If you’ve read a newspaper recently you may have seen a full page anti- carbon ‘tax’ ad from the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance. They claim that the Australian scheme will raise $71 billion from 2012 to 2018 whereas the EU scheme raised only $4.9 billion. In a small article inside the back page of the Weekend Australian Financial Review Geoff Winestock explained that during that time only 7% of permits were auctioned, the rest were given away free. Furthermore, only 25% of emissions were covered. From 2013 half the permits would be auctioned for real money and coverage would increase to 55%.
Also as Peter Martin explained (courtesy Kim’s post last week) they added in the free permits for Australia, but left them out for the EU.
According to Winestock, a fairer comparison would be the 2012-2018 period, where $130 billion would be raised. We will certainly pay more per capita, but then we also pollute more.
I think we can conclude, however, that the Australian Trade and Industry Alliance campaign is blatantly and knowingly dishonest.
The Australian Food and Grocery Council has been running a campaign, amplified by Abbott, that the cost of groceries will go up across the board. Treasury modelling, according to Greg Combet and The Climate Institute says the cost will be 80 cents per week.
The Grattan Institute has done some work on this. You can check some of their findings courtesy of the ABC.
Then there was Tony Abbott’s campaign that pharmacies may reduce opening hours because electricity charges would go up by $2000 each year. Their prices are fixed, he says.
I go to a discount pharmacy, nestled between three supermarkets. Last week I picked up a pack of batteries for about 30% less than I could buy them in Coles and Woolies. The turnover of the shop must be huge. I’d estimate that the shop always has 5-6 staff on deck and plenty of customers. I’m sure that the electricity price increase is a thin slither on the margin.
Then there is Abbott’s claim that the coal industry is finished. This seems to be on the basis that by 2050 only a minor portion of our electricity will be produced by burning coal. To complain about that is to deny the need for significant emissions cuts at all, or to be wildly optimistic about CCS. What Abbott is doing, I think, is hoping that we’ll forget that 80% of our coal is exported. Here, according to Combet the net cost will be an average of $1.90 per tonne, when the coal price is $200-300 per tonne.
By contrast in the UK we have a conservative leader who is fully on board with climate mitigation and was generous in his praise for what the Gillard government is doing. Cameron sees climate change as one of the “most pressing threats to [a nation's] prosperity and security” and the need to put the economy “on a more sustainable, low-carbon footing.”
Business and industry in the UK seems to be on board. That may be in large part due to the efforts of Sir Richard Lambert who was Director-General of the Confederation of British Industry from 2006 to 2011. Climate Spectator details what he did:
Sir Richard Lambert, the former head of the Confederation of Business Industry and now a leading academic, has a clear explanation why industry in the UK is virtually unanimous in support of a carbon price and efforts to reduce the impact of climate change: it’s a simple case of managing risk.
Not that it was always recognised as such. When Lambert joined the CBI in 2006, the group was being torn asunder by differing views on climate change and several large companies were threatening to resign because they thought the CBI executive was not up to speed on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Lambert established a “task-force” that comprised the representatives of 17 companies from all sectors – steel, chemicals, coal, gas, oil, retailing, banking and small business, among others – that took 10 months before reaching a conclusion that the world was changing and it was clear that regulation for a significant reduction in greenhouse gases was inevitable.
“In the final report, the chair of the group said: ‘We’re not evangelists, and we are not scientists, but we are paid to understand and manage risk.’” Lambert tells Climate Spectator in an interview. “And they said we think it is a significant risk and we need to mitigate it. We are also paid to understand opportunities and we think a shift to low-carbon economy will create opportunities.” And the most efficient way of reducing emissions, the taskforce found, was establishing a price on carbon. And the most efficient way to do that was cap and trade. (Emphasis added)
Here, by contrast we have a fair swag of climate change deniers in industry. In the Leader of the Opposition, the evidence supports Greg Combet’s claim that we have “an unprincipled opportunist”.
Why not use freedom of speech to lie…er…put forward an alternate viewpoint?
It’s working in politics. Look at Peter Garrett. Forever marginalised and blamed for industrial deaths. Look at Kevin Rudd, widely discredited as a self promoting bully, the very absence of this on display used as evidence. Look at the Carbon Tax. So successful is that phrase even the ALP use it now. It’s all about the narrative.
While Abbott might not have the light touch of Howard you have to give him and his supporters credit. The times will bloody suit them even if they have to bend reality to do it.
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the comparison is between the first four years of the European system and the proposed first four years of the Australia system.
Is it not reasonable to make comparisons of the start up periods?
There is nothing positive about the Carbon tax, unless you think that being positive that Labor & the Greens will long reside in the wilderness is a positive for the country. The argument for this pernicious Tax has been well and truly lost and the sooner that advocates from the left accept that and look to other ways of working towards a better future the sooner that the general population will find some respect for any ideology from the left.
As it stands pieces like this one are just flogging a very dead horse which will not get up no matter how hard you beat it.
OBR @ 2, as far as I can see the EU system has been on trainer wheels and will be until it changes in 2013. It is in no way comparable, for the reasons given.
@4 – Brian – I can’t see anything wrong with pointing out to people that in the first four years of operation the EU system collected X amount and in the first four years the Australian system will collect Y amount.
People can then ask themselves why is this so and is this reasonable.
One brief correction: that was Kim’s post, not mine!
On the substantive issue, all the nonsense goes away when the tax goes into operation and the sun keeps coming up in the morning.
OBR – as has been pointed out by Garnaut and many others, the later you start mitigation, the dearer it gets. If we wait until PM Abbott climbs reluctantly on the bandwagon, it’ll be dearer again. Kind of like the unit price of the Sybilline books.
Risk is a good word here, because it sums up the problems with a lot of industries as they stand today. I don’t think our industries are climate change denialists any more then I think Tony Abbott is (Abbott’s position is not so much about risk as winning a popularity contest, but that’s another story).
Literally this whole problem boils down to the inability for Australia’s top 200 companies to plan for and deal with risks. They see sales going to overseas online outfits and cry foul on the GST limit, when really there aging business models are zapping their ability to compete. Publishers bemoan the effects of parallel importing, but can’t see how their entire business model is under threat from larger forces. Miners howl down a fairly modest mining tax because it curbs their profits, but ignore how their business model improves through increased government infrastructure spending and consistent taxation regimes.
