The Sydney Morning Herald interviewed 35 economists and found 30 of them favored carbon price (tax, ETS or some mixture) over Direct Action. It quotes Chris Caton as saying “Any economist who didn’t opt for emissions trading “should hand his degree back”, says Chris Caton.
I’d take that a step further.
Anyone with a natural science degree in any field will find plenty of examples of denialist lies on everything from basic physics to bushfires. More generally, denialists have attacked the entire scientific enterprise with absurd conspiracy theories. No-one who endorses these attacks, explicitly or tacitly, deserves to call themselves a scientist.
Similarly, anyone with a degree that includes even minimal exposure to statistics should understand that denialists were misusing the concept of statistical significance when they claimed, a few years back there had been no significant warming since 1995. Subsequent hacks have had to move the goalposts forward to 1997. And that’s just one example of the cherrypicking dishonesty rife on the denialist side of the debate. So, anyone who claims to be a sceptic and hasn’t distanced themselves from claims like these should send back their math/stat degree.
Then there are those with university degrees, but without the training in science, maths or economics to assess the key issues independently. Anyone with a university education ought to be able to recognise the limits of their own expertise, and to be able to distinguish between bogus sources of information and the products of genuine peer-reviewed research. If they prefer the kind of nonsense circulated on denialist websites to the conclusions of scientific research, they should hand in their degrees and instead obtain one of the many qualifications available, for a modest fee and no work, on internet sites like those listed here.
John Quiggin 
Hi John,
I’m not sure that when “Dr Chris Caton said any economist who did not opt for emissions trading ‘should hand his degree back'” this says much about the climate science itself (where I’m with you) than on the cloying orthodoxy of much of the economics profession.
Given the choice between a market-non-solution and a non-market solution, the economics profession would still by and large choose the market one for ideological reasons, regardless of probability of climate effectiveness in either case. Which should give the rest of us pause about accepting their unanimity on this point.
Abbott’s ‘alternative’ is a joke, but the answer for the rest of us lies not in simply inverting that, but rather in recognising the establishment debate for what it is: a sideshow and a distraction from their total unwillingness to countenance genuine direct action on the issue.
Cheers,
Marc.
Before targeting denialist ‘scientists’ there are two other groups I’d like to see scrutinised more in public:
1. Those curious economists who claim their perspective/social science is as hard as physics (which it isn’t) but then go on to deny climate change and limits to growth are based on hard realities – or perhaps more importantly – the full ramifications of CC and LtG concepts i.e. that growth involving increased material wealth is finished already, after fully costing/ allowing for extraction costs, energy needs and long term sustainability of current practices.
This latter is something even most progressive economists still don’t yet get.
2. ABC current affairs who continually promote a bogus ‘balance’ between climate scientists and climate deniers. I’m specifically thinking of the leading questions and stacked panels characteristic of Q&A which promotes itself as ‘public debate’ as though public schoolboy sophistry is the way to deal with these vital issues. And of course the business reports which still don’t see no link in their operation between environment society and capitalism or the flaws in growth based capitalism.
[ While we cant expect anything better from the commercial stations their tabloid style is more about selling air time through sensationalism – and they do need to eat. But the ABC make high claims and should offer better in the way of analysis and be held to account.]
I’m no economist, but it seems obvious to me that a price on carbon is the most effective solution.
The only direct action that I could countenance is an immediate ban on new coal fired power stations, followed in a few years by a ban on new gas fired power stations. Together with phase out strategies for both.
But I don’t think this is Tony’s idea of direct action…
One of the 2 economists who endorsed the Abbot plan has an article advocating inaction at Troppo. A number of commenters have cried out for one JQ to come and administer an appropriate smiting to the article. It may be time for you to leap on your white horse…
Given the publicly available information on the Direct Action plan, it involves a tax of about $3billion for carbon emission reduction and other environmental improvement objectives. It is not clear how much of the $3billion will be allocated to carbon emission reductions. But on the face of it, it is clearly a form of tax (planned expenditure which has to be paid for). Its disadvantage over a carbon tax on emissions or cap and trade (ETS) is that the general tax payer rather than the relevant decision makers have to pay the tax. Direct Action is not obviously incentive compatible.
