Almost two weeks ago, I suggested that something positive might come of The Greens’ suggestion that Ross Garnaut’s interim measure on carbon emissions should be the circuit breaker for the CPRS impasse.
In the intervening period, I’ve been surprised that so little attention has been paid to the negotiations between Senator Penny Wong and Senator Christine Milne on behalf of The Greens, which began last week. I’ve sought to emphasise that there are possibilities of Senate passage via a Liberal floor crosser (perhaps Judith Troeth, who is retiring) and Nick Xenophon. In any event, I’ve argued that there are political benefits for Labor in staking out a new position which could demonstrate the desire for immediate action, and perhaps take a different bill to a double dissolution.
Perhaps it’s inevitable that the media would ignore these developments, but I’ve also been surprised at the attitude of a number of commenters on several threads, which seems to assume that Labor’s posture is somehow frozen in stone.
So, in light of all this, I was very interested indeed to hear Bob Brown give a very articulate and well argued interview to Tony Jones on Lateline tonight where he discussed these negotiations, and revealed that he had also been talking to other non-Government Senators.
Labor’s policy isn’t set in stone, but it depends on what’s more important – politics or an existential threat to humanity.
I haven’t seen anything from the Rudd Labor that suggests they want to do any more than is necessary to get good PR on climate change.
Wong and Rudd condemn themselves continually with their line: “We will do no more, but no less that the rest of the world is doing”.
Let’s face it. We don’t have leaders in the sense of ‘leadership’. We have mildly incompetent administrators and spin doctors running the country.
I think the silence is about the shock of the idiocy of the Liberal Party and the amazement at the Greens acting as if they are the next opposition in waiting.
I think there is only one way that Greens will not be obliterated at the next DD election and that is if the Liberals ditch Tony before the election.
Otherwise the public of Australia is going to look at Tony and then look at Bob and say for f**k sake get me out of here! Please!
That’s great the Greens are finally getting a position that the ALP might be able to live with. It is their challenge on this issue. Get a result on the board.
(Barnaby Joyce and Bob Brown are both Australian senators. Diversity indeed.
Shame Bob can’t get more air time. Makes me feel calm.)
Fantastic performance from Bob on Lateline tonight – quite a contrast to recent performances from Abbott and Barnaby. Great to hear that the government are at least considering it
I don’t really understand the insistence by many that Labor won’t deal with the Greens on this issue and that they really don’t care about climate change. Firstly, if they had originally opted to deal with the Greens they would have been cast by the opposition as taking an extremist approach. If there were any failings of the policy it would hang around their necks forever. Labor would get the blame.
Now that the Liberals have shown that they can’t negotiate in good faith Labor can broker a deal which is probably closer to their original goals. If the coal lobby feel screwed by it then they will blame the Libs and themselves for betting the house on Labor wanting a DD election. Also, the responsibility for any big failings will be shared by the Greens as they “forced” the government into whatever position they end up taking on the other hand the Greens get a big win with their base if they manage to move the government’s 5% target.
The Greens and the independent senators surely don’t want a DD? I think the chances of a deal being worked out are pretty high.
Did you mean “Liberals” instead of “Greens”? If not, your comment is a bit incoherent.
Most analysis has found that it’s much the same (numbers wise) for the Greens either way. Xenophon would survive a DD, and it would give Family First a better shot than a half-Senate election.
I thought senate quotas were halved during a DD so that would help the greens. Can someone explain if this isn’t true?
Kevin Rudd is wedded to the CPRS compensation handback to average householders. If the Greens/Garnaut hybride scheme does not include this feature then I believe that Rudd would rather have the election than compromise. The compensation is a shield against voter dissatisfaction in his mind. That will be pretty hard for a Labour leader to walk away from.
It’s just not very Rudd.
He is where he is because he strives to dominate the broad centre of the Australian political sphere, doing a deal with the Greens takes him right out of that and for that reason I think he wont do it short of desperation.
If a deal can be reached with the Greens and Xenethon, Troeth is a definite prospect of crossing to support. Some months back she gave a local media interview in South West Victoria about her concerns on climate change. She was probably putting it in local terminology to make it easier to understand.
