The UK's Royal Society, one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific bodies in the world has released this statement today on the Ofcom ruling that the "Great Global Warming Swindle" television movie misrepresented the views of some of the world's most distinguished scientists:
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The bowser wowsers in Parliament House want to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than address the real long-term solutions to rising petrol prices.
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By Alisha Fowler and Jesse Jenkins
Today, Al Gore became a major ally in the ongoing effort to build consensus around an investment-centered approach to solving our energy crisis and inspiring our nation to tackle the energy challenge as the defining task of our era.
Gore issued a truly ambitious challenge for America "to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." The organization he leads, the Alliance for Climate Protection, estimates the cost of making such a "moon shot call" a reality at 1.5 to 3 trillion dollars of public and private investment over 30 years. He issued this call to "all Americans - in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and every citizen."
Don't fiddle a world burns
AN OVERWHELMING majority of voters support Kevin Rudd's drive to tackle climate change and 77 per cent believe Australia should press ahead and cut its greenhouse gas emissions, regardless of what other countries do.
The latest Herald/Nielsen poll, the first since last week's green paper on a proposed emissions trading scheme, finds that Australians are willing to pay the price for cutting carbon emissions, even though most do not understanding how the scheme
will work.When informed that greenhouse gas abatement would cause the price of goods and services to increase, 68 per cent said they were prepared to pay more while 24 per cent were opposed.
The poll coincides with another bleak assessment of the Murray-Darling River system, handed to federal and state ministers, saying there may not be enough water to guarantee supply to regional towns by 2010. It recommends that available water be used only for human consumption in towns of the lower Murray-Darling.
As the Government started a multimillion-dollar "awareness" campaign on its climate action last night, the poll found six of every 10 voters either slightly understood or had no understanding at all of the emissions trading scheme. However, two-thirds still supported introducing a scheme.
The poll of 1400 voters was taken from Thursday to Saturday. On Wednesday, the Government released its green paper outlining how a domestic emissions trading scheme would work.
In the preceding week, the Coalition was split over climate change. Its leader, Brendan Nelson, contradicted senior colleagues by saying Australia should do nothing until other big polluting countries acted. Only 19 per cent of respondents to the poll agreed with this course of action.
The poll finds the Government about as popular now as it was at the election. On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor leads by 54 to46 per cent and, on primary votes, by 43 to 40 per cent. Both show small shifts to the Opposition since last month's poll but the movements are within the margin of error and not enough to give the Opposition great heart.
Mr Rudd's approval rating remains relatively unchanged at 66 per cent compared with 36 per cent for Dr Nelson. Mr Rudd leads Dr Nelson as preferred prime minister by 65 to 20 per cent, a 3-percentage point drop.
With climate change policy full of political risk, 54 per cent are satisfied with the way Mr Rudd is handling the matter while 38 per cent are unhappy. The Government will welcome the findings as it is battling an increasingly hostile Opposition and corporate
sector."These findings suggest clear support for the Government's climate change policy," the Nielsen research director, John Stirton, said. However, last month's poll showed 78 per cent wanted the Government to intervene over petrol prices and Mr Stirton said this gave "food for thought about the real depth of support for a
tough policy on climate change".Last night the Government launched its taxpayer-funded advertising campaign to promote awareness of the proposed trading scheme. Labor had been critical of the Howard government's political advertising but the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, said this campaign would adhere to new guidelines that require the
auditor-general's approval.The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said: "We want to have a very mature conversation with the Australian people about this because big economic reforms like this are not cost-free."
The shadow treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, said Labor was rushing when "great care and deliberation" were needed to protect industry and households. He suggested the Coalition would oppose gradually reducing total emissions allowed under the scheme until other countries cut theirs.
There are two ways to look at this – from a practical perspective or from a principle perspective. Either way, my view is that cutting the petrol excise isn’t good but isn’t really all that bad either.
The practical implication of cutting excise and therefore neutralising the impact that the scheme has on the petrol price is that...
NO WONDER the Opposition is struggling in its efforts to pick a fight with the Government over its emissions trading scheme. The green paper model differs only marginally from the one John Howard endorsed last year.
The main variation is in timing. The Howard scheme, based on a report from a task group headed by then Prime Minister's department secretary Peter Shergold, was to start in 2011 or 2012. The Rudd plan is due to kick off in 2010.
For the rest, the similarities are great, including compensation in each scheme for the trade exposed sector and for other badly affected industries, notably electricity generators (although the green paper is rather tougher on both, as well as focusing on the household sector, brushed over in Shergold).
Notably, Howard had petrol in. As he boasted, "this emissions trading scheme will be world class in its coverage and governance" and would avoid "political fixes".
He did not propose any "fix", as the Rudd scheme does, to neutralise petrol's inclusion. Of course oil prices have shot up in the past year. The Coalition has shifted ground: it urged, and Labor adopted, an offset to ensure petrol prices don't rise as a result of the scheme.
In light of its history, it is a bit rich for the Opposition to be jumping up and down about the Government's plan to review this offset after three years' operation — which means five years from now.
There is continuity even in the bureaucratic work behind the two schemes. The Coalition's task group was serviced by a secretariat headed by Martin Parkinson, then a senior Treasury officer. Parkinson drafted the group's document. Now he is secretary of Penny Wong's Climate Change Department, established by this Government, and the most important bureaucrat in putting together the green paper.
In preparing the Shergold report, the challenge for the task group was to come up with something acceptable to Howard, at heart a climate change doubter, whatever his latter-day conversion under political pressure. Howard personally wrote the terms of reference, which inevitably made the report conservative.
