Possum’s analysis of Morgan polling on the issue of climate change and the CPRS indicates that there has been a softening of belief in anthropogenic global warming, and support for the CPRS. However, that softening is mostly in the ranks of Coalition supporters, and most strongly among men, the elderly, and people living outside the capital cities. As Possum notes, this puts the Coalition in an even more invidious position electorally – their rural elderly base seems to want the legislation stopped, but the voters they need to win over want it passed.
For me, the most interesting thing about this is the extent, and the limits, of the persuasive power of the denialist noise machine – the Andrew Bolts, Miranda Devines, and so on. Yes, their efforts have managed to persuade some of their natural demographic – mostly rusted-on Coalition voters – on this particular issue. But beyond that? They haven’t made a dent.
I’m wondering what people think of this survey of meteorologists in the US. It doesn’t augur well for climate change legislation in the US.
The gender, age and regional differences are interesting. I’d hazard a guess that the older males who rate the issue as of little importance may in fact be directly or indirectly benefiting from mining industry activites. Look at any map of coal mines in NSW for any sort of mine in Qld and you’ll get some idea of how many mines there are and thereby of how integral they are to rural economies.
The heat on the way to work today brought to mind the fact that it is only sections of capital and sections of the labor market who are the direct beneficiaries of carbon intensive energy production. We have to find a way to isolate those sections and play them off against coalitions in opposition.
Mal Washer must feel lonely—I don’t imagine many people have moved in the same direction as he has with this issue.
Take note denialists, Possum isn’t one of your strawman greenies.
I think that some of the shift in the poll figures can be explained in terms of the change in the partisan cues being sent by the Nationals and denialist Liberals to those of their supporters whose position on issues is influenced by partisan cues.
We might also conjecture that, as Labor’s CPRS is not the sort of policy response which is required to deal with an urgent and serious problem, Labor might thereby be inadvertantly sending a partisan cue to some of its supporters that the global warming problem isn’t urgent and serious after all.
The gender gap in the poll figures confirms my fear that the mad uncles and the insufferably opinionated obnoxious younger male cousins will ruin millions of family Christmas dinners this year.
My take on the politics:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/11/20/road-to-nowhere/
Still, the split into capital and non-capital is interesting. Tom Maher was quoted in the press yesterday as complaining about the lies the coal industry are telling in talking about job losses in the industry, whereas they are really looking at job gains, just not as many as they would have without a CPRS.
The problem for Rudd may well be in the provincial cities, which support the mining industry. Barnaby Joyce is saying “Bring it on” in relation to an election on the CPRS.
I know that the bush telegraph (because I get sent these things) is circulating articles by “noted economist” Terry McCrann and ex-Labor minister and farmer Peter Walsh.
Brian #1, that survey reminds me that Stalin worked for the Georgian equivalent of the Bureau of Meteorology before becoming a professional revolutionary.
Brian, that report is actually a survey of TV weather presenters opinions on climate change. With all due respect to Livinia Nixon, I’ll take my cues on AGW from people who do more than read an autocue and point at a green screen.
Labor’s not going to put up a climate change policy that antagonises the “ute men”, as they will go into the waiting arms of Barnaby Joyce. The Greens can approach “ute men” as a class enemy.
I dont think I have ever met anyone that supports the CPRS. I speak to several hundred different trucks as they pass through. Talk to industry leaders, workers heavy equipment drivers, labourers and administration staff.
(Maybe a sprinkling of high school girls)
Everyone sees it as a tax and something that has no relevance to the environment and or polution.
Maybe its just Queensland. But there is no way I would go to a DD on this bill.
Thanks Paul and Dave G. BAU for denialists, then.
Brian when I was reading that article I was thinking “no way is this actual meteorologists” maybe they included a lot of TV weatherpeople in with a few meteorologists. Then I click the link and find its *exclusively* TV weathermen and women. Being reported as if it was actual scientists. Disturbing that they think this, but outrageous to be presented as scientifically relevant.
fs, I was thinking similar things but didn’t click on the link. In a bit of a hurry. Seeya tonight.
Brian,
Next time you cite a “survey of meteorologists in the US”, remember to click through and check what’s actually there.
The website you linked says: “a significant number of professional meteorologists doubt that manmade sources of greenhouse gases are the cause of global warming.”
Click through to the actual report. It is a survey of television weathermen, not meteorologists.
Nice try. Fail.
