The obfuscated debate on climate change

We often hear that scientists have reached a consensus on the contentious issue of climate change, but what exactly do they agree on? Have they come to an agreement on how much temperatures will rise and how quickly these rises will occur? Do they agree on how high sea levels will rise? The answers to these questions come in the form of wide ranges consisting of a minimum value and maximum value that depend on the climate model used.

There are really three general issues in the debate on climate change:

1. The changes that will occur to our climate.
2. The cause of these changes to our climate.
3. What should be done about adverse changes to our climate.

Issue 1 gets the most attention, but most of the argument actually centres around issue 2. The answer for the third issue depends on the answer for the second. So-called “climate change deniers” don’t deny the climate is changing. Au contraire. They just don’t believe mankind is causing “dangerous” changes to our climate.

The problem with claims of a scientific consensus is that they tend to be statements of a political nature made on behalf of scientists rather than scientific ones.

Washington Times exposes Warmists' snow job

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has published the contents of e-mail exchanges at the National Academies of Science that were first reported by the The Washington Times revealing plans for an "outlandishly aggressively partisan" campaign to attack climate change sceptics, including raising donations to publish an advertisement in the New York Times. Not surprisingly, they describe the efforts of Senator James Inhofe to hold climate scientists to account as "McCarthyism". It is clear that these scientists are not confident that the merits of their science will enable their alarmist and exaggerated claims to be sustained under scrutiny.

An inconvenient truth about the IPCC

It is one of the most critical and frequently cited findings of the IPCC and has been used to justify action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by governments around the world:

Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.

In the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, the words very likely specifically mean a probability greater than 90%.

While this figure has been treated as definitive in our understanding and response to global warming, it is not based on science as most people would believe. The figure was determined via a show of hands from representatives from each country. It was the result of a political process that did not involve climate scientists.

Is this what Kevin Rudd had in mind for Australia at Copenhagen?

You would be amazed by all the things that you don't hear in the mainstream media, such as the draft text of the Copenhagen climate change treaty, which thankfully was never agreed to. Even though it is still online, hardly anybody has read it, which is probably the way it was intended.

The 181 page document is barely comprehensible, but Clause 38 that begins on page 18 raises your eyebrows:

38. The scheme for the new institutional arrangement under the Convention will be based on three basic pillars: government; facilitative mechanism; and financial mechanism, and the basic organization of which will include the following:

1. The government will be ruled by the COP with the support of a new subsidiary body on adaptation, and of an Executive Board responsible for the management of the new funds and the related facilitative processes and bodies. The current Convention secretariat will operate as such, as appropriate.
2. The Convention’s financial mechanism will include a multilateral climate change fund including five windows: (a) an Adaptation window, (b) a Compensation window, to address loss and damage from climate change impacts, including insurance, rehabilitation and compensatory components, (c) a Technology window; (d) a Mitigation window; and (e) a REDD window, to support a multi-phases process for positive forest incentives relating to REDD actions.
3. The Convention’s facilitative mechanism will include: (a) work programmes for adaptation and mitigation; (b) a long-term REDD process; (c) a short-term technology action plan; (d) an expert group on adaptation established by the subsidiary body on adaptation, and expert groups on mitigation, technologies and on monitoring, reporting and verification; and (e) an international registry for the monitoring, reporting and verification of compliance of emission reduction commitments, and the transfer of technical and financial resources from developed countries to developing countries. The secretariat will provide technical and administrative support, including a new centre for information exchange.

Columnist Janet Albrechtsen read the treaty draft before the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen and warned the public of the "fine print" in the climate change agreement that our governments were about to sign up to in The Australian and The Wall Street Journal.

Senator Brown's life in a parallel universe

According to The Canberra Times, CSIRO hydrologist Dr David Post stated that there was "no evidence" linking the drought in eastern Australia to climate change. In response, leader of the Australian Greens, Senator Bob Brown, made an extraordinary claim:

We should ask why CSIRO is prepared to turn an unaccountable blind eye to recent climate trends in Tasmania. This undercurrent of scepticism would seem to suggest the report has been politicised.

