In The Daily Fix, Crikey taps into the wisdom of experts and community leaders to find solutions to problems. Today: climate change.
Most major economies are either not a party to the Paris agreement (such as the US), not subject to any meaningful constraints on emissions (such as China), or not on track to meet their targets (such as the EU).
Accordingly, emissions reduction should not be a focus of government policy at this time, given that it would effectively be unilateral and ineffective.
Public policy responses, if any, to changes in the climate should be limited to adaptation measures Australia can directly control.
In terms of energy policy, governments should focus on affordability and reliability. Ideally, the energy market would be free to determine the most desirable means of electricity generation. Proposals for government support for fossil fuels should therefore be rejected, but equally all subsidies, quotas and other government interventions encouraging the use of renewables should also be scrapped.
In a free market, energy companies would compete for who can offer the best “deal” for customers, not for who can best game the system. The best government “energy policy” is none at all.
Gideon Rozner is the director of policy at the Institute of Public Affairs
IPA’s right wing sophistry – the reverie about mystical power of unfettered capitalism – is underpinned by the equally fanciful notion of trickle down. The rich must get richer for the poor to get more – convenient mantra for the .. rich. The fact that , in the real world, this has proven to be totally fallacious apparently does not dissuade the mullahs of the free market to chant their beliefs for the faithful ( who amazingly agree and possibly donate ). The trickle down has in fact been a flood to off-planet safe havens – Panama et al. And a swag of ad hominem attacks on messengers from this reality.
Reminds me of the growth of social darwinism in the 19th century – with ideologues like Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner – which leveraged the notion of “survival of the fittest” to promote unrestrained capitalism. Spencer opposed any laws that helped workers, the poor, and those he deemed genetically weak. Such laws, he argued, would go against the evolution of civilization by delaying the extinction of the “unfit.”
A quick jump to eugenics and race laws – and Nazi rule. Still the benchmark for the Far Right. As one noted politician recently said – “I just don’t want the government any more in my life, I am sick of the government being in my life.” Except when there’s a trough to fill and snouts to feed.
And a pandemic ..
Reminds me of something Billy McMahon once said: “Our policy is quite clear; we have no policy”.
Is this a replacement for Ben Pobjie?
Beat me to it. He’s not that funny either.
Is there a point to this Crikey ? We’ve got IPA news, their own COALition parties and even IPA beer. Now here ?
It’s useful to be reminded of what w*****s they are.
Didn’t the free market get us to this unenviable point in history? And, your answer is to hand over to them again to free us from the mess they created in the first place? Isn’t that like seeing an unruly mob of drunken louts intent on pillage and plunder marauding through the streets of your city and saying to them ‘Hey, you lot, look at the mess you made, clean it up!’
The best advocate Gina can buy.
If he is the best then she is in deep doo-doo.