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Parliament rushed through the final stages of the Government’s Zero Carbon legislation this week, passing the Bill yesterday with support from all parties but ACT. For a law that will fundamentally affect the economy, and for a Bill that received over 12,500 submissions, the speed with which it was ushered through Parliament is remarkable. Read more

Taken at face value, the government’s zero-carbon bill is a toothless façade. On closer examination, it looks more like a Trojan Horse for dictatorial government by decree. Read more

I don’t know if anyone ever really believed manufacturing televisions in New Zealand made sense. Controls in place until New Zealand’s reforms prohibited importing fully assembled televisions, to encourage manufacture and assembly in New Zealand. Read more

Two developments this week on the Government’s flagship Zero Carbon Bill. First, Parliament’s Environment Committee sent its report recommending changes back to the House, having waded through more than 10,000 public submissions. Read more

“Our goal is to make sure the fight against poverty is based on scientific evidence,” Esther Duflo said shortly after becoming the second woman (and also the youngest economist, at 46) to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. Duflo, along with her husband, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer, received this year’s top economics award “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. Read more

Imagine, for a moment, the government were about to pass a Zero Carbon bill that takes the most direct path to success on our emissions targets. What would it look like? Read more

This week, the church of climate change was consecrated in New Zealand. Through widespread face-painting, chanting and dressing-up our newest saviour was born. Read more

“If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” American psychologist Abraham Maslow proclaimed in 1966. The concept refers to the cognitive bias that involves an over-reliance on a familiar tool. Read more