So, after some farcical manoeuvres, the Senate has passed Abbott’s legislation removing the carbon price. I hope and believe that this outcome will be reversed in due course, but those who brought it about will stand condemned by history.
It’s not merely that this is a bad policy, which will impose large and increasing costs (depending on how long it takes us to get back on track) on Australia and the world into the future. Even more damning is the fact that this action is entirely based on conscious lies, embraced or condoned by everyone who has actively supported it.
First, and most obvious, no one (least of all Tony Abbott) believes that the government’s “Direct Action” policy is a superior alternative to the carbon price, one that will deliver emissions reductions more rapidly and at lower costs. It is, as everyone knows, a cynical ploy put forward simply to allow the government to say that it has a policy.
In reality, Abbott and the rest want to do nothing, and the motives for this desire are entirely base. For a minority of the do-nothing group, it is simply a matter of financial self-interest associated with the fossil fuel industry. For the majority, however, it is the pursuit of a tribal and ideological vendetta. Their position is driven by Culture War animosity towards greens, scientists, do-gooders and so on, or by ideological commitment to a conservative/libertarian position that would be undermined by the recognition of a global problem that can only be fixed by changes to existing structures of property rights.
Most of these people would describe themselves as climate “sceptics”. There is no such thing. That is, there is no one anywhere who has honestly examined the evidence, without wishful thinking based on ideological or cultural preconceptions, and concluded that mainstream science is wrong. Most “sceptics”, including the majority of supporters of the conservative parties, are simply credulous believers in what their opinion leaders are telling them. Those opinion leaders are engaged, not in an attempt to determine the truth, but in a cultural vendetta against their enemies or in an ideologically-driven attempt to justify a predetermined do-nothing position.
This is a sad day, but one that will come back to haunt those who have brought it about.
John Quiggin 
I am ashamed for my country.
I watched it all unfold.
The Senate is truly terrifying at the moment. Lambie particularly.
I maintain that this, along with everything else Abbott has done and will do, is the ALP’s fault.
If they hadn’t “lurched to the right” and deliberately made themselves unelectable we wouldn’t have this government.
I wonder when the penny will drop that it was indifference that brought this retrograde move about rather than widespread support for reality denial in the electorate. Are there any grown ups in the Coalition?
@Megan
That’s a strange perspective. The ALP deserves some blame, but nobody was forced to vote for the coalition and there are alternatives to Labor.
I agree with all your main points, JQ. However, I tend to think that “tribalism” in this case operates more as a post hoc justification and projection.
In other words, the conservatives are effectively saying “We want to plunder and degrade the environment without let or hindrance. People who mention the environment can stir latent guilt and even fear in us which we hate even beginning to feel. So we transfer that hate on to them, on to the messengers ie. the Greens, the scientists and so on.”
As well as post hoc justification, hating and rejecting Greens, scientists etc. provides post hoc “lock-stepping” for want of a better term. It helps to make sure all the conservatives are in ideological lock-step and formation alignment. The purposes of lock-step and formation alignment include the attempted insulation of the individual from personal fear and turning him/her into a kind of automaton conditioned to follow the mass doctrine.
So I am saying that the hating of Greens etc. does not come from nowhere but in fact from the suppressed fear that they (the Greens etc.) might actually be right. That fear must be sublimated into hate of those who might be right after all and also into rigid conformity to conservative doctrine. Only by rigidly and blindly conforming to dogma can people stop the annoying intrusion of reason and logic which question that very dogma.
Well I guess there is something in what you say, Megan, but really in this case, I think there is, for once, a fairly clear villain. Tony Abbott lied and lied to the Australian people.
I read a sad comment on the Guardian:
Anyone who followed the evidence, like me, knew that it was working from quite soon after it was introduced. The Labor government was too busy fighting its internal enemies, particularly Rudd (with the misguided support of many on this site) to get that message out. And those who could have been getting the information out – this blog being an example, or the Fairfax papers, say – were also too consumed in ‘hating Julia Gillard’ to do so. It’s all very sad, but the key villain still remains Abbott. He really has lied to the people.
JQ,
Agree, except for one point.
‘They’ won’t be haunted by this decision – they couldn’t give a rats- it’s the rest of us who will be.
