Good old Gerard Henderson has been at it again. His most recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled "A time for Australia's consolidation, not isolation, on carbon emissions" continues his long history of representing the traditional view of Australia's politicians and business "leaders" that Australia shouldn't do anything if the big boys haven't done it first.
His comments on the recently released Productivity Commission report try to make Australians feel silly for thinking that we should do anything about human-induced climate change because our trading partners aren't doing much more (in his opinion) than us and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) aren't doing anything at all in terms of a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme. And the American economy might experience a "double-dip". Ipso facto, we shouldn't be wasting our time on this climate change nonsense - after all, there's an economy to look after!
I have to assume that Mr Henderson does not understand anthropogenic climate change, because surely no one who understands the science, the risks and the consequences could be so blithe as to ask "but what's everyone else doing?" before asking "what can I do to stop this?". I say "understand" and not "believe" because, unlike the religions of the world (buddhism, catholicism, islam, communism and neoliberalism), it does not require "belief", but rather an understanding of basic physics and humanity's reliance on the "services" nature delivers to us for free.
But I digress. I really want to focus on some specific issues as I see them with his article:
"As followers of the US media know, there is almost no debate on climate change there."
Not so. There's plenty of "debate" (acrimonious gainsaying might be a more appropriate term), which sets the US apart from the picture in Europe where the populous generally seems to have a better grasp of the issue and the debate really is largely "over". The US and Australia are the great bastions and perpetrators of climate denial fictions. Don't compare tweedledum with tweedledee in order to convince anyone of the soundness of your argument!
"It found Australia was in the "mid-range" - along with the US and China - with respect to the electricity generation sector. Germany and Britain are out in front of Australia, but the likes of India, Japan and South Korea are behind."
Remind me again - which of these nations are the worst polluters per capita? From amongst the so-called advanced nations, it's the US, followed closely by Australia. No wonder the US and Australia lead the world in self-interested, professional climate sceptics. China is the world's biggest carbon polluter overal, but, along with India, they are way out in front in terms of population. China and India are 99th and 140th in terms of per capita emissions! Good old Australia though - 15th biggest carbon polluter in total (not per capita) in the whole world, but 50th in terms of population. Like I said, Mr Henderson clearly doesn't understand climate change because, if he did, these numbers which show where we rank in terms of dealing with this issue would make his blood boil for a different reason. Then again, considering his comments about the US in the article ("At the national level, Barack Obama no longer talks much about climate change."), it's pretty clear that whatever the US does ranks very high in Mr Henderson's thinking. This is par for the course for people who see themselves as identifying with a right-wing ideology.
"The EU's scheme does not cover road transport fuels but is scheduled to cover aviation and petrochemicals in 2012 and 2013 respectively."
I'm quite surprised he mentioned this, since it plays strongly against his argument that we shouldn't be doing as much as we are planning to. EU members already pay over AU$2 per litre for petrol, and it only looks so "good" due to the strong Australian dollar. By and large, the price difference is tax. That high level of tax on transport fuels has probably helped the EU achieve a significantly lower level of per-capita emissions than Australia, along with a significantly lower energy usage. Adding a new carbon tax on top of that would be redundant. So, by 2013, two massive carbon emitting industries will also covered under the EU's cap-and-trade scheme. Note that I'm not analysing how well their scheme has worked here, merely that they will have a fairly all-encompassing scheme. In contrast, Australia is only now implementing a carbon pollution tax on 1,000 big polluters, which plays well to the Green's definite anti-business sentiment, and also to the great masses who want to do something but don't want to pay for it. Who knows when an ETS will be implemented? Malcolm Turnbull's old mates over at Goldman Sachs are salivating now at the massive commissions they'll be able to charge on such an abstract market, but again, I digress.
"That's all. In the US, California is the only state that is committed to implementing a scheme by next year."
California being the 8th largest economy in the world. When you put it like that, this move is pretty significant, especially given the US's role as one of the biggest purveyors of anti-science rhetoric and the inventors of neliberalism. Speaking of California, I'm reminded of their power blackouts back in about 2000 which proved that unregulated markets are NOT the cure for all the world's ills. Often quite the opposite in fact.
The concluding paragraphs in Mr Henderson's article are a smattering of random right-wing fears: EU sovereign debt crisis - which doesn't seem to be stopping German energy companies from investing big time in solar thermal reactors in North Africa - the Muslim Brotherhood taking over the Middle East, and fear about the US economy continuing to suffer at the hands of neoliberalism doctrine and cronyism, though that's not exactly how he puts it, admittedly. The idea being to try to create enough fear in the reader's mind to think there are many more important problems to deal with other than trying to save the planet.
Maybe if we make enough money we can buy another planet somewhere instead. Will that be the lowest cost option?
[Edited only to correct some typos - I really should proofread at least once!]
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