The Garnaut Review draft report has just come out. The site is clogged, but I’ve managed to get a copy of the report and press release (I’ve attached the latter here.
There’s a lot of discussion of the Murray Darling Basin where the worst-case projections are about as grim as they can possibly be. My UQ research group (Risk and Sustainable Management Group) did the economic modelling that translated the climatic projections into predicted changes in land and water use. There are big adverse impacts under most of the ‘business as usual’ scenarios. On the other hand, in the projections where CO2 concentrations are held to 450 ppm things aren’t bad, and even 550 ppm would still allow irrigation to continue.
More soon on the policy recommendations. Whether or not the government ultimately follows Garnaut’s proposed model, there’s no doubt that the Review has shifted the terms of debate substantially. Those (like the Federal Opposition) who are tempted to play the issue for short-term political gain will pay a big price in the end if they succumb to that temptation.
John Quiggin 
The problem is that if Australia does nothing -while the rest of the world does – we won’t pay pay much of a price. That’s why denialism is so tempting for demagogues.
They don’t have to deny anything to take the do-nothing position. If global emissions need to be cut by 50% or 80%, then Australia, responsible for about 1% of global emissions, could double its emissions or go to zero without changing anything. Since it’s ultimately all up to the big national emitters, why impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap upon ourselves? It’s an important question to answer.
Because, obviously, if everyone does nothing we’re all screwed.
LSADD,
That doesn’t answer mitchell’s question.
mitchell
as strongly as the Why should I? They won’t and It won’t happen to me syndromes are in the human psychological make-up, the bad neighbour and free rider social drives are as strong, if not stronger (depending on the weight of norms in play).
I can see it now. You live in a beautiful house, in a beautiful street, and you think that your neighbours who have rubbish up to and overflowing the fence are justified in not having to pay the unneccessary expense of a council clean-up. They only take up 1% of the street.
Or you’re with your signficant other in a swish restaurant and Mr Creosote, an impossibly fat man, waddles in, swears at the host, and vomits copiously into buckets. He eats an enormous meal, and finally, after delivering the immortal line “F*** off, I’m full!”, is persuaded to eat one last wafer-thin mint, whereupon he explodes, showering the restaurant with offal. Your reaction is not to join with your fellow diners in approbrium, but to justify his right to exercise his selfishness. He was only taking up 1% of the restaurant (before he exploded, perhaps).
FYI. Professor Garnaut will be hosting public forums from 7 to 11 July 2008 in cities around Australia for discussions with the community on the Draft Report (Brisbane – City Hall 11 July). The denialists at the ‘Courier-Mail’ seem to have missed this. So many reporters, such limited news. Book here:
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/public-forums
For example, this was reported online at 1:30pm at the ‘Courier-Mail’website:
“Ms Bligh said industry and the wider public should have their say on the report.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23968018-29277,00.html
No mention of the public forum. And this is supposed to be a ‘newspaper’. They decide what Queenslanders get to know about and what they don’t.
There are two fundamental requirements for a successful implementation of
a carbon tax:
(1) To be fair the funds raised from a carbon tax need be returned to the
population throw tax cuts and transfer payments.
(2) To aovid loss of export competitiveness exporters need to receive a
rebate for the carbon tax they have cumulatively paid. Likewise, imports
need to be charged with the equivalent carbon tax.
ETS systems dont provide the same level of funds to return to the
population. However, they do encourage renewable energy production and
consumption.
You can read more at my submission to the Garnaut Review, Topic 4 at
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/submissions-rd:-
low-emissions-energy-technologies
The proposition that “we won’t pay pay much of a price” whilst attractive may be false. If the USA gets on board and does “something” we could be out of step internationally and very visible.
Professor Garnaut implied in his ABC radio interview that a full emissions trading scheme was better than a carbon tax. He made this point by saying that a partial emissions trading scheme would be “no better than a carbon tax”. He then went on to say that you can do more things with a full emissions trading scheme than with a carbon tax.
