Kevin Rudd himself will be unveiling the most significant structural reform since the 1980s and 1990s when Australia’s economy was opened up. Two major announcements so far: the compensation package for households used from the permit allocation revenue and a fast-tracking of the ‘Renewable Energy Fund’ (which includes CCS, geothermal, solar and wind). The centrepiece is of course the Carbon Pollution Allocation Scheme. The big detail to watch for: will additional voluntary action be accounted for? Update: *gulp* looks like the government plans to swallow up all action.
The 2020 targets will almost certainly be flexible of between 5-15%. Peter Wood takes issue with Chapter 4 of the Green Paper dealing with these figures.
Andrew Norton summarizes his climate change media watching over the past month.
Glenn Albrecht comments on Paul Howes call to class war over an ETS in the Opposition Organ.
More to come throughout the day
Update: The White Paper will be available from here at Midday. (h/t Peterc in comments)
Peterc “Will Kevin Rudd be a coal eating surrender monkey?”
Update: Crikey has been liveblogging. Clive Hamilton is amongst the contributors. Via comments there, John Connor from the Climate Institute:
Rather than backing smart voices in forward looking industries, the Government has buckled to the short-term interests of selfish business voices. “What’s worse is that the Government has increased the number of free permits to major polluters and watered down the conditions which require them to clean up their act in return. This corporate welfare with inadequate transparency and accountability effectively means ordinary Australians are shelling out around $550 per person in 2020 to polluters.”
Update [by Mark] Commentary in the blogosphere from John Quiggin, Sam Clifford, Possum and Gary Sauer-Thompson.
Update: Peter Wood
Update [by Mark] At New Matilda, Geoff Davies writes that Labor has sold the country out to the business lobby, Anna Rose reports from the white paper “lock up” and Ben Eltham considers the prospects of Senate passage.
Update: [by Mark] The Greens call for a day of protest action tomorrow.
Update: [by Mark] More blogosphere reaction from Go Greener, Australia, Deltoid, No Right Turn, Not a Hedgehog and Typing Is Not Activism.
Update: [by Mark] Anna Rose at New Matilda parses the White Paper.
Update: [by Mark] Christine Milne.
Update: Guy Beres on Mr 5%, Deltoid: as long as we beat New Zealand
My money is on a lame and totally unacceptable 10% by 2020 [link]
But I would be really happy to be proven wrong.
Whatever happened to “Australia’s leadership position on climate change”? Why only set a higher target if the rest of the world does? It’s not a game of poker. If we get this wrong – as appears to be likely – the consequences are completely unacceptable. No jobs on a dead planet. No economy either.
Watch this space: here is where the whitepaper will be published: [link]
The mining industry is continuing with its rent-seeking, no surprises there…
hahahahahahhahahahaahahhahahahaha
The paper has been put on the website. 5-15% it is…
Morons…
Its 5% unless there’s a strong global agreement, which of course there won’t be.
Rudd has zero conviction on this issue. What little backbone he did possess vanished on October 10th.
Its a laugh a minute…
Big Coal gets the big bucks (naturally)…
Rudd’s rolled out every excuse in the book…
Did he mention emissions intensity?
So, are we boned?
Yep, we’re boned…
I have a question. If reforestation can be voluntarily included, but deforestation is not covered, what’s stopping a hypothetical landowner or company with logging rights from burning down existing forest, replacing it with a plantation, and earning carbon credits on top of the revenue from timber sales?
Bigger news, it’s a massive failure on the governance front: Parliament will be controlling the cap itself. This is difference between taking this seriously as a governance issue or treating it as just part of politics as usual.
Alan Ramsey nailed this suggestion when the greenpaper was introduced. It’s going to be a rent seeking farce, not a structural reform at all.
Keep your eyes on the forest, people…
@dk.au – agreed, that’s a major problem. The only viable alternative I can see to that problem is a carbon commission with the independence of the Reserve Bank.
Absolutely f*cking pathetic. We had a chance to lead on this issue and – like so many others – we have utterly wasted it. Rudd clearly doesn’t believe that climate change represents any real problem to Australia, just like his predecessor albeit for different reasons. He should be ashamed of himself.