Fortunately change will trample all over the business dinosaurs sooner or later and slowly things will improve, but I wonder how much money we will throw at them before they shuffle off.
Brian,
With scare stories, if the scary stuff doesn’t eventuate, the scaremonger loses credibility.
I think it has been a wise move from Labor to move the debate from the science (which Labor could never win) to the economics (where Labor can be confident in its projections, at least in the first year, prior to the next election).
As with the GST, the underlying need for reform is complex and, in any case, fairly irrelevant to most voters, whose most pressing concerns centre on the hip pocket.
Robert @6
You are kidding yourself Robert, the voters hate this Tax idea enough that they won’t forget it and we have an opposition who appreciate that fact so they are going to really keen to keep reminding them about its vices, further no one believes that the money churn and the extra government encroachment into their lives is just a waste of time and effort because it won’t actaully “do” anything to change the climate or mitigate global emissions. All we need to hear is a few stories about how the spivs and shysters will make a motza trading “carbon credits” and this Tax will be even less popular than it is now.
@7 – I just don’t accept this later start costing more mantra – as technolgy improves it becomes cheaper. I have never been a “first mover” in taking up mobile phones, computer technology or TV technology and have always profitted from being able to buy superior technology at vastly cheaper prices than if I’d been a “first mover”. (Missed the windows Vista bullet and am a very happy Windows 7 user).
The “first mover” mantra is also based on the assumption of global action occurring – action that is globally environmentally, economically and politically effective. Tht assumption is proving to be fatally flawed. The spin that China is doing something about reducing their emissions is beleid by the reality of the gross increase in their emissions. The USA isn’t doing anything efective and won’t for at least a decade.
The science of climate change and the reality of global emissions clearly tell us that anything but adaption is a waste of resources.
OBR commented:
Because while there is a superficial salience, it is misleading. The European scheme was conceived as not much more than a “dry run” for the ETS and the buy in was deliberately kept very low. Had we started in 2002, the comparison would have been fairer. A better comparison would be what it is costing between 2012 and 2020.
Also, the value of free permits is accounted in our system but not in theirs, so again, we are not comparing like with like.
@9 – if it is hitting you in the hip pocket then you would expect value for money.
Value for money in this case means actually environmental impact which in this case is as good as nil.
OBR said:
The analogy fails here because this is not about the cost of low emissions technology — undoubtedly this will become cheaper per unit over time — but about the scale of tjhe mitigation challenge. A better comparison, if we must do banal analogies is what happens to a side playing in a 50-over game that plays conservatively early — scoring at 60 runs per hundred balls chasing 300 for the first 35 overs. In the last 15 they have to score more than 174 runs at nearly 2 runs per delivery to win, even thought at the strat of the innings they only had to score at a run per delivery.
Putting off mitigation until later means that if the world is to address dangerous climate change we have to step up the pace more. We also know that the lead times to the full commercialisation and roll out of technology are long, and fast-tracking will be more costly. Moreover, first movers are likely to take a dim view of those who free ride, and may seek (and get) trade protection against free riders.
Had Australia begun acting in and orderly and systematic way in the early 1980s, at least in areas like sustainable city design, agriculture and water and waste management, then what we are doing now would be able to leverage that work and it would be costing us less. If we compound the mistake by delaying, kicking the problem down the road to use the current parlance, those who come next will not thank us.
I&U @ 9, unfortunately the price of electricity will go up for reasons other than the carbon price and the same unprincipled shysters will be out there misattributing the rise.
If Iain @ 10 is right, and he may be, it doesn’t say much about the possibility of informed decision-making in a democracy.
OBR said
China (which per capita emits a bit less than 1/5th what we do, of which much is the result of production of goods for foreign markets, like Australia) is acting to reduce its emissions intensity. Had it adopted business-as-usual its emissions would be a lot higher. Instead, it is rolling out cap and trade schemes at province level, and these and other investments in low emissions technologies are curbing its emissions growth. Moreover, the technologies it develops can be marketed beyond its shores, so this too may assist other states to follow their lead.
Calling that spin while apologising for the want of action here is breathtakingly self-serving.
That’s because you’re looking at it from a consumer point of view. If we want to have a successul economy in the low carbon future we need to be a producer of low emissions technology. This goes especially for us as our economy is currently based on high emissions. In the long term it’s a risk to bank on our coal continuing to be in strong demand, hence we should at least hedge against that risk by structuring our economy in a way that can both take advantage of coal exports in the short term and be in a position to supply low emissions technology in the long term if the global economy shifts in that direction.
If the global economy doesn’t shift away from carbon, our coal will still be in the ground and we’ll still have the technology to dig it up. So we’ll be in a reasonable position to reverse things if it turns out the climate science was wrong (or the global politics fails).
@15 – just because people interpret information differently to you doesn’t mean that they aren’t making an informed decision.
Actually Brian If I’m right, and I’m pretty sure that I am, you could do worse than heed what OBR is saying @11
Because if we spend huge amounts of treasure and effort on something that is bound to fail then we will have less resources to do the adaptation that AGW theory says will be necessary.
Brian said:
That would be true if one accepted that Australia actually had democracy in practice as opposed to in theory. We have a fairly liberal society by most standards, separation of the various branches of governance, and regular elections in which there is an absence of systemic corruption or fraud. These are not trifles, but if by democracy, on has in mind the political equivalent of “informed consent” in sexual matters, it is easy to see why the population is being screwed by the powerful and privileged. The bulk of the population is in a poor position to give informed consent, because the existing structures largely preclude that in practice. Cognitively, much of the population is as well equipped to assess risk, reward and unintended consequence as are your average child in the first year of high school is to decide on drinking or smoking or sexual matters in the face of an authority figure appealing to their impulses.
Right now, we have a large section of the political and business class inviting the populace to shrink back in horror from the changed arrangements, and to imagine that Australia could forget the whole busienss of climate change and live in the Australian version of Pleasantville under LNP rule. It’s not surprising that this has messed with their judgement. Nevertheless, I am quietly confident that given time, people will realise that the Libs and the Murdochracy have simply been reckless with the truth, and thank their lucky stars that adults were in charge after all.