While the Rudd Labor government has been ridiculing climate change sceptics opposed to its Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), which will be re-introduced into Parliament for the third time after two failed attempts to have the legislation passed, Senator Brown believes the findings are a result of the CSIRO "caving in to political pressure".

If there is any political pressure that is influencing the work of the CSIRO, it is pressure to avoid publishing research that conflicts with the government's climate change policy, as was the case for Dr Clive Spash, whose research was suppressed because it was critical of the government's CPRS.

Dr Post does not actually rule out the possibility that the drought in the Murray-Darling Basin was caused by climate change:

At this stage, we'd prefer to say we're talking about natural variability. The science is not sufficiently advanced to say it's climate change, one way or the other. The jury is still out on that.

The report from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project puts the current drought into context:

Annual rainfall in the southern MDB for the ten-year period 1997 to 2006 was significantly lower than the long-term average but similar low-rainfall periods occurred in the 1890s and around 1940.

America's Climategate: Allegations of climate data manipulation at NASA and NOAA

Explosive allegations of data manipulation at US government climate data centres have been aired in a special report on the website of KUSI News, based in San Diego, United States. These claims are based on research by computer programmer E. Michael Smith and meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo, who say that world temperature observations have been substantially manipulated to support claims of global warming.

According Smith and D'Aleo, the US national temperature dataset has been manipulated in a number of ways. In about 1990, readings from thermometers around the world had been excluded, reducing the total number of thermometers used in the dataset from 6000 to 1500. Readings from thermometers in cold places were substituted with ones from elsewhere, as E. Michael Smith explains:

Smith: One of the more startling ones I ran into was Bolivia. There is a very wonderful baseline for Bolivia, a very high and mountainous country, right up until 1990 when the data ends, and if you look on the November 2009 anomaly map, you'll see a very red, rosy, hot Bolivia. How do you get a hot Bolivia when you haven't measured the temperature for 20 years?

Coleman: Well, how do you?

Smith: They take the temperature from places up to 1,200 kilometres away and copy it in, they fill in with what they've got. And what they've got is the beach in Peru and the Amazon jungle.

Also, adjustments were applied to the raw data to produce a warming trend where none existed, as in the case of Davis, California, which appears to be warming in the adjusted data but shows cooling in the non-adjusted data:

Rudd's Copenhagen entourage

Below is the provisional list of 114 participants that Australia has sent to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. According to the statistics provided on the provisional list of participants, 194 nations have sent a total of 8053 participants, so the average number of participants in each party sent to the conference is 42.

The party includes 28 people from the Department of Foreign Affairs, but surprisingly the Foreign Minister's name Stephen Smith doesn't appear on this list.

H.E. Mr. Kevin Michael Rudd
Prime Minister

H.E. Ms. Penelope Wong
Minister, Climate Change and Water
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water

H.E. Ms. Louise Helen Hand
Ambassador for Climate Change
Department of Climate Change

Mr. David Fredericks
Deputy Chief of Staff
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Mr. Philip Green Oam
Senior Policy Adviser, Foreign Affairs
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Mr. Andrew Charlton
Senior Adviser
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Mr. Lachlan Harris
Senior Press Secretary
Prime Minister's Office
Office of Prime Minister

Mr. Scott Dewar
Senior Adviser
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Clare Penrose
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Fiona Sugden
Media Adviser
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Lisa French
Office of the Prime Minister
Office of Prime Minister

Mr. Jeremy Hilman
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Tarah Barzanji
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister

Mr. Kate Shaw
Executive Secretary
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Gaile Barnes
Executive Assistant
Office of Prime Minister

Ms. Gordon de Brouwer
Deputy Secretary
Prime Minister and Cabinet

Mr. Patrick Suckling
First Assistant Secretary, International Division
Prime Minister and Cabinet

Ms. Rebecca Christie
Prime Minister's Office

Mr. Michael Jones
Official Photographer
Prime Minister and Cabinet

Mr. Stephan Rudzki

Mr. David Bell
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police

Ms. Kym Baillie
Australian Federal Police

Mr. David Champion
Australian Federal Police

Mr. Matt Jebb
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police

Mr. Craig Kendall
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police

Mr. Ian Lane
Squadron Leader Staff, Officer VIP Operations

Mr. John Olenich
Media Adviser / Adviser to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water

