Righto. I've read the papers released by MBIE on the LNG analysis. This will be a longish thread on my thoughts, which I'll add to progressively. Docs are here. 🧵 1/-

The "global aviation regime [is] adept at shaping user practices & culture to enable & encourage unconstrained air travel… This has influenced the public’s perception of possible regulatory regimes…" "confront…artificial[] acceleration [of] demand." OPEN ACCESS: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Another record day of utility solar in New Zealand on 7 Feb – 2200 MWh. Because of the way the market operates, it only earned $6800 for its owners. The government now wants to charge them $8800 towards the LNG terminal. And then what?

David Hall: The LNG decision is "a critical test for New Zealand's strategic capacity. It's one which I fear we're going to fail, with implications for our future economy, and our ability to adapt in a changing technological and geo-political landscape." the-transitions-lab.ghost.io/the-pointill...

NZ Clean Vehicle Standard In 2025 passenger cars scarcely improved & ended up missing the target by 26 gCO2/km. Utes (& vans) did improve and, thanks to a weakened target, just squeaked in.

Children of Men

“The flying Dragon is somewhat troublesome to compose...” From The Mysteries of Nature and Art (1634) — an illustrated manual for building devices relating to water works, fireworks, drawing, painting + miscellaneous experiments "confusedly intermixed": publicdomainreview.org/essay/t...

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again. #Pinks #ProudBlue

The future of Christchurch as inspired by Butler's Erewhon; of Napier inspired by Guthrie-Smith's Tutira; of Auckland inspired by Mulgan's Man Alone. Alan Marshall, Arts and Culture Journal of the Lower Moon River 14(1) 2025. so07.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/ac...

Environmental activists in New Zealand protest cruise ships with a 7’ planet ⚓️ A spokesman said they were protesting the "floating apartment building[’s]" conspicuous consumption as it floated around the world. "The environmental risks are just too high," he said.

Yesterday the Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said "We’ve cut the red tape, fast-tracked new projects... We’ve got a plan, and it’s working. More renewable energy projects have been commissioned in the last 18 months than in the previous 15 years." www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Fully electric cars overtake pure petrol in the EU in December 2025! (www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-evs...) Already happened in NZ in December 2023!

It seems Mt Maunganui was NZ's deadliest landslide in a century. Have to go back to Brunner in 1904 (8 deaths, landslide hit village) and Ongarue in 1923 (17 deaths, train hit a landslide) to find more deadly events. www.linkedin.com/posts/robert...

"We should be demanding a government-wide commitment to climate risk reduction, incl. binding emissions cuts, adaptation plans, and a national programme to stabilise vulnerable landscapes using science-informed, Indigenous-led land stewardship." manucaddie540258.substack.com/p/a-brief-hi... #nzpol

Checks out

Now out from paywall! Good piece from Max Rashbrooke.

Slips have always been part of the landscape of Aotearoa but with deforestation and increased heavy rain events under climate change, they are going to become more frequent and widespread. Sadly we have learnt nothing from the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle just 3 years ago. 🧵

Aaaaaaaaand once again slash left over from forestry has destroyed towns on the E coast of NZ. Where are the forestry companies responsible for not clearing up their mess? Long gone with the profits they reaped, leaving us the mess to clean up. Again.

From only 3 months ago: the government's new policy on disaster response. Is this the message the Prime Minister will be taking to disaster-affected communities today? newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/17/a...

Seven weeks ago.

How it started: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/581699/parliament-debates-climate-targets-under-urgency How it's going:

A hidden but massive weakening of NZ climate policy is the shift from fuel excise to flat distance-based road-user charges. As Robert McLachlan points out here, it changes the effective carbon cost on petrol vehicles from $450/t to $50/t. That will have a huge impact on purchase decisions. 1/-

The data at MBIE says gas reinjection at geothermal power stations really works, emissions intensity down by 2/3

NZ geothermal power hit a new record on 28/12/25 – 29,367 MWh, meeting 31% of demand for the day. Looks like there will be more records set in days to come. Note a lot of capacity was offline in Nov-Dec for maintenance.

RNZ WTF??? "Schlesier said the rain fell in torrential intensities of about 80mm an hour. Northland typically gets (SUBS: don't change gets to got as this sentence is not said by Schlesier) 80mm of rain in a normal January." www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

Scotland to introduce departure tax of £84-£1,097 per private jet passenger, depending on distance. @350nz.bsky.social

I can't do the fancy graphics but in 2025 Auckland had 51 unusually hot days and only 6 unusually cold ones. The El Nino year of 1998 is starting to look normal! Of Auckland's 10 hottest-ever days by average temperature, 4 were in 2022 and 3 were in 1998.

