Rudd announces bringing forward renewable energy spending today.
The cynic in me suggests this is political cover for an ultra-soft emissions reduction target to be announced tomorrow…
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The cynic in me suggests you may well be right!
Pretty weak post!
Define ultra soft, soft, hard and too hard.
Or do you wan’t to keep your denigration ammunition dry?
GG: sure, it was a very quick and cynical post.
A strong 2020 target is one that helps get the developing countries on board with the global negotiations, which tends to mean something in line with the Bali range (25-40% for developing countries). Weak targets are ones that don’t help with that goal, and perpetuate this silly idea that there will be uniform percentage reductions amongst developed countries.
Any targets that don’t leave Heather Ridout apoplectic are somewhere between the weak and ultra-weak range.
A weak target could be one corresponding to greenhouse gas levels that will lead to the destruction of the Barrier Reef; a weak target could be one that does not take into account Australia’s high per-capita emissions or shifts the burden of emissions reduction onto low per-capita emitters. The targets of 5% and 15% modeled in Treasury’s modeling are both.
There was some weak interviewing of Kevin Rudd by Kerry O’Brien last week — he opened his questions by quoting Heather Ridout. Kevin had weak responses to his questions — he stated that the people who don’t like his targets are various radical green groups who want to close down the coal industry by Thursday. I wonder if NASA scientist Dr James Hansen fits into this category, given that he has stated:
Kerry O’Brien probably hasn’t been following what has been going on at Potzdam in the past two weeks, or he might have though to ask Kevin about Australian negotiators actively working to stall negotiations on targets, and remove comments about the rights of indigenous people from agreements on forestry.
Australia is likely two announce two targets tomorrow, a low one and a high one. This was suggested in the CPRS Green Paper. The low one is likely to be 5%. The high one will probably be somewhere between 10% and 25%. The way the government has behaved lately suggests that anything over 15% is extremely unlikely.
That means that as far as this government is concerned, the people represented by the likes of Heather Ridout are more important than the Barrier Reef, the Murray, or Kakadu.
Or maybe todays announcementto spend lots of money quickly is to keep the economy going? Without an economy lots of people will have no means to exist?
This place shits me sometimes with overanalysis of the obvious.
Pull your head out your arse & look around. Shopping centres are pretty damn empty! A recession will help lower emissions, spending on green technology not gonna hurt, eh?
Or maybe todays announcement to spend lots of money quickly is to keep the economy going? Without an economy lots of people will have no means to exist?
This place shits me sometimes with overanalysis of the obvious.
Pull your head out your arse & look around. Shopping centres are pretty damn empty! A recession will help lower emissions, spending on green technology not gonna hurt, eh?
Woops, sorry for double post!
Sorry Jovial, I have been to shoppintg centres in Brisbane (Indooroopilly, Toowong, CBD) and Sydney (Macquarie Park) in the past week and they were NOWHERE NEAR empty – in fact I had more than the usual trouble finding a place to park. I have started wondering when the credit will start to run out!
Peter Wood,
Michelle Gratten’s article today explains the strategy….
“Rudd is already positioning the Government so criticism from both ends of the spectrum reinforces how sensible and reasonable the target is.”
“We’ll get attacked from the left, we’ll get attacked from the right,” he said last week. “We’ll get attacked by various radical green groups … and by various business groups.”
You are obviously one of those “business groups”.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/global-warming/climate-may-turn-chilly/2008/12/13/1228585174967.html?page=2
What a crock.
The claim is: 300,000 kWhrs per year, and they are owning up to 4.5 million spend. (Back when it was floated, a month before Beattie announced his 2006 election, it was gonna be a 2.5 million spend, that’s about about 40% pa growth on ergon getting their numbers wrong, which is what they are good at, according to the Queensland Competition Authority )
Anways, doing it the Ergon/ Hard-Hatted Anna (tho’ really via Pete’s provenence), grand erection for maximum electoral PR, delivering nice bucks to Boeing, (who Pete spent at least $10 mill on to induce to occupy and brand a building in Brisbane), way takes $4.5 mill to install 175kW: >$25 investment per delivered kWh. Thats 3 times as expensive as each kW installed by our local suburban PV buying collective, costing the govt the $8000 rebate.
They spent 80k av for each of the 60 homes and businesses of Windorah, 10 times the suburban rebate. If they had used suburban panel technology and suburban skills ( tafe cert, btw only offered at one qld tafe) and businesses, Windorahans could have each had 10 times the greenish energy. Or not have had to spend so much, and enabled delivery of green goodness to other folks instead. But that wouldn’t give Anna and Kev a Hardhat-On oportunity.
