Garnaut: the devil is in the detail

Every dollar given to polluting industries is a dollar less that can go to greater energy efficiency and insulation programs for low-income households, or a dollar less for a new wind farm. In particular, money to assist low-income households is important, and should help these households reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, thus saving large amounts of money over time. This means energy efficiency programs and huge investments in public transport in outer suburban areas. Providing low-carbon alternatives gives permanent relief from rising prices and supports the scheme’s goal of reducing greenhouse emissions.

So now that we all have the draft report, how will the government respond?

There are, of course, a cacophony of voices responding to the report already. There’s a brilliant article titled “Garnaut followed by frog plague and death of all firstborns!” from Bernard Keane at Crikey! summarising the exaggerated claims that many carbon-intensive industries are making about the ETS. Even The Garnaut Climate Change Review acknowledges, in a very understated manner on page 14, that “some elements of the Australian resources sector have been especially vocal about the perceived threat that a price on carbon poses to their competitiveness and to Australian prosperity”.

The way you hear some industry bosses like Xstrata’s Peter Coates talking about the ETS, you’d think it was a bigger threat to Australia than climate change. Which clearly, it is not - climate change impacts are going to (and in many places, already are) hurting our economy far more than any ETS could.

Despite the “sky is falling in” claims of the polluter lobby, Kevin Rudd must keep his promises and act on the concerns of the Australian community.

We all know that the government’s promise to reduce Australia’s greenhouse pollution was one of the main reasons for its victory in the election. Now, the Opposition and polluting industry lobby - electricity generators, coal mining companies, and energy-intensive industries like aluminium and cement - are running a “scare campaign” against the ETS.

Industry lobbyists are urging the government to break or delay its promise to implement an emissions trading scheme by 2010, and are pushing for free permits to pollute for carbon-intensive industries. In the past few months, they have spent an enormous amount of time and money lobbying cabinet ministers and trying to influence the media debate on the ETS. The way The Garnaut Review is being reported and the way the debate turns is being influenced by their press releases, their comments, and their PR agencies.

In December last year, Kevin Rudd called climate change “the defining challenge of our generation” and promised the world that Australia was ready to assume its responsibility to reduce emissions.

The scare tactics over job losses are designed to obscure the fact that taking action on climate change will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in green industries. Last week’s CSIRO’s report Growing the Green Collar Economy found that if Australia takes significant action to cut greenhouse gas emissions national employment will still increase by between 2.6 million and 3.3 million in the next two decades.

Similarly, the outcry about increased costs for business ignores the reality of how much our economy will suffer if we don’t reduce our emissions and runaway climate change hits us. When compared to these costs, taking action today is much cheaper. The Garnaut Review points out (page 15):

When assessments of the reasonableness of arrangements for trade-exposed industries are made, we should be mindful of the wider context. The highest possible obligations under an emissions trading scheme, at the top end of the range of possibilities for permit prices for the foreseeable future, would represent a small fraction of the resource sector’s increased revenue from higher export prices in recent years.

The Australian community pushed long and hard to place climate change at the top of last year’s election agenda. Two years in a row, hundreds of thousands of Australians turned out on to the streets for the “Walk Against Warming” rallies. And we still care. Last weekend’s Newspoll found that 61 per cent of Australians support an ETS.

For Kevin Rudd to delay, or decrease, the effectiveness of the ETS because of pressure from the polluting industries is a slap in the face for the millions of ordinary Australians who elected him on a promise of effective climate action. Australians know that reducing greenhouse pollution will change our economy; but they’re ready for those changes and they want leadership, not short-term populism.