Given the Opposition is playing silly buggers on the emissions trading scheme, it’s important to consider the politics of the new Senate on the matter. Recall that if the Opposition votes against a bill, the government needs the votes of the Greens, Nick Xenophon, and Steve Fundies First Fielding to get something through.
So let’s look at what the Greens want:
“That requires a rigorous and comprehensive scheme which not only lowers Australia’s 1990 pollution levels by 40 per cent by 2020 but which also turns down the growing rate of emissions by 2015 - seven years away,” he said.
That is not going to happen. Amongst other things, it is essentially impossible to achieve 40% cuts in that timeframe without substantial and absolute cuts to Australians’ living standards. We could have achieved it easily if we’d started in 1990, or even 2000; but we can’t change history. And, thus, a political non-starter for the government.
In any case, while I simply don’t know what Nick Xenophon might do, getting Fundies First to sign up to any emissions trading scheme will be quite a political feat. Fielding has distinguished himself with the remarkable feat of out-stupiding Brendan Nelson on petrol tax; it’s impossible to see him supporting anything that might stop his constituents from driving their Toyota Prados from their McMansions to their outer suburban megachurches. Given this, the idea that Fielding would support a tougher emissions trading scheme than that originally proposed by the government is completely outside the realms of possibility.
If Bob Brown’s position is a take-it-or-leave-it one, rather than a negotiating position, it’s impossible to see how an ETS can possibly get through the present Senate.
That said, there is one possibility that might particularly concentrate Steve Fielding’s mind - a double dissolution on the issue. Not only would this probably remove much of the overhang of Coalition senators, it also stands a pretty good chance of getting rid of Fielding and giving the Greens the balance of power. So maybe a double dissolution would suit Senator Brown and his party just fine.
But, then, I can’t imagine that the Coalition wants a double dissolution either. Do they really want to fight an election on this issue? The political machinations are going to be something to behold.
Robert, are you suggesting that the absolutist stances that the Greens have been able to take in the past may actually not be workable now that they form part of the balance of power equation?
I seem to recall reading one report (in the Sydney Morning Herald?) which suggested that this was not a take-it-or-leave-it position. My prediction is that Bob will bargain hard, but will bargain.
Having said that, I’d agree with Robert’s general point that Labor will have a devil of a job negotiating positions that can bring both the Greens and Fielding along at the same time.
Paul: what do you think of the idea that a double dissolution on the issue might well suit the Greens? And, possibly, Labor?
Are you seriously suggesting the Greens would block the introduction of the ETS, even a timid ETS that’s full of holes? Not a chance. Its Fielding that’s the problem, not the Greens.
I reckon Fielding would hold firm and force a DD election (if Rudd doesn’t cave of course). Fielding’s got God on his side after all.
I don’t think Fielding will be that tough. He’s more of an attention whore and will probably do a deal Harradine style on some socially conservative bullshit (like gay marriage). Xenephon - a bit like rolling the dice I think. Ask him two days in a row and you’ll get two different answers.
It’s worth comparing the Greens’ proposed 2020 target (which is defined relative to 1990 emissions levels) with some others which have been proposed or adopted.
* The Australian Conservation Foundation calls for at least a 30 per cent reduction (relative to 1990 levels) by 2020.
* The European Union calls on industrialised economies to aim for a 30 per cent reduction (relative to 2000 levels) by 2020.
* British Columbia has set a target of 33 per cent reduction relative to current levels.
* The Carbon Equity project calls for a target of a 90 per cent reduction by 2030.
The 30 per cent targets for developed economies are all framed in terms of the kind of emissions trajectory required to avoid a global average temperature increase of 2 per cent. The Greens’ position would seem to reflect the view that things are happening faster in terms of emissions increases and climate impacts than was assumed in the science on which the EU etc. based their targets ( something which Garnaut alludes to in his report and alluded to at today’s gathering in Brisbane).
I think this is undoubtedly true for both parties, especially when you compare the Greens’ current poll numbers with the Senate quota in a full Senate election. However, whether this consideration is consciously influencing either Green or Labor strategy and positioning in the Senate is another question.
Actually Labor makes me vomit as to environment.
Thatis, if the report in yesterday’s “government gazette” about Garrett knocking back a call for sections of Tassie rainforest to be added to a heritage list is even remotely true ( what a change that would be! ).
And don’t anyone give me this absolutist crap about woodchipping being about jobs-yesterday Gunns closed its more labor intensive saw mill, putting nearly 150 people out work, even as it continues its perverse pursuit (with Labor help) of their filthy pulp mill.
