There’s lots more interesting stuff in this report at Australian Policy Online about two exit polls taken at the time of the 2007 federal election (and the AES), but this might be a relevant thing for Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong and the ALP to remember in the context of the emissions trading scheme and international negotiations on climate change response:
Industrial relations and global warming were key issues for the Labor voters who took part in all three polls, with two of the polls revealing that global warming was the prime concern among voters who changed their vote between the 2004 and 2007 elections.
I am sure people are concerned about global warming…as long as it does not inconvenience them too much.
I wonder what those polls would have said if people had been faced with real cost increases to do something about it.
Most people could use public transport in Australia but don’t – even walking one km to a stop is outrageous to most.
I await with interest similar polls after people have been faced with the costs to them of doing something concrete.
I am not optimistic.
Its very easy to change your vote, its not so easy to change your lifestyle.
I wonder if voters were asked: “Do you support higher electricity prices, higher petrol prices, higher meat prices, and higher airfares?” whether the results would have been quite so positive?
In yesterday’s piece Garnaut the Magnificent Kohler comes to the conclusion that draconian regulation is required in the short term:
None of this will happen. What will happen is very timid carbon pricing in developed nations combined with purchasing offsets in the developing world (which is the complete opposite of the “contraction and convergence” model). Westerners will do anything to hold onto their carbon-profligate lifestyles, and will find it far more palatable to drive down emissions in the developing world than make any lifestyle changes themselves.
Naturally, Australia will continue to export as much coal as it possibly can.
Carbonsink: Kohler (and you) are again assuming that prices have no effect on consumption.
Carbonsink, there are plenty of polls indicating that people are willing to accept higher prices in order to combat climate change.
If anything, the problem is that governments are too cautious and the business lobby too shortsighted. That said, the Green Paper, and the Government’s response to the business lobby, gives every indication that it intends to implement a serious emissions reduction policy.
Robert at 3 – I reckon Carbonsink and msrks are right though, for urban dwellers and for as long as the resources boom lasts. For example, my impression as a commuter is that the big jumps in fuel prices don’t seem to have had much impact on other commuters’ transport choices.
I can’t speak for Kohler, but I’m saying the carbon pricing will be so timid that it will have no substantive effect on consumption. Certainly nothing like the 80-90% reductions we need in the developed world for “contraction and convergence”.
And there are plenty of polls indicating people don’t like high petrol prices, and would like to see lower fuel taxes.
I’m sorry, but there is a huge disconnect between people’s desire to see something done about climate change, and actually doing something. For Australia to meet (say) a 30% per-capita reduction by 2020, means the average Aussie would need to use less electricity, use less petrol, eat less red meat, and fly less often. Short of a thumping recession I can’t see that happening under any circumstances.
In my view, there has been far too much emphasis on sticks rather than carrots in this debate, and more specifically, sticks that apply to the average punter. When it comes to the crunch the politicians simply won’t do anything that actually hurts their constituents and changes behaviour. In my view carrots are far more likely to implemented, and therefore, far more effective. And by “carrots” I mean generous rebates for energy efficient appliances, fuel efficient cars, home insulation etc, and some really juicy tax concessions for investment in clean energy.
Having said that, the most effective way for Australia to reduce emissions quickly is close down some of the big industrial emitters, such as brown-coal fueled smelters. This could be achieved at the cost of very few jobs, very few votes, and “carbon leakage” is unlikely, given Australia has some of the dirtiest electricity in the world.
But people will often vote for something they will not do as individuals. Mancur Olson refers to compulsory unionism as an example. A key left-right distinction is over the validity of this kind of collective choice see McGavin’s book on Whitlam’s wages policy.
Kohler seems to be saying that the kinds of price increases proposed – the Oz ran a piece on some modelling suggesting a $10 rise in airfares for example – won’t effect overall emissions. People will still fly, drive their cars etc, but they’ll just pay more.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about the elasticity of demand – only how much fossil fuel is burned.
Interesting: CFMEU’s reaction to Garnaut Review.
Robert said:
No, that’s not quite right, Robert. The assumption is that the price effect on consumption is not a direct correlation – as you well know this is the concept of price elasticity. I don’t mean to teach you to suck eggs, but you need to be careful to avoid blanket statements like that.
In the case of energy, the evidence is that a 1% price rise leads to only about a 0.3% cut in energy use. So you need a very significant price rise to trigger substantial energy conservation and therefore emissions reductions.
The policy lesson from this is that, if you want to rely on price signals alone to drive the kinds of emissions reductions from the energy sector that we know are achievable (say 30% cuts through energy efficiency) you will need to almost double the price of electricity. Alternatively, you could apply a modest price signal and recycle the revenue to drive further change. The same applies to transport, except more so, since transport is famously considerably more inelastic than energy.
