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Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report: A diabolical challenge
The media release issued by the Garnaut Climate Change Review Secretariat appears below, followed by the ABC's summary of reactions so far from environmental and industry groups:
Garnaut Review Releases Draft Report
Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change. Without strong and early action by
Speaking at the National Press Club in
Early economic modelling results of readily measurable unmitigated climate change for middle of the road outcomes on temperatures and decline in rainfall – indicate that climate change would wipe off around 4.8 per cent of Australia’s projected GDP, around 5.4 per cent of projected household consumption, and 7.8 per cent from real wages by 2100.
“These readily measurable costs are only part of the story. There are also conventional economic effects that are not currently measurable, the possibility of much larger costs from extreme outcomes, and costs that aren’t manifested through markets,” said Professor Garnaut.
The full economic modelling results, to be released in a Supplementary Draft Report in August, will help complete the picture for Australians, by comparing the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation. This will inform the Review’s consideration of emission reduction trajectories and targets. The Final Report will be released in September.
Professor Garnaut said that the climate change impacts would be significantly reduced with strong global mitigation.
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“We will delude ourselves should we choose to take small actions that create an appearance of action, but which do not solve the problem. Such an approach would risk the integrity of our market economy and political processes to no good effect,” said Professor Garnaut.
“Australians are well placed to deal with the challenges of this major economic reform. As with all economic reform, mitigation policy must be forward-looking. Policy interventions and the use of public and private resources should focus on improving future economic prospects rather than reacting to past decisions”, said Professor Garnaut.
The Draft Report provides the Review’s suggestions on the design of the emissions trading scheme (ETS). Professor Garnaut reiterated his support for the ETS to cover as many sectors as practicable.
“The more sectors included in the ETS, the more efficiently costs will be shared across the economy. Transport should be included,” said Professor Garnaut.
The Draft Report advocates the full auctioning of emissions permits and the return of all revenue to households and business.
“The cost to consumers of rising energy and petrol prices, can be balanced through payments to households, while preserving price incentives to reduce emissions,” he said.
The Report proposes that half the proceeds from the sale of all permits is allocated to households, around 30 per cent provided for structural adjustment needs for business (including any payments to TEEIIs), and the remaining 20 per cent allocated to research and development and the commercialisation of new technologies.
“The proceeds from the ETS should be allocated for purposes that will help
“A massive increase – reaching $3 billion per annum – is required in
The Draft Report states that it would be in
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“Additional mitigation policies should only be undertaken where they will lower the overall cost to the economy, by correcting market failures,” he said.
Professor Garnaut said that he supported the phase-out of the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, once the unconstrained ETS was fully operational.
“The Review’s first aim is to lay out the issues for policy choice in a transparent way. We will have done our job if Australian governments and the community make their choices in full knowledge of the consequences of their decisions,” said Professor Garnaut.
Govt urged to act swiftly on Garnaut findings
Environmental and industry groups have urged the Federal Government to act on climate change findings in a draft report presented by Professor Ross Garnaut.
Mr Garnaut called for an emissions trading scheme for
He would include petrol but initially exclude agriculture, but above all he stresses the urgency of introducing the scheme if the death of Australian icons like the Barrier Reef is to be averted.
Speaking on the release of his report in
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong says the Garnaut report shows
She says she will detail the Government's plan on an emissions trading scheme this month.
"What this confirms yet again is that this nation must take action on climate change," she said.
"We have a very strong interest, a national interest in tackling climate change. It confirms the Government's view that is if we take responsible action now the cost will be far less than if we delay."
Bipartisan support needed
Greg Bourne of the WWF says he supports Professor Garnaut's recommendation of a broad-based emissions trading scheme (EST) and has called on the Opposition to support it.
"We need to spread the burden across the economy. Everyone has a little bit of burden and everyone is prepared to pay that," he said.
"The most important thing is the Opposition needs to get behind Garnaut, to back this up. The continued trivialising of these most important of issues is not good leadership for the public of
But Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says his party will be guided by its own advice on an emissions trading scheme.
Dr Nelson says the Federal Government would be rushing a carbon trading scheme if it were to begin by 2010.
"Last year in government, the advice that had been given to the previous government was that the earliest you could start to introduce it was 2011 and to get it running by 2012," he said.
"The most important thing for us is that we get this right, we owe it to our children. Importantly we protect jobs and don't send jobs and industries off to other parts of the world."
Dr Nelson says it must be acknowledged that
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Tony Maher of the CFMEU has urged the Government to endorse the report.
"Thank God for Garnaut. At last we've got a balanced approach to emissions trading and climate change generally. Professor Garnaut has outlined an approach that gives priority to the low paid and that's the first time we've heard that," he said.
Wilderness Society spokeswoman Virginia Young says Professor Garnaut has highlighted the urgency of the need to act.
"It was also heartening to hear him reassure the community that action now will be less disruptive and more economically feasible than action in two years time or three years time or 10 years time," she said.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says Professor Garnaut has made some interesting suggestions.
"He proposes an emissions trading scheme where 'permits to pollute' effectively would be bought and sold, and the money arising from it could then be returned by way of compensation and assistance to both householders and industry," she said.
"I'll be very interested to hear what not only industry, but what citizens have to say about it."
Interest group support
Brett Solomon, executive director of activist group Get Up, says it is clear
"I think the impact of the ETS on petrol prices will be minimal in comparison to the international oil prices that we have no control over," he said.
"The threat to Kakadu and the
He has urged the Government to adopt the report and implement its findings.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor says the Government must focus its policy on investment in clean energy rather than consumption and says the report paints a stark picture about the cost of inaction.
However he says the report also provides hope that
The Climate Institute is looking closely at some of the renewable energy target recommendations but Mr Connor says it broadly supports most recommendations, including the report's approach to encouraging better practice within the trade-exposed emissions intensive industry.
The Queensland Farmers' Federation (QFF) says it welcomes the report's recommendation that agriculture not be included in an emissions trading scheme for the time being.
Professor Garnaut says there should be a delay in including agriculture because it is hard to measure the greenhouse emissions in that sector.
