Climate Change: Beaten by the Danes

This week the National government introduced legislation to remove agriculture from the ETS, ensuring our largest polluters continue to get a free ride for as long as they hold power. But while National is dragging us backwards, Denmark is moving forwards, and is making its farmers pay for their pollution:

The Danish government will introduce Europe’s first carbon tax on agriculture, after a five-month negotiation with farming and conservation groups ended in a historic agreement on Monday night.

From 2030 farmers will have to pay 120 Danish krone (€16) per metric ton of emitted carbon dioxide equivalent, rising to 300 krone (€40) from 2035 onwards. The government will also provide €5.3 billion to reforest 250,000 hectares of agricultural land by 2045, set aside 140,000 of lowland by 2030, and buy out certain farms to reduce nitrogen emissions.

The agreement has the support of Danish farming groups, who recognise that they have no future without a stable climate, and that they have to carry their part of the burden rather than expecting everyone else to subsidise them. Which I guess shows they're more pro-social than the New Zealand variety.

This is obviously good for Denmark and the climate, but it will likely also have an impact on New Zealand. There'll now be a voice within the EU demanding that agricultural imports not be effectively subsidised with free carbon, and pushing for that subsidy to be offset with a border carbon adjustment. By dragging their feet and refusing to do their bit, New Zealand's dirty, backwards farmers have made themselves vulnerable to such arguments. And they'll have no-one but themselves to blame if it comes back to bite them.

A law we should adopt

In Aotearoa, Ministers are supposed to be accountable for their Ministerial conduct, both to the Prime Minister and to Parliament. Once upon a time this meant that in cases of clear failure by themselves or their agency, a Minister would resign. Now, it simply means endless obfuscation and coverups while dumping the blame on public servants. This lack of accountability leads to poor decision-making, because there's no incentive not to (to put it in simple terms: they're never going to get fired, no matter what they do, so they have no reason to do their jobs properly).

Meanwhile, Denmark shows that things can be done differently: they actually jail Ministers who violate their Ministerial duties:

Denmark’s former immigration minister has been sentenced to two months in prison after a special court found her guilty of illegally separating several couples of asylum seekers where the woman was under 18.

Inger Støjberg was sentenced on Monday to 60 days in jail over accusations that she violated the European convention on human rights by ordering the separation of couples, some of whom had children.

“Inger Støjberg is found guilty of a deliberate violation of the Ministerial Responsibility Act,” Denmark’s court of impeachment of the realm said in a statement.

The Ministerial Responsibility Act is a fairly simple law. It makes it a crime for a Minister to (bad Google translation):

intentionally or through gross negligence neglects the duties incumbent on him under the constitution or legislation in general or according to the nature of his position.

It also makes it a crime to mislead or conceal significant information from Parliament. Here's how the Danish civil servant's code describes it:

Ministers are not only politically accountable to the Folketing. Denmark is a country based on the rule of law where ministers have a legal responsibility for complying with the Ministerial Responsibility Act (Ministeransvarlighedsloven) and other legislation. The Ministerial Responsibility Act establishes among other things that ministers must not give the Folketing incorrect or misleading information and that during the Folketing’s consideration of a case they must not withhold information of essential importance to the Folketing’s assessment of the matter in hand.

This is a law we should adopt here. After all, aren't we meant to be a country based on the rule of law? And given the scale of the decisions they make, shouldn't Ministers be more accountable for them than simply having a sneering competition with their peers in the House? An NZ Ministerial Responsibility Act would provide an actual incentive, an extra reminder to Ministers that their decisions must be lawful at all times, as well as a useful tool should the worst happen. It seems worth having that backstop.

Denmark's traitorous spies

Denmark has been spying on Germany for the NSA:

Denmark's secret service helped the US National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a European media investigation published on Sunday revealed.

The disclosure that the US had been spying on its allies first started coming to light in 2013, but it is only now that journalists have gained access to reports detailing the support given to the NSA by the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE).

The report showed that Germany's close ally and neighbor cooperated with US spying operations that targeted the chancellor and president.

The then chancellor candidate for the German center-left socialist party (SPD), Peer Steinbrück, was also a target, the new report disclosed.

As the article notes, we'd known they were cooperating with the Americans to spy within the EU since 2013. What's new is the targets, which are explosive. And its not just Germany that was targetted: the article says they also spied on politicians in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France.

The good news is that the Danish government sacked the entire leadership of the FE last year over this. But the fact it even happened is highly disturbing, and really makes you wonder who the EU's spy agencies are really loyal to: their own European governments, or their American "allies". And of course it raises similar questions about who our spies are really working for, and how many of our friends they're spying on for America.

Climate Change: Denmark ends fossil fuels

The Danish government has put an official end-date on fossil fuel extraction:

Denmark’s government on Thursday agreed with a majority in parliament to put and end to all oil and gas exploration and extraction in the North Sea by 2050 as well as cancel its latest licensing round.

