Rudd fails the environment test
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This week in New York, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is honoured with co-chairmanship of a global leaders round table, seeking to revitalise negotiations on a climate change agreement to be finalised at Copenhagen in December. But if he brings to this task the government’s prevailing climate policy mindset, it will further diminish the already shaky prospects for any realistic agreement at Copenhagen. The weak, inconsistent compromises represented by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) and the Renewable Energy Targets, built around out-dated science, are wholly inadequate responses to escalating climate risk and certainly not exemplar policies for the world community. Ironically, a dysfunctional Opposition allows the government to claim the high ground as a “climate saviour” when nothing could be further from the truth. The hypocrisy of government and Opposition policy is laid bare in the light of the scientific warnings, which are now coming in thick and fast. Here are such a selection of reports on the increasing risk:
How many reports are needed before our leaders wake up? Big changes are happening even at the 0.8oC warming we have already experienced relative to pre-industrial levels, let alone the further 0.6oC or more to which we are committed as a result of historic emissions. While there remains much uncertainty over climate science, there is a high degree of certainty on key issues, strongly indicating that human emissions are a major factor creating current warming. Other explanations advanced by sceptics are, on the balance of probabilities, highly unlikely and none explain the evidence around us. Government and Opposition, along with major corporations, are well aware, from their scientific advisers, of this rapidly deteriorating picture and the need for far more aggressive policy and action. Why then are these warnings ignored? First, established vested interests are intent on maintaining the status quo. The economic system developed over decades, based conventional growth and incremental change. Power and influence evolved accordingly. The changes now required are transformative, not incremental, in which established players will lose and new players gain. Inevitably there is reluctance to break with the past, as the old players continue to exercise power and adopt defensive rather than leadership roles. Second, political and corporate mindsets today are overwhelmingly short-term, driven by all-pervasive short-term incentives, to the exclusion of long-term considerations such as climate change. Third, free market ideology still dominates. Markets are important, but to be effective they must operate within realistic rules; those rules have been progressively dismantled over the past decade. Despite vehement protestations by corporate leaders that markets are the preferred solution, there is great reluctance to include the true costs of externalities, such as carbon pollution. Fourth, corporate and political culture, while lauding leadership, rapidly retreats into managerialism — the incremental improvement of the status quo, oblivious to the fact that the status quo is unsustainable. Fifth, the assumption that technology will save the day. Technology is essential, but not sufficient. It must be accompanied by different values, moving away from growth and consumption to an emphasis on long-term sustainability. So it’s not surprising than any sceptical view of the mainstream science is seized upon with alacrity to justify further procrastination. Despite 20 years of global negotiations, virtually nothing has been done so far to address climate change. Having weighed the latest evidence of the risks we run, scepticism now has to give way to decision and real action. The continuing reluctance of our leaders to honestly acknowledge these realities raises fundamental concerns over national and corporate governance. The first priority of responsible government is to address major threats to national security. Climate change and the related issues of peak oil and energy security are arguably the greatest threats Australia will face in the next decade, with potentially catastrophic implications. The legitimacy of any government now depends on its preparedness to acknowledge these threats and take appropriate action. That is not happening. To implement policy in the full knowledge that it is inadequate, as proposed with the CPRS, is a serious breach of fiduciary responsibility to the electorate. We need effective emissions trading. Overseas experience demonstrates that the concept only works if emission reduction targets are aggressive, with minimal escape clauses and compensation. The CPRS fails on all counts; implementation in its current form will do little to reduce emissions, it will slow innovation, in the process undermining the credibility of emissions trading and destroying investment confidence. Corporately, directors have a fiduciary duty to act honestly, in good faith and to the best of their ability in the interests of the company in perpetuity — the last two words have been conveniently forgotten in recent years. Climate change is likely to be the most material issue affecting companies in the coming decade. Yet there is little acknowledgment of this by corporate Australia; quite the reverse. The image projected is one of delay, denial and special pleading for unwarranted compensation. Any sense of urgency to alert shareholders to the real climate risk is absent. Again, a serious breach of fiduciary responsibility. Climate risk cannot be managed by incrementalism and the “art-of-the-politically-possible”: it is not just another item on the political and corporate agendas. It is bigger than any political party, corporation or ideology. It has the potential to destroy companies and countries unless we act quickly. We need transformative, bipartisan leadership and co-operation — honestly acknowledging the challenge, setting out the solutions, however unpalatable, building support for and implementing rapid change. Above all, climate policy must be re-structured, built upon the latest science. As Winston Churchill put it: “It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best’. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary”. Ian Dunlop was formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive. He chaired the Australian Coal Association in 1987-88, chaired the Australian Greenhouse Office Experts Group on Emissions Trading from 1998-2000 and was CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors from 1997-2001. He is deputy convenor of the Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil. |
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31 Comments
Excellent article Ian, telling it as it is.