Sorry, was still composing when feral sparrowhawk pre-empted me.
As for the skeptical Greens voters, no great surprise there. Some Greens voters are cynics who merely spurn the major parties rather than espousing Bob Brown. At various times they’ve voted Democrat or One Nation.
The CPRS’s problem is that it is considered radical by people who don’t understand it; and useless by people who do.
I certainly wouldn’t be equating attitudes towards the CPRS with attitudes to AGW.
Possum’s sort of how many voters can dance on the head of a pin, let’s break down the numbers by how many respondents ate curry last night, is gross over-analysis in my view. The fact is that the number of respondents that believe that AGW is an exaggerated threat has more than doubled in 3 years, and the number who disapprove of the CPRS has risen by nearly a third in three months. If you want to spin this as somehow a plus for the party associated with greater belief in the AGW threat, and which is responsible for the CPRS legislation, well, good luck. There are regular vacancies on K Rudd’s staff, one hears, for which you may wish to apply.
More to the point, these sorts of trends in public perceptions of AGW/ETS – replicated in most developed countries – are not a plus either for the chances of a meaningful global effort to tackle greenhouse emissions. I get more than a little pissed off – even as a semi-sceptic – at the way far too often climate change gets discussed in purely partisan political terms, and not on its national interest merits. (And yes there are plenty of policy-based threads on LP – the whinge is about the MSM, where journalist after journalist covers for abysmal ignorance of the issues by retreating to the comfort zone of party politics and making the Opposition the story, not, on the whole, this blog.)
At the risk of over-analysis of my own, the key figure in the survey in my view is that only 11% of respondents admit to not understanding the CPRS. If 89% of Australians properly understand this issue, I’ll eat my hat. And if the 11% is as understated as I suspect it is, that means that a lot of the other answers are based on little more than guesswork, and possibly not very firm.
Wozza, the 89% of people who understand the CPRS are probably suffering from this.
David Irving, there’s probably a lot of your Dunning-Kruger effect on all sides. People subscribe to a popular science magazine or two and next thing they’re challenging quantum theory. Perhaps the excessive discussion of details, rather than surveys of the position statements of major scientific organisations, encourages this kind of vanity.
Its a poll to be taken with a grain of salt but, for me, the two standout responses are these:
1.Only 30% disapprove of the CPRS
2.When asked why [in the part of the poll Poss doesn't look at IIRC] only 6% gave “Don’t believe in climate change” as a reason.
That’s 6% of 30%.
Miniscule.
It’s true. Nick, Tony and myself are down here working a seam to the light of my macbook right now. You should hear our choir.
Skeptic @ 21
First problem; How to establish validity and internal consitency of such organisations considering the pressure on integrity from ‘the market’. And then this and remember that sort of a thing.
Doesn’t shock me, Brian. Having spent years/decades listening to the various bods at the weather bureau give morning radio reports – I have low expectations of the output of that cohort. A lot of them are wannabe accountants who lacked the mathematical imagination and general wit to land a more preferred gig.
Most are not scientists – they are just more hacks.
Negative sentiments found for the proposed CPRS are as weighty as the popular dislike for the present structure and operations of the ATO. Self-indulgent reflexive whinging.
The true debate will be about the size of the target. Not the intricacies of the mechanism. I respect Nick Minchin more than those who complain at the margins.
The CPRS will evolve like any other decent worthwhile public instrument. To measure attitudes towards it (now or even when it exists) is idle.
Ootz, good point: “First problem; How to establish validity and internal consistency of such organisations”
Antiquity. Ignore all scientific organisations that came into existence after the global warming theory became mainstream. Go back to the 1960s or earlier. That way you avoid any organisations that were created specifically to lobby for or against the theory.
Thanks Skeptic,
Apologies wrong link @24, last one (that) should get you here
Taking the temperature of our climate scientists, part 1
Taking the temperature of climate scientists, part 2
Like you, I wished the public focus would not be on the argy bargy of climate science. To me the risk management aspects should be more emphasised and the understanding and attitudes thereof monitored by the polls.
I want to sympathise with your “better than nothing CPRS” view Wbb – I really do. But Im very concerend about the last few paras of this story:
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/libs-warn-turnbull-carbon-plan-risks-split-20091121-is7x.html
Unless this aspect can be amended, the CPRS just hands out property rights in pollution which didnt previously exist, exposing the Commonwealth to billions in compo claims when we do have to cut it. What future govt will institute significant cuts at this cost? The CPRS could well entrench CO2 emissions in a way the status quo currently doesnt; making things worse. If this aspect isn’t amended, or clarified, I think Id reluctantly have to hope it fails in the Senate.
