We will soon know what Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading recommends. But we already know that Howard’s response to the report will be accompanied by a massive propaganda campaign to convince Australians that its non-action on climate change is really the evidence of leadership.
We know that the response is unlikely to inconvenience coal.
We know too that Howard will not take the European approach of setting long-term targets for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Hence Dennis Shanahan was probably on the money, for once, when he suggested:
AUSTRALIA is developing a regional carbon emissions trading scheme that would include China and the US and could form the basis of a “Sydney declaration” at this year’s APEC summit.
We’ll know soon enough. Howard’s main game is to emphasise coal and nuclear, new technology and a gradualist approach that doesn’t cause any economic ripples. As such it is highly compatible with the United States approach, who seem certain to produce a stalemate in the forthcoming G8 next week. It seems that the US position and that of Germany, which represents an EU consensus, are simply incompatible.
So Howard may well emerge from APEC in September having signed up the major polluters presently outside the Kyoto tent, and some of those within it, to some consensus agreement that looks more impressive than it is.
Meanwhile news keeps coming from the scientists and most of it is not good. Today the CSIRO reported on new research that bodes badly for drought. They have found that the Indian Ocean on the trade routes used by ships has heated 2C down to 800 metres over the last 40 years.
Chief researcher Dr Gael Alory says the rising temperature of ocean currents means fewer storms along the Australian coast.
“There will be less rainfall on the continent,” he said.
“The rainfall will move more south to just the ocean and that means less rainfall.”
Look at the weather map every night and you can substitute, I think, has moved for will move. It could be that all this concern over what to do about the water rights in the Murray-Darling is much ado about nothing.
Similarly, Beattie and company should consider whether dams like our Wivenhoe and the proposed Traveston were really a twentieth century thing.
Still the weather bureau is predicting a wet year, so the weather gods may favour Howard with one good year just when he needs it.
Another piece of bad news was that the Southern Ocean is weakening as a carbon sink. This is really bad news because it means that those long-term deep cuts favoured by the Europeans may have to be deeper still.
Finally, I’d like to extract two points from a recent Spiegel interview with James Hansen. First he points out that the world mean temperature has risen 0.8C and that another degree is inevitable from what is up in the atmosphere now and what will go up as we change course, even if we do so now.
Given that he considers 2C rise as dangerous (he has plenty of company) the need for long term targets is mandated by what we need to do to stabilize at a safe level, not by economics. Otherwise we are heading for very different conditions on the planet, not seen for 3 million years.
Secondly, he points out that the expected 35cm sea-level rise this century (the mid-point of the IPCC forecast) is more than double the 15cm we had last century. Remember that is without any consideration of ice sheet degradation.
The problem with ice-sheet degradation, he says, is that it is a non-linear process. Things can happen ‘suddenly’. Like when coming out of the last ice-age the sea level rose 20 metres in 400 years, that’s one metre every 20 years.
Think of the farmer in Bangladesh whose land has gone salty 90 kilometers from the coast. Think of the 500,000 plus buildings in Australia that would be threatened by a one metre rise.
If you claim to be a climate change realist, then get real, John.
It seems the coalition is determined to test the lowest possible opinion Poll results for a Government in the history of Australia.
Look forward to seeing a confirmed pack of climate change denialists setting Green house emission targets, introducing the Nuclear power option supposedly to cut emissions they don’t even see as a problem, increasing the price of water and electricity to cities while their political support plummets towards single digit support.
for this mob to introduce a Sydney Kyoto Protocol after all the years of denial over the original Agreement would be so cynical that no one will believe they are anything other than incompetent fools.
Queensland high profile Libs haven’t quite caught up with the New clean green tory image makeover yet.
Maybe they are in a race to the bottom with the current US administration like they are on everything else
What is President Bush’s approval rating in the polls now? 28% last I saw
Steve, in that link, as you know just about everyone knows that there have been major climate changes in the past. As Hansen said, until recently it was sensible to assume that we were heading for a new ice-age. The denialists simply have no explanation for what has been happening recently, especially the last 35 years.
In developments overnight, the BCA have said there is a need for three-tiered targets. I gather this means long-term (what’s required to fix the problem, medium term (rolling 5-10 year targets), and annual, which will determine how the emissions trading scheme is capped.
The problem with Howard’s apparent preference for undemanding targets is that business will know that they won’t stick and hence won’t provide sufficient certainty for them to make long-range investment decisions.
Rudd last night said he is giving away his Ford Territory in favour of a hybrid.
