Monday, February 12, 2007
More hot air in the global warming debate
Despite years in denial, which allowed Australian greenhouse gas per capita emissions to rise to highest in the world, Australian politics is now wrestling with the problem of global warming.

State governments have come out in favour of implementing a national carbon-trading scheme, throwing down the gauntlet to the Howard government and threatening to go it alone, with or without the Commonwealth.

Call me a sceptic, but all this is bluster from the States, afforded by the likelihood they will never have to take the lead – nor the political risk – of rolling it out.

Instead the States are keen to shame the feds into mandating it at a federal level. And it might work

Howard, in an election year, has crunched the numbers and concluded that global warming climate change is a clear and present danger to his re-election chances and he is vulnerable on the environment. Plus, as leader of a small-l liberal government, he should be seen to be supporting such ‘market-led’ solutions.

However, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, has not yet fully fallen into line with his State colleagues. He remains equivocal in his support of carbon-trading and wants a “clear focus on developing clean-coal technology”, before he could fully support it. Without such a focus, the Queensland economy would be damaged.

It seems the other States will humour him, but only to form a united front in defiance of Howard.

But evidently Peter Beattie has misunderstood the concept of carbon-trading. In such a market-led scheme, Governments don’t pick winners. Instead they allow the market to decide which technologies would be most cost-effective in meeting a policy objective.

Government’s job is to set the emissions cap [the price of carbon]. Business will then decide whether to pollute and pay, or invest and save.

In reality, Beattie is not being niaive, but scurrilous. He is merely demonstrating the parochial obstinancy that has made agreement on dealing with global warming so fractious – domestically and internationally.

Beattie is desperate to protect his coal industry, on which the Queensland economy relies for tax revenue and some of the cheapest energy in the world. Already, any future carbon-trading market will be distorted by nearly a billion dollars of government handout to the coal industry, to fund its investigation of carbon sequestration.

In an open market, private investment will follow the most promising technologies that allow industry and consumers to meet the carbon emissions cap. If this doesn’t include burning coal and implementing carbon sequestration – which remains as yet unproven – then so be it.

And this is what terrifies Beattie and Howard. If industry finds that coal is not the energy of the future, and the global economy ditches 19th Century technology, a big chunk of Australian export earnings would steadily dry up. As mentioned before on this blog, China and India don’t need to import sunlight and wind.

Someone else who has misunderstands the objectives of a national carbon trading scheme is the pro-business Australian Industry Group, which maintained that "We need to work carefully and cautiously because our objective has to be to reduce global emissions, not just Australian emissions."

Again, this is a red herring. It is neither the Australian Industry Group’s nor the Australian government’s remit to reduce emissions outside Australia. Never has been, never will be. Using such spurious arguments to justify a refusal to act is simply dishonest. The AIG is clearly not representing all industries, only the big ones.

Not surprisingly, the Greens’ stated position on global warming has irked everyone, though they too seem to overstate the responsibilities of Australian governments re greenhouse gas emissions in other countries.

Battler Bob [Senator Brown] argued that Australia should draw up a three-year-plan to phase out coal exports altogether. Howard called it ‘knee-jerk’ and Labor leader Kevin Rudd suggested it would “send a shiver down the spine” of every coal miner [his union members] in the country.
Interestingly, this phase out similar strident views was were also suggested by Australian of the Year 2007, Tim Flannery, author of last year’s popular global warming book The Weather Makers. Flannery has recently been making the most of his award by shaming the Howard government on its environment record at every public opportunity.

Though the Green’s position may appear rash, and be easy pickings for a nationalist tub-thumper like Howard or a Union-man Rudd, there is a lot of sense in planning for the transition to a non-fossil fuel global economy.

Despite Bob Brown taking flak for his coal-export gambit, Greens policy does have a history of steadily becoming the framework for normal behaviour - though Howard et al would be loathe to admit it. On countless issues – from global warming to transport and planning - Greens have been 20 years ahead of the political mainstream.

Eventually, all nations will be capping their carbon emissions, and the sooner Australia weens itself off subsidising coal exports, the better shape the Australian economy will be in to face the future. Australian households will most certainly benefit too, freed from the tithes payable to big business, in the form of energy bills.

But even carbon trading scheme is not the silver bullet that will miraculously drive Australia towards a low-carbon economy. Despite the lofty theorising of economists, emissions caps are nevertheless set by business, through their proxies in government.

It is doubtful that the cap would be set at a level sufficient for attracting investment in non-coal sources of energy (notwithstanding government subsidy) or from saving the planet from dangerous global warming.

A political and cultural revolution in how people view the consumption of stuff and the energy that produces that stuff remains necessary.

Labels: climate change, global warming

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