A lot of facts and figures get thrown around in political debates and it can be hard to know where they came from.
We want to be as clear as we can about where we got our numbers and how we reached our conclusions- especially those contained in our recent issue of the Green Times newsletter where we didn't have a whole lot of space to spell out every claim.
In talking about New Zealand's transport choices we said that the National-led Government has "put nearly $1billion towards roads."
This comes from a Government announcement in March 2009 headlined $1 billion more for state highways and which states: Prime Minister John Key and Transport Minister Steven Joyce have today announced almost a billion dollars of additional investment in the state highway network over the next three years. Read here
We also said that US President Barack Obama had promised to spend US$94 billion on green programmes. That comes from his stimulus bill signed into US law in early 2009.
The whole text can be found here
The green spending includes: · $32 billion to transform the nation's energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology.
- $16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits.
- $6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes.
- $31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings;
- $19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments;
- $10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.
- (And yes, that's more than $94 billion. We've been conservative with our numbers).
We also said the US$94 billion was about $US310 for every citizen. That's based on a US population estimate of about 300 million. The latest US Census Clock
In New Zealand, at the time we wrote the Green Times newsletter the only true green initiatives confirmed by the Government were an NZ Cycleway Project and an insulation fund to make warmer, healthier homes. To give a sense of relative scale compared to the US, the Cycleway will get NZ$50 million (while the size of the Government's financial commitment to home insulation is not yet public.)
We also talked about the cost of delaying our response to climate change and that we can spend a dollar today or five dollars tomorrow to do the same job. That comes from the Stern Review, commissioned by the UK Government:
The Review says costs are 1% of GDP by 2050 if we act now, 5-20% of GDP if we act later.
Healthy Homes
A major home insulation programme is a good example of Green New Deal type investment because it creates jobs and makes us more energy efficient.
There are also health benefits: Our cold homes contribute to high rates of asthma and respiratory disease. Asthma costs New Zealand around $825 million per year in terms of medical expenses and days off work.
(The Burden of Asthma in New Zealand, Dr Shaun Holt, P3 Research, Wellington; Professor Richard Beasley, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand; December 2001.)
It is also the most common cause of hospital admissions and is responsible for 500,000 lost school days each year.
In retrofitted homes, visits to the doctor by family members dropped by 19 per cent, admissions to hospital due to respiratory conditions dropped by 43 per cent, days off school reduced by 23 per cent and days off work by 39 per cent.
(A Cost-benefit Evaluation of Housing Insulation: Results from the 'Housing Insulation and Health' Study, Chapman, Howden-Chapman and O'Dea, 2005.)
These studies are cited in the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy 2007.
Our newsletter also notes that when we spend a dollar on insulation we get two dollars worth of benefit from health and energy savings, most of that being health savings. This is based on work reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ 2007;334;460-; originally published online 26 Feb 2007).
Effect of insulating existing houses on health inequality: cluster randomised study in the community. Philippa Howden-Chapman, Anna Matheson, Julian Crane, Helen Viggers, Malcolm Cunningham, Tony Blakely, Chris Cunningham, Alistair Woodward, Kay Saville-Smith, Des O'Dea, Martin Kennedy, Michael Baker, Nick Waipara, Ralph Chapman and Gabrielle Davie.
And we also said that nearly a million NZ homes can benefit from a home insulation programme and that there are 22 jobs generated for every 1000 homes we retrofit. This is also from the NZEECS 2007 which states:
"The BRANZ 2005 House Condition Survey indicates that around 375,000 New Zealand homes have inadequate ceiling insulation and over one million have inadequate under-floor insulation."
Finally, we reported that for every 1000 homes we retrofit, we generate 22 full-time jobs - this is based on estimates provided directly to us by the experts at the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. More on the Authority and its work
Transport
We said that "investment in sustainable transport creates more jobs than road building" the source for this claim is a 2009 transport study in Australia by Todd Litman, Smart Transportation Economic Stimulation, www.vtpi.org/econ_stim.pdf. Litman says public transport spending produces nearly 19% more jobs than new roading projects.
We also noted that New Zealand spends about $8 billion importing oil each year. Statistics New Zealand keeps track of these things and for the year ended April 2009, the figure was $8.14 billion.
And we also talked about how more and more Kiwis will use public transport if we build it. The Auckland Regional Transport Authority was our source for the claims about busway use and train ridership. ARTA regularly publishes ridership figures here www.arta.co.nz/newsroom.html
Clean Water
We want New Zealand's rivers and streams to be clean and healthy but currently they are in rough shape. In the Waikato 75% of waterways were unsafe for stock to drink and 70% were not safe for swimming. These alarming numbers come from a 2008 report by Environment Waikato called "The condition of rural water and soil in the Waikato region: risks and opportunities" (page 4). More here.
One of the main reasons that the rivers are dirty is because we've seen a big jump in the number of dairy cows and unfortunately not all farmers are doing the right things - like fencing off their streams from their cattle. The dairy conversion rate is seen in Statistics NZ data: the June 2008 Agricultural Production Statistics showed dairy cattle numbers increased to a record 5.6 million, up 6 percent on the year before; and the June 2007 statistics showed that dairy milking cows and heifers numbered 4.2 million, up 8 percent from 2002.
The latest Clean Streams Accord report shows some improvement in meeting targets to fence and bridge waterways and for nutrient budgets, but the targets are weak.
And they have not been backed up by Government or funded adequately. The Green Party's stimulus package would take us from incremental progress to serious solutions.
So these are the facts and figures we used in our Green Times newsletter and an explanation of where they came from. If you've got other questions or comments, green [dot] party [at] parliament [dot] govt [dot] nz (drop us a line.)