Actually with PV it’s shades of profligacy, incurring a premium paid for convenience, and distributability of PV based systems , and the current scale, and expandability, of production: Suntech, the worlds largest, currently produces 750MW pa, and with plans for 2GW pa by end 2010. I like the sounds of Solar Thermal, grid connected, utility scale projects like the Cloncurry concentrated-sun onto graphite block heat sink one. It’s supposed to deliver 10,000 kW for $31 million, that’s about $3000 per kW, less than half that of distributed rooftop PV. In Cloncurry an estimated 7 times the Windorah spend delivers 50 times the kW. Even allowing for Ergon inability to accurately project costs, that’s a major quantum of green bang for buck improvement.
We’ll all be ROONED!!!
Let’s see now 20 million Aussies (Oi, Oi, Oi!) @ 28 tonnes of CO2/digger and it would take 9,300,000,000 Ethiopians to emit that.
That’s another gold for Australia!
Correction, typo: “doing it the Ergon/ Hard-Hatted Anna ..way takes $4.5 mill to install 175kW: >$25 investment per delivered kWh.” should be >$25,000 per delivered kW.
“Sorry Jovial, I have been to shoppintg centres in Brisbane (Indooroopilly, Toowong, CBD) and Sydney (Macquarie Park) in the past week and they were NOWHERE NEAR empty – in fact I had more than the usual trouble finding a place to park. I have started wondering when the credit will start to run out!”
Pre-dawn, is this a denial of the financial crisis? Are you suggesting it has been manufactured, in similar fashion to the moon landing?
Perhaps you forgot that pre-christmas brings a peak in shopping centre activity, even if we are yet to see if today’s peak matches last year’s peak.
Rob, we’ll be lucky to see a target of a 20% cut in emissions intensity by 2020. I reckon Rudd will “do a Howard” and just spray money around at random renewables projects.
Its easy, very little political risk, and it looks like the government is doing something. That’ll keep the punters happy.
Rudd has zero conviction on this issue.
Rudd will have a desire to get re-elected. Thus he will talk big, but do little to nothing.
That’s a very efficient post Robert.
I haven’t been posting much either. Why bother? From my perspective, not much has happened worth posting. If one is looking for increases in renewables investment (I place myself in this camp), there may be some cause for celebration. However, for those concerned with the control of global GHG concentrations, there’s little reason for optimism.
The inconsistencies are too obvious for optimism. How can government reconcile the claims of ample non-carbon options to meet aggressive emission reduction targets (when justifying an ongoing ‘no’ to nuclear) and then argue against aggressive cuts for sake of Australian jobs / economy? Do we have significant, credible options or not?
Australia, with our western lifestyle and high per-person emission, is the low hanging fruit for any developing country looking to improve living standards at the expense of higher emissions. We find ourselves in a leadership position whether we want it or not, and if Flannery is even half correct about the sensitivity of Australian ecosystems and biodiversity – we are in for some trouble if this issue is not brought under control relatively soon.
Finally, it was just one year ago in Bali when Rudd was the hero who – by endorsing Kyoto – marginalised Washington as the lone standout. Just a few short weeks ago, Rudd was out rock-starred by a not-even-president-yet Obama; who talked of firm cuts, based on the deployment of a broad array of technologies, from a position of job growth and multilateral collaboration. No doubt just one of those ‘radical greens’ attacking from the left.
Jovial, I’m’ sorry, but when you put together:
a) the reports coming out of Poznan that the Australian delegation is going slow.
b) the fact that the MRET means that this is in substantial part just displacing investment in renewables that the private sector is forced to make anyway.
c) the fact that the White Paper (immensely more important from a substantive point of view) comes out tomorrow.
It’s hard to shake the suspicion that this is primarily about political positioning rather than sound policy.
Further to Peter Wood @4,
Rudd said on The 7.30 Report [link]
So the governments PR tactics in dealing with climate change are revealed:
1. Frame the debate so that anyone who says Rudd’s weak target is weak is “a member of a radical green group trying to close down the coal industry” (Like Governor David de Kretzer, Professor Karoly, Al Gore, Malcolm Fraser, Arnold Schwartzeneggor, Barack Obama, Ban Ki-Moon, Prince Charles and Rupert Murdoch etc?)
2. Make a token gesture towards renewable energy – but keep the class warfare going with the cap on the solar rebate, and allow the dog’s breakfast of mostly woeful state Clayton’s feed-in tariff legislation to proliferate.