She explained that over the last two decades the farming area of Heywood, where she came from, had changed significantly. From an area of fairly constant high rainfall, it seemed to be evolving into a moderate rainfall area, which affected the farming and grazing options. It was an interesting micro observation.
Further north in the Wimmera and Mallee things do see to be drying out, but this could be part of a normal cyclical drought pattern (and they’ve done better, at last, this year). The Heywood-Portland area she was referring to is coastal or near-coastal and not normally subject to drought cycles. Here at Warrnambool, not very far away, we continue to enjoy fairly good rains.
There may be other explanations, but it was at least a useful talking point and helps weaken the monopoly of other rural voices like Barnaby and Tuckey.
But Leinad if the Greens are moving towards the centre with a relaxed proposal then Rudd can frame it differently. And he can still dominate the centre because the LNP have moved so far to the right.
I hope this gets up and I feel confidant of having someone cross the floor to enable it. If you were a liberal, Liberal then you would have to see that going forward with Abbott’s policy will only lead to embarrassment for the party and the continued circus which will further damage them.
The scheme as outlined by Brown on Lateline does involved compensation to households, but he did emphasise the compensation-in-kind elements e.g. funding rooftop PV for example …I also note that of the $10 billion raised, only $5 billion goes back to households. Presumably this would be focused on lower income households.
I regard it as a modestly good start and thus ultimately supportable though I have some serious reservations. In no particular order of importance …
1. The starting cost of $23 per tonne of CO2 is too low to get the kind of change we need. I’d prefer a starting price of at least $40
2. Brown proposes compensation to EITEs of 20%. I’d prefer no compensation at all. If I had to trade-off some other feature, I’d prefer to trade off some of the initial carbon price (to the value of the 20%)
3. The scheme doesn’t touch transport, when IMO it clearly should. I can’t imagine why petrol for example, should be allowed to continue to fall in real price terms.
4. I’d prefer compensation to households to be in the form of increases in quality and sustainable public housing stock available to people on low to low-middle incomes rather than PVs and I wouldn’t of course be limiting it to the amounts raised by the carbon tax.
Nevertheless, it is a start and if 2 out of Humphreys, Xenophon and Troeth can be induced to support it then this would be a step forward.
Someone here a little while ago poo-poohed the idea of Troeth crossing the floor, with what seemed to me to be a solid logic. Treth is still a member of the Liberal party, and she was voting for the shadow-Cabinet agreed package that had a lot of pro-rural lobby amendments. To suggest she’d go from that to something that was a greens-Labor deal is a bit of a stretch.
Also, wouldn’t a new package fail to get the DD trigger? Or does he have one of them already, in relation to means-testing medicare, I forget.
He doesn’t yet have the Medicare rebate trigger, wilful, but yes, if an entirely new proposal were floated it would have to be rejected twice separated by three months to be a trigger. The problem with the Medicare trigger is that it wasn’t policy in November 2007, so politically, it’s a bit dodgy.
Of course, he doesn’t need a DD as a half-senate would work every bit as well and probably then some. I still think a standard HoR + half senate in late July early August is most likely
Sam 6 – the argument is that if the electorate is presented by ‘peas in a pod’ Bob and Tony they will just go to the centre where the giant electo-monster (the ALP) will be waiting with open arms.
Humphreys is unlikely, but his Senate position is quite marginal (with strong challenges from a Greens candidate). This could be used to pressure him.
Carl – on what basis do you assert that ‘the electorate’ will or do see Bob Brown – consistent, measured, respectful, principled – as comparable in any meaningful way to the Mad Monk?
I mean, seriously. Can you explain?
FDB, I tink Carl might be the kind of Labor person who constantly fantasises about a future in which Labor’s divine right to rule the progressive half of the political spectrum has been restored and the Greens are no longer there to annoy them.
The Greens proposal gives the ALP a win-win scenario.
It has the potential to break the deadlock of the CPRS that cannot and will not get through the hostile COALition Senate so is an effective plan B that is conservative and reasonable in its public relations image.
