The juxtaposition of the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released overnight, and the passage of the government’s inaptly named “direct action” policy last week, is a painful one for anyone who believes in basic science and is concerned about the economy we will bequeath future generations.
The “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” identified by the IPCC that climate change will inflict on the world are an economic threat: our children and their descendants will be significantly poorer as a result of the lower economic growth, higher prices and higher taxes that the impacts of climate change will impose on countries like Australia — and that’s before the higher mortality and population displacement that will result worldwide. The costs of climate change far outweigh the modest, indeed almost trivial, costs of using pricing mechanisms to decarbonise even a carbon-addicted economy like Australia’s.
The government’s direct inaction policy at least has that rare virtue of uniting climate action advocates and climate denialists — both agree it’s a waste of money. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Direct Action — it is simply an industry handout program that, however inappropriate for a post-entitlement age, won’t actually increase our carbon emissions. But with Clive Palmer and the Abbott government having removed a functioning, effective and cheap carbon pricing mechanism that was reducing Australia’s greenhouse emissions, Direct Action means Australia has no carbon abatement policy beyond the less efficient Renewable Energy Target — and the government wants to remove that as well.
With the Abbott government deep in climate denialism, serious climate action has been left to citizens. Switching to renewable energy, where affordable, can undermine the emissions-intensive fossil fuel sectors politicians like Greg Hunt hope to prop up. Pressuring superannuation funds and banks to withdraw from fossil fuel investment can help prevent the expansion of emissions-intensive extractive industries. These are less efficient and effective mechanisms than a carbon price — but the government has left us with no alternative if we genuinely care about the standard of living of our children.
49 thoughts on “Crikey says: with Abbott in denial, we must act”
David Hand
November 3, 2014 at 1:53 pmSaying that direct action is a handout to polluters misses the point that Gillard’s carbon tax was also essentially a hand out to polluters. Instead of paying off the generators, it paid off the end users.
The IPCC report on the severe impact of climate change is far more relevant to China, India, Europe and the USA because it is their emissions that will warm the planet irrespective of what Australia does.
The single most effective measure Australia can do to reduce carbon emissions is to convert all our coal fired power to natural gas. While the Greens are travelling across eastern Australia telling farmers to shut the gate and stop natural gas development, that will never happen.
Once again the Greens are too pure to be effective.
graybul
November 3, 2014 at 2:18 pm“Severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” . . . A COMPREHENSIVE CONCLUSION OF WORLD WIDE, UNITED SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY!!
When the house is on fire . . debating who will pay for the water is insane. So also is Crikey’s focus upon “Direct Action” and David’s disingenuous objective of broadening the subject base by promoting multiple emotional trigger points.
IPCC projections include Earth being on track for 5* warming which translates into 50* temperatures! That translates into a question of survivability of humanity, never mind most existing life forms.
klewso
November 3, 2014 at 2:52 pmOn the bright side, it will be interesting watching Greg “Half-bake” Hunt try to sell this dog.
wbddrss
November 3, 2014 at 5:15 pm“removed a functioning, effective and cheap carbon pricing mechanism that was reducing Australia’s greenhouse emissions”
1) I have never known the free market system/mechanism to behave as expected. Hence I am sceptical of adjective “functioning”
2) I have no evidence a market price for carbon is effective; I mean, it achieves what objective, except increase cost of energy
3) I think lawyers & accountants are prolific, not cheap. I say “vote “No”” to cheap.
wbddrss
David Hand
November 3, 2014 at 6:17 pmThey’re just reasonable comments Grey.
China, India and the USA will, on their own, pump enough carbon into the atmosphere to blow every limit the carbon reduction movement has set. This is irrespective of what Australia does. They’ll probably do it in the next 5 years.
That doesn’t mean that we must not get on board of course. But linking Gillard’s dud green tax to saving the planet is like trying to stop an oncoming truck with a pea shooter.
wbdrss has got a good point. I don’t know any carbon price mechanism that has worked either. They get hijacked by politicians and then fail.
The ALP scheme was dictated to the Gillard government behind closed doors by Bob Brown and its introduction was the price of Bandt’s vote in the lower house. The $23 per tonne was too high. The hand outs to Labor voters in the form of family assistance packages were too much and absorbed about 60% of the entire carbon tax take. Once you then paid out the subsidies to trade exposed industries such as aluminium smelting, it was nothing more than a massive wealth redistribution scheme that did absolutely nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
The reductions we got came from a fall in demand for power due to economic circumstances which has in turn put the expensive RET in trouble.
The price should have been about $10 per tonne with no subsidies for anyone. This would make renewables more competitive in a way that the ALP scheme didn’t and of course, such a regressive tax is anathema to the warriors of the left.
If generators switched to renewables under the Brown / Gillard scheme, they would avoid the tax but the government would still be hostage, as it is today, to a massive hand out of taxpayer money.
The “polluters will pay” propaganda was disingenuous. The polluters are the end users – us, and we got it back in a useless money go round.
Direct action is what the Americans are doing and we could do the same – convert our entire coal generating infrastructure to natural gas. After all, it is our reliance on coal for electricity that makes us the highest per capita emitters in the world.
But the Greens won’t let us.
CML
November 3, 2014 at 6:47 pmIn reply to your editorial headline: that’s easy! We just vote this appalling government out at the next election!!
And hope like hell they don’t do too much damage in the meantime!!!!
And David Hand – both of your posts are a load of cr+p. Just another apologist for the fossil fuel industries – we’ve heard it all before, and it is no more factual now, than it has ever been!
wayne robinson
November 3, 2014 at 8:02 pmDavid Hand,
The trouble with converting to natural gas for power generation is that the CO2 emissions don’t include leakage at extraction (particularly with fracking) and in transport and the considerable energy costs involved in extraction (again particularly with extraction).
When the extra emissions are considered, natural gas may result in a similar emission of greenhouse gases as coal.
Ken Lambert
November 3, 2014 at 10:12 pmOf course David Hand is right….nuclear and natural gas would reduce our coal fired emissions markedly, down to the current level of perhaps a large Chinese city.
The latest bit of IPCC hysteria predicting 4 degrees Celcius of surface warming by 2100, will prove the final undoing of that flawed peddler of second rate scientific claptrap.
Apart from the last effort at disappearing Himalayan glaciers in 10 years and scant regard for the last 17 years of ‘pauses’ in surface air and ocean temperatures, which show a decline in heat energy accumulation from 2005 predictions, the IPCC will follow Paul Ehrlich as the greatest scientific dud of our time.
David Hand
November 4, 2014 at 12:07 amWayne,
You may indeed be correct about natural gas beIng no solution. If you are, then we are really stuffed because it trashes the entire American programme. They will shoot away every reduction target the climate action movement has set irrespective of what we do.
Gavin Moodie
November 4, 2014 at 12:34 amThe federal Coalition Government’s ardent support of carbon intensive businesses will also drive environmentalists to take another form of direct action – lying in front of bull dozers, picketing Anglo Coal, etc.