Some confusions about the ETS seems to linger on.
Cap and trade (ETS) is not a ‘market solution’. The important non-market decision is the determination of the cap and this parameter value should be determined by scientists knowledgeable in the field.
Trading emission permits introduces a degree or flexibility in the electricity and other forms of energy production sector, relative to an explicit carbon tax on emissions, which may be more important in some local (country) economies than in others.
What should have been very easy (an appropriate pigovian tax on fossil fuels) has been made out to be very hard. This alerts us to the fact that the Tory establishment and the gutless, traitorous modern Labor parties (Oz, UK) and Dems (USA) never had the slightest intention to do anything about GHG emissions.
The first conference was in Rio in 1992. The first Kyoto Protocol was 1997. Now it’s 2013. The world has done nothing. Sweet F.A. as the saying goes. Global emissions have gone up and up with maybe a little dip in the GFC.
It’s interesting how this modern system, late stage capitalism, has an uncontrollable (by humans) momentum. However, natural limits will stop it in its tracks.
@Marc Newman
It’s true that the instant reaction of most economists would be to favor a market-based mechanism and that some would favor it regardless of the evidence. On the other hand, economists who don’t share these prejudices (me, for example) have looked hard at the issue and concluded that a market-based approach, backed up by appropriate regulations and interventions is superior to a policy based mainly on “Direct Action”. So, I think it’s fair to say that an Australian economist who claims to favor Direct Action is almost certainly in favor of doing nothing, and is backing Abbott on that basis.
@John Brookes
I couldn’t agree with you more, John Brookes. And I couldn’t disagree with John Quiggin any more than I already do. I absolutely accept the facts of climate change, but I haven’t seen the slightest evidence that Emissions Trading is the right solution.
I’m loathe to self-link, but I did blog on this exact issue a few months ago:
And as I have faux pas’d already, I will even self-quote:
Emissions trading is a scam proposed by unscrupulous American corporate monoliths who saw a way of making more money out of a problem that they themselves were creating
Hi John,
I’m not disputing that those economists backing Abbott are doing so in significant part on a tacit (or not so tacit) “do nothing” basis. What I am arguing is that the various mechanisms proposed for pricing carbon so as to induce a change in boardroom and consumer behaviour get caught between the Scylla of ineffectiveness – low pricing so as to make them more ‘achievable’ or ‘palatable’ – and the Charybdis of social regressiveness and economic dislocation – high enough pricing to achieve change in the requisite timeframe, but in consequence driving down living standards and probably creating recessionary market shocks.
Given the scale of the technical and engineering challenges of transitioning energy generation, industrial retooling, addressing a bunch of problematic low turnover capital elements like housing stock, etc, I think it is a fantasy that any politically possible tax or trade scheme could achieve those outcomes before we all cook. And as we are seeing in Europe today, the cronyism that inherently goes along with turning these schemes over to the Wall Street types who delivered the sub-prime debacle, generates political backlash even from people predisposed initially to support them. Not to mention that (ahem) these schemes, without systematic price controls to prevent the passing on of costs to consumers, are inherently regressive to the extent that they are effective, often more so.
As a consequence, I think we need to see this as a special case of a more general problem: the retreat by the left from conceiving and aggressively advocating direct political solutions to various problems, and instead backing all manner of market faux-solutions that fit in with the increasingly unpopular diktats from the montpelerinist/chicagoist types, has left us intellectually disarmed in the face of capital.
Meanwhile, the rest of the population increasingly disengages from them and their political tools. I’m not sure many people outside the economists club is going to be politically convinced in any durable or passionate way that the solution to “the greatest market failure the world has seen” is … more marketeering.
Curious as to your thoughts on this.
Cheers,
Marc.