Ms. Kristina Hickey
Adviser to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water

Mr. Martin Parkinson
Secretary
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Howard Bamsey
Special Envoy for Climate Change
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Robert Owen-Jones
Assistant Secretary, International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Clare Walsh
Assistant Secretary, International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Jenny Elizabeth Wilkinson
Policy Advisor
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Elizabeth Mary Peak
Principal Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Kristin Tilley
Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Andrew Ure
Acting Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Annemarie Watt
Director, Land Sector Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Kushla Munro
Director, International Forest Carbon Section
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Kathleen Annette Rowley
Director, Strategic and Technical Analysis
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Anitra Cowan
Assistant Director, Multilateral Negotiations
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Sally Truong
Assisting Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Jane Wilkinson
Assistant Director
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Tracey Mackay
Assistant Director
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Laura Brown
Assistant Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Tracey-Anne Leahey
Delegation Manager
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Nicola Loffler
Senior Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Tamara Curll
Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Jessica Allen
Legal Support Officer
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Sanjiva de Silva
Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Gaia Puleston
Political Adviser
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Penelope Jane Morton
Policy Adviser, Multilateral Negotiations (UNFCCC)
International Division
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Claire Elizabeth Watt
Policy Advisor
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Amanda Walker
Policy Officer, Multilateral Negotiations
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Alan David Lee
Policy Adviser, Land Sector Negotiations
Department of Climate Change

Ms. Erika Kate Oord
Australian Stakeholder Manager
Department of Climate Change

Mr. Jahda Kirian Swanborough
Communications Manager
Ministerial Communication
Department of Climate Change

H.E. Mr. Sharyn Minahan
Ambassador
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Julia Feeney
Director, Climate Change and Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Mr. Chester Geoffrey Cunningham
Second Secretary
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Germany

Ms. Rachael Virginia Cooper
Executive Officer, Climate Change and Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Ms. Rachael Grivas
Executive Officer, Environment Branch
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Moya Elyn Collett
Desk officer, Climate Change and Environment Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Mr. Rob Law
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Mr. Robin Davies
Assistant Director General, Sustainable Development Group
Australian Agency for International Development

Ms. Deborah Fulton
Director, Policy and Global Environment
Australian Agency for International Development

Ms. Katherine Renee Ann Vaughn
Policy Advisor, Policy and Global Environment
Australian Agency for International Development

Mr. Brian Dawson
Policy Adviser
Australian Agency for International Development

Mr. Andrew Leigh Clarke
Deputy Secretary
Department of Resources Development, Western Australia

Mr. Bruce Wilson
General Manager, Environment Energy and Environment Division
Department of Resources Development, Western Australia

Ms. Jill McCarthy
Policy Adviser
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism

Mr. Simon French
Policy Adviser
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

Mr. Ian Michael Ruscoe
Policy Adviser
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

Mr. David Walland
Acting Superintendent, National Climate Centre
Bureau of Meteorology

Mr. Damien Dunn
Senior Policy Adviser
The Australian Treasury

Ms. Helen Hawka Fuhrman
Policy Officer, Renewable Energy Policy and Partnerships

Mr. Scott Vivian Davenport
Chief Economics
NSW Department of Industry and Investment

Mr. Graham Julian Levitt
Policy Manager, Climate Change
NSW Department of Industry and Investment

Ms. Kate Jennifer Jones
Minister, Climate Change and Sustainability
Queensland Government

Mr. Michael William Dart
Principal Policy Advisor
Office of the Hon. Kate Jones MP
Queensland Government

Mr. Matthew Anthony Jamie Skoien
Senior Director, Office of Climate Change
Queensland Government

Mr. Michael David Rann
Premier, South Australia
Department of Premier and Cabinet, Southern Australia

Ms. Suzanne Kay Harter
Adviser
Department of Premier and Cabinet, Southern Australia

Mr. Paul David Flanagan
Manager, Communications
Government of South Australia

Mr. Timothy William O'Loughlin
Deputy Chief Executive, Sustainability and Workforce Management
Department of Premier and Cabinet
South Australian Government

