticket to attend the NERI Energy Conference 2014. There were plenty of relevant topics to what we discuss here on the blog, including a great presentation from Mike Underhill, the head of EECA (that’s the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, a government agency).…
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