@Pete Moran
I wonder if Lambie has scuttled her new career the first week in the job. Tasmania was said to benefit from carbon tax to the tune of anything from $80m-$200m a year. If Direct Action actually gets off the ground you’d also think there would be carbon credits for forest preservation which Abbott doesn’t support. If things are weird today they can only get weirder.
For those that wonder about the culpability of Labor in this mess, I give you Martin ‘Fossil’ Ferguson.
I assume JQ you were not at the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of The Australian. In his speech Rupert told us ‘climate changes all the time’ , that ‘Antarctic sea ice is expanding’, and ‘if the Maldives goes under so what. People might have to move.’ On this morning’s news I hear News Limited wants to take over Warner. Which would see Murdoch control Fox and CNN. I fear we are on the cusp of another Dark Age.
In fairness I should add to my above comment that, while it had been evident for some time that emissions from the electricity sector were declining, that had started before the carbon price was introduced and at the time of the last election there hadn’t been (as far as I know) any detailed analysis of how much the carbon price was contributing to that.
However I still think there were many people like that commenter at the Guardian I quoted, who didn’t even know that the combined effect of the RET and carbon price appeared to be working in the electricity sector. I still think if the broad left hadn’t been so busy fighting amongst itself, that message could have got out a lot better.
Re Marn Ferguson – yeah he is an exhibit for Megan’s thesis all right.
Btw, does anyone know who were the two Labor Senators who apparently weren’t in the Senate to vote today? Not that their votes would have made any difference, but it would be interesting to know who they were and why they didn’t vote.
actually it seems there were three Labor Senators who didn’t vote on the carbon price repeal. Seems so odd. Why?
Nick Xenophon was ill and had a tie from the Coalition – presumably he was going to vote against repeal then?
So here’s the latest analysis of the carbon price impact from the ANU, via the Age (not paywalled)
confirming that it was working – damn those fools and liars
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/carbon-price-helped-curb-emissions-anu-study-finds-20140717-ztuf6.html
To many voters, the repeal of the carbon tax means a reduction in electricity prices—another promise that the Coalition can’t keep, perhaps they actually believe their own propaganda.
Megan,
I agree that we really don’t have a Labor Party currently, however the fact that the country is in the hands of neo-liberal ideologues is entirely the voters’ fault. Blame compulsory voting, or that the popular media is mostly under Murdoch’s control, but don’t blame the ALP.
If there is blame to be shared around for this decision, a fair slice must go to the Greens. A Green party voting against an ETS should not be forgiven lightly.
The greatest irony is Australia is stepping backwards as the rest of the world moves forward on practical action to slow climate change. With Murdoch media so dominant here and the political institutions now almost entirely captured by the fossil fuel industry, Australia has become an ideal incubator for the denialists’ stalling and obstructionism.
Our recalcitrance is now being increasingly noticed by international publications like Bloomberg. We’ve become a fringe hellhole of nutjobs and wreckers.
I can’t imagine how this ends. Presumably the ALP will do its usual thing and go further into its shell over the ETS. With the Murdoch press and commercial radio and television continuing to publish outright lies (and a cowed ABC bowing to fake balance), it’s hard to see a mainstream political party succeeding in dragging the debate back toward reason.
I can’t disagree with anything important in your OP John, though like Michael above, I doubt this decision will in any meaningful sense, haunt them. They have nothing like an ethical compass and the dissonance is strong with them. We have seen it from the outset on not only this area of policy but public policy more generally. A gang of reckless louts have acquired control of public policy. They don’t care what happens to anyone. Indeed, I’m not even sure they care that much about themselves. They are just seeing how long they can get away with it, like any criminal gang.
With some serious semantic fudging their claim that “Direct Action” can deliver lowest cost abatement is arguable. If they cap the budget for DAP at $3.2bn then that’s what abatement costs. If that’s less than the other side would have spent then it’s cheaper. Those who care about the policy will point out that the 5% can’t be realised at that cost and that per tonne ob abatement the cost is much higher but these are mere trifles for those who argue abatement is the worst thing that could ever happen to Australia. They didn’t want it, and so paying as little as possible and getting a lot less makes perverse sense.
@Pete Moran
No argument from me on Ferguson. For the rest, Labor and the Greens made some poor tactical choices, but Val is right. The overwhelming blame here lies with Abbott and his supporters.
@Will
Ah … I wondered how long it would be before someone urged that zombie argument to again stalk the streets.