But QFF CEO John Cherry says he is not convinced the agricultural sector should ever be included.
"There are some fundamental problems with applying an ETS to agriculture, we're not sure we can sort the measurement issues out," he said.
"We're not sure that his compensation mechanism sorts out the trade exposure issue and we might end up exporting our agriculture industries to countries that don't have an ETS."
Report criticism
Greens Senator Christine Milne says Professor Garnaut has painted a dire picture if urgent action is not taken, but his recommendations are too soft.
"His slow start is completely unacceptable. If you believe that climate change is as urgent and dire as Professor Garnaut says it is, how could you possibly be suggesting that the first two years of any trading scheme simply be at the
ACTU head Sharan Burrow says workers will be hit hard by climate change, and today's report should send a warning to reluctant businesses to get on board.
"We can't afford not to act and we say to those businesses generating hysteria, put your case, evidence-based, absolutely transparent, you'll get support if you need it," she said.
"But there can be no 'get out of jail free' cards, everybody must be in this."
Greenpeace's Steve Shallhorn says Professor Garnaut is right to push for urgent action, but some of his policy advice has missed the mark.
"Unfortunately some of his prescriptions fall a little short," he said.
"He has too much emphasis on the notion of clean coal which will not be ready for at least another two decades and we need to take very strong action on a much quicker time frame than that.
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Current direction to the poor house
David Roffey
Well, it's the wrong guess.
By creating incentives (such as the one Mr Rudd abolished), it gives a real reason for people to make changes, that is, the people in a position to make changes - and it still encourages successful economic growth. The fact is that business and individuals have already paid for changes to be made (this can be seen through the surplus). There isn't any need at all to pay any more money for changes - government already has those funds. In fact, people deserve that money returned in one form or another. It may as well be used to take future pressure off the cost of living.
Mr Rudd, and his enablers, it would seem, don't really want people to change behaviour - they merely wish them to pay more for current behaviour. He has also taken the magic pudding theory that punishing growth will mean more revenue - abject nonsense that has been pointed out by any number of businesses - which seemingly is ignored. Businesses that will leave both him and Australians. Not to take them at their word is extreme denial and arrogance.
The only person being political on this subject is you. And you are being political when you stand up for this sham policy for seemingly no other reason than it's being pushed by Mr Rudd - a policy push that will be hugely detrimental to Australian business, and those that are involved with it. And all of it for reasons that are pointless - Mr Rudd can't even say what emissions will be limited in Australia, let alone the world.
The only thing people should be asking Mr Rudd: If he promised to put downward pressure on costs of living, how can he now run a policy that even he admits will put massive upward pressure on it? Is this person a political fraud or a flat out liar?
David R: I repeat: the primary mechanism of the CPRS is not the market, it is the regulated limit on emissions. I can see no way that a tax cut can put a limit on emissions. Rudd has said what will be limited - CO2, N20, NH4, SF6, PFCs and HFCs - and what the limit will be - 220Mt CO2e at 2050 vs 567Mt at 2006: the path to get there is subject to consultation (and economic modelling), and will be specified by the end of this year, giving industry several years notice to get their act together. I don't see how a 3% uptick over several years can be described as massive (see my earlier comment).
What can emissions regulation achieve that tax cuts can't?
... er - the regulation of emissions? Just a guess.
This is an absolute con job
David Roffey: "200 are in the business of importing or refining liquid fuels to Australia: if they leave, they get replaced by someone else doing the same thing, no less efficiently."
If 200 refining businesses leave, it's incredibly naive to believe that 200 more will be found. These businesses will refine offshore - and import the product with the added cost. Australia loses the jobs, tax revenue (that comes from that), and pays more for the product.
So these companies wait three years then leave - jolly good show.
The cost is passed on to the consumer - excepting "political subsidies" of course. Which will become harder as government revenue begins to shrink )because of the extra business costs), and (negative growth doesn't pay the bills), as any operating business could tell you.
Australian exports are 69% mining and agricultural based. This allows for a robust service based domestic economy. The manufacturing sector is shrinking and will be killed with this sham scheme. It's not logical therefore, to assume anything else, except that the Australian domestic service economy will contract. This will have ramifications that most Australians don't seem aware - and are being lied to about.
You still haven't answered my question: why all the things you seem to wish for cannot be achieved through government tax deductions instead? Why the need for extra taxes and ridiculous layers of bureaucracy?
Business and those that work for them need to take a stand now! This could result in disaster for all freedom loving people. Rampant and corrupt out of control government needs to be stopped! Here and now!
What if no-one was supplying petrol in Australia?
Oh, come off it, Paul. You really think that if there was demand for petrol in Australia in future (and I think there might just be), that no-one would step in to supply it?
Or that they'd think it better to export the crude, build a new refinery offshore, and re-import it to save 5.5¢ a litre? Which 5.5¢ they'd then have to pay anyway as an importer?
Give me a break.
Who would or could leave?
Let's have a look at the reality of Paul's Chicken Little scenario that major polluters would leave Australia rather than pay up or do something to reduce their emissions.
The CPR scheme will designed to involve the 1000 most heavily polluting facilities in the country, ie those emitting more than 25Kt CO2e. Of those 1000:
So let's look at the economics for the rest. If they aren't trade-exposed they're making their products for sale in Australia, so would have to cover the costs of moving and setting up elsewhere, and then trade off the avoided costs of permits against transport costs from their new home to Australia. And how much will those avoided costs be? At the lower limit of 25Ktpa and $20 per tonne, they'd be avoiding $500,000pa in costs, which doesn't seem a lot for one of the 1000 largest facilities in Australia.
Just how worthwhile that move might be can be estimated more precisely by looking at the numbers for a trade-exposed company whose emissions aren't quite intensive enough to get EITE support. Taking the worst case for their economics, they'd be emitting just under 1500 tonnes per million dollars of turnover. Using that $20 per tonne figure again, their permits are costing them $30,000 per million of turnover. Would you change country to get a 3% cost cut, or would you be working on getting that bill down where you are? Remember that you can't move to NZ, Japan, Europe or most of the US, who have similar schemes. There may be a few who go for the first choice, probably because they were thinking of moving anyway and this tips the economics over, but I don't think it's going to be bringing the country to its knees.