Come one anyone: tell me the Greens’ legal advice is unsound, and this isnt a Depressing and deeply stupid scheme explicitly designed to prevent any cuts.
Meh – a pox on both houses.
I reckon, LE, that Brian Walters – as a good green – is running a scare tactic.
Brian’s go here is just the short-term aim to try to get the targeted cut in the first CPRS raised. Vain hope but worth shot. And gives the ALP cover from the “left” in trying to beat up the Senate.
Governments can increase funding to govt schools without fear of having to pay compo to private school operators.
Govts can build a new train line without compensating tollway owners (except in Victoria where they have signed on not to do so – weak pricks.)
Govt can raise fuel excise without having to fork over cash to SUV owners
etc etc
I don’t say that this CPRS is great – merely that it is a political way forward to set a precedent. Get the ball rolling. And even piss-weak as it is – it’s still very dodgy, as we are seeing, whether Labor can get it across the line. They just don’t have the power in parliament. It ain’t up to them.
One up side in all this is that the simple bloody process is turning many Labor bludgers into greenies simply by them having to buy into the argument against the neanderthals. Three years ago most Laborites had never heard of CO2.
Agree with your latter points there Wbb – tis good to see some of the hacks have to learn the basics!
But you can bet aluminium smelters and brown coal magnates will try it on re compulsory acquisition in the High Court. And unlike most of your examples, this is not about funding a public alternative to private services – but a public acquisition of newly created private rights (which are property). Much like water has become.
Id like to hear the question addressed to Wong in any case – you can bet the government has advice on the issue.
The thing I don’t understand, LE:
if the CPRS can reduce CO2 pollution by X% by year 2010+Y, doesn’t that mean that “emission property rights” handed out in Year 1 are necessarily destroyed in some way by year 2010+Y.
In whichever way those “pollution property rights” are destroyed – can’t they be destroyed in the same way – but on a larger scale – down the track when the Australian parliament is finally up for some real climate action? Destroying permits must entail cost – as otherwise who would be stupid enough to own and run our power stations today?
Power companies can’t be made to foot the bill for our collective transfer to clean energy. It’s not like they created the problem themselves – we all did. The power stations were once state owned. We sold them to these suckers in good faith.
However if Brian Walters is right that the CPRS will lock us in to a maximum cut of 25% then yes – it is bad policy. The process of lowering the cap must be left open. Compensation whether on large scale for a larger cut – or smaller compensation for a smaller cap is all one and the same in principle. We will have to pay for these cuts. No issue with that.
I suppose none of this can be known until Penny and Ian finally tire of the foreplay.
Destroyed or bought out, Wbb.
I agree power stations are a collective problem – though of course aluminium smelters were never publicly owned.
Point is, Id rather see it as a change assistance package, based on subsidising actual cost of conversion benchmarks – rather than a buyout of newly created nominal rights they currently dont enjoy as “property”.
cant wait to see the detail on it.
Hey, you guys might recall when I said there might be a problem over power generators and their so-called “stranded assets” lots of people around here said stuff ‘em, they made bad decisions, they should have known, so they take what’s coming. I’ve been saying there are problems of sovereign risk if we go down that path and banks are going to price that into their lending if they lend at all to power generators who have anything to do with fossil fuels.
The Government commissioned a report from Morgan Stanley, which they refused to show to state officials, and then commissioned a second report which has just hit the deck.
Apparently the last big thing to solve between Wong and MacFarlane is the treatment of power generators.
TRUenergy may well sue for compensation if Yallorn is forced to close, but are talking about walking away from Australia, downgrading maintenance and selling whatever is produced on the spot market – or something. Apparently they are going to tell us all about it in full-page advertisements saying, don’t blame us if the lights go out.
I think all this would have been avoidable if we didn’t go down the ETS road, but that’s another story.
Agree Brian, regrettable feature of ETS number 63.
Then again, here’s a wild idea: maybe the state could provide electricity! Sounds like we could get it cut-price from TRU
Seriously though, its not like privatisation of utilities has been a good thing for anyone – consumers least of all. It still works that way in several Australian states, and for most of our history in the rest.
PS nothing shits me more than loafing private monopolies, rent-seeking on former public utilities, demanding payouts – when we paid for ALL their damn infrastructure in the first place.