After all, the idea been around for yonks and comes from Garnault who has never been painted as a wide eyed hippy radical so his, now the Greens also, proposal cannot be dismissed by the media as such.
It has the flavour of a short term, breathing space, interim measure eminently reasonable [or at least can be credibly prsented as such] that brings real action NOW [pretty well] as opposed to the never never of the current ALP model and even further away when the COALition finished with it.
Just its serious consideration, by the ALP, places pressure on the denialists.
Abbott and co, if they fight it, can be made to appear as blockers/spoilers/do nothings and their scheme will be drowned amid the noise of the proposed ALP/Greens/? discussion of an issue that should be front and centre in the arena of political debate.
If it were put seriously to the Parliament, Senate in particular, the media and the COALItion would have to tie themselves in multiple knots trying to counter it.
It would put so much pressure on such an odd assortment of COALition members eg Turnbull [remember him?], Barnaby, Troethe as to provide real comedic value to the ALP and the public as they try, publicly, to sort themselves out.
And if they don’t pass it they can be branded spoilers’ irresponsible and so on.
Puts a lot of pressure on Fielding and X too, and X can sense wind changes even if Fielding is a wild card [being diplomatic].
I would love to see the ALP go for it, they can’t lose by adopting this interim measure with the Greens.
It depends on how flexible both parties are (duh).
If Labor are serious about a deal, I suspect their bottom line is more compensation to TEEI industries, electricity generators, and households, and less spent on putting solar panels on roofs.
Are the Greens prepared to live with such a deal?
I think in the normal course of event the chances of the ALP dealing the Greens in would be close to nil, for obvious reasons of a centrist electoral kind.
However
1. there is a slight chance here that the CPRS has become the sort of albatross they dont currently need to take to the 2010 election – not without some other cover anyway. And
2. – the ALP knows as well as anyone they WILL very likely be dealing with a Greens BOP after the next election, whether they like or not. Its stiff cheese, on a stiff bikkie, but too bad: since they’ll be eating it daily after July 2011, they might as well get used to it.
Oh, and my moey is still against Rudd going for a DD. Too “irregular” for Mr risk-averse. he should though, This senate is simply obstructionist. Nothing constructive about it.-
I know Troeth is retiring, but they’re going to boot her out of the party is she votes for an ETS that is tougher than the one initially proposed by the ALP, before the Turnbull negotiations.
That may not matter much to her HC. When politicians retire, they do like to leave a legacy. Being able to break the deadlock in a constructive way that is capable of being reconciled with her outlook and annoying those in her party she doesn’t like into the bargain is probably very appealing. The fact that it would also annoy the dominant faction in the ALP would be the icing on the cake.
And it would also annoy the Australian Workers Union, which would be a hoot.
You’re deluding yourself if you think the ALP “doing a deal” with the Greens Party will deliver anything at all. For the Government to get legislation passed through the senate requires seven additional senate votes. The Greens Party can only deliver 5 votes.
To expect any Libs to cross the floor is absurd given the absolute crisis it placed them in last year.
Passage of legislation needs Labor, the Greens Party, Xenophon and Fielding – highly unlikely for a 2-year carbon tax.
More here: http://bit.ly/9iYB3y
I’ve just written to Senator Troeth urging her to negoaitate. Perhaps other LP supporters might too.
Here’s what I wrote, in part …
I have my money on KR calling a DD – but not on the ETS, which is too much of a risk. I get the feeling he’s getting fed up with an obstructionist senate and won’t want to wait until July 2011 before getting able to push a populist agenda through, either via Greens or a humbled Coalition.
I think the DD trigger is yet to come, and I have a feeling it’ll be related to tax reform. My 2010 prediction is:
- May budget. It beats predictions, delivered by a buoyant economy. Sweeping tax reform bill announced.
- Tax reform blocked by senate twice: June & September.
- DD called before October 2010 deadline.
Regretfully the CPRS is now too politically dicey for KR thanks to public support falling away. Regretful, not because it’s a shocking policy, but because it appears he’s turned a corner and started talking to the Greens.
While he keeps this ‘Australia will do no more on climate change, nor no less, than the rest of the world’ talk up, I believe he won’t get any genuine long-term support from the Greens.
