Tag Archive for 'Emissions trading scheme'

Rudd one year on

Published
by
Mark
1 week ago
in Government, Howardia, Policy and Politics
. 111 Comments

Well, having opened a thread that perhaps proves that Ute Man is still out there but not actually supporting Emo Man, it behoves me, I guess, to have a bit of a say about the tenure of the Rudd government to date. To some degree all these sorts of anniversaries are somewhat artificial, as you can easily see in the United States with the fetish of the “first hundred days”. Governments will eventually be judged by the electorate in due season, as Kevin Rudd would say, and as almost all politicians intone (particularly those who are dissatisfied with their contemporary popularity), in the end they will be judged by history - whose verdict is perhaps as mythical as the Judgement of Paris, but never mind that. However, as I was suggesting, if politics and public discussion is cruelled by the vagaries and obsessions of an ever shorter media cycle, a year really is a long time in government, and it is worth taking stock.

It can also be interesting to compare first term governments at this stage of the electoral cycle, and here the obvious contrast - despite all the media beatups - is the absence of major scandal and ministerial resignations compared to both the Hawke and Howard governments. That doesn’t, of course, imply that all the Labor ministers are fabulous, but it is worth observing.

One of the things that’s interested me in the discussion that had already began quite a while before we reached the actual milestone is that in both comments on this blog and in conversations with some friends I’ve seen the sentiment expressed that simply avoiding hearing a daily litany of horrors from the Howard crew is Rudd’s greatest achievement. It might, and no doubt will, be objected that - “lefties would say that, wouldn’t they?” But I think there are a couple of points here. First, there is no doubt that a government with a more humanitarian tinge and an appreciation of propriety and ethics is to be welcomed, and that sentiment - along with the promise keeping - will be a contributor to Labor’s continuing lead in the polls. Secondly, I think The Howard Years has been interestingly timed to stimulate some comparison and to reinforce the whole sense of relief that we don’t have that turgid mob to kick around any more.

But, again, one thing that wore out the Coalition’s welcome with the electorate was the constant “rabbits out of the hat” and the whole bag of divisive tricks, along with the internal ructions and the cockiness of ministers. I agree that the Liberals are still playing at the same game in many ways. John Howard was elected in 1996 as a safe pair of hands and the Libs were “the party of order”, if you like. By the end of their fourth term, they looked like the risky and unsafe proposition and Kevin Rudd’s calm demeanour undoubtedly contributed much to Labor’s victory. WorkChoices was also probably the biggest single mistake the Coalition made, and the related apprehension that worse would follow and more leadership instability also condemned the Howard government to defeat.

But what of policy, and that shibboleth beloved of the punditariat, “the narrative”? Continue reading ‘Rudd one year on’

Can politicians walk and chew gum at the same time?

Published
by
Mark
2 months ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, International, Media and Polls
. 5 Comments

The obvious retort to John McCain’s faux suspension of his campaign last week was that Presidents should be able to deal with more than one issue at the same time. That’s obviously true, but it’s also a truism which disguises something - politicians think that the public want their focus predominantly on the crucial issue of the moment (and the media reinforces this with its “narrative” obsession).

It might not have escaped folks’ attention that Kevin Rudd minimised his focus on climate change at the UN in favour of the plan he and Gordon Brown cooked up for saving the world’s finances. Rudd himself mentioned that it would be difficult to concentrate world leaders’ attention on climate change. This rhetoric also provided him with some convenient cover for disguising the switch in focus for the justification of his trip as it came under opposition attack. But it does raise the broader question of which way Kevin Rudd will jump on climate change and emissions trading - perhaps more in terms of the international negotiations (which however can’t be separated from the domestic politics, with the whole question of the significance and timing of Australia’s ETS being crucial to the “argy bargy”).

The Lowy Institute Poll being released today might pose some dangers ahead. Continue reading ‘Can politicians walk and chew gum at the same time?’

Big L or small l leader?

