Brendan Nelson’s gone on holidays this week, meaning that there might just be a coherent opposition response to the release of the Government’s emissions trading scheme Green Paper on Wednesday. In Crikey, Bernard Keane takes a look at who Nelson was talking to last week (aside from all those phone hookups with Turnbull, Hunt and Bishop pleading for him to start articulating Coalition policy):
Nelson’s flirtation with a retreat on an ETS appears to have been orchestrated at least in part by the climate change holdouts at Concept Economics. Concept is run by Henry Ergas and Brian Fisher, and senior Howard Government staffers Peter Conran and John Kunkel are also there. According to Lenore Taylor, Nelson met Warwick McKibbin, who is urging Australia go it alone with a special McKibbin trading model, with Conran and Kunkel last week. Fisher, previously the greenhouse mafia’s go-to bureaucrat when head of ABARE, last week attacked the Garnaut Report and said we should wait a decade for an international agreement on addressing climate said. Ergas has previously and again today argued a hardline “let the planet cook” approach that favours adaptation to climate change over mitigation.
Nelson has been killed this week so he can be resurrected, Philip Ruddock style, as a zombie to make him stay in line and on message.
Expect bigger circles under the eyes and the mysterious appearance of an Amnesty International badge, along with strange tales of somebody roaming the halls of parliament house at night groaning “bbbbbRRRRRAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIINNNNZZzzzzzz”.
“Brendan Nelson’s gone on holidays this week, meaning that there might just be a coherent opposition response to the release of the Government’s emissions trading scheme Green Paper on Wednesday.”
LOL but I don’t think that’ll solve it. Minchin needs to join him for there to be a chance of that.
How can the alternative prime-minister of this country go on holiday during such difficult economic times? It is disgraceful and shows his contempt for the Australian public!
Kim, re coherent response from the Opposition on global warming: if I was a gambling man, which I ain’t. I’d bet money on it there wont bew one.
Though, I do feel reassured that we have an Opposition leader so attuned to his surroundings that he is the epitome of symbiosis.
Now, if he could just apply that to the natural world he sees around him …
Most of the people I know that easily influenced are either not yet in adolescence or have just cime into it.
Maybe if I had his ear for a week I could turn the Liberal Party into a bunch of rabid Socialists under his leadership.
Why is he on leave?
Has he been told to piss off and let the big boys [and girls] take care of things properly?
Come back when he has learned his lesson[s]?
I’m not familiar with Ergas, but, although I don’t go with a “let the planet cook” approach, it does strike me as being appropriate to start planning what to do in the event that the planet continues to warm.
After all, there are a number of possible scenarios where this would occur, the two most obvious being that either human GHG emissions are not actually a major driving factor, rendering cuts in emissions pointless (not terribly likely), or that they are but global emissions are not voluntarily cut sufficiently to obtain any benefit (quite likely).
It is therefore quite plausible that we will have to adapt to climate change whatever we in Australia might achieve in the way of emissions cuts. Given that, it makes sense to have a reasonably detailed Plan B under construction as well.
Perhaps instead of a zombie, the Liberal party are now taking their cues from Peter Sellers character “Chance” from Being There
Entirely appropriate tagline:
and the synopsis:
Yes, the truth is always stranger than fiction.
What chance mitigation?
What chance adaption?
After all, the IPCC has many scenarios, depending on levels of growth,population, co2 levels etc,why plan for only one of these scenarios?
I agree – even if the world gets it act together, its likely we’ll overshoot at least a bit anyway as we (the world) will be slow to implement and there will be cheaters. Put it this way, its great to have good brakes in a car to avoid accidents, but you also want airbags for when things go pear shaped. Its time to start researching and building a bunch more airbags.
Yep, but Ergas doesn’t want there to be a Plan A!
On adaptation the previous Government gave a grant of $50 million for a Climate Change Adaptation Research Centre at Queensland’s Griffith University just before the election. They’ve been making appointments, including a very well-credentialled boss lady we are getting from Britain announced in the past few days.
On Nelson’s holidaze…won’t somebody think of the wombats?!
Indeed, Nick. Nelson’s looking a bit hypocritical now!
Though that said, Crikey’s First Dog on the Moon might have us believe that Nelson’s been running a wildlife refuge up top after all.
Furthermore…
Nelson, like the Northern Hairy Nosed, is an endangered species. He knows that he will be a victim of climate change because of his inability to adapt.
The real story that even Crikey dare not tell is that Brendan’s hair has shorted out requiring a major rebuild of the cyborg’s security settings. Technicians report that once the Malcontent Bullturn upgrade is inserted into the operating system there should be no further problems.
Further news of cyborg Julie Bishop’s impending “holiday” should come as no surprise, party officials have decided that her no blink eye settings are unnerving the public and hope to correct this shortly.
The fact that it’s been announced that Brendan will be taking a break from his leave later in the week for comments, suggests that he has, indeed, been locked in a political cupboard where he can’t do any further damage and will only be wheeled out when it is unavoidable. And presumably after he’s had electrodes strategically attached so that he will make some concerted effort to remain on message. Or, at least, coherent.