I don’t understand why an emissions trading scheme would be better than a logically applied carbob tax or why it would be more flexible and more useful than a carbon tax regime combined with other targeted measures. Trading in permissions to generate negative externalities seems wrong in economic principle to me.
Trading properly applies to goods; things that people want. Negative externality problems (particularly the pollution of commons) are surely best dealt with by regulatory and/or tax regimes. This is because it will prove difficult to impossible in practice to put a cost on degrees of pollution in such a manner as to set prices accurately to give us the required degree of purity or non-pollution.
However, if we set the required degree of purity or non-pollution by regulation with reference to scientifically measurable standards then we set the standard at which industries must perform. They then perform to these standards or lose their manufacturing licence. The business discovers in practice the cost of compliance and factors that into its prices.
I admit this is a simplified argument and not directly applicable to CO2 driven climate change but I think you will understand the principles I am driving at. Of course, we will have transition and uncertainty issues with something as big as climate change where the current and ongoing situation is very complex.
The concerns I have with permits to pollute (in addition to the basic argument above) is that such a system is potentially open to all kinds of chicanery, manipulation and profiteering. I suspect for example that the proposed Garnaut model will see a transfer of windfall profits to major polluters. Large permits to pollute will be issued in the first two years to major polluters at essentially bargain basement prices. As the price goes up they will sell some of these for windfall profits. It’s essentially a large (barely) disguised subsidy to the dirtiest industries. If you are going to subsidise at all then wouldn’t direct subsidies to clean renewable power industries for example be more honest and logical?
Why does Garnaut favour this permits model? Does he really belive it is the absolute best model or does he simply pragmatically beleive it is the only game in town (due to the power of corporate business)? Can anyone explain it to me?
mitchell porter wrote:
Why should Germany impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
Why should California impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
Why should Britain impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
Why should France impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
Why should Japan impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
Why should Canada impose the meaningless expense of an emissions cap on themselves, they’re only ~2% of global emisssions?
…
Repeat 50 times and you end up with a fried planet.
Of all the arguments against acting on climate change, this is the weakest. The fact that its being run by the likes of McCrann and Wood is mind-boggling.
No its not. Its a question that doesn’t even need asking. If you need help, my six year old could explain why.
Roger, we’re not “1% of the street”, we’re 1% of the problem. If we act and others don’t, it will have meant nothing, and if they did act without us, further action on our part would be unnecessary. Therefore, Australia acting now can only be justified if it somehow contributes to everyone else taking action. And of course it does, but how it does so is what needs to be spelt out.
An ingenious way to justify ETS to skeptics would be for resulting government revenues to be put into a climate change adaptation fund. That way you promote mitigation (by setting a good example) and hedge against the possibility that the rest of the world fails to act, at the same time.
Ikonoclast Says:
Here’s what Garnaut says (p 294):
That is, we have a better idea about how much we want to reduce greenhouse emissions than we do about what it would cost to achieve those reductions, so therefore an absolute limit on emissions is better than a fixed price on emissions.
There are counterarguments to this, of course, but you asked for his explanation.
Here is a hypothetical: we are 1% of the “problem”, and use that as an argument against doing our part now. So over in New Zealand, they look at Aus and decide that since they are only say 0.25% (I don’t know the number, but this is a hypothetical, okay?) of the problem, maybe they shouldn’t bother either. Add up several more small countries and blam we reach say 15% of the world doing nothing.
So how does a country which is 8% of the problem react when they see 15% of the problem is being left in their lap? Hmmm.
Basically, the “only 1% of the problem” argument is flawed for several reasons already identified in this blog, but here is another: it assumes that human beings are not affected by the behaviour of others. If we adopt the do nothing since it doesn’t make a difference approach, other countries *will* react to that. Similarly, if we do something that honestly acknowledges Australia’s contribution to the problem, other people overseas will react to that too.