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change, Media and Politics
. 12 Comments

There’s something of a paradox there, because, as I’ve been arguing, Malcolm Turnbull’s best chance at making an impact (beyond the born in a log cabin dingy flat narrative personal stuff) is to move towards the centre, and particularly given his obvious understanding of the issues, move the Coalition towards a responsible position on an ETS. John Hewson, interviewed in today’s Crikey, thinks he could do himself and us all a favour by putting some steel in Rudd’s very weak climate change spine:

What I would hope, I guess, is that Turnbull should take a harder line on climate change. The suggestion from Garnaut that we can start softly, softly, with 10 or 15 per cent for his target in 2020 is nonsense, against the sort of targets Australia has to meet by 2050. In those terms, I think Turnbull should be taking a harder line, pushing Rudd to do more, setting a high jump bar if you like, against which Rudd will be measured and they would have more significant consequences for business.

Business is great at sort of putting off adjustments, whether it was workplace safety or training or any of the other issues that have dominated the last 20 years. They’ve always shirked them. Business response to climate change has been “fine for everybody else, but not us” and really the adjustments have to be made, the big issues have to be addressed and you can’t play catch-up. The whole process is front-end loaded, so I think it will be an interesting debate, if Turnbull goes out there and argues a stronger case in that area and pushes Rudd to do more, but he may just sit back as Brendan Nelson was doing and say “we won’t lead the world” and so it will be an interesting debate.

John Quiggin doesn’t think Turnbull will depart from the current position, based on his ministerial performance and his failure to take any sort of consistent policy position as Shadow Treasurer. Continue reading ‘Big L or small l leader?’

Malcolm Turnbull finally ends the Howard years?

Published
by
Kim
2 months, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Howardia, Immigration and Politics
. 111 Comments

One theme that’s come up in commentary on several threads about the Liberal leadership here is that the political suicide of Brendan Nelson has the potential to put the Howard years to bed at last. One other sign of this is how underwhelming and plain boring many of the “revelations” in Yesterday Man’s Memoirs have been - who really cares now about the accumulated ressentiment of a decade and a bit of internal treachery under the Dear Leader? (Howard’s poisonous human legacy, of course, lingers, as last night’s Four Corners demonstrated). Peter Costello is now history, and if he hasn’t acknowledged that, then the man is a greater and more self-serving fool than even most of us suspect. His book launch - presumably televised still today - is a sideshow.

Malcolm Turnbull needs to give up on placating all those who still long for the departed Howard’s firm hand. The Liberal Party needs to eschew stunts and populism and restore its tattered economic credibility (which was actually junked by Howard and Costello themselves - that was obvious enough in last year’s election but now it’s plain as day). It also needs to move with the times and take a responsible position on an ETS and trim its sails to fit the socially liberal winds that have been blowing - unsniffed as they were by the Tony Abbotts and Nick Minchins of the world.

But Turnbull is completely capable of squibbing all this. He may mistake the need to placate the diehard Liberal Right and “defend the legacy” as necessary pragmatism. If he does, he might be safer at the despatch box, but he will be repeating the same mistakes that brought Nelson down. Though without the jam and baked beans.

Turnbull’s selection of a Shadow Cabinet will give us a big clue as to how he’s going to shape the Opposition. Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Climate Change Minister in particular. And make no mistake, he has to shape the Opposition, not try to keep all its factions happy. A very difficult balancing act indeed, because the structural faults in both the party and in its electoral position haven’t been magicked away.

Elsewhere: Some more analysis from Sam Clifford at Public Polity. Update: And more from Pavlov’s Cat.

Blogosphere roundup: More commentary from Possum, Politically homeless, Andrew Bartlett, Corporate Engagement, Musings of an inappropriate woman, Road to Surfdom and Woolly Days.

Another one for the blog roundup: what it feels like for a boi.

Wait, there’s more!: Joanne Jacobs, The Poll Bludger and John Quiggin.