Just to slap down any narrowist criticism that my post of “off-topic”, I’d better mention that rain forests are good carbon sinks.
And nothing Emerson said on Qand A convinced me even rempotely that Labor has even remotely reached the end of its neoliberal “Dark Night of the
Soul”.
Robert,
Don’t forget that the Libs have not signed a Pledge - so they could deal with this on an individual basis. It would only take one or two to let the leadership know they intend to vote with the government on this to get it through. The leadership could then feel that they need to let it through (or allow a conscience vote) to avoid appearing split on the issue.
Christine Milne said on Q&A (on which Bolt asked most of the questions, rhetorical!) that the Greens were now suggesting 40% emission reductions by 2020 and 90% by 2050.
This won’t wash with Labor who have apparently locked on to their 60% by 2050 target and so far have avoided 2020, 2015 and 2010 emission reduction targets (still “waiting for Garnaut”). I suspect Labor’s stance is to not scare the union and industry horses with anything too tangible. 2050 is after all a long way a way.
I think Fielding will have trouble agreeing with Greens on anything - he will tend towards an “opposite” stance based on his ideology. I don’t think this is particularly rational, but I guess most politics isn’t.
I think the Greens can and will negotiate, but it is the two jokers in the pack (Fielding and Xenophon) who have the real power.
A double dissolution would be good I think. It would be good to include a referendum with two choices - a carbon tax or 2010 emissions trading.
Maybe the Liberals will even realise how moronic their lapse back into denial of real action on climate change is.
I agree, Robert, Bob Brown will not accept the Labour plan. If you saw Christine Milne on Q&A last night, it is clear that the Greens see the Labour plan as being as effective as the Coalition’s non plan. It is far better to make a stand at this point and force the issue than accept a slow drawn out process built on hope that technology might miraculously appear to make coal really clean. There is no certainty, though, that Labour would force the issue for some time. They might chose to work on their emissions trading thingey privately till 2010 then launch it. I thought that Labour was getting their legislation through the Senate but my Labour buddy Bill K tells me that all of the legislation has been forced into committee, and not much has been passed.
The Greens will need to see a committed plan to instal alternative energy facilities in bulk in any plan that is put forward, and that is good for all of us. But they are OK with an emissions trading scheme, so there is common ground.
You are correct, the battle WILL be something to behold.
As an aside my cycling friend who got slammed by a car is now a partial c5 quadraplegic. So all of you cyclists out there, please be careful. The year of the rat is proving to be hazardous.
The mistake people make about Garrett is assuming he is somehow green. He sang the words to Midnight oil songs, but he didn’t write them.
He is just a show pony. In his own words “Well, I am now a minister”, in response to a question on Melbourne radio as to why he was not taking action to project the environment (in this case bay dredging). He is now a career politician spouting spin, waffle and doing nothing (remember the plastic bags fiasco?).
Of course they will. If the government has (say) Xenophon and a couple of Liberal bleeding hearts on board (any thoughts on who they’d be Andrew Reynolds?) are you seriously suggesting the Greens will be the ones to kill the ETS? Even a bad ETS is better than no ETS.
If the 37 Coalition senators oppose the ETS in the senate, and the five Greens vote with the 32 Labor senators, it would be 37 votes each with Fielding and Xenophon to decide.
From Xenophon’s website
[link]
He will probably support the ETS.
From Fielding’s website
[link]
Looks like he would oppose an ETS (especially one that includes petrol).
That would leave a tied vote at 38 to 38. “Section 23 of the Constitution requires that in the event of a tied division, the question is resolved in the negative.”
Causing a double dissolution on this issue would be fraught with possible danger for the Greens. Any idea they could numerically benefit from a DD would be met, especially by the Coalition, with charges that the Greens are playing Climate Change for purely political benefit, looking like ecological ideologues but really just interested in transforming that into a greater Senate presence and the balance of power.
It will be really interesting to see how it plays out. The Coalition and FF certainly don’t want a DD, Xenophon would have won a second spot if there had been a DD in 2007 and the Greens 3 more (The 2007 DD results would have been ALP 31, LNP 33, GRN 8, XEN 2, FF 1, Climate Change Coalition 1). And the ALP may or may not end up with what they always have, due to the fact that their 2PP is bolstered by minor parties, and that doesn’t translate into the Senate where minor parties can preference each other and build quotas.