Good on you.
Andrew Glikson
22-9-09
Thanks Ian - keep it up! It is essential that the Australian public understand just how profoundly bad the Rudd Government’s climate change policies are. They are a suicide pact.
Rudd’s act that the corporate media is falling for at the moment is totally false. Australia is a saboteur of international negotiations on climate change, not an honest broker. Our targets are too low, we have the highest emissions per capita in the whole world, and there is no plan in place to phase out coal burning. We are one of the barriers to real action.
Rudd is trying to fool us. The climate science says one thing, he and his masters in the fossil fuel lobbies do another.
Ian Dunlop you are a hero! It is good to see that there are some (well, one anyway) with your depth of experience in the coal industry who are willing to tell the truth. How do we bring the deceivers and self-servers to account before its too late? And … that is NOT a rhetorical question. Now is the time for real action.
The “transformative, bipartisan leadership” needs an initial, loyal followership to develop. The inheritors of the mess of the young, who may find just such an international fellowship through their poets and musicians.
For a global turnaround in public thinking, we need a global perception of horror at some climatic disaster. That may not be far ahead, but that new green movement will have to be ready for when The Time comes.
Winston Churchill was a controversial figure at the start of World War II, it took the shock of Dunkirk for the British public to throw the weight of public opinion behind him and his decisive actions.
I should say, the inheritors of the mess are the young…
If you are young, can you hear the beating of the drums?
Hallelujah - finally I read an article expressing the absolute frustration I have been feeling regarding the CPRS and its complete lack of any teeth!!
I agree with most of KRudd’s policy directions, but why oh why has the Government dropped the ball on this one??
Save the billions of dollars that are being promised to heavy polluters such as the coal industry and use it to compensate those in our community who really don’t have the capacity to pay higher prices, such as pensioners and those on low incomes.
While we’re at it, invest a bit more in renewables R&D to encourage innovation and new technologies, rather than just paying for a few large pilots and excluding all others.
Come on everyone - let’s turn Ruddistan into a properly green state!!
I think you guys are expecting an awful lot from our world leaders.
The issue of a co-ordinated approach to climate change involves a level of co-operation never seen by world governments ever, even during war time. It’s not going to happen in an afternoon.
If done correctly, it could bring the world together more than any issue so far. However, if done poorly, it could destroy any chance of a united approach to the issue. The last thing we want to see is China, India and the US walking away saying it’s all too hard.
The earth isn’t going anywhere. People aren’t being killed by global warming related issues just yet. Humanity is the most adaptable creature on earth; we’ll survive. Lets take our time and produce something the world may one day look back to as the start of something special.
For anyone about 40 the choice is between your parents retirement income and your childrens lives. Thats not a political divide I would like to get on the wrong side of.
Altakoi - shame the wee kiddies don’t vote…
Scott- the global humanitarian forum estimates that over 300,000 people are being killed yearly directly due to climate change - RIGHT NOW. This is increasing each year.