The war has started
David Roffey: "You seem to be implying that companies should move overseas even if it would cost them less to stay and pay or to stay and reorganise production to reduce emissions, which is a political rather than an economically sensible suggestion."
Actually, no.
What I'm suggesting is that it would be very dangerous, and ultimately self-defeating, for companies such as Shell to allow this precedent, that could indeed travel much further - unfortunately not to China, India, and the United States.
It's blatantly obvious that companies (shareholders, pensioners, employees etc), will be at the mercy of brain-dead politicians. This cannot be allowed to go through. Authority needs to be shown, and if ever a line should be drawn, now is the time. Stop the rot before it sets in. Any number of businesses and funds could do nothing else except agree! Any number of businesses and funds should DO nothing else except agree!
Stopping this spreading to the United States
States in the United States that have already announced their intent to do essentially the same thing:
OMG it's too late, they're infected!
Oh, and coming along behind, The Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin (plus Indiana, Ohio, and South Dakota are observers). Manitoba seem to be in this one as well, for some reason.
If it's too good to be true it's because it is
David Roffey: "Paul, the whole point of an ETS / CPRS is that the government doesn't set the carbon price, it sets the emissions limit and lets the market set the price - if the market is at all efficient, the price will be the marginal cost of saving the last ton of gas to reach the target."
Which of course is exactly the same thing. Limit emissions, raise the costs. Does the government earn taxation on this "trading price" by any chance? Companies such as Shell should have much better things to do than bribing nonentity Australian politicians - they have no other alternative but to make this widely known.
You can provide examples of such businesses, no doubt? I mean, you seem to know that people will willingly pay that extra charge to get to their place of employment, rather than enjoy the fruits of their labor.
Green Paper consultation
Just got back from the Sydney public consultation sessions. Lots of people there from all around the traps, but not much by way of new information.
The most useful thing was a collection of Fact Sheets with a raft of more detailed numbers, which I'll mine for another comment. One of the key numbers though, I put in a comment on - the current (meaning 2006, the last firm figure) Australian emissions are approx 567Mt CO2e, year 2000 was ca 550Mt, and hence the 2050 target is ca 220Mt: but the Kyoto 2012 target was 599Mt. If they take the lazy way out and stick to the Kyoto target, there'll be too much scope for emissions growth between now and then, and having a 2012 start point 22Mt higher than it could be will put around half a billion tons (or a whole years emissions) more into the atmosphere between now and 2050 than would be the case if they start at current levels. Needs a fairly concerted campaign on this, I think.
Paul, the whole point of an ETS / CPRS is that the government doesn't set the carbon price, it sets the emissions limit and lets the market set the price - if the market is at all efficient, the price will be the marginal cost of saving the last ton of gas to reach the target. Or if you prefer, the net marginal cost of moving activities that cause emissions to somewhere where there is no ETS. You seem to be implying that companies should move overseas even if it would cost them less to stay and pay or to stay and reorganise production to reduce emissions, which is a political rather than an economically sensible suggestion.
In practice, with probably no big reduction in the cap for the next five years or so - and free permits if you're Emissions Intensive Trade Exposed (EITE) - it will almost certainly be cheaper to get on with looking for lower-emissions production methods than it will be to look for alternative countries to set up in - and if you're not EITE probably having to pay high energy costs to get your goods back into this country to sell them. Funnily enough it's my experience that businessmen (and investors) are practical rather than political chaps. I expect them to do the financially sensible thing and stay around and live with the scheme, rather than make a politically motivated and financially unjustified gesture and leave.
Clear corruption and preventative steps
A government (meaning individual politicians) setting a carbon price (direct market intervention) will result in some of the biggest corruption scandals of all time. Companies that care about long-term reputation should opt out of this scheme.
The appropriate action for large shareholder companies would be to look for business opportunity elsewhere. Large companies should also make it known that any individual politician agreeing to this scheme will be campaigned against during elections. Any individual agreeing to this scheme as part of a business association should aslo be removed.
Pension funds etc should also make it clear to Australian companies exactly that which they expect from them. Pension funds etc should also using their voting powers to remove any executive that doesn't grasp the seriousness of this economically suicidal situation.
The easy answer
The easiest and most assured way of changing behaviour is through incentive, rather than the socialist lazy route of punishment. The Australian Government could achieve their aims by offering tax deductions on a select number of products. Such deductions would be eligible for every person.
There really isn't any reason why a government should be running such massive surpluses anyway. There really isn't any reason these surpluses shouldn't be returned to the taxpayer. After government has met all its spending obligations, a balanced budget is all that's needed. Inflation shouldn't be a problem with the correct implementation of the correct monetary and fiscal policy.
Silly pipe dreams of "wealth distribution" will have to be overcome to achieve such aims - and to make such an environmentally and business friendly policy work. It shouldn't even be all that difficult.
Sorry, Bill, you're wrong
We will never completely stop carbon emissions - everything we grow, eat, use, gives some emissions, and so does everything that the non-humans who share our planet do. As long as life exists on the planet there will be carbon emissions. And actually even without life there'd be some emissions from geological activity.
That being so, the question is not "how do we stop emissions", but "how do we get them down to the point where the planet can cope". Remember that the natural cycle did in fact manage to cope with anthropogenic emissions up until about 1960. And that question then resolves itself into "what limit on emissions is low enough to keep within the planet's capacity to process". Or, to put it another way, "how low a cap do we need". Trajectory is important, so is getting as much of the rest of the world on board as possible, but there is no alternative action to regulation that has any impact, except I suppose killing as many humans as possible in as short a time as possible, but let's assume we're not going for that one (notwithstanding "Aftermath", for those who saw Spooks on Friday).