I very strongly doubt that you are correct on that, even in a 12 year timeframe. Not all of the reductions need to be in the energy sector, Australia’s ecology is being devastated by livestock (especially cattle), so there will cobenefits in reductions there (up to 11% of emissions, more if you include the associated deforestation and rangeland degradation), and there is huge potential for sequestering CO2 by avoided deforestation and afforestation. I discussed this (and how it could contribute to 40% reductions) in a submission to the Garnaut Review (which can be accessed on their website). The US apparently sequesters 700-800 Mt CO2-e each year in forests - according to the Energy Information Administration.
Achieving a 40% cut would be much more achievable if we start now, and reduce our emissions more than the Kyoto target in the Kyoto time period.
The investment required would be far far less than was invested in the war by most countries involved in WW2. It would also be far less than the infrastructure investment required if there was a major sea level rise from melting ice sheets. Unfortunately we are at a tipping point now with melting arctic ice (through albedo impacts) greatly increasing the likelihood of Greenland melting and methane being released from Siberian permafrost. It may be the case that Australia should reduce emissions by more than 40% compared to 1990 levels by 2020.
All of the alternatives are much worse. Australia could make weak emission reductions and free ride while other countries make very deep cuts, which would be a major drag on the rest of the world achieving emission reductions; I would much prefer to make deep reductions than pump large amounts of sulphur particles into the upper atmosphere, causing great damage to the ozone layer, possibly causing acid rain when it comes down, and possibly causing the sky to longer be blue; or we could go past tipping points and experience major sea level rises, carbon cycle feedbacks, permafrost releases of methane, much greater species extinction and many surprises.
So if you don’t think we should reduce emissions by 40% or more by 2020, what alternative do you propose?
Seriously fellas, if this website just replicates the political process-speak of the mainstream Press Gallery, its such a waste of time.
The issue is not about the vote its about the issue.
If you want to make a contribution to the debate about the future of the climate, focus on that and stop the second guessing about Bob Brown and co.
This is the interesting and worthwhile debate - [link] - not being second-fiddle to Lateline.
Yawn.
Sorry petercq, I just don’t understand why a person would deliberately do wrong,most of all when they are in the rare situation of being in a position to do right.
Have not been able to understand Labor and the environment since that tragic day in 1994 when Beddall overruled Faulkner over forestry coups, followed a few years later by them joining with the Tassie libs to gerrymander the Tasmanian electorate. This on behalf of Gunns against the Greens, when one would have thought the Greens would be natural allies in a quest for a progressive and enlightened world.
Having said above, will drop a clanger in suggesting, in view of todays or yesterdays apparent statement from the Indians and /Chinese that they reject any strictures on their own carbon outputs, I can’t see that we can do anything but accept the much-maligned Nelson proposition against unilateral action, lest we cut our noses off to spite our faces.
Am just not keen on ending up in the gutter to finance the Indian and Chinese middle classes joining our yuppies in consumerist pollutionist freeway heaven.
Dan - that might be a really really interesting, informative and important link. I’ll never know, because your snarky, imperious, judgemental tone has put me off completely.
Good gracious! I’m a fine one to talk about tone eh? Two sentences with strings of 3 adjectives - I wrote better than that in year 10.
The mainstream media like to talk about the Greens being obstructionist, and of course Christian Kerr could talk of little else.
However, I am not aware of a single case in which the Greens have blocked something that was moving in the direction they wanted but not moving as far or as fast as they wanted. It’s probably happened in one parliament or another, but its the exception. I can’t see that record being broken on something as important as ETS.
Of course the Greens may block it if they believe there is a sting in the tail that somehow is going to make it more difficult to ever get a better system adopted. But if that isn’t the case they’ll move a heap of amendments and then vote for the thing when it is done. If Labor has any brains they’ll accept at least some of the amendments - not just to keep the Greens happy but because Milne in particular understands this stuff better than they do and some of the amendments will be good ones even from Labor’s point of view.
The Greens would love a Double D, as we’d walk into seven senators and have a chance of several more, but I cannot see the Senators endangering positive legislation on the most important issue of our lifetimes to get it.
Carbonsink,
The Greens, I believe, will not shoot down the ETS, they will demand that it is applied with a parallel Alternative Energy build plan commitment. This is not shooting down the ETS this is saying that relying on market forces only to provide the coal replacement will not achieve the anticipated emissions reductions. That is a bargain, not a lockout.
Peter, I’m essentially resigned to overshooting and what Garnaut calls “negative emissions” - taking measures to deliberately suck more CO2 out of the atmosphere - in subsequent years.
