Tag Archive for 'white paper'

Backing a lame horse?

Published
by
dk.au
1 year ago
in Climate change, Energy, Environment and Markets
. 15 Comments

It might be argued that emissions trading with a soft start can still provide a framework for stronger efforts later. Perhaps. But the history of these types of policies is that poor initial design choices can prove very hard to get rid of, and “transitional arrangements” can create a sense of entitlement that is hard to remove. The fact that the government’s flawed design only got worse between the green and white papers doesn’t inspire much confidence in this regard. And bad policies risk taking us backwards. What could be worse than business as usual for the climate? Business as usual with a government guarantee, for one thing….

That’s Regina Betz and Iain MacGill at Inside.org.au. Read the whole thing. Continue reading ‘Backing a lame horse?’

Barnaby’s choice: ETS ramifications edition

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 2 months ago
in Climate change and Politics
. 40 Comments

As another followup to recent posts on Barnaby Joyce’s egofest (driven by the Howardian egofest), Lawrence Springborg has weighed in – in the Barnaby corner:

Queensland’s Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg said the comments helped highlight the faults in Labor’s scheme.

“Nobody should be surprised with Barnaby’s colourful language and original language, you always get that from Barnaby and that’s fine,” he said.

“One thing he’s actually addressed…is the cost of this to Australian families, who are already struggling in very uncertain economic times.”

So it looks like The Borg and the LibNats are signing up for the denialist club. Or sort of. Springborg’s position is somewhat obscured in the death by a thousand rhetorical questions maneouvre. And what, I wonder, does this mean for the CPRS’ path through the Senate?

Malcolm Turnbull, who is yet to announce a position on emissions trading, played down the differences between the Coalition.

He said the Coalition would speak with “one voice” on emissions trading.

“We’re very committed to action on climate change that is economically responsible and environmentally effective,” he said.

“We work as a very close coalition and I’ve no doubt that we will be responding to this legislation with one voice.”

Continue reading ‘Barnaby’s choice: ETS ramifications edition’

Barnaby’s choice – ETS Edition

Published
by
dk.au
1 year, 2 months ago
in Climate change, Howardia and Politics
. 34 Comments

At the risk of overdosing on JW Howard Ego Legacy watching, here’s a follow up to Mark’s post about the weird power vacuum.

Barnaby’s come out swinging against an ETS this morning replete with IRC Troll-esque talking points: Our Barnaby won’t be ‘goose-stepping’ along with the ‘eco-totalitarians‘ because ‘the climate is always changing’ and ‘the ETS would do nothing to counter climate change’ he told AM this morning (audio starts at 17:20). (Update: Here’s a statement he made back in December)

At first glance, it seems pointless to compare a spray like this to the actual policy intent of the White Paper, which was so brilliantly wedges the very position Barnaby now eschews (‘oh noes! people will lose their jobs and houses!’ etc.) with its feather-soft start. But on closer inspection, it suggests that the Howardian ‘battler’ response to Climate Change has now comes full circle – from Kyoto and climate science recalcitrant to reluctant ETS initiator under the gaze of Peter Shergold and back again; as the Man of Steel reasserts skepticism about mainstream climate change projections. Continue reading ‘Barnaby’s choice – ETS Edition’

Climate change denialism and the future of the right

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 2 months ago
in Climate change, Environment, Ethics, International, Markets, Science, Sociology and USA
. 66 Comments

With George W. Bush having a little over a week in office left to go of what has been a very long eight years, it’s timely to turn to the question of the long term implications for the political strength of the right of stances which refuse to engage with reality. In that context, John Quiggin has an interesting post on science and the right. I don’t agree with all he says about the “science wars”, but I think he’s spot on both with his lapidary analysis of the affinities between climate change denialism and right wing politics and in this observation:

The issue is not going to go away, regardless of the short-term success or failure of attempts to reach a global agreement to stabilise the climate. The more clearly the political right is identified with the anti-science side of this debate, the harder it will be to salvage any of its existing institutions.

Kevin Rudd’s rhetoric in 2007 recognised that Australian politics deals particularly badly with long term issues. Our statist political culture means that interest groups of all kinds seek to cut deals for whatever their short term interests require, and the veneer of “ideas” – particularly neo-liberal ones – is particularly thin, hardly sufficing to pave over the cracks of corporate self-interest. Rudd, of course, has hardly fulfilled the hopes he himself aroused. But surely it’s worth wondering what long term costs the right will bear after the time passes when denialism loses any patina of plausibility.