This has turned me into green voter. Goddamned bastards, when are they going to start listening to the right people about this?
So, do you people like it or not?
But it’s a very good question, Miriam. Incentives have been appallingly badly aligned in forestry for a long time. I’ll deal with that in a more substantive post later today. Hopefully Peter Wood will weigh in too.
Its taken you this long?
If its any consolation I expect 2009-2010 will see global CO2 emissions fall for the first time in decades. For all the wrong reasons of course.
Wow. That’s really soft. The 5 per cent target for if there is no agreement is sensible (should have been zero, but 5 per cent is close enough). But the 15 per cent cut if there is an international agreement seems bloody low.
Clearly Rudd thinks that climate change is really a bit of a fringe issue. He’s not in the least bit concerned about the Green types: what are they going to do? Vote for Malcolm? The people the government really is concerned about are out in Mel and Kochie land, and they are probably a lot less concerned about climate change now than they were 18 months ago. We’ve signed Kyoto, set a target and said that it’s now up to the rest of the world to follow our lead (as weak as our position is). That’s enough to convince the average Joes out there that Rudd has ‘dealt with’ climate change. No need to go overboard just to please a bunch of ferals and hippies. That’s the PM we elected: deal with the perceptions of the median voter and you’ll be alright.
@ patrickg – I think today Rudd created many thousands of Greens voters. Welcome to the fold…
Watching Rudd right now at the National Press Club… some protesters were there demanding more action. Good on ‘em.
nice heckling! quite appropriate if you ask me
Bah! Resign Rudd & Wong! What a disgrace!
Well it’s official now, 5-15% it is.
It’s just not good enough, even if we take away climate change as the key issue here, exactly how much healthcare spending and working hours are lost to air-quality related diseases?
Even if you deny climate change, you can’t go past one simple fact. Polution is always bad and we must do anything we can to decrease it or face the concequences of being confined to a planet that we cannot live on. Lets see how well the GDP and company profits go then.
PinkyOz
“The people the government really is concerned about are out in Mel and Kochie land, and they are probably a lot less concerned about climate change now than they were 18 months ago.”
This is almost certainly true.
Plus, there is the Senate.
If Rudd had gone hard, he would have needed Greens + Xenophon + Fielding to get it through. This would have been very difficult.
By going soft, he can very likely get it through with the support of the Liberals. You never know, but Turnbull will find it very hard to oppose this. It’s what he would have done himself.
So – it’s a political announcement.
Did Rudd pull rank on Wong, or did she say – ‘there’s no way I can announce that!’
Required @ 17: Spot on.
Spiros @ 22: Stop making excuses. Rudd is a gutless. At least Howard had enough conviction on the GST to get it through the Senate.
carbonsink@24, I’m just giving you an objective explanation.
And FFS, all of you, why are you surprised? These soft targets were set out in the Green paper, in Garnaut and in the Treasury modelling. Did you not read any of that stuff?
Kevin Rudd is not Bob Brown. Never has been, never will be.
(Repeat as often as it takes to get the message.)
There’s a price cap of $40 until 2015! Er, I might be mistaken but I thought the whole point of an ETS was to allow market forces to allocate the costs of transition as efficiently as possible. With the free permits, assistance packages & price fixing, it would be hard to create something more unconducive to an efficient market if they tried.
5% is a joke. I will remember this day for ever as the day politics was confirmed as part of the problem (if not the whole problem) rather than part of the solution.
This is a death warrant for the world as we know it.
We HAVE to get climate change and energy policy out of the hands of politicians. The y are wasting time and money on dressing up Business As Usual as real action on climate change. Polluting industry interests reign supreme and the wishes and aspirations of the constituents are ignored.
5% is nearly an order of magnitude lower than the 40% reductions required to achieve a safe climate future.
We are going to burn in hell. Tell you local MP now.
Questions. Excellent.
Lenore Taylor: what are the conditions for a 15% target? are you still considering 450ppm?
