This was published in Crikey this afternoon. My release from today is here.
Professor Garnaut’s much-awaited Draft Report [huge file here if the Garnaut website is still down] is, in general, strong on the architecture but terribly weak on the big, over-riding issue – preventing runaway climate change. His policy prescriptions are completely out of step with his science.
When we were looking for a transformative vision to take Australia into the post-carbon world, we got an incrementalist approach with a slow start and even a step backwards on the 2050 target.
Let’s firstly look at what Garnaut got right.
As foreshadowed for some time, the Professor is strongly calling for auctioning of all permits under the scheme. This is excellent news which, if adopted, will avoid one of the largest problems of the EU scheme, when sectoral lobbying and deliberate gaming of the market led to horrible market distortions in the first years thanks to the decision to grandfather permits.
Another issue where we are in complete agreement is on coverage of the scheme. The immediate inclusion of all energy, industrial processes, fugitive emissions and transport, with forestry and waste being brought in as soon as practicable and agriculture dependent on appropriate measurement capability, is exactly what we have been advocating.
It is particularly pleasing to see support for complementary measures such as feed-in laws and MRETs to bring on line the renewable energy technologies that will power our future, as well as the rejection of nuclear power.
However, Garnaut clearly has a blind spot on coal. He has been taken in by “fool’s coal” and believes that geosequestration will be the saviour of the Hunter and Latrobe Valleys. If he truly understood the urgency of climate change, Professor Garnaut would not be punting on technology which is at least a decade from proving itself, if it ever can, and can never be a truly zero emissions energy source. But, like the politicians, he seems incapable of envisioning Australia beyond coal.
Garnaut, and the Government, must be very careful with the structural adjustment packages they come up with. If they are used to prop up coal jobs, they will surely kill the valleys in the end. If, however, structural adjustment is used to support a green collar revolution, through the restoration of a domestic manufacturing sector and a huge expansion in retraining and re-skilling the workforce, those who are foreshadowing doom and gloom for the Hunter and Latrobe will be proven wrong. Opportunities abound provided the structural adjustment is for the new economy and not trying to shore up coal.
Further to this, on the vexed issue of compensation, Professor Garnaut’s focus on equity, and supporting low income Australians well ahead of industry, is pleasing. As we had hoped from the man who noted that nobody was compensated when we floated the dollar, Garnaut is strong on not compensating the coal industry for stranded assets.
However, we would like to see more compensation in the form of investment in energy efficiency rather than welfare payments. As the Professor acknowledged when answering a question on transport and fuel excise, providing alternatives gives permanent relief from rising prices and supports the scheme’s goal of reducing greenhouse emissions. Just as structural adjustment has to prepare us for the new economy, so too does compensation.
Troublingly, Professor Garnaut is in denial about Australia’s domestic forestry industry and its greenhouse emissions. It is vitally important that, in addition to protecting PNG’s forests, we stop destroying Australia’s own magnificent and biodiverse forest carbon stores.
Garnaut’s biggest problem, however, and the one which may condemn by association all the good material in this draft report, is his support for a slow start to the regime, with a carbon price cap ensuring we don’t try to beat our pitiful Kyoto target, and a significant step backwards on the ALP’s 60% 2050 target, which he now sees as acceptable in the current global context.
From a man who has come so far on climate science since last November, this delay and weakening of the target is deeply disappointing. It seems that, for all his work becoming a climate change guru, Professor Garnaut is still a conservative economist. We need more than a conservative economist and bureaucrat PM to tackle this challenge.
The phenomenon of being “in denial” is a protective device of the human mind when to face something squarely would mean a total reshaping of one’s reality. Its an astonishing
capacity, since it renders one capable of simply not seeing what is in front of one.
You can see this process - and its gradual breakdown, happening in the corporate and political spheres, as gradually it dawns that capitalism is finished. That globalization is over, and the oil based civilization of the last century is at an end.