Of course, that doesn’t change the more basic problem — which is that what we need here, as elsewhere, is a system in which the public can become better equipped to make rational evaluations of the strengths and flaws in public policy proposals and have these inferences frame policy. A part of that undoubtedly entails a change in media policy.
Fran why on earth do you trot out the fallacious Per-capita measure for CO2 emissions?
According to the AGW theory what matters is the total amount of Co2 in the atmosphere the number of people does not matter at all, the only reason to make such a citation is to tickle the guilt chips of people like us who are , in global terms, very small players in a large drama and to downplay the significance of inaction of the bigger players like China.
Really its rather like an ostrich burying its head in the sand and it undermines any argument that you make on the topic and is itself a rather dishonest rhetorical device.
That’s because you don’t believe that global warming will have any real costs. That belief is not rational, however.
Some blinkers on there, I think.
“China (which per capita emits a bit less than 1/5th what we do…)”
China’s population is 1.3 billion, Fran. Ours is around 22.6 million. It’s a fact not lost on the Australian electorate whenever the per capita stats are trotted out. Anyone who has experienced the air quality in a city like Beijing or Shanghai will know that it’s a carbon emissions world away from Australia in more ways than one.
I’m sure that China is taking steps to curb emissions and invest in renewables but given their track record, I’d put be deeply sceptical about the rigour of any commitments/statistics they might produce in support of that.
What we do know is that China will – hardly surprisingly – put China’s economic and security interests first.
My fear that any job loss in any industry, and any price rise for any goods or service will be slated home to the carbon price, even though it shouldn’t be.
The carbon tax killed Kenny!
I think the situation is quite different for those smaller pharmacies who open late. They have fewer employees (often just the pharmacist and one other person) and in my experience a much lower number of customers. So it may be an issue for those sorts of pharmacies, and having some pharmacies which are open late is quite important.
Of course the problem is fairly easily fixed if the government is willing to break the pharmacy guild control and allow supermarkets who open late anyway to employ pharmacists.
Fine @ 24 – that’s going to happen a lot. In the public eye the carbon tax is going to get the blame for all future electricity price increases. But that’s sort of the price of the way the government decided to price emissions on production rather than consumption. If it was a GST like tax where there was a specific line item on the customer’s bill I think it would end up being a lot less controversial.
Brian @15,
Fair enough, but your post doesn’t mention electricity from a consumer point of view. The scare stories are about groceries, pharmacies etc. The carbon tax will have no noticeable impact in these areas. I suppose if there were (say) mass illness amongst pharmacy staff in 2012 and pharmacies started closing early as a result, Abbott might get to say “I told ya so”.
Geoff Honnor said:
It’s less a “fact” than a figleaf — an aid to cognitive dissonance similar to the kiddy who bucks against the rules in class because someone else is also offending.
The salient facts are simple. On average, if the world’s people rather than Potemkin Village Australia are to do right by themselves, then on average, we can afford a budget of about 2tCO2e net per person, and perhaps a little less than that if we go to 9bn by 2050. Right now, China is more than double that and Australia about 13 times that. Australia is clearly in no position to demand that China do what we will not, particularly as that budget is the result of Australia, amongst other states, demanding cheap Chinese consumables, and the budget itself is the consequence of inventories of CO2e put there disproportionately by our ancestors, in their race to enrich themselves. If we are entitled to emit 26 tCO2e per capita then clearly, so is everyone else, unless we are saying that we ought to have special privileges. Should we have the right to demand of the Chinese or the Indians that their emissions be held well below 2tCO2e and that some of it be set aside to give us cheap goods so that our lifestyle preferences can endure? That simply can’t be right, ethically and it’s not practicable either.
If the right to emit CO2e is so important, and all humans are equal and CO2e knows no sovereign boundaries, then it follows that each of us must live within the same budget. That applies with especial force to those who are the beneficiaries of nearly a century of emitting more than that fair share, and further, who ignorantly (but self-interestedly) advised others to follow our development model. Would it make a scrap of difference if China were divided into 65 different jurisdictions all about the size of Australia and all of them emitting less than 1/5th of what we were? Of course not, but it simply shows how fatuous, ignorant and self-serving such apologia are.
We are richer because we have benefitted from massive hydrocarbon combustion, and are still doing so. That is why we are the world’s 15th largest emitter overall, and why a disproportionate share of the problem lies at our feet.. We are a seriously recalcitrant tortfeasor. We are ethically bound to make amends and to do so early. Even now, we have done precious little, not merely on this issue but on world inequality, or which we are also a beneficiary.
That’s what the Australian public needs to keep at the front of its collective mind.
Iain @ 19:
We’re not spending huge amounts of treasure as much as taking said treasure from those who have contributed to the problem in the first place. I agree that perhaps we are too late to do anything but adapt, but where will the money for adaptation (fairly) come from if not from a carbon tax?
It’s pedantic I know but I wish people would avoid using ‘fulsome’, especially when talking about praise.
We’re not spending huge amounts of treasure as much as taking said treasure from those who have contributed to the problem in the first place.
Everyone who uses electrical power?
Yes, it’s noisome.
“Because if we spend huge amounts of treasure and effort on something that is bound to fail then we will have less resources to do the adaptation that AGW theory says will be necessary”
If we accept that global warming is an issue that we have to address, does it not make sense to turn to the best minds in the fields of science, engineering and economics to devise plans on solutions. If I am not mistaken, ETS with cap & trade to fund the move to cleaner energy sources is what is recommended by these groups.
The politics or top layer of this model is what is causing the problems. Abbott and co along with the Murdoch press see greater value in conflating controversy and a sense of crisis rather than debating facts.
That the taunt remains of not a single reputable economist backing Abbott’s Direct Action plan is damming in itself. I am sure the liberal party would be scouring the country to find an economist to endorse the plan but must still have a bare sheet.
Still as far as the MSM is concerned that is trivial as there is more value in running disaster about to befall us headlines day after day.
@Adrien: Sure – and if you used more of it, you should pay more. You had the benefit of it, now it’s time to pay for the adaptation required. That’s fair.
Adrien,
Yes – you were quite happy to buy electricity from sources that produce CO2, now you get to pay for the damage to the commons that resulted.
Huge amounts of treasure? Huh?
Look at the numbers (from the ATIA in the OP): $71bn over 6 years. GDP is about $1200bn/year, so this represents 1% of GDP.