Just this year around 500 Victorians lost their lives in bushfires and heatwaves. You could assign a certain proportion of those deaths to climate change, as climate change most likely had a hand in worsening the disasters.
Saying we need to take our time shows you don’t understand the climate science.
http://www.ghf-geneva.org/OurWork/RaisingAwareness/HumanImpactReport/tabid/180/Default.aspx
Just shoot me! It’s Groundhog Day again. The upside of CC is that all our Democratic Emperors are naked. And BTW the GFC was yesterday so BAS.
See Comment by Scott
Posted Tuesday, 22 September 2009 at 3:12 pm
“People aren’t being killed by global warming related issues just yet. “
The survivors of extreme weather events (New Orleans, Burma, Victorian bushfires) might be feeling less certain about this assessment - of when climate change turns lethal, or if it already has. Once climate change is unambiguously killing people, the problem will be almost impossible to reverse. (One gram of prevention is worth 1,000 kgs of cure.) Or if you prefer - Resurrecting the dead IS impossible. Preventing death, difficult though this may be, IS possible.
Ian Dunlop hits the nail on the head: “[Climate change] has the potential to destroy companies and countries unless we act quickly. We need transformative, bipartisan leadership and co-operation — honestly acknowledging the challenge, setting out the solutions, however unpalatable, building support for and implementing rapid change”
But: the solutions are not at all unpalatable, but existing interest groups disseminate fear and doubt to delay change. Some simple questions forwarded to the Australian Coal Association 6 months ago, with an offer to help with planning, have gone unanswered. (See .)
Note the effect of simple technology: Switching from coal to gas power generation cuts CO2 emissions from 1,000kg per MWh to 400kg per MWh. Then switching from electric hot water and space heating to heat pumps (with a 3:1 performance co-efficient), and CO2 emissions for these major energy uses are slashed to just 130kg per MWh. THAT IS AN 87% REDUCTION for little or no difficulty.
The debate over the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” is drawing attention away from the simple and obvious solutions, and is helping vested interests to avoid public debate of the seriousness of the threat we face from climate change.
Much more important than this self righteous drivel is news that the WaxmanMarkey Cap&Trade Bill is without doubt positively dead in the US Senate.
Thank God……
Very true Gerbil, the best approach for governments to take right now is in mass roll-outs of proven technology, to buy us some time until the more ambitious clean energy projects can be developed. Replacing incandescent bulbs was a good start.
Water heaters and cooking devices form a huge part of household energy use, so why don’t we mandate solar water heaters on every roof, and switch as many people as possible over to gas for cooking?
Climate change is constant. Between 20,000 years ago, the last glacial maximum, and 8,000 years ago, sea levels rose 120 metres. However, it wasn’t one steady rise, but involved at least three periods of rapid rise, as the ice caps melted into monstrous glacial lakes held back by ice dams. When the dams gave way, thousands of cubic kilometres of water gushed into the oceans, accompanied by enormous earthquake activity and volcanoes as the earth’s crust, free from the crushing weight of the ice caps, lifted on land and sank in the water. Later, during the Flandrian Transgression, sea-levels rose even higher than today, before settling back to current levels about 6,000 years ago. Whole cities and even civilisations were wiped out by these climate changes, and today lie buried under the sea and under mud. But, what could they have done? Could they have stopped climate change? One suspects the legend of King Canute was a lesson to future generations, i.e. us, to not be so foolish to think we can change the climate. What the ancient civilisations could have done, and indeed some must have, is adapt — apply their human creativity to survive, develop infrastructure, discover technologies that support their existence. That’s what we should do. Whatever the climate is today, it will be different tomorrow, next week, next year, next decade, next century, next milenium… Eventually we will go back into another ice age. We shouldn’t be suppressing human industry, we should be developing it, because it’s all that will save us.
It was only a matter of time until a “sceptic” crawled out of the woodwork. Yawn.
