Not the cute little few words "there is not a single economist in Australia with any professional credibility". In other words if you disagree with the alarmists like the author or Ross Garnaut you have no professional credibility. What absolute rubbish.

More religious liturgy from the high priests of Pharaoh. Government is like a God; our overlords are ideally suited to make up for the imperfections of mundanes and serfs; violence is the means to knowledge; by taxation we become richer; our problems are caused by our sin in not admitting the state-God into our lives; blah blah blah

Has John been walking around with your eyes closed?

An academic of his reputation could do better than this piece of agit-prop. The reality is that economists came to a conclusion long ago that, as a strictly economic question, there was no point in taking action against climate change. To make the figures add up to any action you have to make extreme assumptions, which is what the famous 2006 report by Nicholas Stern did. It assumed an extraordinary low rediscount rate. Garnaut made another assumption, but I'll let John explain that one.

If John wants to be taken seriously perhaps he could take us through his defence of the rediscount rate and Garnaut's report, and explain why all the others who have looked at this issue, such as William Nordhaus, the sterling professor of economics at Yale, have been unable to make the numbers add up to any action. In fact, action against climate change - if it exists - is a moral issue. It has nothing to do with economics. This point is acknowledged by all but a handful of senior economists, including a few in Australia, who have adopted their own, peculiar views on the issue.

Also, if he wants to be taken seriously, he should look at recent research into climate cycles - as distinct from climate change - and how those cycles affected rainfall in the Murray Darling Basin of which he is so fond. In particular, he should look at the research on the link between the Pacfic Decadal Oscillation and rainfall in Eastern Australia.

The result would be a much more considered article.

Quote, "There is not a single economist in Australia, with any credibility who denies the reality of global warming--". Just goes to show the gullibility of economists. Might also give some insight into who provides the employment for most of them also.

Another quote, "If all the economists in the world were laid end to end", & stepped on by a giant bug crusher, the world would be a better place.

I as so sick of economists, with absolutely no record of success, pontificating on what will, or should happen.

We need protection from these clowns.

Who cares whether economists as a group accept global warming? It's hardly their field of expertise. I imagine they all agree that breathing oxygen is a good idea as well.

Nick is right, economists are not climate scientists.

However, I agree with John’s main points.

While economists are not climate scientists, most are good at statistics, and can spot the more egregious misrepresentations of data used at the shallow ends of both sides of the debate.

And, while climate scientists are best equipped to decide whether global warming is due to human actions, economists are better equipped to advise on what policies to adopt if we decide to do something about emissions.

So John Quiggin may not be qualified to say that the science in support of AGW is conclusive, but nor is James Hansen qualified to say we should not use emissions trading to achieve abatement. If AGW is true, and if we choose to do something about it, a carbon price and adaption will deliver abatement at a lower cost than cash-for-clunker programmes or subsidised solar panels.

Most complex public policy issues are worked through with co-operation from many disciplines, each trusting (though seldom completely!) that the others’ inputs are be best information and analysis available. Complex policy issues also have to be pursued without perfect knowledge and perfect consensus. Most well-informed non-scientists must surely conclude that the weight of theory, evidence and exert opinion rests strongly with the AGW hypothesis. The possible risks of not acting on that evidence are large and could greatly outweigh the costs of action. It therefore makes sense to act on this evidence, even if some of us continue to hope the sceptics are right.

This may explain economists' widespread acceptance of AGW.

One point John did not mention, but which is another important contribution from economics to this debate, is how little it will cost in the long run to implement mitigation policies. Shaving a few percentage points (at most) off economic growth over a period of decades is a small price to pay for abatement. Indeed, I suspect one of the reasons some deep greens resent economists’ contribution to the debate is because economists argue we can mitigate and adapt without giving up a prosperous lifestyle

I'm not altogether sure it's a good thing to hear that AARES economists are of one mind on pricing carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Leave aside for the moment Quiggin's 'the science is settled' presumption — let's assume that Mann's 'Hockey Stick' is valid despite HIS cherrypicking of paleoclimate proxies to make the Medieval Warm Period disappear, and that Jones' urban heat island effect calculations are valid even though his data was ‘lost’ 20 yrs ago and isn't available for scrutiny. We can all agree that reducing emissions is a Good Thing, no?

