The winter session of the 2008 Parliament opened on Budget night and draws to a close tomorrow. For climate politics there have been some long dark nights and plenty of chills for those who recognise the urgency of the challenge of climate change.
Budget week was extraordinary. The Government lost their climate mojo, fumbling clean energy funding, and the promising climate policy maturity of Coalition careered down a low road of petrol price populism. The fog then really set in over following weeks with Government suggestions of GST reductions, days and days of argument on FuelWatch and similar diversions.
Monday’s release of the Climate Institute’s report into energy affordability seems to have triggered, or coincided with, divergent responses. The landmark report from CSIRO and ANU economists engaged with the oft forgotten reality that almost all economic models show that we will have continued strong economic growth even with significant greenhouse emission reductions. Rather than looking at stand-alone costs, we need to consider the extent to which wage increases outstrip those costs.
The report introduced the concept of affordability, the proportion of the growing incomes spent on energy services. It showed that energy affordability improves for most households and for all households with a smart policy mix of targeted affordability payments and decisive energy efficiency programs.
Clumsy efforts by some in the Coalition to simplistically draw out the cost figures seem to have rebounded with the Government rediscovering something of their climate mojo and engaging in a spirited defence yesterday of the need for action.
Just how credible or sufficient the Government action will be, of course, needs to wait for the coming Spring session of Parliament, by the end of which we are promised draft legislation on emissions trading and other policies including indications of their emissions reduction target.
Helping avoid the worst costs of dangerous climate change requires policies that boost investment in clean technology and put a price on greenhouse polluting technology. Australia needs not only to help forge an effective long term global agreement but also to ensure it is competitive in the low carbon, clean energy global economy we must create in the 21st century.
On comparably significant reforms such as removing tariff barriers and competition policy both major parties ultimately established if not a consensus then a workable arrangement. It remains to be seen just how critical it is that the Coalition emerges from its current policy confusion and gets back on track. This will be a function of the strength of Government policies, the position of the Senate cross benches and the desire of the Coalition to be relevant to this challenge.
It is clear that climate change will require a new kind of leadership with a clear and clean vision of the future and the details of how we are to get there. It can only be hoped that all our politicians shrug off their winter lurgies and return in Spring with the vigour needed to sustain this leadership.
Apart from the fact that no conclusive proof has been offered to even suggest that man-made CO2 emissions affect climate change, the Feceral Department of Climate Change cannot add anything to the level of proof either. A recent communication indicated that there had been a slight increase in CO2 emissions since 2005 but completely overlooked the fact that there had been no increase in average global temperature (AGT) since 1998 and that, in fact, from 1 Jan 2007 to 1 Jan 2008 had actually decreased by 0.67 degree C. Accordingly, it has been unable to show that there is any correlation between CO2 emissions of any type and Climate Change. Also it follows that there is no justification for keeping fuel prices at these record levels just to line the pockets of the major oil companies.
The “climate change ended in 1998” is a classic piece of head-in-sanding. Temperatures have dropped from a high in 1998, but are still elevated. By John’s logic, a few dollars off the oil price overnight would mean the oil shock is over because oil is no longer rising. For global warming to be sound does not require there to be a 1:1 correlation between temperature and CO2 level every single year. If you take the record from the beginning of the 1900s to now, however, there is clearly a very strong correlation. If there is to be a future, we had better get used to the fact that no everyone is going to feel comforatable living there.
John Connor: Your article was an inconceivably brilliant illustration OF WHY THE AUSTRALIAN PEOPLE ARE GOING TO END UP VOMITING AND CHOKING THEMSELVES INTO EXTINCTION. You use words like affordability . (Shouldn’t that be affordable? ) and a sentence going….”but also to ensure it is competitive in the low carbon”….
The issue of climate change has galloped well past politics and big business-possibly you invoke this hallowed word because you perceive business to have the money to fix things. To this extent you may have a point. However, big business is creating the certifiably insane destruction of Tasmanian old growth forests; the decimation of animal and bird life, and the pollution of the sea. All in order to sell wood pulp/chips to Japan so they can turn it into paper; which they turn around and re-sell it back to us.
This alone makes your essay absurd. Then add to it the death of the Murray Darling rivers. Did big business have anything to do with this? Purlese…This death was caused, mainly via the irrigation of alien
crops such as cotton and rice. In this the driest continent on earth. You know, or you should know that any form of politics in which ANY PARTY can pretend to be looking forward whilst opening its deep pockets for business to fill up with hundred dollar notes and cheques payable to the government of the day’s favourite charities; 1 million, a hundred million dollar take. For whom? Themselves. This was an exemplary example of pigs’ snouts in the trough of s*it, in the form of THE LIBERAL PARTY and the even greedier NATIONAL PARTY aka The C*ntry Party. Also aka the Coalition of corruption as led by John Winston Howard-duck quack and all.
So spare us your under-whelming didacticism and your pious saws. Leaders? No government in my life time could have led the public out of a walk in the park.
While not disagreeing with the sentiment, the debate on climate change is broader than petrol prices, or even the relative benefits of alternative forms of energy (wind, solar, nuclear).
Why not also look at how we use existing energy more efficiently; e.g. double glazing of glass areas, solar hot water systems for hot water or home heating , gray water systems for flushing toilets, etc.
Why not include shortening car journeys by (in Melbourne) making Ringwood and Frankston alternative CBDs, especially with the connection of Eastlink and the Eastern Freeway? Why must we have to have one CBD in central Melbourne, just because the Melbourne City Council likes it that way? It would also relieve demands on our radial train and tram system.
Sorry, but many Melbournians in the suburbs only visit the central CBD 2-3 times a year.Urban policy making ignores this and seems set on preserving the status quo, as if the central CBD is so important to all of us. It is not! Why not decentralise – why not provide arts, music and opera at alternative locations such as at the Alexander Hall at Monash University? Is the key problem that key decision-makers and wealthy backers all live near the central CBD and cannot see beyond their short-sightedness?
Why is it that rising sea levels have not been mentioned? We have need for protection against coastal erosion and inundation of inner cities.Taree in NSW had the recent experience of sea water erosion of cliffs and houses falling into the sea. Sea levels only have to rise 20cm and beach-side suburbs of all of our cities will have major problems – welcome to the inundation of Sydney Harbour, Port Philip Bay and the Gold Coast. Bring it on and then we may see some action, when self-serving policy-makers are threatened.
Why are sea walls not being considered for the Pacific Islands – build a sea wall, pump out the sea water and pump in sand? Why are we only considering rehousing islanders in Australia, when we could could provide aid to preserve their home lands? It smacks of the “stolen generation” attitude.
There are opportunities for ocean lagoons for tourist resorts in Queensland and NT, with protection against high seas, crocodiles and box jelly fish.
Much of the thinking on climate change lacks imagination. I see “climate change” as the next big investment theme, after China and India. It will work because investors will profit from imaginative solutions. Politicians and bureaucrats will endlessly debate, but investors will vote with their dollars and take action. That is what I am doing!
Play this thought experiment. Imagine if oil price had remained constant and government instead had a carbon tax equivalent to these amounts and all the proceeds were invested in renewables, better public transport and increased energy efficiency. Sounds like the future.
All the better to start now – Go for the Carbon Tax.. Help business and households transform through tax concessions. Tax oil and carbon, and invest in incentives for renewable energy and green transport at a personal and industry level.
The CSIRO report should read like a call to encourage immediate action.
The sooner we all start to make investments the better off we will become.