Shut-up and drink the kool-aid, huh?
Robert, you paint a false picture of the situation we face. Yes, climate is always changing and adaptation to changes has always been a major driver of evolution (or on shorter human timescales, innovation and adaptation). However, the kind of changes that are the most likely result of projected emmissions are much more rapid (by orders of magnitude) than the normal geological cycle. This makes adaptation much harder.
In fact, if you read the article it is all about be flexible and adapting to changed circumstance, in this case the knowledge that we have about what the effects of our industry now will have in the future (and not the far flung future either). Your appeal to human ingenuity is exactly what is needed, not just new technologies but the adaptation of society to cope with the realities of what we face. To not do so is precisely a failure to adapt.
There are two different but related issues. One is that we need to adapt to the reality of a warmer climate in the future, that is locked in to some extent already. The second is that the level of change (in the short term in geological terms, the next few hundred years) and the rate of change will be determined to a significant degree by actions that we take.
To refute detailed and careful study by a vague allegorical reference to an ancient fable is hardly the kind of thinking that a creative, adaptable society resorts to. Hopefully we will prove to be creative enough to meet the challenges posed, but you are a good example of why I’m concerend that we will fail.
I hear you - I hear you Ian Dunlop, as I have heard you before. BUT - what do I do? Can I go out and shoot the capitain of the Titanic before we hit the ice-berg? Can I paralyse our society by shutting down power stations? Can I blockade Parliament House and only let in thise politicians who care about all this? Your clarity in identifying the problem is superb - but must I sit here and watch the natural world (and most of the people in it) that I love go down some sort of plug hole - for the rest of time on Earth? I have studied the ecology. I have initiated community groups to respond to resource management issues. I have talked and witten to politicians about this. I have stood for state Parliament. I have taught thousands of students to be teachers FOR the environment. Yet we have reached an impasse. Many more people understand BUT still our governments refuse to face up to all that you have described so well. We either act decisively now or we need not act at all. It is better to be half right on time than have the wole truth too late. Where to from here - before I lose the will to continue the fight and draw up my chair and make myself comfortable on the Titanic that is Earth.
You miss the point: the changes of the “normal geological cycle” are not uniform and linear, but fluctuate wildly between periods of relative consistency (which are actually periods of gradual change), and periods of rapid change, many more radical and dramatic than the worst-case scenarios of climate change projections today. It isn’t new, and to think we can stop it, let alone that we caused it, is a fantasy. Tragically, it leads to a very nasty view of humanity, which is both murderous, and suicidal, as in the sad case of Mr Hunwick.
No Robert, you miss the point. Yes, climate changes in all kinds of ways. But we don’t ‘think’ that we are (and most likely will be) causing change simply because the climate is changing. We do so because of the overwhelming weight of evidence for the proposition that emmission from our industry play a significant role in the changes seen recently.
Our best guess from the available evidence and our understanding of physics tells us that we are in control of some significant climate levers. Given that knowledge we would be foolish to ignore it just because ‘climate changed in the past’. That is a fallacious comparison. Whatever the climate would have done in the last hundred years and would do in the future without humans, the point is that we have very good reasons to think we contribute an extra non-linear (e.g. via ‘tipping points’) warming via the emmissions from industry.
I see no engagement of these facts in your arguements, only faulty logic equivalent to ‘death occurs naturally so murder is no different’ or something like that.
Those engaged in climate science are well aware that ‘climate change’ is and has always been an ongoing and complex process. Yet people like you constantly misrepresent the AGW position by pointing out previous climate variability as if is was somehow a novel and overlooked fact. Of course this is complete non-sense.
I haven’t engaged those “facts” because they aren’t facts. There is no evidence. There is a known greenhouse effect, which is good, but the so-called evidence comprises projections based on computer modelling. This is a flawed method, rooted entirely in assumptions, and hopelessly incapable of capturing all the non-linear factors that contribute to climate.