Depending on how fundamentalist the fundies first really are, they may not beleive humans are in any danger, because human extinction would mean God’s creation isn’t perfect. It’s one of the (many) problems they have with dinosaurs, if something is extinct, that means God isn’t perfect.
You do have a valid point, Paul Walter, and we should be reducing carbon emissions as much as possible.
However, I think that a lot of the tipping points you mention may well already be unavoidable. The CO2 in the atmosphere from 10 years ago hasn’t finished washing through the climate system. Deep cuts to Australia’s CO2 emissions before 2020 won’t change that.
What I find alarming is that mitigation and adaption is nowhere to be seen in the political debate. There is no way we can avoid some of the things you mention, even with immediate cessation of all CO2 emissions. How are we going to cope with that?
Er, I was replying to Peter Wood not Paul Walter. My mistake.
The problem is that even the Greens’ target is less than what is necessary to prevent runaway climate change. However, I suspect that they won’t actually block anything, but use their current position to drag (or, more likely, *hold*) the debate in the right direction as far as possible. Otherwise the whole thing will descend from farce into tragedy as it gets inevitably watered down (and it already is).
A reduction of 40 percent is more than achievable for Australia (actually, 60 percent reductions on 1990 levels by 2020 would be more like it, and is also very achievable). In fact, if we can’t achieve that, with one of the most advanced economies, then what hope does the world have?
We have the technology, the resources, and the over-all potential to move rapidly over a very short timeframe to the mass-production and utilisation of alternative energy sources (also boosting the flagging manufacturing sector). This technology could be extended to large-scale emitters like China, who could then mass produce much of the technology necessary to the rest of the world. Of course, this would take international collaboration, and vision, on behalf of our political “leaders” well beyond what they are used to (or good for). But it is indeed “possible”. It is also necessary.
(And the issue of India and China raises very starkly the question of global social justice: the rich, polluter, nations, like Australia, *will* have to pay - including by rapid innovation and R&D - or there will be no meaningful global consensus).
The key problem with Garnaut, and this includes his “overshoot” fandangle, is twofold. Firstly, he assumes the only “solutions” are ones which can occur within a free market system, supplemented by minimal Government regulation and subsidies. There is no good reason to my mind that business, without a very firm hand (of the kind business - and current orthodoxy - rejects), will turn away from its polluting ways enough to have a meaningful impact in the timeframe required. This is the inherent flaw of ETS (even more so when it isn’t an international scheme) - it simply won’t work.
The ETS, without a much greater investment in alternative enrgy sources, and punitive impositions on pollution, is basically an excuse not to deal with the issue honestly, to avoid the hard choices any government - and society - will have to make in order to prevent climate change, and to allow a slightly modified version of “business as usual” to carry on, albeit with a green sticker on the side.
Sure, you could say, but we are stuck with a free market system and jelly-boned politicians, and that isn’t going to change any time soon. Perhaps, but then you should be reconciling yourself to climate distaster, not buying the soft, illusory palliatives of Garnaut and his three-card trick for making climate change profitable for big business (which is essentially what the review tries to do), and waiting for the Second Coming (sorry, I meant the “wind-back” of the “overshoot”).
That’s because the conservative framework that the Garnaut report is set in, combined with its rudimentary understanding of the science of climate change - and the danger of runaway change in the very near future - means that the report is almost useless for meeting the challenges it professes to face. It serves as a bit of a call-to-arms, but little more.
The “overshoot” argument (while it is an unavoidable reality - we are already *well* above safe levels of CO2e) simply serves as a way of extricating the report from the facts, and pretending (or hoping) that climate change is linear, and can be reeled back in later on. It isn’t, and any “overshoot” on Garnaut’s terms will be disastrous.
Andos: Garnaut is saying it loud and clear, BTW.
It should also be pointed out that Garnaut is less than confident of the effect of his “negative emmissions” on reversing global warming. He throws it in there, but to little real effect.
RM: To be honest, I haven’t read his report (too lazy). Good to hear that mitigation is mentioned. Now we just need to hear about it in the media, and from some politicians. Personally, it seems that The Greens could have taken much more advantage of the Coalition’s obvious crap-ness on this issue to get out there and shape the debate a little. The Government really needs their support in socking it to the Liberals. It will be very interesting to see the outcome of the Liberal Party’s meeting at the end of this month…
Interesting post and comments, and a fascinating perspective: another one to add to the pot.
As it stands at the moment, I don’t think the Greens can be seen as spoilers on CC and force a Dissolution. They’d be pilloried for being problematical on the very thing they loudly represent.