I believe we do have time to evade the worst. And the worst is sufficiently bad that it is worth evading. If we stop the warming a degree lower than it would otherwise be, it is well worth it. Several degrees lower would be better still, so all action is worth trying. If anyone really believes there is no hope of doing that, the best act they can do for the planet is to get themselves and their kids out of it as soon as possible. Not time to indulge in that one just yet, I think.
Why are you sorry, and how am I wrong?
David, your first paragraph just confirms what I said.
So, by and large, does your second. CO2 levels will rise, whatever we do; so your question how do we get them down to the point where the planet can cope becomes irrelevant. That is what I have been saying all along. We may be able to slow things down a tiny bit, but that is all we can hope to do. It's all very well to say we can keep things under control, but the proposed remedies simply won't do that. So it all boils down to wishful thinking. Wishful, and deluded. The "can do" attitude we have cultivated during the last couple of hundred years is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. It is not going to get us out of it. I have preached against hubris elsewhere.
The ice caps are melting already. Nothing Garnaut proposes will stop them melting. Spooks must have highlighted for all of us who saw it how easy it would be, with only a small rise in sea level, for a city like London to go under. So it would be for almost every major city in the world. With every major city in the world devastated, life as we know it simply cannot go on.
I am not worried about the planet's survival. The planet will cope just fine. And I am sure humanity will survive, though only in small remnants of its present numbers. Some time during our quite short period of dopey devotion to "progress", we set in train a sequence of events which are now leading to catastrophe. We should be paying attention to how our species will survive that catastrophe and adapt to the new world we have made, not continuing to delude ourselves that we can make natural processes adapt to our craziness.
A million Australians short of drinking water.
A million Australians are running short of drinking water and our food bowl is drying up. Why are will still bringing 200,000 immigrants into Australia this year? Has anyone thought how we are going to meet the demand for food and water for these people?
It seems we blindly continue to increase our population while at the same time we struggle with infrastructure to provide services for those that already live here.
Climate change is here to stay and predicted to get worse. We call the dry weather we are currently experiencing a drought. What if what we are seeing now is the New Australia - an Australia that is going to get a lot drier?
Are vs. Could
John: "A million Australians are running short of drinking water and our food bowl is drying up."
Actually what the article you linked to - and even the section you quoted - said was that "Up to a million people in Australia could face a shortage of drinking water". The article also said that the supply of water in the region from the river system is assured for at least the next year. There's a bit of a difference, you'l agree, between the possibility that some time in the future 5% of Aussies might run short of water and the claim that they already are.
As for the food bowl drying up, this seems to be supported by the report. The MDBC Drought Update for July (PDF) talks of an "extremely poor" outlook for SA, in particular.
That said, it also notes that water inflows into the Murray-Darling system (though historically below average even for drought years) are currenly more than double what they were the year before. In 2006-07 the inflow was 970 GL while the previous 12 months (2007-08) has seen inflows jump to 2,220 GL.
What difference running short or could face a shortage?
Dylan, "running short of water" or "could face a shortage of water" sounds much the same to me. I think you're being a little pedantic.
The main point I was trying to make is that we are increasing our population through immigration, when all forecasts are for less rain. How are we going to meet the demands of a rising population?
Do you have the answer?
Do we just keep on populating?
Do we start building the necessary desalination plants now and how will that effect our emission targets?
Do you see any rain on the horizon?
Climate change means we have to change and increasing our population every year is something we have to really question.
How long can we keep increasing our population and not build the necessary infrastructure?
Questions
John, perhaps it is pedantic but consider the difference between "one million people are dead because of climate change" and "one million people could die because of climate change". The difference seems to me a little bit more than subtle in considering a policy response.
As to your questions, I'm afraid I don't have many answers for you.
How are we going to meet the demands of a rising population? I hope by establishing and then maintaining the necessary infrastructure to handle a rising poulation. This would include housing stock, of course, but also health, education and other facilities. Australia's population has been rising for decades and there are some areas where the infrastructure has not maintained pace with that growth. This is obviously a matter of concern.
Do you have the answer? I doubt that I do.
Do we just keep on populating? Well we're hoping to add a little Australian some time in the next year or so but we'll probably keep him or her out of the country. Consider it our little contribution to keeping down emissions in Oz. From a climate change/emissions persepctive it might not be, as you suggest, ideal but the biggest generation is getting close to retirement and someone is going to have to do the work in Australia.
Do we start building the necessary desalination plants now and how will that effect our emission targets? I don't know enough about the desal plants mooted for Australia but I understand that they come with an emissions cost.
Do you see any rain on the horizon? I'm no meteorologist but the people who are don't seem to see much rain coming, as far as I know. The drought report I linked to doesn't seem too positive on this count.
How long can we keep increasing our population and not build the necessary infrastructure? You can do it indefinitely, of course; what you really mean is how long can Australia do it and still maintain some semblance of a lifestyle for the people who are there and the ones they would like to migrate to Australia. The answer would be "not long".
I don't have all the answers, John, and the ones I do have aren't necessarily precise or useful. I assume that you, like me, understand that a lack of investment in infrastructure and an increasing population is not something that can go on forever - but I can't say how long is too long. I simply don't know.
Another 200,000 new Australians this year.
Bringing another 200,000 immigrants into the country this year might be great for the economy, but it will make it harder to reach our emissions targets.
More people who will demand a house and a car. They will demand all the trimmings that go along with life in Australia. Another city the size of Cairns, another power station, more demand on our water, and more mouths to feed.
If we continue to increase our migrant intake, how are we ever going to meet our Kyoto target?
More people will demand more land, which will mean more land clearing. The demand for electricity and transport will continue to soar, putting more and more pressure on all of us as we try to reduce our emissions.
This joke will quickly fall apart
Alan Curran: "Anyway, just watch as he brings out Green Papers, Pink Papers Summit talks and god knows what else, and in the end nothing will happen. "
If Australia is lucky, that's exactly what will happen. Surely, there is somebody with some sense to stop it!
