Science Media Centre

The French capital is styling itself as a leader in modern ways to fight climate change and become more resilient. NZ Herald science reporter Jamie Morton looks at what Auckland can learn from Paris. Following a trip to the City of Lights, hosted by the French government, the series highlighted some of the developments in […]

Approximately 80 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity comes from renewable energy sources. But is this the full picture behind NZ’s clean and green reputation?  This week the University of Otago’s Centre for Sustainability releases ten policy briefs from its Energy Cultures research. The SMC asked experts how New Zealand’s energy usage compares to the […]

New Zealand should strive to become a green economy – low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive – according to an ’emerging issues’ paper from the Royal Society of New Zealand. The paper, released last week, outlines research on the resource and consumption challenges facing New Zealand and the rest of the world, and the […]

A major report into ‘green growth opportunities’ for New Zealand, outlining actions for industry and government to apply across several key economic sectors, was launched today at events in Auckland and Wellington. The report, commissioned by Pure Advantage and the New Zealand Green Growth Research Trust, identifies 21 ways the country can capitalise on a […]

Journalist Rod Oram is blogging daily from the Rio+20 conference in Brazil. You can follow his take on the proceedings of the conference on the Pure Advantage website. Linked below are his first five posts, with brief excerpts: 1. The last 20 years…and the task ahead “In some ways, at least for people over say […]

Seventeen year-old Kiwi  Brittany Trilford, winner of the ‘Date with History’ competition, takes on the role of the ‘Voice of Youth’ at the Rio+20 conference in Brazil. The competition involved entrants uploading video speeches telling the world about the “future we want.” The online public voted  for 22 finalists at least 3 from each region […]

A report produced by the Worldwide Wildlife Fund (WWF) this week has garnered widespread media attentions as it calls into question the environmental efforts of successive New Zealand governments in the 20 years that have passed since the Rio Earth Summit conference. The report, titled “Beyond Rio: New Zealand’s Environmental Performance since the original Earth […]

An article by Gareth Morgan and Geoff Simmons in the New Zealand Herald highlights the environmental issues surrounding fishing,  drawing on the research presented in their book ‘Hook, Line & Blinkers: Everything Kiwis Never Wanted to Know About Fishing‘. An excerpt (read in full here): Our oceans can’t survive fishing madness The election is looming, […]

Dan Satherly writes for 3 News about the recent Transitions to Sustainability conference, and some of the major themes at the conference. One of these was that the changes which society needs to make in the coming decades, aren’t going to be easy, as climate change and resource constrains begin to have ever greater effects. […]

Peter Huck writes in the New Zealand Herald about our fisheries situation, the Quota Management System (introduced in the late 1980s) and the difficulty of balancing long-term and short-term (or economic and conservation) interests. Conservation groups are pushing for the setup of no-fishing reserves, but, although the QMS has attracted criticism recently as being incomplete, […]