No matter whether it was an ETS or a tax or a dawn commando raid – taking out the coal power stations was always going to cost a lot. And I don’t think it reasonable that we as a state sell a utility willingly to someone and then tell them that the asset is worthless. If the buyer shoulda known – then we as a state shoulda even more known.
It isn’t yet an act of pure evil to run a coal power station. It should be – but it isn’t. There hasn’t been nearly enough public digestion of the issues of climate change for it to be reasonable to conclude that coal burners are on the moral level of tobacco execs. And that’s despite the fact that coal burners have the potential to kill many more than the ciggie makers.
We were stupid to privatise this stuff. We don’t deserve to get out of it for free either.
That said I’d probably screw them over and let them go the legal route. But that’s probably just another in a long line of reasons I’d never be fit for public office.
I broadly agree Wbb, but would like to see the contracts. For example, we never actually sold the rail infrastructure to Connex – the state kept the loss making parts, and gave them the revenue. User pays twice. Privatisation as the sort of idiocy no individual or small business could get away with.
Once again, neoliberalism was just a ruse to distract us into abstract debate – while governance degenerated into a sort of criminal protection racket, allowing private monopolies to ransack the public sphere in a mode akin to robbery.
Brian, at least in the case of Victoria, privatization happened over a decade ago. Nor did the contracts, presumably, say anything about carbon pricing. And in any case the sales were by state governments, not federal.
Frankly, I think the definition of “sovereign risk” being advanced is so broad that it would prevent almost any government regulation that materially affects any foreign-owned business, at any time, without compensation. Should we compensate Phillip Morris when tobacco taxes go up? Should we compensate the automobile manufacturers each time we tighten emissions standards? And should we have handed out cash to the entire Australian manufacturing sector through the 1980s and 1990s as tariff protection was phased out?
Possibly one small factor for the softening in older, coalition voters….according to my sister, who unpaid, listens compulsively to 2GB and other Singo radio stations, to keep tabs on the other side of fence…said that there was a total ramping up of the anti-AGW line sometime in late October.
She said previously it was sort of mentioned now and again, but it was like they’d all attended a staff meeting one arvo, and the next day every announcer was on message with the exact same anti-AGW line and it’s been ramping up ever since, with Alan Jones leading the charge each morning.
I agree with Robert. It was always clear within the timeline of the power station acquisition that a carbon price was a possibility. Kyoto happened in 1997. The coal burners were on notice. If they decided sitting on their hands was a good option, that’s not our problem.
I like the idea of their assets being stranded. That will make them cheaper to reacquire. If there are Australian super funds with holdings then I’m not averse to the state lending the super fund cash from the permits revenue to the value of the differential between their holdings pre-carbon price regime to 30 days post carbon-price regime or the price they sell at — whichever is the smaller at interest at the OCA + 1% with a 20-year repayment period. Everyone else? Tough bananas.
Fran, I wouldn’t go quite that far.
Australia may physically be an island, but we are not one economically. And if we encourage foreign investment and arbitrarily reappropriate the results, foreigners will be reluctant to do business in Australia – or, more to the point, will demand much higher returns for the risk of doing so.
Here’s the Greens position on the CPRS. They want the Garnaut model. Seems more sensible than the dog we’re likely to end up with.
http://greensmps.org.au/content/whats-wrong-with-cprs-and-how-can-it-be-fixed
I don’t really want to argue about it, because to make a decision I’d need access to the Morgan Stanley reports. The banks are not always reasonable or rational or have policies that are in the public interest, but they are there.
The information I gave was from an article in the Fin Review, which seems to be the only paper that reports adequately on the matter. I did see an article in the Oz in the dentist’s waiting room. Not as complete and I couldn’t find it online.
Clearly, if we did that arbitrarily and on a grand scale, that would be probable, Robert.
In this case though, the coal burners have been on notice since at least 1993 when Peabody started arguing for 1000ppmv to spur agriculture. In 2007 when the ALP was elected proimising Garnaut, the warning bell tolled even louder. And as has been pointed out … different jurisdictions.
Moreover, “a price on carbon” is not peculiar to this jurisdiction, nor is regulation of pollution other than CO2.
In short, this doesn’t fit the description of arbitrary and confiscatory intervention. Note that even in cases where a better case for this can be made out — Totale in Venezuela for example, they have accommodated the regime.