More importantly he reiterated the economic merit of early action, said that there would be government spending schemes to ensure a sharing of the costs and benefits, announced specific additional help to the geothermal sector, and laid out a timetable for introducing emissions trading. The scheme would be outlined by the end of next year, (please note Mr Howard, after the economic modelling has been done by Garnaut), and become operational by 2010. Howard, it is thought is aiming for 2012 (Sydney is the new Kyoto).
Rudd’s approach so far is much more attuned to what big business says it needs, leaving aside Big Coal and the nuclear industry. But even Big Coal is unlikely to get the certainty it needs out of Howard. We’ll see what Howard comes up with.
I’ve only had brief reports on the above from the ABC and the AFR and have to go out for the day so any links giving more details would be appreciated.
Not to mention that if it is indeed a non-serious agreement they’ll get belted from pillar to post.
They don’t seem to have figured out yet that window-dressing on climate change isn’t going to work this time around.
I dont know how to make some people understand,that Howard,The ALP, Greens are involved in a competition about technologies in Absolutist terms rather than specific details at specific sites and then what maybe possible with that approach, rather than the real, but, useless to the problem, of climate change.Eggheads everywhere jumping from one qualification ,economists, meteorologists, the parade of eggheads then there is the business people these people like recently on the ABCs country Hour,think they are doing enough going on about tax,blah,blah blah. Coal fired power stations are site specific realities,and, if anything can be done to them now where ever they exist,protests should be held there,and make the staff ask why there is this impossibility to do things now.The problems of India and Bangladesh are maybe,more so with Bangladesh a lack of industrial use of carbon dioxide..it would be much better to lobby for Australia to export very cheaply our coal their and all the spin off processes of use of the so-called pollutants,that in another form, in use, are simply not that. I have been looking up http://www. patentsonline.com and have matched carbon dioxide and technologies processes uses in a number of ways. To me it is perfectly clear,carbon dioxide is a wonderful gas,it simply has been a undervalued resource as it ferally expresses itself into the worlds atmosphere,and definitely this shouldnt happen.Rather than continue to empower Howards laziness on the issue by the easy path of condemnation,do so because the bludgers right across the political spectrum and associated industry want a one fix solution,and that involves very large amounts of protecting money,in research and global trading.This blog is contributing to that by not allowing it self to recognise that is the only coherent view to have. Very lazy insights by Australians generally will not improve the prospects of humanitys survival.Solar must also coexist with new uses of carbon dioxide they are compatible in many industrial settings. I therefore challenge all those who claim concern for the emission problem to think again, and think clearly!There is simply nothing in the political parties mentioned and the ongoing debate that recognises in any form that carbon dioxide itself maybe the solution rather than the problem..and, I condemn these type of constructed thought that acts like a real barrier to solving human problems and those that humans create. Come with me on the journey it is the only approach that is valid practical tested proven and resourceful.
I hadn’t heard before I saw Garrett on Lateline last night the the Cabinet had rejected four submissions (I think, going from memory) for emissions trading - the first in 98. If that gets more widely known, it will really put the bar for a serious response rather than spin very high indeed as Robert says.
Nicholson’s on the money here: http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoon_5449.html
Howard’s extraordinary decade long record on climate change denialism, including his repeated rejection of emissions trading, and the removal of renewable energy targets, at the behest of Big Coal (and his nephew Lyall Howard who works for Rio Tinto) is all laid out in disgusting detail in Clive Hamilton’s “Scorcher: the Dirty Politics of Climate Change”. Howard is deep in the groove and will not be changing course. Any trading scheme designed by Howard will be nothing more than painless windowdressing and taxpayer funded spin.
By the way, interesting commentary from Tim Colebatch.
Nothing that Brian or myself haven’t said or linked to before, but he agrees that a dodgy trading scheme designed to look after the big polluters will just be handing Labor and the Greens another weapon to belt the Liberals over the head with.
If you want to know which areas are going to be inundated have a play with this variation of Google Earth
http://flood.firetree.net/?ll=-27.8390,138.1640&z=13&m=7
If Howard is planning on announcing a serious regional carbon trading scheme by September at APEC the diplomats are going to have to work their asses off. What possible incentive do any of the partner nations have to agree to something solid in the next few months? This sort of thing takes years of negotiation. I can’t see how Howard will be able to get anything more than a vague commitment to have a look at the problem. The region is not going to sign up to a serious carbon trading scheme just to get Howard re-elected.