Response:
‘We are in international negotiations now. Copenhagen is a long way off blah blah. We want to see robust committments from other countries.’
On 450ppm: blah blah blah. 60% will be reviewed if we get elected again.
Robust committments?? how the hell is 5% robust?? Captured by coal.
There will be protests about this and I for one will attend as many as I possibly can.
I read through Tim Flannery’s Quarterly Essay the other day and when I look at what he says about the need for strong targets and strong leadership and then compare it to what Rudd and co has done today I just feel sick inside.
Heh.
But yes, Spiros, this is pretty pissweak. I’m a Labor stooge from Central Casting and even I can’t think of a post-rationalisation.
Except that if you deny climate change, CO2 is no longer pollution.
“But yes, Spiros, this is pretty pissweak. I’m a Labor stooge from Central Casting and even I can’t think of a post-rationalisation.”
.
Well at least you can submit to confession sessions and grovel before PeterC the new Master of the Universe.( His nifty motto – Democracy is for losers!).
.
Struggle session bookings available everywhere soon!
The target of 5-15% by 2020 sends a signal to the rest of the world that Australia is not willing to play its part in an international agreement that stabilises at 450 ppm or less. It does not even signal that Australia is willing to stabilise at 500 ppm or less. It obstructs a good agreement on climate change. It basically says that we don’t care about the Great Barrier Reef, we will not make a serious attempt to stop it from being destroyed or seriously degraded. But Rudd claims that 450 ppm should remain a core part of international negotiations! His “commitment to the Australian people” of a 60% 2050 target (in 2050, when he will no longer be in power) seems to be more important than protecting the Barrier Reef, or the Murray Darling river system. He did hint that could change this in a later electoral commitment, but there is no better way that Australia could make 450 ppm less likely than by choosing these weak targets.
Rudd and the White Paper argued that a 5% reduction would imply greater per-capita reductions than the EU’s 20% reduction by 2020 because of Australia’s greater projected population growth. This argument is irrelevant because Australia’s per-capita emissions are much higher than the EU’s. Any international agreement that does not have high per-capita emitters reducing emissions more than low per-capita emitters would never be accepted by the developing countries in the world.
Much money is being squandered on assistance to emissions intensive industries. The coverage of assistance to “emissions intensive trade exposed” industries has been expanded. There will also be $3.9 billion dollars (assuming a $25 carbon price) handed out to coal-fired electricity generators. This is money that could have been invested in low emission technologies, reducing emissions from deforestation or forest degradation, or assistance to low income households. Instead it does nothing more than line the pockets of shareholders.
The distribution of assistance to households is a little weird, why are households with incomes of less than $20,000 given less assistance than households with incomes between $20,000 and $120,000?
Damn right.
If I were in an inner-city electorate where a Green might knock off a sitting ALP member, sure, I could vote Green. But I’ll be letting my ALP member, Catherine King, know in no uncertain terms that if Malcolm and Greg Hunt can come up with something stronger than this by the next vote (and let’s face it, how hard would it be), I’ll vote coalition for the first time in my life.
Hopping, f***ing mad!
The Greens are completely on the money with their criticisms but they can’t win power in 2010 so, frankly, I’m not interested. They can continue to have my Senate vote but the only hope for Canberra (and I fear peterc is right when he says there isn’t any) is for the majors to start bidding on how strong they can be on the ETS.
Aussie Oskar, that’s never going to happen.
The only way you’ll put pressure on the Lower House is by getting Greens MP’s elected forcing Labor to go into coalition or some kind of partnership.
That’s extremely unlikely to occur, but neither the Liberals nor Labor will come up with higher targets on their own.
But what can we do, Oz? I mean, what options as citizens are left?
Aussie Oskar @ 34:
Turnbull had the opportunity to “do a David Cameron” when he became leader. He didn’t. He opted to bang on about how 2010 was too early instead.
Game over. The only voice of sanity is the Greens.
Rudd is betting the only thing the punters will care about next year is the economy. He’ll be right too.
And Rudd reckons he’s still committed to 60% reductions by 2050?