I am talking about natural history, because “people like you” constantly gloss over it, even ignore it, and therefore most people do not know about the historical nature and dimensions of climate change. Even the recent discussion sparked by Steve Fielding about global CO2 emissions rising since 1998, but global temperatures falling, is an irrelevant time-frame to understand climate change, as is global warming from 1975-1998, as is climate change from 1850 to the present — years, decades and even one or two centuries are minutes snapshots of time in the context of geological time, which is the only true standpoint from which to understand climate change.
One of the most painful aspects of Crikey is that every discussion about action on climate change is taken as an opportunity to debate whether anthropogenic climate change is happening at all. While that debate may continue to interest some people - and I fully support them having a nice thread somewhere where they can argue solar flares and little ice-ages for days on end- this is not the place.
This article is fundamentally about what someone who does believe in climate change thinks the government should do. I think we should be able to have a discussion which takes as axiomatic that anthropogenic climate change is occurring and for which the substance of debate is therefore what to do about it. There are enough differing views on that to keep people going for some time.
So I suggest Crikey have a standing thread on “Whether anthropogenic climate change is a reality” or whatever, and everyone who is still interested in that topic can tune in. I am not, and I suspect very many people are long past arguing this from first principles every time it is raised.
Some will cry that this is anti-scientific, or an effort to strangle dissent, or a conspiracy of political correctness or some such. I don’t think so. If you go to a scientific meeting on infectious diseases it will never be the case that people spend days arguing whether germ theory or spontaneous generation is the correct model of contagion. The field has moved on to arguing about the nitty gritty of particular pathogens. That is not taken as stiffling dissent, its just necesary to stop wasting time for any progress to be made.
I put debating the reality of anthropogenic climate change in that basket.
What is being proposed is a radical overhaul of humanity’s systems for sustaining itself, shutting down major sources of energy-supply, and diverting existing energy into less-efficient energy sources, i.e. a net decrease in energy production and consumption per capita. Furthermore, it will be shaped by a financial trading system pioneered by Enron! For the people who “believe in climate change” it is a giant suicide pact; for the great majority who have no idea, it is genocide.
Oh, we’re not going to deliberately kill ourselves, or other people. It will be more like a lottery, similar to the lottery of death in our public health system. We cut resources to hospitals, so now we don’t know when it is our time if we’ll get a bed, how long it will take, if we’ll get a doctor, if the doc will be at the beginning or end of a 72-hour shift, and so on. Consequently, people die needlessly, and more will continue to do so, until we adequately resource hospitals again.
Coming back to energy, we assume it won’t be us overcome by a heat wave because the air conditioner shut off in a black-out caused by insufficient energy supply, or contracting a debilitating chest infection from inadequate heating in a cold snap, or condemned to darkness, poor sanitation and poor cooking facilities in a third-world lean-to, forbidden to burn charcoal, our only energy source, in order to stop global warming, as the people of Chad were in January.
Bt it might be us, or our loved ones, and so an understanding of the deadly seriousness of what is being proposed, makes it imperative to prove whether what we claim to be addressing is true or not. This is life, not a high-school debating contest. If it is inconvenient for you, tough.
This is not life, this is a blog. The only point about blogs is that they might influence other peoples thinking and, while you might find arguing whether AGW exists a riveting exercise, there are other aspects of this issue on which people want to exchange information. As I have said, I heartily support having a contained area - I would call it a kind of sheltered arguing environment - in which people who want to argue the scientific basis of AGW can go round in circles at least until the global ecology crashes. My point is, having read a lot of these articles on Crikey, is that it is not productive to have every thread turned into that discussion.
Hear, hear Altakoi.
Barwick, get with the program ok. The “debate” might be new to you but others have gone through it already. I am tempted to engage you on the nonsense you spout, but then that will be debating with you. I think there is a thread going on on Crikey about the causes of climate change - go and argue your paradigm breaking points there.