The CPRS is a dead albatross that would keep on smelling for years. What the ALP needs is an excuse to get on with something more practical such as a better version of a direct action plan. It should not be hard to come up with a better direct action plant that the direct action lite being proposed by Tony.
My understanding is that the electorate still wants climate action but is becoming more and more doubtful about the merits of CPRS.
I’d like to be a fly on the wall where and when Malcolm bumps into Bob or Christine or any of the Green machine.
There must have been a few Tories that saw Abbott on 7.30 report , and Barnaby on Lateline, the other night, thinking, heads in hands, “Oh noes, what have we done?”, and Malcolm will be in their blackberries “See what you did? Come back, all is forgiven. Now, about My Destiny, it’s a lovely shade of Green …..”.
“- Tax reform blocked by senate twice: June & September.
- DD called before October 2010 deadline.”
The “October deadline” means Parliament has to be dissolved in early August for an 8-week campaign trough the Footy finals and the Sept school holidays and during the period the AEC is advertising the new draft boundaries for Victoria.
d
I consulted Antony Green’s Table of Soothsaying and it appears there is not a large enough window to obtain a budget-related DD trigger before the 10th of August. That means a DD will have to be called on the CPRS or on the current array of tabled bills, none of which are palatable enough. Hence I don’t think a DD will be called and
What a shame! The sooner the Greens get a real BoP in parliament, the more bargaining power we will have to deliver actual action on climate change, not Old Boys’ Club payoffs.
On the flip-side, the Australian Climate Change Denialism machine will have to run out of steam eventually, given they’re actually trying to fight rock-solid science here, so perhaps we’ll be better off waiting until late 2011.
The “October deadline” means Parliament has to be dissolved in early August for an 8-week campaign trough the Footy finals and the Sept school holidays and during the period the AEC is advertising the new draft boundaries for Victoria. which works more in favour of the incumbent…
Oh and Vic goes to the polls in november.
I was wrong to support ETS – Humphreys
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/03/2809137.htm
You can dream all you like but it isn’t going to happen. Any potential floor crossers now have a “policy” to hide behind.
Today’s leader in the SMH mentions the fact that Rudd declared AGW to be “the great moral issue of out times”. Given that, his equivocation and stumble bum bureau-speak are making him look much more like Elmer Rudd than anyone else. Now, where’s dat dwatted wabbit gone?
I can’t see the Government fronting up to a media conference and say: “Yep. The Greens had a great idea! We are implementing it”. It wouldn’t be a good look. They would be portrayed as captive of the ‘extreme left’ and also kowtowing to the Greens etc.
The only way is for the Greens to agree to some amendment that would enable for the ALP to look like they didn’t ‘bend’ to the Greens demands.
BTW: looove the photo of a completely mad looking Barnyard Joyce glaring out from the SMH at us while announcing cuts to the PS to fund the Lib AGW policies that their leader thinks is ‘crap’ anyway. That’s a winning idea.
Guido:
“The only way is for the Greens to agree to some amendment that would enable for the ALP to look like they didn’t ‘bend’ to the Greens demands.”
True. Pathetic isn’t it?
There’s an out because the idea is Garnaut’s.
Having said that, if Wong and Milne are in negotiation, then I imagine there must be movement from both sides.
Mark, I don’t think that will be enough. I think the ALP will need to come up with something similar but just different enough to be clearly their own policy.
Perhaps so, Josh.
Mark: Wong’s negative charisma would cause movement but only towards the exits.
Cacambo,
People who with sledgehammer wit declare Wong to be poison probably reveal more about themselves than anybody else. I doubt she entered politics with the ambition of entertaining you.
While there is much in what Penny Wong does that I have cause to dispute, I regard her as an able and articulate member of parliament. She’s probably the most impressive female parliamentarian I’ve ever seen.
Now, if only we could get her to use her powers for worthwhile ends …
really Fran, more than Gillard?
Wong seems to be very smart and a good/tough negotiator. I think Wong’s weakness is in her (lack of) sales pitch. Until recently it might not have been thought necessary in the climate change portfolio, but it sure is now.
