Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Small difference with big impact

So far the 2007 federal election campaign has been dubbed ‘me too’ election. Labor leader Kevin Rudd is trying to present such a small target, it is become difficult to distinguish the policy difference.

As a result, there are few areas of public policy where the two major parties are more than a couple of billion apart. However, climate change is one issue where despite appearing shoulder to shoulder, the small policy differences could have huge implications.

The 2007 election is the first climate change election in Australia. In the last couple of years, we’ve had the Gore movie, the Stern report, a pretty sombre IPCC assessment and a raft of good books on global warming; it is firmly in the electorate’s mind.

And it is also one policy area that is getting media traction. Forget health, teh economy and national security; the political agenda persistently returns to climate change one way or another.

Which makes for cagey campaigning for both major political parties, as both are uncomfortable talking about it; torn between diametrically opposed interests within their core constituencies.

Howard is a long time climate change sceptic and Kyoto-basher. Only now, facing electoral defeat has he acknowledged it. However, the Coalition is doing its best to fudge, obfuscate and make up ground with mere rhetoric. Howard apparently now accepts that there needs to be deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, and soon, but just not in Australia.

But Howard needs to pay at least lip service to climate change to maintain the support of his beloved battlers, farmers and those who have raked it in during the current property and population boom. They now sense there is something in this climate change thing after all and need reassurance that Howard has it covered. Howard also needs to please the sceptics, free market think tanks and the conservative punditry. However, with no where else to go, it is unlikely they will significantly punish Howard.

For Rudd, climate change announcements have to steer a course between the new left and the old left.

The new left is the lumpenbourgeoisie, the latte drinkers, if you like. Though I don’t drink coffee with milk, this group probably includes me. This constituency is largely urban, small ‘l’ liberal and hate Howard for all his racist, populist and selfish propaganda with a vengeance. Ex-Midnight Oil front man and environmental activist Peter Garret was recruited by Labor just to win my vote. We demand action now and we don’t mind suffering. Rudd has to offer enough to stop us voting Green.

But Rudd also has to corral the old left: the staunchly conservative unions employed in highly polluting industries like mining, logging and power generation. This was the group that broke ranks with Labor in 2004 and shafted Mark Latham in Tasmania for his forestry policy. A day later John Howard rode into town with his plan for chopping down more old growth forest, thus inaugurating a conservative alliance between Tories and trades union.

Competing climate change interests within the established parties is pulling both towards the middle on climate change. In effect, neither party is offering anything other than the prosaic.
The big issues, such as accelerating energy and transport consumption, or whether an emissions-intensive economy like Australia geared towards coal and minerals export has a future, are simply ignored.

For example, both parties are pork barrelling regions with road funding. Worse, both are relying on ‘clean coal technology’ (CCT) coming to the rescue. Clean coal technology is a bit like ‘coal technology’, only with the word ‘clean’ attached at the front, for effect.

Labor and Coalition are banking their economic and greenhouse future on CCT. That way, it’s business as usual for coal miners, electricity generators and all the multi-nationals who export coal, minerals and metals. We can carry on consuming vast amounts of energy for each unit of output. We can even sell CCT technology to the rest of the world. Everyone’s a winner, especially the coal industry. It is the recipient of $500m in subsidies to help it develop CCT.

Analysts don’t necessarily share the optimism that clean coal will be either feasible or operational in time to make the significant cuts in emissions demanded by climate scientists.

Despite there being not much light between the main parties, there is an important distinction when it comes to the Kyoto Protocol.

Howard is committed to meeting the Australian target [108% of 1990 levels] but will not ratify Kyoto. He will not enter a future binding agreement unless big emitting developing countries are similarly bound.

Likewise, Rudd will only enter a future binding agreement if big emitting developing nations are also bound. But importantly, a Rudd Labor government would ratify the Kyoto Protocol [and presumably meet the Australian target].

Most big emitting developing countries are already signatories of the Kyoto Protocol. However, the first commitment period [2008-2012] did not bind them to emissions reductions. Instead it allowed them to be recipients of offset investments from developed countries through the clean development mechanism.