Whenever I hear the world “balance” from the government, I get a shiver down my spine.
Balance the wishes of the coal eating rent seeking surrender monkeys against the probable loss of the Great Barrier Reef, 3m sea level rises, and ice free (and 5 degree hotter) summer arctic and no more snow in Australia?
This is not balance, this is capitulation and gross negligence.
The target? My guess is Rudd will come up with a 2020 target of a reduction of 10% (+/-5) and may even be audacious/hypocritical enough to also announce a long-term “aspirational” non-binding target of limiting greenhouse gases to 450ppm.
When we need a 40% by 2020 target, and to reduce GHG from the current 380 to 350 or lower.
Al Gore hit the nail on the head in Poland:
Robert, the problem here is that the policy is not sound. CO2 is simply irrelevant to the energy balance in the atmosphere once its absorption is mostly complete within the absorption spectrum of the molecule. That occurs at 20 ppm (yes, twenty ppm).
After that it’s a logarithmic decline. The difference in energy absorption by CO2 at 300ppm and 1300ppm is negligible. But plants simply love the higher CO2 concentrations.
SO at the moment, we have the ludicrous situation where completely unsound policy is being based on false precepts – that CO2 is somehow to blame for all perceived ills: and they are merely perceived ills. For the planet is cooling, Robert, IAW the predictions of the Solar Intertial Motion theory. It has been cooling for seven years and will continue to do so until about 2035, when it will again begin to warm.
It’s the sun, Robert, not CO2. An innocuous bystander has been convicted on a slight smattering of circumstantial evidence by people with a financial stake in making that the outcome. For that outcome makes them money, and gets them power.
You have been conned, Robert.
Having been conned, with ample data to reveal the con, you persist in believing it. This merely means that the conmen are very good, and you have too much emotional investment to accept that you have been conned. And so the conmen get richer.
After all, if it is such a vast crisis, just why DO they continue to fly everywhere and consume more energy, spewing out more of that wicked, wicked trace gas essential to plant growth?
Which also makes Penny Wong the Minister for making the Sun obey the ALP. Even so, this is becoming too expensive a joke now that we have a joke Minister in a joke ministry. The real jobs of real people are now to be sacrificed to maintain the cash flow to the conmen.
And that is no joke at all for working families.
MarkL
Canberra
Is there any detail on the solar expansion plans yet or is this just a press release? I can’t find anything on the PMC, DCC or Environment sites…
MarkL, I suggest that you read Leviticus 24:16 very, very carefully.
Oops – I missed this bit:
So let’s get this straight.
Before the 2007 election, Labor promised:
1) $150 million Energy Innovation Fund to be allocated over an unspecified period. $100 of this would go to solar research
2) $500m Renewable Energy Fund before the 2007 election to be allocated over however long they felt like for the development and deployment of renewables.
In the May 2008 budget, nothing was allocated to renewable energy and the period was specified as seven years. This fasttracks that committment to 18 months.
Where has the REF money gone so far? In the May 2008 budget, nothing was allocated to wind, solar, biomass and marine energy. Strangely, $50 million was allocated to geothermal drilling – not research, and could have just been allocated from Renewable Energy Fund.
And fwiw, offsetting Windorah 300 tonnes of annual emissions from diesel generation using $4.5m worth of solar collectors cost 958 times more than Greenhouse Friendly certified tree offsets at retail price.
I suspect the ALP won’t do much until the Greens rip their beating electoral heart out and show it to ‘em, still thumping in their hand.
Better be a good target tomorrow Kev. Or operation inner-city seat begins. We haven’t got time for your coal-eating surrender monkey act, sunshine.
Here a pragmatists way out: we aim to orient coal to 90% export-only for by 2030. Coal industry’s keep turning tricks, we tech up. If first world countries cant make the transition, what hope for developing nations.
PS love the line circulating about the Enviro Minister lately: “Peter Garrett: Every performance a sell-out”.
What comes after the white paper? The blue paper? Pink perhaps? We could go through the entire spectrum before anyone makes a friggin’ decision or actually does something.
There are some proposals for Australia’s emission trajectory in Chapter 4 of the Green Paper, where it discusses emissions targets and scheme caps. The proposal is for the government to announce scheme caps five years in advance. What could happen is that even if the deeper target for the 2020 gateway is not so terrible (e.g. 25% instead of 10% reduction, still not very impressive), the first five years of scheme caps could be set to be consistent with a 5% 2020 reduction trajectory, which would all but rule out the 25% reduction trajectory.
I have commented more on Chapter 4 of the Green paper here.
