Giving up on international emissions control

Chapter 10 of the fifth assessment report of the IPCC (Volume I global and sectoral analysis) says "For most economic sectors, the impact of climate change will be small relative to the impacts of other drivers (high agreement, medium evidence). Changes in population, age, income, technology, relative prices, lifestyle, regulation, governance and many other aspects of socio-economic development will have an impact on the supply and demand of economic goods and services that is large relative to the impact of climate change [10.10]"

The rest of the chapter adds various caveats about how undeveloped countries might have major problems and how there was a lot of variation in different study results, but it is still difficult to see how any economic case can be sustained by the chapter's findings. In any case, all previous reckonings in this area assumed some form of international action. Without an international agreement, any money Australia throws at the problem will be completely wasted. There will always be solid local reasons for reducing actual pollutants, such as sulphates or aerosols, that come out of power station chimneys, but there is now none for limiting carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant and not poisonous.

This point about any attempt by Australia to reduce emissions would be a waste of money was made by former Prime Minister John Howard during his time in office when declining to involve Australia in the Kyoto Protocol, and he was reviled for his trouble. Despite all the screaming, warnings about tipping point, and greenhouse gas generating activity in attending international conferences, nothing has changed.

What about the moral dimension? Won't our children's children want to know why we did nothing? They may well want to know why we wasted money on the RET and photovoltaics, rather than simply ensuring that the fossil fuel generators were efficient as possible, and saving the wasted money for their future, as the only sensible policy option.