Reflections on CPD's Common Ground forum on Climate Change

As Mark mentioned, the CPD hosted the third ‘Common Ground’ forum, this one on climate change. It was an ecumenical gathering with plenty of shiny suits (Slater Gordon lawyers sponsored), hipster urban types, young professionals, and plenty of the interested public.

CPD Director Miriam Lyons introduced the forum with two distinct images: Schwarzenegger standing in front of a crushed car talking about climate change on the doco Heat and Labor MPs with sticky fingers thanks to Anna Rose’s baking efforts.

It was recorded for Fora TV, which is apparently a new ABC2 show. [Update: via comments, video here]

Steve Hatfield Dodds introduced the two keynotes speeches by twisting the forum’s slogan to ‘we have more in common WHEN we think’. After outlining some of the basic science (feedback, atmospheric concentrations) he foreshadowed one of the most interesting areas of disagreement between the panelists to emerge: what is consensus? is it valuable? He also emphasised that the modelling suggests moving quickly and steadily is cheaper, especially if the world delays.

Bob Carr‘s masterful oratory skills are always a pleasure to witness. The one thing that riles him up more than ‘voodoo climate science denial’, he said, was the vaguely racist ‘but India and China’ meme. We should show, he argued, a rich country can transition to a low carbon economy. The former Premier quite rightly cited his and Peter Beattie’s respective governments’ admittedly ‘heavy handed bureaucratic’ land clearing bans in 1995 and 1999 respectively as the only reason we’re going to hit our Kyoto targets. When later quizzed on why he didn’t do more for climate change he fiercely defended his record and asked why there was such vicious, media driven opposition to the land clearing legislation yet when he introduced the world’s first Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme in 2003, nobody batted an eyelid. Carr put it down to the complexity of the scheme (( though a better explanation would be its lax targets, lack of policy or ‘Business as Usual’ additionality, in the electricity side of the scheme at least. ))

Recommendations:
We need a well designed scheme in Australia, and he’s confident that well happen despite a ‘moderate tsunami’ of lobbying from big polluters. White Paper should include a clause that give credits for Avoided Deforestation
– Internationally: at Copenhagen, argue for REDD (you were following Bali, right, Bob?)
– Back home: Let the market rip – don’t set fixed carbon price in early years
– Finance retrofit of old building stock: service the loan by efficiency savings. Bill Clinton has led a scheme like this here
Finally, he alluded to Obama’s speech : energy reform, independence and hope.

Pru Goward‘s address, though less charismatic, was tremendously thought provoking. She dwelt on the question of consensus and democracy, arguing strongly for consensus building by reminding the audience that the ugly support for Pauline Hanson in the 1990s was an expression of groups of people feeling excluded from policy debates that had come to be dominated by too narrowly focused inner city elites. It was important that the messy building of the ‘tyranny of the majority’ was inclusive. Given the National Party’s policy gestures of late, it was a timely reminder.

This came with two significant disclaimers: firstly that Public Opinion swings shouldn’t influence long term strategic thinking of the problem, an issue I’ve dealt with a few times here, and that we shouldn’t pin our hopes on international negotiations. She reflected passionately on her time attempting (and failing) to negotiate consensus positions in various gender related fora at the United Nations, emphasising that nations would never agree to more than the bare minimum than what was agreed upon within each country. For example, Europeans would not codify access to ‘additional resources’ for African countries for contraceptives because they were not prepared to commit the aid.

In other words, international negotiations are “a thousand dancing steps”.

The spectre of Howardian recalcitrance haunted her speech too: in designing an emissions trading scheme ‘we have to be careful to show the world what not to do’ (don’t worry Pru: I think the dissillusionment within the EU about the massive overallocation and windfall profits for power companies has thrown down a big enough gauntlet); ‘conduct the debate in a respectful, objective and scientific manner’; ‘it would be dangerous if we were to go it alone; and ‘we have to take a responsible position on “India and China.”

The panel’s insights were as interesting as they were diverse.

Fiona Wain of Environment Business Australia is no fan of consensus and reckons we should just get on with it, aggressively deploy the technologies and engineer soil carbon in the interim. Her punchline was delivering ‘Fundamental prosperity for developing countries and rich countries’. Afroz Ali emphasised that beyond rhetoric we should actually be doing stuff because for all the rhetoric of politicians, the materiality of the issue would catch up on them. Andrew Bartlett‘s contributions were not terribly surprisng to anyone who has followed his blogging of late. He contributed much need humility and a sense of ethical principle to the debate, emphasising the importance of individuals to take responsibility for their own contribution to the problem.

Some highlights from the ensuing discussion included

• Bob Carr, citing public support for action on climate change, to argue that we shouldn’t get too hung up on the idea of consensus. In the meantime, he asks, why don’t we set up Sydney as a carbon trading hub for the Asia Pacific?
• Fiona Wain going on a wonderful rant about the US automakers pushing unsustainable models they couldn’t export then going hat in hand to Washington in their private jets
• Steve Hatfield Dodds emphasising that the climate change debate does not take place in teh realm of most-materialist values in China but National and Security (can you govern 1/5th of the world’s population under unmitigated climate change?) and in India can you feed everyone with decreased crop yields? Moreover, there’s plenty of ‘framing’ going on with discussions of future costs (cf. especially this speech)

Previously: Liveblogged Emissions Trading Allocation Forum