ALP climate change policy failure

The Senate twice rejected government proposals for reduction of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions (CO2-e), embodied in its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) - and for good reason.

Opposition rejection was because the majority, deniers of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW), are fundamentally opposed to placing a price on carbon in the form of an ETS or a carbon tax. The Greens rejected it because of what they and a majority in the electorate perceived to be fatal flaws which government refused to rectify. These reasons are worth examining.

Prominent deniers of AGW include Professor Ian Plimer and Lord Monckton. Both have put forward different views about global warming supported by distortion, downright lies and fabrication of scientific findings. Arguments they have put forward in support of their views are listed here, together with scientific conclusions.

Both have provided advice to the National and Liberal Parties. Their advice has, at least in part, been accepted as a basis for formulating policy. The Nationals have declared outright rejection of AGW. The Liberals, while not fully adopting that position have proposed an alternative way of dealing with the need to reduce CO2 emissions, Direct Action, which calls for voluntary action by emitters and rewarding them for their efforts.

The Greens who, like the ALP, accept the scientific basis for AGW and warnings of the consequences of not bringing about rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions saw the CPRS in quite a different light. They accept that an ETS is the most efficient and effective way of reducing CO2-e and of the need to price carbon. However, they saw the following aspects as fatal defects in the CPRS.

Temperature target

The Copenhagen Conference agreed that action must be taken to limit temperature increase to no more than 2C by 2100. The Chief Scientist for Australia and climate scientists world-wide had advised that to achieve this target, CO2-e emissions must peak by 2015 and decline significantly thereafter.

They spelt out the dangers of permitting temperatures to exceed 2C by 2100, noting that among the consequences of not achieving this limit were:

• more rapid loss of ice and fresh water sources required for agriculture;
• speedier rise in sea level, flooding of coastal lands and loss of property;
• drought and higher temperatures threatening food production; and
• greater severity and frequency of damaging climate events.

The CPRS embodied a response which in effect ignored these dangers by proposing action that climate scientists advise can not limit temperature increase to less than 2C by 2100. Targets adopted indicate a disastrous temperature increase of at least 5C by 2100.

Reduction target

In 2010 the Australian Government proposed its CPRS should reduce CO2-e emissions by 5 per cent below 2000 levels, note how the previous benchmark year, 1990 has morphed into 2000. The possibility of a 25 per cent reduction by 2020 and 60 per cent by 2050 would be dependent on major emitting countries adopt those targets at Copenhagen. They did not.

Government has never explained how a grossly inadequate 5 per cent reduction target by 2020 makes it possible to achieve its barely adequate 2050 target.

By contrast, in 2007 the UK Parliament approved legislation holding the Minister for climate change legally responsible for achieving targets reducing emissions by 2020 to 34 per cent below 1990 levels and 80 per cent below by 2050. Most European countries have long since committed achieving similar targets.

Professor Garnaut has expressed the view that a 2050 target for reduction of C02-e emissions should be set at 90 per cent below 2000 levels if Australia is to avert the worst effects of climate change, including an increase of 5C in atmospheric temperatures in the latter part of the 21st century.

Population policy

During the 2007 election campaign, Rudd promised a comprehensive population policy would be developed and implemented. In government no such policy was articulated or supported by a well thought out model addressing social, economic and environmental considerations. By the end of 2009 immigration had reached annualised levels exceeding 350,000.

In the absence of such a sustainable population policy, government proceeded to develop, present and seek Parliament’s approval of its CPRS. The CPRS failed to recognise that coping with a rapidly growing population inescapably led to a significant increase in CO2-e emissions, lower standards of living and the need for capital expenditure on infrastructure such as roads, public transport and utilities.

On the one hand the CPRS proposed a reduction a 5 per cent reduction of CO2-e emissions by 2020 and on the other, government indulged in rapid, unsustainable population growth promising a far greater increase in emissions.

Fossil fuel targets

The primary source of CO2-e emissions are coal, oil and gas, yet government has set no targets, either annual or decadal, for reducing their use in Australia. Instead it not only proposes to continue subsidies for their production and use but the CPRS provides for those subsidies to be increased in the form of free emissions permits being given to users.