A world of self-interested individuals without society should be left back in history along with Thatcher’s 80s.
Hmmm, either Garnaut’s argument does not make logical sense or I do not understand some of his technical terms because I cannot make head nor tail out of his words as quoted.
SJ’s interpretation makes sense in its own right so I’ll take it as a summary of Garnaut’s words.
The interesting thing is that the current absolute limit on net anthropogenic greenhouse emissions should be a low or probably even negative number designed to plateau and then reverse the atmospheric CO2 concentration back to pre-industrial levels over an agreed reasonable time span. That should lead to some interesting costings! I imagine renewable energy and forest plantings would do very well under such a regime.
Of course, we can’t get to such a negative number instantly or even in a few decades. The problem is that we are so far into overshoot mode we are like an aircraft flying down a narrowing dead-end canyon with the treetop canopy arching overhead. We have three choices, tear our wings off, ditch on the rock floor or fly into the cumulo-granite at the end of the canyon.
I shouldn’t have cut Garnaut off where I did. I accidentally made it look like he’s saying that carbon taxes would be more efficient. He goes on to say:
Ikonoclast Says:
No, don’t do that yet. The report is quite complex, and I’ve only skimmed it. You should read it yourself.
Start with http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/ETSfactsheet/$File/ETS%20fact%20sheet.pdf
As of today coal State premiers and CEOs are suitably contrite but tomorrow I suspect it’s back to business. I don’t believe for example that Anna Bligh really thinks the Barrier Reef is doomed but that something will save the day.
A couple of things Garnaut says don’t ring true. We may be facing Malthusian limits not runaway economic growth. For example he says India’s per capita GDP will one day be higher than Australia’s. Maybe. Steep price rises for oil and gas could stymie global demand or prolong the current coal boom or it could all run out sooner than expected. Also some emissions scenarios should be considered dangerous; I believe James Hansen says 450 ppm will lead to natural feedback processes taking over. It’s learn-as-you-go with the possibility of crashing whatever path you take.
Donald, what on earth was wrong with “Thatcher’s 80’s?
Here are some comments on Chapter 12 (Towards Agreement on Global and National Emissions Limits). This chapter includes the comments on prices vs quantities discussed above.
Garnaut mentions the theory of prices vs quantities (Weitzman 1974) and mentions that this theory suggests that the likely cost getting the price wrong is greater than the likely cost of of getting the quantity wrong. Weitzman’s work suggests that whether to choose prices or quantities depends on how much marginal abatement costs go up compared to how much the social cost of carbon goes up. If marginal abatement costs go up faster then taxes are supposed to be better. My reading of Stern is that he thinks that over a substantial time period quantities work better than prices. It has been a while since I had a good look at Weitzman’s 1974 paper, but I recall that he makes an assumption that the uncertainties in costs and benefits are relatively small in order to do some sort of second order Taylor style expansion. Having read Weitzman’s 2008 work on uncertainty and catastrophic climate change I am not sure whether it is safe to make this assumption.
Garnaut then discusses the problem of arriving at an international agreement and concludes that regulating quantities (ie an ETS) is better for a bunch of different reasons. Garnaut discusses a model for an international agreement where countries are divided into developed countries, middle income countries, and poor countries. Garnaut then discusses in detail contraction-and-convergence, which he calls the ‘per-capita approach’.
I was disappointed that Garnaut did not mention what is probably the purest per-capita approach where all countries are allocated the same amount of per-capita emissions and countries which emit more purchase permits from countries which emit less. This approach has been discussed in a short paper Climate Change: Equity and Greenhouse Gas Responsibility Science 29 September 2000: Vol. 289. no. 5488, p. 2287 (probably paywalled)
This whole we are only 1% of the problem, however ill defined is missing another point… and that point is …
We are far more than 1% of internationally traded coal.
If we so choose, we have leverage.