Even if everyone else gets on-board and we achieve 15% in carbon reductions by 2020, that leaves another 45% to be made-up in the next 30 years. That’s gonna be hard work for someone (although not him, or us, of course).
This policy is a damp-squib. It’s a cop-out. It leaves all the hard work to whatever poor schmuck happens to be PM in 2020.
I’m not surprised Wong wouldn’t announce it.
Press Club traansmission has just started in Q’ld.
Puke making… “blah blah blah, ain’t I great… ” Wonder how long it will take till he gets to the poison pill.
I didn’t think it would be more possible to be ashamed of our government than it was for the Howard mob. I was wrong, at least they didn’t pretend they weren’t gutless craven pricks.
Weak as piss.
From Page B-7:
The scheme will have a transitional price cap for the period 2010–11 to 2014–15.
The level of the price cap will be set at $40 commencing in 2010-11.
The level of the price cap will rise in real terms by 5% per year.
This price cap is less than recent estimates of the social cost of carbon from economists such as Richard Tol. It is much less than what Lord Nicholas Stern has suggested is the social cost of carbon. Having a price cap does not make sense if it is less than the social cost of carbon. If I was to design a carbon pricing scheme I would not have a price cap, but I would have a price floor, and it would be greater than $40 per tonne CO2-e.
PS their discussing the heckling on News Radio at the moment – nice work!
So let’s do the Math on this. Assume we produce 2% of global CO2 emmissions. The 5% cut is 0.1% and a 15% cut is 0.3%. So we will be producing the equivalent of between 1.7% and 1.9% of global CO2 emmissions. However global emmissions continue to grow so even if we stabilise at the target levels we are having a continually smaller net effect anyway. Where is the logic in investing in diminishing returns? (unless you are a monopolist, of course for the econs wonks)
That is goign to make a difference! Not!!!
Why bother? Why reduce Australia’s standard of living for this?
The Chinese will be happy – keep on sending them our coal, now plus a few businesses and they will keep on growing. What a great idea.
So – the policy outcome doesn’t equate with any rational goal. The global politics are completely buggered, the domestic politics are non-sensical, the economics are negative even assuming a global agreement (which aint going to happen), and the science is so vague as to be useless for any meaningful predictions.
Despite being opposed to The Apology, I could always see some merit in it. This however is total unmitigated madness. We have greater environmental challenges in the here and now that need addressing – salinity, water allocations, forest management, fisheries etc – all solvable with sound economic and scientific foundations and we are about to hobble an already wounded economy. Brilliant.
God, I actually feel sick.
I knew they’d be soft, but 5% isn’t soft it’s a total copout, and setting a maximum of 15% if the rest of the world plays ball is just utter bullshit. So much for mr -ex-diplomat leading the world.
And the massive amounts of handouts of free permits and cash to the industries we need to change the most.
And the massive lost opportunity to kick-start Australia as a leading carbon neutral, innovative economy.
Fuck, fuck fuckity fuck.
This is simply indefensible.
Well, I did think he might go a little higher than a miserable 5% but I’m not surprised – at all.
What to do – HAVE A F**KING REVOLUTION.
HAVE A NATIONAL STRIKE.
MAKE THE COUNTRY UNGOVERNABLE UNTIL SUCH TIMES AS THESE FOOLS WAKE UP TO THEMSELVES!
Razor, the math on this is as follows. Unless there is a comprehensive international agreement, the problem of reducing emissions is a prisoners dilemma — no one wants to unilaterally reduce emissions, and countries will rather free-ride on other countries emissions reductions. Its a bit like voluntary approaches to climate change. If Australia does not commit to reductions of at least 25% by 2020, a good comprehensive international agreement becomes less likely.
The only way to overcome the prisoner’s dilemma is to find ways of engaging in cooperation. An approach of “why bother” is how you undermine the cooperation that is needed.
The Australia Institute has put out a press release on its web page. It includes:
and
Sky News just said that they are going to a Bob Brown press conference now.
Also the hecklers are getting a lot of publicity on Sky News. Apparently Bob Brown stood up and shook their hand and called them “Great Australians”.