Absolutely more than Gillard, Josh. I find Gillard’s register unappealing.
Wong presents as a person of intelligence and perspicacity. Gillard seems merely to know her lines.
When I see or hear anything more than social technocratic bureau-speak from Wong then I’ll dip my lid. The scheme as it stands is a dog’s breakfast and that is in Wong’s lap, no-one else’s. If you want to cheer her on a ‘go-grrl’ basis that is your prerogative but I don’t share that particular enthusiasm.
Well you were the one introducing charisma as an attribute Anthony. I don’t like her policy, as I made clear, but she is easy to listen to and she does incline me to think (possibly unreasonably because I’ve not tried it) that I could have an intelligent exchange with her about matters germane to her brief.
Fran: “she is easy to listen to”. No, like Rudd and Gillard she’s an aural mogadon to me.
I was very interested indeed to hear Bob Brown give a very articulate and well argued interview to Tony Jones
I saw it. I love Bob, but he is about as articulate as a sock.
philbert83au, Bob’s a lot more articulate in front of a sympathetic audience. He was recently at a Greens fundraiser in Adelaide, and gave an excellent speech.
Wong appears to see her brief as driving the introduction of ETS. Despite all the whinging she has stuck to her brief and sorted out many of the problems that would occur if the purist version of ETS were adopted.
My problem with Wong is that her brief should have been to drive down emissions in an efficient way. Given how popular ETS used to be part of her job would be to investigate the details of ETS and see how the bugs could be removed. But, by now she should also have been looking at alternatives including those that don’t involve putting a price on carbon or other market theory driven ideas.
Unfortunately, all she seems to be doing at the moment is digging in and making it harder to change away from CPRS.
I didn’t think Wong was impressive on Lateline tonight (4/2). More stonewalling, refusing to answer specific questions about Treasury modelling, relentless on message about Tony being a dud. Really difficult to listen to, and quite unpleasant.
Wong claims that the CPRS reduces emissions. Treasury modeling at 5% shows that it doesn’t until after 2030.
Its like the Republic referendum all over again. Two choices, neither of them well understood or popular.
Rudd & Wong haven’t really been selling the CPRS, and Abbott is just going for a fear campaign based on the hip pocket (tax) nerve. This is a just sideshow. Neither are committed to serious emission reductions.
The simple interim carbon tax would be much simpler, but also effective, so I don’t think Labor will cut a deal on it with the Greens, even though they should.
JohnD
For the umpteenth time …
In theory, John, if the state were to abandon key elements of the market economy and disregard sovereign risk issues, it could simply legislate the ways in which business had to be conducted, but this would probably cause even more ruckus here than the CPRS.
The government could, for example, simply legislate a timetable of cuts to CO2 intensity consistent with the 5% target and impose fines and forfeiture of assets for failure.
Alternatively, if, for example, it ordered the closure of Hazelwood and simply seized the assets in favour of the state, replacing it with a 1.6GWe nuclear power plant, the cost would probably be less than $AUS5bn and you’d have your 5% cut then and there. Not only that, but the whole area would be cleaner and overnight, Australia would have one of the least Co2 intensive aluminium industries in the world.
But you and I know that’s less likely than you and I becoming King and Queen of England.
Back here in the real world, we are going to have to nudge industry into doing the right thing, and that means a carbon dioxide emission price.
Fran @54: “Back here in the real world, we are going to have to nudge industry into doing the right thing, and that means a carbon dioxide emission price.”
Ahh, but then what emission price would amount to a nudge that would move the Queen Mary in the right direction?
We have already seen large increases in electricity prices, with negligible impact on lowering consumption or changing electricity sources. How much more, before you see an effect on behaviour? Back here in the real world, as you say?
One of the few items that I agree with Abbott, is that direct action is needed. Not “here we go round the mulberry bush” and hope we come out at the right point on the other side.
Direct action, preferably without Abbott’s “action man” publicity stunts, which detract rather than add to the message.
Elise asked:
About $40 per tonne, with the promise of $100 per tonne in five years across all sectors.
