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.

We have taken this position of a new ambitious but responsible nonetheless renewable energy target of 20 per cent by 2020 based on modelling which has been done by MMA, a modelling firm which is in conjunction with Monash University, looked at all the variables which go into the economic impact of such a renewable energy target. There’s one element to it which is what capacity do we have at present, within the Australian renewable energy industry, what capacity have we got to expand in solar and wind and hydro, in geothermal and the rest and secondly, the other element that they’ve analysed carefully is the impact on the whole economy and the impact on electricity prices.

MMA means McLennan Magasanik Associates. Personally I don’t know them from Adam, but Labor did use them to look at the economic implications. You can read Labor’s press release here.

He avoided answering the one about the implications for coal of his MRET because he didn’t have the answer. The main answer is that nothing happens about the export industry by what we do in Australia. It also doesn’t imply shutting down coal plants here because we would be moving from 8% renewables to 20% while the whole market expands by about 20%. That is if we do nothing about energy savings.

hc, Rudd and Garrett understand that if the developing countries don’t do something tangible about reducing emissions, they are only going to do what suits them. We caused the problem and they are not going to be duped into taking the main burden of fixing it. Howard and co have their heads full of shite. Turnbull knows better, but I’m not sure how long he’s going to be Environment Minister. 4 weeks is all we can be sure about even if Howard wins.

Paul, I’m sure you’re right.

tim, Christine has been doing a great job. This is what she said today:

When Australia went and negotiated on Kyoto in the first place, we agreed to the principle that developed countries would reduce their emissions first and developing countries would come onboard later.

But China and India have both signed and ratified the Kyoto process. They are in the protocol. They are engaged, currently in the clean development mechanism. They are doing a range of things, as expected, under the protocol. So for Australia to keep insulting China and India is to absolutely destroy a negotiating position.

Very clear, very true. This is what she said about the MRET announcement:

If indeed Labor do win and take Government, and if indeed they do introduce this target (and we will pressure them to do so, should we achieve balance of power), this must surely rank as one of the most significant shifts in climate policy this country has seen in many years.

An important point about the socalled Garrett backdown is that he wasn’t made to backdown. What happened was that Rudd was fully on board with the initial position. They decided to change tack. Maybe because it wasn’t playing out well, maybe they thought it was wrong to give their fall-back position away at the outset. And maybe they wanted to put that one to bed to create clear air for the MRET announcement, which is a real point of policy differentiation.

Whether MRETs are a good idea when you have a cap and trade regime in another matter. But in terms of perceptions anyone who now thinks both parties are the same must have their eyes shut.

You are reading direct from JWH’s cheat sheet. Tired worn out lines, really.

California, Spain, Germany and Denmark have shown the way. We in Australia are floundering around playing politics and still up to our necks on old king coal.

Serious, deep incompetence based on a populism that will damage this country.

“And you guys are praising Rudd for his bravery and courage.”

hc, you are (deliberately?) overlooking Labor’s 20% MRET announcement which is clearly superior to Howards crapulous 15% “CRET” which includes the oxy-moronic clean (dirty) coal and a bundling of existing State targets. And you are overlooking Howard’s complete intransigence and negligence over not ratifying Kyoto.

Are you reading direct from JHW’s cheat sheet?

Now (after a backflip that suggests Garrett hasn’t a clue what he is doing) Labor states it will not endorse international agreements after 2012 unless the developing countries are constrained to cut emissions.

With no need for qualifications:

Labor’s policy on climate change = Coalition policy on climate change.

No matter how you twist the outcome that is what has happened. Now I think WorkChoices is the only substantive difference between the parties – apart from the fact that most policies were developed by the Coalition and replicated by Labor.

Its almost comic were it no so tragic that these clowns look like being our next government. And you guys are praising Rudd for his bravery and courage.

Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha….its the funniest thing I’ve seen since the clip of Kevin eating his own earwax.

But I still think the whole issue should be bipartisan and out of the political arena. They are playing a political game of chess with the planet’s future.

We don’t need the Garnaut report to inform us of short term targets, basic mathematic modelling will do just fine – and it available right now.

Rudd was solid on the 7:30 report tonight – but he needs to answer YES or NO to at least one question during the entire campaign. Endless blathering “on message” and avoiding answering questions is very off putting. It makes it look like he is trying to hide or dodge something.

C’mon Kevin07, try in front of the mirror: yes, Yes, Yes!, YES!. Just once during the campaign please.

I think Howard is irredeemable.

It blows the naysayers out of the water, and blows the storm over Kyoto into yesterday.

Christine Milne just added a bit to the bottom of her Kyoto blog post here.