I’m very pleased that Kohler has come out on this. It puts real pressure on those who take the Wilkins view that we should remove all policies other than the ETS and let the price signal do the talking. (All policies, of course, except those that benefit the coal sector…)
Final note – I’m surprised to see Kohler refer to energy efficiency measures as “draconian”. Why is it draconian to help people save money and energy??? Everywhere I go, people are crying out for help to reduce their energy use!
I might add to previous comments that at the moment people actually can make significant carbon reduction decisions.
Australia is highly urbanised and yet only ten percent use public transport regularly. We already have fridges, freezers, but we can’t wait to get a bar fridge as well, and when we update any of the above, it is always a bigger size!! And don’t let me start ranting about 4WD purchases when an Echo or Starlet would do just the same job.
Might I suggest that whatever we say at the ballot box, does not correspond to the discretionary spending on high energy consuming ‘necessities’ we actually purchase.
Perhaps we want ‘the Government to do something about it’ just as long as we don’t have to ‘do something’ more than a token toward reducing energy consumption.
To be specific, the Mining & Energy Division of the CFMEU. The CFMEU is really a very loose confederation of a construction union, a forestry union, and a mining & energy union, who bring quite different positions and interests to the table on environment and sustainability issues.
On the union side it’s the Australian Workers Union which has been in bed with the big polluters on ETS issues. See here and here.
The ACTU’s position can be found here, here and here.
To add to Carbonsink at 6, carrots yes, with education. Preconceptions are a huge obstacle, eg a family of 4 needs a giant fridge, we need to go to work in a 4WD, we have to have air-con, 3 bathrooms for resale, etc. Some kind of community education, sitting down with people to talk about alternatives, like Travelsmart has done in some places, would still be relatively cheap.
Touche, Tim.
That’s precisely what we voted for. We voted to ratify Kyoto, and end Howard’s denialism. We didn’t vote for higher energy prices.
Well … I don’t know about “crying out”, but certainly people would like to do their bit, as long as it doesn’t hurt too much. Problem is, all we’ve offered them so far is higher energy prices, which tends to dent people’s enthusiasm somewhat.
In my experience people really get enthused about climate change solutions when it saves them money, not when it costs them more. Community programs like this Solar PV Bulk Buy and Solar Hot Water Drive seem to generate real enthusiasm, especially when people think they’re getting a bargain, and that they’ll save on their electricity bills. But at a national level, all government is offering is pain.
Now imagine a system of generous rebates that made solar hot water price-competitive with electric storage, or a six star appliance cheaper than a two-star appliance, or an ultra-efficient hybrid or diesel car, cheaper than a Corolla. That’s something that politicians and voters alike could get enthusiastic about.
You know, one only has to google ‘energy saving’ or ‘energy saving tips’ and one is deluged with information. Go to the website of every major electricity retailer and water supply in the country and there is info galore.
Again, in a heavily urbanised country like Australia people can use public transport. Sure, it is not as convenient as the car, but it is a pile cheaper.
People must go round with their eyes closed, fingers in their ears singing ‘la-la-la-la’ if they say they have no information on how to save both energy or money AND do some good for the environment.
I have an old crappy car that drives less than 1000 km per year – public transport for the rest. (Not to w**k on about how virtuous I am, but to say how much money I rake in by not overinvesting in a motor deity).
Considering the amount of money to be saved in this way, without a subsidy of one cent per year – and yet few people bother, I suspect that people really are just using excuses not to act or change behaviour.
How serious are people who could save literally thousands per year by keeping cars longer and using public transport, but still drive around everywhere in the motor deities? Don’t buy that bigger fridge, don’t get the ducted aircon – use a smaller number of units and only aircon part of the house. Sheesh, there’s at least five or six grand a year available immediately. Who needs subsidies?
Carbon sink,
rebates have a long and not particularly illustrious history. To take the example of solar hot water heaters, the reason take-up is low is because they’re a niche/immature product (slow to install, expensive etc.). ‘Buying’ them unit-by-unit through rebates rarely changes that. NSW and federal rebates for solar hot water systems barely touch the sides because it’s an uncompetitive market and it does’t reach the consumer. Even where they have ‘worked’, they tend to create boom-bust cycles without creating self-sustaining markets. So long as the politicians don’t backtrack in the first months after the prohibition of new electric hot water systems when there could well be teething problems(hopefully industry will get its act together, otherwise punters could find themselves waiting for hot water when their old electric system keels over), solar hot water systems will over time become a mass market product as volumes expand.