|
Welcome to our new monthly “R&D News & Views” in which we will keep you
updated with news about business, science and technology. The four items for
this month are:
- Additional Technology New Zealand Investment
- Climate Change, Land Use and Energy
- If you apply a 10 percent discount rate to 25 percent of forever, you get...?
- Winter is Conference Time
It is good to see that Technology New Zealand (TNZ) has announced a significant
funding boost for both project support and fellowships. There is a 40% increase
in funding available for matching project funding, and an increase from $6m to
$11m for funding of Industry Fellowships. We are particularly pleased to see
the increased support for Industry Fellowships. We have always considered it
essential that businesses have core in-house R&D capability to innovate.
Using the Industry Fellowship Expert scheme, businesses can support new people
to carry out research projects in-house.
We see TNZ as one of the best mechanisms available to support significant
innovative steps in developing a strong business. If you would like additional
information on eligibility or putting projects together, please contact us.
Climate change is internationally recognised as having the potential to affect
many businesses. Effects may come either directly from climate variability and
extremes, or via international policies put in place to mitigate climate
change. NZ has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an inter-governmental agreement
that recognises the effect of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) on climate change, and
particularly global warming, and commits governments to reductions in their
levels.
The upshot of all this is that a carbon tax will be set at $15 per tonne and
introduced in April 2007. This will add around one cent to the cost of a unit
of electricity, about 4 cents to a litre of petrol, 46 cents to a 9kg bottle of
LPG and 68 cents to a 20kg bag of coal. The impact on the typical Kiwi
household will total about $4 per week for electricity, petrol, and other
fuels. It has been designed to allow for a future transition to emissions
trading. For more information see:
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDback.html?DocumentID=22885
Many businesses need to know how climate change will impact on them, so that
they can plan and act now rather than react later. Catalyst R&D is offering
businesses the opportunity to work with Catalyst Associate Justin
Ford-Robertson to:
-
Identify any direct impacts of climate change
-
Identify their exposure level to carbon charges
-
Identify potential projects or mechanisms to improve the situation
Justin Ford-Robertson has an international reputation in climate change, land
use and energy. He has been an adviser to the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, that has developed and implemented carbon reporting and
accounting systems and guidance for national entities and individual projects.
He has been very active in climate change mitigation research and policy
development in New Zealand.
You may wish to access our previous newsletter on this subject from our website.
www.catalystnz.com
An interesting perspective on the climate change debate and valuing the long
term is presented in “Climate: A Hard Look At The Long Term”. (Dan Whipple
Boulder CO (UPI) Mar 22, 2005)
The following extract provides some food for your calculator,
"Climate science actually is challenging the conventional way of thinking about
investing in the future - something economists, the guardians of thought about
long-term money, are loath to admit. Applying traditional economic tools, such
as the discount rate, to investing in the amelioration of global warming, you
quickly discover that you cannot justify even a tiny investment to stop or slow
it.
At a 10 percent discount rate - a common figure used in loans to developing
countries, for instance - damages of $25 trillion some 200 years hence,
approximately equal to today's entire global GDP, have a present value of only
$132,000. Put another way, a $132,000 investment in climate today could prevent
$25 trillion damages to our descendants 200 years from now.
That kind of thinking clearly is indefensible.
"If I plant a bomb to go off in Manhattan in 500 years, if we discount that from
the present, the discount rate tells us that there is no damage. That can't be
right," Dale Jamieson, a professor of environmental studies and philosophy at
New York University, told UPI's Climate last summer. "The unfortunate reality
of the discount rate is that if you use any discount rate that makes sense in
the short term, it turns out that in the long term, the world isn't worth
saving," said Irving Mintzer, a senior associate of the Pacific Institute for
Studies in Development, Environment and Security.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.terradaily.com/news/climate-05zh.html
If you are not hibernating over winter, or off to the Gold Coast for sun you may
like to get some new ideas and networks at one of the many conferences on offer
over the next few months. Those we know about are:
-
NZ Institute of Food Science and Technology Conference
June 28-30 - Christchurch Convention Centre
Theme “Going Global-food on the move” ( www.nzifst.org.nz
)
-
NZ Nursery and Garden Industry Association Conference
June 29-July 1 - Novotel Tainui Hotel, Hamilton ( www.ngia.co.nz
)
-
NZ Institute of Agricultural and Horticultural Science Convention
22-24 June - Lincoln University ( www.agscience.org.nz
)
-
Produce Plus 2005 Conference
1 to 4 August - Rotorua Fruitgrowers Federation (
www.fruitgrowers.org.nz )
Vegfed and United Fresh will be hosting the Produce Plus Joint Industry
Conference in 2005.
-
Queenstown Molecular Biology Meeting Queenstown
30 August-2 September - 15th Annual Meeting “Celebrating the Successes of
Molecular Biology” ( www.qmb.org.nz )
-
NZ Institute of Forestry Conference “Face up to Change”
Bay of Islands 19-21 June 2005
Full details are on the conference website (
www.nzif.eventmergers.co.nz )
|