If we can get through the next 20 years it will be a miracle. By that time Australia will have 30 million people, petrol will be a distant memory, the North Pole will be permanent open water, high tides will lap coastal suburbs and vast swathes of prime farmland will be semi-desert. But people worry about 5c a litre on petrol in 2008. I'd like some alternative scenarios from those who say that starting carbon reductions in 2010 is indecent haste. If anything saves us it may not be officialdom so much as the price of everything getting out of hand. This means we may have to forego some immediate consumption to prepare for the future; for example higher power bills to fund clean electricity. Then again we may just leave it too late.

Jeez Taswegian, we will get through the next twenty years without the aid of miracles. Things will be different, but we will get there.

If climate is your main concern, know that our ancestors have lived through climate changes which make the worst case ones in the current scenarios look pretty tame.

Climate change has always occurred, always will.

miner, or should that read minor we near a point in Earth's history where in the next 20 years will could reach the point of on return if nothing is done to escape this situation. Governments State and Federal should not be waiting for a future meeting to act. We should have heavily subsidized solar home power units, be using geothermal and hydro power as a priority. There are many ways governments can help this situation not least by "green powering" their many buildings, it's time to act. I don't wish to join the "Mad Max" club in forty years, I have children for whom I desire a life much as my own.

The only thing we can realistically do in Australia is curb the population increase in order to soften the demand for energy and the crippling effect of numbers on the environment.

Demographer Prof. Bob Birell says that there is no way that carbon emissions can be reduced to the level claimed by the Rudd Labor Government if Australia’s population continues to grow. The population forecast of 31.6 million by 2050 will produce emissions four times greater than that era’s hoped for reductions.

The Rudd Government has ignored the population’s influence on climate and environment. Senator Wong, when roused by Prof. Birell’s comment, weakly replied that population was being taken into account, and the matter would be discussed when the Government’s final plan was released.

Huh! If, as these people claim, climate change is down to human cause, population should have been the very first thing mentioned!

Coal is 19th Century technology. All of the basic thermodynamic principles were discovered and understood back then. Subsequent refinements were made possible by more sophisticated metallurgy and finer engineering tolerances. The impetus for this did not come from love of science alone, nor from any natural human desire to make civilisation more efficient. It happened because the easiest high-quality coal deposits were used up first.

Oil is early 20th Century technology. All of the above applies to oil. Yet we are plodding down that same old, same old pathway.

Nuclear power is mid-20th Century technology - and guess what! Yes folks, we just can't seem to wake up from this horrible nightmare. The same old familiar crumbly pathway to a hollowed-out planet beckons. I wouldn't want to be a Frenchman when all those reactors "come of age", as the more mature ones are now doing in Britain.

I blame it all on reticulated electricity. Even as appliances have become cleverer, consumers have become sillier. They are so spaced-out, they even believe that the Stock Exchange is really real. Voon!

Not to worry. When humans lost the opportunity to do some really useful work, they became consumers. As the situation worsened, many humans were forced to become CONSULTANTS. Consultants have now risen in the ranks to the highest echelons of political and corporate power. My mate Kev seems to be one. Peter Garrett is obviously a bumbling new recruit. Brendan? Ah well, he was just born that way.

I have done a bit of consulting work myself over the years. This is how it works:

- I take your watch. Then I tell you the time. Then I charge you for it -

I wonder what the next evolutionary step in our wonderful species will be?

- see you in the soup.... with Soylent croutons -

Chris,
I understand your reasoning but am uncomfortable with a number of underlying assumptions to your piece.
1. That a fair/accurate assessment of Howard’s performance is by comparing figures with OECD.
2. That Countries should be corparatised and Governments merely executive managers.
3. They ignore world wide philosophical swings in economical reasoning.
4. They ignore unique foreign policy issues.
5. Differences in the structural basis of economies

OECD figures show outcomes not specific circumstances that created them. A booming mining sector (a comparatively low employment sector) can cover a multitude of sins. Especially when it comes to high technologies sectors of many of the European countries.

There are scales of economy that make services delivery cheaper in many of those same compact countries this would in effect mean that their 10% of GDP would go further than our 10% GDP. The comparison is moot if you’re in a rural centre and need urgent specialist medical care. Simply put the structural differences in these economies make comparisons and a measure of government competence dubious.