So, for an average earner on $50,000/year, that is about $10/week.
And that is the gross amount of the tax. The deadweight loss to the economy will be a fraction of that. (For those who claim the ETS will do nothing to reduce Australian emissions, there is no deadweight loss, since everbody just continues doing what they were doing before).
@36 – yes, we are used to the ALP and it’s supporters not being overly concerned with billions in waste as demonstrated by the BER.
The BER was actually a great idea. It’s a great shame that the actual failings– the inability of the trades industry to deal with the policy has not caused as much concern as the apparent responsibility of the government to plan the policy. Why is it not possible in the 21st century for an apparently modern developed nation like Australia to organise in a practical and efficient manner to improve the insulation standards of housing? It shows, in fact, that our trades and trades-education system is a disaster. It was actually in the interests of these companies to do the job well, perhaps even more schemes of this nature, which actually improve directly the quality of housing in the country, would have been given the green light in the future. Instead it was poorly organised by the companies and it ended up being about the lack of regulation of the national government. Oh the irony, that the party of neo-liberalness, small government and individual responsibility should attack the government of the day on this issue!
PS. There’s a link to a Joe Hockey interview (from John Laws) elsewhere on this blog– read it! It’s today’s must read.
It’s a concentrated version of the state of politics in the Liberal party.
Now imagine that you go home and say the sought of things that Hockey has said to your partner: “We can’t afford to buy new ‘appliance x’, because I have a friend, who’s a great bloke who knows someone who said that his mate who works at the ANZ…” I mean, it is a joke. Hockey is a joke. He’s not even funny any more.
What is the media doing if it can’t at least demand a minimal level of seriousness from the shadow government?!!
Here’s the link, courtesy of JohnD on the thread about Murdoch:
They can’t do anything right
By Peter Hartcher, no less.
We are going to wheel-out in the future?! Yeah, right…
@38 – Joe – is that comedy? Mixing up the Pink Batts fiasco with the Building the Education Rorts?
Correct OBR, I was in deed referring to the insulation scheme. And no, it’s not comedy, I’ll leave that to Hockey, even though he’s not funny any more.
[citation needed]
@37, maybe you should check the facts on BER before regurgitating Murdochracy lies, gossip and innuendo.
RISK is a great word here: Conservatives are suppossed to be what again?
Tony ‘Gutless’ Abbott is just blowing the whistle and we all know it!! The game is up as elections need policy!!!
Why should Occam argue otherwise? At least it’s not as crude as some of the debates on the street I’ve seen.
I saw a leftie and a conservative at it the other day debating the carbon tax. And all the conservative did was let the leftie waste his breath for two or three minutes at a time before bellowing “no it’s a big new tax on carbon. Admit it!”
Over and over and over until everyone else at the table was sick of this guys bellowing and told the leftie just to concede or leave it so they could get some peace. He did.
And the conservative smiled and said, “see that wasn’t too hard. It’s a carbon tax. Glad you’ve finally seen sense.” And they got to eat in peace.
And that’s the whole debate in a microcosm and why Abbott’s bullying…er…I mean robust debate is doomed to succeed. Because everyone else on the sidelines realising that one side will not back down will turn to the more reasonable one to broker the peace and shut the f*** up.
Of course you can decide to debate on but people will judge you harsher than the blowhard because at least the blowhard is being authentic raising your voice is you know…ugly. (Double this if you’re a woman.)
You cannot argue against the same phrase over and over and over again.
“Should we have the right to demand of the Chinese or the Indians that their emissions be held well below 2tCO2e and that some of it be set aside to give us cheap goods so that our lifestyle preferences can endure? That simply can’t be right, ethically and it’s not practicable either.”
No I don’t think we have that ‘right’ but then, I wasn’t demanding it. I do know that righteous polemic won’t convince voters that their ‘lifestyle preferences” are “unethical” compared with the selfsame preferences of the Chinese and Indians. The realistic response is adaptation sufficient to ensure that all “lifestyle preferences” can – within reason and human ingenuity – be met.
Let’s hear it for fulsome:
ful·some
[fool-suhm, fuhl-] Show IPA
–adjective
1.
offensive to good taste, especially as being excessive; overdone or gross: fulsome praise that embarrassed her deeply; fulsome décor.
2.
disgusting; sickening; repulsive: a table heaped with fulsome mounds of greasy foods.
3.
excessively or insincerely lavish: fulsome admiration.
As most of you know I think that the carbon tax is a lousy way to drive climate action. However, a few facts might put Tony’s grea big lie about everything in context:
1. Our per capita emissions are about 26tonnes CO2/yr. Of this less than 20 tonnes/yr would be taxed. For a $23/tonne tax this works out at $8.82 per capita/week BEFORE ANY COMPENSATION IS PAID.
2. Our power consumption is about 10,000 kWh/yr. A $23/tonne tax will add about 2.3 cents/kWh to the price of power. This works out at $4.41 per capita/week BEFORE ANY COMPENSATION IS PAID.
3. An increase of $2000/yr would add 23 cents per hour to a 24/7 pharmacist’s operating costs BEFORE ANY COMPENSATION IS PAID. Pharmacists have to be numerate to get their qualifications so it is a bit hard to see this increase driving a reduction in opening hours.
Robert @ 6: You are being a raving optimist when you say:
You of all people should understand that every price that occurs between now and the election will be caused by the carbon tax?!!
Ah Iain Hall
I think I asked you a few months ago what your solution to AGW was, and you didn’t answer then. Perhaps you’d like to comment now?
Well I don’t have a problem with that. That’s what it is. That’s what it should be.
It is a tax designed to suppress the use of carbon derived energy in order to produce (principally) electricity so that alternative sources of energy production will become more competitive and the use of carbon based energy production will be reduced.
It is a necessary tax if we want to abate carbon dioxide production and live in a decent climate.
We should remind blowhards, whoever they are, of this again and again.
The other way to explore the disingenuous silliness uttered by the right in general and Geoff Honnor in particualr above is to ask how any actual or potential future plan to abate CO2e here might compare with the consequences for Australia of the Chinese and other states higher than us on jurisdictional emissions doing what the coalition is asking.
