There is an opinion piece in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Crying Need for Doubting Peter’ in which Gerard Henderson suggests that even if carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are contributing to global warming it is unclear why a nation like Australia — responsible for only 1 percent of the world’s emissions — should be an international leader in responding to climate change.
Gerard Henderson quotes ABC Radio National Broadcaster Robyn Williams from his interview with Channel 9 TV journalist Adam Shand on Sunday.
You can watch the Channel 9 story — which is probably the first time mainstream Australian TV has given some of Australia’s so-called global warming skeptics a fair hearing — here as Part 1 and Part 2.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“even if carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are contributing to global warming it is unclear why a nation like Australia — responsible for only 1 percent of the world’s emissions — should be an international leader in responding to climate change”
“why” why not?
IMO “only 1 percent” is also debatable
I would be very interested in the latest official list of GHG’s produced by countries.
According to WIKI China produced just 14.6% in 2002 and the USA around 23%+, we Aussies produced 1.4%.
Everyone agrees China is now the largest emitter with around 25%, if we’ve hardly increased our total because of natural sequestration then we must be around the 1% at most.
China may be the largest emitter, but if you look at diagram 8 of Garnauts report, where he illustrates per capita emissions of carbon, China and India are at the bottom.
Surely as a matter of global equity at the humanistic level, they should be permitted equal per capita emissions as ourselves.
So, the question becomes whether emissions at the per capita level should be mandated at a single, international, per capita level or not.
If yes, our standard of living is going to take a dive.
1. Australia has a very long way to go before we would be regarded as in international leader. Lets not exaggerate.
2. What Pete said: emissions per capita
3. Australia should move to set up the structure for emissions trading (we aren’t leading, the EU had already done it), and can moderate pain by setting easy targets at first. Then Australian business will be ahead of much of the world on grappling with the this new economic structure, without being way out in front of the pack when it comes to actual reduction targets. That is the economic argument for doing this now rather than later. Extreme political views aside, most energy businesses now expect emissions trading and carbon regulation at some point in the near future, so doing something early reduces uncertainty and improves investment conditions.
IF you are a betting person, this is what will probably happen with Australia’s ETS – set up the scheme with light targets early on – it happened with the EU ETS.
4. Being a small emitter might limit how aggressive our reduction targets should be, but it does not preclude any action at all. The insignificance of a single families tax contribution to national GDP does not eliminate the need for that family to pay tax, the analogy is obvious.
Whoops, last line should be “family’s” instead of “families”.
I also found Gerard’s article somewhat off the mark because he seems to suggest that the whole notion of climate change policy is somehow a new thing, that is being pushed without debate or discussion or dissent.
Policy responses such as emissions trading have been debated in Australia since the mind 1990s. Just because the debate didn’t involve Gerard, and didn’t include blow by blow account in the media (though there has been a lot of media coverage over the years) doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
Suggesting that there hasn’t been an enormous amount of debate, dissention, discussion etc etc within the Australian Government and within Australia in general over climate change and appropriate policy responses, is absurd.
Hendersen himself points to some minor inconsequential, uninfluential skeptics – such as former prime minister John Howard, and current NSW Treasurer Michael Costa – that have had ample opportunity to present a case in recent times.
There are doubting Peter’s aplenty, they’ve had plenty of time to argue, and while the decision to go emissions trading seems to have been made now (after years of debate), there is still heated discussion going on about how to set it up.
A couple of reasons why we should act:
1. It’s the ethical thing to do. We can’t complain about other countries failing to act if we don’t also act. The ethics of ‘I will only do the right thing if everyone else does first’ should be left in the Grade 3 playground where it belongs.
2. More significantly, and a point that change-resistant conservatives never really seem to grasp, is that there will also be significant economic opportunities through new technologies. The sooner we get on with it the better.
Analogously, the few dozen families dependent on the flooding of the Franklin River thought the economic world would end without a dam industry. 25 years later, the region has a thriving tourism economy which supports many more people in a more sustainable way.
The likes of Henderson always struggle with the notion that a future world might be different from the one we have now. As someone said the other day buggy whip manufacturers did not create the new and innovative motor industry. Similarly, I doubt that the fossil fuel industry and its professional lobbyists will contribute anything significant to future innovation of energy production and consumption. Their interests are too vested in the way things are.