@Marc Newman
Hi Marc,
Interesting theory that you raise: the retreat of Leftist thinking. The Guardian had an article today along those lines:
I just feel like taking those “30 esteemed economists” and banging their heads together. Of course emissions trading is the best solution, if you are an economist looking for work with one of the big financial houses. The simple fact that the system will be rife with corruption (both political and financial) is shrugged off as something to be ignored.
Cheers
@Tim
sorry I seem to be stuffing up links. I don’t usually comment on blogs, but this post by Quiggin got my blood up
A condition on carbon pricing I think is that it should be done properly (or be ‘stringent’ in academic-speak) or not at all. Think of the Mexican Wave done by an Australian soccer crowd as opposed to say actual Mexicans. One lot clearly does it better.
If I recall the original Treasury modelling on carbon tax had some rubbery assumptions. When they said ‘least cost adjustment’ I think they meant buying clean development type offsets via the EU market. I believe those offsets are now largely regarded as a scam. Treasury also assumed that carbon belt tightening would be recurring not one-off. The ~7% reduction in power sector emissions could have been initial bill shock plus several other factors unlikely to be repeated. Consumers may now have settled into the new price regime. However in an ETS the total allowable emissions should decrease in steps so the pressure is not only ongoing but combines transport emissions with power sector. I think that is better than carbon tax if done right.
We’ve had a year of experience of a price above $20/tonne. Despite Abbott’s desperate search, evidence of recessionary market shocks was pretty much non-existent. The revenue from the package was distributed in a way that ensured a net socially progressive outcome, and living standards have generally continued to increase.
Ideally, we ought to have started 10-15 years ago, and raised the price to something like $50 tonne now. There wouldn’t have been any significant economic difficulties. The problems are entirely political which isn’t to minimise them. Resistance by affected industries was inevitable. The fact that the issue became a leading battleground in the culture wars wasn’t and neither was the timing of the global financial crisis, though of course something of the kind was bound to happen sooner or later.
JQ@7 ” On the other hand, economists who don’t share these prejudices (me, for example) have looked hard at the issue and concluded that a market-based approach, backed up by appropriate regulations and interventions is superior to a policy based mainly on “Direct Action””
Mr Quiggin, respectfully, and Keeping in mind your post on naming the interactions between a person (a) who says government intervention to the point of a war economy is needed to deal with climate change and a person (b) who says a raft of interventions including but not restricted to mandating new more energy efficient cars and the banning of the beef (and/or dairy industry?) would be half way sufficient for dealing with climate change – Whereupon person a says people in general are not going to agree to accede to all of person b’s stated and unstated measures at all (and presumably this is why we need a war economy) – might you be willing to show us your workings in terms of coming to the conclusion re: a market-based approach (with unstated interventions) being superior – particularly in terms of whether this is because you think it would be of more efficacy in and of itself (there’s a term but I can’t remember what it is, sorry) – or because politically it would be unlikely for Anglophone especially but also other governments to commit to a non-market approach, and therefore arguing for a non-market approach is of no efficacy whatsoever?
Sorry if that’s an unclear question. I can try to rephrase it if it’s confusing….
Extracting what I think is the crucial point “whether this is because you think it would be of more efficacy in and of itself”
That’s what I think. I (and as far as I know, all economists who’ve looked at the issue) disagree with claims about the need for intervention on the scale of a war economy or similar. Here’s an estimate from 2006, which is still pretty much on the mark as far as I’m concerned
https://johnquiggin.com/2006/11/15/stern-on-the-cost-of-climate-stabilisation/
I’m about to read that now. But didn’t you disagree with his discount rate or something like that?
It’s hard not to notice that one of the 2 “economists” who supported the Coalitions policy works in your department, John.
On the face of it a market based trading system seems to be the most logical approach. However the devil is as always in the details and dealing with competing forces can be self defeating.
Direct action is not entirely without it’s attractions, the solar subsidy in NSW and elsewhere has resulted in a significant uptake and solar power is having a disruptive influence on the energy sector.