Guest post by Angharad: Ending homelessness – but not with the help of the AMA

Published
by
Guest Poster
1 year, 2 months ago
in Policy, Politics, Poverty and Urbanism
. 20 Comments

Commenter Angharad discusses Kevin Rudd’s homelessness white paper which didn’t get much discussion because of its timing, but deserves some because of the importance of the issue. -MB

A few days before Christmas, Kevin Rudd launched a white paper on homelessness The Road Home with far less fan fare than the climate change white paper a few weeks earlier.

The white paper was, on the whole, well received by the homelessness policy community [disclaimer – I was close to the action on this one]. It sets out a strategy and identifies targets like “halve overall homelessness by 2020” and “offer accommodation to all rough sleepers who need it.” It’s been signed off by COAG and has a substantial increase in funds. So far, so good and it has as a better chance of succeeding than anything currently in place.

But the Australian Medical Association is not happy and says it won’t work. Continue reading ‘Guest post by Angharad: Ending homelessness – but not with the help of the AMA’

Who’ll get your CPRS dollars?

Published
by
dk.au
1 year, 2 months ago
in Climate change, Disasters, Markets and Policy
. 20 Comments

Short answer: big companies from The UK, America, State Gubbermints and some Aussie companies.

Photobucket Beyond the headline figure of a unilateral 5% cut on 2000 levels, the numbers that will get us there look deeply disturbing. As I argued, there are effectively two carbon prices: a floating price capped at either $40/t or the CDM price for us (the suckers) and a vortex in the federal budget to stop Aluminium smelting, petrol refineries and coal fired power plants going all Howl’s Moving Castle on us and flying off to Neverland or something (their carbon price is zero).

The biggest handouts will be to EITEs and coal fired generators under the auspices of “[securing] today’s jobs while building the low pollution economy of tomorrow.” (don’t think about that one too hard) Continue reading ‘Who’ll get your CPRS dollars?’

John Hewson discovers excitable punctuation, anti-political fantasies and other stuff to do with the end of political year 2008

Published
by
Kim
1 year, 3 months ago
in Activism, Christmas, Climate change, Economics, Energy, Federal Elections, Foreign Elections, International, Markets, Media, Policy, Politics, Sociology and USA
. 12 Comments

End of year reflection on the state of politics and the nation type articles can be interesting. They can be tedious rehashes of trivia and reinventions of an already distorted reality to prove punditarian narratives r us and are ace (read any column in the Opposition Organ for an example). They can be quite thoughtful and rise above the usual trivia and actually say something. Or they can be quite weird.

John Hewson’s contribution in today’s Fin falls into the latter category. I strongly suspect his article is the first time evah a columnist in the venerable biz organ has written the sentence: “Whatever!” – indeed, Dr JoHew has been rather exuberant with his punctuation for emphasis in what is a sustained attack on the Reserve Bank. He may have a point that Glenn Stevens indicating that he’ll be taking a rest over January isn’t the best idea – as he points out, the Fed has rates heading down to a range between 0% and 0.25% and UK rates are at 2%. Perhaps Stevens thinks that in the month or so of the Great Australian Stupor, we’ll all spend the economy back to health by splurging on alcopops and sunscreen. On the other hand, Hewson is probably right that Aussie parochialism can’t be afforded anymore – the rest of the world may not understand that we’re all at the beach.

But Hewson’s paradox is that his solution is typical of what got us here in the first place – better “governance” and a more “independent” board – which sits uneasily with his own complaint that no one is allowed to complain about the independent Bank. This is the sort of neoliberal managerialist fantasy that landed us in this mess (in part) and the proscription is even more technocratic wonkery!

Speaking of which, that takes me to my segue about Kevin Rudd, political reality, climate change and technocratic wonkery.

Continue reading ‘John Hewson discovers excitable punctuation, anti-political fantasies and other stuff to do with the end of political year 2008′

Rethinking the politics of the White Paper: CPRS as Governance Failure

Published
by
dk.au
1 year, 3 months ago
in Activism, Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Ethics, Government, History, Howardia, International, Law, Life, Markets, Policy and Politics
. 28 Comments

So GetUp has raised $93 000 in just 24 hours to get the Spot the Difference ad1 on the air during the boxing day test, suggesting the discontent over the target announcement will crystallise into a significant force during the new year.