In all likelihood they’d play the thing out as publicly as possible (while dealing in practicals behind), so as to use the spotlight to further set themselves up for the future.
However, one scenario is possible. And it’s worth a thought given Bob Brown is growing in looks as to go all in one day - to risk it all on pitch and toss, though it’s not reliant on that. And this could occur if he happened to speak the deficits of the policy sufficiently to obtain a national forum on it. Get the big spreads in the Saturdays. Get that negotiating stake at 7.30 and the like. Articles in the papers’ mags. He won’t get it by promoting fear. But fear linked to a public anti-big business sentiment might grab hold, as if to position to represent the little guy in a bigger story of which this (CC) is how it’s come to a head, and that the two majors can’t speak the reality being beholden to big business.
He does have an available story there, and there may be sufficient pissed-offedness in the community, leveraging off all the little incidents of people suffering price service and product problems at the hands of big business invasion. If he could work all this into a narrative, through non-whingy bites onward to position at the centre of public debate (a position somewhat as Hanson held in her own way) by holding public sentiment as bargaining position, he may well be able to force a DD on it and come out on top.
But as of now, no. The grounding is there but it needs to be lifted and worked. It would be quite a media strategy and a trajectory is I believe there to be had, but the questions remains is it too early to try that with the public, and can Bob Brown pull that one off.
Robert Merkel @ 24:
Jeez that’s really dark Rob, and I thought you were an optimist. If you’re such a pessimist on reducing carbon emissions, how do you maintain your sunny optimism on replacing oil?
As I’ve said in the past, I think we can decarbonize our society, and we can do it in a way that leaves us even better off than before.
I just don’t think that people in the developed world are prepared to wear the economic disruption required to do it in a decade. I think the people of the rapidly developing world are even less likely to.
The situation is different for oil. If peak oil is really happening, there’s no discretion whatsoever in the matter but to find substitutes, economic pain or not.
So, like I’ve said, I think we will have to clean up our mess after we have made it.
Furthermore, I am optimistic that there are technological means that this can be done, so it won’t be a complete disaster. But it will be considerably harder work, and the environmental damage done along the way until we do act on the scale necessary will be more severe, than would otherwise have been necessary.
If Aussies wanna be ahead of the game, they should get Toyota to make a car that can take a full bladder worth of piss. I’m sure plenty of blokes would luv to get some night air after a big nite on the grog, stick their snake in the hole & contribute to the day’s running of the car. For the women, they could come up with a petrol can with a seat they’d like to sit on.
No point wasting a good weegend.
With respect to the Greens not blocking a policy that doesn’t go as far as they want, but does some good, remember that if the Coalition decides to oppose the policy Labor needs the Greens, Fielding, and Xenophon on board. I can see the Greens and Labor being able to find a compromise. I just can’t see how anything that keeps Fielding happy - without at least the threat of a double dissolution chucking him out of the Senate - would be vaguely acceptable to the Greens (or anyone who actually understands the seriousness of the issue).
34 Robert Merkel Jul 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Thats plainly false. Animals may be better off if we manage to arrest habitat destruction but nothing can beat the better-offedness of virtually free energy that we have been enjoying since WWII.
Put simply in the good old days a typical household could pay for its weekly carbon energy needs with about a half-days labour, maybe less. To “decarbonise society” will mean typical households will have to give up closer to a days labour to pay for the higher cost of renewable generation plus labour-wasting adaptations.
Robert Merkel says:
I am dubious about the possibility of “decarbonising society” when the USA, PRC and IND appear set on high-carbon energy infrastruture. With those jurisdictions not expressing much political will to change in a hurry.
In the USA the Green vote is small, the DEM vote is 50% pro-working stiff Clinton. In the PRC no one, least of all Greens, has a vote bar the polituburo which is mostly composed of business-minded engineers. And in IND everyone is obsessed with catching up with PRC.
Not to mention the inconvenient truth that the tipping point for polar meltdown is already probably passed. Which may make institutional and instrumental attempts at climate change mitigation entirely futile.
Robert Merkel says:
Perhaps. The carbon price has to be set really really high to get tech fixes happening really really soon. That would imply massive interim economic disruption and destruction of value.
LPG conversions give some idea of the speed at which the general public can act given correct taxes, subsidies and prices. Glimmer of hope for the tecchie-fixers there.
But LPG has been around for yonks and is not exactly rocket science.