@Disenfranchised
Don’t worry so much, disenfranchised. Rupert is very old and his kids are far more interested in making a quid than in choosing politicians. The Australian in particular is Rupert’s vanity publication – it is unlikely to have a 60th anniversary.
@Megan No way Megan, this repeal is owned 100% by the LNP. Both Turnbull and Abbott can be quoted as authorities on climate change. The ALP can grow a backbone and make the next election a vote on an ETS and a vote on who owns their media.
Highly plausible, Ikonoklast. Bit of a Damascene moment, actually. Cheers, RA
Mr Denmore: The time for the ALP to cave on anything Carbon Tax would have been in 2013 – just after the election. They didn’t then, and they would have less reason to do so now.
Fran: it is indeed a “zombie argument”. There have been times I reckon the Greens should create a flowchart in PDF form rebutting all the variations in that dispute.
@derrida derider I wouldn’t be laying bets on Murdochs longevity he could still have another ten years or more of active life and outlive his opponents.
@Hermit Oddly enough Abbott is pushing for more forestry in Tas while tree planting in other areas to gain carbon credentials. Of course Tas could push for
Special Economic Zone status, just like the deep north.
Actually that could be sooner than they expect.
As I’ve said elsewhere it is silly to take individual weather or seasonal events as proof or disproof of AGW – but that is not the way lots of voters think. For lots of people a cool wet winter disproves AGW, but conversely a bushfire summer means AGW is an emergency we need to fix now; its no coincidence that the push for an ETS in Australia only got momentum in the Millenium Drought.
But the BoM say an El Nino is currently forming …
As one who supported a carbon tax, albeit a better designed one as part of a better package I can fairly claim more objectivity than most.
I know that Prof Q is saying more than he knows in his characterisation of the “sceptics” and so I wonder about others of his assertions, e.g. in saying that “it will impose large and increasing costs on Australia”. I am all in favour of solar in its several forms taking over from coal fast enough to cost the power companies a lot of money but can’t see the force of Prof Q’s assertion about costs.
As it happens I have just noted that a friend had cause to retract a criticism he had made of a leading sceptical scientist because he had foolishly accepted that someone who believed George Monbiot was honest and competent in his criticism of Prof Ian Plimer was correct. In fact the truth was, as the relevant transcript clearly showed that Monbiot had displayed the only skills he had – being entirely innocent of any scientific knowledge – which were those of the typically offensive and assertive London journalist. He totally failed to understand what Plimer was saying while he kept on arrogantly insisting that Plimer answer questions as framed by him. Accordingly it was he, who had accused Plimer if lying and obfuscating who was shown to be objectively ununterested in the truth. (FWIW one of the points was about the contribution of volcanoes to total CO2 emissions. He simply wouldn’t listen to Plimer explaining the method of calculation he used). Another seriously dishonest campaigner for the alarmist view was just about the first Amazon reviewer of Donna LaFramboise’s devastating attack on the IPCC. He was someone whose livelihood depended on the AGW problem having more money thrown at it and attacked the book with false statements about it: I knew because I had read it.
That just adds to my strong perception that few of the intelligent critics of the more alarmist views about AGW bear any relation to Prof Q’s characterisation of them. Some of them would know a lot more relevant science than he and none that I know have any material stake in the outcome. As to the airy-fairy cultural explanations for some of these people not agreeing with Prof Q they are about as valid as the cod-Freudian explanations you might hear about your least favourite politician after a liquid lunch in the Staff Club.
You, JQ, have opened yourself up to cross-examination with
I
BoM are predicting El Nino-lite. I think the east Australian winter will be 1-2C above normal notwithstanding frosty Brisbane mornings and lost snowboarders. Perhaps creeping arthritis is making us all feel cold. Even if this summer is not a shocker there will still be melting glaciers elsewhere and lack of promised price reductions at home. I also suspect like cave persons slaying a mammoth the LNP will become boorishly over bold and it will backfire.
I take it c.t. compensation via income tax cuts and welfare increases remains in place. That means Hockey is yet to do a dummy spit.
