John Key's newest tactic to silence farmers is to proffer himself a s their  saviour by claiming his scheme is only going to cost $3000 per year per farmer while labour's was going to cost $30000 per year in the year 2030 This presumes we are not going to have a labour government between now and 2030. This would be nice but I have to say that is not likely. Labour's propensity to control us became too much for the electorate finally and history signals National will suffer the same fate sooner or later. My bet is it will be sooner ...

This is the headline that got me riled up but as is so often the case the headline does not reflect the actual story. Federated Farmers u-turn is not really a u-turn and it is not over the ETS or a tax on carbon emissions as such it is on the FART tax protests of years ago. I am not too familiar with that campaign, I just remember the tractor being driven up the stairs of parliament and I think it was Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxes (correct me if I am wrong) and it is largely to blame for the ...

With no agreement on the table for the Copenhagen conference the Kyoto agreement will finish in 2012 and nothing will replace it. This is great news for New Zealand and agriculture. This is because the chance of any binding international agreement in the future is remote and with no international constraints each individual country will take responsibility for managing its own emissions. One possibility is that countries will set targets and they will then have to demonstrate to other countries how they are meeting these. There will be no direct penalty for non compliance. Countries may still buy credits to offset ...

The chances of anything being signed at Copenhagen were never good and thankfully it seems what slim chance there was is getting slimmer. The US is unlikely to get its emissions scheme through its Senate and nor is Australia. It seems NZ is one of the few who have a parliament that is keen for us to sacrifice ourselves at the alter of climate change.  Without the US signing, no one is going to sign (except maybe NZ) so it looks good that nothing will happen. That does not mean we should rest on our laurels and I remind you there ...