Big change or a lot of hot air?

Fantastic article, which seems to have mastered the art of explaining the carbon tax, the politics of business and parties that surrounds it, with a good dose of moral argument thrown in. Best thing is, it does so very clearly, with comparisons and examples that help take some of the complexity out of explaining seemingly dry financial schemes like this.

Definitely worth a read, especially if you’re still curious as to what impact this scheme will have as it gears up for implementation next year.

(Richard Denniss)

Australia is now one of the wealthiest countries in the world living at the wealthiest point in world history. In turn, our greenhouse gas emissions are among the highest in the world. If we, as a nation, believe that we cannot afford to do more to tackle climate change then it is virtually inconceivable that anyone else in the world could either.

The problem is, the climate scientists assure us that we cannot afford not to drastically reduce our emissions.

Someone is completely wrong, and I don’t think it is the climate scientists.

Forbes: 'The Australian Carbon Tax: Finally, Someone Gets it Right!'

The Australian Carbon Tax: Finally, Someone Gets it Right!

7 comments, 0 called-out + Comment now Tim Worstall

Hurrah, finally someone has managed to get a carbon tax to beat climate change right. Yes, it’s the Australians, with their new carbon tax that have got it right. The important point is this one:

The tax-free threshold for wage and salary earners to rise from A$6,000 a year to A$18,200 from July 1, 2012, and to A$19,400 from July 1, 2015.

Having written an entire book on just this subject of course I’m cheering this move.

The economics of this is just right. OK, well, if you think that climate change isn’t happening, we’re not causing it and that we shouldn’t do anything about it, sure, you’ll not be all that impressed. However, if you do think that all of those three things are true then this is the first such tax that has got things right.

We’ve an externality, something that is external to the market prices that we use to make decisions. The answer to this is to internalise the whatever it is into market prices. This means a Pigou Tax and that’s just what the carbon tax is.

Good, so we’re correct there. However, there’s no reason at all that fighting climate change means a higher level of taxes in general. Sure, we might want higher (or even lower) total taxes for all sorts of other reasons but fighting climate change isn’t one of them. So, we’ve got this extra money coming in because we’re taxing carbon emissions: but we don’t want to raise the general level of taxation. So, of course, we should lower some other tax.

Which is exactly what Australia has done. And they’ve lowered the best tax to lower: income tax on the incomes of the poor. So, now we’re taxing bads (emissions) and lowering taxes on goods (the incomes of poor people).

All of which is just excellent and what most economists have been saying everyone should be doing for the past decade or more. The problem this reveals of course is that only one country has in fact done what economists have been recommending.

*The other problem is that even our own politicians can’t get this relatively easy political sell across. But at least it’s through! (Unless the devil really does respond to Tony’s ‘pledge in blood’ to repeal it, but that seems unlikely)

Turnbull defends climate science

THIS! Why can’t we see more of this in the Australian political and media landscape?
(and thanks to littlesing for giving me a heads up!)

Turnbull is one of the few rational, thoughtful politicians we have - big respect. I don’t say that just because of the content of last night’s speech (although I do support it); I say it because regardless of his political leaning, he has the conviction to speak against his leader and his party’s policy in the recognition that it is does not present the most credible alternative for Australia.

I know this stance is nothing particularly new for Malcolm, but it has come at the best time. What are the chances this will lead to a leadership spill? *fingers crossed*

Time to face facts on climate

You know the debate has gone downhill when you hear politicians question the validity of current climate science because we ”exhale carbon dioxide and therefore it must be safe”.

How often do you hear average punters question the science behind quantum mechanics, the theory of gravity or the mechanics of air travel?

So, just as I’ll avoid sticking a fork in a power outlet because I accept the theory of electromagnetism, so too do I take seriously the reality of climate change and the urgent need to do something about it.

I just wish more voters and policymakers would, too.

A matter of degrees

Andrew Glikson, earth and palaeoclimate scientist at the Australian National University, writes:

Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chief climate science advisor of the German government and keynote speaker at the Four Degrees or More? Australia in a hot world conference held this week in Melbourne, made a point on Lateline that even the least-informed should be able to understand: “Our body temperature is about 37 degrees. If you increase it by two degrees, 39, you have fever. If you add four degrees, it is 41 — you are dead, more or less. And you have to think about the body temperature of our planet, which has been brought about through many, many processes over many, many millions of years.”

Global emission reduction targets — ranging from Germany’s 40% aim relative to 1990 to Australia’s 5% aim relative to 2000 — would still allow mean global temperatures to rise to +3 and 4 degrees Celsius later in the century, driving a major shift in climate zones.

According to projections by NASA scientists James E. Hansen and Makiko Sato: “… goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster. They continue: “Deglaciation, disintegration of ice sheets, is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks… Gravity satellite data, although too brief to be conclusive, are consistent with a doubling time of 10 years or less, implying the possibility of multi-meter sea level rise this century.” As their abstract concludes, “Rapid reduction of fossil fuel emissions is required for humanity to succeed in preserving a planet resembling the one on which civilization developed.”

