While Australia has punched a little below its weight in terms of the number of climate change delusionists we have produced, we’re at world’s best practice as far as loopiness as concerned. Our leading delusionist group is the Lavoisier Institute which has, among other things
* Used the work of (now-deceased) astrologer Theodor Landscheidtas the basis for criticism of the IPCC
* Compared the Kyoto Protocol to the attempted Japanese invasion of Australia in 1942(1)
The Lavoiser team got together at Parliament House in Canberra to launch a book by rightwing eminence grise Ray Evans called “Nine Facts about Climate Change”.
As I’ve said before, I don’t plan to bother refuting this stuff any more, but taavi does garbage pickup. I particularly liked the perpetual motion machine in Fact 2.
1. Of course, the official rightwing line now claims that the invasion threat was itself a myth cooked up by notorious appeaser John Curtin.
John Quiggin 
Like you John I am gobsmacked by some of the global warming delusionists. Chief among these are the members of the ALP that govern my state at present. As you would be aware, on behalf of all these GW delusionists, Premier Mike Rann has only recently signed SA up to reducing our GG emissions down to 40% of 1990 levels (boasting we are one of only 3 jurisdictions in the world to do so) Hallelujah for the planet!
Front page of today’s Advertiser headline reads- ‘2 NEW POWER PLANTS TO EASE STRESS’ and continues-
“Two new power stations worth $870 mill are being planned for SA in a move that could ease strain on the state’s electricity network.
Corporate firms Babcock and Brown and NP Power will this month apply to the Development assessment Commission to build a 450MW gas fired peaking power station at Redbanks near Mallala.
The project estimated to cost $350 mill has been endorsed by the State Govt as a “public infrastructure development” under section 49 of the Development Act.
A separate 560MW power station valued at $520 milloion, has been foreshadowed as part of Altona Resources $3.9 billion proposal to produce petroleum and gas in the state’s Far North.
If approved, the new power stations would be among the state’s 5 biggest generators.”
What I don’t understand is why some inconsequential think tank delusionists are the focus of Professor John Quiggin, when he has real delusionists actually running governments to tackle. Care to explain that to us John? Would that be anything to do with where your bread is liberally buttered professor?
For the record here’s your typical, leftist, GW delusionist Rann presaging his wankathon legislation last year http://www.climatechange.sa.gov.au/PDFs/News%20Releases/legislation.pdf
Notice the red undies and cape as Premier and Minister for 1. Economic Development 2. Social Inclusion 3. Arts 4. Sustainability and Climate Change
With all that responsibility he can’t claim those nasty GG emitting power stations got under his guardianship of the planet now can he?
Just to reply to your silly innuendo, observa, my bread is not “liberally buttered” by the Rann government or by the Labor party in any way. As others have said, your obsession with Rann, in combination with the lack of anything beyond the lamest pointscoring, is getting tiresome.
Actually, whether there was an invasion threat or not entirely depends on how sloppily you use language. There was every threat of infiltration and incursions, none whatsoever of an invasion proper. But that is not at all to belittle the very real risk, merely to diagnose it – something which you need to do when talking about countermeasures.
PML, we discussed this at length last time around. In retrospect, there was little likelihood that the Japanese would have wanted a permanent conquest of Australia. On the other hand, their war aims obviously included knocking Australia out of the war, and this would almost certainly have required occupation of parts of Northern Australia (at least), along with large-scale death and destruction. I’d call this an invasion.
Really who cares whether they planned to invade or not? They were well on the way to creating an arc of control in the Pacific and SE Asia that would have strangled the country unless it joined up to the Co-Prosperity Sphere. Empire does not need to operate through direct government.