…with statements like “no one anywhere who has honestly examined the evidence…. and concluded that the mainstream science is wrong”. It’s not just your knowledge of the “sceptics” with superior scientific qualifications (vastly superior let it be clear to those of Tim Flannery) like Lindzen if you think you know better than Plimer or Carter, it is your own acquaintance with the relevant science. Have you examined all those different models the IPCC relies on? Why do the differ? How complete (and backed by empirical data) is their inclusion of all the natural forces? Would their models have predicted the great climate changes of the past – even just the Holocene? Mini Ice Ages, Warm Periods, Swiss Alps without glaciers, collapse of civilisations in India and Egypt, drying up of the Great Lakes….. Tell me you have actually done serious intellectual work on the possible weaknesses of all these (taxpayer-funded) models that “prove” QED.
@Hermit BOM don’t predict anything, they only report on the indications
@Midrash
@derrida derider
This becomes like ping pong using localised weather events to prove a point. Nobody wins everybody loses.
In my assessment, faced with evidence that (a) the carbon tax was working and (b) the flow on price impacts were minimal (and certainly unlikely to result in everyone being $550 better off from tomorrow, as claimed), Abbott and Hunt fall back on: “The tax had to go because business didn’t want it”. The dilemma for the government is that business, which they regard as the repository of reason and rational calculation, is now shown up as hollow. Not only did the carbon tax have relatively little adverse impact on business, the absence of a carbon tax “or reasonable alternative” may now disadvantage Australian business in international markets. The basis of reason has dissolved, and in the vacuum a new irrationality has emerged. In simpler terms perhaps, the proboscis has been amputated to spite the face. Meanwhile, the government has made the solution disappear, but it has not been able to make the problem disappear. What kind of magic is that?
” Tell me you have actually done serious intellectual work on the possible weaknesses of all these (taxpayer-funded) models that “prove” QED.”
That parenthetical addition is, as Dennis the Peasant would say, a dead giveaway.
@Peter Chapman Yes but not all business was against the carbon tax.
Richard Goyder from Wesfarmers spoke recently on ABC RN and said that they ie WES were acting on climate change irrespective of govt policy and generally what business wanted was certainty.
Responding more substantively, no scientific knowledge at all is needed to see that Plimer is full of it, and Monbiot does a fine job in demonstrating this. Even when Plimer was on the right side, in the creation vs evolution debate, his obvious dishonesty and incompetence was an embarrassment to the team.
https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/plimer.html
The fact that you can even claim to believe him shows that you are either a liar or a fool (more likely both, in the sense that your eagerness to believe your side is right more than offsets your native intelligence)
Regarding serious intellectual work, I have more than enough statistical expertise to show that Lindzen is lying, and have done so
https://johnquiggin.com/2010/03/03/lindzen-and-no-statistically-significant-warming-since-1995/
Lindzen’s flim-flam is enough to fool people like yourself who are both eager to be deceived and ignorant of basic statistics. But anyone who has passed first year stats, and doesn’t have a dog in the fight can see the trick.
@Mr Denmore
“The greatest irony is Australia is stepping backwards as the rest of the world moves forward on practical action to slow climate change. With Murdoch media so dominant here and the political institutions now almost entirely captured by the fossil fuel industry, Australia has become an ideal incubator for the denialists’ stalling and obstructionism. ”
For the life of me John I cant get upset about this – not because of denialism or that I wouldn’t love to throttle Abbott for all the good works he had trashed. Its because this is only one of the 600 lb environmental gorillas currently rampaging through the sustainability forest propelled by the logic of economics be it mainstreet or finance capitalism – or even socialism (its interesting to read what vandalism the Soviets dreamed of in their heyday of the 1920s).
What we have seen was probably inevitable – if not trashing of the carbon tax then corruption of the trading system as has happened in Europe and elsewhere where the price is stopped from rising by vested interest and the only profit is to the banks and the energy company offenders.
For me what is not being addressed in this economic trading model now rejected, is the much more serious need to stop material growth and figure out equitable husbandry of the planet’s very limited resources. But as evidenced by Rio20+ and its oxymoronic Green Growth, this is not about to happen. Rather all and sundry seem to be continuing with that great catchcry of ‘progress’ “Homo uber alles” – as though we and our antics are the most important thing in the world and somehow the rest of the planet is there for our exploitation rather than us being here temporarily due to a accident of evolution.
