Auckland Council burning money
Roger Partridge writes:
Auckland Council has settled on an innovative approach to combating climate change: spend around $36 million a year on reducing New Zealand's carbon footprint without reducing net emissions by a gram.
As The Centrist revealed this week , the Council's food scrap collection scheme – rolled out across 470,000 homes, whether anyone asked for it or not – achieves gross emissions reductions at the bargain price of $1,440 per tonne.
That is 28 times the price of a carbon credit on New Zealand's Emissions Trading Scheme.
Fiscal insanity. It achieves nothing, for a huge cost.
First, Council ships Australian-made bins and Chinese liners to Auckland. Then, each week, it collects partially used scraps from the 35% of households that bother, loads them onto trucks, and sends them 200km south to Reporoa. Nothing says 'climate policy implementation' quite like a weekly 200km journey by road to Reporoa.
Yet, even if the scheme reduces landfill methane, it doesn't lower New Zealand's net emissions. Under the ETS, those savings just free up carbon credits for someone else to use. The ETS cap – not Council policy – sets our national net emissions.
Meanwhile, the bins are made in Australia and the liners manufactured in China – leaving a hefty global emissions trail from production to delivery. The result? A $36 million scheme that might actually increase global emissions. But at least it feels green.
This is why you can't believe Councils when they say there is no alternative to rates increases. They try and convince us it all goes on core infrastructure, but it is not the case.
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