A scheme such as this one is not a working possibility in either Australia or Canada. It really is as simple as that. You're already seeing the downside with companies such as Shell pulling the plug on billions of dollars worth of investment - tax dollars this government won't be getting. A 100% tax on nothing still results in nothing. Shell merely has to wait for the "next government", and for them to change the whole system (you'll see this across a number of industries). Shell isn't the authority needing to pay the day to day running costs of the country, now are they?
If Mr Rudd was serious about "global warming", and it wasn't a wildly miscalculated money grab, he wouldn't have taken the subsidies away from solar panels - and he would have upped the ante markedly. The present Australia Government does enjoy a surplus of 80 billion plus (eyes popping). Why isn't it possible to spend some of these billions without extra taxes?
The two schools of thought regarding this idiotic sham are:
1. business will make large amounts out of trading permits.
2. It will result in record government revenue, resulting in mass government spending.
Both schools are seriously deluded, and in time (when hysteria is taken over by reality), will never admit to having held such views.
Alan, what are you doing?
Switching off unnecessary lights and appliances? Driving less? Did you read the entire article about China?
Governments can only do so much; the rest is up to us. As for the discussion papers - we don't live in a dictatorship any more mate, so get over it.
What!
Marilyn, I did read the entire article, and I also read the part where the Chinese are fudging the figures. If they get a bad reading from one of their monitoring stations they move it to a place where the conditions are not so bad. Their figures are about as dodgy as Iemma's transport timetables. As far as I know we have never lived in a dictatorship, the closest we ever got was under Whitlam.
Be a good girl and read things properly. We are not interested in your interpretations we are interested in facts. The pollution in China is bad and getting worse, read the bloody facts. Better still take a trip to China and have a look, but not till after the Games. If you go remember Beijing is not the whole of China, most of China is a cesspool.
If Rudd and his two clowns Wong and Garrett persist with their nonsense we are in for tough times here in Australia, Qantas have already started to shed jobs and that is just the start of things.
The very possible problems
David Roffey: "Assuming there is no true global action which transcends national interests, which seems a fair assumption, I would submit that the tribes that survive the change best in the long term will be those that maintain the general health in their workers and defenders, and those that educate the next generation of same."
Sure. However, really, really, wanting something doesn't mean you'll get it. Most poor nations don't have many of these things - and it's not because their governments are mean - it's because their economies are weak, having experienced long term trends of negative growth.
It would also be a mistake to assume that future generations will naturally wish to keep scores of oldsters (and less fortunates) in the life they believe they should become accustomed. It's a competitive world out there, and the experience of not having that bottle of "wine", so as one can "pay" for the privilege of getting to employment, may not appeal to their tastes. Who wouldn't, say, prefer to work in a brand new hospital in UAE, Singapore, India, China, etc for double the pay, and a more affordable lifestyle (and a lot less tax)? Lifestyle shopping isn't something that should be discounted in a globalized world.
Australia is in world competition, and nothing is going to change that - it's only going to become more intense. The belief that a nation such as Australia can build a scheme that puts it at a distinct disadvantage, and then still enjoy the trappings of a successful economy is dangerously delusional - and no amount of hoping or will power is going to change that.
Australia, similar to the United States and Canada, is a predominately middle-class nation. Ripping the heart out of that will change the nation, and from what I gather about the views round these parts, many won't enjoy the changes.
Ship polar bears to Antarctica to save the species?
As the effects of climate change threatens to wipe out hundreds of species one suggestion is "assisted colonization". Polar bears to Antartica or tigers to Kakadu.
We could take heed from the Chinese
It is extraordinary that China is 10 years ahead of us in new technologies yet we have a tiny part of their population and can't manage to agree on anything much at all.
Pathetic whingers.
Whingeing
Marilyn, as per usual you do not get all the facts right:
Are you suggesting that we do what the Chinese are doing - cleaning the place up for two weeks whilst the Olympics are on and then back to normal? I have been to China three times in the last 12 months, and I am telling you the place is a pigsty as far as pollution is concerned and getting worse, and that whatever we do here in Australia is going to count for nothing as long as the Chinese do what they are doing.
Rudd (the con-man) promised to fix things and people like you believe him. The people who can least afford it are going to suffer for Rudd's stupid election promises, and all you can do is whinge if someone criticises him.
Anyway, just watch as he brings out Green Papers, Pink Papers Summit talks and god knows what else, and in the end nothing will happen.
It's only going to get tougher
David Roffey: "Universal health care wasn't and isn't socialism, it's the rich defending themselves against TB and cholera etc by treating the carriers around them, and (eg for the UK NHS) concerns about the poor health of conscripts damaging military strength."
"Rich" people didn't give western societies "quality" universal health care - economic growth did - and destroying growth will take it away. It's a simple figures game. Higher growth means a higher tax take, resulting in higher government spending. Contracting growth means less profit which means a lower tax take, resulting in less government spending. Now where does government spend most money?
The proposal of growth tax will result in economic contraction. The government will have no other choice but to make cut backs in spending areas. It's plainly obvious that such cut backs will come from the "welfare" sector - it can't come from anywhere else.
Australia makes 69% of export earnings from agricultural and mining products. Yet this sector only makes up 2% of the Australian work force. It's obvious that any slowdown in this area, coupled with most unprofitable Australian industries (made even more so), will result in a large down grade in lifestyle for many Australians - middle-class Australians will carry the highest burden in the event of this taking place.
how about this instead of 2050...
Emergency programmatic change.
Let us try:
* The immediate banning of sale of any passenger motor vehicle over two litre engine capacity; non-passenger vehicles are acceptable but seating to be limited to two seats;
* Motor vehicle use - an odds and evens system to commence immediately;
* 2012 - all domestic power use to be removed from the centralised grid - free government distribution and installation of alternative energy sources for home use; domestic consumers to make their own priorities about how they use their power;
* Immediate banning of the installation of air conditioning in any new building including commercial and office buildings thus making passive cooling design an imperative; hospitals exempted.
I could go on.
So...other countries don't want to engage in these sorts of measures...but we need to be planning for a society that is competent to:
* Feed, clothe, house, educate and find work for the existing Australian population using a sustainable technologies. Participation in the production and distribution of the minimum means of subsistence to be the 'means test' of citizenship. After that it would be up to the individual as to how to live.
caps will not work in time...