The task group was successful: Howard adopted the report, more or less holus-bolus, although his government didn't last long enough to implement its measures.
The green paper is a statement of Rudd Government policy. In this case, the challenge has been to err on the side of caution and a slow start for reasons of political necessity, despite Labor's rhetoric about the imminent threat from climate change.
Approaching the task from different perspectives, the two exercises converged on a common centre.
I blame the Liberal opposition partisanship in the issue, in all but name. They are not really presenting as a party that is serious, rather as a ratbag collection of interest groups and factions. I would like to see an opposition that holds the Government to their election promises, asking why Garnaut is being swept aside for Shergold, for instance.
The rest of Grattan's piece sketches out the political landscape that new legislation will have to chart a course through.
Technorati Tags: global waming, climate change
HOUSEHOLDS earning up to $150,000 and the nation's heaviest polluters will be helped to cope with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in 2010 that the Government says will be "calm and measured".
Releasing the green paper outlining the shape of the scheme, the Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, confirmed that increases in petrol prices would be neutralised by corresponding reductions in fuel excise.
She refused to guarantee that this would continue beyond 2013 and said motorists should start considering what types of cars they would be driving by then.
When the scheme begins, electricity and gas prices will rise immediately. Under a $20-a-unit carbon price, electricity bills would increase by 16 per cent, gas bills by 8 per cent and the overall cost of living by 0.9 per cent.
Using some of the billions in revenue the scheme will generate, low-income households - those earning up to $53,000 a year - will receive full compensation through either the tax or family payments system.
Middle-income households - earning up to $150,000 - will receive partial compensation. Pensioners, carers, the elderly and others will have their pensions increased to compensate fully.
The payments will start either when or before the scheme begins and will help insulate Labor against expected electoral fallout.
A cap will be put on the amount of carbon that can be emitted. Within this cap, 1000 of the nation's biggest polluters will have to buy permits for each tonne of carbon they produce. The costs will be passed on to consumers and companies can trade unwanted permits. These are designed to act as incentives to reduce emissions.
The carbon price - the cost of each permit - will depend on the level of emissions.
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Robert Elstone | July 14, 2008
AS record high prices for coal, gas and oil - together with speculation as to the impact of the forthcoming emissions trading scheme on the Australian economy - dominate the headlines, the existing infrastructure of the Australian Securities Exchange remains a conduit to help firms raise and allocate capital as well as manage the risks associated with fluctuating energy and environmental product prices.
The International Energy Agency estimates that a $US45 trillion ($46.5 trillion) investment would be required to reduce the world's carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent by the year 2030.
Domestically, the National Generators Forum estimates that $150 billion is required to meet a 60 per cent reduction on year 2000 emissions by 2050.
While these estimates appear staggering, a well-designed ETS will generate an acceptable rate of return on the investment required. In other words, superannuants and other investors will be beneficiaries of the transformation process.
To put in context what needs to be achieved over the 42 years until 2050, one only has to look back over the same duration since 1966 to see how far that investment in new technologies and the sophistication of financial markets have advanced.
In 1966, we did not have personal computers or futures contracts on financial instruments such as equity indices and interest rate securities, let alone active derivative markets for compliance instruments such as emission permits and renewable energy certificates.
Oh George Bush is having quite a grand time at the annual G8 conference in Japan. He’s not molesting Angela Merkel this time, but he is embarrassing everyone: “The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: ‘Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.’ He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.” Punched the air? Best George W. Bush imagery ever.
It used to be that anybody advocating unilateral Australian action on climate change, unmatched by corresponding efforts in the developing world, was immediately set upon, denounced, beaten, and cast out into the wilderness.
Just ask the Environment Minister, Peter the Exile, who was nearly stoned to death during last year's election campaign when he said that a Rudd Government would sign up to emissions reductions with or without the rest of the world
At home, Doubting Brendan piped up with something of a contemporary heresy, insisting that there is no use being pure of heart when the rest of the world is still yet to repent.
Why rush to install an emissions trading scheme, he argued on the steps of the temple, before other nations have done the same?
Doubting Brendan's disciples were quick to claim that he had meant nothing of the kind.
Several people - Malcolm the Inevitable, Greg the Usurped and Julie the Long-Suffering - lined up to explain that Brendan had actually been massively misreported, and was now resting quietly in his tent.
But Doubting Brendan could not be silenced; he kept sneaking out to do press conferences and to confer with his Senate leader, Nick Minchin, the Desert State Denialist.
Minchin is a pale-eyed David Koresh type, a rogue prophet who lives and preaches amid the parched rubble that used to be known as South Australia.
He is not the official environment spokesman for the Coalition - a fact of which we were reedily reminded on Wednesday by Greg the Usurped, who is.
But Minchin bought Doubting Brendan for a fair price late last year - three crucial votes - and he is determined to make his investment work.
This relationship may account for the circularity and tortuousness for which the teachings of Doubting Brendan have quickly become known. To the goat-herders, he says one thing, to the money-changers another.
"This is a strong signal to citizens around the world," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, adding that the EU's benchmark for success had been achieved.
The last and final hold-out is the US."The G8 are responsible for 62 per cent of the carbon dioxide accumulated in the Earth's atmosphere, which makes them the main culprit of climate change and the biggest part of the problem," WWF said shortly after the communique was issued.
"WWF finds it pathetic that they still duck their historic responsibility...," the campaign group said.
But US President George W. Bush has insisted that Washington cannot agree to binding targets unless big polluters such as China and India rein in their emissions as well.
Global Warning Climate Change Greenfleet GreenRoad