The only certainty that has emerged from this week is that by treating this as politics and policy as usual, Rudd has been utterly foolish. Anna Rose has an excellent summary of the scheme design itself. Anybody who thinks it should pass the Senate in its current shape is either being paid to say that, living in an unreality so loopy that I’ll drop out and have what they’re having dude, or never thought we would be able to get organised in time to do anything about the problem. And to the latter, I say screw you emo. Go home and listen to some whinging depressed crooner and let the adults get on with it. For the purposes of this post I’ll leave aside the question of whether, according to some deft Machiavellian logic it’s in Australia’s long term interests to have a scheme so riddled with loopholes, striving for such a pathetic target as to render it worthless in driving appropriate investment and behavioural change. Continue reading ‘Rethinking the politics of the White Paper: CPRS as Governance Failure’

  1. These interviews and this ad make for interesting viewing a year on [back]

Per capita emissions and the Europe claim: CPRS White paper

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Climate change and Europe
. 59 Comments

One of the arguments Kevin Rudd has used to deflect criticism of the White Paper is to seize on Ross Garnaut’s per capita calculations and to contend that we will still be cutting emissions further than the EU.

Christine Milne:

Finally there is the question ‘do we think we Australians deserve to pollute more than everybody else?’ This is the vexed ‘per capita’ issue that Professor Garnaut so cleverly inverted – taking what had been a powerful argument for change and turning it into a weapon in the hands of climate naysayers. He took the ‘contraction and convergence’ model that is the only equitable basis for a global agreement, and perverted it by talking up future population while sidelining current per capita pollution, stretching out convergence – the point where all people have the same pollution allocation – to the far future, and ignoring historical responsibility.

Writing in The Age, Tim Colebatch has had a close look at the numbers in the White Paper, and doesn’t think they sustain the Prime Minister’s claims.

But there are two things wrong with it. The smaller error is that their numbers are wrong — all of them!

The larger error is that they tell only a small part of the story, and the part they don’t tell matters more.

[Via Peter Martin.]

The politics of the White Paper

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Climate change
. 151 Comments

There’s already been a fair bit of commentary on the carbon emissions White Paper here at LP. Bernard Keane sums up the substance accurately and concisely:

The surrender is virtually complete. Our biggest polluters have won, and the rest of us will be paying for it under a joke of an emissions trading scheme that encompasses a significant transfer of wealth to our largest polluters.

Also writing in Crikey, Mungo McCallum acerbically targets Rudd’s mantra of “balance”:

The search for balance is in essence a policy of appeasement, an attempt to please everyone and avoid making a hard decision. In the short term this may appear to be good politics, but in the end the balancer is revealed as an equivocator, someone with out the courage of his convictions — if indeed he has any real convictions. But worse still, attempts at balance at the expense of genuine commitment almost invariable lead to bad policy.

Kevin Rudd has shown his true colours with the White Paper. We’re seeing a combination of the tawdry managerialism of the public policy wonk – split the difference and get the most ostensibly powerful actors onside – with Rudd’s own desire to rub the Liberals’ nose in their poor standing. As far as the politics goes, that’s about it.

What we’re not seeing is the other side of Rudd’s dialectic – the supposed attacks from the right. Rather, industry and polluters have had their wildest fantasies fulfilled while right wing bloggers are delighted that the left are unhappy. Reading between the lines, the fiction of denialism stands exposed, ideological bollocks which itself masks uncritical worship of big business.

It may well be the government’s view that those opposed to the targets set have nowhere else to go. All the silly rhetoric about “the latte left” ignores two political realities. Continue reading ‘The politics of the White Paper’

Open White Paper Thread and Links

Published
by
dk.au
1 year, 3 months ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Policy, Politics and Technology
. 106 Comments

Kevin Rudd himself will be unveiling the most significant structural reform since the 1980s and 1990s when Australia’s economy was opened up. Two major announcements so far: the compensation package for households used from the permit allocation revenue and a fast-tracking of the ‘Renewable Energy Fund’ (which includes CCS, geothermal, solar and wind). The centrepiece is of course the Carbon Pollution Allocation Scheme. The big detail to watch for: will additional voluntary action be accounted for? Update: *gulp* looks like the government plans to swallow up all action.