I've been an actively engaged environmentalist since I was initiated in a 1968 campaign against the sand mining of theMyall Lakes
The caps might be effective if we had sufficient time. But we don't.
Regulate now or regulate later. Sooner the better. Over and out on this one...the writing is on the wall.
How to regulate emissions?
Sorry, Anthony, still off the point. What is being proposed IS emissions regulation, so you're proposing the same as Garnaut and Wong, and then saying your own proposal won't work (but have no alternative action other than despair, presumably). And the end target is set - 60% reduction by 2050, with a bigger reduction possible in the context of successful international regulation.
The missing bit is how we get there, ie what the regulated limit will be in the first ten years - straight line 1.5%pa? 2.25%pa compound?, less now and steeper later (like a repayment mortgage)? And what do you think would be being said by those who bemoan the lack of that detail if the government had set out those proposals and said "but we don't know what the impact would be, because we're still working on that"?
If you regulate emissions, the choice is between setting regulations individually for each major carbon source, with a big bureaucracy and inevitable court challenges and a daily dribble of news stories about how jobs at X company were lost because their cap was too low while their competitor Y is laughing: or, you set the regulation for the whole country and let the polluters bid for it. The allocative efficiency (and simple bureaucratic efficiency) of the latter is pretty obvious. So Garnaut, who explores all the regulatory alternatives, comes down on cap-and-trade as the least worst.
The key alternative to regulating emissions is a direct carbon tax imposed at the carbon source. Works fine for fossil fuels but much more difficult to apply at the cow's arse. And the problem with that is, if you get the carbon price wrong, then either you miss the emissions target if the price was too low, or you do unnecessary damage to the economy if the price was too high. The latter problem is particularly problematic once agriculture is included, which will have to be true sooner or later (the Green paper proposal is from 2013). I have to say personally that if all the beef cattle farmers in Australia went out of business simultaneously it wouldn't faze me much, but others would care, which would in turn impact on the chances of the next government continuing to do the right thing.
So, everyone, if you really care about this, whatever your pet alternative proposal, read Garnaut and the Green Paper and understand why they looked at your proposal and rejected it, before you claim that you are right and they've got it wrong. If you then disagree on the detail - eg "Garnaut overestimates the difficulty of setting millions of separate regulatory targets, because I have a cunning plan for how to do that" - then set it out. But when you're faced with a complex and knotty problem, engage with it, don't just say "well, he's wrong and I'm right, so there, nyah nyah, and I'm not debating this any more". It is particularly unhelpful to do that when it is clear from what you say that you don't understand what you're attacking.
We don't understand, or you don't?
David, it seems to me that Anthony is on the money, while you and followers of Garnaut are merely living in hope. Except that Anthony contradicts himself a bit when he says that the sooner we regulate the better; but that we don't have sufficient time anyway. I am inclined to favour that second premise.
You seem to be saying we should limit our consideration of the broad issue to what is in the Garnaut report. This is equivalent to insisting that we may critique the teachings of a particular religion only within the boundaries set by the body of theology accepted by and belonging to that religion. Clearly, this is nonsense.
And we don't need to offer an alternative theology in order to justify our rejection of an accepted one. Nor do we need to become experts on Garnaut theory in order to see the false-hope premise on which it is based. Those of us who can see that can hardly be expected to consider it in detail with a view to embracing it. It makes no sense to do so. The process we of the technological age have set in motion is beyond our control. The consequences are inevitable now. It might be comforting to some to imagine that our current way of life may be preserved, it we modify it a bit; others prefer to face up to reality.
What is it that isn't in the Garnaut Report?
Bill: "You seem to be saying we should limit our consideration of the broad issue to what is in the Garnaut report."
Well, given that the report discusses the pros and cons of just about every possible scheme for regulating emissions, that isn't much of a restriction. Certainly there is nothing that Anthony has said that isn't covered, and indeed he doesn't appear to have noticed that he actually agrees with Garnaut. Have either of you read it, or are you assuming that what other people tell you it says is what it says? What you have written, Bill, offers no alternative action at all to what Garnaut proposes, which is, I repeat, what Anthony wants, which is regulation of emissions. There is no false-hope premise, just a discussion of what works better in regulating emissions and why that might be. If you believe there is a better way, you have to actually say what it is, not just criticise. And certainly not just make inaccurate assertions about what is proposed and criticise what is wrong with your own mistake.
I'm not sure how many times I have to say this before you hear it: Garnaut and the green paper propose a clear regulated limit ('cap') on emissions withinAustralia
PS - added later: also read Gittins in the SMH this morning.
Let me remind you
David, let me remind you of what has been said. Anthony spoke on the ecological degradation he has seen, and said: "The caps might be effective if we had sufficient time. But we don't."
You told him he was off the point. I agree with what he said, and think you and Garnaut and the government are missing the point. So are most others who are commenting here; though they do point up the seriousness of what we as a species seem to be facing. Look at the article linked to by Marilyn. I agree with what Allen said about that. She seems to be missing the point of the article to which she drew our attention. It seems from the article itself that China must be doing more polluting every minute than Australia will do in a year. So what good can Australia do to the world, however noble its intentions?
It is like asking a baby to stop farting, to cut down the stink in a room full of cabbage-fed sumo wrestlers all farting their heads off.
But the stink in the room is only a minor part of the problem. The real problem is that we have put a self-perpetuating process in motion, and nothing we do can stop it. If the world were miraculously rid of polluting humanity tomorrow, increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and resultant climate change would continue for centuries before it stabilised.
You are right: I have offered no alternative action to what Garnuat proposes. I have already said that it is not incumbent upon me to do that. All I am saying is that doing less of what is destroying the planet cannot possibly rescue the planet. And all Garnaut has prescribed is to reduce the rate at which we are destroying the planet. What you are calling "regulating our emissions". To kill the world a little more slowly than we have been doing during the last hundred years or so. What sort of remedy is that?