Ms. Nyla Sarwar
M.Sc student
Linacre College
University of Oxford

Mr. Gavin Jennings
Minister, Environment and Climate Change and Innovation, Victorian Government

Ms. Sarah Broadbent
Sustainability Adviser

Ms. Rebecca Falkingham
Senior Adviser
Victoria Government/Office of Climate Change

Mr. Simon Camroux
Policy Adviser
Energy Supply Association of Australia Limited

Mr. Geoff Lake
Adviser
Australian Local Government Association

Sridhar Ayyalaraju
Post Visit Controller
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Tegan Brink
Deputy Visit Controller and Security Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Melissa Eu Suan Goh
Transport Liaison Officer and Consul
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Lauren Henschke
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Maree Fay
Accommodation Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Patricia McKinnon
Communications Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Eugene Olim
Paasport / Baggage Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Belinda Lee Adams

Ms. Jacqui Ashworth
Media Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Patricia Smith
Media Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Martin Bo Jensen
Research and Public Diplomatic Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Mauro Kolobaric
Consular Support
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Susan Flanagan
Consular Support
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Stephen Kanaridis
IT Support Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. George Reid
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Ashley Wright
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Jodie Littlewood
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Thomas Millhouse
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Timothy Whittley
Support Staff Driver
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Ms. Julia Thomson
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Donald Frater
Chief of Staff to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water

Ms. Jacqui Smith
Media Liaison
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark

Mr. Greg French
Senior Legal Advisor, Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Mr. Jeremy Hillman
Advisor
PMO

COALITION PLAN TO SAVE JOBS AND REDUCE COSTS

Press release issued by the Hon. Malcom Turnbull MP following party room discussions on amendments to the Rudd Labor government's emissions trading scheme (ETS).

The Coalition has unveiled a plan to save thousands of Australian jobs and limit increases in electricity prices for small business through common sense amendments to Labor's flawed and rushed emissions trading scheme.

The Shadow Cabinet and Joint Party Room today agreed to a package of amendments that will form the basis for good faith negotiations with the Rudd Labor Government. The package demonstrates Labor's CPRS can be made cheaper and smarter, protecting jobs.

Key export industries, including coal mining, food processing, natural gas and aluminium will be better protected, saving thousands of Australian jobs under threat from Labor's scheme.

The package also protects farmers from the scheme by exempting agriculture altogether. By allowing agricultural offsets which include carbon sequestration in soils and vegetation, there is the opportunity for financial and land management benefits in the rural sector. This is a win/win for farmers and the environment.

By including voluntary measures, the environment will also benefit from individuals, businesses and community groups who develop their own initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Coalition will continue to advocate an intensity-based cap and trade approach to the electricity sector, as this more than halves the initial increase in electricity prices, reducing the economic costs of achieving emissions cuts.

If the Government refuses to consider the intensity-based approach, it must clearly explain why, and work with the Coalition to provide an alternative strategy for cushioning the initial impact of higher electricity prices on small businesses.

The key amendments to Labor's flawed CPRS and the commitments required from the Government that will be sought by the Coalition are outlined below.

Trade Exposed Industries

• Amend the CPRS to provide a single level of assistance for emissions intensive trade exposed (EITE) industries at 94.5 per cent until 2015 and 90 per cent thereafter.
• Lower the threshold for assistance from the CPRS proposal of 1000 tonnes of CO₂ per $1 million of revenue to 850 tonnes of CO₂ per $1 million.
• Continue to provide assistance to Australian EITE industries at 90 per cent until 80 per cent of their international competitors have also implemented carbon abatement measures.
• Include primary food processing such as dairy and meat in the EITE scheme.
• Allow industries that include a series of sequential or parallel production processes to have these assessed as a single activity in determining assistance.

Agriculture

• Permanently exclude agricultural emissions from the CPRS.
• Obtain Government agreement to introduction of an agricultural offset scheme in line with similar offset schemes to be introduced in comparable economies such as the US and EU.

Coal Mine Emissions

• Exclude coal mine fugitive emissions from the CPRS.
• Provide the Minister with authority to use regulation to control fugitive emissions with the objective of achieving a 30 per cent reduction by 2025 as technology and international best practice allow.