I hope that Gerard is motivated to follow up on this article, to find out more and to inform and stimulate public debate.
Unfortunately his statement “that a large majority of qualified scientists believe that human behaviour has contributed substantially to climate change and that only a few experts disagree with this thesis.” masks the key point that accepting for example that land clearing, urbanisation, irrigation, may influence local climate does not mean accepting the hypothesis that human produced CO2 will trigger a runaway increase in global temperature. A huge inverted pyramid of alarmism, money and influence has been built based on this proposition that is both narrowly based, as demonstrated by the IPCC 2500 Scientist Hoax post, and widely contested.
Real danger to society and the to environment lies in portraying radical “green house gas” reducion as some sort of silver bullet to “save the planet.
Slim,
Is it ethical to destroy one’s home economy, thereby promoting emerging economies which then trash the worlds ecology even further?
The “unintended consequences” will be far reaching and disastrous!
And the mitigation of the so-called AGW problem still won’t happen.
“It’s the ethical thing to do”
Yes, so was our unilateral reduction of tariffs!
How many others followed us?
All we achieved is, shifting our manufacturing section to Asia, and still fighting protection from everyone else. (EU, USA, Japan etc)
Well done!
I’ve seen the analogy to tariff reduction here before. I didn’t previously comment since I don’t know that much about tariffs etc, but in the interests of discussion, will have a go this time:
Last time I looked, Australian had a booming economy and record low unemployment, so that reduction in tariffs hasnt been completely disastrous.
Would tariffs would have done much to prevent the seemingly inevitable shift of manufacturing and labour intensive jobs to asia, where labour is cheap?
Lower tariffs mean cheaper prices for us, and given the current strength of the Aussie dollar, anything that contributes artificially to a higher price for imports has that as a big negative.
Not sure your analogy is that successful marcus.
Booming economy!?
Take out mining and see what’s left!
‘why a nation like Australia — responsible for only 1 percent of the world’s emissions — should be an international leader in responding to climate change.’
We import products from other countries. We outsource industries to emitters like China. Is it ethical for us to protect our home economy whilst reaping the benefits from large emitters we pay to do our dirty work and ‘trash the world’s ecology’? Surely we are all in this together.
“Booming economy!?
Take out mining and see what’s left!”
Why doesn’t mining count? Why would you take it out?
Tarrif reduction was undertaken on the basis of long-term economic benefit promised by economists. Hardly an ethical imperative.
Taking responsibility for one’s own pollution, on the other hand, certainly is an ethical issue.
No-one’s suggesting trashing the local economy (well apart from the denialist lobby)- it just illustrates the conservative mindset that only conceives of what already is. Continuing to base our economy on extractive industries may serve us well at this moment but will do nothing to ensure our future prosperity and sustainability as the world turns to other means of energy production.
Anyway, you’re just pissing in the wind. Carbon pricing is a growing reality in the global economy and will soon be here as well. Major financial players are already dealing with it. Carbon pricing will change individual as well as corporate behaviour and provide opportunities for those capable of capitalising on reducing carbon output.
The longer Australia sucks at the teat of the coal industry the further behind we’ll be in 20-30 years. But then again we’ve never been that smart – much preferring coupon-clipping to innovation. We’ve moved from wool/mining to coal/mining and continue to discourage innovative energy industries. The extractive commodities boom doesn’t really provide a huge amount of sustainable employment across the economy, although it does provide the capacity for the rest of us to get further into debt. The economic boom of the next generation will be in low impact and sustainable technologies. We can embrace it and profit from it, or try to deny it. Either way it will be forced upon us by external realities.
I’m not up to date on the latest numbers, but wasn’t the EU trading scheme always a bit of a joke? Between 2005 and 2007 emissions INCREASED 1.9%, while US emissions decreased (and continue to because of high oil prices). Now this could change in the future but its been a colossal 3 year effort for not much gain as far as I can tell.
ETS is by no means the only way to achieve a CO2 reduction. Government subsidies on renewables (or don’t say it, nuclear) is the obvious alternative, and requires far less bureaucracy. Petrol is taking care of itself. The really big problem in Australia is coal. Tax emissions on coal if you like. Simple, transparent; implementation is a breeze.
