Climate science and putting a price on carbon as we move to a Clean Energy Future
Climate scientists and policy advisers overseas look at Australia in amazement the way the debate on climate change and a carbon price is debated in this country.
There seem to be three main reasons:
[ul]Firstly it is the party that is traditionally the conservative-liberal party that is leading the battle against a price on carbon here and it has also been this party that has given most support to anthropogenic climate change denial. In Britain and Germany the opposite is the case. They both have aggressive policies for carbon reduction and carbon pricing and it is the conservative-liberal parties and they have 90% public support for this. There is a very good reason for this. The conservative-liberal parties have always traditionally been the ones wanting to avoid or reduce risk. Climate change and uncertainty over effective mitigation policies is a massive risk – to the economy to being able to continue operating farms to water supply to coastal and flood damage to heatwaves and fire security.
Secondly it is bizarre that Australia is arguing so strongly against putting a price on carbon when it is Australia that is far ahead of every other country in the whole world in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions. In fact Western Australia beats every other country in the world and Queensland comes next. We here in Queensland are the second top carbon emitters in the whole world. Yet we sit here arguing about China’s emissions! Per capita we emit abut 5 times as much as China and 14 times as much as India. Even citizens in the US emit quite a bit less than us on a per capita basis! You’d almost have to ask how we manage to emit so much more than everyone else. But the much bigger question is how can we have the effrontery to point the finger at everyone else when we are each emitting so many times more than any of them! And those overseas countries China included are now bringing in big targets for cuts to their emissions such as a 50% cut in Britain 40% in Germany (I think a 40% cut in China). We’re kidding ourselves if we think that we don’t look utterly unreasonable to the rest of the world while we emit so much carbon and argue so hard against a carbon price!
Thirdly the reason why we look so weird the way we are carrying on in Australia about a carbon price is because we stand to gain so much by it and stand to lose so much from climate change. The modelling so far suggests that Australia is set to experience some of the worst effects of climate change. We should all be extremely worried about what it is doing to Australia’s water supply for example. We might have just had a flood but the steady trend for water supply is downwards and groundwater levels are dropping alarmingly all over Australia particularly in the south. This also bodes ill for growing our food. How on earth do we imagine we can survive in this country without water? We wouldn’t last a day in some of Australia’s deserts and those deserts are set to expand.
At the same time we are abundantly and remarkably blessed with energy sources that do not depend on carbon. We have skilled professionals who can project manage getting new systems installed and operational. We are in one of the best situations in the world for raising capital to instal new energy systems and make changes to how we use energy. Some of the world’s great entrepreneurial minds see nothing but opportunities in this.
In the meantime we are embroiling all our energy in a weird political debate that makes as much real-world sense as sit-com on tele. The Coalition’s direct-action approach will cost $62 a tonne compared to the Government’s $29 per tonne by 2020 to remove each of the 159 million tonnes of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere as required under a 5% target. There seems no comparison yet surveys show voters choosing the $62/tonne version. This seems crazy! Are we thinking with our brains or what? Are we making voting predictions on Julia Gillard’s choice of hair dye when we should be thinking about the really hard choices that our governments face. Carbon change and the need to address it aren’t going to go away but we are rapidly snookering ourselves into a position where we’ve destroyed all the workable choices. It is not going to go away. In all this Malcolm Turnbull is a sensible voice calling for right-leaning Australians to respoect the science of climate change and the need to do something about it. Yet even he knows that the Coalition’s policy of direct action would deliver less than 20 million tonnes of reduction out of the needed 159 million tonnes for a 5% reduction both major parties agree on.
Climate policy-makers from overseas such as Malte Meinhausen from Germany believe that Australia has come up with a “very clever” package of measures that benefit from the mistakes made in the early years of the European emissions trading scheme including sharp fluctuations in carbon prices after too many permits flooded the market. He says Australia’s fixed price under a carbon tax for the first three years mean the government will have a much clearer idea of emission levels in different industries before permits are auctioned.
If there is anything we should be really concerned about with the carbon debate it is that it will be too late. We are doing more than fiddling while Rome burns. We are lighting matches and throwing fuel on the fire. We seem to really want to be part of making the coming crisis worse than it already looks like it will be. Are we really so stupid? So wedded to our greedy consuming way of life that we’ll risk everything rather than take even the most reasonable minimal measures?
Sometimes it seems like it. No wonder the world shakes their heads in amazement at Australia.
Sometimes we can be too stubborn and stupid for our own good and this time we might not get away with it.
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