Let’s say, just to be whimsical, the Chinese decided to do whatever was needed to cut their per capita emissions by 93% tomorrow in an insane attempt to persuadee Australia and the US, who see the Chinese as worse offenders, to act.
Given that much of their emissions are a consequence of them meeting the western demand for consumer goods, the state of the consumer goods market would be rather dire. Let’s say they massively cancelled orders for coal and iron ore, since they wouldn’t be needing so much of that, seeing at they would now only be emitting about 0.7tCO2e each. AT the same time, countries like Japan and South Korea and India, heeding the clarion call from Alan Jones and Tony Abbott, do likewise, cutting their jurisdictional emissions to that of Australia. The Chinese, in order to buy what they need start flogging off their US t-notes.
Would that be a good thing or a bad thing for Australia? Worse or better than Australia cutting its emissions so as to pretend to be a good international citizen? Perhaps, since Australia for some reason, is being given a pass, people in countries cutting emissions might like to move here?
Let’s see someone invite Abbott and those running this tosh to try arguing that one.
Robert @ 6, I’ve corrected the post to attribute the earlier one to Kim. Thanks.
paul of albury @ 30, my dictionary says that the original meaning of fulsome was ‘copious’, but that is now considered incorrect and it is only used in a pejorative sense.
I don’t think I’ve used the word for decades, but somehow or other I was stuck with the earlier meaning. I’ve changed it to generous in the post.
Chris @ 25, all the small pharmacies around here have disappeared and been replaced by discount pharmacies. My impression is that their hours are similar to those of the supermarkets.
Brian @ 53 – ah, where I am the discount pharmacies are open around 9am-6pm with shorter hours on weekends. Whilst some of the smaller pharmacies are open 9am-9pm 7 days a week. Being Adelaide it may be that the discount pharmacies with larger floor shop areas are simply not allowed to open for longer hours (I really miss 24 hour supermarket shopping!)
Calyptorhynchus @49
I don’t actaully recall where you claim to have asked me for a “solution” but I’m pretty sure that I would have told you that assuming that the theory is correct (which is a big ask if you are being realistic) them my solution is to simply to forget futile attempts to get meaningful global emission reductions and work out how to adapt to the changes in the climate as and when they happen.
This really is the only sensible course of action because I can not foresee any believable scenario where humanity can act in a manner that is both comprehensive enough or enduring long enough to be effective.
I also find myself wincing when this usage of fulsome arises Brian, but it’s so commonly used this way these days I’m inclined to see it as contemporary usage.
It’s also worth noting that the word nice was not always a very ‘nice’ word and for reasons that remind us of fulsome‘s ostensible evolution.
FTR, IMO, the nearest synonym for fulsome as it is currently used, and that would have fit your context above, would probably have been extravagant.
From the thesaurus on my computer:
JohnD 48/2
John I think that you are using household electricity consumption in point 2 to derive a “per capita” figure dollar value for CO2 emissions.
Iain Hall
“my solution is to simply to forget futile attempts to get meaningful global emission reductions and work out how to adapt to the changes in the climate as and when they happen.”
Well, as we already have global warming, what are you complaining about. In what way is the Carbon Tax/emissions trading not a way of adapting?
Or is it really that you solution is actually just to carry as we are and hope everything will turn out right… cut to a shot of Iain’s children and grandchildren dying of starvation saying “why did we do something?”
didn’t we do something
Thanks Brian, i don’t think you were first to use fulsome here, I’m sure i saw it used in the media earlier (but haven’t been able to google it). I tend to agree with Fran about the original meaning now being common again but unfortunately the ambiguity with the pejorative meanings (which seem to have been dominant for the last 400 years) provides subtle reinforcement to Tony Abbott’s preferred interpretation. Unfortunately every time someone naively uses ‘fulsome’ in a positive sense there’s a snide interpretation waiting to be picked up.
Thanks, Fran @ 57 and Jess @ 58.
paul, yes, I think the ambiguity is the problem. The meaning seems to be migrating back to the earlier version. My dictionary, the 1998 Australian Oxford gives the meaning as “disgusting by excess of flattery, servility, or expressions of affection; excessive, cloying”, which wasn’t what I meant, of course.
And Fran, just checked out ‘nice’ at oed.com. It’s scary – it seems to be an adjective that can mean almost anything you want it to – maybe because it’s a four letter word? We seem to have a number of them with multiple often contradictory meanings. (sorry for the off topic)
On the cost of mitigation, have a look at the Treasury modelling. The graph on the left seems a very small price to pay for the effect on the right.
Especially since the blue line on the left is likely to be a fiction if the world sticks to BAU, which must be our assumption if we do nothing.
This is not realistic, it is stupid. We can try to ignore climate change (and ocean acidification) and adapt, and when the adaption costs become so horrendous we will still have to reduce CO2 output. At this stage it will be much more difficult to do so AND we will have the costs of adaption, as we have already committed to a larger rise in global average temperatures.
Adaption is not an option. Seriously, it just isn’t.
I don’t get the opposition to modest carbon pricing from intelligent thinking people like Geoff. I’d like to know, as clearly these are the people we need to convince. Iain is intractable.
The claim that we should “adapt” rather than mitigate (repeated on RN breakfast by Lord nelson (sorry Lord lawson — I’m riffing on Fran Kelly’s Freudian slip) is specious nonsense.
Firstly, adaptation (more precisely, reactive adaptation) is something that every half-way society does all the time in response to the quality of ecosystem services. One doesn’t need to dignify such policy with a name. Those who do tend to be trying to pretend that doing nothing in particular amounts to a policy alternative. There can be no doubt that almost every jurisdiction will be reactively adapting to the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, and at very considerable cost. The question is not whether we should try to prevent imminent harms to human usage arising from pernicious variance in ecosystem services to humans, but whether, in addition to reactively adapting, modifying our infrastructure and public policy settings at the time we ought to take action to foreclose such pernicious variance.