But do we choose the thirty pieces of silver or do we choose salvation… a habitable planet?
We are also supposedly the “Saudi Arabia” of U2O8.
Discuss.
There is a strong argument to be made that public investment rather than price should be at the center of any strategy to fight climate chaos, though we still will need an emissions price. For what it is worth, I’ve made that argument in the latest issue of the left wing American monthly Z magazine.
http://www.zcommunications.org/zmag/viewArticle/18060
I think when great huge chunks of ice start sliding off the Greenland plateau into the sea and nations start to realise that all the Greenland ice will be gone by 2070 and the sea level will rise by 7 metres by the same date then they will realise this problem can’t be tackled by playing economic games with cap and trade.
Pr Q says:
The LN/P will fall into line with ETS. More so than the ALP did with the GST.
No doubt the LN/P will go into bat to get the best deal for the carbon-intensive minority groups, industrialists, miners and farmers. As they should – this is a representative democracy.
But I predict that the LN/P will substantially fall into line with most Garnaut report reccommendations. Certainly the basic implementation of the cap and trade carbone pricing scheme. They have already caved into Kyoto.
This is because the vast majority of the AUS populace are fair, reasonable and well-informed. And our political system reflects this.
The AUS party polity is subject to massive centripetal forces, leading to a what I call Great Convergence of both major parties towards reasonably populist polices. The ETS is a popular idea so eventually it will be a popular policy.
Of course that leaves open the issue of whether any democratic regulatory agency is prepared to set the carbon price high enough to sufficiently deter carbon use. The populace may talk Green with their hearts but vote Brown with their hip-pockets, putting in place largely symbolic pricing measures.
Or whether even drasticly lower carbon use will be sufficient to arrest the existing momentum towards a greenhousier climate. This appears to be Hansen’s position.
One does not have to be a delusionist to have ones doubts on that.
The only good thing I see coming out of this is that corporate capitalism will not need to be destroyed by revolution. It is going to destroy itself. Let’s hope the remnant of humanity can salvage something and build a new and better system.
“Because we are only 20 million, we can have no effect” – no. Because I am an Australian, my change in habits will have much more effect than that of an individual in China.
We need to consider personal footprints, not national ones.
Sea level rise may be the first big problem.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-on-the-edge-466818.html
Catastrophic release of sea bed methane clathrates will probably be the killer blow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_Gun_Hypothesis
Lord Sir Alexander “Dolly” Downer Says: July 4th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Its not as if world history is not replete with instances of “everyone [doing] nothing” with an “all screwed” world resulting. That was the story of man prior to the evolution of civil society and establishment of state.
But even political civilization did not stop the urge in man to do nothing or get up to no good.
The “we are 1% of the problem” argument maybe selfish and short-sighted. But it is not a stupid point. Ignorance of the game-theoretic implications may lead to public policy failure. At the heart of public goods provision is the problem of solving the free-riding prisoners dilemma problem. (See Hobbes social contract in theory and the Federalist papers in practice.)
Democratic theory heroicly assumes that the morality of the average well-informed voter is substantially above that of a crook. If not then we are all sunk (swim together or sink).
It may well be that the 1% position prevails and no ETS is established. (I dont think so.) The USA might not have got off the ground. (Just as a United States of Africa or Arabia has never got off the ground.) The getting of political wisdom is not inevitable.
But I believe that is is probable. Which implies that the ecological crisis creates a golden political opportunity, both the Left in particular and global governance movement in general.
The establishment of a global carbon regulating agency with teeth is a proto-world govt, with decidedly Left-wing orientation. You can see that in Garnauts reccomendations for Kaldor-Hicks compensations to losers.
(Being half-Italian and a Machiavellian I feel a pang of sympathy for the sidelinging of Pareto.)
By threatening the Opposition (those who are tempted to play the issue for short-term political gain will pay a big price in the end if they succumb to that temptation) JQ continues the blame game that Rudd has supposedly ended.
