Most people in commenting about Rudd’s dilemma in introducing a highly unpopular emissions trading scheme were pessimistic as to whether Rudd would be brave in policy terms and do the right thing, especially as it applied to petrol. Most thought he would cave in to Nelson’s cynical populism.
Most thought that the populace at large liked signing international treaties that were largely symbolic but baulked when it meant coughing up their hard-earned cash. MSM commenters largely took the line that Rudd had pulled a swiftie in deluding the electorate into thinking that they could have pain-free climate change policy.
I seriously doubt that was ever the case. Whatever. I was heartened, though, in reading in the Courier Mail this morning Denis Atkins (he’s not a flake) saying:
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd decided last week that he would make climate change his sink or swim issue.
When Brendan Nelson’s Opposition opted to link petrol price rises to climate change, Rudd and his advisers flicked the switch to doing.
It’s a nod to Paul Keating’s former adviser Don Russell who said politics was divided between those who do things and those who just try and please.
It is the policy over populism position that Rudd had to have.
Do read the rest of Atkins’ short column. Labor are going to have an honest shot at working the thing out and go to the election labelling the Opposition as economic wreckers.
There will be plenty of support for this position from Garnaut and others. Business as usual is the expensive way in the long run.
Then I heard on our ABC that Newpoll had found that most Australians thought an ETS would slow global warming to the tune of 64/19. What’s more at 63/33 the would pay more.
[I’ve taken out the link to Newspoll, because it wasn’t working on my Firefox, just freezing the system. The url is http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/newspoll-1jul.pdf]
When asked “Should petrol be exempt?” they agreed by a narrow margin of 46/42. I wonder what the score would have been if they were asked “Should petrol be included?”
These are very encouraging numbers, as were the Newspoll numbers on voting intentions where Labor is still 55/45 in two party preferred. In the preferred PM stakes they give Rudd 64 and Nelson 15. Those numbers were down 4 and up 2 respectively. So with Nelson still mired in ‘Why does this man bother?’ territory Michelle Grattan still spun it by saying that it’s a matter of perception (whose? - not the voters) and momentum.
So I thought I’d spin the title of the post a bit, because that has more warrant in reality than what Grattan said.
I could have said “Voters smarter than MSM pundits!”
If you want to discuss practical matters about the ETS please go to Robert’s post.
Sure but the devil is in the detail with this stuff, Brian.
Of the $500m clean energy fund set up, $0 have been allocated to renewables because it was structured to favour clean coal. In fact, money was channelled away from a solar fund and given to geothermal research. Say what?
Real leadership would be having climate and energy ministers who actually spoke together publicly…
Rudd is finally on the right track here. The only criticism I have of this “new” tactic, is he should have been here weeks ago, instead of gettying bogged down in Nelson’s trap of a brawl about loweering the cost of petrol. And I think Rudd will succeed. The electorate is not always as dumb as the commentariat supposes, and they’ll get this and approve of it, even if they hate it.
Rudd has been saying pretty encouraging things, but Lindsay Tanner on the 7:30 report last night said in reference to the ETS:
which is quite contradictory. I don’t see how your average household can be left not net worse off and at the same time have an ETS which actually achieves much at all.
Chris @ 3,
I think - stress, think - the Rudd Government is envisaging massive financial compensation to voters and business. Let’s hope it not as illusory as Howard’s GST compensation.
Paul, I think any Australian government research money from this should go to clean coal. It’s not that its necessarily the best bet for meeting climate change targets on a worldwide basis, but that its the only bet that preserves one of Australia’s advantages (ie coal). Plenty of other people are spending their money on renewables - lets spend ours on something they are not.
dk.au the problem is, I think, that Marn Ferguson has the lion’s share of the funds, all those directed at industry in any way falling into his bailiwick. He doesn’t strike me as being the most collegiate in his MO, but I could of course be wrong.
Paul B, agreed.
Chris, maybe there will be a learning phase (see Robert’s post before it starts hurting.
Rudd is saying that every cent raised will go back to families and businesses, but maybe there will be a wealth transfer from those who have to those who have less.
Guys anyone interested in setting up a AETS discusions weblog?
I am technically not qualified enough to but happy to help any way I can!
DD the Blair Report (pdf) to the G8 sees clean coal and geosequestration in particular as a central issue in the new technology arena. They also point out in another part of the report that India and China are flat out installing their national energy generation system. It seems to me that this system is entirely problematic but we can’t expect them to turn around and dismantle it from say 2020.
Clean Coal will take twenty years to achieve, if its even possible. I suspect its a fantasy to keep the mining and energy industry/unions happy. Funds would be much better spent on renewable technologies that we already know wotk rather than pie-in-the-sky schemes that are probably likely to be a waste of precious time we don’t have. Though I doubt any politician of either major party will have the moral courage to tell us that, for fear of the business and union backlash.
Paul - I hope that the money raised will go to research for renewable power sources, to subsiding efficiency gains (eg insulation etc) and helping the poor cope with increasing energy prices, rather than returning the cash to working families.
Brain - the two areas they identify for experimenting in - electricity and transport are the ones that are going to most directly hurt your average family. I’ve no doubt they’ll want to avoid any significant pain for most people until after the next election but pain is required to change behaviour.
Paul Burns: “Clean Coal will take twenty years to achieve, if its even possible. I suspect its a fantasy to keep the mining and energy industry/unions happy”
Well, when Marn Ferguson visited the Latrobe Valley a couple of months ago to announce a “clean coal” project, he talked to the reporters ONLY about jobs.