Climate change and electoral politics

Published
by
Mark
2 months, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, Federal Elections, Industrial Relations, Polls and Sociology
. 18 Comments

There’s lots more interesting stuff in this report at Australian Policy Online about two exit polls taken at the time of the 2007 federal election (and the AES), but this might be a relevant thing for Kevin Rudd, Penny Wong and the ALP to remember in the context of the emissions trading scheme and international negotiations on climate change response:

Industrial relations and global warming were key issues for the Labor voters who took part in all three polls, with two of the polls revealing that global warming was the prime concern among voters who changed their vote between the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Emissions trading and rent seeking: round two

Published
by
Mark
3 months ago
in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Howardia and Markets
. 25 Comments

The Fin Review reported yesterday that a host of resource company execs are descending on Canberra on Friday for a pow wow with Martin Ferguson. Initially this meeting was being presented as a way of circumventing the BCA, who released a doom and gloom laden report last week basically threatening a capital strike. But it’s now clear that it’s nothing of the sort, as Marn’s department have also sent the BCA an invite. Industry sources expressed pleasure at Ferguson’s involvement, telling the Fin that they found him easier to deal with and more amenable to their views than Climate Change Minister Penny Wong. Hardly surprising…

Further reports today (as well as Stephen Mayne’s piece in Crikey) reinforce what was being said yesterday - that the polluters and the “skeptics” are making the running on the business response to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper. What looks like being the outcome is, in my view, a default back to the Howard position. Continue reading ‘Emissions trading and rent seeking: round two’

Dodgy modelling from the BCA

Published
by
Robert Merkel
3 months, 1 week ago
in Climate change, Economics, Environment and Markets
. 43 Comments

You might have seen a lot of news coverage about a report by the Business Council of Australia that claims that Australia’s EITE industries - shorthand for “emissions-intensive, trade-exposed”, incidentally - are doomed unless the government hands out far more free permits than they currently do.

I haven’t had time to go through the detail, but Bernard Keane from Crikey has. In a nutshell, the report makes three extremely dubious assumptions:

  • trade-exposed businesses have no capacity to pass on any increased costs.

  • Trade-exposed businesses will not be able to adjust their operations to reduce carbon emissions.
  • Trade-exposed industries can seamlessly relocate to other jurisdictions where they don’t have this greenhouse abatement nonsense.

Continue reading ‘Dodgy modelling from the BCA’

Market based solutions and global warming: how viable for how long?

Published
by
Kim
3 months, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change
. 29 Comments

John Quiggin’s blog is on a temporary hiatus, which is a pity as I’d hoped he’d reproduce his article in the Financial Review today to enable it to reach a wider audience. Gary Sauer-Thompson summarises the gist of the article and offers some analysis of his own. Quiggin suggests that “the state of the Murray-Darling system is an indication of the price of ignoring climate change”. Quiggin argues that it’s been known since the 1980s that there was an urgent need to restore flows to the river system, and that the recent proposals have both been inadequate and indeed unable to be implemented because there simply isn’t enough water. The impact of the drought is such that releasing any flows from upstream - say from Cubbie Station in Queensland - would largely be a futile exercise as it’s estimated that 80% would be lost by evaporation or absorption into the water table. What we’re left with - in the absence of any real ameliating action and non-existent or very low flows into the lower part of the Murray from 2002 onwards - is the current choice between one ecological disaster and another worse one with regard to Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina near the mouth of the Murray River.

All this implies that the cabinet decision today to spend an additional $50 million on purchasing water rights in the northern basin is futile. It really just compensates those irrigators whose allocations were the problem in the past for the rents foregone. It also suggest The Greens are also wrong in suggesting that there is a lifeline from releasing flows which would prove to be insufficient.

Quiggin concludes:

The desparate choices now facing us with respect to the Murray-Darling basin are a small indication of what we will face if the world fails to act quickly to control emissions of carbon dioxide and slow the rate of global warming. Sooner or later the necessity for action will become undeniable, but by then the relatively easy options available now will have been forclosed.