The problem is that the turning is happening too slow. No civilization before us has ever faced up to its own end in time. All have collapsed horribly, because the investment in keeping on keeping on was just too great to let go of.
What I think has to happen is (while we continue to work on the “powerdown” strategy
that is being advocated by Garnaut, Stern, and others, and painfully, partially taken on board by our leaders) we have to also create the lifeboats, creating communities NOW that embody and demonstrate the way all humans will one day soon have to live.
Tasmania, for which Christine is a Senator, is a wonderful location for a sustainable, localized, high tech but community based economic system which is transitioning out of carbon AHEAD of the necessity to do so, and is thus prepared for a future where elsewhere petrol is
$5 a litre, supermarkets have empty shelves, and 50% of people are out of work. Tasmania could convert to rail, people live close to work, its power is still 90% renewable and could be a vast producer of wind energy for southern Australia. Its communities still know how to grow food and share it. Its convivial, has gentle weather, it still rains here, and we have mobilized magnificently around the battle to stop the Pulping of the Tamar Valley. Thousands of “mainland” tree and seachangers are relocating here every year.
We need to work assiduously to shake the Rudd government more powerfully than the coal lobby is, but we also need to begin building community - all over Australia, that lives by the new rules, and builds interdependence on our neighbours instead of dependence on faceless corporations for our food, shelter, clothing, entertainment and health.
Such community building would encourage hope and mobilize people who can see that its not that hard,
making the change attractive, obvious, and so more likely to happen on a scale that we need.
Too little (if at all) far too late!!!
I agree. Upon a quick read, Garnaut gets it right on the dangerous climate change we now face (and in fact are experiencing), but he seems to have avoided flagging actions to immediately reduce carbon and other GHG emisssions.
Emissions trading on its own won’t necessarily do this, nor will the MRET.
It seems that conventional politics and economics are not well positioned to take real and immediate action on climate change in a similar vein to the gross mismanagement of the Murray Darling basin and other water catchments.
Avoiding massive emissions by protecting valuable native forests immediately would ge a great start.
And where is the plan to decommission coal fired power stations? The Brumby goverment in Victoria has just approved building an new one.
I think this serves to demonstrate that the government will not be capable of delivering the required adjustments if it is only equipped with “climate change” as its justification.
If we want more action then it seems we must give the government conventional economic justifications for making power renewable.
The inflationary risks (carbon signal aside) associated with a coal based energy grid would seem to provide a powerful independant argument in terms the government can more readily comprehend.
The source of coal’s inflationary risk is not domestic, it is (as we have seen with oil) due to anticipated global demand.
The vehicle fuel cost arbitrage shifting us from oil fired to electric vehicles will be important. This arbitrage market mechanism will attempt to equalise those costs which means coal energy is on a trajectory to becoming 10 times as expensive as at present.
The wild card factor is the prospect of near term (i.e. 2030) peak coal. Even without this wild card supply bottlenecks will play a major role in driving coal price in the shorter term (2015).
This shorter term is close enough to be potentially within Rudd’s prime ministership. That might get the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
A Sunday poll released this morning shows 89% of people are not willing to pay the costs of cleaning up carbon emissions. If we assume that all Greens voters (8%) are willing to do their bit then this suggests only 3% of people who don’t vote Green are willing to contribute to solving the problem. This does not bode well.
Perhaps we need another question. How about this:
“Should the government take steps to minimise inflationary pressure on future energy prices?”
Then we would get an opposite response.
Is it possible for the Greens could see to it that such a poll question is broadly asked. The results could be presented Rudd. Then he well placed to sell investment in renewables as directly responding to this strong public wish.
It is possible for the Greens (and others) to raise funds for political ads which underscore the point that sunlight is free and coal costs money. And this message could be endlessly repeated so it becomes an article of faith in the Australian community in time for the next election.
You can be sure inflation will be a bigger issue at the next election than it was at the last.
Even Time magazine gets that the carbon cloud has a silver lining…you’d think the big parties could, will, maybe, soon?