The EU has yet to deliver significant reductions in emissions that can be attributed to an emissions trading system, other factors appear to be involved in arriving at emission levels.
I would favour a govt imposed regulation on emissions rather than just leaving it to the market but finding a political party strong enough to deliver could be an issue.
@Evan
We’ve had words on the topic
@ZM
There was a disagreement. I was on Stern’s side. But even critics of Stern like Nordhaus and Weitzman agree on the desirability of strong action and market-based policies.
“John Quiggin 04.24.12 at 8:49 am
If you accept the standard parameters and a growth rate of 3 per cent, you get a real discount rate of 6 per cent. That means a dollar now is worth around $150 in 2100.
And, regardless of your growth rate projection, a life saved now is worth eight premature deaths in 2100.”
Do Stern and you accept standard parameters or disagree with them? I can’t read the economics papers very well, I don’t have that sort of education background.
@Tim The question wasn’t about ETS but about a carbon price. If you’re worried about financial sector rorts, you should like carbon taxes.
@ZM
We disagree with an assumption (inherent discounting) which gives these results when combined with the standard parameters.
@Marc Newman
This seems pretty misguided to me, and a bit too close to one of the climate delusionists’ talking points, i.e., that a price on C02 emissions has to substantially affect incomes in order for it to work. As with any government intervention in the market, a carbon price works through two channels: the income effect (reducing people’s income that they can use to ‘buy’ emissions-intensive goods and services) and the substitution effect (making emissions-intensive goods and services relatively more expensive compared to low-emissions goods and services). Transfers that neutralise the income effect don’t have any effect on the substitution effect.
@Alan
Smiting has been administered.
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2013/10/28/the-pragmatic-climate-policy-for-australia/#comment-513608
“It should stand firm globally, election after election in each of the countries” from the pragmatic climate policy…
Thinking of the Labor MP who quoted Harper Lee.
I don’t know enough of the facts to judge the article itself, but in terms of this specific part and taking it seriously, isn’t that really a constitutional issue?
I’m not sure about other jurisdictions, but in terms of Westminster countries with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, I think all of them have as well as their own constitutions the unwritten English/Great Brittish constitution.
Christopher Pyne and Tony Abbot profess their admiration for the Magna Carta (I’ve a strong suspicion they’d root for the barons) – but even here it’s (legally? I’ve no law knowledge) arguable that the Crown has and the bearer accepts in corronation a duty to future generations “Know that before God, for the health of our soul and those of our ancestors and heirs, to the honour of God, the exaltation of the holy Church, and the better ordering of our kingdom, at the advice of our reverend fathers ”
Would their be much constitutional material which would support a case for the Crown’s responsibility to care for it’s vast lands (waste lands/crown land) for the countrie’s heirs?
I’ll leave judgement if my esteem to others but I was one of the economists surveyed for the piece in questions and, given the question that i was asked i definately came down on the carbon price side…but, while possibly setting myself up for a kicking, I feel I need to clarify a few things
1) I much prefer a carbon tax to ETS as I think that taxes interact with what we used to call ‘complementary measures’ and now call ‘direct actions’ much more effectively
2) While I stand by the work that The Australia Institute has published on the likely flaws with the Direct Action policy, as proposed, I can’t get as excited about bagging it in theory as many others.
Put simply, the Contacts for Clisure that the environment movement once loved was ‘direct action’ as defined by Greg hunt. Policies such as the CEFC, RET and household insulation can, in some sense, be described as ‘direct action’ though not in the terms favoured by the coalition to date.
Of course we need a carbon price, but the logic for its removal is political not economic. The question for those (and I definitely include me) interested in tackling cliamte change is whether we spend 3 years mourning the loss of the carbon price or simultaneously work to improve the direct action policy (eg paying to end a lot of marginal logging would deliver big emission reductions and a bunch of spillover benefits) while building political acceptance of the need to go far beyond 5 per cent.