The recent COAG agreement on the MDB was a harmonious, cooperative agreement to do what? – as Rudd said on the 7.30 report
“The only good thing I see coming out of this is that corporate capitalism will not need to be destroyed by revolution. It is going to destroy itself”
Ikon, apart from the odd inevitable loser, international corporate capital will make an absolute bundle out of this monumental Keynesian stupidity. They’re fair salivating at the thought of finding the next big thing to pour all that central bankers’ funny money into, now they’ve lost interest in the other outlets for it all(barring commodities of course) What they don’t use to speculate in permits like taxi plates, they’ll pour into places like ET to grow ethanol and claim more brownie points to boot. They’re going to have a bonzer field day with it all. The initial phase is of course the special pleading and economic rent seeking to get the permits as cheap as possible. Then the fun of private taxing really begins.
If you don’t believe me here’s a bunch of Keynesians squabbling over their latest monumental stupidity-
‘A WEAKER US dollar cannot be blamed for soaring oil prices as policymakers around the world tussle with the twin specters of rising inflation and slowing growth, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said overnight.
Some of the world’s leading oil producers and market analysts say the weak US dollar is a key factor spurring many dollar-denominated commodities — including oil — to record highs, pushing the cost of living higher across the world.
It is rare for the US government to say anything about the greenback beyond its mantra that it believes in a strong dollar, but developed nations are ramping up the rhetoric in an effort to get oil producers to increase supply and help tame inflation.
“The dollar has had a very small impact,� Mr Paulson told reporters in London, after a meeting with top British bankers and British finance minister Alistair Darling.
“Take a look, the dollar has depreciated roughly 24, a little bit less than 25 per cent, since February 2002. Oil has gone up well over 500 per cent. It’s gone up in every currency.�
The greenback is currently languishing near record lows against the euro after a run of aggressive interest rate cuts from the US Federal Reserve and worries over US economic growth.
Oil prices hit a fresh record high above $US145 a barrel overnight. Prices have doubled in the past year.
Inflation has now taken top billing in most central bankers’ deliberations, with markets expecting higher borrowing costs despite sharply slowing growth in Europe and the United States.
Central bankers in Europe have said one factor also helping to boost commodity prices skywards is the policy of fast-developing economies in the Asia and the Middle East of pegging their currencies to the dollar.
Those pegs have triggered a more expansionary monetary policy than might be necessary — as falling interest rates in the United States have been mirrored to track a weaker US dollar — helping to spur growth and consequently demand for commodities.
Mr Paulson said, however, that market fundamentals were to blame.
“I believe that although there may be a number of factors with regard to oil, the predominant factor by far is supply and demand, is the fact that global production and capacity hasn’t increased appreciably over the last 10 years and the demand has continued to grow and inventories are at low levels,� he said.
“Only if you acknowledge the issue are we going to be able to deal effectively with finding a solution.�‘
The shorter Keynsian mindset- It was a great plan apart from those pesky market fundamentalists and inferior Keynesians, so obviously the latter should be excluded to simplify the blame game in future. The remain forever priceless!
Let’s put moral or ethical arguments to one side for a moment.
The proposition that the rest of the world, or even the developed world, would happily adopt stringent measures to combat global warming while allowing Australia a free ride cos, you know, we’re only 1% of the problem, is patently absurd.
The EU has already muttered about applying sanctions to countries that don’t join in the global campaign. By 2020 if not sooner any country that chooses not to adopt agreed international conventions is likely to have a very rough time of it.
As a confirmed sceptic who sees the world as having cooled slightly in the last decade and the ocean levels not going anywhere, I consider our 1% of 3% total ACO2 [0.03%] pretty miniscule.
With about 15% of the world’s emitters trying to do something about ACO2 and failing miserably and the other 85% BAU and increasing considerably I can only ask, do you really believe we can have any effect?
Even if the whole population committed suicide overnight?
