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Re: Abbott’s population target will cost us, by Bernard Keane, Crikey, 30/5/10:Bernard Keane is one of the few gallery reporters demonstrably awake to the sleight of hand routinely used by the Australian resources sector to beat up economic modeling in order to argue that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is akin to national economic suicide. As Keane notes, when we hear these arguments that emission cuts will slash GDP, employment, incomes, etc what is in fact meant is that these things will grow slightly less rapidly. GDP doubles a few years later, employment still increases, real wages still grow etc. So it was somewhat odd to see this Keane critique of Tony Abbott’s population policy ‘discussion paper’ the other day. Rather than de-spinning Treasury modeling of the economic implications of reduced immigration and slower population growth, Keane curiously ran with the sort of language one normally associates with the carbon lobby. Restraining population in line with the Coalition’s preferred 29 million people by 2050 would, says Keane: “slash GDP by around 8.5% - or around $290b “ and “significantly reduce GDP per capita”; furthermore, Treasury analysis suggests that such a population target would wreak even “greater damage” than “cutting GDP per person by over $7,000 a year”. He goes on to say it would “destroy Australia’s multi-billion dollar international education industry and prevent employers from hiring skilled workers from overseas when none are available locally…” In actual fact, Treasury’s data does not suggest GDP would not be cut in either total or per capita terms – they would just grow a bit more slowly than would be the case with faster population growth. I have to think that Keane’s tongue was firmly in cheek on this occasion… giving some of the politicians most at home with such hyperbole a bit of their own back. If only there was more economic satire of this caliber.
Re: Killing the ETS was a team effort, by Bernard Keane, Crikey, 28/4/10:
It’s fair enough for political spectators to encourage the fallen gladiator to make a comeback, especially in an election year—but there’s a big problem with the idea that Malcolm Turnbull is ‘the only senior politician in federal parliament who wants to take effective action on climate change’: he sacrificed his leadership over something totally different — a completely ineffective plan of action. He backed a scheme that promised to cap greenhouse pollution in Australia but would have allowed it to increase; that promised to make the polluter pay but would have paid the worst polluters with over 4 in every 5 emission permits for free; that promised economic transformation here at home but would have allowed 100% of Australia’s post-Kyoto emission reduction obligations to be outsourced through the purchase of carbon credits abroad; and, thanks largely to Turnbull’s efforts, a scheme that would have paved the way for soil carbon credits to swamp the carbon trade and in doing so enable Australia to avoid emission cuts at the smokestack and tailpipe for many years to come. Turnbull’s enthusiasm for the revised CPRS, and his promotion of the idea that cheap soil carbon credits could offset Australia’s emissions cheaply for decades (see: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=61516374094 ), were two sides of the same coin. Just like Rudd’s hollow rhetoric about ‘the great moral challenge’, it wasn’t about urgent action, it was about urgent acting. Yes, Turnbull deserves credit for staking his leadership on something—it’s only a shame that it wasn’t something worthwhile.
Re: 'Chance to combat climate change through policy has come and gone' by Tom Switzer (21 April 2010)
(This comment has been censored by The Australian so far...presumably a back-handed compliment)
Tom Switzer dances on the embers of the Copenhagen climate conference and the polluter-friendly cap and trade schemes proposed by Kevin Rudd and Barack Obama. He runs a little victory lap for those things that organisations like his Institute of Public Affairs would no doubt like to take partial credit: beating up 'climategate', instilling 'global warming fatigue', and perpetuating the myth that cutting greenhouse emissions constitutes an 'economic suicide pact'. Yet there is no mention here of the main obstacle to emission cuts: the influence of the fossil fuel lobby, and the front groups and think tanks like the IPA that enjoy their patronage and fight effective action on their behalf. The not so 'cold reality' is that the world is adding 3 billion people in the next few decades and runaway greenhouse pollution driven mainly by fossil fuel burning remains on track to inflict more harm on the world, with more human casualties than any previous man-made catastrophe. Playing the detached commentator here is about as convincing as the scientific case against human-induced climate change. Guy Pearse - Research Fellow, Global Change Institute, Univ or Qld
Re: 'Will Clive Hamilton reflect on 'alarmist' failures' by Andrew Norton (8 March 2010)
'Andrew – It’s good to see that you’re still dining out on the passing mention I made of you on page 244 of High & Dry. Your greenhouse policy commentary has been entirely relevant to the case I made in the book. It only reinforces how right it was to include you.'
Re: Dumbed Down Debate by Olga Galacho 5 March 2010) in the Herald Sun
'Instead of playing ideological victim, proponents of nuclear as a domestic emissions solution must deal with the practical problems: its cost vs alternatives, no significant emission reduction target or carbon price, which communities will host nuclear power, the waste disposal problems, the time it takes to get nuclear power stations financed, insured, approved, built etc. Nuclear is no panacea. Even The Switkowski Report suggests that with 25 nuclear reactors Australia’s emissions rise 70% over 1990 levels by 2050—with around as much coal still being burned as today. Peter Cosgrove says not going nuclear at home is ‘almost immoral’ while we export uranium to less developed countries. Has he pondered the morality of Australia's coal addiction, I wonder? Burning coal at home doesn’t make exporting it less morally indefensible. We must apply the same standard to coal as we do to uranium – ie. we shouldn’t export it to markets where it’s not being used safely. Since all Australia’s coal exports are being used unsafely (ie the emissions are not captured), that’s a subject well worth pulling out of the too-hard basket.'