There is no evidence that government has planned for or even contemplated a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. On the contrary, its multi-billion investment in the development of clean coal and sequestration (CCS) technology suggests a costly, though ultimately futile, attempt to prolong the use of coal.

Again there is a direct conflict between what is ostensible the primary CPRS purpose, reducing CO2-e emissions, and the actions of government in assisting to prolong use of their major source.

Primary industries

Land use contributes 14 per cent of total emissions but is excluded from the CPRS, even though many of those engaged in it are willing to participate in reducing emissions.

The CPRS could have offered incentives to farmers willing to plant trees, use biochar, plant with minimum tilling and other activities aimed at reducing CO2-e emissions. Government made no such offers until the last week of the 2010 election campaign.

Emission permits

The CPRS embodied provision for the worst polluters, electricity generators and other coal and oil users, to be provided with free permits to pollute. These are in effect a subsidy for polluters that distort the market, particularly for those supplying energy from renewable sources. It makes use of fossil fuels cheaper and use of renewables relatively more expensive, less competitive and unattractive to investors.

Government asserts that free permits are necessary to limit energy price increases so avoiding energy users moving to other countries offering cheaper energy - so called carbon leakage. No evidence has been provided that such leakage would occur.

Sweden and France no longer use fossil fuels to generate electricity yet the economies of both countries are growing. Since 2006 the Queensland government has increased the cost of electricity by over 40 per cent. This has had little effect on the use of electricity, particularly its profligate use by the public sector and its businesses. The Queensland economy continues to grow.

Energy market

Government needs to implement policies which increase price of coal, making its use less attractive compared with other energy sources - geothermal, sunlight, wind and wave, if not nuclear - yet. The CPRS is the antithesis of this.

By progressively increasing the cost of fossil fuels, their use to generate electricity becomes less attractive and less competitive with electricity generated from renewables. It also makes the use of and investment in renewables more attractive.

Technology funding

Funding of R&D for renewable technology is not to be sourced from CPRS revenue but from the general budget on an ad-hoc basis, competing for funds with other demands on the budget. Those demands include R&D into use of CCS at safe and competitive cost, broadly seen as a commercial oxymoron aimed at prolonging the use of coal, while actually pricing its use out of the market.

Funding of R&D for renewables must also compete for scarce funds with schools, hospitals, roads and rail, defence and a large public service. The CPRS could have been designed so that it provided R&D funding from revenue it raised from the sale of emissions permits as suggested by Professor Garnaut. That advice was rejected.

Leadership role

In connection with the CPRS and targets for CO2-e reduction Prime Minister Rudd and Climate Change Minister Wong repeatedly told us “we shall do no more and do no less than the rest of the world”.

This refusal to take a leading role internationally - indeed any role - in emissions reduction robs Australia of any moral authority to demand that other countries, particularly China, USA, Russia and India, do likewise.

It ignores the fact that most European countries have already committed to reduce their emissions by a minimum of 25 per cent by 2020. It ignores the advice of Lord Stern and Professor Garnaut that on-going delay in adopting this target will cost Australia dearly in the future when targets of this magnitude become enforceable. The price will be financial and economic disadvantage.

Overall planning

The absence of holistic planning bringing together the diverse causes of CO2-e emissions and the way they can contribute to their reduction is a concern. Without such planning there can be no effective control over emissions.

No planning to re-train the workforce displaced by reduced consumption of coal and oil, or for meeting the needs of new “green industries” associated with production of renewable energy. No planning for reducing domestic use of fossil fuels to zero, no timetables, no realistic targets and no planning to replace public revenue earned from their production and use. All serious and damaging defects.

Conclusion

Rebuilding what already exist, majority support for an ETS is not going to be achieved until the ALP recognises and addresses the serious defects embodied in its proposals. Cap and Trade is undoubtedly the most coast effective way of reducing CO2-e emissions but not the contrivance put forward by Government as its CPRS.

If government wants to see appropriate legislation passed by Parliament it should start again from scratch. And let’s have no more of this nonsense that population has nothing to do with CO2-e emissions, that 5 per cent is an acceptable 2020 reduction target, or that paying billions to polluters is the best way of reducing pollution. Minister Wong may believe it - the public does not.