Fran Barlow @56, How do you KNOW that $40/tonne or even $100/tonne will do the trick?
Take an example of household electricity: 5000 kWhr/year (if they don’t have any solar panels etc), which equates to 5 tonne of CO2. So you think that $200/year extra (5 tonnnes @ $40/tonne) or $33/invoice will change their habits? I don’t think so.
And they might habituate to higher prices, so a steady increase won’t work either. Did doubling the petrol prices cause any reduction in petrol consumption in Australia?
We could check the proposed carbon pricing on petrol, while we are at it. Say an average car produces 250 g/km and travels 10,000 km/year, that is 2.5 tonnes of CO2. Do you think that $100/year extra (2.5 tonnes @ $40/tonne) will induce people to drive less or buy a more fuel efficient car? I don’t think so. Even $250/year (2.5 tonnes @ $100/tonne) probably won’t move people to change cars or habits.
It is the parable of the boiled frog. A sudden change will cause him to jump out, but he just habituates to slow increases until he is too weak to jump out, and thus dies. We will habituate as our economy slowly dies from spiralling energy costs.
Unfortunately, much as I dislike the man’s sanctimonious patronising personality, I think Abbott is correct in this matter. Direct action is more effective. It is too bad that he doesn’t mean a word of what he says. He’d probably be much more convincing (and dangerous to Rudd) if he did.
Fran @54: In case you haven’t noticed I have consistently argued that the best approach to cleaning up electricity is to set up a series of contracts for the supply of clean electricity. Sure, I think this needs to be supported by regulations that require clean electricity to be used preferentially but this is not the same as seizing Hazelwood to fulfill your dream of a nuclear future.
You say that the state could simply
. However, the reality is that the state already sets a whole range of conditions on how business has to be conducted. Historically, most of the environmental gains in the past have been achieved by government regulation. Turnbull’s regulations on light globe efficiency are merely one example of how effective direct action can be.
Thanks for the support Elise. You put the argument re the impact of price increases that have little effect on household budgets well.
People don’t tend to go out and but a new car as soon as fuel prices change but if you want a good example of fuel prices changing car choice you might like to have a look at the patterns of car purchases in nations where fuel prices are much higher (or lower, to point to one obvious national example).
I see you’ve also made a shift from cost-sensitive industry over to households and assumed that using an ETS doesn’t preclude the use of direct government action, whether it be regulation or support. And even with households, there’s no direct benefit in using energy – a high efficiency fridge cools just as well as low efficiency one and a price on carbon allows people to factor in that cost in purchases. this gives an actual advantage who do make energy savings.
And analogies are analogies – there are boiled frogs but then orthodontists don’t use hammers.
Elise
I think you are understating here. It’s not only households that will pay but all users including business. That feeds into costs and that in turn creates a margin for competition between businesses. In the long run, as you know, I prefer an ETS as this imposes a cap, but if the amount were indexed to ongoing target then the longterm real price rises would be factored in.
Yes they did. The trade balance on crude oil moved in our favour as the peak approached.
I also don’t agree that “direct action” of the type Abbott proposes will lead to any reductions, except in the government balance sheet, just as they did with water.
I also can’t see John how your idea can work without passing on massive cost increases, given that clean electricity is a lot more expensive than dirty electricity.
Anthony@59 is right – and the other point is that we shouldn’t waste time worrying whether direct or market is the right answer. Both will work in different ways. Both are already used – and both will be implemented in the future.
Abbott is setting up a spurious and aimless debate that needs to be avoided.
Further to my post Elise, I should note that your estaimate of average household electrricity usage is a little light (though not grossly so …)
The average Australian household consumes between 15 and 20 kwH per day in electricity. See for example this source so your estimate is between 10% and 45% light. There’s also gas usage which would obviously have to be included. This doesn’t hugely change the calculus but it is worth noting.
The last figure I read was that households consumed about 13% of the final energy consumed in Australia, so plainly, even if somehow these were all to become carbon-neutral, even including gas, we’d only have 87% left to deal with. Indeed, even if every household in Australia became a substantial contributor to power production — say on average a surplus of 20% all of which could be used efficient (that sounds ambitious) the final energy numbers for GHGs wouldn’t change all that much.