Sink the money into the enormous nuclear start-up costs. Much more productive then granting rebates to “working families”.
I see Slim had to have a shot at those Taswegians who lost their jobs when the Franklin Dam was scotched by the luvvies.
Now before anyone has a hissy fit I believe it was a masterstroke to preserve this overwhelmingly beautiful area.
BUT the Alarmists believe we are on a mission to save the planet not just a piddling valley – no matter how beautiful it is.
So had the dam been built -all 180 MWatts of it- just consider how much CO2 would NOT be in the atmosphere now and in the future too.
A true AlGoreligionista would surely be regretting the loss of this Dam as s/he is out there demanding that KRudd and his lot get about building CO2 free Nuclear plants (like is being done in other parts of the Globe)with the greatest expedition. After all saving the planet must outweigh the usual lefty concerns with Nuclear Power. Surely!!!!!?
Travis,
We’re in it together all right, it’s just that some are using different rules.
You think it’s ethical to impoverish yourself and increase the wealth of others who work under their own advantageous rules, for the sake of principle knowing it wont make a scrap of difference?
That’s fine and noble of you to volunteer but include me out.
Steve
“Why doesn’t mining count? Why would you take it out? ”
Because it’s the mining that the Watermelons want to kill.
Manufacturing in the cities was killed by the unions, so no help there.
Most people on this forum don’t want to go anywhere near the core lesson from the Gippsland by-election – the 4 lignite-fired power stations (about 3GWh each) in LaTrobe that supply over 80% of Melbourne’s power plus the Portland export smelter. These stations have written no supply contracts beyond 2009 because they have no idea of their projected costs and so cannot project prices. All their loans are due at the end of 2008 and their auditors will find no credible income projections beyond 2009 … bye bye Melbourne.
Joel, a tax on coal – like that is going to happen. Sounds easy, but you can’t make a single industry the scapegoat with sole responsibility for shouldering the burden, even if said industry is one of the main culprits.
Subsidies also sound good in theory, but in practice they attract spivs, are used for pork-barrelling, and promote competition in the professional grant-application-writing “industry”, not in the low carbon industry. I’ve watched a decade of handouts from the former Howard govt achieve very little, while a market based scheme like the mandatory renewable energy target acheived a lot more (though i agree it could be widened beyond just renewable energy to include a wider range of methods to reduce emissions, ie an ETS!)
The ETS concept has gotten up because it is technology neutral, promotes competition through an artifical market, is least cost etc.
The EU ETS worked in Phase I 2005-2007 – they put the scheme in place – a massive undertaking. everybody got to learn how it worked in practice, and it worked as intended, like a market should – the demand from carbon was low because these early targets were set conservatively low, and as a result, the price of carbon plummetted and emissions weren’t reduced.
But the learning is invaluable – hopefully australia can use that learning – one lesson to learn is not to just hand out the permits for free. Another is that if you are too timid in setting the targets the price of carbon will be too low and nothing much will happen.
Hallooo
With AGW looking less and less credible every day (well almost) why is anyone even discusing the +/- of carbon trading/tax?
Oh, and I see Slim is one of those who think mining is not innovative … so extraordinarily and wilfully ignorant, that opinion.
Try this for fact, Slim. Our share market is thin because of: 1) a relatively low population; 2) most of that populace prefers to “invest” in real estate (safe as houses, you know) which is most certainly not innovative. So risk capital by need is injected from overseas, and it invests in what we are world leaders at – mining for export.
There’s nothing stopping you from generating an innovative new industry yourself, except fear of risk and lack of talent.
“1. It’s the ethical thing to do.”
Why is it? Who or what is our sacrifice helping? Not the climate, that’s for sure.
“2. More significantly, and a point that change-resistant conservatives never really seem to grasp, is that there will also be significant economic opportunities through new technologies. The sooner we get on with it the better.”
It’s an unproven concept, perhaps that is why we struggle to grasp it.
When you read stuff like this you can clearly see the religious movement greenhouse alarmism has become.
AS I keep pointing out, Google Maurice Strong and you will find the agenda behind this madness. Billionaire loony lefties have enormous clout and influence, especially when fellow travellers run the government.
Conspiracy theory? No, just the obvious.
“2. More significantly, and a point that change-resistant conservatives never really seem to grasp, :.