Should we try it and see?
Do you think if we did this that they would bury us on the high moral ground?
That should be CO2 [not ACO2] on the second line,
sorry.
Why we must reduce coal exports
SP, you have raised an extremely important question which has been, surprisingly, dodged by many avowed environmentalists. I wasn’t even able to get clear statment from former Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett on this question. (See discussion in response to Larvateus Prodeo article Will “the great immigration debateâ€? take place? of 21 May 08.)
Any serious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must include a winding back of the rate of extraction and export of coal. We should certainly not be contemplating increases in the rate of exports and building infrastructure in order to facilitate that increase.
On 12 February 2007 last year when Greens Senator Bob Brown advocated that we plan to wind back our coal exports, he was savagely denounced by the Courier Mail and I assume the rest of the Murdoch newsmedia. The front page headline shrieked some like “This man wants to destroy 50,000 jobs!” beneath a photo of Bob Brown. Inside the story Kill coal off, says Bob was only slightly less hysterical. The effect of this, of course, was to preclude any calm discussion of this issue amongst the wider community. This is only one of almost countless illustrations of why the Murdoch Press is part of the problem and not part of the solution. They helped get us into the mess we are now in by denying the evidence of global warming for decades, the reckless encouragement of population growth both in Australia and abroad (at least, indirectly, by its support of President George W Bush who as cut funding to family planning aid to the Third World) and they certainly won’t be helping to get us out of the mess.
If we are sincere about cutting GHG emissions both here and in the rest of the World we have to plan to reduce our exports of coal. Carbon dioxide sequestration is clearly useless for all practical purposes, as the technology, and a systems to police it, even if they work, cannot possibly take effect for decades after which it will be too late, so this should not be held as an excuse not to reduce our exports. We should certainly not be contemplating increases in the rate of exports and building infrastructure in order to facilitate that increase (a barrow which the Murdoch media never loses an opportunity to push these days). Some links, which may be of interest include: http://www.risingtide.org.au, candobetter.org/about#coalcandobetter.org/NoMoreCoalExports
SD says the world has cooled over the last decade! He’s kidding, right? I mean the Arctic looks likely to be ice free this or next northern summer, huge pieces of ice shelf are breaking off Antartica and galciers are retreating at rate unseen before according to all geological records and all this is caused by… wait for it… the earth cooling! Wow, how could I get it so wrong as to believe the science and the real world evidence. Thanks SD for putting me right m8!
Professor Garnaut says our economy, our living standards, are what our parents would have dreamt of. Do we want to ignore the huge risk that we could give our kids a country and economy you’d have nightmares about?
Under business as usual: agricultural sector pretty much dead, tourism industry dead, coastal communities exposed and rampant dengue fever.
A curious thing is that while the Coalition here are trying to undermine action to prevent dangerous levels of climate change (and how trivial they sound), the British Conservative Party is considering adopting as policy a ban on new traditional coal-fired power stations.
Iko.
Check the best temp data available for the last 10 years, check the 200 year tide gauges, polar ice is probably beyond understanding and SEQ temp max at my place today was 12c.
Not too much to get heated about.
Pr Q says:
Congrats to Pr Q for doing his intellectual bit to help shift that debate. At the beginning of the decade I was something of a fence-sitter about ecologically conserving policies, not to mention a Green-sneerer at ecologically conserving politics. But economists such as Pr Q have brought me to my senses.
Pr Q says:
Its true that the LN/P has dragged its feet on the ETS it is not true to say that its head has been completely in the sand. The first PM to commit AUS to an ETS was not K Rudd. It was…[drum roll]…J. Howard.
Before all pre-Rudd Green history is slipped down a memory hole we should pause to remember JWH’s role last-minute conversion to conserving policy ABC Posted Tue Jul 17, 2007 6:10am AEST:
No doubt it was too little, too late. But it is neither fair nor true to demonise the LN/P as greenhouse delusionalists or obstructionists. Not when state ALP govts are in the van of boosting and flogging coal-fired power generators.