Now to more important issues. With what’s happening in New York, one can’t help but feel that we’re not going to come to a meaningul agreement in December. If the Opposition gets its way (somehow) and the CPRS is not passed in November, how will a weak agreement in Copenhagen affect any law that does eventually get passed in Aus? Will it be weaker, necessarily?
Hooray! I too agree with Altakoi. How would it be if I went to Church every Sunday and stopped the preacher mid sermon to tell him that, sure this is well and good, but what if God doesn’t exist?
We’ve made our choice. We’re debating how to act. If you want to go back up the logic chain then sod off and do it somewhere else.
To whit;
Putting a price on carbon is not a cosmetic exercise, it is supposed to make certain activities sufficiently commerically unattractive that companies either change or new ones emerge. So starting the scheme with handouts to prevent any emitter of carbon from feeling financial pain is counterproductive at the very least.
Secondly, once there is an emissions ‘permit’ system someone has to police it. Its even worse if there are tradable ‘carbon offsets’, because then someone has to actually check that all those forrests etc are actually being planted, or that remote patches of Queensland are actually not being felled.
I think there are some pretty big questions about the ability of the commerical sector to manage the supply of money as it currently exists, without inventing another currency, such as carbon permits, which require their own accountancy and reporting standards (as yet nonexistant)
I think the simplest way to do this would be to tax carbon emmissions at source, and to escalate the tax until alternative energy production is price-competative. Its fairly easy to determine the output from a handful of giganto power stations, and it would even be pretty easy to tax a cow at sale as having burped x amount of methane over its bovine existance. There is already a tax and excise system in place for petrol.
But that would give a clear price signal and cause immediate financial pain. While that is actually the point of a market based emmissions scheme, its the point which this fairy floss system is entirely intended to avoid.
So when you tax cows in your faith-based initiative, who gets to decide to eats and who doesn’t?
@gregb
Sorry, shouldn’t announce a debate and then not engage in it.
I think the laws passed in Australia and everywhere else will be determined by local national politics. The idea of an international agreement on reducing emissions is not so much about reducing emissions, but preventing a ‘free rider’ from not reducing emissions while still enjoying the benefits of not living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Its a nice idea, but there is simply no mechanism for spreading the economic pain between nations in a voluntary system.
I think the more likely scenario is that the big emitters, including eventually China and India, will chose national programs to reduce emissions by moving to a sustainable economy without an international agreement. This is because they can see the writing on the wall, they can all do with less dependence on fossil fuels, and they can all see the benefits of being the first to develop new technology. Protectionism may force others to join eventually through tarrifs on ‘high carbon’ products etc. One thing which won’t happen is for China and India to reduce their national emissions to be on a level with Australia while ignoring they have 250 times the population - per capita will have to do.
In Australia I think the national program will be determined by whether the government of the day can wean itself off the coal industry. Our energy requirements are not massive, and not beyond other techologies to supply if we put some effort in. We may pretend to comply with an international agreement, but that single domestic issue will determine whether real change occurs.
I think we all get to eat, Robert, but we are going to be eating less cows. That probably means more vegetables and stuff which, frankly, would be good for us. On a world scale, not eating as much meat would actually increase food supply because grain fed to cows is massively wasteful.
If that doesn’t appeal then kangaroos, to mention one tasty thing, produce far less methane than cows and have the additional benefit of being drought resistant. The idea of a market, however, is to allow a price to stimulate innovation and so I am sure there are cleverer people than me who will come up with ideas.
And just as we do today, we will have to protect the poor from the market but that is not actually a new situation, its just that there will be a lot less fat in the system for waste. We could, for example, afford a lot of methane from cows if we actually had well insulated houses.
I am, however, sure that a lot more people will get to eat than will if the monsoons fail, if the glaciers feeding the great rivers of asia fail, and if the snow-pack feeding agriculture in the pacific southwest of america fails.