Labour is promising to reduce 1.9 percent of 20 percent of our emissions by 2035 and calls it climate action. Anyone else feeling gaslit? #climatechange#nzpol
Transport is responsible for 20 percent of our emissions and is the fastest growing sector in that regard, but diesel buses (public AND private) are responsible for just 1.9 percent of that!
I made a chart to show how ineffectual this policy is.
To meet our (very unambitious) Paris target, Governments need to be doing policies like this now, not in 2035. Every year for the next 10 years, we need to implement four policies that have the impact of immediately electrifying all of the country's buses. Where is the ambition?
CORRECTION: The above figures were based on public and private buses. Labour has provided a figure for just public buses of 155,000 tonnes of emissions a year, so they're actually tackling just 1.1 percent of 20 percent of our emissions... In 2035.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
A fact-check of Simon Thornley's appearance on @NZQandA yesterday. Thornley begins by citing the "Ioannidis study" showing a #Covid19 death rate "only marginally higher than the standard flu viruses". I believe this is the study he's referring to. (1/16) medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
In the paper, Ioannidis conducts a meta-analysis of antibody surveys to determine how widespread Covid-19 is in different places and then compares the deaths associated with those places to arrive at an estimate of the IFR (see explainer) of 0.24%. (2/16) who.int/news-room/comm…
Part of the problem is many of these antibody surveys - including Ioannidis' own - have been criticised for using inaccurate tests and applying estimates to entire populations from too-small sample sizes. More on these surveys here, from May. (3/16) newsroom.co.nz/is-asymptomati…
New Zealand wasn't ready for this pandemic, having scored 54 points out of a possible 100 on an international preparedness assessment and running our response off the "wrong plan". Given this, why/how have we managed to weather the storm so far? #Covid19 newsroom.co.nz/2020/04/29/114…
What you need to know: No country was truly prepared for a pandemic, as the global situation shows. The Global Health Security Index (GHSI), released in October, was the first comprehensive international assessment of pandemic preparedness. Just 5 countries scored above 75/100.
Although New Zealand came 35th, it barely met half of the GHSI criteria. It was found particularly lacking in the ability to detect a local outbreak of an emergent pathogen, but also struggled in health capacity and emergency planning categories.
A short thread on #BeKindNZ and my interaction with an anxious reader:
On Saturday, after the PM announced the alert level system, I wrote an article examining Michael Baker's case for putting New Zealand straight to level 4. newsroom.co.nz/2020/03/21/109…
Late that evening, I received an email - subject line "please stop adding to the anxiety" - from a gentleman named Robert*. He's 75, lives alone, and shops for groceries once a week when his 77-y-o friend - who still has a license - can drive him.