Again, I’m clearly pro carbon price, and preferably a carbon tax, but I don’t think the ‘either/or’ debate between pricing and ‘direct action’ is intellectually or politically very helpful…just saying 🙂
In contrast to explicit carbon pricing Obama has proposed a new benchmark of 1,000 lbs (hey they could have used bushels) of CO2 per Mwh of electricity generated.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/20/us-usa-energy-emissions-idUSBRE98J03A20130920
That lets in renewables, nukes and combined cycle gas but not coal or open cycle gas though there are transitional clauses and the CCS-ready ploy. If passed by Congress it should mean no new coal plants in the US. Meanwhile regions within the US like California have their own ETS supposedly without the EU mistakes. The Corporate Averaged Fuel Economy (CAFE) benchmark will be about 50 mpg for a new compact car.
Couple of problems. The fracking boom which brought cheap natural gas appears to have peaked so coal is now cheapest for power generation. Americans also seem reluctant to drive small low powered fuel cars or pricey electric cars. The success or otherwise of these forms of ‘direct action’ in both the stationary and transport sectors needs to be judged a year or two from now. I suspect both could go the way of Obamacare.
@Richard denniss
I agree with most of this. There are plenty of things that can be packaged as Direct Action, and that would be a kind of price based policy. I made this point about the RET a while back.
@John Quiggin
Point taken, but I think that carbon price vs emissions trading: much of a muchness.
My point is that if we had faith in the market to deliver the solution, the easiest political pathway is to simply ban the burning of coal at a particular date in the future. The market then solves the problem of how to replace coal.
I would like to hope important pollution problems, such as ghg emissions, other air pollution and noise pollution, are not politicised along some ‘left’ vs ‘right’ line. Except for extreme cases, the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ are political categories apparently suitable for expert discussions while important pollution (negative externality) problems are of interest to everybody, including those who have no clear notion of the political ‘left’ and ‘right’.
In yesterday’s Q&A program the policy of ‘the user pays’ was flagged. A corollary to this position is ‘the polluter pays’ – in contemporary ‘orthodox’ economics (as distinct from 19th century naive market economics).
Let climate science be settled. How much will global warming cost is the correct question for policy debate.
The chances of India, China and the rest of the Third world agreeing for forego or even slow economic development to fight global warming is zero even before you consider the international collective action, verification and free rider problems.
Adaptation and richer is safer are the only games in town. Climate change will be mostlly a threat to the poor in poor countries.
Tom Schelling posed this question:
@Jim Rose
If you have a degree in economics, hand it back.
@32 Jim Rose
“Adaptation and richer is safer are the only games in town. Climate change will be mostly a threat to the poor in poor countries”
Quite seriously – do you have a sense of morality/ ethics at all? From this I’m thinking no, but…
Generally people don’t entirely think of living as a game (I hope?).
What measures of adaptation do you propose? Obviously you would need a cascading plan of measures to implement as the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more severe over time.
Richer may be safer – but exactly how do you propose to stay rich? Will everyone in the world be rich miraculously? do you have a plan to keep your wealth and to protect you and your wealth from the potentially rebellious poor here and abroad?
You admit that climate change is a threat – I presume if you’re writing about it here you also admit it is human induced, and I guess you would recognise that not all humans act to induce it at the same rate – the rich (supposing they don’t just keep their gold quietly under their bed) act to induce it substantially more than the global poor – whom you think are most likely to suffer the consequences. Your statement then reads as if you are arguing that it is right or good (if you have any sort of concept of good and bad at all? if it’s all a game perhaps not…) for the rich to knowingly act in ways that will directly threaten the poor physically (climate change is obviously a bodily threat not a rhetorical one).
Re: family farmers – perhaps you haven’t noticed the global enclosures of peasant land, the struggles of small scale farmers to stay on the land, and the huge increases in industrial and corporate agriculture over your lifetime? The farmer who lives on the same farm where they were born is not especially the norm – and regardless probably had siblings who had to live and work elsewhere.
