Howard and Turnbull keep banging away about Rudd’s irrespossibility because he doesn’t know what his policies will cost. The cost of Howard’s policy of doing nothing much is not nothing and it would be good to shove it up Howard’s nose.

Harry, I look forward to your report.

A pity it won’t be finished before the election!

It may be a positive. It shows that the issue, impacts and solutions are under serious examination and consideration compared to policy on the run and rabbits and rhetorical backflips pulled out of hats.

Angus Grigg did a companion news item titled Garnaut review will cover all the options where the feautured quote was

“John Howard has sat on his hands on this core challenge”

Grigg did say in para 2 that garnaut’s inclusion of nuclear was potentially embarrassing to Rudd, who had explicitly ruled it out as being too expensive (NB, no mention of too dirty or dangerous). The article if anything was critical of Howard on balance quoting the CSIRO as saying

cuts of at least of this level [60%] would be required to ward off the most damaging effects of climate change.

Then Sir Nick got a run who said that immediate action in Oz would not cost jobs or send industries overseas.

Garnaut’s special interest in farming was also mentioned as he currently chairs the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington.
The key paragraph was the middle one;

Under the terms of reference, Professor Garnaut and his team will examine the costs of doing nothing on climate change, what impact early action will have on the economy and what international policies Australia should pursue.

A pity it won’t be finished before the election!

page 7 today’s Australian. ‘Nuclear too expensive’.

I’ll check to see if he was misquoted.

Garnaut says nuclear power and sequestration of carbon dioxide in thermal power as well as renewable technologies such as wind power potentially have a place in reducing greenhouse emissions.

It is clear from the Mitchell article that Garnaut is against picking winners. He wants to set a price signal for carbon, give support to R&D, but let the market sort it out.

He also says

that energy-intensive exporters, such as Alcoa, should be compensated so that their international competitiveness is not adversely affected by differences in countries’ greenhouse regimes.

One point of interest is that he seems to favour an international carbon trading scheme where each country is allocated a certain quantum of credits.

Warwick McKibbin last night was favouring separate schemes in each jurisdiction in order to maintain credibility and to cater for local circumstances, then stitch all the schemes together over time.

A fair bit of the work in Australia has already been done.

The success of this report depends who Garnaut gets to work with him. I don’t think Garnaut alone could carry through this sort of exercise. He is a generalist economist without particularly strong technical capabilities.

Its irrelevant if he was a old Labor supporter. I always find him worth listening too - its ‘grand theme’ ‘big picture’ stuff but this is a necessary type of economist.

Politically he is as smart as anyone.

Well I’m not sure I’m a climate change sceptic. I certainly believe that human habitation has contributed to climate change and to global warming, I guess what I am sceptical about is some of the more exaggerated claims that are being made about the connection between CO2 emissions and climate change. (Emphasis added)

He’s in a complete muddle. This is the bloke who had five differnt stories within a week about electoral funds in his electorate before the 1991 election.

TONY JONES: …’I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change’, you recall saying that?

IAN MACFARLANE: I do recall saying that, yes. Let’s not try and verbal me here, Tony. The fact of the matter is I have acknowledged publicly and repeatedly that we have to lower our greenhouse gas emissions. I was the Minister, who on behalf of the Government worked up the energy White Paper that was released in 2004. That paper clearly outlined a strategy and funded it for the Government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and since then, we’ve also worked tirelessly in the international forums, such as the involvement of -

TONY JONES: How is it verballing you to repeat back a very straightforward answer you gave to a very straightforward question to Laurie Oakes in August of last year? He said, ‘you are a climate change sceptic, aren’t you?’ and you said, ‘I’m a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change’.

Even Big Coal doesn’t want a dud mouthpiece. Robert Cameron in his phone call to the prime minister immediately after the broadcast: “Is this what we’re paying you for?”

On his personal views, I really don’t think he’s a natural Labor person. He has quite a strong ideological commitment to free markets, for example, which we may expect to see reflected in his report. One suspects he voted for Hewson rather than Keating.

But it’s a bit rough for Turnbull to whinge about the reporting date being after the election. If it had been before the election no doubt we’d have been hearing terms like “hatchet job” and “election stunt” from him. This is a point the interviewer should have made to him.

What a farce.

I mean, at least have the cajones to make the Bushist argument about ‘creating your own reality.’

Labour’s $300m spending spree on environmental solutions for the family home looks pretty slap-dash too. I fail to understand how so much expertise can be dedicated to IR, taxation, health and education but when it comes to environmental issues, the politics of gestures is so seldom backed by any substance.