The focus on economic considerations ignores the consequences for the economy of +3 to +4 degrees global temperature rise, the shift in climate zones, indicated by CSIRO research. A dumbing down of the political and media discussion to the dollar price of carbon reflects years of cover-up on the essential evidence. Had the science been afforded full publicity in the Australian media, the current fury regarding the price of carbon would be seen in its true perspective, namely in terms of the future of the atmosphere-ocean system.

According to Schellnhuber, “We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet.”

What is required is what has never been done before in human history — a plan for the future.

AustraLIAR and the f*cking idiot dilemma

Latest brilliant instalment from Geoff Lemon’s Heathen Scripture:

[Gillard] must have some principles (and a minority government to maintain) because she is or has been at war with four big corporate lobbies, plus Abbott’s ‘Oppose Anything, Anytime’ government in exile.

“Morning, Mr Abbott, would you like a biscuit?”

“NO! No, goddamn it, no biscuits! That pink stuff in the Monte Carlos is SOCIALISM.”

These lobby campaigns are against the carbon tax, pokies regulations, mining taxes, and plain cigarette packaging.

…the really galling part is politicians and industry berks getting sanctimonious about the value of one’s word, when each of their oppositional campaigns is predicated on flat-out and cynical dishonesty.

They’re not just bullshit, they’re transparently bullshit. “We’ll all be rooned” is the core around which other particles cohere. Any one of these reforms is going to slash jobs, destroy communities, ruin the economy, and – you see this cute little puppy? Yeah? Probably going to cut off one of his legs while he’s still alive. IN FRONT OF YOUR KIDS.

……

The tax is a positive move. Australia can patently afford it, and patently needs to start making CO2 pollution less simple and desirable for industry. No, a tax alone is not going to save the world, but examples need to be set. Australia’s carbon lobby is already hiding behind the argument that we shouldn’t bother if everyone else isn’t doing it. Like, there’s no point me personally not driving home wasted tonight, because even if I do kill a couple of people, it’s hardly going to touch the road toll, man. I mean, overall. It’s a couple of percent at most. Look how many people China are going to kill this year! Let’s look at the bigger picture. No, I don’t want a biscuit. I’m driving.

And of course, ‘no-one else is doing it’ isn’t true. Germany is the world’s renewable energy leader, on track for 50 percent renewable by 2020, and 100 percent by 2050. Their sunlight, coastline, and land mass compared to ours should make that fact pretty damn embarrassing. In Britain, even the conservative government has set a reduction target of 50 percent by 2025. When enough modern, developed, respected countries set the trend, it becomes much easier to get others to follow, especially when trade and diplomatic relationships with those developed economies may start to come under threat.

Carbon-taxin’ Q and A

Want answers to the following questions/statements? Read this.

“Gillard said there wouldn’t be a tax, so she’s a farken liar.”
“They didn’t win the election on it, so they have no right to do it. Mandate!”
“That’s not democracy, it’s just those wacky crazy Greens running the show.”
“Companies will just pass on the cost, and it won’t do squat.”
“But, I’m heaps poor! My rent went up, and petrol is expensive, and…”

NAB boss backs carbon tax

The head of one of Australia’s biggest banks has thrown his support behind the proposed carbon tax.

National Australia Bank chief executive Cameron Clyne says there is bipartisan agreement that carbon levels need to be cut by 5 per cent by 2020.

Mr Clyne says he is not a climate scientist so he cannot say which of the two policies on the table would cut achieve the 5 per cent target.*

However, he told a forum in Melbourne that from an economic perspective the Government’s plan is better than the Opposition’s.

“If you’re asking for an economic assessment of the two, the carbon price followed by an ETS (emissions trading scheme) is economically superior to the direct action policy,” he said.

“It will drive certainty, it will drive investment, so as a straight comparison between the two, that’s the choice.”

*Investing in the protection and re-establishment of forests and trees (a major aspect of Abbott’s climate plan) is critical for environmental resistance and biodiversity, but is not enough to replace Australia’s emissions. The Keeling Curve shows the increase in global carbon emissions, despite seasonal variation (trees absorb more carbon during spring/summer). The vast majority of global vegetation is located within the northern hemisphere; what this demonstrates is that global emissions are increasing faster than the entire northern hemispheric vegetative mass can cope with. With this in mind, Australia would do better to implement long-term, economy-wide changes (along with, but not relying entirely upon, other significant environmental programs). 

Open Letter on Climate Change

A group of prominent Australians has published an open letter calling for a price on carbon to help deal with climate change.

The letter is signed by four former Australians of the year - including Professor Fiona Stanley, Ian Kiernan, Professor Pat McGorry and Sir Gustav Nossal.

It is also signed by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the philanthopist and mother of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch.

The group says it is confident that given the incentives, sustainable industries will flourish.

Report: carbon tax impact on mining jobs trivial

Professor Bruce Chapman is president of the Economic Society of Australia and director of policy at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Government. In a report to be released this morning, entitled How Many Jobs is 23,510 Really?, he attempts to put into perspective a claim by the Minerals Council of Australia that a carbon price would cut the number of people employed in the mining industry by about 24,000.

“Something like 370,000 people every month go from not having a job to having a job, and something like 365,000 people every month do the opposite,” Professor Chapman told The Age. “That’s the change every month. The Minerals Council has projected its change over a period of 10 years.