The future of Denmark’s oil and gas operations in the North Sea has been a political issue after the Nordic country agreed last year on one of the world’s most ambitious climate targets of reducing emissions by 70% by 2030 and being climate neutral in 2050.

The deal agreed by lawmakers late on Thursday will cancel a planned eighth licensing round and any future tenders, while also making 2050 the last year in which to extract fossil fuels in the North Sea.

“We are now putting a final end to the fossil era,” Climate Minister Dan Joergensen said in a statement.

They'd already banned on-shore exploration, so this is basicly a total phase out. And the effect it has on discouraging investment may result in a shutdown a lot sooner.

This is something New Zealand needs to do. We've already banned offshore fossil fuel exploration. But we need to follow that up with an onshore ban, a ban on new fossil fuel mining permits, and a cutoff date for existing ones (most existing mining permits expire in the mid-2030s, but there are a few outliers). And we need to do the same for coal. The best way to stop fossil fuels is to turn off the tap at its source.

Climate Change: Showing us how its done

The government has been congratulating itself over the passage of the Zero Carbon Act, which sets out long-term emissions targets. But those targets are insufficient. Meanwhile, Denmark is showing us how its done:

Denmark’s parliament adopted a new climate law on Friday, committing to reach 70% below its 1990 emissions in the next eleven years.

The law targets carbon neutrality by 2050 and includes a robust monitoring system. New legally-binding targets will be set every five years, with a ten-year perspective. The first of these will be set in 2020.

In what the government claims is a first for a national legislature, the new law also has a commitment to climate engagement internationally. This includes an ongoing obligation to deliver on international agreements, including climate finance to developing countries.

The government will need to provide an annual global report on the international effects of Danish climate action, as well as the effects of Danish imports and consumption. It will also need to provide a strategy for how its foreign, development and trade policy is driving international climate action.

Its both a broader law, and a more ambitious one. In particular, that 70% by 2030 target shows us what we should be doing. But instead of setting that sort of target, and backing it up with policies to match, our politicians sold us out to the dairy industry, sacrificing our future so 23,000 farming families could pretend their businesses were profitable for a few more years. And we should not tolerate that any longer.

Climate Change: Ambition in Denmark

Currently our parliament is debating a Zero Carbon Bill, which would set a climate change target of net zero carbon dioxide by 2050. Meanwhile, Denmark is aiming for a 70% reduction in all greenhouse gases by 2030:

Denmark’s government announced a “new political direction” based on an ambitious climate manifesto, released on Wednesday.

Social Democrat leader Mette Frederiksen, 41, became the country’s new prime minister on Wednesday, after she secured a political deal with three other left-wing parties to form a one-party minority government.

Under the agreement, the new government pledged to introduce binding decarbonisation goals and strengthen its 2030 target to reduce emissions by 70% below the 1990 level – the current target is 40%.

The left-wing alliance acknowledged this was “a very ambitious target” and that the last five points of emissions reduction to 70% would be “particularly difficult to reach”.

But the alliance warned “the world and Denmark are in a climate crisis” and that limiting global temperature rise is “not just the right thing to do, it’s also the most economically responsible one”.

This is what we need to do: stronger targets, driven by effective government policy to meet them. Instead, it looks like we'll continue to piss round, with governments leaving real action to be a problem for their successors, while doing absolutely nothing about agricultural emissions (our biggest greenhouse gas source).

Blasphemy abolished in Denmark

Denmark has abolished its blasphemy law:

Danish lawmakers have repealed a 334-year-old blasphemy law that forbids public insults of a religion, such as the burning of holy books.

Only a handful of blasphemy trials have taken place in the past 80 years, and several high-profile cases have been dropped, including one involving a caricature of the prophet Muhammad published in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005.

Denmark was the only Scandinavian country with a blasphemy law, which called for up to four months in prison upon conviction, although most people were fined instead.

It's a good step forward, and drags Denmark out of the dark ages. Meanwhile, we're still there - despite the Prime Minister joining other politicians in calling for the law to be repealed, his party voted against it. But hopefully someone will put a bill in the member's ballot so we can finally join the modern world.

Denmark criminalises decency

If you gave a refugee a lift to the train station, or took them home and gave them coffee, most New Zealanders would think you were being a decent person. But if you do it in Denmark, they will prosecute and fine you for "people trafficking":

A high-profile Danish campaigner for children’s rights was prosecuted on Friday under people trafficking laws, shining a spotlight once more on the country’s crackdown on asylum, as Scandinavian countries compete to make themselves unattractive destinations for refugees.

Lisbeth Zornig, the country’s former children’s ombudsman and a well-known author, was fined DKr22,500 (£2,328) – the maximum demanded by the prosecutor – by a court in Nykøbing Falster, southern Denmark, for allowing a family of Syrians to hitch a ride with her to Copenhagen.

Her husband was fined the same amount for taking the family into his home for coffee and biscuits, and then driving them to the railway station, where he bought them tickets to Sweden.