As tiresome as you tilting Quixotically at GW denialist windmills John? Any poll shows the punters are now onside with GW arguments, but still you carry on as if somehow they’re not. If the battle to win the punters hearts and minds is now won, then surely an early adopter like yourself, should now be most concerned about big talking, do nothing hypocrites, taking Global Warming’s name in vain. I am certainly not suggesting Mike Rann is alone here in that, but just that he is a rather obvious example of the genre and probably coming to government near you soon. You appear to be blind to such carpetbaggers or otherwise preoocupied with your windmills. Anyway, pardon me for farting as I don’t want to upset any elephants in the room
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/05/MNG18OFHF21.DTL
observa – sure the way to deal with China is to say “well you keep making all this stuff for us and we will continue with our really wasteful lifestyles based on fossil fuels and you can’t have any of it because you are the problem”
Wouldn’t this be better – “We have cut our energy use by 50% and now use mostly renewables – we would like you to follow this lead”
Apparently Ender it’s more morally uplifting to say to them- ‘Hey we’ve signed up to reduce our emissions by 60%, so how about you lot actually doing it.’ You get to wear the ‘I signed the pledge’ badge at the ribbon cutting at the new power stations too.
I think it’s unfair and inappropriate to refer to the Lavoisier group as delusional.
So, JH, do you think the claim that the Kyoto protocol is an evil left wing conspiracy, on a par with the threat of invasion, is a reasonable proposition that I should be engaging on the merits?
Shifting from coal-fired to gas-fired electricity generation (as SA has largely done) will reduce emissions. Obviously, achieving large long-term reductions in emissions will need measures to reduce electricity demand, but observa’s pointscoring is off the mark.
“Shifting from coal-fired to gas-fired electricity generation (as SA has largely done) will reduce emissions.”
No we haven’t done that at all John. What we have largely been doing is adding additional generating capacity which is gas fired and now proposing even more to satiate ever increasing demand, even allowing for some not immodest, additional wind turbine power.
At Port Augusta, around 2.5 million tonnes of brown coal, railed 250km from Leigh Creek, is burned in 2 x 260MW steam turbines of the Northern Power Station and 4 x 60MW turbines of the Playford B station, generating up to 40% of SA’s capacity. This is essentially base load power, which you’ll notice the new proposed gas fired plant for Redbanks at Mallala of 450MW is for peaking power. That’s a nice way of saying we’re running out of power, although SA has one of the peakiest demands due to summer airconditioning. About 25% of our generating/transmission capacity is designed for about a month’s use per year. Now the new proposed 560MW power station for the Far North is foreshadowed as part of Altona Resources development to produce petroleum and gas. How on earth can Govts go on doing all this and signing on to the 60% pledge is beyond my comprehension John, but I’m just probably one of those delusional skeptics. What’s the pledge for John? Moral offsets and if so when do we get really serious and introduce it into our primary schools for the kiddies to sign up.
JQ: “So, JH, do you think the claim that the Kyoto protocol is an evil left wing conspiracy, on a par with the threat of invasion, is a reasonable proposition that I should be engaging on the merits?”
I don’t think Kyoto is similar to invasion. My instinct would be to ignore such a comment, but if I was to respond I would say “I don’t think Kyoto is similar to invasion”.
I think the optional addition of “you blithering idiotic delusional loopy twat” says more about the speaker than the target of their abuse.
is the warming definately greenhouse gas related?
is it possible that the effect is observed correctly but the causes arent as clear as being made out,
is it possible the the suns fluctutaions in activity coud be the driver?
is east Antarctica getting colder?
could cosmic rays be involved in cloud formation?
JQ — do you have a link for the paper based on the work of Theodor Landscheidt? I checked the link you provided but it was just an open letter by a group of people to the Canadian (then) opposition leader and it didn’t mention astrology.
Smiths — as best I know it is extremely likely that increasing greenhouse gases (as we are doing) will lead to warming but less certain the exact split between man-made and natural causes of recent changes. We know that the sun is a driver of climate change, but it doesn’t appear to explain the 0.6 degree warming over the past few decades. I believe Antarctic ice is getting thicker, but Arctic ice is melting.
And my understanding is that cosmic rays are not involved in cloud formation. Instead, changes in solar radiation are responsible for cloud formation which changes the impact of cosmic rays on the earth. The importance of this factor is still being explored.