The 2020 targets will almost certainly be flexible of between 5-15%. Peter Wood takes issue with Chapter 4 of the Green Paper dealing with these figures.

Andrew Norton summarizes his climate change media watching over the past month.

Glenn Albrecht comments on Paul Howes call to class war over an ETS in the Opposition Organ.

More to come throughout the day

Update: The White Paper will be available from here at Midday. (h/t Peterc in comments)

Peterc “Will Kevin Rudd be a coal eating surrender monkey?”

Update: Crikey has been liveblogging. Clive Hamilton is amongst the contributors. Via comments there, John Connor from the Climate Institute:

Rather than backing smart voices in forward looking industries, the Government has buckled to the short-term interests of selfish business voices. “What’s worse is that the Government has increased the number of free permits to major polluters and watered down the conditions which require them to clean up their act in return. This corporate welfare with inadequate transparency and accountability effectively means ordinary Australians are shelling out around $550 per person in 2020 to polluters.”

Update [by Mark] Commentary in the blogosphere from John Quiggin, Sam Clifford, Possum and Gary Sauer-Thompson.

Update: Peter Wood

Update [by Mark] At New Matilda, Geoff Davies writes that Labor has sold the country out to the business lobby, Anna Rose reports from the white paper “lock up” and Ben Eltham considers the prospects of Senate passage.

Update: [by Mark] The Greens call for a day of protest action tomorrow.

Update: [by Mark] More blogosphere reaction from Go Greener, Australia, Deltoid, No Right Turn, Not a Hedgehog and Typing Is Not Activism.

Update: [by Mark] Anna Rose at New Matilda parses the White Paper.

Update: [by Mark] Christine Milne.

Update: Guy Beres on Mr 5%, Deltoid: as long as we beat New Zealand

CPD Common Ground Forum on Climate Change: Sydney

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 4 months ago
in Activism, Climate change, Notices and Sydney
. 10 Comments

Just a quick plug for an event being held under the auspices of the Centre for Policy Development on Wednesday 26th November at the Customs House in Sydney:

Ahead of the release of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme White Paper in December, the need for optimism and constructive discussion about climate change is stronger than ever.

The Centre for Policy Development brings you a Common Ground discussion on climate change with the topic ‘Australia should lead, not follow’.

Join keynote speakers Bob Carr (former Premier, NSW), Pru Goward (NSW Shadow Minister for Climate Change) and a diverse panel of voices: Fiona Wain (Environment Business Australia), Steve Hatfield-Dodds (former CSIRO, now Department of Climate Change), Andrew Bartlett (former Democrats) and Imam Afroz Ali (from the ‘Australian Religious Response to Climate Change’ initiative).

The Common Ground series is designed to move away from stereotyped clashes, and explore areas of common ground which can be articulated to a common purpose. Personally, I’ve got zero time for Bob Carr, but some of the other speakers sound interesting, and I hope that the discussion will be productive. And there are drinks afterwards! You can register via the link above, and I’d be fascinated to hear from any Sydney folks who go along.

Elsewhere: Andrew Bartlett.

ETS White Paper already?

Published
by
dk.au
1 year, 6 months ago
in Climate change, Environment, Federal Elections, Markets and Politics
. 23 Comments

Only three weeks after the official close of submissions (many businesses asked for an extension) it looks like we might see a White Paper as soon as the 3rd of October. This suggests the government has a clear idea of the short-medium term trajectories they want to pursue. If the volume of shrill, anti-innovative blackmail sentiment is anything to go by, my guess is that we’ll see yet another ETS that doesn’t do a lot of, well, Carbon Pollution Reducing.

Elsewhere: Peter Browne writes at APO:

A new [previously reported by Mark] analysis of the attitudes of people who swung to Labor at last year’s election suggests that acting to reduce climate change can be a vote winner – in fact, according to the data, it might be the vote winner. In two quite different surveys [including one where "young people were under-represented in [the] sample”], the single most important issue nominated by vote-changers was global warming. In both cases, it rated ahead of the other issue generally regarded as a vote-changer, industrial relations.