And how in this counterfactual scenario was climate change induced given electricity and tractors and what not are supposed to retain their historical fact-fullness? Apparently this guy missed the time traveller stepping on a bug or whatever memo.
@Jim Rose
I hear what you say about climate change having the biggest impacts on the global poor. The point needs to be made, though, that where climate science is at its least settled, however, is what the negative impacts will be and where they will fall. Regional and indeed continental scale impact predictions are made with little confidence once the global temperature rise exceeds even 1.5 degrees. It is by no means certain that the northern hemisphere will benefit, for example, by permafrost melting even though it seems to offer the prospect of new and rich agricultural lands. The ecological response is unknown, since such rapid warming has not been experienced for a geological age. Just for a start, the behaviour of the insect population in such circumstances is unknown and may be devastating.
So, I’m not convinced that complacency by the wealthy is a rational response to the issue. There has to be a lot of wishful and magical thinking, too.
Oops, that second sentence has too many parenthetical conjunctions.
@Jim Rose
You seem to expect climate change will be gentle and incremental. If you have 20 or more years to live you are in for nasty shock.
@John Quiggin
Its a question of time, something economics is often not very good at. We *didn’t* start 10-15 years ago, did we? That means in order to hold the temperature rise to somewhere near the ‘tolerable’ 2degree point, we have only a limited window within which to act. When you factor that to the sorts of timetables you need, the market mechanisms need a correspondingly greater impulse to change. I’ve seen modelling which suggests the figure would need to be in excess of $80, *now* to be getting even close (I’d like to post a ref, but can’t find it to hand). The point I’d make is that the higher the price, the higher the (at minimum) short to medium term dislocation of prices. At current prices, the impulse to decarbonise is mild to say the least. But at the higher and *necessary* prices, we are looking at, to say the least a serious, what’s the euphemism, ‘adjustment’? More plainly, we’re looking at serious price shifts in a whole range of commodities, with all sorts of blowbacks up and down supply chains. If that’s not a recessionary driver, I don’t know what is.
We can’t talk about this stuff in such an abstract way – its not enough to show that *some* change is possible using pricing (something only a fool would dispute) but you must also show that *enough* change is possible using pricing for the argument to be credible. You’d also need to show how your ‘non-recessionary’ claim held up at the higher price.
Either way, we still face the fact that the higher the price, and we would both agree surely that for carbon price to work it needs to rise significantly above the $20 status quo, it is unlikely, particularly under a tory government, that many of the compensatory measures will survive or be supplemented. This means each time it does, there will be consequences for households which will undermine further support for it.
I can’t see how it can possible both work and survive. Its one or the other it seems to me.
@Marc Newman
I’m confident that a world price of $50 tonne by 2020, rising steadily but gradually after that would get us close to 450 ppm stabilization. And it’s easy to show that the economic impact on Australia would be negligible, relative to long-run growth.
Still, there are plenty of grounds for pessimism as to whether, under current political circumstances, we can get on to the price path we need. But all these arguments apply, with even greater force, to solutions based on drastic intervention, like Tim’s suggestion of a ban on coal burning at a particular date, or talk of a war economy.
JQ@39 given the very real differing incomes around the world, how could a $50 tonne price by 2020 (in merely 6 years time) work out without causing enormous further material marginalization to already marginalised persons?
The income and wealth in Australia is vastly out of proportion with global averages – are you stating by saying that “it’s easy to show” that you also agree that Australia ought to maintain its current economic position relative to other poorer countries?
Following from the second point, this stance by wealthy countries has been a huge stumbling block in climate change negotiations – so how if you hold this view can you even imagine getting to a global price of $50 a tonne in the next 6 years?
@John Quiggin
So you’re that confident that it was the existing scheme that led to the renewables growth, not, as most of the industry would have it, the subsidy regime that was in place? And a *world price* of *$50* seems a pretty distant prospect, certainly by 2020. I have my doubts that that would be enough, even so.