@ Paul Burns 43 – I completely agree. This is the sort of thing that makes me so sick of the status quo.
Senator Milne is currently tearing Rudd apart for going with the big-business route. There is real hate in her eyes and her face. Milne has said:
“It is a failure to grasp [an] opportunity”
“This is news that ‘Australia the Quarry’ is to be celebrated”
I’ll grab some Bob Brown quotes in a second.
Brown almost called him John Rudd. Apt.
“Prime Minister: You are wrong, you have failed the nation” – Milne
Weak as piss. I wasn’t expecting much, but this is a huge disappointment.
“HAVE A NATIONAL STRIKE.”
Now there’s a blast from the past. Paul, mate, you are showing your age.
I am delighted to see the loony green/left so upset.
Anna, I’d say “go to hell”, but we’ll all be there in 20 years or so.
I am delighted to see the loony green/left so upset.
And I’m glad I’m not such a petty fool.
Having got over my anger but not the sentiments I expressed, the next thing that occurs to me is – what do we tell the kids, grandkids and grandkids. After all, its their world we’re really stuffing up.
Think of it – not enough water, not enough food, population movements we probably haven’t seen the like of since the various alleged Dark Ages, cities destroyed by climate change in ways they haven’t been since the time of the Sumerians – maybe even mass extinctions, including our own -and I don’t think I’m exaggerating, even if I am painting a worst case scenario.
And to think we trusted this guy to be better than Howard. He really IS Howard-lite.
Tony,
Ok, Interesting.
I doubt that many out there would consider high levels of CO2 to be anything but poisionous. Yes, it’s present in the atmosphere, but so are a lot of rather toxic components, dosn’t mean we should increase them.
Admittedly, Climate change adds a lot of weight behind viewing CO2 as a polutant. But an argument based on health also carries weight, well at least it should, because
voterspeople are important.PinkyOz
Listen, nothing serious will be done about climtae change until the sea washes up Wall street. By then it will be too late. The history of human “civilisation” is replete with accounts of now vanished communities that failed to see the changes caused by human activities coming at them.
Already the deniers are pointing to the current ice storms in the US as evidence that the globe is not warming.
Huggy.
The only ones in Australia capable of holding anything remotely like a “national strike” are the unions and they won’t.
Someone earlier asked me what we can do… I don’t know. We’re pretty much out of options.
We put our faith in this guy and he fucked up. That’s it.
Anna,
Ah yes, I was waiting to see the PR polarising tactic that Rudd set up. Are you a staffer? Perhaps in Penny Wong’s office?
Do you inlude these people in the green loony left: Governor David de Kretzer, Professor Karoly, Al Gore, Malcolm Fraser, Arnold Schwartzeneggor, Barack Obama, Ban Ki-Moon, Prince Charles and Rupert Murdoch?
European Union leaders in Brussels have just set targets for EU greenhouse gas emissions reduced to 20 percent lower than 1990 levels by 2020.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has set the following targets for California: 2000 levels by 2010, 1990 levels by 2020, 80% below 1990 by 2050
Rudd’s Labor government are the coal captured loonies. Not much different from Howard really. That’s politics.
Oz: there are a couple of issues here:
1) the election of Obama, and the changes to the composition are far, far more important than whatever Australia does. In large part, we will be forced to go along with whatever deal China and the USA do.
2) Like I’ve said for a long time, we’ll probably not act fast enough to fix the problem without geoengineering.
Ahh Robert.
Why you think ludicrously low targets from a man who calls climate change the “greatest challenge of our time”, says he wants to save the GBR and Murray Darling but doesn’t want to lift a finger himself to do it, and uses climate change goodwill to transfer money from Australians to the coal industry is not a cop-out I don’t understand.
I’m not comparing Rudd to Obama or China. I’m holding him accountable to what he said and the faith Australians placed in him.
No, PeterC im not any kind of staffer. I just dont want to see my kids plunged into extreme povery, which is what you seem to want.
So you are now appealing to politicians like the governator and al gore as measures of objectivity? Are you really naive enough to believe that the governators targets will be met?