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,1819594,00.html
Concerned, where is that poll? I’ve had a look around and can’t see it on the main news sites…
Re this issue, I think the big problem is that, with the Opposition raising fear, and the Government too weak to push back hard, we are the only ones politically who are providing leadership in explaining the benefits of action.
I think that poll is a clear result of the lack of leadership from the big old parties. Tragic, really.
Hi Tim, look here:
http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/voteresults.asp
June 29: Are you prepared to pay the economic costs of cleaning up carbon emissions?
Yes: 11%
No: 89%
Oh, I wouldn’t be too concerned about that. A web-based poll on the ninemsm website ain’t terribly credible. I’d be surprised if it hadn’t been gamed. Too easy to do.
Perhaps the Garnaut’s report major contribution has been an eloquent summary and recognition of hard working scientists who have predicted, detected and monitored the onset of climate change over the past 30 years or so. From the mouth of one the all powerful “mandarins” that advise the current governing psyche of our nation and most nations, this is indeed recognition that the world has a “diabolical problem”. Also of note is the statement perhaps we have passed the point of no return on climate change.
The above blogs from other contributors aptly indicate the contortions an “economists” mind will go to in trying to rationalize “black science” with physical reality in the mediation of the current crisis. At some point in time after implementation the proposals will fail and the costs will almost always filter down people who are financially most venerable as the proposals are based on maintaining the current social economic structure not saving the planet.
The second report due in September evidently deals with accommodation. In view of the just released report from the CSIRO on bi annual droughts in Australia, it is perhaps more worthwhile to skip an attempt at mediation and incorporate the appropriate parts into of mediation into evolution of our lifestyles to the changing climatic pattern. It will happen anyway as history has shown that changes in energy fundamentals changes the social pattern and even existence of species and humans are not immune from such changes.
I thought the report was pretty good but didnt go far enough. We need leadership and action now on these issues for Australias future.
There is a great deal Prof Garnaut can not see because his expertise and focus is on incomplete economic data, not including general reality.
Katee@10
I expect I am one of the those you criticise as performing contortions.
My aim is fairly narrow. I want to see maximum investment in renewable generation as soon as possible. I am operating under the premise that this is a necessary (but not sufficient) requirement for “saving the planet” (your words).
The reason I am prepared to advocate a necessary but insufficient course of action is that I believe that it is often counterproductive to delay first steps while we wait for an entire solution. An analogy I find pertinent in this instance is that we should push a child out of the way of an oncoming bus without being too concerned with whether the child might suffer a scrape on the knee from falling over in the process.
This is why I think we should give the “mandarins” reasons beyond climate change to seek a renewable future, without being too concerned that their ideology is perfectly formed before they get cracking on mitigation measures. If we wait for them to get it the way we do then you can be sure (to invoke the analogy) that the bus will have done its worst.
I don’t believe that the desirable solution will be business as usual, but I do believe it will be a a long time before another paradigm dominates. In this sense I believe I am being merely pragmatic.
If we have a renewable energy base then we have the resources to restructure our economy during the darkest hours that lie ahead. It is those that follow that will ultimately fashion the desirable solution. I just want to see that they have the means to do so.
Thnx for the info Christine. It’s valuable to hear different perspectives, particularly from those who aren’t global warming skeptics like Andrew Bolt. Give ‘em hell on Q & A…:) Tell it as it is.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the planet is not global warming, religious fundamentalism, nuclear, or, peak oil; just maybe the greatest threat is mediocre politicians!
A case can be made that politicians who act contary to the public good are guilty of derelection of duty. What is a suitable retrospective penality for such serving and former pollies?
It would be good if the greens would announce a policy on political accountability.
