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”
wayne robinson
November 4, 2014 at 1:06 amKen,
You’re still demonstrating your ignorance concerning climate. The 17 year ‘pause’ in lower atmosphere temperatures was manufactured by cherry picking the data set by starting with a strong El Nino year (which causes increased warming due to heat being dumped into the atmosphere from the ocean) and finishing with a moderate La Niña year (which has the opposite effect).
The oceans continue to warm (there was an apparent pause starting around 2003 because the ARGO sensors started to be rolled out then, and they tend to underestimate ocean temperatures whereas the older ones overestimated them) and the Arctic icecap continues to melt.
We won’t be around in 2100 to see if the 4 degrees warming comes to pass. But our grandchildren will be. The IPCC aren’t scientists. They just collate the work of scientists, filtered through committees from various countries such as America and Saudi Arabia, which have veto power on the reports.
David,
America is going on a fracking spree not because they think it will mitigate global warming. It’s because the oil and gas companies think they’ll make a lot of money out of it, the rest of the world be damned.
AR
November 4, 2014 at 8:21 amNo point engaging OneHand – who had to make up for the AWOL of the rest of the Turgid Trio – so I’ll just agree with CML.
Vote the bastards out and hope that the damage done can be rectified (in so many areas, health, our interantional reputation, science, decency & ethical behaviour for starters.
And yes, Klewi, it will be fun indeed to watch Halfbake stumble about with this reeking albatross around his neck.
David Hand
November 4, 2014 at 9:07 amWell that’s just too bad Ken. If one of the world’s biggest polluters is “damning the planet” by carrying on pumping out carbon like there’s no tomorrow, then nothing we do in Australia will have any impact at all.
wayne robinson
November 4, 2014 at 10:16 amDavid,
Ever heard of shaming miscreants by actually doing the right thing instead of doing what some other’s are doing? Do as I do, not what I say? Anyway – it’s in Australia’s interest to get meaningful mitigation – we don’t have the luxury of being able to shift our agricultural land south if the temperate land we’ve got shrinks southwards.
And we’re morally obliged too, since we emit more CO2 per person than even the Americans.
Norman Hanscombe
November 4, 2014 at 11:04 amWayne Robinson epitomises the sort of emotive blinkers worn by all sides in what passes nowadays for a debate. At least when I first became interested in the ‘Greenhouse’ effect during W.W. II, the hubris of True Believers wasn’t a problem for the few who took an interest in the question of what factors influence climate change.
Crikey joining the rest of the media in this ‘noble cause’ doesn’t help; but I guess human nature explains it?
wayne robinson
November 4, 2014 at 12:37 pmNorman,
I do know what drives climate. It’s not just greenhouse gases. Climate change has happened in the past. It will happen in the future. What’s happening now is nothing special or extraordinary (except we’re causing it). Life will continue on Earth regardless of what we do. The Earth has gone through Hothouse and Icebox conditions, and Life has survived.
One of the most notorious AGW deniers Michael Crichton put it best in his novel ‘Jurassic Park’ when he had one of his characters state that the aim is not to save the Earth, but to save humans.
There are currently 7 billion humans on Earth, several billion of whom don’t have access to the abundant energy we’ve enjoyed. And around 500 million with inadequate nutrition – the Green Revolution managed to avoid widespread starvation, but only because modern agriculture is energy intensive, converting fossil fuels (used in making fertiliser and pesticides) to food.
If you took an interest in greenhouse gases during WW II, that makes you, what? 80? 90? Typical of the demographic of AGW deniers (such as Ian Plimer) – old white males… That is selfish b**stards.
Ken Lambert
November 4, 2014 at 9:23 pmWayne,
At the risk of repeating myself:
Suggest you chase down The Economist article March 8-14 for a good summary on the ‘pause’.
There is one confusion in that article though; the 11 year solar cycle reached bottom in about JUL2009 and should peak about the end of 2014. That means the sun should have been delivering extra energy over the last 4-5 years. CO2 has gone steadily up but CO2 forcing is supposed to be logarithmic so a less than linear upward forcing with CO2 concentration. Both factors should have produced at least trend temperature rise over the last 5 years.
The PDO is supposed to produce a cool phase for 20-30 years from a turn in about 2000.
So if Solar drops for the next 5 years or so and the PDO is in a cool phase for the next 20 years, expect little if any warming, even cooling.
This will make it even harder to sell the catastrophic climate change message.
wayne robinson
November 5, 2014 at 3:05 pmDavid,
I’ve read the article. It’s nonsense. The ‘pause’ was due to cherry picking the data set.
For the simpleminded, I’ll provide an analogy. Suppose you have a coin biased to yield heads 60% of the time. Suppose you toss it 150 times and record the results each time. You’d expect around 90 heads and 60 tails. Suppose towards the end of your 150 throws you note a tail. And 16 throws later, you note another tail. Suppose that the intervening 15 tosses distribute 60:40 heads:tails as expected (ie 9 heads, 6 tails) giving 9 heads/8 tails for the cherry picked 17 throws as close to 50:50 as possible (you can’t have 8 1/2 heads).
No one would claim that the coin is fair just on the 17 tosses.
But that’s what the AGW deniers are doing with their cherry picked 17 years. Picking a year after a strong El Nino year causing heat to be dumped into the atmosphere from the ocean, and finishing with a moderate La Niña year, with more heat being retained in the oceans causing cooling of the atmosphere.
The Sun heats the oceans and the atmosphere is largely heated from the oceans, and not vice versa.
I favour HIGESH instead of AGW as being more accurate. Human Induced Global (not just regional) Earth Systems (not just the lower atmosphere – included are also the oceans and cryosphere) Heating.
The ignorant just concentrate on the lower atmosphere, often just where they live, ignoring the data indicating that the oceans are continuing to warm and the Arctic ice continues to melt.
It’s a bit silly to be using as a reference an article in a popular news magazine.
wayne robinson
November 5, 2014 at 3:07 pmOops,
My last comment should have been addressed to Ken Lambert. Sorry. What’s with this ‘awaiting moderation’ again? We’re all adults aren’t we? It’s very irritating.
Ken Lambert
November 5, 2014 at 11:16 pmThanks Wayne,
I know its difficult for true believers to swallow but a pause, stasis in surface temperatures has been accepted by leading AGW scientists like Hansen and Trenberth, and accurately reported in rags like the Economist.
The real measure is energy imbalance and Hansen’s 2005 number of +0.9W/m2 has been lowered by Hansen to about 0.6W/m2 and others have come up with a figure of 0.4-0.5W/m2. I would go even lower – probably around 0.3W/m2 which means that we have roughly a third to one half the global energy imbalance of 10 years ago.
That is a ‘pause’ old son, which is reflected in flat suface temps. 90% of the imbalance goes into the oceans, with polar ice and land ice being a minor amount in energy terms.
You might ask how this can happen with CO2 steadily rising to record post-industrial levels.
OHC measurement is all over the place. Not in the top 700m, then in the 700-2000m, then in the below 2000m, then in the Pacific, now the latest is in the Atlantic.
What warmists have to answer is a simple matter of logic.
And BTW while Arctic summer Sea Ice is falling, Antarctic Sea Ice is growing, so not much change globally, which means that a relatively small amount of energy imbalance is being absorbed in melting sea ice.
If 90% of the energy gain is being sequestered in the oceans over the last 17 years, inducing a miniscule almost unmeasurable water temperature rise, why would that not continue?