Even if the entire population of australia vanished tomorrow, it will make not one iota of difference to climate. It WILL drive jobs overseas.
“the election of Obama, and the changes to the composition are far, far more important than whatever Australia does. In large part, we will be forced to go along with whatever deal China and the USA do.”
Exactly.
Now, the question is, how much will they be paying attention to the White Paper in forming their own positions?
Answer: a little bit.
Oz: I do think it’s a cop-out. Not as bad as is often claimed – the EU’s much-trumpeted targets in large part rely on demographics to do the job for them – but it’s a cop-out.
But the simple fact is that however much of a wimp-out this is from Rudd, in the greater scheme of things what Obama and the US Congress does is immensely more important on this issue.
Anna, I seriously think you need to read your posts before you click “Submit”.
You last paragraph is a logical fallacy. If the entire population of Australia vanishes tomorrow, there will be no jobs to drive overseas. Why is that difficult to understand?
Why is it difficult for you to grasp the idea that losing our waterways which give us jobs (and food) and our other natural resources like Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef which give us jobs (and biodiversity) and desertification destroying our arable land which gives us jobs (and food) is so much more important than giving $6 billion to coal companies?
You’re effectively saying that you’re happy for climate change to destroy entire nations, create famines, spread disease, lead to the loss of land and lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in a variety of sectors, as long as jobs in emissions intensive industries like aluminium and coal survive.
Anna: if you think we’ll be driven into extreme poverty by climate change mitigation measures, you’re deluded.
You and many greens make the same mistake – that energy is a major part of the world economy. It’s not – it’s a very small part of the economy.
Rob,
1) What if Obama is America’s Rudd? All talk, no action.
2) Seems to me that geoengineering would need to be on a similar scale to the world’s CO2-producing infrastructure, and that ain’t gonna happen. We’d probably screw it up anyway and introduce a whole new set of problems. Its a cane toad solution.
Obviously not good enough, a major wimp out.
Big coal and friends score 1, people, the environment and the economy score zero.
We can’t support the ALP on this, we can’t support the Coalition who would be worse.
That leaves the Greens, which for me as an old time ALP supporter is a sad reality. But on this and several other issues the Greens better articulate the will of most Australians as revealed in [Newspoll?] polls that asked voters where their major interests were centred. The usual, health, education, the environment, climate change and water, with the others down the list. Even IR was down the list.
That’s why we voted for Kexv and his mates, not so they would go legs up to the big polluters.
The time is now, bite the bullet, go the hard yards, make the hard decisions and other chestnuts.
Lead.
Change the unsustainable irrigation system of our rivers, get rid of uneconomic forestry, put billions into sustainable renewable energy, build a different economy, one that is not well on the way to “Collapse’ [check out Jared diamond particularly his optimistic chapter 13 on Oz].
I’m pissed off at the ALP.
I have a certificate from Kev [via the local candidate] for helping on ‘07 on my mantelpiece..
I’ll keep it prominently displayed to remind me to put an equal effort into increasing the Greens vote in the Reps and Senate in particular next time up.
Ok you talk about China and the US because they’re the biggest emitters. But more than a third of global emissions come from countries like Australia. That is, countries that emit less than 2% of global emissions individually.
If we say it’s ok if we do effectively nothing because we’re so small then we also say that it’s ok for those other countries to do nothing. And while every other countries emissions become a smaller slice of global emissions, that third gets bigger and bigger.
That’ll go down as one of the great inspirational speeches, up there with “We will fight them
on the beachesbehind the dunesthe other side of the coastal rangeif we have a seaside holiday.”I was surprised he showed a glimmer of honesty in saying “per capita we are the worst emitteres in the world” except it was used as a rhetorical preface to ” and that’s the liberals fault”, and in awe at the shamelessness of his distortion of statistics with the bit about ” we’ll actually be making bigger per capita reductions than the europeans because we’ll have a 45% population increase and Europe won’t”. The chance of him putting it as “Our strategy is to leave the burden for the unborn and unarrived Australians” was realistically minimal I suppose.