And the fed ALP’s credibility on curbing AUS’s greenhouse emissions depends on whether or not it goes ahead with the insane plan to bring 400,000+ extra GHG emitting people a year into the country (incl. perm. residents, working visas, guest workers, student visas, tourists and kiwis).
Nature does not care about our per capita emissions. And “nature cannot be fooled” (Feynman).
Kate Says: July 5th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I dont think that the LN/P are the only party living in sin when it comes to GHG emissions. The ALP is split b/w greenish fed exec and brownish states. The COAG meeting barely papered over the cracks.
The fed ALP can pride themselves on their Greeness, as they maintain and promote the LN/P’s legacy committment to a “cap and trade” policy. (That legacy was hardly “undermining action to prevent climate change”.) Mainly the LN/P was focused on constraining up-front balance sheet costs. Someones got to do it.
But the state ALP govts are going gang-busters over their mostly coal-powered generators, freeway extensions and coal exports:
Costa is a bona-fide climate change delusionist who wants to boost coal to flog his generators a the best possible price. And Bracks has just commissioned a new coal-fired power generators.
And the fed ALP wants to bring in up to half-million extra greenhouse emitters next year. Last year the LN/P administered a record record 318,500 person increase in AUS pop. But this year the ALP plans to see that and raise it by another 100,000+.
And thats not counting all the special 4** worker visas, guest workers, tourists and kiwis. All of them emitting more GHG in their destination here they were in their point of origin.
This is logistical, ecological and sociological madness. Anyone who is serious about reducing AUS’s GHGs needs to confront this issue. Not just shove it under the politically correct carpet. Or go along meekly with the labour and consumer demands of the Business Council, poperty developers etc.
Restrain Garnaut, we need flat screen monitors urgently. Hang on a bit that’s not quite right…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jul/03/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange?gusrc=rss&feed=environment
Perhaps the question is – will we be committing suicide by failing to act on climate change. Certainly the rest of the world will have a serious problem seeing a major exporter of coal and gas as proactive on the issue, especially if Australia continually absolves itself of all responsibility for the GHG emissions that come from exported coal and gas. Openly and deliberately thumbing our noses at future international agreements to act on the issue would undercut Australia’s minimal credibility on this issue and probably leave us open to trade sanctions. Of course a policy of doing nothing tends to be pushed by those like S.D. who are happy to accept uncritically the misinformation that abounds in the mainstream media and won’t accept the validity of the remarkable advances in scientific understanding of climate processes and human influences on them. ie if you think climate change doesn’t exist, won’t hurt us if it does, can’t be stopped or slowed, is part of a plot to undermine prosperity or scam Reseach money, BAU looks just fine. But the science is saying (as Pr. Garnaut has pointed out) Australia will be effected worse than any other developed nation. The costs of doing nothing could well prove to be the equal of whole populations suiciding overnight. Putting no brakes at all on world wide GHG emissions (ie.continuing accelerated growth in emissions) still looks to be a more damaging course for Australia than slowed growth, which still looks more damaging than stopped or reducing emissions. If the latter looks to be next to impossible, it should not serve as an excuse to accelerate the growth of GHG emissions.
That said, the likelihood that there will be strong international efforts before we see clear, uncontrovertable and disastrously damaging and costly effects of climate change is low – and is probably going to remain low even after. Real inroads need technologies that either don’t exist or are unable to compete against stuff you can dig up in bulk and burn so long as they don’t have to pay for the external costs that come with it. I think solar will get cost competitive enough for major deployment and grids will get wider and better able to manage intermittent sources, but storage technology for day/night sunny/cloudy load levelling and for transport and agricultural use is badly lagging. Particularly for rapid and widespread deployment any time soon.