Re: 'Why melting Glaciers mean cleaner, cheaper cars' by Paul Gilding (3 March 2010) in Cockatoo Chronicles & Business Spectator
'Sorry Paul -- this is a classic example of what I call 'carbon carnivale' commentary. It’s manufactured excitement about an 'inevitable transition to a zero net carbon economy', as if the revolution is under way and can't be stopped. Exciting as some of the developments you cite are, the market is not 'forging ahead'. Of course, it’s not too hard to cherry pick some positive examples to suggest otherwise -- eg 30 new electric car models coming onto the market; Warren Buffett investing in an electric car company etc. But how about some context?
30 new electric car models coming onto the market means little in and of itself. Carmakers are highly adept at marketing clean vehicles which are variously expensive, unavailable to buy in most markets, have a long waiting list, require fuel that is almost impossible to find—or a combination of these things. If hybrid sales to date are any guide, most of the new models alluded to in this piece will sell in very small numbers relative to the total number of cars being sold by the companies concerned. The total quantity of fossil fuel used by their cars will continue rising, as will their overall greenhouse gas emissions.
Without context, other facts mentioned in this piece are similarly problematic. A million Chinese people buying electric cars by 2012 sounds impressive, but let's keep in mind that China will be adding another 30 million cars running on petrol and diesel over that timeframe.
Warren Buffett investing US$230 million in a Chinese electric car company sounds impressive too, but perhaps not so exciting when you learn that last year Buffett invested over US$34 billion in a US railway company that relies on coal for half its tonnage, carrying around as much coal each year as Australia currently exports. His stake in the Chinese electric vehicle company is no bigger than the US$300 million investment he recently made in Harley Davidson--not a champion of electric vehicles last time I looked.
Aside from the eco-hedonism this article exudes, its other distinguishing feature is the scant mention of government policy. The market is headed in the wrong direction because government policy continues to allow it. Without different policies, there is nothing at all inevitable about any rapid transition to a low carbon economy, and the biggest polluting industries are finding government as pliant as ever when it comes to protecting the status quo.
We needn’t worry ourselves too much with where ‘a transition this dramatic’ will head, because in truth there is no dramatic transition occurring. As Thomas Friedman has written, what we’re watching is not a green revolution, ‘we’re actually having a green party’.
The carbon carnivale drum-beat is irresistible for many, but we must try to avoid cherry picking for the sake of a positive story. We need to maintain a sober gaze on the cumulative impact of where the market is actually heading in the absence of policies that force deep emission cuts in a meaningful timeframe. If we’re content to assume that the market will deliver a smarter and cleaner world, and that a rapid and dramatic sunset for the combustion engine in the next few years is inevitable, we are as likely to be as disappointed by what eventuates as we already are by the melting glaciers etc. Guy Pearse -- Research Fellow, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland.
Re: Hey Green Spender in the New Scientist – 25 Feb 2010
‘Hey Green Spender’ appears to be a great opportunity missed by New Scientist. Some of the world’s biggest greenwashing corporations -- especially those in the energy and transport sectors responsible for most greenhouse gas emissions -- will view these results as made to measure (and to market).
The article sought to highlight the gap between "how green a company is" (as measured by Trucost) and "how green it is perceived to be" (as measured by Earthsense), to determine which brands deserve a "green halo" among consumers. It’s certainly a worthwhile question, but the findings are inevitably misleading because the research approach is fatally flawed, as these qualifications encapsulate: "Trucost’s scores do not include impacts after the sale of a company’s products and services" and the "data don’t include the burning of fuel that happens after the cars and oil are sold."
This is a bit like assessing the impact of cigarettes before they’re smoked. Analysis of the impacts prior to combustion may well be an interesting exercise but, on its own, not terribly helpful. The omission of post sale emissions plus other environmental impacts is justified in Hey Green Spender on the shaky grounds that: "In many cases, these post sale impacts will represent only a small proportion of a firms total environmental footprint". Maybe so, for say Google or Starbucks, but not for companies whose products are the very conduits through which most energy and transport emissions make their way into the atmosphere.
Hitting the nail on the head, the article states that including post sale impacts "risked skewing the results for oil companies and vehicle manufacturers" and "if the carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles after sale were factored into the analysis, the picture for car firms would change." Um, yeah, just a bit, as it should! The same goes for oil companies and coal miners, for the manufacturers of coal fired power plants, and a host of other premier league greenwashers who will no doubt be thrilled with this article. Normally their PR departments have to pay for this sort of thing.'
Re: The Problems are bigger than Garrett by Bernard Keane in Crikey 23 Feb 2010
'There's another big problem here, Bernard. There's seems to be almost no comprehension in the gallery, or in the wider community, that these 'direct action' subsidies have a miniscule impact on Australia's emissions. These 'boutique level' industries you refer to are not being asked to make 'big cuts in carbon emissions', and there's no 'heavy lifting' going on. The insulation of 2.7 million homes, and solar hot water on another 400,000 roofs would, by the government's own reckoning, cut around 5 million tonnes of CO2 a year from Australia's projected emissions in 2020. That's like suspending Australian coal exports for 2 and a half days! Put another way, the emissions generated by the Gorgon gas project, even after it captures and stores 3 million tonnes of CO2 annually, more than erase all the emission savings made by installing insulation or solar hot water in three million-plus homes. It's Australia's greenhouse response that is 'boutique level'.'