This arrangement enabled developing nations to expand energy use and raise living standards with lower emissions than what would otherwise occurred.

Meanwhile, industrialised nations would take a lead on emissions reductions. Historically, they had been responsible for most of the increase in CO2, therefore, they would be the first to cut. Following this example of global leadership, developing nations would then agree to binding emissions reductions in subsequent commitment periods.

However, Howard never saw a leadership role for Australia. Kyoto discussions were viewed as some kind of trade negotiation, where Australia would seek to extract the maximum concession that it could.

Further subsequent Australian hardening against Kyoto and a shared antagonism with the US has now created a Catch-22, crying out for leadership.

The developing world will [rightly] not budge on emissions reductions until industrialised nations demonstrate leadership. Australia and the US – two of the biggest per capita emitters – refuse to take action unless some of the poorest people in the world cut their emissions.

This leadership vacuum seems all the more ironic in light of the vigour these two nations have assumed the mantle of global leaders in prosecuting the so-called war on terror.

It is easy to overstate Australia’s influence on global climate change (though it was the 10th biggest contributor to growth in greenhouse gases over the last 10 years). But Australian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol would place significant pressure on the USA to follow suit. Howard and Bush have been as thick as thieves on this issue for too long.

Australian intransigence has lent political support to US stonewalling, allowing it instead to following the appearance of action through the less-significant Australian-led initiatives, such as AP6 and the Sydney Declaration.

Labor should win this election. Therefore Australia should soon be bound by the emissions reductions in the Kyoto Protocol. This in turn could create enough pressure to bring about force US ratification.

Once the developed world are finally on board, China, India and other burgeoning modernising nations may accept that the developed world has finally taken the lead on emissions reductions, compelling them to do the same.

Ratifying Kyoto would also benefit Australia in other ways. It would certainly improve its international environmental standing, currently in the dirt. It would also send a signal to the renewable energy industry to stop deserting our shores. And importantly, by ratifying Kyoto, Australia would have a seat at the negotiating table for subsequent commitment regimes, soon to take place in Bali.

Currently, Australia has mere ‘observer status’ and will be sat at the back with the scruffy crew from Greenpeace. And you can imagine the urgency that an Australian delegation led by Peter Garret would bring to the occasion.

Benefits would also accrue in weening the nation off the subsidy-rich quarry-vision that is current conflated with ‘economic policy’. Australia should be well placed to move to a low carbon-economy.

Without Kyoto, Australia’s only other options lie with piss-weak regional agreements, such as the AP6 and the Sydney Declaration. Both regimes give parties a free ride on emissions and the funds invested through the various mechanisms are dwarfed by what’s on offer through Kyoto.

Both talk merely of aspirational targets, for reductions in emissions intensity only, rather than in absolute terms. The Sydney Declaration, for example, would see a 250% increase in APEC emissions to 2025 [assuming a 5% GDP growth rate]. This is so far removed from what scientists say we need to do its not funny. With global neighbours like Australia, I’m just glad I don’t live in Bangladesh.

However, an incoming Labor government will have a rough trot, such is the state of emissions growth they will inherit. It will be akin to trying turn around an oil tanker.

Already, it is probable that Australia will miss its Kyoto non-target. Environment Minister Turnbull recently admitted we might miss it by “1 or 2 percent”. Another way of putting it is that we will miss it by 25% of the room we had to manoeuvre [8%].

Australian emissions plunged in the early 1990s, thanks to a slowing of the massive land clearing rates of the late 1980s. [The peak year for land clearing was 1990.] Since then, emissions growth has been on a steep upward trajectory.

With no future emissions reductions possible from reduced land clearing, slowing emissions growth will not be easy and no longer the outcome of a single policy issue, such as slowing clearing [which was implemented by State Labor governments anyway].

A more concerted effort is required. This is politically tough and will affect pretty much the entire economic ‘superstructure’. Does Labor have the will to challenge this? I doubt it. But ratification of Kyoto would at least be a decent start.

Labels: climate change, election, global warming, John Howard, Kevin Rudd

---