Lower Electricity Prices

• Coalition will continue to advocate an intensity-based cap-and-trade model for generators. This delivers the same emissions cuts as the CPRS but with a much smaller increase in electricity prices.
• This would greatly reduce the burden on small and mid-sized businesses, which receive no compensation for higher power bills under Labor's proposals.
• Under the CPRS retail electricity prices will rise by close to 20 per cent in the first two years. Under an intensity approach, retail electricity prices would rise by less than 5 per cent in the first two years.
• If the Government continues to refuse to consider the intensity model, the Coalition will negotiate for an alternative approach to cushion near-term electricity price increases for small businesses.

Compensation for Electricity Generators

• Coal-fired generators must be better compensated for loss of value they experience from the CPRS, to ensure security of electricity supply and enable them to transition to lower emission energy sources.
• The CPRS offers coal-fired generators 130 million permits over five years worth $3.6 billion. Yet three respected private sector analysts estimate their losses at $9–$11 billion.
• Assistance should be increased to 390 million permits over 15 years (or about $10 billion). Assistance should be allocated to all generators in proportion to the losses they suffer.
• In the absence of access to the Government's secret Morgan Stanley report, this represents the Coalition's best estimate of appropriate generator compensation given the available data.

Energy Efficiency and Voluntary Action

• The Coalition will negotiate for a national "white certificate" energy efficiency scheme so households and businesses earn credits for efficiency measures, and contribute to reducing national emissions.
• Likewise, the Coalition supports creation of a voluntary offset market in advance of the introduction of the CPRS, and amending the CPRS to ensure voluntary abatement leads to a lower national level of emissions.

The Coalition will negotiate the above matters with the Government in good faith, and in the expectation that the proposed emissions trading scheme can be improved to deliver the same environmental benefits with less severe economic costs.

The ball is now in Mr Rudd's court. If he wants to fix the flaws in his proposed emissions trading scheme, he needs to give Senator Wong the green light to engage with the Coalition and embrace our plan to save Australian jobs and reduce costs.

18 October 2009

Emissions Trading Scheme fundamentally flawed

The government's proposed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has become a major embarrassment for the Rudd Labor government. The government has been left in disarray because of internal divisions on the policy, and it is now the subject of three Senate inquiries. It has been very poorly designed and raises deep concerns from both the Coalition and Greens.

The ETS in its proposed form will have little or no impact on the nation's carbon emissions. Speaking of the Select Committee on Climate Change Policy, Andrew Robb, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and COAG and Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader on Emissions Trading Design, said:

The Government's emissions trading scheme is deeply flawed – if implemented it would cost jobs, kill investment and not see any appreciable reduction in CO2 emissions.

This inquiry is an opportunity to look at additional complementary measures and alternatives to the Government's ETS.

This inquiry has been agreed to because everyone, including many in the Government's caucus think, that what the Government has come up with is so deeply flawed that we need to have an inquiry which will look more broadly at what can be done which won't cost thousands of jobs but can also do something significant about CO2 emissions.

The scheme has been slammed in a report commissioned by the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy. Dr Fisher is critical of both what is known about the scheme and what remains unknown:

Although the public report on the Treasury modelling is voluminous there remain aspects of the modelling that are not transparent. To assist in this review the Chair of the Senate Select Committee wrote to the Treasurer requesting, ‘the government's complete documentation of the government's models together with the model codes and databases and any other model simulations undertaken relevant to the policy scenarios, but not publicly released’. To this reviewer’s knowledge no response was received. As a consequence, it has been necessary to undertake this review without access to a complete set of information about model documentation, databases, implementation and many of the underlying technical model parameters. Given the major long-term structural changes to the Australian economy implied by the introduction of an ETS and the fact that the development of the key model employed to determine the international effects on the Australian economy of the scheme was fully taxpayer funded, it seems reasonable that full model datasets, codes and comprehensive documentation be released.

...

As already stated this review regards the transparency surrounding the Treasury modelling process as unsatisfactory, notwithstanding the efforts of the Committee to gain access to models, documentation, codes and databases developed with public funding. This lack of transparency is regrettable given Treasury’s traditional advocacy of openness and competition when it comes to others.