I have read the report summary. I don't see it as addressing the problem at all. The problem, as I see it, is how our species is going to survive the inevitable crunch. No one seems willing to even consider that. An audience member on the recent Q&A program mentioned it, but her thoughts were dismissed with "No, that's not what we should be looking at; what we need to do is —" followed by the familiar string of so-called radical remedies which not only won't be achieved, but wouldn't give us more than a tiny bit of breathing space even if they did.
So I see your "discussion of what works better in regulating emissions" as totally irrelevant. I am not trying to be part of that discussion. What I am trying to do is point out the pointlessness of it all. As Anthony said, the caps might be effective if we had sufficient time. But we don't.
snails
There are ample in my Wagga garden, John Pratt, (and my letterbox), and we coexist. I don't attempt to kill them ... why would I? There's plenty of greenery for all of us, and I don't mind the sharing. And I find the juxtaposition of garden/poison unacceptable. Yes, young annuals can dematerialise overnight unless I set up barriers ... and I leave some paper for them in the letterbox so that I can read my mail.
Surely their disappearance must have something to do with the long campaign against them? I notice what a knee-jerk killing response there is to snails, slaters, ants, etc: they are there, I must kill them. Why? I don't, and my garden flourishes.
Nor do we, but they's gone from here
F Kendall, we don't poison anything around here either but the little slimy things have disappeared all the same. Maybe they migrated to your veggie patch. They use to eat our mail too. Maybe the bills killed them off.
Anyway, nice to know the species has survived at least in Wagga Wagga.
As for you, Alan Curran – what will you eat now, one wonders. You could try those millipedes that have moved from SA over here – probably caught a free ride with us. Anyone who would eat snails would eat anything in my opinion, so you won't starve. So give thanks, dear boy. I notice the rain has stopped so I suppose you've stopped praying. I guess the Lord does not like part-time prayers.
Gastropods
Interesting point now you mention it, Jenny Hume. As you know we live in a sprawling tower building in the heart of Navyland (a subsidiary of Walt Disney) and have always had a balcony garden of one sort or the other – reminds me, I must pick that lemon and harvest the mandarines. Freesias are just coming out too.
We live on the 7th floor now. Some years ago we lived on 10 and 11. The problem was not snails but slugs. They used to climb up the outside of the building. Like you, I haven't seen one for yonks. In fact, I think the snail pellets have gone mouldy. Interesting. But if there is global warming, wherever it is coming from, we end up with more mosquitoes. Mind you, since I rescued the screen door with the cat flap from the garbage room, they aren't such a problem around here any more unless we are out on the balcony.
Fiona: Only one lemon, Malcolm? You are lucky. The food shortage inMelbourne
Noticing the little things
While the experts point to cyclones, floods, drought, rising sea levels, melting ice and permafrost, they seem to miss the little things that are happening.
Has anyone seen a snail south ofSydney Canberra
So it may not be all bad, this global warming thing, though the resident scientist in this establishment tells me that the eggs will be there, and one day they will return. Now just how long can a snail's egg last, that is the question.
No snails in the north either.
Hi Jenny, interesting thing the case of the missing snails. I haven't seen one in the five years I've lived in Cairns. As a keen gardener I have not had to use snail killer at all, although I notice they still sell it in the shops. I put it down to cane toads but maybe not. Has anyone seen a snail recently?
Cheers John
Snails
Jenny, the last I heard of the snails was that were being stamped on by union officials, for following them around all day.
There's one left, Alan
Alan, there's one left and he's right behind you, right this minute. Don't step back in case you slip on him and you both end up extinct. We can probably survive without the snail, but without you, never. The moderators might disagree, of course.
Fiona: Not at all, Jenny. It is said that variety is the spice of life.
Last one
Jenny, thanks for the warning about the escargot behind me. He is now in the pot with the garlic and butter and I shall deal with him whilst watching today's leg of the Tour de France. Allez le snail - Allez Cadell.
markets, neo-liberalism and bunkum...
The interface between the state and the market was always fraught with difficulty...the major post-war compromise between labor and capital devised by Keynes was admirable with the hindsight we all now have after twenty years of attempts at laissez faire.
Faced with the prospect of industrialised capitalism eroding the very conditions of human (and other) species existence on the planet we get served up an absolutely horrible mish mash of...more neo-liberal policies.
Carbon trading? Of course, make a tradeable commodity out of a pollutant. That will fix everything.
Yeah, right.
If you imagine that a market system will ever reduce the total amount of Co2 released into the atmosphere then this is a failure of historical knowledge about how markets work. The crying need is to reduce total Co2 emmisions. Trading in emissions licences will allow those with 'spare' emissions to sell at a profit what they don't need. How does this benefit the environment?
The best example of why markets will fail to produce a positive environmental outcome is what has happened to the Murray-Darling system since the introduction of water trading permits: it has collapsed as an ecosystem. Some of us, always sceptical if not absolutely cynical about neo-liberal market "solutions", felt that ecological collapse of the Murray-Darling was an entirely predictable result.
In pre-modern political systems ecological "management", by which I mean access to and control over the rivers, estuaries, forests and so on, the natural resources by which people subsisted was regulated by a system of royal fiat. It worked well in England, for example, until the great acts of theft otherwise known as the Acts of Enclosure of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The state needs to step up to the job of regulating production in relation to ecological needs. In particular it needs to regulate the commons. And don't be drawn in by Garrett Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" thesis - it is historically uninformed and just plain wrong.
What we require: a strong state with centralised authority committed to production for subsistence needs and distribution of life's minimum requirements to all within ecologically sustainable boundaries.
The market can have its share of what is left over. At the moment the formula is the wrong way around: the market takes a cut and then the world's population (and all other species of life) get the residue!
It's the cap that reduces emissions, not the trade
Anthony, no-one has ever claimed that it's the market trade part of cap-and-trade that reduces emissions. It's the cap - ie the regulated limit on the emissions to be traded. This being so, most of your comment misses the point.
Labor's green paper robust or wimpish?
