Brendan Nelson doesn’t want Australia to commit itself to a carbon trading scheme without knowing how other nations are planning to tackle the problem. “The very real concern that all of us have as Australians is that, with Mr Rudd proposing to implement an emissions trading scheme from 2010, that he will put Australia well ahead of the rest of the pack,” he said late last week.
But even if an Australian ETS is up and running by 2010 as Kevin Rudd is promising, Australia will not lead the pack. Far from it, in fact. Dr Ian MacGill, senior lecturer in energy systems at the University of New South Wales, says Australia couldn’t lead the world on emissions trading even if it wanted to.
“The policy leadership has been taken up by the EU. In 2010, the EU will have had a scheme in place for five years.” The EU is currently negotiating the details of how stage three (to run from 2013 to around 2020) will proceed.
Next year, a regional carbon trading scheme know as REGI which focusses on electricity generators will commence in the north eastern corner of the United States. The Chicago Climate exchange has been trading emissions since 2003. Those schemes are far from alone, even in a nation still yet to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. As The Age reported recently:
… some 28 states and provinces in the US and Canada either have or are introducing emissions trading. Significantly, both Barack Obama and John McCain have supported introducing emissions trading.
Japan is designing an emissions trading system to come into effect after Kyoto expires in 2012, but it will only be one aspect of that nation’s approach to tackling greenhouse gases. In May, Environment Minister Ichiro Kamoshita revealed that the Japanese government might adopt “additional regulatory measures, like environmental taxes” to accompany a trading scheme.
Closer to home, the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme begun on 1 January 2003 and as its website claims, it was “one of the first mandatory greenhouse gas emissions trading schemes in the world.” In September last year, New Zealand unveiled details of an emissions trading scheme which is “economy wide and includes all sectors and all greenhouse gases”.
But emissions trading also comes with traps for the unwary, according to Ian MacGill.
“Having an emissions trading scheme does not in itself demonstrate progress on climate change policy,” he told Crikey.
“One of the great dangers of emissions trading is that it allows for weak governance and an inability to make progress on the hard decisions. And if you can’t get a good emissions trading scheme into place, then a carbon tax or other approaches might come into the equation. With an ETS people might make the case that they don’t need those other policies.”
There is one final factor which should allay any fears Brendan Nelson has about Australia leading the global pack with its emissions trading scheme.
In terms of energy-related emissions, “Australia’s emissions have continued to climb and very fast under the current policies,” MacGill told Crikey.
“Our first job is to catch up. Then we can start talking about leadership.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Australia deludes itself by portraying us as being a world leader in a particular field. I’m all for positive self image but at times I fear our collective back slapping and hubris prevents us from being realistic about the advances we are not making and yet need to. The combination of the “love it or leave” (because we’re perfect already) and the “she’ll be right” (don’t do anything you don’t really have to) elements of Australian mindsets have the potential to paralyse in a situation where do nothing is not an option.
Your reference to the American presidential candidates and the frequent references to the Europeans in other quarters is disingenuous.John McCain has stated that he would like to see the US emulate the French and be looking to generate 80% of their base load power requirements from nuclear energy. That is a central plank of his Climate change strategy as it is of the Germans, French and several other EU members as well as Japan. But the Labor and the Greens here have repudiated such an approach. Nowhere is there any serious consideration to the use of renewables to power cities. That is one of several enormous holes in the Rudd governments public discussion so far.
Leaving aside the fact that the perceived threat to the planet by climate change, will in 25 years, by shown for what it is – dud science, a complete waste of time, money and effort. By then it will become apparent even to the most hardened of environmentalists, that the climate has not warmed but in actual fact has cooled.
My biggest concerns are with issues like the cost of living, employment and the future development of the country’s economy. This is where I think the battle will be won or lost. It’s futile arguing about the science, as there are many scientists on both sides of the divide. For me the biggest issue is the negative impact a Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will have on this nation’s economy and the standard of living.
An ETS is not like a global financial meltdown which only happens spasmodically and once every seventy odd years or so. We can ride out such crises but an ETS is with us every day of every year, strangling the lifeblood out of the economy. We can’t ride it out. It will be a millstone around our necks until such time as the politicians see the light and remove it from the statue books.
The humbug that going green will only mean a one per cent increase in the cost of living and create thousands of new `green’ jobs, is pie in the sky wishful thinking. What I fear will happen will be a worsening of job opportunities in this country, and a slow gradual decline in the standard of living. Developing nations such as China and India are not jumping on the green bandwagon. As western nations, like Australia, introduce a tax on production (ETS), it must mean surely that many jobs will be exported offshore where production costs are lower.
This will mean many jobs going overseas and we will have to import many goods which we once made in this country. So not only will unemployment levels rise, but the balance of trade get far worse. The bottom line is the earth is cooling not warming, and we need an ETS like we need a hole in the head.