The report also raises concerns about carbon leakage, where emission-intensive, trade-exposed industries relocate offshore. Carbon leakage not only threatens Australian jobs, but can potentially increase greenhouse gas emissions:

The most common description of carbon leakage concerns the relocation of energy intensive industries from countries with emissions constraints to countries with no such constraints. This could happen either via physical plant relocation or if firms in emission-constrained countries shrink while competitors in non-constrained countries expand. Global emissions might actually rise, compared to what otherwise would have occurred, if firms in the nonconstrained economy use more emission-intensive technologies.

Another channel by which leakage can occur is via global energy prices. Mitigation policies in carbon-constrained countries reduce demand for high carbon fossil fuels, leading to lower prices on world markets (other things equal). As a result, non-constrained countries would respond by increasing consumption above what it would otherwise be. Conversely, demand for cleaner fuels such as natural gas would increase in rich, participating countries, driving up the world price and reducing the reliance on such fuels in non-constrained countries.

Unfortunately, it appears that there was some political influence in the economic modelling that was carried out in the design of the scheme, as Senator Mathias Cormann, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Fuel and Energy, explained in a media release:

From evidence received late last year, the Committee already knew the Government had refused to ask Treasury to assess the most realistic scenarios when modelling the economic impact of its proposed CPRS.

Challenged about the scenarios chosen for modelling, a senior Treasury official told our Committee that “the scenarios that were modelled by Treasury were done at the direction of the government”.

That is code for don't blame us.

Fact sheet: biosequestration

Fact sheet included in the Coalition's press release on its proposed Green Carbon Initiative.

What is it?

Biosequestration involves offsetting greenhouse gases by capturing and storing carbon in soil and plants. This includes restoring soil carbon through better land management; revegetation and reforestation; and biochar (converting biomass into charcoal, which can be fixed in soil).

Land Management

• According to the Garnaut Review, 70% of Australia is arid and semi-arid rangeland degraded by marginal grazing. Garnaut estimates approximately 50% of Australia’s 2006 CO2e emissions (approximately 576 million tonnes, or Mt) could be absorbed each year for the next 20-50 years by improved practices on Australian cropping and grazing lands, and by revegetation¹.
• According to scientist Dr Christine Jones an increase of 0.5% in soil carbon on 2% of Australia’s agricultural land would absorb a volume of CO2e exceeding Australia’s 2005 emissions².
• Steps to improve land management include changed practices for animal management and husbandry, select breeding, grazing techniques, fodder quality, and animal shelter. Improvements would enhance animal live-weight gains and abate greenhouse gases.

Revegetation

• CSIRO scientist Dr Phil Polglase estimates plantings to abate carbon emissions are profitable over 9.1M hectares of economically marginal low rainfall land at a carbon price of $20/tonne. Such plantings have potential to remove 143 Mt of CO2e each year – equal to approximately 25% of Australia’s 2006 emissions³.
• Forestry and revegetation are already partly recognized as carbon offsets under Kyoto.

Biochar

• Created by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen - a process called pyrolysis. Half the carbon is turned into biochar (charcoal) and fixed in soil. The other half is transformed into biofuels used to generate green energy.
• Advocates such as 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery contend its widespread adoption could, over 20 years, remove the 200-250 Gt of carbon added to the atmosphere since 1850⁴.
• Resources firm Alumina estimates its existing pilot project⁵ can scale to offset 6 Mt of CO2e yearly. Alumina estimates total biochar potential of WA’s wheat belt at 25 Mt yearly, and total national potential at 100 Mt yearly – equal to approximately 17% of 2006 emissions.

---

¹http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter22.pdf
²http://www.soilcarboncredits.blogspot.com/
³http://www.afg.asn.au/resources/pdfs/AFG08/Session_3_B3_1.pdf
⁴http://beyondzeroemissions.org/2008/03/19/tim-flannery-australian-of-the-year-2007-talks-bio-char-why-we-need-to-move-into-the-renewable-age
⁵http://www.aluminalimited.com/index.php?s=about&ss=sustainability&p=risk_management#regulatoryRisk

Fact sheet: energy efficiency

Fact sheet included in the Coalition's press release on its proposed Green Carbon Initiative.

FACT SHEET: ENERGY EFFICIENCY

What is it?

Reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from buildings by incorporating a variety of technologies and design features (such as passive heating/cooling) and retrofits (such as insulation).

• According to the Green Building Council of Australia, 97% of existing Australian buildings are too old to have been built with energy efficient features¹.
• Energy-efficient buildings have been cited as a major opportunity for low-cost (and often self-funding) carbon emissions abatement by respected climate change authorities and researchers including the United Nations IPCC, the Stern Report, the Garnaut Review², and McKinsey & Co³.
• Globally, the IPCC found that by 2030 about 30% of global projected greenhouse gas emissions from energy use in buildings can be avoided at minimal or zero economic cost.
• Locally, the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ABSEC) estimates 27-31% of existing emissions from buildings can be abated at zero net cost - but the price signal contained in the Rudd Government’s CPRS will deliver less than one fifth this amount. ASBEC estimated by 2030 abatement of 60 Mt per year was achievable – about 11% of Australia’s 2006 emissions⁴.
• McKinsey & Co estimates the Australian building sector can, by 2020, achieve emission reductions close to 50 Mt of CO2e – about 8% of 2006 emissions.
• The Centre for International Economics estimates cuts of 39-45 Mt of CO2e can be achieved at a low cost (or net gain)⁵.
• Many green retrofit options are financially self-funding over time. Estimates for the payoff horizon for retrofitting an average existing building are in the 8-11 year range.
• Policy options to deliver gains from energy efficiency include:
  • Education campaigns to overcome information inefficiencies and alert building owners to the net economic savings from retrofits.
  • Accelerated depreciation for green retrofit expenditure.
  • Increased capital expenditure investment allowance for green capex.
  • Selective retrofit of existing government buildings.
  • Constructing new government buildings to Green Star standard.
  • Routine assessments of any regulatory burdens imposed on building owners, to ensure measures to encourage energy efficiency are not a drag on the economy.
• The Rudd Government has failed to so far provide a $500 rebate for the installation of insulation in rental properties - 18 months after it was first promised.

---

¹ Green Building Council of Australia, the Dollars and Sense of Green Buildings 2008, found at http://www.aela.org.au/publications/Dollars_and_Sense.pdf
² The Garnaut Climate Change Review, found at http://www.garnautreview.org.au/index.htm
³ McKinsey & Co., An Australian Cost Curve for Greenhouse Gas Reduction, 2008 found at http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/ccsi/pdf/Australian_Cost_Curve_for_GHG_Reduction.pdf
⁴ http://www.asbec.asn.au/files/ASBEC%20CCTG%20Second%20Plank%20Report%202.0_0.pdf
⁵ “Building Energy Efficiency” CIE February 2008 at http://www.thecie.com.au/content/news/Final%20CIE_TPB_Perth%20(with%20animations).pdf

Coalition announces Green Carbon Initiative

Today I received a copy of the Coalition's press release on its proposed Green Carbon Initiative from Senator Mathias Cormann. A transcript of the speech delivered by Malcolm Turnbull, Leader of the Opposition, has been published on his website at the following URL:

http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/Pages/Article.aspx?ID=97941

This is a significant announcement that will put pressure on the Rudd Labor government to deliver more in its environmental policy. Many environmentally minded voters who fell for Kevin Rudd's pre-election rhetoric have been left bitterly disappointed by the Rudd Labor government's emissions targets.

Because the Coalition has delivered a superior but practical alternate policy vision, the Rudd Labor government must now justify its actions—wasting question time with irrelevant blather or giving unacceptable responses such as “this information is not publicly available” will not be good enough.

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
THE HON. MALCOLM TURNBULL MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR WENTWORTH

GREEN CARBON INITIATIVE

The Coalition has today committed to a sweeping climate change strategy that unlocks vast and currently untapped opportunities to abate Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

The strategy would greatly broaden Australia's response to climate change well beyond the Rudd Government's narrow, costly and overly complex Emissions Trading Scheme. It would also deliver large gains in agricultural productivity, environmental quality and energy security.

“It is a plan that will create new jobs and new enterprises – without exporting our industries and emissions overseas,” said the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull.