The concern is that good business is all about profit, this financial year and benefits management and a minority (shareholders). Conversely Governments’ focus should be longer, more strategic and whole population oriented.

Business will always go where production costs are cheapest in a developed country the answer must be in Technological advancement. We can’t compete with 3rd world labour costs. Attracting Sunrise as opposed to life support for Sunset industries. In the latter the ultimate winner is the opportunistic businesses not the people.

Foreign policy has long term effects including economically on the country therefore must be part of the competence equation.
OECD numbers in this perspective are so generalized/qualified that they are little more than feel good comparisons.Short term measurement in this situation isn’t a realistic assessment of the long-term health of an economy.

Party politics doesn’t necessarily mean the most competent come to power.
To me Howard Government was a 3nd stringer I doubt that Rudd will ultimately be any more than a style change.

Mr Right, so if someone says it can't be done that's it we should all stop trying, this is a typical tory attitude, I would go so far as to say un-Australian.

Ariel

I'm sorry but your implication that nuclear power is an intelligent approach is merely based on fact, logic and international experience.

The fact that we are well placed to use our uranium to make a proven difference should not get in the way of small solution technologies.

Oh how to power an office building on a dark winter's day goes to cold solar panels and noisy propellers of course - when the wind is blowing.

Banning new fangled airconditioners and 4WD's in the cities would make a rapid big difference but thats a none-issue.

Consultants, lawyers, accountants and stockbrokers already see themselves as potential traders in carbon credits. As with the tax system the smart money can minimise payments and find loopholes using these gentlemen. The Rudd Government will be praised by them and normal wage earners and home owners will be hit hardest. Good on ya Kev and Penny. Good equitable outcome mateys.

Meanwhile the French will wonder why we are not using the uranium Australia is selling to almost everyone except India.

So let's watch the Indians and Chinese burn coal and cancel out our carbon trade market policies. Even G8 can't stop those countries massively expanding but Australia's example will shame them. Australia is of course a significant example in its own eyes.

Lets ruin the Australian economy from 2010 or 2012 while watching the Chinese build at least 500 coal fired power plants through to 2018.

Pete

David Howell and Carole Nakhle and this article have hit the nail on the head. Worrying about cutting energy consumption and reducing emissions as the primary goal is not the right strategy. To put our hopes on trying to limit the use of energy by increasing its costs and then hoping that alternative energy sources will happen is not going to work.

The only hope is to increase energy generation capacity but make sure that all the increase in capacity comes from solar thermal, geothermal, solar voltaics, wind, etc. The cost of all major engineering works in the past have followed a capacity cost learning curve. Typically we have found that a doubling of capacity causes about 15% reduction in construction costs.

We have an enormous capacity in our existing fossil fuel plants so these plants are not going to reduce much in cost. We have a very low base of renewable plant so they are going to drop a lot in capital cost as we build more. A rough assumption is that the capital cost to produce a kwh of geothermal and solar thermal is about twice the cost of a new fossil fuel plant - but once we have them built they are about half the cost to run them.

Assuming we have 100 times as much installed fossil fuel burning capacity as solar and geothermal combined it will take 5 doublings of capacity for these to have the same capital cost to build per kwh as fossil fuel and another 2 and half doublings to generate the same amount of capacity as our fossil burning plants. It is entirely feasible to work on a doubling renewables capacity each year and so within seven and a half years we will have reduced emissions to a net zero or eight years if we account for natural growth

“Worrying about cutting energy consumption and reducing emissions as the primary goal is not the right strategy.”

Absolutely right Fickle.

In fact it is a dangerous diversion from the issues that really matter.

There are two vitally important bottom-line goals:

The immediate imperative to make sure that our reliance on oil doesn’t result in a major fracturing of our society, in the face of rapidly escalating prices and…

The slightly longer term imperative to live in an entirely sustainable manner.

You might say that the first imperative is pretty closely related to GHG emission goals. Well, yes it is, except for one vital point; the motivation for doing so.

The motivation for us in Australia to address climate change is rather ethereal, distant and uncertain in its consequences for most people…and pretty meaningless to many who do believe in its urgency due to the overwhelming expansion in emissions in China and India.

But the motivation for addressing peak oil / the energy crunch / the economic crunch due to rising fuel prices…or how ever you might label it, is much more immediate and very very much more personal in its impact. So addressing this issue should most definitely be Rudd’s primary focus.