There is a lead time on a lot of the investments that need to be made – I have a lot less confidence than you that markets will lead that investment on time. In 7 years time, we’ll have wasted a lot of the required lead time. There is a point to talking about things like building stock – even on the most optimistic estimates, we would need *not* to be compounding the problem with more energy inefficient construction, yet buildings are still going up daily that barely meet the existing modest standards. There’s still no chance of completely replacing or even completely retrofitting the entire building stock in less than a couple of decades. Its the complacency of the price solution that gets me – as long as large scale investment tips, by, oh, I don’t know, some time around 2050, its fine. It just doesn’t fit with the science and engineering timetables.
Meanwhile this whole situation represents an opportunity for social and economic renewal. By allowing the discussion to be hijacked by a debate about ‘science’, we’ve completely missed the fact that the solutions are left wing ones. We are talking about building industries from scratch, about building better homes and workplaces, about using the skills and intelligence of our engineers, our tradespeople, our workers, our technicians to radically retool industrial and commercial processes. About doing things that directly create lots of new jobs. We’ve missed the opportunity to talk about strategically using this work to rebuild and revitalise the regions, places like Wollongong and Newcastle that have suffered from rising capital intensity and global rationalisation. And in an era where even Russell Brand is talking about the need for a revolution of the 99% against the 1%, I think we can be pretty sure you’d find an audience for a progressive approach to funding it too.
I saw this the other day. Professor Warwick McKibbin is running a pretty flimsy line but I don’t know what Professor Paul Frijters is thinking. Surely, he must know better.
@ZM
You could buy a lot of abatement in the developing world for $50tCO2e … That wouldn’t marginalise people.
@Fran Barlow
Do you mean a kind of global version of the carbon tax ( would you put a cap on as well?) – whereby the tax is redistributive from developed to developing countries, and where you could ensure that this redistribution went to poor people rather than local elites?
I’m not sure how that would affect global/national economies – they would certainly change…
But that doesn’t seem to be what JQ is suggesting, because he connects it with the Australian economy staying the same or growing…
@Ernestine Gross .
If Jim Rose has a degree in science, and especially in biology, he should hand it back…
…that is, if he doesn’t mind being done for counterfeiting.
Doh! I clicked on the first link in Pr Q’s post, started reading, and now I’m wiping muesli off my computer screen and keyboard. Oh, the stupid…
The carbon problem is partially self correcting through depletion and perhaps NIMBYism in the case of fracking. Pundits seem to think that NSW will not have enough gas in 2016. World liquid fuel production is on a volume plateau of about 90 million barrels a day but the peaks for conventional crude oil and combined net energy were several years ago; ethanol for example has negligible net energy. On the other hand Victoria’s Latrobe Valley is said to have 500 years of brown coal reserves. Loy Yang power station claimed it would be Australia’s cheapest electricity generator even if carbon tax were to double i.e. to around $50.
Therefore there is an early mover advantage to de-carbonising. Oil imports into Australia and gas in NSW could show supply shock behaviour with rationing. An orderly transition is far preferable. The trouble is Joe Public doesn’t think it is necessary then again JP fails to prepare for floods and bushfires. Some expect the world gas peak in 2030 and the world coal peak in 2040. Peak crude oil was 2005. After 2030 or so millions may no longer be able to afford products based on fossil fuels so we should prepare now, climate change or not.
If you live up there in Qld, Hermit, you should know that ” ethanol for example has negligible net energy” is completely false. The rest of your argument seems sound.
I like the tone of realism that you are hitting in this thread, JQ.
I have been nosing around in the Libertarian camp recently. It is all testosterone, absolutely no endorphines, and probably not a single degree between the lot of them.
@ Fran Barlow, I think this issue of global redistributive logic was part of the Stern discounting debate (which obviously I don’t understand fully). I think perhaps people from both sides criticised Stern b/c if the discount rate or the assumptions behind it (sorry, not an economics person) were taken to their implicit logical end, that global redistribution as well as saving would be an imperative. Perhaps this i my misunderstanding of the debate?