I’ve left the comments facility on this thread open in case anyone wants to respond to the questions raised in tim’s last comment.

I’ve also heard tell, although I have no details (does someone else???) of some work being done on spearating the CO2 in the coking process and somehow mixing it with the sludge to form an even sludgier sludge and sequestering a certain amount of the carbon. Doesn’t sound like an ideal solution, but better than nothing perhaps? And perhaps not significantly more sludgy than the sludge from smelting already is?

The other option, of course, is to reduce the amount of aluminium we have to smelt by reducing, reusing and recycling, dare I say it…

Robert, it seems like it’s about half and half. Guy Pearse points out that we export between 75 and 80 per cent of our coal and that ABARE calculates that our coal exports will almost double by 2030. He makes an interesting point that emissions from our export coal yield 620 million tonnes of CO2 each year, significantly more than our entire domenstic emissions.

So what we do domestically at the margins seems pretty irrelevant.

I’ve decided to attempt new post looking at where we are now with Kyoto, Bali and all that. I’m hoping to get it up later tonight or tomorrow.

The important thing to note about the ALP’s plan is that we can increase renewables output and flatten demand increases, biting quite substantially into coal’s share of our electricity supply, effectively reducing coal’s output and reducing emissions, before there is any real impact on coal jobs in Australia. That’s because firstly many of the jobs are in mining, most of the product of which goes overseas, and secondly because we can effectively and efficiently reduce coal’s output by reducing the output of individual coal fired power stations, keeping almost all of them running and employing people.

We’d probably see a couple of the oldest and most polluting power stations, like Hazelwood, shut down. But those people employed there could easily be absorbed by the industry in the Latrobe and Hunter Valleys.

Of course, the Greens would like to see far more bite to our greenhouse action than that. Much more agressive energy efficiency, reduction in coal exports, and slightly stronger renewables targets would naturally have a concomitantly greater impact on coal jobs. That’s why we’ve been talking about Just Transitions strategies to help those people employed in coal to get jobs in other industries that would be seeded in their areas.

It’s really very simple. We just need to use our brains…

7. As per Tim’s comments, the MRET has nothing to do with the economics of the coal industry – just ask them.

I’m reminded of a conversation I had in 2003 with the CFMEU Mining & Energy Division official responsible for developing their greenhouse policies. He volunteered the view that Australia would have no trouble sourcing 20 per cent of its energy from renewables and that this wouldn’t bother the union or its members.

Labor needs to get more direct and less evasive. In 2004 Howard succeeded in turning what should have been a strength for Labor (forest policy) into a weakness for them – by confusing, wedging and gazumping.

I agree that Labor is now significantly better than Howard (even if they have a way to go yet) – but they need to get this message across clearly to the public. Rudd artfully dodging questions and Garrett getting mixed up in commentary about potential future negotiating positions just won’t do this for them.

To help guide Labor a bit:

1. The Howard Government is still full of skeptics
2. Howard & co are taking no real tangible action on climate change
3. They are pretending they are, but this is a ruse to confuse voters
4. Howard still refuses to ratify Kyoto and is therefore compromising Australia’s engagement with the next round of negotations (post Kyoto).
5. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are on a trajectory to continue rising under Howard’s policies.
6. We are all dead ducks if we don’t this right.
7. As per Tim’s comments, the MRET has nothing to do with the economics of the coal industry – just ask them.

The Prime Minister wants climate change to be reduced to a choice between jobs and good intentions. Throughout Monday he was able to cast the entire debate as a test for the recalcitrant big carbon emitters, China and India; unless they agree to substantial new restrictions on emissions, Australia should refuse to sign anything.

This is a very cheeky distortion of the reality of the international climate change negotiations that have been undertaken for the past 15 years. Even from the outset, back when the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was formulated in 1992, it was always stipulated that the developed nations would act first to cut back their carbon emissions before developing nations would come on board.

The Kyoto Protocol grew from that process. So too will the projected post-Kyoto agreement. In other words, Howard’s premise is false. If the developing nations do not sign up to restricted carbon emissions post-Kyoto, there will be no agreement for Australia to sign: the process set in train in 1992 will have collapsed.

But there is no such thing as a false premise in an election campaign, as the Prime Minister well knows. His skilful verballing of Garrett caused Kevin Rudd’s campaign team to panic. Later in the day they released a clarifying statement of Labor’s position — which is poison in a modern campaign. They might as well have headed it “Admission of Labor gaffe follows …” For the PM, it closed off a good day’s work.

However, hc, what you say about not having modelled the impacts is nonsense. They modelling the economic impact of the target extensively and found it to be negligible.

Of course, this to me says that the target should be lifted! We need to be willing to take a hit if we are to actually stay below 2C warming. That’s what so many people are saying about putting the world on a ‘war footing’ to reduce emissions. But at least it’s a damn good start.

Not that it was a particularly profound line of questioning from Kerry O’Brien. The whole thing was very frustrating for Rudd, I think, because what could have been a nice clean announcement on MRET had to fight it’s way through a lot of static.

But very much a problem of his own making.