What happened to Howard’s “practical” regional environment scheme he and Turnbull (and his predecessor) have been singing the magnificent praises of for the last few years? All I can remember from this “ground breaking” initiative is the attendants of what was sometimes described as a “nose in the trough luxurious talkfest” just kept deferring action until the next talk fest in the next luxurious resort they chose for the meeting.
The policy doesn’t have to be good, workable, or even be a free kick for mining companies. All it has to do is muddy the waters of the debate. That’s what they’re aiming for. As an issue neutraliser, a scheme that sounds remotely plausible, but annoys the daylights out of the rest of the world would be just about perfect. On the one hand, he’s “doing something about climate change”, on the other hand his “hands are tied by the economic uncertainty”. This is what we’ve come to.
Remember, he doesn’t have to get everyone to buy it, just introduce enough uncertainty to the issue so that wavering voters don’t “sleepwalk” into the evil greenie hands of Peter Garrett.
It’s for this reason that international carbon trading will, most likely, be a total failure. Consensus will never be reached as various recalcitrant governments around the world introduce shifty special reasons why they couldn’t possibly participate, or include dodgy statistics (say, land clearing) to ensure we look like we’re meeting our targets.
I think it’s time to forget the whole thing. It’s now time for an Apollo scale mission to find technology that produces cheap, carbon neutral electricity. I don’t think an X-prize will do it - private enterprise by itself will not do it, even with incentives like carbon taxes, due to the cheating and/or recalcitrance.
Yes, a major initiative like that will cost us all a lot of money, but we’re betting the farm (and your backyard) in this, I don’t see we’ve got much of a choice. If the US can spend enough money so that Alan Shepard can hit golf balls on the moon, they ought to be finding out whether we can actually use geothermal energy for everything. And quickly.
What will Howard set the emission tax at? I predict between $10-15 per tonne, which make a zac of difference to impeding business as usual for coal fired power.
Will he give away emission rights to existing polluters? Probably. If he does, then business as usual coal fired power continues.
Will his overall emissions trading scheme reduce emissions by setting a tight cap? Most likely not, so it will be a giant waste of time and money. Just lipstick on a pig.
Will he set any targets for emission reductions - short or long term? Most likely not.
Will Labor? Well, they have not committed to any 2020 targets, only the never-never of 2050, by which time it will be too late, and they will all have passed away anyway . . .
Mark Diesendorf has just launched his new book “greenhouse solutions with sustainable energy” which provides details on the true solutions for climate change - which are being studiously avoided by both Howard and Rudd.
I think political inaction on climate change now will become regarded as a criminal in the not too distant future - especially when the real solutions are staring as right in the face.
There is a strong link between these environmental concerns and inflation from the 70s. That is:
a) Nobody really talked seriously about the problem during the “golden era”
b) When talk was undertaken, there was an apparent trade off between jobs and inflation, and nobody wanted to sacrifice jobs!
c) Things built up to a state where economic problems were unavoidable.
d) When governments realised what they needed to do something, they only took minimal action which effectively did nothing.
e) A change of government ensued after each stagflation event.
Now we had 3 or 4 goes to get inflation under control with demand management. I get the feeling that the environment isn’t really going to give us so many chances.
NB Point b) has since been proven wrong and the same reasons for why it is wrong hold for why there isn’t the same relationship between environmental protection and unemployment. Point c) is arguably happening now, but there is enough denialist noise that it is being ignored. Point d) may happen in a few days, given the information in this article. Point e) is a bit sad, because afterwards is going to be too late for this issue.
I’ve read Diesendorf’s plans in the past.
They seem to assume that natural gas will remain readily available and cheap.
If we’re shutting down coal-fired power stations left, right and centre, and peak gas is due not that long after peak oil, I don’t see how that assumption can possibly hold.
That, and Diesendorf consistently claims that there’s bugger-all uranium left. He’s flat wrong on that one - which makes me suspicious of his other claims.
Diesendorf says that natural gas can provide a 30 year transition off fossil fuel. It burns much cleaner (less emissions) than coal, and we have a lot more gas than oil. The end game is a mix of renewable energy (e.g. wind, solar PV, wave, solar concentrators etc) and possibly geothermal (technically not renewable, but no CO2 emissions), and some appopriate bioenergy.
His projected 2040 mix is:
* Biomass 30%
* Gas 30%
* Hydro 8%
* Wind 20%
* Coal 8%
He claims there is not much high grade uranium left - about 10 to 20 years. Extracting uranium from low grade ore will require crushing 10 tonnes of rock to get 1kg of it. So the energy gains from fission will be largely mitigated by inputs across the entire nuclear fuel cycle.