JQ — do you have a link for the paper based on the work of Theodor Landscheidt? I checked the link you provided but it was just an open letter by a group of people to the Canadian (then) opposition leader and it didn’t mention astrology.
Smiths — as best I know it is likely that increasing greenhouse gases (as we are doing) will lead to warming but less certain the exact split between man-made and natural causes of recent changes. We know that the sun is a driver of climate change, but it doesn’t appear to explain the 0.6 degree warming over the past few decades. I believe Antarctic ice is getting thicker, but Arctic ice is melting.
And my understanding is that cosmic rays are not involved in cloud formation. Instead, changes in solar radiation are responsible for cloud formation which changes the impact of cosmic rays on the earth. The importance of this factor is still being explored.
I’m afraid I have to agree with observa. There is an awful lot of greenwashing happening at the moment and the ALP are the worst offenders. You can’t spend $870M on new fossil-fuelled power stations, and in the same breath commit to reduce GHG emissions to 40% of 1990 levels by 2050. These power stations may well still be operating in 2050, if we haven’t sold all our gas by then. Sure, gas is better than coal but if Rann were serious about his 2050 GHG commitment he’d be investing all of the $870M in renewables (like Flannery’s geothermal plant), tougher renewable energy targets, or maybe (gasp!) tax carbon emissions.
If he doesn’t do these things its just an empty pledge so he can be seen to be doing something about climate change. I’m sorry, but it is. The Labor Premiers are all doing it — look at Iemma and his desal plant! Rudd is no better with his defence of coal exports.
carbonsink – “If he doesn’t do these things its just an empty pledge so he can be seen to be doing something about climate change. I’m sorry, but it is. The Labor Premiers are all doing it — look at Iemma and his desal plant! Rudd is no better with his defence of coal exports.”
Right now Rudd and the others have to avoid giving the Libs a wedge issue like coal exports and coal use that they can use to drown out all other arguments like they did with the Tasmanian Forests last election.
When Labor is elected they can raise the MRET which will restart the investment in renewables and allow coal to compete in a market with carbon taxes or cap and trade systems. This way coal use can be decreased without handing Howard three more years on a platter.
The Tassie forests policy was only introduced in the last week of the election, and it was introduced by Latham.
JQ — sorry for the duplication. Please delete one.
I completely understand the politcal reasons for Rudd’s defence of coal exports, but try explaining Iemma’s desal plant. All the polls in NSW show that recycling is much more popular than desal.
Continuing the theme of greenwashing is this article in the Guardian:
UK plans to cut CO2 doomed to fail – scientists
The UK is probably a decade ahead of Australia in terms of policy on climate change and the political environment. Both sides of politics are on side and have been for some time. Everyone agrees something needs to be done, “voluntary” policies have been developed, but very little is being achieved.
As George Monbiot says, the UK government policy seems to be to write reports and policy about climate change (and thereby appear to be doing something) without actually implementing the policies.
Let me continue with the specific case study of SA because IMO it is an obvious microcosm of the bigger problem. Looking specifically at power generation, here is a summary of the status quo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_power_stations_in_South_Australia
You might like to browse your own state’s state of play at the bottom. When I quoted Pt Augusta’s coal fired power as 40% of our generation, that looks like a dated statistic. Summarising the total generating capacity (only greater than 1MW generators here remember) there is a total of around 3800 MW with coal fired Pt Augusta making up around 20% of that total. You need to look harder at the generators to pick out the constant base load steam turbine generators. These are Pt Aug 760MW, Torrens Island 1280MW, Pelican Point 158MW and Osborne 60MW, totalling 2258MW or about 60% of the total. Pt Augusta’s burnable dirt then accounts for a third of this base load, which on average steam turbines produce around 85% of the world’s electricity. That probably applies here as well. The gas turbines have mushroomed relatively recently but are largely, quick switch, peak power generators. (Here note that Pelican Point and Osborne use them in conjunction with base load steam turbines to use their surplus heat efficiently.) Because we live in the driest state in the driest continent, hydro is miniscule, but we are leading Aus in wind power (but not yet 1% of the total here)
Now what you have to bear in mind is, we have as head of State, Mr Pledge (60%reductions to 1990 levels by 2050 remember)Mike Rann the man. John Quiggin’s ideal, evangelical messiah, chanelling Al Gore, Michael Moore or whatever. No need to convert this boy, because he’s one of the early converts out there, leading from the front, spreading the hot gospel himself. Now what you also need to understand is, that on coming to power he inherited the brand spanking new, Pelican Point, 485MW fossil fuel power station, along with some of those little gas turbine ones springing up to cope with our lust for air conditioners. So Mr Pledge can’t claim that he was left with a lack of generating capacity when he took over and had to play catch up with those nasty fossil fuels. Mr Pledge has also pledged that while mining and flogging uranium to many Kyoto signatories, there’s no way he’ll use it to generate power here in SA on his watch. Then in yesterday’s Advertiser, we have a portent of where Mr Pledge is actually going on all this GW thingy, with respect to power generation at least. All I can say to John Quiggin et al is, if these are your political friends, why waste time with the odd political enemy?