This is a misrepresentation of the conservative position that is best summed up with the phrase
“If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”.
However, if it works and one has no share of the working apple pie, then inventing some scare, manipulating the economics via government regulation with oneself as a beneficiary, (rent seeking in other words), to enrich oneself by innovating new technologies, seems to be the way the political left get their hands on wealth, not realising that wealth has no independent existence – it has to be continously created all the time. The reason why capitalists keep working while the socialists prefer to dream of Arcadia, do nothing, and hope the state supports them.
This policy has been put in place in the remote Aboriginal communities where I live. The sad bit is that the original Arcadians, spend most of their State support on alcohol to escape the misery of doing nothing.
But that is another topic for another thread.
“With AGW looking less and less credible every day (well almost) why is anyone even discusing the +/- of carbon trading/tax?”
Paul,
Even if it was correct in all respects, your question is still valid.
Why are we even contemplating screwing our economy for a zero result.
Lets forget the crap about emmissions being counted on a per capita basis as well.It has to be the total amount produced by a nation state, related to the terrain they are occupy being able to absorb.
Whoops.. cant really say that because it would show the Europeans up in a truer light.
Australias contribution would be even more inconsequential if the measure was the amount produced related to the areas ability to aborb was used.
In any event it appears that the army of Canberras mandarins advising Garnaut and crew on ETS have never heard of the Do Nothing Option in Project Evaluation, and if they did I bet they not telling Rudd and his merry men.
Spangled Drongo,
>You think it’s ethical to impoverish yourself and increase the wealth of others who work under their own advantageous rules, for the sake of principle knowing it wont make a scrap of difference?
You may not have noticed, but I asked a question, in response to yours. Your conclusions ‘I think’ and ‘it’s noble to volunteer’ are not valid conclusions.
Sitting back and taking no responsibility for what you participate in beyond these shores will not get you very far for very long.
“There is an opinion piece in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Crying Need for Doubting Peter’ in which Gerard Henderson suggests that even if carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are contributing to global warming it is unclear why a nation like Australia — responsible for only 1 percent of the world’s emissions — should be an international leader in responding to climate change.”
Logic like this reminds me of when I was but a child. My teenage children do the same thing. “Why should I help tidy the kitchen, when he won’t”. And vice versa. Always guaranteed to ensure that nothing gets done.
How to get your teenagers to contribute in the kitchen?
You say, “Right, there’s everything to cook your own dinner. It would be a good idea to tidy up first.”
Seems to work around here!
And in response to the actual topic of the title, I couldn’t agree with Mr Henderson more. What passes for ‘scepticism’ these days is pathetis, with any naysayer given credence, no matter how loopy or ignorant their evidence. Come on sceptics, lift your game.
All the ‘ethicists’ advocating unilateral reduction of Australia’s carbon footprint should read this;
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080702.RREYNOLDS02/TPStory/Business
And when they have finished bloviating about that, maybe they can then comment as to the ethics of reducing our lifestyle to the 3rd world agragrian lifestyle so beloved of such AGW advocates, when reducing our lifestyle apparently involves further reducing that 3rd world lifestyle standard via such ethical processes as growing ethanol rather than food.
Stop beating up on the strawman, cohenite, he can’t fight back. No on is asking for a 3rd world agrarian lifestyle.
Ah, the strawman; an agrarian symbol if ever there was one; as to agrarian lifestyle, perhaps you’d better ask Dr Hamilton;
http://www.cis.org.au/Policy/spr03/polspr03-7.htm
???? Ask him what? If you are wondering if increasing wealth will make you happier, that’s not the question.
James Hansen is coming after Gerard Henderson, and James has a noose and a book of scripture. Written by Al Gore.
Does Gerard have a prayer? Perhaps: “Lord, deliver me from the Gadarene swine”.
“-all 180 MWatts of it- just consider how much CO2 would NOT be in the atmosphere now and in the future too.”
WOW! 180 MW
Sounds a lot.. its got a “mega” in front of it.
Never mind that that is the maximum the dam could ever produce and not the average!
Listen Lawrie, after the construction phase, how many people do you think this small remote controlled facility was actually going to employ?
AND unless they cut all the trees out of that valley, it is well known that methane emissions from dams can be quite significant.