[Disclosure: my recent predictive record about recent regional catastrophes and their resolution is poor. I took a “she’ll be right” attitude towards regime change in Iraq. Things panned out worse than worst case scenarion. Then I lurched towards the opposite attitude, assuming “shell never be right” in that god-saken place. But now things are better than expected. Although, generally speaking, no one ever went broke underestimating the civility of that awful place.]
I’m with Peter Wood at 17 and Robert M at 24. I keep saying that it’ll take something like the drowning of New York to make the world turn the switch to emergency.
Christian Kerr said the other day that Penny Wong was thinking of looking to the Coalition rather than the Greens and independents. He was claiming to have some information to that effect.
There is some logic in the Coalition abstaining. They might think that the ETS will kill Labor in the electorate. Some have claimed it’s Labor’s WorkChoices only worse.
Ferral sparrowhawk @ 22 said “However, I am not aware of a single case in which the Greens have blocked something that was moving in the direction they wanted but not moving as far or as fast as they wanted.”
From a federal perspective - no there isn’t a single case, because they didn’t have the numbers to block anthing. But they certainly opposed many things that would fit in this category. Most obvious in my experience was the EPBC Act in 1999 - not perfect, but a big advance in the right direction which was none the less, viciferously and abusively opposed then and for a long time afterwards.
Good politics no doubt, but no recognition about the movement forward in environmental protection.
The big political advantage the Greens will have in the new Senate is if they do decide to make a compromise on an issue which isn’t great but is still “moving in the direction they wanted but not moving as far or as fast as they wanted”, they won’t have another ‘like minded’ party alongside them in the Senate kicking the shit out of them for doing so.
The ALP won’t bargain with the Greens at all. I think it very likely the Greens will back any ALP ETS plan.
But even if they don’t, the ALP won’t deal. They have nothing to gain.
A stricter ETS will antagonise FF & sympathetic Liberals and ensure that the policy isn’t passed. And it will also make the ALP look too close to the Greens, which is politically dangerous. Nothing to gain. Something to lose. No deal.
A moderate ETS may ultimately get passed with the Liberal support or a Liberal conscience vote. Putting the Liberals in this position is probably the ideal political outcomem for the ALP. The pressure on the Libs would be large, and the internal Liberal debate would spill into the public. And then either outcome is a win for the ALP.
Either the ETS is supported, and the ALP gets a political & policy win. Or the ETS is blocked and the ALP gets a DD election against Brendan Nelson. I don’t think a DD is that exciting for the ALP in general, but I think they have an incentive to go to the polls against Nelson before he is rolled.
Now it gets interesting… because I think the Liberals and Family First may also like the idea of a DD. Steve Fielding knows that FF has no chance in a half senate election, but they do have some chance in a DD.
The Liberal reason for a DD requires more imagination. But two things make it possible. First, the Gippsland by-election may lead the Liberals to relish the idea of going to an election on fuel prices. Billboard adverts with “Petrol… Liberals = $1.60 // Labor = $1.90″ or something like that could trigger Gippsland like responses. Second, Nelson probably knows his days are numbered, and this is the only chance he will have to save himself. Given his current support it makes sense for him to take a political risk, and making a stand on an ETS & fuel prices might be it. If he loses it makes little difference because he was on his way out anyway. So there is only upside if he takes a punt.
This has inspired me to post on the topic of a CCDD — climate change double dissolution.
[link]
Jack strocchi: Interesting comment.
I didn’t say that we’d be materially better off than an alternate universe where climate change isn’t an issue and we continue to burn fossil fuels with impunity. I’m merely arguing that economic growth with grossly outweigh the costs of mitigation.
The second point is that you’re missing the other positive side effects of decarbonization. As I’ve pointed out in the past, the health toll of urban air pollution in Australia is something akin to the health toll of road accidents. In Europe and the USA it is worse. In China it is diabolical. The EU has done economic modelling saying that switching away from fossil fuels will pay for itself on those grounds alone.
I think the wildcard that has been forgotten here is Christine Milne’s bill for national feed-in tariff laws. I suspect that will be a major bargaining chip around the Greens’ dealing with all parties in the Senate. I personally don’t doubt that Bob Brown’s stated targets and Milne’s on Q&A is a bargaining position.
The Greens have also indicated quite clearly in the press that they are talking to all parties, which I think bodes well. I really doubt that the Greens are going to force a DD over climate change - the issue is far too important, and the potential political gains are high-risk stakes.
Why anyone bothers reading anything Kerr has to say on the Greens is beyond me; I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s actually pathologically incapable of thinking and writing about them rationally. Bernard Keane on Crikey has been pleasing as a replacement for Kerr in that he actually applies the same open-minded but critical analysis to the Greens as every other party. Refreshing.