Rudd doesn’t have to make petrol exempt. In fact it is better if he does not. At the first stage Fuels should incurr the carbon tax and the current fuel excises/taxes should be modified to balance to a no change or marginal increase in cost to the end user. The losers in this are the off road fuel users. These people generally have more fuel options available to them ie are in a position to produce their own fuel and turn that into income substitution. The carbon tax is a fixed cost against fuel consumption as it ralates to the carbon content which does not change as the per barrel cost of the fuel escalates away. This approach preserves the current price differential between fossil fuels and biofuels for the right reasons. The excises can be revisited as the economy adjusts to the new reality.
Chris (a different one), I do agree that there will need to be pain. But it’s not fair, it seems to me, to inflict too much pain before other things are cranked up a bit, like public transport and bike tracks.
Paul W, personally I don’t hold out much hope for clean coal and geosequestration. But I can see why it would be handy and until found to be pointless and irrelevant should be pursued not so much for us but for the world in general.
We have abundant alternatives and should pursue them with all speed.
BilB, one of my worries is our rural cousins. I mean the ones actually trying to earn a living from the land.
That’s “populace at large”. Populace. The hoi polloi. The great unwashed. Them. As distinct from, say, the educated, informed, fair-and-balanced folk at The Australian. You know - the guys who told us last week that the ALP was about to split on the issue of nuclear power. And who are telling us today that “public goodwill towards fighting global warming” is ‘evaporating’.
Two interesting recent articles on Salon worthy of a read. One emphasises the scale of the battle ahead:
Anti-science conservatives must be stopped
and the other sets out, very clearly, why any climate change plan for Australia that includes nuclear power is going to end up doing nothing about the problem. Don’t be fooled by the title:
Nuclear bomb
Fixed now, Guise. Thanks for the spelling lesson. You’d never think I used to get 100% for spelling up to Grade 6, but unfortunately it’s been all downhill from there!
Briann,
spwelling’s over-raated!
I think you might have picked that spelling up from Jack Strocchi’s eccentric “populus”, Brian!
Yes, I tend to think an emission trading scheme will be popular; the media’s way off beam as always - still trotting out the tired, worn Howardite cliches (’an extra 40 cents to prevent an irreversible climate disaster - as if!’ said Homo Voterus Australianus).
There will be exceptions of course, in areas dominated by wholly unsustainable industries, But get real: we could have got sentimental abotu nightsoil collectors too - but hey, sewered toilets proved a popular boon after all. “I nivir sawed that comin, Dennis.”
And as for 80 year safe coalition swinging to the coalition, oh please. If thats a honeymoon ender, dont leave town in the first place.
Actually, Strocchi used to write it ‘populous’, as in the adjective.
Brian,
I wouldn’t worry too much about the country cousins in realtion to fuel. There are a number of very economic biofuel processes which produce ethanol or bio diesel. The key ingredient is bio mass, more biomass than the grass clippings from the average suburban block. Anyone with direct access to a few tonnes of biomass per year can virtually eliminate fuel bills from their budget. This is not a reality for city folk but for the country it will be the new income leveller. E85 using General Motors engines may well become the rural standard. I was talking about this very opportunity today with a customer who has a cahin of country stores. Some rural industries have been using methanol for all of their farm vehicles for decades. I believe that this is poised to become a very widespread reality. Keep an eye on that oil price.
China is in a position to become a world manipulator. They have been quietly increasing their use of coal to manufacture plastics precursors. I would expect that they will do the same for the production of liquid fuels. By balancing their use of oil and coal with the plastics precursor oil/coal balance for damand trimming they are a large enough consumer to stage manage the world price of oil and coal, while maintaining control of the plastics end product market.
Ambigulous, some-one called me Brain, finally, and I didn’t even bookmark it!
BilB, you may be right about the country cousins. I’ve heard of plenty who are producing their own diesel. This seems to be available in small-scale plants. But I guess there are lots of others who live in similar places in service industries etc who might not be so well placed.
You are depressing me about the Chinese. If they set the standards for the natural world we are to live in we’ll have to carry oxygen cylinders on our backs (made in China, of course) and buy the air we breathe.
Citizens set to implement popular defenestration scheme.
“You are depressing me about the Chinese. If they set the standards for the natural world we are to live in we’ll have to carry oxygen cylinders on our backs (made in China, of course) and buy the air we breathe.”
Buy the air from who exactly?
It will be a new business opportunity, murph. It’s been done with water, so why not air?
The UK Government have said there’ll need to be $200billion worth of investment across the country to get up to scratch and have acknowledged that action on climate change will increase the prices of petrol and electricity. Rudd, on the other hand, is being trapped by Nelson’s petrol price populism and refusing to state whether or not petrol will be more expensive under an Australian ETS.
Sam, forgive my ignorance of chemistry, but doesn’t the combustion of petrol produce CO2 (and CO)? So why the pluck should petrol motors be excluded?
Brain/Brian, there was a very serious research efort by a Japanese company that set up a lab in Morwell, circa late 80s into the 90s; investigating feasibility and cost of converting brown coal to oil. Expensive, but viable as soon as the oil price rises high enough.
Had some coal reserves earmarked I think. Oil exports from a port on Bass Stait, etc. Serious numbers of Japanese engineersand their families came to the Latrobe Valley to work on it. Locals got jobs too.
There must be countless projects around the globe waiting for the day…. shale oil anyone?
Ambigulous, last I heard there were active plans to crank up shale oil operations in Queensland. Something about the airport in Proserpine (gateway to the Whitsundays) having to be moved.
The company has Queensland in the title, but it’s actually owned by some guys in New York.
So people, do you reckon if a f*ckwit is prepared to drive 45 minutes to save 0.10c a litre on petrol, any increase in petrol prices is doable?