Michelle Grattan political editor, for The Age.
Michelle Gratten is correct. Until we see the targets we will not be able to judge the government's real commitment to change. We must hope that Rudd has the courage and wisdom to make real cuts to our carbon emissions by setting the target so that the pain of change is spread out over the forty years to 2050 not all felt in the years from 2030 to 2050. We should share the burden not leave it to our kids.
Hindsight and foresight
Yes John, we should not leave the burden to our kids and grandkids. Rarely do we have the chance to operate from foresight. Usually it is hindsight people call in as a defence.
I do not think those who are still around in 2040/50, ie the 30s/40s something current generation that are mostly running the show now will be able to say - with hindsight. Enough science is there on this to suggest the precautionary principle should be applied.
For us rising oldies our kids in fact are the ones holding the reins for their kids. They are also mostly the rather affluent middle class. I just wonder if the comfort they know, that we did not at their age, is something they are prepared to sacrifice a bit for their own kids' sake - those toddlers and babies you see all around the big malls.
They have predicated much of their comfort on an usustainable level of debt - so they are in a bit of a bind. They have to turn the whole show around for their kids' sake while wanting to preserve the way of life they have carved out for themselves and meet that mountain of debt. Not a lot of room exists for decisions that would see the economy take a hit and not have a big effect on that middle class.
And that effect does occur, and families rein in buying all that mountain of mostly can do without stuff made in China that fills the great malls, all geared to meet the greed mentality, then wil not the Chinese economy go into a tailspin, taking us with it?
As Henry Lawson wrote:
The mighty bush with iron rails
Is tethered to the world.
He might have said China. It will take a brave person to break down those rails. China is a major power and it might be rather unpredictable in the future if it has a very large middle class facing a return to poverty.
Meanwhile the population will grow to 9 billion over that time. You either control population growth, or control drain on resources. That means changing the way we live. And the let it be you, not me attitude is what has to be overcome.
Climatic changes are occurring faster than projected.
A new report released in the US says that climatic changes are occurring faster than projected. We have less time than we thought to react to the rapid onset of catastrophic climate change. We have no choice other than to act now and the impacts of inaction will far out weigh the costs of moving to a carbon neutral economy.
Al Gore "The future of human civilization is at stake."
The challenge for this generation is to phase out the use of fossil fuels in the production of the nation's electricity within the next 10 years. To do this we would have to go onto a war footing and direct much of our national effort to the task.
If Gore is correct and the future of human civilization is at stake we have no choice and no time to lose.
The world sure is changing
David Roffey: "I'd guess that there is a very strong chance that that will be a Turnbull-led government, and that there is also a strong chance that hedging in the face of public unpopularity and opposition this time round will mean that Turnbull and his cabinet will have to adopt much more drastic measures than Rudd and his are proposing."
I think future Australian Governments will be dealing with the same major issues as their European counterparts. Things such as the end of quality universal health, and education, to name just a few. It's improbable to believe that after launching an outright attack on the middle-class (the difference between first and third world nations), that such middle-class driven concepts will remain intact.
Who's attacking the middle class?
Sometimes, Paul, your world view is so skewed that I can't even work out what direction you're coming at it from.
The necessary actions to reduce emissions and slow climate change (which is what this thread is about) will most heavily impact on the poor, while the middle class (unless they'd been suckered by the market into irrationally large debt) will buy a little less wine to afford the gas.
Assuming there is no true global action which transcends national interests, which seems a fair assumption, I would submit that the tribes that survive the change best in the long term will be those that maintain the general health in their workers and defenders, and those that educate the next generation of same. If they pull in healthcare and education only to those that can afford it, they'll be back to the middle classes and rich dying early of the diseases of the poor around them, just as it was last time this was so. And if we start heading for my more apocalyptic vision, the middle classes will find that the NRA and gated communities will be just as effective in defending them as the farmers in Zimbabwe found them to be.
Universal health care wasn't and isn't socialism, it's the rich defending themselves against TB and cholera etc by treating the carriers around them, and (eg for the UK NHS) concerns about the poor health of conscripts damaging military strength.
Learning to live with karmic consequences
Eliot, that abundance of much more efficient cars Marilyn speaks of must be bikes.
And you are right; most of the cars on the road now will be on the road for a long time yet. Before too long they will all be parked on the side of the road, getting in the bike-riders' way, because no one will be able to afford to put petrol in them. They will come in handy though, providing something for poor people to sleep in. Including all those who used to work at making Fords and Holdens.
John, I don't think it would be too hard for anyone to know better than the CSIRO. They can't even keep their own sick bunny rabbits under control. It's easy to talk about 3.25 million new jobs, but when are they going to tell us how the people doing them are going to get paid?
David, I think the most significant part of the Garnaut Report (summary) is:
That said, the rest of the report, and any discussion arising from it, is just a big wank. It is too late now. The process is under way, and none of the remedies being put forward can realistically be expected to reverse it. And never mind the 1990s. The process has been under way, leading inevitably to the situation now becoming obvious, since the industrial revolution.
As for medieval times and energy-poor subsistence farmers, I think you need to have a closer look at that. Where on earth did you get that weird idea?
Energy-poor subsistence farmers
Maintaining a complex global civilisation takes a lot of energy and the coordination of a huge variety of specialist inputs. The ongoing decline in nice portable liquid energy availability has currently no viable replacement , and the candidates for that are either hugely emissions-intensive (coal-to-oil or tar sands) or require a completely new global infrastructure which is unfortunately extremely explosive (anything hydrogen-based). My view: we won't be moving people and goods around like we have become used to. Some of that reduction will seriously erode the ability of the world to manage the civilisation we currently have.
In particular, the growing cost, and reducing availability, of fuel to power agricultural machinery (and the parallel impacts on chemical production) will reduce potential yields about the same time that flooding, droughts and storm events reduce the area viable for crop production. It's really very different ploughing a field with two-horse power than with 200hp. Food production will dive, and consequently population will dive, and many of the remaining able-bodied will have to transition back to agricultural work or starve. Voila. Weird idea.