It may have seemed from the above that I was in some way against the state taking direct measures to stem carbon dioxide emissions, but that would be to misunderstand my position. I do agree with John D and a number of others that the state does have a constructive role to play in these things. It’s my view though that the economic and political context in which the state is likely to be most effective in its policy responses demands a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and ideally a quota on how much can be emitted (commonly called a cap). If you’re right and $40-$100 isn’t enough, a cap where putative emitters have to bid for the right to emit will price the resource correctly.
There’s also the question of what one does with the funds raised. A price on emissions is obviously a constraint, while well priced alternatives to emissions are pull factors. I like the idea of some of the funds being used to fund the building of quality sustainable public housing stock, in palces where the efficacy of public transport would be high. If we reduced urban sprawl, reducing the amount of space each person needs to heat and cool privately and ensured that these spaces were thermally efficient, used recycled and grey water as apt, and lent themselves well to non-private vehicle use, then I suspect a lot of culture and behaviour change would follow.
In the long run I also like the idea of road usage charges as a model for transport rather better than fuel taxes. Plainly, we’d need to phase this in and charging on fuel has administrative simplicity on its side. What I’d like though is a system in which each individual driver was charged a rate for road usage based on the emissions of their vehicle, the tare, the vehicle’s risk profile, the driver’s measurable skill and compliance patterns, the traffic volumes and so forth. Once the means to measure and track these things in real time and to give drivers real time feedback were in place one could abolish all of the sales taxes and other charges imposed by the state attaching to motor vehicles. One could deposit an amount held in escrow by the RTA against likely costs, and if one went under, one could get a credit. If one ran out, one would have to become financial. It would force people to make deicisons in real time about their options. We might also radically change the culture around driving.
Fran,
You cannot change a culture without there being an and available alternative behaviour. Making endless rules for others to live by is what my 12 year old daughter does. I was listening to Carlos _______ the head of Renault Nissan on the radio as I drove around like a mad thing for my eldest daughter (off to University in Melbourne in another week thank goodness), and this clearly extremely clever guy was saying that Renault Nissan are committed to manufacturing 10% of their vehicles as zero emission electric vehicles by 2020. When challenged about the demand for greater range than the current 160 Klm/charge he pointed out that 80% of drivers travel less than 100klms per day. Renault Nissan are targeting 10% of those 80% of drivers over the next 10 years. It is a very safe bet he says, but they could do more.
If government wants to increase the rate of change then they have to promote a greater pace of change of hardware. Taxing the hell out of everything is not the way to best way to achieve a transition. The most probable result of universal road useage billing is consumer/voter revolt and a change of government.
In early tv debates on Extreme Climate Risk the building industry was saying “we need guidence” from government for direction, otherwise they have no option other than to keep building bigger, but flimsier, houses that the market is demanding simply because they look good. Houses that look good but are energy disasters and prone to excessive damage from extreme weather.
On the energy front, I am now predicting something that I previously thought impossible, and that is that by 2040 60% of Australia’s electricity will come from private roof top solar electricity generation systems, paid for by the consumers themselves and without subsidy or the need for emission limit driven excessive pricing for grid electricity. I now see this as being the most probable outcome from the technologies available even today. Whatever form the balance of the system takes it will have to be able to cope with this most probable reality.
When people are massed together as our civilisation demands then “hardware” takes a dominant role in the way we perform. So addressing the suitability of the available hardware, along with the necessary operation medium, is the most important driver of change.
BilB @63 said:
I never suggested otherwise. It is possible for people to buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, drive less frequently and avoid the peaks, or car pool, and if we provide it, live in better and more sensibly located housing. It is possible to put people in touch with the consequences of their choices at the time they are making them and to change the way people value things.
“I find that utterly improbable”
Just remember that you said that, Fran.