That’s hardly a challenging target. Already 75% of our coal production is exported, mainly to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. As China’s coal imports kick in (it’s currently a very minor customer)no doubt our coal exports will rise both in absolute terms and as a percentage of our production. So no doubt long before 2030 we’ll have 90% of our coal exported, and not a tonne reduction in our production.
carbonsink,
My understanding is that after the white paper the government drafts legislation. Then emissions intensive industries kick up more of a stink, then the Liberals decide whether to vote for it or not. If they block it, it could get watered down, or the government might be able to pass it with the greens and independents or one or two Liberals or Nationals. Assuming it eventually passes, and the starting date doesn’t change, we then wait until mid 2010 (after Copenhagen) for the legislation to actually do anything.
Ta for the stats GregM – lets go 100% by 2025 then. My point here is that becoming energy sustainable ourselves wont destroy the coal industry. I dont think this point is being made clear to the populace. Indeed, it seems that our coal industry would be very well shielded against any domestic changes – including major ones.
I realise that still means CO2 from our shores, but the wider tech shift must be pioneered from the wealthier countries. Byt that point we’d be posiitoned to replace our coal exports with much higher value clean tech exports.
Of course, that involves economic innovation – so don’t hold yer breath.
Ed @ 16, did you listen to that segment by Obama? He promised to get emissions down to 1990 levels, that’s right 1990 levels, by 2020, and then a further 80% by 2050.
That won’t impress the Chinese, let alone the Indians. And it won’t save the Great Barrier Reef and much else besides.
Hansen’s point is that we have already overshot. What we need is 100% plus by 2030, although that too might be a bit late to get us back to the Holocene, or what’s left of it by then.
Clearly Rudd hasn’t got a clue as to what to do for the environment. It is obvious, now, that he had been lipsyncing when he was talking global warming in the election. But now that real understanding is required, there is none. Social issues, health, education, employment conditions,…great. It is all there. But save the planet???? Nothing. Doesn’t know. And worse,…doesn’t want to know. Would rather that it all went away. Two lemons in a row. It is enough to put a bitter taste in ones mouth.
It’s good to see NSW asserting itself as the premier state and the rest of Australia being used to fund it’s plans.
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Don’t worry about the Green groups getting any inner city seats Lefty E , the $4.7 billion for the City to Rozelle metro ( please note – already has the light rail and the 2 destinations are all of 4 klms cycle / walk apart ) will assure all environmentally conscious voters that the ALP can be trusted to lead the way ahead.
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And the Biggest single rail investment in Australian history (as enterprising pollie Albo called it )is designed to DOUBLE our coal exports from Newcastle .
Fantastic ! Another couple of $billion there.
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Just remember to look at the shiny solar collectors at Windorah , don’t be dazzled by the pollies smile though and then remember you voted for these people.
And all you Cassandras worrying about the economy – just marvel at the erudite decisions being made right now and you will feel there is no justification for concerns about sensible economic management. None whatsoever.
Rudd will betray us.
I just hope someone at the news conference calls him a dog and throws their shoes at him.
As I preface the various details of Rudd’s climate change policy to the Socialist Alliance New England mailing list : No surprises here.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Rudd’s reduction levels will be little better than Howard’s “It’s not happening because there’s no such thing as climate change” do-nothing policy. I can only hope I’m wrong.
carbonsink @ 24,
Yellow Paper.
murph the surf wrote:
Yep – it’s the elephant in the room (why couldn’t the big infrastructure spend be directed at getting us away from coal?). Pretty clearly, the government now has no ambition to cut C02 by any significant amount, ever.
Not entirely relevant, but hoping someone here can advise me…just got back from Boston, and would like to know where the best place to buy carbon offsets is…ideally a websites where you can just put in your flight path, have it calculate total km flown/CO2 generated, and let you buy accredited god-qualify offsets via credit card.
Hey Wizofaus, I have some that you can buy. As many as you like. I will meet you at the intersection of Eddy Avenue and George St at midday. Please have as much money as you can spare in a brown paper (carbon) bag. I will be wearing a green “T” shirt.
wizofaus, check out page 6 of this.
The expenditure of $500 million on renewables is welcome – but it is only the amount allocated in taxpayer funds to the coal industry in the May 13 budget. Since then still more has gone to the coal industry.
Australia is in a unique and privileged position to take a world lead in relation to the climate crisis. We have immense resources of sunshine, wind, tides and geothermal power. We also control 40% of the world’s coal.
