Briefings

Hide and Seek

Developers Skirt Around Detectability of Cisgenic GMOs. Lack of transparency by the GM food industry has been a driver of market resistance to its products. Research in New Zealand and …

New Zealand GM Pasture Grass R+D

Three Programmes and a New Technology Tens of millions of public science dollars have been directed to the development of GM pasture species in New Zealand over the last two …
21 June 2011|Topics: , ,

Betting the farm

If New Zealand chose not to approve the use of GM grasses developed by Pastoral Genomics, no economic penalty is expected as a non-GM technique could provide the same …

The Taxpayer’s Kyoto Position for 2011

NZ is expected to overshoot its Kyoto target by 18%. The ETS pays for less than 20% of the resulting liability. The Government is borrowing forest credits to cover the …

Skin Deep: A Nanoscale Effort on Cosmetics Regulation

Regulatory credibility on nanotechnologies is at ankle level with the regulators’ decision not to enforce the only nano-specific requirement on its books. The Ministry of Health and ERMA have no …
23 February 2011|Topics: , , ,

Integrity Gap: Copenhagen Pledges and Loopholes

Rather than the deep cuts on 1990 level emissions that are required, current pledges by developed countries would allow them to maintain business as usual emission levels, once “loopholes” …
2 August 2010|Topics: ,

The Invisible Revolution

New Zealand women are being exposed to cosmetic products containing a typeof nanomaterial that has been stripped from the shelves in Europe and Australia. Products containing nanoparticles called “fullerenes” remain …

Loopholes Negate Copenhagen Pledges for Emission Reductions

Rather than a cut on 1990 level emissions, current pledges by developed countries are likely to result in a net increase on this baseline once “loopholes” are taken into …
21 December 2009|Topics: ,

Overrated: New Zealand’s Emissions Reduction Target for 2020

UPDATE: A few days after publication of the Council’s briefing, one of the independent analytical teams (EcoFys, Climate Analytics and the European Climate Foundation) re-rated New Zealand’s …
15 December 2009|Topics: , ,