“Our Green Carbon Initiative will ensure Australia is able to achieve greater reductions in carbon dioxide than those proposed by Mr Rudd, at relatively low cost and with enormous additional benefits to our own country's environment and productivity,” Mr Turnbull said.

“We will aim to achieve additional annual reductions of at least 150 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.”

Drawing on the advice of climate change experts from around the world, the plan focuses on three directions for abatement that have been virtually ignored by the Rudd Government:

• A Green Carbon Initiative to offset greenhouse gases by capturing and storing large quantities of carbon in soil and vegetation – ‘biosequestration’
• Measures to encourage improved energy efficiency in buildings, where 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions originate
• Increased investment in new technologies to address climate change – particularly clean coal, which is vitally important to the Australian economy

The Green Carbon Initiative includes commitments to restore soil carbon through better land management; to invest heavily in the revegetation and reforestation of the Australian landscape; and to pursue sequestration of large quantities of carbon via biochar (the conversion of biomass into charcoal, which can be fixed in soil).

Measures to encourage energy efficiency in the built environment are one of the lowest-cost opportunities for abatement – and often pay for themselves. But there are many obstacles to them being realised. The Rudd Government has ignored this area, making the cost to Australian families of cutting greenhouse gas emissions higher than it should be.

More broadly, the Rudd Government, in its haste to implement its poorly designed ETS, has neglected all alternative paths to a low carbon economy. Biochar, improved land management and much revegetation activity are all excluded from the proposed ETS.

“An ETS is not an end in itself,” said Mr Turnbull. “It is only part of the solution, one tool in the climate policy tool box, and, in fact, no solution at all without new energy sources and new low emission technologies.”

The Coalition will respond to the Rudd Government's proposed ETS at a subsequent date, after receiving its own economic modelling and reviewing the detailed legislation.

24 January 2009

Means test devastates solar panel industry and costs jobs

In an extraordinary move, Dean Mighell, Victorian state secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, has written to the Liberal Party expressing his support for their efforts to have the Labor government reverse the means test for solar panel rebates. They have been joined by the Greens in their condemnation of the policy which is devastating the solar panel industry and has resulted in job losses.

The previous Howard government introduced a rebate of up to $8,000 for the installation of solar panels. In the last Budget, the Labor government imposed a means test that restricts the rebate to households earning less than $100,000 a year.

The explanation offered by the Labor government for this monumental act of fiscal foolishness is ludicrous. On ABC radio, Environment Minister Peter Garrett said "This was a program that was very popular, it was a program that was overheating." In reality, we are witnessing a prime example of Labor's economic mismanagement that has resulted in workers losing their livelihoods. Many businesses in the solar panel industry have reported losing up to 80% of their contracts and have had to lay off employees.

Last year when Labor was in opposition, Mr Garrett and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced their policy on solar panels on the premises of Solartec Renewables, a family business located near Canberra. Mr Rudd made the following statement:

"We need to boost renewable energies in general. Solar is the most greenhouse-friendly energy available on the planet and, therefore, we just need to take some practical steps to make it possible for as many families as possible to invest in this."

Since the last Budget, the means test has ruined Solartec Renewables. They have lost $500,000 worth of orders and have had to terminate the employment of three of their staff.

Rudd's commitment to Kyoto: more negotiations

The response from Peter Garrett, Australia's new Environment Minister, on questions about Australia's support for short term cuts to greenhouse gas emissions was all too familiar:

"I think that most importantly, we are committed to constructive negotiations. That is the important message here, we're committed to constructive negotiations."

Rudd leaves us in no doubt about our "commitment" at the Bali conference:

"The objective of Bali is to start the process of negotiations for the next couple of years to bring about a real outcome to deal with excessively dangerous climate change."

Rudd has ruled out endorsing short term targets for greenhouse gas emissions without even setting foot on Bali.

Until Rudd is serious about making a commitment to targets for greenhouse gas emissions, the ratification of the Kyoto protocol can be regarded as nothing more than a symbolic gesture.

This raises some doubts about how committed the Labor Party truly is to tackling climate change, an issue upon which it sought to differentiate itself from the Liberal Party in the last election campaign.

Editorial from AdelaideNow...: End this climate of uncertainty