The 'Electric Election': energy policies, side by side
The Vatican is aiming to be the first solar-powered 'nation' and, as solar advocate Bill McKibben likes to say, there are plenty of churches around the world generating energy from heaven rather than hell. One of them is the Discovery Christian Centre in Hamilton East, which has 48 panels on its roof.
As Stephanie Chernishov says, "it seems like a huge amount" but, like a growing number of other organisations with large roofs and increasing electricity bills, it just makes sense.
The community centre next door also has panels and a battery and it's hoping to operate as a resilience hub when the power goes out.
It even operates a scheme called Equigen, where excess power from their solar is credited to the community centre.
"When they have people coming in for food parcels and budgeting and they're really stuck with their power bills they can credit a little bit back to help them along."
BloombergNEF says sales of combustion cars peaked in 2017 and there's no coming back, while a new study in New Zealand shows petrol vehicles were losing value more quickly than equivalent models did a decade ago; big batteries aren't just for storing electricity, they can also store heat; the story of the world's biggest electric ferry and the Australian company that made it; electric motorbikes are doing a lot of heavy lifting on emissions reduction, so why don't they get more attention?; and a new show called HallowGreen2 that tackles the energy transition "with music, humour and a hopeful message”.
Read moreDownloadRNZ's Kate Newton looks at why no-one is really talking about emissions as an election issue. As Mike Casey said: "The climate movement up until this point has been very, very good at creating dartboards, but terrible at providing people with darts to play the game." That's allowed for inaction, and active lobbying against climate change action from fossil fuel companies and others who stand to lose out ... The solution is "flipping it into a strong economic narrative that they can't possibly fight with".
Read moreDownloadHumans are comparative creatures and they're particularly comparative during election season. That's why we've created a rundown of all the energy-related election policies that have been announced by the parties so far.
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