“Industry” does not speak with one voice on this. Of course there are those who benefit from the current paradigm, and they lobby loudly to keep things as they are – despite the danger to the planet. But many small and rising businesses reject the current paradigm, and are looking for help from government to even up the playing field.
With the means test on solar panels in the May budget, and the subsequent closure of many businesses, including, most recently, BP Solar, this government has done immense damage to the innovative end of the business world,
This government was elected to do something about greenhouse. So far it has not delivered. Today will be the test.
Actually it’s 9.3% of the world’s coal, Brian. We control 40% of the world’s uranium, but that’s another story.
dk.au – thanks but that only ranks the sites on the basis of their CO2 offsetting performance. While that’s important to me, I’m just as interested in how easy-to-use the websites are. Like I said, I just want to plug in my flight path, and have it debit my credit card. If nobody knows of such a thing, then I’d seriously be interested in offering my (unpaid) services as a web developer to current carbon-offsetting companies who are interested.
Oops, should have at least checked out the first one in the list…climatefriendly.com does in fact have exactly such a feature!
$287 seems quite a lot for that one trip…is that based on the amount all passegners would have to pay to completely offset the flight?
Well, that’s paid for…somehow doubt I’ll be able to expense it to the company…can also see it will be tough to convince the wife that our planned trip to Paris next year will be costing us an extra $854!
5% is weak.
Interesting to see that noco2.com.au has a similar calculator (slightly better actually – you don’t have to remember the airport code), but it actually works out your offsets based on the class of travel – I was actually upgraded to Premium Economy on the way back (very nice – not going back to regular economy in a hurry!), so according to them I should pay more than a regular economy customer, although their quote is still less than climatefriendly’s. Mind you, if I’d travelled first class they suggest a whopping $597 just for that one trip, even though it’s hard to see how I’d be personally responsible for all that much extra CO2. If, OTOH, it’s based on “means to pay” (something I’d very much support) then it really does raise the issue of how regressive carbon taxation will be if it’s done purely on CO2 emitted: a flat CO2 surcharge on an economy flight will be something close to 10% of the ticket price, whereas on a first-class flight it’s barely over 1%.
wizofaus@42
It is rather amusing to note how you at once flirt with the idea of passing on the (“carbon”) cost of your travel to someone else (“the company”) who can then bear the cost as best it can and who may, indirectly at least, pass it on to someone less able to pay.
As for Paris (later comment) have you thought of not travelling at all saving all that money and feeling even “better’ about the planet. But do not alter your plans on my account.
Lindsay, no, I haven’t thought about not travelling to Paris – what benefit would there be to doing so? Sure I could save the money, but I will spend it eventually, and at least flying to Paris is something for which the environmental impact is relatively easy to calculate and hence accommodate for. Our planet and the future generations who will live on it are not going to be saved by us voluntarily giving up the benefits of modern techology.
As for whether I should pass the cost on to the company, I can be almost 100% sure that it would not get passed on to somebody else less able to afford it, given the size of our company and the sort of customers we have.
And FWIW I didn’t purchase the offsets to ‘feel better’ about anything – I bought them for the same reason that people vote: your own little contribution might seem to be a waste of time/money, but once everybody does it the effect is enormously powerful.
wizofaus
It is this notion of passing on costs (of this nature) to others whether they can afford it or not that I question. What difference does it make if (in your judgment) they can afford or not? To expect others to do so has the ring of the “en haut de bas” about it. Pay it if you wish but directly and transparently. And I am now referring to the matter at large not just your case.
“The wife” (so called) may have the last word?
Not sure the vote and “carbon offsets” are so equivalent, as the take-up rates of each vary somewhat in significance and extent.
Who exactly has the notion that we should pass on costs to others whether we can afford them or not?
It’s hardly unreasonable for me to think the company *should* pay, seeing as I certainly wouldn’t have taken the flight if it weren’t for their insistence that they do so. And if a proper carbon tax system was in place, then obviously the company would have paid that tax. It would then have been indirectly passed on to me by way of a slightly lower salary, but the costs would likely have been mostly borne by others who fly far more frequently than I and have somewhat higher disposable incomes.
Hey Wizofaus, what’s up man?? I waited for an hour, you know where. I’ll try again tomorrow, but the venue has change to Macquarie Place in the heart of the commercial district. Up market see, makes it look more legit. You’ll know me straight away, I’ll be wearing the same green tee shirt and I’ll be the only one there with a smile!!
Carbon Bill.
No. 21 GregM
Matthew 7:15 applies to the conmen. The poor deluded here will be tested as per Proverbs 9:8, for they are as Eph.4:14
MarkL
Canberra