The assumption of the business-as-usual crowd is that reactive adaptation will prove cheaper, but of course, this relies on their view that anthropogenic climate change will prove to be “a little problem” (Lawson this morning on RN Breakfast). They have produced no models at all to sustain this view, much less specify the components of this little problem, or the timelines on which these costs will settle, or the flow on consequences of these for subsequent humans. Sometimes they muddy the waters by citing imprecisely specified “benefits of global warming” without saying where these will occur or any studies which could be germane and invite people to imagine the world as one big balance sheet in which the ruion of half a dozen countries could offset pockets of wealth in others. Most perversely though, it is clear that they have no business running such a line. How can someone who claims that long range IPCC models of damage or long range cost modelling of that for economies are insufficiently reliable to make investment decisions now, assert that handwaving “Global Warming might have an upside” ought to be relied upon to do nothing? It’s flat out paradoxical, and if our media was remotely robust intellectually, they’d not be permitted to utter such tosh.
One only has to take a look in the direction of QLD last summer and the debate over insuring public infrastructure and management, the management of Wyvenhoe, the effect on the Queensland economy to see what the costs begin to look like. There’s no good cheap reactive adaptation to be had. The costs are accounted in human suffering and loss. (How much of this is attributable to anthropgenic climate change is neither here nor there, because it’s the consequential human impacts that concern us. We only need to agree that at some time in the future, it is likely that an event on this quality and scale caused by anthropogneic climate change could occur).
If, by century’s end, sea levels have only risen by about 1.2m then it is clear that the utility of large tracts of coastal land and the ports that service these, will be substantially diminished. “Adaptation” to this won’t be feasible unless we start far enough in advance to be ready for it. That entails sacrificing the sunk cost we have in the infrastructure developed that took no account of rising sea levels, before sea levels actually rise. That’s not going to be not even a little bit cheap because large swathes of humanity live and work within 80km of coastlines, and those who don’t depend on those who do. Human displacement is neither pretty nor cheap either.
What the proponents of “adapt don’t mitigate” are really inviting us to do is to recklessly ignore the legacy we leave for future generations, and to do this without a skerrick of the scepticism which in realtion to mainstream science, they claim is essential. We hear a great deal from that side of politics about racking up debt for future generations to bear when discussing fiscal policy, but they are tellingly silent about this kind of inter-generational debt. Let nobody doubt that this policy really does entail, as Tim Flannery, in a moment of eloquence put it, Eating the Future.
Fran
Really your bird only flies if you are assuming that mitigation can actaully work and achieve its desired outcome, if for various political reasons it can’t possibly work (as I believe) then pious but futile efforts are entirely pointless and nothing but wasted effort and wasted money.
Well if they are going to do it anyway why should their ability to do so be compromised by the dead weight of mitigation strategies that are little more than lip service or window dressing when the funds could better serve humanity in more practical ways?
No the REAL question is “CAN we do anything substantive about climate change?” and if the answer is “No or not really” then we should look at other options
Hasn’t the one thing that we have learnt from the last couple of decades of this argument been that having models to predict the future climate or even any aspect of our economies is a rather fraught business that does only one thing well and that is to prove that when it comes to any kind of model that “crap in = crap out” ?
All models are essentially predicated upon guesswork and none more so than climate models Just about every pro AGW model that I have seen suggests the models are anywhere near accurate enough to show that a warmer climate will even eventuate or that it will be worse for humanity we just don’t know if that will be the case. Now as we are essentially powerless to change what will be , especially from an antipodean point of view isn’t wiser to look to how we can harness human ingenuity to make the best of what comes?
Look I live in rural Queensland and I know that there are certain risks inherent in living where I do just as there are risks when you live on a flood plain and all of the damage and dislocation in Queensland because of the flooding is down to the simple fact that many people forgot the simple consequences of living where they do. Frankly if you live on a flood plain that floods every forty years or so, then you do one of three things, Move to higher ground ( as the government is trying to encourage Grantham residents to do), you live with periodic inundation or you put your house on stumps high enough to be above the flood height. The last thing you do is attribute blame to “climate change” when the place you have built has had major flooding events for thousands of years.
Shore lines change and sea levels rise or fall no matter what happens to the climate this issue will not go away but the change will be gradual and its not as if we are going to find that the sea will rise overnight. But you should be asking yourself the question of can mitigation stop this rise even in your best case scenario? I think that you will find that the likes of Tim Flannery thinks not (yet he owns a waterside home on the Hawksbury ) so really aren’t you once again suggesting a pointless and ineffective solution to the problem?
Anyway as it is the wealthy who have monopolised the beach-front real estate why are you concerned about their loses should the most dire predictions be right?
The rightness of the scientific argument just does not matter If there is no way to make the claimed cure happen now is it?
Tim Flannery is an utter joke when it comes to this debate he is so inclined to hyperbole and exaggeration that nothing he says should be taken as significant but I will say that if you are worried about the future for our children then the best thing that any of us can do is to help make them into versatile and creative thinkers who will be able to contribute towards real solutions to the real problems that they will face into the future rather than working towards solutions to the problems derived from the vague shadows of an imagined future.
Iain, you should read Curt Stager’s Deep Future. What we do in the next 10 years will have a significant impact on the kind of planet our species will have as a home for 100,000 years and more.
Or at least you could listen to his interview with Richard Fidler.
Just about every pro AGW model that I have seen suggests the models are anywhere near accurate enough to show that a warmer climate will even eventuate or that it will be worse for humanity we just don’t know if that will be the case.
With the qualifier that you haven’t actually looked at or understood any of the 30 or so major GCMs going around.
Brian @ 65 – Those sorts of graphs are a bit misleading because they only show australian emissions. As much as we do we’re still screwed if too many other countries fail to act. I’m a lot more pessimistic about whether Australia has as much influence on how the rest of the world as people are claiming. Australia may be used as an excuse if we don’t act, but will countries just find another convenient excuse not to act if we actually do something?
At what point do we decide that the world is not going to react sufficiently to reduce emissions and our money would be better spent proactively researching what we can do to adapt?
Wilful
have you ever done any model making?
Do you understand the limitations of making models of any description?
I think that you haven’t or you would not be taking the line that you take now. Models of complex systems are always an over simplification and the way that they are simplified matters a great deal when they are used as predictive tools to try to look at the future climate.
Chris asked:
At the point where we give up on humanity entirely, decide it’s everyone for himself and decide to look and think selectively so as to avoid angst.
The Australian Coat of Arms is also adapted to this new policy stance:
Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die …
Personally, I’d regard a change in the name of the country as in order in such circumstances. We could become The Republic of F*** You!.