The scary part is it looks like he really believes he’s doing a good thing. I’m thinking Tessie would have rehearsed him till he believed it. Back when her founding ingeus partner had just died of cancer, therese immediately took her estate to court so she could buy out the shares for a tenth of their market value, tessie said in an interview ” it took a long time to get my heart and head to agree” (sic), meaning “I did whatever it took to kill my conscience”. Kev would have had expert help in getting his lines right.
You silly silly Greens. Clearly its the mainstream/moderates who are talking sense here. You Greens get all emotional and hot and bothered. You need to settle down, write a dozen papers of various hues, and the decide to do sweet f*ck all. That’s the way forward!
Oh yeah, energy is a very small part of the global economy as long as the price of energy is cheap … and it certainly is at the moment.
“I just dont want to see my kids plunged into extreme poverty”
Not that such is a statement to be worth taking seriously, but honestly, we could probably cut CO2 by 80% by 2020 and not suffer any net negative economic growth (in other words, your kids would still be at least as rich as you are). Even 100% by 2020 would about equivalent to an extended recession for the next 12 years, meaning that at absolute worst your kids will be about as poor as your parents were. If your parents grew up in extreme poverty, I’m sorry to hear it, but that would put you among a tiny minority of Australians (virtually all of whom would be 1st generation immigrants whose parents grew up in developing countries).
Climate change is not occurring. When will you idealogically driven doom-sayers realise this??. I’m also amazed at the religious imagery thrown about here.. eg, “We are going to burn in hell” Ha ha!. You really are a bunch of religious zealots aren’t you?.
Alright, who released the flying monkeys this time?
Why is everyone assuming that the 15% upper limit means nothing (and can never be revised for the better) but that the 5% target is the only target?
If the ‘aspirational’ portion of the announcement was for 20% would there be any less gnashing of teeth, beating of breasts etc? Isn’t politcs meant to be the art of the possible, not the art of writing everything off because of one setback?
(I think there’s a bit of passion play at work here. FFS, it’s the denialists who should be going berserk as they’re the one’s with the totally cactus ‘roadmap’, particularly if the Opposition gets in bed with this supposed ‘ideological betrayal’.)
Glass half full, glass half full, glass half full…
5% is the only committed target. Voluntary targets don’t work. I am certainly passionate about the impending death of the planet as we know it – and as science tells us is in progress. Rudd can’t spin his way around this.
Remember this day. Its a “John Lennon got shot” day. But much much worse. Its the planet and life on earth this time.
What is Turnbull’s and the Liberal’s response? Surely Rudd has taken the wind right out of their sails? Couldn’t have a weaker target and they surely wouldn’t be asking for a stronger more appropriate one? Hmm, nothing on Malcolm’s website yet other than updates on his dogs.
danny @ 69
Charming. Graduate from the Tim Blair Upstairs College for the Politics of Personal Destruction, did you?
But it’s not half-full NickWs. The glass has got a tiny dribble of soured milk at the bottom, and that’s it.
The Targets and “compensation” regime the government has just outlined:
– fails all the most credible science
– fails in terms of global leadership
– fails in terms of economic stimulus
– uses the vast majority of the money to be generated from the scheme to compensate polluters on top of their permit freebies rather than being invested in the economy and supporting households’ efforts
– fails to allow for household voluntary action
– fails to even allow a free market approach to pricing carbon by setting a cap of $40 on it (WTF???)
– fails to provide any sensible direction to protect Australia’s natural carbon sinks (forests, wetlands)
It’s truly f*cked.
“Why is everyone assuming that the 15% upper limit means nothing (and can never be revised for the better)”
Well Rudd did say “Absolute maximum”.
When Rudd got heckled as he announced the target, it was hard to hear what the hecklers were saying. Here is what they said:
Looks like the Greens are the only opposition on the ridiculous weak targets:
Plan a ‘Global embarrassment’: Greens
I am not surprised Penny Wong goofed off on this one.
HD (67): “Kev and his mates,.. go(ing) legs up to the big polluters.” …
What an appalling image, but so apt for the modern so-called ALP.