observa,
You make a good point, however, underestimate how critical it remains that denialists not be able to gain a foothold with their pseudo-science and fraud et al. These types may no longer feature in Oz, but I can tell you they remain very significant in the US, and especially so given our polarized media (that the majority of Republicans only expose themselves to right-wing la la land news sources doesn’t help in this regard).
The bottom line is one of priorities and this is clearly the highest. Without at least establishing the science of global warming and its potentially dire ramifications in the minds of the vast majority world’s citizenry, we are truly powerless to do anything about it.
carbonsink – “I completely understand the politcal reasons for Rudd’s defence of coal exports, but try explaining Iemma’s desal plant. All the polls in NSW show that recycling is much more popular than desal.”
I can’t – we have one too. I guess they have to be seen to be doing something. A grand project like a desal plant is really good for pollies getting re-elected. Recycling is more effective but is hard to trumpet about.
I think it’s unfair and inappropriate to refer to the Lavoisier group as delusional.
They are associating themselves with Ray Evans book. That’s pretty delusional.
The book is on par with the standard delusional creationist claptrap which infests the world.
Seriously, does anybody here want to endorse the book?
I agree a good deal with observa’s and carbonsink’s points – i think the environmental movement is rife with support for flawed policies and approaches (such as the hard-on-punters-while-ignoring-the-big-polluters policy of banning incandescent lightbulbs), and this happens because we are so busy arguing against the slimiest end of the AGW debate that we don’t spend enough time challenging the middle, and criticising the proposed solutions offered in the mainstream.
I think it is hugely worthwhile having some constructive criticism directed at the labor govts, not just the sceptics. so I’m going to argue the govt’s side for you observa:
On gas-fired generation. It is the perfect transitional fuel, and given that we don’t even have emissions trading yet, i think more gas fired generation is a great thing at the moment, though we can’t just do gas for the next 50 years. I think the gas industry has been fairly weak on promoting their green credentials, and are missing an opportunity. Sure they may predominate as peak generators, but no reason why they cant be base load – except for cost.
It would be great if the same taxes were applied to coal for power generation as are applied to gas for power generation – gas for power generation is taxed much higher. According to Exxon Mobil, maybe gas would be more competitive as baseload generation if it was taxed the same as coal (see the section titled ‘near term reduction opportunities) (http://cabinet.nsw.gov.au/greenhouse/emissionstrading/__data/assets/pdf_file/598/ExxonMobil.pdf)
Or emissions trading could make baseload gas competitive.
On the desal plant.
The Iemma govt believes that people don’t want to drink recycled water. I disagree strongly that they are right on this. Nevertheless, I can understand the logic. Immediate water supply is clearly a more pressing problem for a State Govt than greenhouse emissions, so they have gone for a desal plant. I can only assume that they are doing this reluctantly, given the bad press they are getting.
On the plus side, they are going to buy enough Green Power to match the power consumption of the desal. That will be a tangible boost to Green Power generators in the country – SYdney Water says 920,000MWh for a 500ML/day plant – that would double Green Power purchases.