Chris @ 71, the big problem with adaption is that it will involve the following steps:
1. Learn to make do with almost none of the environmental services we take for granted now; and
2. Reduce human population by about 70%.
I don’t think we’ll have much choice about step 2, btw.
Fran @ 72 – if it gets to that point there will necessarily be a large amount of selfishness required.
DI @ 73 – the more a country prepares for this situation the better of it will be in the long term though – and I think it will end up largely end up being split on country boundaries. I’d hope someone in government has done some research into it. Can even start quoting the precautionary principle if you’d like – it works for both mitigation and adaptation.
Versatile and creative thinkers who can understand and model the climate system, it’s forcings, feedbacks, dynamics and long term history?
That you cannot see the breadth, diversity and genius inherent in the amazing work by researchers in climate and related disciplines is frankly remarkable.
Would this accurately summarise your past and current stance on global warming as (in chronological order):
1. It isn’t happening
2. It might be happening, but it isn’t caused by human beings
3. Look, it’s stopped happening, and even it was, it wasn’t caused by human beings
4. Ok, it seems to be happening again. Maybe it is caused by human beings, but your models are terrible, despite being correct enough that my 3 previous positions have been rendered untenable, I don’t believe them.
5. No-one listens to me if I say what I believe about global warming so I’ll pretend that it is happening, but I really don’t believe it, and anyway we shouldn’t bother to stop it because numpty’s like me keep on blocking effective action so it is all hopeless.
If this is correct then I don’t really see the point of listening to what you have to say, as it is clearly a tendentious argument, designed to distract those who really want to understand the issues and what needs to be done to address them.
Was going to comment on Iain’s ‘the models are crap’ rehash but wilful beat me too it.
Iain: GCMs aren’t just fluff and nonsense and they do actually tell us useful things about the physics of the climate system, allowing us to make accurate predictions. If you don’t believe the models, then you don’t believe the science behind said models. It’s that simple.
Care to refute 100 years of fluid dynamics to justify your case for inaction?
I will say that if you are worried about the future for our children then the best thing that any of us can do is to help make them into versatile and creative thinkers who will be able to contribute towards real solutions to the real problems that they will face into the future
Indeed, in that vein I’m making sure mine know about farming and self-sufficiency, have a barterable skill and know how to handle firearms.
Aiden
I used to make scale models with great precision and dedication and no matter how realistic they were there were elements that were either out of scale or just plain glossed over. The fact is that no mater how fantastic or wonderful a model is it can never be expected to behave in precisely the same way that the subject that is being simulated behaves . It just can’t be done. at best you can produce a broad brush sketch and even that has to be qualified with many caveats
1> No never said that at all
2>Hmm my position is that I don’t think that the evidence is in either way, its a known unknown
3>never argued that, the oner thing that we can be sure of is that the climate ALWAYS changes man’s part in those changes is another known unknown
4>Nah that straw man has no legs
5>No that is not me either, I make no secret about my feeling that the AGW theory is probably wrong but none the less I do think that even if it right that all of you followers of the Green faith are being rather silly about the way that you focus your energies on a “cure ” that will never reach critical mass (in political terms) so it is utterly pointless so don’t blame me for the backwards progress of your belief, blame teh leaders of your faith who have made such silly claims over the last few years and the carpet baggers who stand to make very big money from the dodgy abatement schemes its them who have let you down not the practical people like me.
Jess
The question about all models is just how accurate can they be? Now I don’t dispute that they may well tell us useful things about the climate but their usefulness is entirely dependant upon the assumptions that have been built into them, If one parameter is wrongly measured or assumed it can make the entire output of the model utterly worthless.
Wilful
I’m not expecting that a total breakdown of society is going to happen but there is great merit in being able to build and maintain the technology that we use and that is something that I am teaching my children.
,
As the old saying goes Iain, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
You can model driving through a busy intersection at 60kmh against the red light in the evening shoulder, and come up with dozens of possibilities, none of which will be precisely accurate, should you try it in in real life. Yet they will be accurate enough in the respects most of us think important.
Not quite. Most models can reasonably account for sub scale (i.e. unresolved) features and their effects on the scales of the model. You can reasonably expect that if you parameterise the sub-scale features well that your model will behave. It’s probably one of the most active areas of research in climate modelling at the moment. It’s quite different to building a ‘scale model’.
I agree that the models aren’t fantastic yet though – our observations show that things have been consistently far worse than what we have modelled!
“I used to make scale models with great precision and dedication and no matter how realistic they were there were elements that were either out of scale or just plain glossed over.”
Oh my goodness! You DO understand what a model is!
“If one parameter is wrongly measured or assumed it can make the entire output of the model utterly worthless”
Well yes, of course it can. That’s one of the things that modellers are constantly on the lookout for, because it’s SO FUCKING OBVIOUSLY IMPORTANT.
Iain, were you under the impression that;
1) climate scientists have a novel basis for their statistics?
2) climate scientists have a novel system of logic?
If either, I need more explanation.
If neither, what sense is to be made of your remarks?
Iain said:
I am genuinely mystified why you would participate in this thread. You are arguing about the effectiveness of a carbon tax that is attempting to curb a problem you don’t even think is happening!
Excuse me, but WTF!?!
What you are engaging in is nothing but pointless rhetorical games. You aren’t even arguing from a position consistent with your own beliefs.
Let me help you. Your argument should be “there should be no carbon tax because anthropogenic global warming is unproven”. Don’t weasel around.
State your case man … and then .. well .. fuck off.
You have nothing useful to add. You are trolling, even if, and I’m being kind here, you don’t know it.
Aidan, that is language which is strictly outside our comments policy, but the frustration is understandable. We aren’t here to provide a space for tired old talking points which have been dealt with in the past. To do so yet again bores a lot of readers.
On Monday I was late going to a doctors appointment and was then out for the rest of the day when I perceived the thread going down a pointless track. A few useful points were being made, but I was worried about the effort/reward ratio. Where we’ve arrived at shows that I had good cause for concern.
Can I suggest that there is limited point in critiquing models unless you you have the requisite expertise. There are explanations at Skeptical Science, with additional reading listed at the end, and a very good one at RealClimate. Unless you can talk intelligently about what you have read there, I’m really not interested.
Also of interest is a recent paper by Hansen and Sato. In the first paragraph they outline how they see models in the broader context of information about climate.