Instead of market-friendly options like emissions trading, we will be looking at command-and-control measures like the water restrictions now prevailing in most Australian cities. As far as the environment goes, the kind of triage operations now being applied to the icon sites of the Murray will be routine. Some vital ecosystems will be saved, at the cost of abandoning others.

Continue reading ‘Market based solutions and global warming: how viable for how long?’

Reality and unreality in the pundits’ world

Published
by
Kim
4 months ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Immigration, Media and Polls
. 17 Comments

Let’s take a look at today’s political “news”, News Limited style, and the ongoing construction of the “media narrative” that according to the press gallery gang, is the only news fit to print.

As noted here, The Opposition Organ spent a bucket of dosh to add extra questions to Newspoll, and chose to run with “Voters Want Costello” as its front page headline over the (presumably less welcome to the masthead of denialism) numbers on climate change, showing overwhelming majorities attributing climate change to AGW and support for an ETS, with a big majority for “not waiting on the world”. So that’s establishing the news agenda through polling to feed the current “media narrative” - centring on the Liberal leadership and Peter Costello lovin’ in particular. And selectivity in emphasis. Then we get selectivity in reporting. The numbers in Newspoll, as Possum points out, don’t show that the voters the Liberals need to persuade are particularly persuadable by a putative Costello return:

The Coalition needs ALP voters to shift to the Coalition, yet ALP voters have a breakdown of 15% more likely and 20% less likely. If Costello became leader, he might not lose voteshare, but neither does he look like he would gain much based on these results.

But Dennis Shanahan doesn’t mention that.

Let’s go back a bit and remember, as Mark pointed out in his review, that the extracts from Inside Kevin07 that kicked the Costello talk off were themselves highly selective - one bit of research done before Rudd became leader and highlighted while the other internal polling and focus group research showing Costello for PM being about as appealling as a piece of wet lettuce was studiously ignored. And let’s not forget either that the “Costello the Saviour” narrative basically depends on the publication date of a book! Leadership calculation by publishing schedule! Melbourne University Press and book distributors hold the nation’s future in their hand!

Then, the big showdown Bolta talked up on the Coalition’s emissions trading scheme stance comes - and Nelson gets rolled.

Meanwhile, the Labor government has basically done away with mandatory detention.

I would venture to suggest that is rather more important than all this other confected nonsense.

Continue reading ‘Reality and unreality in the pundits’ world’

Liberal media lunacy III

Published
by
Kim
4 months, 1 week ago
in Climate change, Disasters, Economics, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Media, Politics, Science and Sociology
. 32 Comments

While it’s reasonable to ask, as Lyn at Public Opinion does, whether tracing every twist and turn of the opposition’s twisted trajectory towards some sort of agreed position on an emissions trading scheme, is to pay too much attention to a “policy cycle of sometimes less than 24 hours [which stretches] the notion of novelty a little far.” However, it could also be suggested that the interest lies in watching the moment that a “media narrative” switches, and as with the Costello crud, observing the process of constructing one, as a few bits and pieces of disconnected nonsense get tied together by assorted columnists and reporters and woven into a new thread that will then become - hey presto! - conventional wisdom, dignified as such on Sundays by the usual Insider suspects. You can shine a light on the way the press gallery mob do “the wisdom of crowds each other” by building a story arc, which then shapes the way the story is moved on.

Continue reading ‘Liberal media lunacy III’

Liberal lunacy II

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Howardia, Markets and Media
. 58 Comments

Brendan Nelson’s office is denying reports - discussed on an earlier post - that he will be having a “showdown” with Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt over the Coalition’s stance on emissions trading.

Some were reporting yesterday that Nelson would next week “take on” Malcolm Turnbull over climate change. His office claims that is “nonsense” and, given his tenuous hold on the leadership, it does seem unlikely he would be seeking a showdown with anyone. But he and Turnbull are “consulting”, which suggests he is trying to inch the party as far as he can towards a more sceptical line, in a bid to keep everyone happy.