But Fran (I know Brian and LE can’t see the point in arguing as we don’t have access to the contracts) when you and I, and the rest of our compadres in this wide brown land, sold these pups – I just know we didn’t put in any warnings that the coal-burning infrastructure we were off-loading was at risk of being worthless due to imminent govt action on climate change. Sure, plenty of ppl worried about CC since a long time- but none of those ppl were a member of any Oz govt hell-bent on privatising for privatising sake.
I actually want us to bear the cost. Not coz I care for the owners or coz I understand sovereign risk – but because we got it wrong. Not just the present day owners left holding the baby. If stupidity needs to be punished let us all carry the can.
Fran, I really can’t comment on why Totale and the rest have accommodated the Venezuala regime.
The problem we have is that we need the coal burners to keep burning coal full bore until the capacity has been replaced, and are relying on the market players to do it for us. They are interested in making money, anywhere in the world, rather than serving our public interest. The market doesn’t ensure that the two purposes coincide.
“Should we compensate Phillip Morris when tobacco taxes go up? Should we compensate the automobile manufacturers each time we tighten emissions standards?”
No, we shouldn;t, and we don’t have to because taxation isn’t ‘acquisition of property’ for the purpose of Section 51(xxxi) and imposing restrictions on how property can be used is not the same as acquiring a proprietary interest in a property.
I imagine this problem arises from the creation of emission permits as property, instead of (for example) a statutory license to pollute subject to certain conditions; and the mechanism by which emissions are reduced, ie by compulsory acquisition of the permits, instead of restrictions on how the permits may be used.
I am, of course, neither a lawyer nor across the detail of how the CPRS is proposed to be implemented, so take this with whatever quantity of salt you believe is prudent to disguise the taste of my amateur speculations.
d
Sounds about right to me Darryl – keen to see the detail. Sadly, its looking much like the water permits deal. But they have to have thought about it – so we’ll know soon enough.
Brian @47
The thing is that they cannot just make money anywhere in the world because the entire world as you’d know is also dealing with the problem of what to do about not only emissions, but raising finance, currency volatility and much else. Isolating one factor in one place or paying attention to the special pleading of TRUenergy or that English comany that owns Hazlewood, for example, is ill-advised.
They knew, or should have known, through apt duie diligence, what they were getting into when they purchased. They have to bear the consequences, surely. And if as you imply, there is a market failure here, then let the state come in and make whatever arrangements are necessary. That’s what states are for.
I can see the logic of that, Fran, but the Govt is presumably going to take the cheapest and least disruptive course. Without access to the Morgan Stanley reports and other information the Govt would have I wouldn’t know what that is.
Brian @ 51 said:
Well the least disruptive at least. It’s a capitalist government. Its first duty is to look after …. errr … capitalists so as to preserve its standing amongst the privileged more generally. The course they are taking is not at all the cheapest, because as I noted, stranded assets are cheaper to acquire than non-stranded ones.
It seems to me another possible compromise with the coal burners might operate as follows. Assume that 40 years is a reasonable time to recover the sunk cost of a power plant asset. You divide this 40 years into 480 months and you offer compensation for the stranded asset based on 480-(number of months since asset deployed).
Thus a burner that was for example 32 years and six months old would get compensation of 90*0.2083% * initial cost of asset. In short, the first plants to go would be the oldest. As it goes Hazelwood is more than 40 years old and indeed most of Australia’s plant is more than 25 years old.
My preferred position is that we have a rational program to get rid of all coal-fired power by 2020 at the latest, unless they can implement CCS.
How that might best be accomplished I don’t know, but I’m pessimistic in the extreme about this ETS delivering anything that comes close.
Brian@53
Cute, because everyone knows that CC&S will not be commercially feasible by 2020 (and not for any carbon price this side of about $85 per tonne, which isn’t on the agenda), and certainly nobody in, say, 2012 will be able to rely on that so forward funding from financiers would make Gunn’s efforts look simple. You might as well legislate them out of existence and have done with it — a position more radical than that I put.
So that is not going to happen. I’d be happy enough if all plants of at least 30 years of age by 2020 would be replaced with some other capacity — say gas-fired Brayton Cycle etc …
If the government had just a bit more spine, they could cut a deal to acquire the existing assets cheap, and provide cheap finance for retooling along these lines in a phased program starting with the worst polluters. In a context in which there were a serious carbon price, you could cut a very cost-effective deal which the polluters could live with.