Rob Merkel @ 34:
Which directly contradicts this statement:
So, if peak oil is really happening, we need to substitute oil first, but otherwise it would be substituted last.
For the record, I don’t believe (geological) peak oil is happening now, but I do believe we have entered a phase where supply growth is slowing and flattening while demand (driven by the BRICs) still wants to grow. This is due to a combination of geological, political and economic reasons. The real geological peak happens in the 2012-2013 timeframe.
BTW, did you this in yesterday’s BusinessWeek suggesting the Saudi’s won’t be able to raise production, despite what they say:
Saudi Oil: A Crude Awakening on Supply?
It’s not really a matter for the Greens, Family First or anyone to ‘force’ a double dissolution. It is solely up to the government of the day whether they wish to use a Bill that has been blocked twice as a reason to call a double dissolution election.
Howard had many double dissolution triggers and never used them.
Assuming the Libs deal themselves out of the picture, it may simply be impossible for the ALP to get a position which both the Greens and FF agree to, regardless of the desires of either smaller party for a double dissolution (generally, both are more likely to have a better situation after a DD than after a half-Senate election).
The ALP is also likely to have better Senate numbers after a DD, and the Libs less - although the cross bench make up is harder to predict, it is more likely that Labor might end up in a situation where they only need the Greens to get something through, rather than the current mish-mash - but that should be the situation for them after the next half-Senate election too.
Even if some sort of legislation on emissions trading gets through, I expect Labor will pick up at least one double dissolution before the end of the year, even without trying. They are already half way there on a couple of Bills.
What it will all boil down to is whether Labor thinks having an early election will benefit them. If they were able to use emssions trading as a reason, it could well be a benefit - esp if the Libs continue to be a mess. But we’re still talking about next year at the earliest, so there’s a lot can happen between now and then.
Andrew, what do you think of the possibility that the Libs will simply abstain on the ETS matter on the basis that Labor will hang themselves with the equivalent of WorkChoices?
Brian - I doubt very much the Libs would formally abstain, but they may well use a line of rhetoric that basically says “we don’t support this, but you’re the government so we won’t stand in the way”, thus letting it through the Senate while letting the government wear any blame.
I’m not very fond of assessing or proposing political strategies - I’d usually rather focus on the substance of an issue - but given the Libs’ apparent confusion on this issue, it may make a lot of sense for them to basically adopt the strategy of saying they won’t block action being taken, so they don’t have to spend much energy saying what should be done instead. They can then focus on pointing out all the painful bits to the electorate.
A bit like the strategy Keating took to the 1993 election on Hewson’s GST - slagging it off while promising not to block it, thus putting the focus on the GST rather than on his alternative.
At some stage they’ll have to have a credible alternative, as I doubt they’ll be able to promise to ‘rip it up’ once its in place - which is different to Workchoices (not that Labor has really ripped up Workchoices anyway, but the perception is that they can and have/will, which I suppose is what counts from a political perspective) - but letting it through would keep the focus on the government, rather than the Libs.
Andrew, I never got my head around the details of the EPBC, but the majority of Australian environment groups regarded it as actually taking the environment backwards. They may have been wrong, but this was their view, not just that of the Green senators. One staffer for one of the main groups said to me “we’d just started to drag ourselves out of the pit of despair over the RFAs and this came along and pushed us back in”.
Again, this view may have been wrong, but I’m pretty sure the senators thought at the time we were going backwards with it.
It’s also not true to say the Greens never had the numbers to block - they did at several points, most notably from 93-96. The Greens WA Senators threatened to block the post Mabo legislation, but their justification was that for certain aboriginal groups the draft would make things worse, even though for others it would certainly have made things better. Their bottom line was that no Indigenous population should be worse off, and once they believed they had got that got that they voted for it.
Robert an optimist? Carbonsink @ 33, where did you get that idea? He’s one of the biggest pessimists I’ve come across.
Robert, we are already in overshoot. The targets we are espousing as plainly conservative according to the latest science, and we get slammed for them regularly. If we thought we could go zero fast, that’s what we’d be advocating. Can I ask what kind of emissions trajectory you think we should aim for, and what you think the result might be? Particularly considering nobody quite knows what the result of major overshoot might be…
Politics aside for a minute, 40% cuts and more are easily technically achievable by 2020. It would involve putting into the effort the kind of resources we allocate to health or defence. A few tens of billions a year and we could easily reduce energy demand by 50% over that time (for the same output of services) and power well over half of the remaining energy demand with renewables. Add to that a significant shift in transport behaviour and infrastructure, changes in agriculture and a halt to native forest logging and we’d surpass that target substantially. It’s totally achievable, technically.