I think the Iemma govt is open to criticism for wasting taxpayers money, and not choosing the best option, but building a desal plant powered by 100% Green Power is not a reason to question their commitment on climate change.
THe problem with criticism like Observa’s is that it is so strident it does not acknowledge the trade offs and difficulties with actually implementing a policy. Its a messy, imperfect business. That’s why we need more non-sceptics/delusionists criticising policy, who can provide a measured but still constructive critique.
I would love to see everyone drinking recycled water and a rigorous emissions trading scheme. But given multitude lobbyists, political pressures, power needs and water needs, i think gas fired generation and 100% Green Power desal plant is not an instant dismissal, even if they are far from perfect solutions.
Maybe that discussion isn’t happening because of the preoccupation with the slimier ends of the climate discussion as observa says, and a failure to criticise what is on offer from the middle.
Observa may be strident but he’s spot on, IMHO, in his criticism of Mr ‘Also’ Rann’s hypocrisy. In SA, Origin Energy is developing cheaper, better photovoltaics. Why not mandate photovoltaic panels on all new buildings to support local industry, or at least remit some of the local taxes for builders/developers/owners who install them?
If GW is rea, as seems to be the case, incentives are needed now, not 44 years into the future when Mr Rann may well be dead and will certainly not be clinging to office?
It appears that the Lavoisier Society is disputing not only the IPCC’s report, but the conservation of energy. No, John Humphries, I don’t think that makes them delusional at all. It’s time to go back to calling them denialists.
Actually, Mr Rann’s position is worse than I thought. In the SA strategic plan update
http://www.saplan.org.au/documents/South_Australia_Strategic_Plan_2007_001.pdf he congratulates himself on a new ‘feed in’ law that allows households to be paid for the electricity they feed into the grid.
I don’t understand your logic o6. You talk about photovoltaics, and then criticise the ‘feed in’ law. This policy has been pushed strongly by the Australian photovoltaics industry, and is widely regarded by the photovoltaics industry worldwide as the best way to promote the technology (after the huge uptake in photovoltaics in Germany as a result of a feed-in policy).
Having said that, Rann’s feed-in policy is lousy, because it only pays for net export to the grid. Virtually nobody who puts in a rooftop photovoltaic system will be a net exporter over a billing period, hence hardly anyone will benefit.
I’ve fixed the Landscheidt link.
I agree that policy so far is longer on grand statements than concrete action. As virtually everyone recognises by now, what’s needed before serious progress can be made is an effective price on carbon and an emissions trading scheme. Various governments, including Rann’s, have been edging towards this line, and it’s time to push them over.
THe latest on the State’s emissions trading scheme:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/emissions-trading-deadline-at-risk/2007/03/04/1172943276257.html
Committed to implement it by 2010, but might not make it.
It seems to be a case of rhetoric colliding with reality. Reality wins!
Steve – “Having said that, Rann’s feed-in policy is lousy, because it only pays for net export to the grid. Virtually nobody who puts in a rooftop photovoltaic system will be a net exporter over a billing period, hence hardly anyone will benefit.”
That is entirely dependent on the size of the installed system, the climatic conditions and the electricity demand of the household. You cannot say with any degree of confidence that hardly anyone will benefit.
If one bothers to read the Lavoisier statement of 2000 (!), then they say that Kyoto is a threat to sovereignty (true, see below) and they say that this threat is the most serious one since 1942 (which may be true; I don’t know much about Australia, but you are pretty independent).
Under Kyoto, given Australian law, Australia grants control of CO2 emissions to an international body, and therewith Australian energy and industrial policy. That is indeed a loss of sovereignty, which should not be suffered lightly.
By the way, in European law, international environmental treaties can be ignored at will. The EU did not give up any sovereignty by signing Kyoto.
Observa : How does Mr Rann propose to reduce emissions by 40% of 1990 levels (which could be 50% of 2007 levels by the sound of it)
In Victoria we have advertisements showing black balloons as a proxy for Co2 which is a little difficult to capture on film. Can’t say if this is having any effect.