Zornig calls this "criminalising decency", and she's right. The Danish government is behaving indecently and inhumanely towards refugees (they're robbing them at the border, FFS), and they are using force of law in an effort to coerce their citizens into going along with it. Hitler would be proud.

Denmark plans to rob refugees

The Syrian refugee crisis has brought out the best in some countries. Germany has opened its borders, Canada its hearts. Denmark, OTOH, is different: they plan to rob refugees at the border:

An MEP from Denmark’s centre-right ruling party has defected in protest at government plans to seize valuables from refugees to help fund their stay in the country.

Denmark has mainly been a transit country for refugees, and the minority Liberal government hopes to deter more from seeking asylum by taking valuables or cash worth more than 3,000 Danish crowns (£290) during border searches.

[...]

The immigration reform bill, which has yet to be approved by parliament, would give authorities “the power to search the clothing and luggage of asylum-seekers and other migrants without a permit to stay in Denmark with a view to finding assets which may cover expenses,” the immigration ministry said.

Denmark expects 20,000 asylum seekers this year, compared with almost 200,000 expected by Sweden. Many of the refugees passing through Denmark this year have been bound for its neighbour.

There's an obvious and unpleasant historical comparison here - but apparently that's the sort of country Denmark is now: one which robs the helpless for its own profit.

It makes you think

(Image stolen from @studentsnz)

Which is a no-brainer. Remove the sources of stress in people's lives - getting sick, having enough to live on, having enough time for themselves or to spend with their friends and family - and people are free to be happy.

All of these policies are affordable in New Zealand - its just a question of priorities. And our government (and its predecessors) has prioritised tax-cuts for the rich and billion-dollar giveaways to polluters over the needs of ordinary kiwis. It would be nice if we had a government - and a country - which worked for ordinary people, and not just the rich.

Equality comes to Denmark

Denmark's Folketing has voted overwhelmingly in favour of marriage equality, becoming the eighth country in Europe to allow same-sex marriage. And again, I have to ask: when will New Zealand follow suit? Once, we led the world as a progressive nation. Now, we're lagging behind.

Equality comes to Denmark

Denmark is to legalise same-sex marriage, making it the eleventh country (and the sixth in Europe) to do so. Unlike the UK, where plans to do the same have met with hostility from organised religion, Denmark's churches seem to be on-side with it. The big question is how difficult it will be for those already in a Civil Union to transition should they want to.

Again, I have to ask: isn't it time we acted, and legislated for equality? Or are we going to continue to enshrine homophobia in law?

The left wins in Denmark

Denmark went to the polls yesterday in national elections, and from the preliminary results the Social Democrat-led "red bloc" has won a narrow majority, giving the country its first female Prime Minister and ushering in the first left-wing government in a decade.

The "red bloc" (Social Democrats, Social Liberals, Socialists and Red-Greens) ran on a platform of anti-austerity: increases in both taxes and spending. Its a significant difference from the slash and burn policies prevailing in the rest of Europe; hopefully it will lead to better results. They've also promised to roll back racist anti-immigration policies, imposed by the racist, Muslim-bashing, Breivikist Danish People's Party, which has had a lock on government policy for the past decade. The racists and now sidelined, and while the rollback will be gradual, the door to change is now at least open.

New Fisk

Bombs make no moral distinctions where they fall

Anything but Sweden!

The Standard highlights the first part of the Daily Show's trip to Sweden to uncover the horrors of a socialist society. Part two screened last night. In case you missed it:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Stockholm Syndrome Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Free education, free healthcare, well-paid and well-treated workers - I can see what American elites have to be afraid of. As for the rest of us...

Scandanavian socialism seems to be a theme on US television at the moment - just before I saw that, I'd caught the tail end of 20/20 boggling at Denmark, where a strong social safety net and a high level of equality had led to the country being the happiest place on Earth. Cthulhu forfend that Americans - or kiwis - end up like that!

Greenland votes for autonomy

Greenland went to the polls today in a referendum on its relationship with Denmark - and voted overwhelmingly for greater autonomy. It's not independence - the arrangement is more similar to Scotland's relationship with the UK, though with more control over mineral resources - but its close, and a full split is definitely on the horizon. So in another decade or so, if Greenland does well with its new freedom, the EU may find itself with a new member.

Shrinking Coalition Watch

After four years and 130 deaths, the UK is finally getting out of Iraq. Tony Blair has announced that 1,600 troops will withdraw over the next few months, with another 500 more by the end of the year. The remaining 5,000 troops will remain through 2008, but look likely to be gone by then. And its not a moment too soon, according to the Iraqis they have been "supporting" - in Basra, the move was almost universally welcomed, with provincial officials and politicians blaming the British for violence and the lack of security in the city.

Meanwhile, the Danes are getting out as well, slashing their deployment by 90% and leaving only a token force behind. I wonder who will be next to get out?