But politics isn’t aside, and we all know that. How will the Greens end up voting on the ETS? How can we possibly say until we know what the ETS will be like? But carbonsink @ 14 - it’s not true that a bad ETS is better than no ETS at all. I can easily imagine legislation that sets up an ETS so full of holes and benefits to polluters that it would cement the status quo and undermine any other efforts to reduce emissions. That would be worse than no ETS, for sure.
Andrew Bartlett is correct in saying that there’s little chance of a trigger for a double dissoultion bill before 2009. That probably suits the ALP because some time after the next President takes office next January it will be much clearer where the US is going on emissions trading. If the US introduces (or announces it will introduce) its own emissions trading scheme, then the Liberals will look pretty silly in opposing one in Australia. A clue to which way the ALP is going will be to see how quickly it passes any ETS legisltion through the Reps after it is first rejected by the Senate.
Feral S - I won’t turn this thread into revisiting EPBC, not least because its better that environmentalists move on and deal with how things are now. There was enough damage done to the momvement at the time - probably easiest to just say there was a lot of politics involved. Although I have to say (because I will probably never fully move on myself, as few episodes have angered me more in two decades of immersion in politics) that whatever faults one wants to lay at the feet of the EPBC, it is simply silly to argue that it moved environmental protection backwards. Just because something does not save the forests (and didn’t undo RFAs) does not mean it is a move backwards.
Anyway, you are right about the WA Green Sentaors - I guess I always think of them as different, as they were a specifically separate party at the time and took a different approach - however the number of occasions they were in a blocking situation was very rare, as the Democrats would usually do that first. The original Native Title Bill and the Dawkins Budget were two main exceptions - although the Democrats at the time were also insisting on major amendments, but the WA Greens were also pushing for what they saw as improvements. The toing and froing between the differing Indigenous perspectives around the Democrat and WA Green camps was quite intruiging in itself.
The Native Title Bill is also a good example of how crucial the Liberals’ tactical decisions are. If John Hewson had chosen to engage with Native Title rather than just pander to ignorance and the racists and oppose it outright - a decision no doubt influenced by the fact he was in a weak leadership position at the time - they almost certainly could have got the Bill amended to better meet the views of their resource and pastoralist constituency. Instead, they sulked on the sidelines predicting pestilence and plague, and the Democrats and WA Greens were able to get it amended to better suit the views and meet the needs of Indigenous Australians (although far from perfect too I might say)
Could be a lesson there for the Libs on emissions trading legislation.
That is not going to happen.
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Yep.
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‘S what the Greens should call their policy handbook.
42 Robert Merkel Jul 12th, 2008 at 7:41 am
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Its conceivable that nominal (financially measured) conomic growth with carbon fuels would be greater than nominal (financially measured) economic growth without carbon fuels. This makes the dubious assumption that ecological externalities are of no economic consequence. Which may be true for HVI’s and others capable of ecological insulation.
It is likely that significant economic dislocation from flooding, storms and droughts will occur. Policy makers reluctant to commit to carbon curbing will then opt for finger-in-the-dyke adaptation strategies. I think this is the logic behind the PRC’s go-for-broke industrial growth strategy. Grow and save now for the non-rainy days in the future.
The same economic logic applies if one makes the less dubious assumption that climate change would occur anyway, even with institutional carbon constraints. I think that this is the conclusion of Hansen-ite tipping pointers.
I am a little skeptical of the ETS as an effective curb on carbon emissions, in any case. The carbon price will have to be sky-high in order to be effective as constraint, rather than displacer, of carbon emissions.
So far it looks more like an elaborate rort for the savvier carbon fuel floggers and their financial handmaidens. It does however give the general populace the impression that “something is being done” about stranded polar bears and the like.
Robert Merkel says:
I acknowledge that this is probably true. It implies that long term residents of relatively clean rural and regional environs should present with much lower rates of illness from respiratory illness, compared to long term residents of relatively polluted urban environs. AUS studies?
The best long term strategy to minimise vehicle emissions is to build massive subways/light rails, ala London, Berlin, New York, Moscow, Paris. This, incidentally, is the best infrastructural reform you can make to turn your city into a fun place to live.
Sorry Adrien, who are you quoting from above with the “not going to happen”? Otherwise I’m a bit lost.
Myriad - You may care to reead the post. Second paragraph after the post.