It would seem that the only way to achieve the reductions is to double the price of energy.
JQ, I know we discussed this at length the last time around. I also know that you are repeating the same error of diagnosis. Fundamentally, you feel entitled to use “invasion” sloppily, based on the consequences to Australians, with no regard for actual events and processes. I have been very careful to make clear that infiltration and incursions were serious possibilities; I hope nobody thinks that those are any less serious. Hey, the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks that way, as did Ireland to the Normans (with a repeat under their heirs and successors).
You really should not let “invasion” stand, unless you are willing to admit that you are using the term so loosely that it really only has sentimental value and no technical significance at all. Either use some other terminology, or risk devaluing language and crying wolf for when you really need precise tools for understanding. (This is why one shouldn’t call current events in Iraq “civil war”, by the way – that part comes later, just as a civil war came to pass in Ireland and in Angola after the jockeying for position ended with the withdrawal of the occupiers; what will they call that civil war then, if they have already used up the term?)
PML, I’m not sure whether our disagreement is semantic or factual. I say that assuming Australia had been defeated in New Guinea, the Japanese would have pressed on to occupy parts of Northern Australia, using them as a basis for attacks aimed at forcing Australia out of the war, breaking our alliance with Britain and the US, and ensuring the installation of a government compliant with Japanese demands. That doesn’t sound like “infiltration” or “incursion” to me. But if, as you say, the conquest of the Byzantine Empire and of Ireland was achieved without invasion, then maybe our disagreement is semantic and we simpy speak different dialects of English.
Richard, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m dealing with a troll who has somehow assumed your identity. Line up with the Lavoisier Group, Singer and Seitz if you want, and repeat the bogus talking points of the US right (about Gore for example), but don’t complain when you’re lumped in with these guys.
John Q: You can group me with whomever you like.
I think that Lavoisier has a fair point. International environmental treaties have an impact on sovereignty, and that impact should be included in the cost-benefit analysis, as should be the fact that the sovereignty impact is not the same in different legal systems.
The fact that I think that Lavoisier has a fair point, does not imply that I think that everything that Lavoisier says is fair.
In a normal conversation, I would not add the previous sentence — but there are people on this blog who need everything spelled out, and then they still do not understand.
So Richard… what you’re trying to say is that you agree with everything Lavoisier has ever said and that you also believe in clubbing baby seals, are a KKK anarcho-satanist and participate in human sacrifices?
I mean … you must be evil. Perhaps possessed? Or maybe just delusional? But fear not — you can be saved. Just accept Kyoto as your lord and saviour. Praise be unto Renewables, peace be upon them.
John H: Exactly right, but you forgot that I can also have a normal conversation with Tim Curtin.
Only it wasn’t nearly as humorous back before you’d honed your skills.
Richard, please the court, are there any of David Duke’s teachings you’d like to go on record as supporting? Surely it can’t all be wrong and we mustn’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Can we start back at first principles: what is the threat to sovereignty and how is this bad?
I don’t feel at all represented by my political masters right now. I can’t see how ratifying an international treaty that involved other countries as well as Australia diminishes anything. Australia is party to many many international treaties, I don’t see our sovereignty as threatened one iota.
Pr Q says:
On a more ideological note I think the climate change debate shows the disaster of right-wingers who masquerade as conservatives. The mischief of this identification was demonstrated when right-wing revolutionaries hi-jacked the US conservative movement to promote radical social change in the ME.
Right-wing ideologues consistently line up with the rich and powerful, the Alpha-males. The latter are hooked into the petrochemical industry, which has always had a reputation for ruthless exploitation. So it is not surprising to see a right-wing eminence grise attached to meterological denialists.
Conservatives, by contrast, simply want to conserve the good. Whether the good be ecological, geneological or sociological. This is in contrast to “constructivists”, who want to construct the good. And “destructivists” who simply want to raise hell.
