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If politics makes it hard to change a policy after it is announced, then testing policies before they are announced has potentially huge benefits. Testing is particularly important in climate change policy as policies vary enormously in performance, and governments have a particularly hard time in backing away from environmental policies that do not work. Read more
The Independent Climate Change Committee's (ICCC) report into how New Zealand can reach the 100% renewable energy target seems to suggest the policy will be very expensive and will undermine New Zealand's efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions overall. This is completely in line with findings from our report Switched On! Read more
As we wait for the release of the Interim Climate Change Committee's (ICCC) report on the 100% renewable energy policy, the Initiative's Matt Burgess and Oliver Hartwich explain why a Government decision to abandon the policy and take a different approach will be a win for the environment and a win for Kiwi households - and that is something to be congratulated. Matt Burgess is the Initiative's energy expert, and published his report, Switched On! Read more
It has been four weeks since the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) delivered to Minister James Shaw its analysis of the government’s 100% renewable electricity policy. If reports from a conference presentation given by the committee’s chair in April are correct, the results are not kind to the government’s commitment. Read more
Professor Gary Libecap is something of a god in economics. In a prior life, I would tell my undergraduate students about the pantheon of the Econ Gods. Read more
New Zealand’s freshwater management is in need of a refresh. The kinds of systems that work for allocating and managing water when water is abundant are not the systems that work when water becomes increasingly scarce. Read more
Everyone knows the old joke about the traveller who, on asking directions to a better place, is told he shouldn’t have started from here. But stepping back from it a little, we always start from here. Read more
Last October, Minister for the Environment David Parker announced a two-year agenda for an improved freshwater management system. Following on from an election campaign in which freshwater management featured prominently, the announcement should not have come as a surprise. Read more
The New Zealand Initiative today released its latest report, Refreshing Freshwater: Valuing the priceless. We believe it provides the best way of achieving the goals set in Minister Parker's Essential Freshwater programme. Read more
Eric Frykberg discusses our new report Refreshing Water in the Rural News update on Radio New Zealand. Author Eric Crampton explains why a cap-and-trade system (similar to the Emissions Trading Scheme) would give New Zealand a real chance to substantially improve the sustainability of our rivers and aquifers. Read more