It’s not like this is news, but we’ve had a decade or more of one gov’t and probably this one too doing as little as possible to upset the onging use and profitability of fossil fuels. At best Rudd will (after extended procrastination) lay some groundwork for action some time in the more distant future, making out that what little is done is much more than it is.
Not to sound too cynical but I think we’ll see subsidised Coal to Oil production way ahead of policies that reduce the use of fossil fuels – insuring a supply of oil being seen as urgent and Climate Change as less urgent.
Jack Strocchi,
I am not sure why you are going to such lengths to defend John Howard who, apart from George Bush, did more than any other world leader to delay the necessary fight against global warming, but you are spot on when you write:
The fact that almost all of the supposed political dissenters in this country are silent on this most critical of issues reveals to me that they are seriously wanting.
dagget #35:
Hear! Hear! Tax the filthy stuff at the port I say.
If the coal is sold to a country that doesn’t put a price on carbon emissions, we should tax it at whatever Australia’s CO2/tonne rate is. So, if one tonne of coal results in ~3 tonnes of CO2 (depending on carbon content of the coal), and Australia taxes CO2 at $100/tonne, then we slap on a $300/tonne coal tax at the port.
You deal in death, you pay the price. Its not like the coal miners are struggling for a buck at the moment!
After following most of the arguments on this thread I cannot help feel depressed. It has always seemed to me that emission trading is like getting people to voluntarily tax themselves, which few will do. I don’t pretend to have a solution, although I am not against Garnaut or his conclusions.
I wonder if there are some intermediate options to icnrease pressure on high CO2 polluters. One approach might be “name and shame” – just as some ethics groups have run on issues liek child labour. Why can’t we list the amount of CO2 produced by each corporation, so that consumers can take it into account when making purchasing decisions? Business might be more willing to act if it felt that the alternative was damaging (their business).
*Prof. Garnaut and Contraction & Convergence.*
He does discuss C&C in detail. He also gives the reference as: –
http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/ICE.pdf
Links to the actual C&C methodology and its history are retrievable through this link.
These resources are what Prof Garnaut and his authoring team based their views of C&C on.
GCI is grateful to them, as it is this actual methodolgy that underlies the more slogan/jargon-esq constructions that are sometimes put upon it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Full Report at: –
http://www.gci.org.uk/Garnault/Climate_Change_Review_Draft_Report_040708.pdf
Full C&C section at: –
http://www.gci.org.uk/Garnault/Garnaut_C&C.pdf
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daggett #35 and carbonsink #44, I strongly agree that we should tax the coal that we export. In his press club address Garnaut rightfully stated that
In my opinion the decision by Australia to continue to expand coal production is a decision to be a free-rider in this prisoner’s dilemma.
Garnaut’s approach to this issue seems to be to expand RD&D into carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. I have concerns that there is a risk of policy towards CCS being based too much on picking it as a ‘winner’. I am probably less optimistic than Garnaut about the likelihood of widespread CCS being economically deployable. I hope that I am wrong.
If CCS RD&D is a form of assistance to coal exporters, they should be footing the bill – they can certainly afford to.
Socrates Says: July 6th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Income tax? GST?*
* world record briefest strocchi comment
daggett Says: July 6th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I described our erstwhile PM’s contibution to policy as “JWH’s role last-minute conversion to conserving policy…No doubt it was too little, too late.” If this is “going to such lengths to defend John Howard” then perhaps John Howard does not need many attackers.
I just want to set the record straight: Howard was not a climate change delusionist, he did put forward a fairly generous water conservation policy and ended his premiership with the announcement of an ETS.
Not good enough. But it is false and unfair to describe this politician as the one who “more than any other world leader to delay the necessary fight against global warming”.
“I just want to set the record straight: Howard was not a climate change delusionist …”
Right, he just acted almost exactly like one until a last-minute and blatantly insincere change of course.
The most reasonable explanation for Howard’s behaviour seems to me to be that he was indeed a denialist but saw the need to dissemble for political advantage.