Update [by Mark] Commentary in the blogosphere from John Quiggin, Sam Clifford and Gary Sauer-Thompson.
Get Up has a survey going to hand to Rudd before Christmas, if anyone’s interested.
Really?! I’m sure Wong would be 100% behind this decision. It always seemed to me that Wong was installed as climate change minister to make sure nothing was done. Garrett was way too dangerous.
I’m 99% sure Penny Wong is an android.
@83 – do you have a link, Fine?
For your links Mark, Possum.
Thanks, Liam, I’ll add it to the post.
OK – so we are going to spend billions of dollars on this.
So, if I were to prepare a budget for billions of dollars there would be a requirement for a measurable outcome. The only measurable outcome of any meaning is a lowering of Global Temperature.
How much will this lower global temperature by?
When will this lower global temperature by?
What happens if the forecasts are not met?
I received it through an email, Mark. But if you go to the website, it’s on the front-page, left hand side.
http://www.getup.org.au/
What’s interesting is the politcs as well. We know what the Greens think. What about Xenophon and Fielding? Will they pass it, or not? Any ideas?
I’d like to the spreadsheet he’s working from.
I’ve added a summary of the White Paper to my blog here.
Thanks Peter. Excellent post.
@89 – thanks, Fine.
Update [by Mark] At New Matilda, Geoff Davies writes that Labor has sold the country out to the business lobby, Anna Rose reports from the white paper “lock up” and Ben Eltham considers the prospects of Senate passage.
I reckon kev has got it just about right for a second term , sure its sure to be tight .
Update: The Greens call for a day of protest action tomorrow.
That post of Ben Eltham reckons “Not only will he not be able to get this Bill through the Senate….”…
Surely at least some, enough, of Malcolm’s mob will support it as the reduction scheme you have when you’re not having a reduction scheme, which has the added attraction of delivering big easy bucks to the captains of industry, their sort of people, at the same time? I would have thought the message would be coming loud and clear to the liberal party from the boardrooms to get on to this one big time, and quick smart. That was the point wasn’t it:, make it so small that the libs would be able to support it, and the true
fantasistsbelievers could still convince themselves they’re actually doing something substantial. And not have to be brave enough to attempt negotiatian with those big bad nasty greens.To paraphrase Kerry Packer on Alan Bond paying top dollar, and then some, for Channel 9: “You only get one Kevin Rudd Labor cabinet in a lifetime”
It’s like putting 50c each way on the favourite in a 4 horse race. That’s our Kev. It’s like what Coaldrake said about him: “His idea of a party is jatz without the cheese”, he’s not the biggest and boldest of thinkers or spirits. Mind you he would say we didn’t hire him for big bold thinking, and he’d be right.
What would PJK have done I wonder, has he put his fiver’s worth in yet?
Update: More blogosphere reaction from Go Greener, Australia, Deltoid, No Right Turn, Not a Hedgehog and Typing Is Not Activism.
Why are we so arrogant that we think we can and should control the climate? Why must we interfere with nature’s responses.
What is the perfect climate?
Who decided?
Who controls the thermostat?
Let nature control it, the record is pretty good so far, and let us adapt.
I don’t think the scale of Rudd’s failure has fully emerged. What we’ll see under the free permits rules are a huge transfer of wealth to Aluminium etc. for business as usual activities. Falling commodity prices will see them generate permits that have will effect a wealth transfer from consumers. This will undermine the credibility of the scheme, and we’ll go backwards as the lobbyists’ expectations are met for the next round. This is really a Carbon Pollution Deferral Scheme – a massive failure in expectation management.
Update: Anna Rose at New Matilda parses the White Paper.
That’s an excellent analysis from Anna.
Anna Rose’s article has already attracted a comment by a particularly silver-tongued climate change denialist. I hope he comes and visits LP! I think that would be very fun!
Christine Milne:
http://greensmps.org.au/blog/some-are-more-equal-others-what-does-emissions-target-mean
Guy Beres on Mr 5%, John Quiggin on PPPs, Deltoid: as long as we beat New Zealand