So how does a carbon tax/ETS, hybridised or otherwise, reduce CO2? If the price of books goes up, people may buy fewer novels, use the library, or buy an e-book. If the price of food goes up, people don’t eat less ... though they may buy fewer books. Spending on food and energy isn’t discretional for most Australians. If wealthy Jane responds to higher petrol prices by spending $40K on a new Prius, poor Tom will buy the V6 commodore Jane traded in to get to work — minimal net reduction in emissions.

If government spent 100% of a carbon tax on replacing coal-fired base-load power plants with geothermal, CH4 or nuclear, we’d achieve significant carbon reductions. But government isn’t efficient or economical — think Pink Batts & BER. If government promised a 30 year tax holiday for any new power plant using the above technologies, consumers would pay dearly, but we’d get reduced emissions AND improved infrastructure.

Economists, Quiggin says, prefer buy-back of water rights in the Regions to provision of infrastructure. Presumably, then, they’re uniformly livid about billions spent on energy-guzzling desal plants which benefit already infrastructure-rich urban centres. Perhaps they expect that ‘voluntary’ water buy-backs will motivate farmers to move to Balmain where they can get environment-friendly work collecting shopping trollies, or driving to the midnight shift at Macca’s in Jane’s old V6 commodore.

As Quiggin says, it’s one thing to get agreement in principle, quite another to formulate a workable plan. Keep working, I say.

AS TO THE FUTURE - IN THIS WE ARE ALL BLIND

Thanks John

Time to share this sentiment from an economist colleague.

"It has ever been thus. There are competing schools of thought, each with their political allegiances.

In economic (climate change) policy we are necessarily dealing with the future and in this we are all blind. I suppose economic (climate change) theory is a bit like the blind man's stick, of some but limited use, particularly when crossing a busy road and the path of economic activity (climate change) is a busy road indeed.

Too much reliance should not be placed on it. While it can be an aid in the art of policy making, unfortunately, it is often used in blame-shifting and the dark art of the spin doctor.

The whole subject provides an endless source of entertainment. Enjoy!"

Alice (in Warmerland)

I will say it again !

Until the IPCC reruns their computer climate models with the new
realistic data for fossil fuels from the Uppsala Universities Global
Energy Systems Group then all discussion is just the batting of gums.

In fact all climate conferences, CO2 taxes, Sequestration research, etc
etc should be put on hold until it can be seen what the IPCC's new
projected temperature rise would be.

Well I have not heard if they have done that work. It has been almost
a year since the data was published. Have they run it ?

Until they do, what is the point of even discussing global warming.
We might have been wasting our time for the last many years.

What economists fail to note is that the value of irrigated production in the MDB is in the order of $5.5 billion dollars per annum, meaning that the govts modest $1 billion pa proposed spend on the Murray Darling is largely met through taxes derived from the very industry that will be crippled.

Buybacks are dead money whilst water efficiency improvements are an investment that can benefit both the environment and the economy. Forever.
We can invest money on buybacks and get no return, or we can invest a bit more and still retain a tax return, retain robust inland communities and retain food security.

John notes the importance of agriculture, and not just to Australians, yet persists with the conclusion that buybacks are best. Presumably working on the basis that Australian economists will be down the list of hungry peoples.

We don't know the future value of commodities, but the current trend suggests working with values from the last decade undervalues irrigation in the MDB greatly.

I wonder if some of the economists gripes stem from the reality that the benefits flow initially to irrigators, and only then onto the wider community. Unfortunately it is the wider community that will feel the cost of buybacks first, but that's ok - economists predict lots of green jobs.