However, Nelson is apparently “negotiating” with Turnbull to “harden” the Coalition’s position, and in an attempt to keep the denialists in his ranks happy, came out with this gem:

Now Nelson’s rhetoric is sounding more sceptical again. “I see there is an emerging body of scientific opinion which questions the role of carbon in all of this, but I’m strongly of the view that we give the planet the benefit of the doubt,” he said yesterday.

Sure, scientists differ about the degree and speed of global warming, but if it is not caused by carbon, why on earth are we contemplating support for an emissions trading scheme at all?

Quite. And that difference is between more catastrophic and slightly less catastrophic outlooks. Continue reading ‘Liberal lunacy II’

Liberal lunacy

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Climate change, Energy, Environment, Markets and Media
. 47 Comments

Tim Watts has posted at Tree of Knowledge on Andrew Bolt’s claim that the forces of the hardline right in the Liberal Party are planning to monster Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt and push for an oppositional stance to the Rudd Government’s emissions trading scheme. Brendan Nelson’s latest confused comments about delaying the ETS might be some confirmation of this, but on the other hand Nelson’s line on climate change is a moveable feast at the best of times, and Turnbull was singing from the same song sheet today. Watts is no doubt right that such a stance would be political stupidity on the part of the opposition, but it’s just as likely that the story represents wishful thinking on Bolt’s part, obsessed as he is with climate change denialism. However, nutty calls from the Nats for a Royal Commission to examine the science certainly do highlight the continuing divisions within the Coalition.

Continue reading ‘Liberal lunacy’

ETS or business welfare?

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 1 week ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy and Environment
. 32 Comments

Peter Martin has an excellent column today pointing out what’s wrong with the dollops of dollars which are to be handed out to polluters under the Rudd government’s “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”.

Australia’s existing coal-fired power stations won’t need the compensation anyway. They will be able to pass on the extra cost of the emission permits. They will be encouraged to. It is how the scheme is meant to work.

Eventually the higher price of power will prod some of us to use less of it, and eventually wind and commercial solar power generators will become competitive against coal because they won’t to buy emission permits.

Martin effortlessly and elegantly skewers the arguments for compensation.

He also refers to the GST. It’s interesting that this whole exercise has been framed as “economic reform” and compared so often to the GST. It would seem that it’s that template and that framing which has given overt permission for a rent-seekers’ paradise, and as Martin argues, has created the extraordinary situation where the profits of pollution are essentially being treated as property rights.

Continue reading ‘ETS or business welfare?’

He’s from Queensland and he’s here to help cave in before the debate starts

Published
by
Mark
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Markets and Polls
. Closed

This was my response to the argument that Kevin Rudd’s Emissions Trading Scheme Green Paper was a fine piece of pragmatic politics: Continue reading ‘He’s from Queensland and he’s here to help cave in before the debate starts’

The World’s Top Emitter

Published
by
Kim
4 months, 2 weeks ago
in Activism, Climate change, Developing world, Economics, Energy, Environment, Foreign Elections, Foreign policy, International, Markets and USA
. Closed

It sounds like some dumb reality tv show, doesn’t it? But we all know who didn’t get voted out of the house.

As almost everyone in the world knows, it’s election year in America.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (don’t ask, you already know the answer!) might be in trouble. Iraq might be - kinda, sorta - an election issue. But if - like me - you’re following the American Election via either the blogosphere or (oh noes!) the MSM, you’d notice a huge disconnect between how big an issue climate change is here, and how totally miniscule it is in the U S of A.

I hope Al Gore might have something to say at the Democratic Convention.

But that might not occur. And even if it does, and that and all the Arnie stuff aside, it’s going to be pretty much a side issue. Lord only knows what we can do, but those of us who, like me, are Democrats Overseas, might consider a bit of lobbying. But we might think as well about remembering that climate change is a global issue, and trying to get the Australian government to use whatever leverage it has to get it treated as such. Continue reading ‘The World’s Top Emitter’