Read his book, he has done his homework, which is more than I can say for the likes of Howard and Turbull. I am not impressed by Garrett’s load banging on the carbon capture and storage investment either. This won’t actually reduce emissions on current levels, and won’t be ready in time - if it can be made to work - it hasn’t yet for any coal fired power station on the planet.
I like it!
BTW Peterc, a small point, but that 2040 scenario is 4% short.
Thanks for the ref to Peter Garrett on Lateline, Kim. It’s mostly Tony Jones banging on about what will the carbon price be and Garrett saying we need to apply the principles and the tests they’ve identified in Rudd’s speech and they need to wait for Garnaut’s review.
So far I haven’t been able to find Rudd’s speech.
On AM this morning we learnt that there would be “$50-million to develop a solar institute in Newcastle and a similar amount on geothermal drilling.”
The World Today had a look at the European scheme which they say is now working and will help them achieve their Kyoto targets.
It also had an interview with ANU resource economist Dr Frank Jotzo who said that carbon trading should extend to transport and domestic users.
swio was right in saying that some people would have to work their butts off to achieve a regional carbon trading scheme by September. There was an APEC energy ministers meeting in Darwin today. The theme from the Australian/US song sheet is that we need research and more technology before we set targets. As our fearless servant, Ian Macfarlane, said:
The US representative Clay Sell said:
But regional agreements are out, for now at least. That doesn’t mean there won’t be ‘Sydney declaration’, however.
Peterc: he’s still wrong. He’s overestimating the energy needed to mine low-grade ores. Olympic Dam’s uranium ore is about as low grade as you’d bother to refine (they only bother because it’s a byproduct) and, even accounting for all the energy used at the mine the energy gain is 100 to 1. He’s also likely not taking into account in-situ leaching.
Warning on Gov’t spin - please don’t use “New Kyoto” brand
Some people think the Federal Government’s use of the term “New Kyoto” is a bit of a joke stemming from incompetence and desperation. But on further reflection I think it is actually far more devious and clever than that.
The Federal Government, is clearly very consciously and repeatedly using the term “New Kyoto” when they refer to their approach to future international arrangements/agreements on reducing emissions. (Eg Ministerial statements by Campbell, Turnbull, Downer). I think this is because they have acknowledged internally that their argument that the Kyoto Protocol was bad has not been successful with the public. So now, by using this phrase “New Kyoto”, in terms of public perception, they are trying to capture the legitimacy of the Kyoto Protocol without ratifying it. In fact they are trying to borrow the legitimacy of the Kyoto Protocol for their radical anti-Kyoto policy approach to international agreements on climate change.
In addition, I suspect that by referring to their new proposed approach as ‘New Kyoto’ there is a conscious effort to confuse the public into thinking that what they are proposing could be part of the agreement for the Second Commitment Period for the Kyoto Protocol, when that is not actually the case.
The Government has very clearly rejected the principles and approach of the Kyoto Protocol and refused to ratify it. None of this has changed, and has been discussed above, the Gov’t is now actually trying to undermine that international agreement, by seeking agreement by the US & China and others for an alternative international approach - which is not consistent with the Kyoto Protocol.
So I would like to strongly recommend that everyone avoid using the phrase “New Kyoto” Because as George Lakoff, the American Linguist and author of ‘Don’t Think Like an Elephant” says: “to negate a frame is to reinforce that frame”.
If there is a ‘New Kyoto’ it will be the International Agreement on the Second Commitment Period for the Kyoto Protocol - not something Howard will sign up to. Nothing else deserves that title.
Robert, so that only leaves the following objections to nuclear power:
* it wont be ready in time (15 years to commission a reactor)
* it is too expensive
* linkage with the nuclear weapons cycle
* transmission losess transporting power to consumers.
* the waste problem has not been solved
* extremely high potential impact of accidents or terrorist attack as per recent casing of Lucas Heights. If a reactor problem emits radiation near a large population centre such as one of our capital cities (or even larger rural towns/cities)
* locating them - in whose backyard? Kiribilli apparently, since Howard said he wouldn’t mind living next to a reactor, and he hasn’t yet lost the election.
* lack of water - France last year halved its eletricity output from nuclear due to cooling water shortages - the same problem we are experiencing in Victoria with our coal fired power stations.
Nuclear is an irrelevant fiction put out there by the Government to confuse and distract us from the real problem - getting off the coal fired power that 90% of our electricity currently comes from and transitioning to zero emission energy. Yes, its a paradigm shift (like stopping whaling and logging old growth forests) but it is one we need to make.
Point taken, James.