The whole globe has a shared problem with climate change. It is not the problem of any one country and no country gets the luxury of missing out on the problem.
So what does it mean in terms of how the solution is shared amongst the countries of the world? There are so many factors.
[ul]How many people live in a country
How much total carbon a country emits
How much carbon per person a country emits
How much carbon a country has historically contributed to the current global total
Comparisons between countries on how much carbon they emit to produce identical quantities of usable energy (at source at site of use)
Comparisons between countries on how much carbon they emit to produce identical quantities of work and production (Ex. kilometres travelled in vehicles on average per tonne of carbon produced – energy efficiency policies (such as fuel standards for cars))
Comparisons between countries on how much carbon-emitting activity individuals carry out (Ex. kilometres travelled in a vehicle alone on average per person per year)
Whether a country’s carbon-emissions are growing stable or shrinking
How large the country is in physical area
How wealthy a country is
How much of what is consumed in a country is produced there and how much is produced in other countries (imported carbon-emisisons)
[/ul]
The Productivity Commission talks of Australia’s ‘dependence on fossil fuels’. Presumably they mean economic dependence since we have a lot of non-fossil fuel options for generating power – our dependence on fossil fuels for generating power reflects an historical choice because coal is so abundant and cheap here.
The Productivity Commission’s Gary Banks claims that a carbon price measure for Australia is ‘technically biased downwards because the denominator simply reflects our dependence on fossil fuels. It will not be ‘efficient’ from a global perspective (let alone a domestic one) for a carbon-intensive economy such as Australia’s to abate as much as countries that are less reliant on cheap high-emission energy sources.’
I’ve been thinking and thinking about this and I think I don’t have a clue what it means or what it is arguing.
Let’s start with a question: What is a ‘carbon-intensive economy’?
Is it an economy that mines a lot of carbon energy either for domestic use or for export markets for example coal oil or gas?
Is it an economy that uses a lot of carbon energy for example in driving vehicles powering power stations powering production of energy-hungry processes (such as turning bauxite into alumina)?
Is it an economy that consumes high quantities of products that have a high carbon input for example imported products that involve carbon emissions in transport and production in another country; products that involve a lot of carbon emissions to make such as grain-fed beef; products that involve a lot of carbon-emissions to use such as air-conditioners pool pumps and large-screen TVs; construction industries using a lot of steel?
Is it an economy that is growing rapidly rather than stable or even shrinking maybe with a rapidly growing national population rather than a stable or shrinking population?
Is it an economy where the fundamental processes are very carbon-emitting for example millions of poor people cooking over wood or dung fires; or a city getting energy from a very dirty technology coal-fired power station (Is there cleaner coal technology currently readily available?)
On all except the last Australia seems to qualify.
What I don’t then understand is that this is somehow turned into an argument about why we should reduce LESS not MORE? If we are top or among the top carbon-emitters and most carbon-dependent economies why doesn’t that mean we are a key part of the problem?
Incidentally it also seems that whatever Australia’s official carbon-emissions ‘score’ is it probably doesn’t count the carbon emitted from carbon-based fuels that we exported to other countries. So if we export a huge amount of coal to China that gets counted in China’s carbon-emissions not Australia’s. And when we reimport some of that coal processed into consumer products such as TVs or cars or clothes the country where they were produced is where the carbon-emissions are counted.
So if we helped China where we are exporting coal to and where we are buying products from to reduce their carbon emissions maybe that is like paying for some of our own emissions that we would otherwise avoid.
10% of a small amount is not as much as 10% of a large amount.
The process of mining carbon-based fuels such as coal gas and oil does not strike me as a very carbon-emitting industry. Sure it has emissions but not as many as making steel for example or burning coal to make power. So if we required the mining industry to reduce its carbon-emissions 10% say it might not be a huge amount and the product they produce would continue to go on to be highly carbon-emitting elsewhere in another industry probably in another country.
If we feed a lot of cattle over large outback stations on grass and scrub this might emit less carbon than a much smaller number of cattle raised in small feedlots on grain elsewhere. If the processes used on the cattle stations are ‘tightened up’ to reduce carbon emissions there it might still not save much.
Banks reckons it is more efficient from a global perspective to abate carbon emissions from countries that are ‘less reliant on cheap high-emission energy sources’.
What the heck does this mean? How to make sense of it?
I can understand the ‘more efficient from a global perspective’ – we need the best outcome for the whole globe to give any of us a chance of a future in any country. How can this be most efficiently and effectively achieved? Especially effectively.
So if you have a country that is ‘less reliant on cheap high-emission energy sources’ what might that look like?
Are they suggesting nuclear? Say you had an industry in Japan which got its energy wholly from Japan’s nuclear industry and then you required it to reduce its carbon emissions 10% that wouldn’t seem to produce very much in the way of a reduction in carbon emissions.
Say you had a country like Mexico without a lot of cheap high-emission energy sources with a lot of poor people. If you require them to reduce 10% on their carbon emissions what do they cut? A family cook their tortillas 10% less and eat them partially raw? Use their swimming pool pumps for 10% less time???
I’m still struggling. I can’t make sense of it. Can anyone else?
If you told me I had to reduce my power usage 10% or 20% or 50% or even 75% with no choice it would probably be possible (if you could stand my wails and moans) but in Australia we use energy so abundantly and wastefully there are massive opportunities for reducing energy use or using it much more efficiently. Most of us are not even not trying to cut our power use. Many people are actively buying consumer items that are massive power gobblers. For example the introduction of air-conditioners into homes in Queensland has exploded in the last decade driving up peak power demand steeply (and demand for power stations to provide for peak power demand).
Why wouldn’t it be extremely efficient globally to require Australians to make massive reductions in their power consumption to reduce our carbon emissions? If there was a carbon price maybe some of the money collected could be redistributed for us to pay psychologists for counselling us to deal with our grief and anger and the loss of our freedom to consume power with almost no limits.
I’m not saying I personally want this. I’m trying to understand this claim by the Productivity Commission that it would be less efficient asking Australia to reduce its carbon emissions because we are highly dependent on fossil fuels as an economy.