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”
Ken Lambert
November 10, 2014 at 10:14 pmOK Wayne, lets call it to an end here. All the billions spent on climate science modelling, ARGO, Satellites et al is a waste of money because all that is important in determining AGW is your: “well known and well understood physical properties of greenhouse gases”.
Well what seems to be limiting the warming (which will tend to equilibrium with GHG) are the lesser known properties of clouds, symmetrical albedo, Sun cycles, PDO, ENSO et al.
wayne robinson
November 10, 2014 at 11:30 pmKen,
Billions spent on modelling, satellites, ARGO etc? No. You’ve drunk from the Jo Nova cool-aide.
Do you have any evidence that all the factors you mention at the end provide negative feedbacks to negate all of the warming from increasing greenhouse gases, let alone are predictable? ENSO events and solar cycles are definitely not predictable.
Symmetrical albedo is irrelevant. You just are obstinately convinced that since, in your opinion, no climate model, which are inherently imperfect, ‘predicted’ it (and how do you know it’s true? It’s a recent paper not verified by replication), it falsifies AGW.
David Hand
November 10, 2014 at 11:51 pmWayne,
It is the imperfect modelling which has driven the “we’re doomed unless the USA has zero emissions by 2020” campaigning. Milne et al live and breathe modelling to support their policy positions such as shutting down coal.
The physics of greenhouse gases is unquestionable in my view, but something is happening that has surprised the climate science community. We have seen them change their language and communication style in response to these surprises.
The most egregious example in Australia are all those mothballed desalinisation plants up and down the east coast of Australia built because the climate lobby called Australia’s el nino drought “the new climate” where the dams would never fill again.
The laws of physics are immutable but we still got the wrong policy.
And this issue is about policy.
wayne robinson
November 11, 2014 at 12:25 amDavid,
No, America isn’t being required to have zero emissions by 2020. It’s around an 80% reduction by 2050, which is doable, provided a start is made soon. The later the start, the more onerous the reduction.
I don’t take much notice of the models, particularly over the short term. I take more notice of what’s happened in the past as being an indication of what might happen in the future.
The desal plants are a separate issue. Although we might be thankful at having them sometime living in a country with droughts and a growing population, which isn’t willing to conserve voluntarily.
Ken Lambert
November 11, 2014 at 12:39 amWayne,
Are you forgetting the radiative feedback of the existing 0.8degC increase in warming? Trenberth puts this LWR at -2.8W/m2 in 2009 and it will grow in proportion to the fourth power of absolute radiative equilibrium temperature of the planet. CO2 forcing is theorized to grow at the logarithmic ratio of concentration in the atmosphere.
T>4 beats logCO2 any day.
David Hand
November 11, 2014 at 1:14 amIt depends on which climate activist you talk to Wayne, There was some Danish or German climate scientist who was breathlessly claiming that the USA had to hit zero by 2020 or we are doomed. Crikey featured him prominently about 5 years ago.
But yes, 80% by 2050 can be achieved “provided we start now”!!!. Yep the usual campaigning rhetoric from the climate cult. It’s desperate times when urgent action must be taken and when the world ignores it, the cult simply recalculates a new apocalyptic scenario whose similarity to the last one is the inevitable call for urgent action.
No one has the honesty to say, “the deadline has passed, it’s too late”, which is a strong indication they don’t believe it themselves.
wayne robinson
November 11, 2014 at 1:35 pmDavid,
An 80% reduction by 2050 is only a few percent per year. It’s doable. Whether it’s enough is another matter.
Ken,
I don’t know whether the equation is right or not. All theories are approximations of reality. Useful but not absolute truth. A possible indication of what might happen – which can’t ever be precise because there are other factors affecting climate, and atmospheric CO2 keeps increasing.
All I can do is to repeat that the Earth has been much warmer in the past due to greenhouse gases, such as the PETM, and there’s nothing stopping it happening again of CO2 levels continue to increase.
If you want certainty, then stick to engineering.
Ken Lambert
November 11, 2014 at 2:11 pmDavid Hand #46
Good points…Paul Erhlich got away with this sort of stuff for about 10 years and the planet survived.
wayne robinson
November 12, 2014 at 1:20 pmKen,
The planet will survive AGW, no problems. It has gone through hothouse and snowball episodes, and life has survived.
There are currently 7 billion humans on Earth. How many will survive any change in climate? Almost all the arable land is being used already. The Green Revolution was based on having cheap and abundant fossil fuels to produce fertilisers and pesticides. One billion people rely on fisheries (already being overexploited) for protein. Fracking uses water needed for agriculture.
I’m not saying that disaster will occur. But we need to be thinking about it.