Can I clarify that when I said:
I did mean everyone, but was specifically thinking of Iain.
Aiden
Read the words of mine that you quote above where I qualify my disbelief with the word “probably” which means that I have some serious doubts about the theory, not that I am entirely dismissing it. In any event what I am doing here is pointing out just how ineffective this strategy is even if the theory is 110% correct. wouldn’t that a reasonable thing to do even if I was certain that the AGW theory is beyond question? That I admit my doubts both here and elsewhere has absolutely no effect upon the strength of this argument that it is an utterly pointless tax, well at least in climate or environmental terms.
I thought that you and other climate change believers were really keen upon the idea that what is important is the science and sound reasoning?
Well can you explain how in the very best possible mitigation scenario, like the one modelled by treasury) it just won’t work to do what is claimed for it that we should expend so much effort for something so futile?
No my argument should be what ever I chose to make it, and perhaps you need to appreciate that there are actually may ways to skin a cat, The thing is I might well make the argument that you suggest but I am trying to be more subtle here and point out that even for those like yourself who obviously believes very deeply in the AGW theory there are very good reasons to think that the cure proposed by Gillard is all side effect and no efficacy bought at great expense.
Yes, I shouldn’t have used that phrase. Expunge the naughty phrase if you think it appropriate, and replace with “go away”.
Iain, I’ve got to fly and will say more later, but like many of my friends in the country you stop when you find information that suits you. You go to the Oz and Prof Blandy. If you’d followed his link to Climate Interactive you might have found this piece which praises Gillard and says the more we do early the better. That’s true even if it’s not enough.
I have some serous reservations about what Blandy said, which I’ll explain later.
Iain Hall, you do not argue in good faith. You do not really believe anthropogenic climate change is real. You are willing to use any convenient argument to cast doubt on the effectiveness of mitigation measures as you don’t believe there is anything to mitigate.
It is simply pointless engaging with you.
Aidan, I’ll say this. The mitigation v adaptation issue is an old chestnut as well. Obviously we need to do both. To neglect mitigation in favour of adaptation, you have to be a denier. You have to be absolutely certain that AGW is bunkum.
If you are merely a skeptic or undecided considerations of risk will demand that you support preventative action. It seems that the leaders of business and industry in the UK came to this very rational and sensible conclusion.
Not really. Your argument is completely undermined if (because?) the
theorymajor corpus of physics/chemistry/earth sciences is “110% correct”. If we follow your advice and do nothing but adapt, then we need to have money to do so. Where should these funds come from?Engaging Iain Hall on anything to do with climate is rather like trying to explain the wheel to fish. Pointless.
But at least the response from the fish would make more sense.
Why is everyone going to so much effort to argue with Iain’s invincible know-nothingism? The guy might as well change his surname to Dunning-Kruger.
Tim Macknay said:
That puts me in mind of something that, while having nothing to do with this thread, or Iain’s pleading, would be an interesting sidebar — the rise of the Know Nothing Party (later the American Party) in the US in the mid 19th century.
It would be a bit of a thread hijack here so I won’t comment further, but I’d been having a chat the other day at school with a colleague about US politics and the issue came up there. Particularly in the light of the events in Norway and the rise of the American Tea Party is does seem very germane.
To carry on the discussion in good faith for one last mile, the main thrust of Richard Blandy’s article linked by Iain seems to be that the Gillard plan relies excessively on purchasing overseas credits, which are unlikely to be available at any affordable price. His assumption is that the rest of the world is going to be slack.
The plan does indeed depend heavily on purchasing overseas credits as this graph shows. As far as I can see, Treasury is assuming that we will, by trading on the international market, synchronise our efforts with the rest of the world.
To me, it is obvious that we won’t be able to forecast how all this works out. The effort of the rest of the world was monitored by the UNEP Emissions Gap Report. The emissions gap was on the agenda at the last COP conference in Cancun last year and will be on the agenda in Durban later this year and every year thereafter. You can bet your house on it.
Here the Productivity Commission will be charged with monitoring our effort against the rest of the world and the Climate Change Authority will be charged with making recommendations on any changes to targets required, which will also determine how many permits to pollute will be issued.
In short, we start from where we are, have an institutional arrangement to monitor how we are going and work out the adjustments that need to be made. There is no argument there for doing nothing.
While we are here, I want to make one other comment on the Richard Blandy article, which I think is the usual effort from the Oz to cast a bit of shite from a seemingly authoritative source on anything the Gillard government does.
He cites 670 ppm of CO2e as producing a temperature rise of 2.7C and 1105 ppm as producing 4.1C.
2.7C as a midpoint is a lowish figure for a doubling of pre-industrial CO2 (280ppm). There is considerable discussion about the concept of climate sensitivity (temperature rise for a doubling of CO2) but the midpoint seems to be settling at about 3C with the risk mainly on the upside. Indeed there is at least a 5% chance (1 in 20) that it is above 6C.
That is the figure for short-term feedbacks. Hansen suggests that that long-term feedbacks bump the figure up to 6C. I’ve seen one paleoclimate study that suggested 4.5C.
The notion that 1105 ppm will produce only 4.1C seems ludicrously low and just doesn’t make sense even in relation to 2.7C for 670 ppm. But 4C is the figure that is usually associated with civilisation as we know it being in jeopardy.
Blandy’s figures as cited constitute a compelling case for action from a risk management POV.
There’s more on climate sensitivity at Skeptical Science
It is worth classifying the risks associated with AGW.
The first group of risks are those associated with what will occur even if atmospheric CO2 levels are stabilized. These include the ongoing melting of icefields, rising sea levels, release of GHG from warming permafrost and current levels of unstable weather. Risk management will need to be directed to adaptive strategiesto deal with these.
The second group of risks are those that arise if other countries do not take sufficient effort to stabilize atmospheric CO2. Risk management in this case will need to be directed at adaptive strategies. In addition, efforts to slow the rise of CO2 will be also be worthwhile since they give the world more time to either pick up its game and/or adapt.
The third group of risks are those that arise if we do less than other major world players. In this case there is a real risk that the bulk of the world will initiate sanctions or other forms of punishment against the high per capita polluters. Australia is particularly vulnerable to the risks associated with inaction. It is also at risk because much of our pollution will take time to fix. Our cheap coal fired power could become a major liability.