Prince Charles has shown that it is possible to be an ecological and sociological conservative without being terribly right-wing. No wonder the editorial board of the Australian hate him so. Many of our ideological problems would be solved if conservatives started acting as such.
So why do denialists still exist?
There was a really good article on the climate change denialists in the Observer on the weekend. The article was denouncing the ridiculous ‘documentary’ called ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ that screened recently. But it raised a really vaid point on why denialists still exist – and I think you could probably summarise it by saying saying that the denialists exist to serve as a counterpart to the very left wing grops who see climate change as a tool to achieve social objectives. JQ posted on this a week or so back.
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2026125,00.html#article_continue
I think the masses are now convinced that GW is real and imminent issue – there is definitely enough sentiment to support government initiatives to curb GG emissions, and even enough broad-based support so that individuals ‘do their bit’. However, the masses are not about to support measures that significantly impact standards of living, and are not going to follow the Bob Browns of world into some form of pre-industrial age communal living.
SO like in most things in life, when a group of extremists exist – these usually spawn a group of extremists on the other side. Most of us in the middle simply shrug our shoulders and get on with life.
Andrew: Agreed. You do realise that you just accused John Q and co for being the cause of all denial.
Wilful: Lavoisier uses the word “threat”, not me. I said “impact”. My understanding of Australian law is that international environmental treaties are binding; if the government signs, it will have to implement the treaty. Therefore, signing a treaty reduces sovereignty, as Australia is less free to do what it wants. The difference between Kyoto and all previous treaties is that Kyoto is about energy, and therefore about everything — and the sovereignty price of this treaty is particularly high.
No Richard – I’ll John Q defend himself, but I think his position is pretty central on this one… he’s not one of the hairshirters. I am, however, accusing the left wing extremists for being the cause of denial. Frankly – when people like Bob Brown and Tim Flannery makes silly statements about shutting down the coal industry in three years, it does the environmental cause more harm than good – it just spurs the denialists into action.
Under Kyoto, given Australian law, Australia grants control of CO2 emissions to an international body, and therewith Australian energy and industrial policy. That is indeed a loss of sovereignty, which should not be suffered lightly.
By the way, in European law, international environmental treaties can be ignored at will. The EU did not give up any sovereignty by signing Kyoto.
i would like some support for this claim. to my knowledge, the reverse is true.
many (i’m not sure how many) european countries are (to varying degrees) monist, which means their legal systems tend not to distinguish between domestic and international legal sources, and treat it all as one big system of law. france, germany and italy are all (to greater or lesser degrees) monist with respect to treaties. this means that in each of these countries, treaties are binding domestically on ratification (there being no need for enabling legislation). indeed in domestic french law, even later inconsistant statutes do not override treaty provisions (which is significant in the context of loss of sovereignty).
on the other hand, australia (similarly to other common law countries) is dualist. domestic and international law are treated (for the purpose of domestic law) as independent systems of law. for treaties to create legal rights and duties in australian law, the provisions of the treaty need to have been legislated domestically. i.e., australia could ratify kyoto and then refuse to pass legislation to implement it (this would be problematic in international law, but for the purposes of domestic law is perfectly kosher), whereas a monist country could not do this.
so it is not correct to say that in ratifying kyoto australia would suffer a loss of sovereignty, although that would be a correct statement about several european countries.
incidentally, although the EU (through the EC) is a party to the kyoto protocol, in addition all countries that were members (at the time the EU joined) are also, individually, parties to Kyoto (so i’m not sure why it would matter what EU law says about international treaties).
Snuh: Correct.
However, in the EU, the government is above environmental law, not below. That is, one cannot sue the government for failing to meet its Kyoto targets, because this is not a matter of the courts. Only parliament can force the government to stick to its promises. So, in the EU, meeting Kyoto is a matter of political will, not a matter of law.
I’ve been told that this is not true in Australia. If a target is law, the only escape route is a new law.
In the EU, enforcement is an act of parliament, while in Australia, non-enforcement is an act of parliament.
The signatures of the EU countries on the Kyoto Protocol are aspirational, not binding in domestic law.