As a result I think oddly, that ‘Direct Action’ may be the only way forward – if done in good faith unlike current reality. However the likelihood of this is small as neither tweedledee (the coalition), tweedledum (Labor) nor tweedledummer (the Greens – tendence’ career) are prepared to flag let alone introduce compulsion on the scale needed i.e. World War 2 – yet. In any case they don’t run the economy/country which calls the tunes and will have even less power after the TPP is passed. Finance capital and its allies run the country but serious Direct Action I suspect offers nothing for them in the way of a percentage.
Here is a nice illustration of what probably would have happened in my opinion – again – http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/industry-dominates-emissions-taskforce/2006/12/10/1165685553929.html
I realize you have put a lot of heart into promoting carbon trading via the climate change authority which was doing much other good work as well. But perhaps its time to ask whether economics in its current form does not show the way any more than religion did during the Renaissance. Rather than being a true science it seems to me to have been by in large transformed into an intellectual edifice designed to justify to the powerful their wealth and privilege. And so was doomed to fail. And until that changes climate change efforts will be perhaps just a tad quixotic. Your book wasn’t well named Zombie Economics for nothing.
One of the sadder aspects of today’s events is that we will never see those $100 legs of lamb of which Barnaby Joyce soke so passionately, with the result that a whole bunch more sheep will be slaughtered. Speaking as a vegetarian, I am disappointed.
😉
On the positive side, towns like Whyalla, Wollongong and Gladstone that were wiped off the map can now be rebuilt with the money the government saved from today’s measures.
Hmmm
The major problem, I have, with that ANU paper is that it is only looking at part of the emissions covered by the scheme. As the scheme doesn’t even cover all direct emissions, let alone scope 3 emissions, it is almost impossible to tell what the impact was overall, just by looking at this paper.
Almost certainly, emissions (across all scopes) increased during the pricing period.
@rog And should I laugh or should I cry, have just seen news of the share price impact on AGL… down, after they announced a drop in profit expectations following the repeal…
@Fran Barlow
Ah, but Barnaby Joyce holds that a single cold winter’s day in Canberra disproves global warming. He said as much on this evening’s ABC News. What an intellectual giant the man is! Don’t you feel secure knowing such giants of intellect as Barnaby Joyce and giants of morality like Tony Abbott are running the country? Not to mention that giant of economics, Joe Hockey.
@Peter Murphy
I have seen that “attack the Greens” response in quite a few places now, it’s definitely a “line”. I wrote to my local fed MP Kelvin Thomson at a time when it appeared Labor might go woolly on an ETS, to urge them to stand strong, and guess what – I got a response blaming the Greens for all the problems.
To which I replied (somewhat more politely) don’t be ridiculous and focus on the real enemy.
I guess if Labor people have to stop attacking each other, attacking the Greens is the next best thing!
(In this area actually there is a political motivation, because they are likely to lose seats to the Greens in the upcoming state election – still a stupid tactic though.)
@iain
Iain you can look at the Greenhouse reports (google Australia Greenhouse gas reports) for this information – yes I think for most of the reporting period emissions did continue to rise, but much of the rise was offset by decline in electricity – to the extent that it was close to neutral in the 2012-13 year I think (from memory, but you can check).
That’s why I always say the clean energy futures package was only a start – there was more to be done – but it worked in the area it was primarily aimed at.
Decline in emissions from the electricity sector, I mean
Logically the Coalitions (and all the rest of the deniers) course of action should end sometime with them owning up to having made a monumental blunder of historic proportions. The only recent blunder anywhere near this scale is deciding to saddle up and ride to war with the US in the Middle East ,but that is a bi-partisan blunder still not universally recognised as a blunder. Science should be right again and it is only a matter of time. Its hard for me to see how those responsible could salvage anything from the wreckage of their credibility. There are going to be alot of destroyed careers and institutions world wide .Please, they cant survive it can they?. There is justice in the universe isnt there ?
Meanwhile….
The ALP and the LNP just voted together in the Senate to ensure that there would be no oversight or scrutiny of the new ASIO powers.
We are governed by a neo-con duopoly.
@Megan
We have so enraged the Muslim world that we will now allow our overlords to do anything to protect us -we made ourselves a target .Now they just run the line that ‘those irrational savages have forced this growing list of unpleasant measures upon the innocent, rational, civilised world’.
@sunshine
Perhaps, but it was the fact that Labor and Liberal are indistinguishable on serious issues that I was highlighting.
The media almost never reports on matters that I consider controversial when the ALP/LNP duopoly are both in favour of the same outcome/result.