I didn’t just describe it as improbable. I explained why, BilB
Fran @60: You say:
The cost of actually building and operating a specific clean electricity plant will be the same whether the investment is driven by direct action or putting a price on carbon. The important difference is that the average price of electricity will be very different, particularly at the start of the clean up process. Under direct action, the average price of electricity will gradually increase as the percentage of clean electricity increases (say a few percent/year). By contrast, under ETS (or other systems that depends on putting a price on carbon) the average price has to jump high enough to justify the investment in clean electricity. This might mean a sudden, economy destabilizing doubling of the price of electricity. (=all the pain before the gain.) Then there are the high admin costs and profit skimming associated with emission trading. (It is worth noting that investment large scale clean electricity has stalled because the MRET credit price has dropped too far – Europe has experienced the same problem with their ETS.)
This is not to say that Abbot’s has a realistic, properly costed plan to meet his targets. He hasn’t even considered the effect of growing population. For example, at the current growth rate of 2.1% /yr per capita emissions would have to be reduced by 23% just to keep our emissions at their current level.
JohnD,
You’re the first commentator to think through the incremental transition process with relation to electricity costs.
BilB:(68) “(JohnD) is the first the first commentator to think through the incremental transition process with relation to electricity costs”…
Elise, don’t listen to him/her, some have noticed you’ve been thinking and writing about such things, especially the BlueGen scenario.
I’m sure you’ll welcome the news, that: The Brits have come up trumps , (maybe our own Garett/Wong gnomes might see the light now Their Betters have), they’ve got beyond the blinkered view that only strictly renewable technelogies are worthy of ‘incentivising’ in feedin tarriff terms. They’ve come to understand that Bluegen type technologies ( referred to as MicroCHP in the linked document) offer a better efficiency dividend in terms of max electricity (and heating ) utility for minimum CO2 produced.
From April 2011 a Brit householder with a 2 kW Bluegen unit will be entitled to 10p/kwh for the excess power they export to the grid ( compare to 30-40p for PV).
Oh BilB, if you haven’t, you might like to give an ear to this morning’s Inside Business interview with the managing director of TRUEnergy which operates the Yallourn brown coal power station in Victoria
There’s your levy, and there’s your CO2 savings, from the horse’s mouth.
Fran Barlow @60: “Yes they did. The trade balance on crude oil moved in our favour as the peak approached.”
Fran, you are being too simplistic there. We had the GFC remember, and a stockmarket crash as well.
Everyone was feeling poorer in many ways, not just oil prices.
They cut back on all expenses, with many people thinking a Great Depression was just around the corner.
You should not attribute the effect to a single root cause. The collapse in demand had many fathers.
If you don’t believe this, then look at US demand today – oil prices have dropped, so demand should have picked up again by your argument. The demand is down for other reasons than oil prices.
Fran Barlow @62: “In the long run I also like the idea of road usage charges as a model for transport rather better than fuel taxes.”
Actually, I don’t, having had exposure to such a thing in a couple of different situations. Firstly we had the road toll for the Melbourne bridge to Altona. I had to cross that bridge on the way to and from work every day, as did many people who worked on that side of town. It also cost the poorer people who lived on that side of town and worked in the city.
It was rediculously expensive, but the alternative was to make a long round trip via the suburbs north of Altona. Some tried the long detour for a while, but eventually gave up in favour of the bridge. People don’t have a lot of spare time, especially if they are working 10 hour days.
We all hated the imposition enormously, but we weren’t a large enough proportion of the electorate to do something about it.
When I worked in Stavanger, Norway, they put a road toll on the road between the industrial area and the centre of town (in Tananger). Same story. You had to have a radar activating box on the roof of your car, or you had to have correct change and get out of the car to feed the meter. At peak hour it was a disaster. Even the honorable upright Norwegian citizens hated it like the plague, and resorted to all sorts of manoevres to circumvent and sabotage the system. I understand it was decommissioned in the end (the last time I went through it didn’t charge me). They couldn’t get compliance with their rooftop box payment system (why buy a box, if you only go there occasionally), and the traffic jams were causing extreme irritation.
If your proposal went ahead and all roads were tolled, I agree with BilB @63 that the offending government would be out on their ears.
Danny @69, thanks for the support, and for the links. Much appreciated!
The UK initiative is great news! I wish the Rudd government would do something similar here.