It seems that Nelson can’t even decide to go on holiday for a week without changing his mind.
Christopher Pyne was reported today as saying of the ETS
“The rate of how this should be introduced is the only issue open to debate,”
which is sure to thrill his long time Liberal Party enemy and climate change denialist, Nick Minchin, no end, no to mention the other denialists in his party.
This issue has the potential to split the Liberal party for years, maybe even for decades, the way the EU has split the British Conservative Party.
Labor Party strategists will have taken note.
IntelliBogan, Chris L,
re the adaptation/mitigation “choice” and Henry Ergas’ approach to planetary culinary.
There is no sensible either/or choice to be made between adaptation and mitigation. The track we are on, we are committed to about 90% of the change in 2030 that will occur as a result our current high emissions pathway, even if we pull the stops out in Oz by in 2012 and worldwide by 2015.
Hard adaptation now = benefits now and to 2030 and beyond
Hard mitigation now = 10% risk reduced in 2030, ~40% by 2050 and benefits accrue beyond.
If we don’t mitigate now, we will exceed our limits of adaptation for many sectors, especially beyond 2030. There are a couple of areas (mainly natural ecosystems, perhaps sensitive hydrological systems), where our limits are being pressed now.
Anyone who thinks that hastening slowly will give us the time to reduce the uncertainties associated with action has the wrong end of the risk stick. Acting across the board and learning fast is the optimal approach now.
Yep, act now to enable us the maximum chance of adapting to the inevitable changes by making those changes smaller than they would be by not acting now.
I assume that Ergas doesn’t have a house by the sea. But then again he might.
“I assume that Ergas doesn’t have a house by the sea. But then again he might”
Maybe he is trying to protect the value of his real estate
Carbon Pollution: 2 words, 2 errors
The problem is (theoretically) carbon dioxide and it is not pollution.
Roger : is there any provable link between a carbon dioxide trading system and saving an eco system?
To make any impact at all the tax would have to be astonomical and send the economy into a tailspin.
Chrisl
No. There is between reduced emissions and damage to ecosystems (a huge amount of evidence). Some damage cannot be avoided due to the climate commitments of past and near term emissions – that will require some adaptation to reduce any damages, irrespective of future mitigation.
The ability of a trading system to reduce emissions is the point being debated. It worked for sulphates in the US. But so would regulation (The European solution for sulphates). The big plus being attached about trading is that it would reduce costs to the cheapest abater and encourage “technological learning” as competition attempts to undercut the carbon price of other traders.
However, the thought that such schemes may create a merry go round of trading in hot air is why some prefer tax, and some would set technical goals for emissions or schemes like MRET. Some economists are arguing tax on the basis of efficiency and simplicity.
One thing seeems clear – the current prices for CO2 being bandied about and to which many react in horror (e.g. $10-40 per tonne CO2), are way lower than the damages that carbon dioxide will cause.
We are busy debating the detail of what seems in the long run a good deal and this is all about managing the transition towards the economy where energy, agriculture and transport are decoupled from GHG emitting activities.
A smooth transition to ameliorate the short-term costs that takes a gently gently approach to mitigation, will merely displace the damage until later, and magnify it.
Jeffrey Sachs doesn’t like carbon trading saying that it can easily be rorted and the Chinese would never accept it. But Prof Garnaut was quick in response:
I gather the paper by Jotzo et al hasn’t been published yet. Does anyone have any better information?
Roger: Clearly to reduce emissions, as well as a tax, an alternative needs to be provided.Currently there aren’t any and none on the horizon.
There is nothing to provide base load power. Consider as random examples, a truck driver,a farmer or a tradesmen driving a ute. They wiil react in horror(as you rightly propose) to a $40 per ton tax.But what can they do to alter their emissions? Absolutely nothing.Where are the reductions in emissions going to come from?
chrisl, I guess that’s why there is an argument not to spend all the cash from permits on compensation, but some on research and some on the necessary infrastructure a low carbon economy will require.
Brian@26
I suspect this is a paper with an unnamed fourth author that is to be published in one of the Oxford Economic Journals (it’s not there yet – just checked).
Material generated by the unnamed fourth author can be found here – it takes unchanged policies to 2030 then begins to mitigate and assesses the risks. Anyhow this details a lot of the India and China growth material.
This work was updated early this year according to the latest International Energy Agency projections and continued unabated to 2100. It contributed to the Garnaut Review – I call it A1FI on steroids.
I think Ergas is being misrepresented here.
Brian & chrisl — a price on carbon will not change behaviour much in the short term. But it makes investments in alternative energy production relatively more attractive and therefore speeds up the the time it will take to shift to alternative energy.
It is a long-term solution to a long-term problem.
Once the intent of the carbon price is properly understood it becomes clear that the important issue is putting a price on “dirty” coal. Increasing petrol prices significantly will hurt a lot of people, but is relatively less important in actually solving the issues.
I’m sorry if that’s so, John H, but I’m not seeing how from your comment. Can you expand?
Roger J, thanks for that. I’ve referred to your comment in my next post, which will appear before the morn.