The Professor will be paid that is the only certainty,and may have happened already with the weather of that moment no high consideration.No-one can convince me he has a working knowledge of the chosen sciences involved in the ascertaining of the preferred insight-climate change,whilst at the same time it being deplorable as the preferred insight.I am not a climate change skeptic,but just someone,now,completely convinced that too many cooks are spoiling the broth!Terrible cliche’ that it certainly is.I cannot solve the mystery of why the wattle are blossoming,and have been here on the Dorrigo Plateau for about three weeks,let alone stumble on certainty about hotter conditions.Frost have happened and where are any attending native bees to the blossom.And I have worn a beanie on my head mostly for three months.It maybe true, that climate modelling,mathematical artistry and scientific instrument may duly point out this change.But already in accepting,I dont bloody well know, life is somewhat strange here.
Nice, Ms Milne, giving Garnaut credit where its due and a pasting where needed. But now that 350ppm is the new ’safe’ for atmospheric co2 (see James Hansens recent public letter to Japanese PM & G8 leaders http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080703_DearPrimeMinisterFukuda.pdf) all the as-yet-incomplete economic modelling is the ‘directors cut’ nobody has time to watch.
So then does the issue become at some point bigger than the process: is slowing anthropogenic global warming more important than electoral success and representation? What would the Greens give up to get real action on AGW? Resign all seats? MPs sit-in on floor of parliament? Some might say that wider societies apparent apathy excuses those who give a damn from giving all in this struggle that we are losing (or at least not winning fast enough). But i wonder.
[...] to P and E Law. Policy yes, law no. A discussion of the report can be found on the blog of the Australian Greens, who have mixed views about the lengthy [...]
Don @ 15 - stay tuned. There’s more on that coming, as we have indeed focussed on it at various times already.
The big over-riding immediate issue is world food security and likely imment famine if ocean fish resource devastation and nutrient pollution solutions are not debated immediately. See:
http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=94578
The World is facing a Climate Emergency due to greenhouse gas pollution. Australia is the Developed World’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas polluter and the World’s biggest coal exporter.
The 2008 Garnaut Review Draft Report is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options (although the licence fees won’t be actually used to install non-carbon energy systems).
However the essentially pro-Coal Garnaut Review is a prescription for global disaster and is extraordinarily and fatally BAD in that it essentially IGNORES crucial major realities e.g.
(1) the human cost due to pollutants from coal burning for power (it kills about 5,000 Australians and 170,000 people world-wide annually);
(2) the “true cost” of coal-based power (taking environmental and human costs into account) is 4-5 times the “market cost”;
(3) the latest advances in low cost solar technologies with costs of some systems now projected to approach the “market price” of coal burning-based power within several years;
(4) the urgent need to actually implement clean, non-carbon technologies NOW;
(5) the massive ecosystem and economic damage occurring NOW (notably to the Arctic, Antarctic, tropical forests, ocean fisheries, tropical and sub-tropical agriculture and the already-dying coral reefs);
(6) the urgent need to reduce atmospheric CO2 from the current 387 ppm to a safe and sustainable level of no more than 350 ppm as advocated by top US climate scientists, NASA’s Dr James Hansen and his NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York colleagues;
(7) Australia’s annual per capita CO2 pollution is 27 tonnes CO2 per person per year domestically but 47 tonnes CO2 per person per year if you include CO2 from its coal exports (i.e. 10 times worse than China and the World, 40 times worse than India);
(8) the Review is predicated on a target outcome of an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 450-550 ppm. – however world coral dies above 450 ppm, the ocean phytoplankton and the Greenland ice sheet go above 500 ppm and the world is devastated at 550 ppm (arguably yielding plus 3-6 degrees Centigrade above the pre-industrial temperature);
(9) total economic return from major biomes (ecological systems) studied can be typically about 50% greater when there is sustainable use and the economic return from preserving what is left of wild nature is over 100 times the cost of so doing;
(10) over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed global warming according to top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS;
(11) the real prospect of litigation, Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands and national and international criminal prosecutions over Australian CO2 pollution; and
(12) detailed, well-documented, expert scientific representations about the above issues.
See a detailed, highly-referenced, critical, scientific review of the Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (Melbourne) website via the link provided together with a series of Climate Emergency Fact Sheets.
Dr Gideon Polya
Macleod, Melbourne