Building communities in our most connected places makes sense, but often seems harder than it should be. So I’ve been working on a research project for Massey University documenting new or improved communities built up around public transport hubs in the UK - transit-oriented developments. 1/

It's 2026! And that means we are halfway through implementation of our Paris Agreement 2021-30 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). NZ's NDC is a "responsibility target", that is, it is a target for the sum of domestic emissions and reductions achieved through international cooperation. 1/-

That'd be my shop, Wide Awakes! wideawakes.army Fun fact: it's a twist on an old poster celebrating Lincoln's 1860 election! I sent my poster as a gift to Mayor Mamdani, and it's made a cameo appearance in two of his videos!

RNZ: "international visitor arrivals in Queenstown climb 40 percent higher than pre-Covid levels", surprised me but data confirms. Nov '19 55k passengers, Nov '25 84k, up 53%. They don't point out that this means 40%+ greater damage as well. Unsustainable growth. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

New Zealand too

So far 10 countries with data for December available.

Auction has started! www.trademe.co.nz/a/marketplac...

Global oil emissions are 1.5 tonnes CO2 per person. New Zealand is 3.6 tonnes domestic, 1.3 tonnes international aviation and shipping, total 4.9 tonnes – three times the world average. The past two years numerous Government decisions have acted to increase oil consumption. Reverse them all.

Today is a good day for New Zealand to stop using so much oil.

Very modest, but growing like topsy bsky.app/profile/robe... Australia has >4million homes (about 40% of homes) with 23 GW rooftop solar NZ has 70k solar homes (3.5% of 2m homes) and 440 MW

Although climate action is in a difficult place in New Zealand just now, there is good news if you go looking. By 2024, per-capita CO2 emissions from fossil fuels were down 31% from the peak in 2005.

November: Britain became the world’s largest economy to commit to ending new oil and gas exploration. A decision shaped by years of public campaigning, and a signal that “no new fossil fuels” is entering the policy mainstream 🥳

And so 2025 ends with another disappointing month for battery EV sales in New Zealand with just 603 new light BEVs sold. Market share also down, so you can't just blame the economy. Q3: 1,994 (6.8%) last year; 1,772 (5.0%) this year. Q4: 2,201 (6.7%) last year; 1,802 (5.2%) this year. Aust: 9.5%

A year-end post: I mark the final day of the first Emissions Budget period with a list of the New Zealand Government's bottom 10 climate actions of 2025. Oh, how hard it was to choose. blog.planetaryecology.org/2025/12/31/a...

Reposting this perennial favourite, "Coal Consumption Affecting Climate" from the Rodney & Otamatea Times (New Zealand) of 1912. Andrew Revkin (New York Times) brought it to wide attention in 2016. 🧵

The strategic road network is managed by a charity and relies on the goodwill of land owners for access. Some motorways will be muddy and flooded each winter. Also The strategic road network stops randomly at council boundaries and investment is where councils are willing. (UK edition).

New Zealand has just over 2 million households which makes a theoretical average rooftop capacity of 6.6GW which would generate ~8.5 TWh / year Assumptions: 55% home roofs suitable for solar, assume 6kW solar system, 3.547 system performance per kW factor

NZ solar power generation up 31% in 2023, 52% in 2024, 61% in 2025. Long may it continue. Still only 1.9% of total power generation to there is plenty of remaining scope. The 4th quarter of 2025 is likely to come in at the lowest emissions and highest renewable proportion on record.

"Backer LanzaTech, founded in Auckland in 2005, relocated to Skokie in 2014... [Trump so] LanzaJet shifted to ethanol from U.S. corn. “Maybe it’s a 10 or 20% improvement rather than a 50 or 60 or 70% improvement,” he says of initial CO2 reductions using corn ethanol." Skokie, that rings a bell.

In a few days' time NZ's first ever emissions budget period (2022-25), set up by the 2019 "Zero Carbon Act", ends. It will be a year before we get the full reckoning including methane & forests. But here are the fossil CO2 emissions for 2-year periods ending in September: [1/3]

New Zealand just recorded its first-ever day of zero coal- or gas-fired electricity. In fact two days, 20 & 21 December. (Still some co-gen, about 1.8%.)

That makes me feel very good. As it happens I’m on my way from Cambridge to the France/Spain border (stopping off in Paris) and will soon have completed a second flight-free year. Oslo to Rome sounds pretty cool.

My 20-min talk on "Technological optimism", the absurd claim that tech change will solve all environmental problems. With "The Paradise Within Reach of All Men, Without Labour, By Powers of Nature & Machinery", Thoreau's reply, and the amazing Aerial Steam Carriage. www.youtube.com/watch