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The Forum > Article Comments > The Climate Change Committee: getting the process right > Comments

The Climate Change Committee: getting the process right : Comments

By Geoff Carmody, published 7/10/2010

The Climate Change Committee is to undertake another climate policy review.

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A carbon tax and an ETS both price carbon. The essential difference is that in the case of a carbon tax, government is responsible for setting the price, based on political and other considerations. It does not necessarily result in any reduction of CO2 emissions or reduction at a desired rate.

With an ETS, government specifies the rate of emission reduction it seeks to achieve and allows the market to set a price on carbon. And in my book, the market is far better informed than any government.

It does not take a committee to determine which is the most cost-efficient and effective method of achieving a reduction of CO2 emissions. Common sense points to use of an ETS, unless of course one perversely asserts that government rather than the market is best placed to price carbon.

Rudd government proposals were contentious because they proposed an ETS where major polluters were seen to be compensated for polluting. International trading in emissions off-sets were permitted with countries where claims of acting to reduce their CO2 emissions were spurious and administered by governments remarkable only for their corruption.

Moreover, Rudd government proposed using its CRPS to achieve by 2020 a purely tokenistic 5% reduction in its 2000 emission level. Compare that with the more realistic target adopted by the UK, a reduction of 34% on its 1990 levels. Then there were other failures, such as exclusions for the primary industries sector.

The fresh approach proposed by PM Gillard is welcome. Committee members need to by wary of past mistakes and recommend measures aimed at preventing government of either persuasion from indulging in the stupidities which Rudd tried to force on an uninformed public.
Posted by Agnostic of Mittagong, Thursday, 7 October 2010 10:55:43 AM
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Hey, what do you think we can achieve here in Australia even with the most efficient carbon-pricing or emissions-reduction system?

SFA!!

There is just too much apathy, uncertainty and opposition to meaningful action on climate change to make it politically possible to do anything meaningful...for as long as we have climate change as the core motivation.

However, if we develop a policy based on the fear of the rising price of oil and the enormous damage that it could do to our society, then we could achieve MUCH bigger gains in terms of emissions reductions and climate change.

Our society is so damn addicted to oil and to the price of the stuff remaining somewhere near its current level, or at least not rising suddenly, that enormous upheaval would result if the price did escalate, let alone if we were to suffer any shortages of supply.

THIS is the motivation that should be sold by our government and scientific community.

All those environmentally-minded people as well as the vested-interested pro-continuous-expansionist climate-change-denialist big-business end of town, and everyone in between, should be united on the need to develop alternative energy sources and buffer ourselves against the disaster that peak oil could wreak upon us.

Quite frankly, the climate-change motive just isn't going to cut it. By now that should be crystal clear. But that doesn't mean that we can't do great things in the interest of mitigating climate change... as well as protecting the integerity of our society and quality of life.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 7 October 2010 11:30:49 AM
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One problem: how do you adopt an 'evidence-based process' when there is no evidence? Or -- let's be generous -- when the 'evidence' is weak, ambiguous and hotly contested? Before you can agree on the evidence you have to agree on a phenomenon: and this is precisely where AGW -- oops, sorry, 'climate disruption' -- fails to convince.

But don't despair: if finding facts is too hard you can always let off steam by pretending to blow up children:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/04/the-1010-splattergate-goes-sploot-a-roundup/

What a wonderful -- if inadvertent -- insight into the eco-fascist mind!
Posted by Jon J, Thursday, 7 October 2010 2:35:01 PM
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With the total lack of evidence that CO2 has any detrimental effect on anything, anyone who promotes the use of any form of carbon price is a fool, a conman, a sharpie, or perhaps all three. What do you reckon this bloke is?

In the circles in which he moves, there is a great deal of money to be made from a trading scheme, & a smart bloke can probably make money out of a tax. It would appear to me, that people who have so much to gain, personally should keep out of the carbon price promotion business. Even if they are genuine, they are not going to be trusted.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 7 October 2010 3:23:36 PM
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Geoff,

I echo others here. One of the really off-putting elements of the great AGW issue is the number of people, some of them economists like Stern and Garnaut, who accept that 'the science is settled', don't give that a second thought, and proceed to set out 'ways forward'.

I would agree that there has been a lot of pressure, so to speak, to do that, but there is increasing evidence that the science was never settled, but has been overhyped to allow people to pursue social, economic and political agendas, some of them no doubt virtuous.

Once we start to do that the whole basis of the natural sciences, indeed, even of the European Enlightenment, is threatened. Our society is built on that. I would ask you to do some reading in the wider area of the discussion over whether or not the planet is warming (even over whether or not that is or ever could be a sensible statement, given the measurement problems), whether or not the warming is unprecedented, whether or not warming is bad for us, and whether or not human activity has had any, a little or much to do with it, if it has occurred at all.

Then I would ask you to do the maths and see what effect anything Australia did, anything at all, could have on that warming. It's so small that it is of no effect. Why do it?

Now if, for example, you want us to move out of oil, then what is wrong with the price signals that the market will provide as demand once again outstrips supply?
Posted by Don Aitkin, Thursday, 7 October 2010 4:48:26 PM
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Don Aitkin
Exactly.

The overweening arrogance and intellectual dereliction of these anti-human fools is frightening.

Agnostic
"And in my book, the market is far better informed than any government...Common sense points to use of an ETS, unless of course one perversely asserts that government rather than the market is best placed to price carbon."

There is already a price for carbon. Carbon is used in all production, all fuel, all steel, all foods, all services - everything; and the price for these products incorporates the market price for carbon. The people using it have the exact same interest as everyone else in considerations of risk, uncertainty, futurity, equity etc. etc. etc. They only difference between them and governments is that they're not able to forcibly live at everyone else's expense.

The only way we can justify government setting the level of emissions, is to assume that governments are better informed on this topic than everyone else - the same perversity that is rejected in justifying government setting the price of carbon. It is not just a simple matter of climate science. The climatological, ecological, epistemological, methodological, economic, sociological, political and ethical questions are enormously complex and varied. And the idea that the preening Peter Garrets and vap-headed Julia Gillards of this world speak from a position of superior knowledge or virtue is indeed laughable and perverse. If the directors of any private corporation tried raising money from the public by such scammiferous methods they would already be serving long terms in prison, which is where everyone promoting this fatuous nonsense belongs.
Posted by Peter Hume, Friday, 8 October 2010 8:54:52 AM
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Someone calculated if a billion trees were grown this would cover AU carbon problem.
Posted by 579, Sunday, 10 October 2010 2:28:27 PM
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