Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Quest for a sensible climate policy

By Warwick McKibbin - posted Friday, 18 February 2005


The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol should be a cause for global celebration. Yet the eerie silence is because the protocol has achieved very little in reality.

Already proponents of Kyoto are looking for alternatives beyond Kyoto. It is no accident that it has taken so long for the protocol to enter into force, with so few of the major future greenhouse emitters taking on the binding targets that form the basis of the Kyoto approach.

Policymakers need to face a key question about climate change that is how to manage the uncertainty surrounding all aspects of climate change over very long time horizons. The potential for economic and political instability that the protocol generates adds to the uncertainties surrounding climate change.

Advertisement

Since the world began seriously debating climate change, very little has actually been achieved to noticeably affect the trend of global greenhouse-gas emissions. What is worse, the long period of debate since 1997 has spawned influential lobby groups on both sides of the debate that have an economic and political incentive to complicate the policy decisions.

The debate has been confusing for most non-experts because the question of whether the world should respond to the possibility of climate change has been deliberately entwined with the question of whether the world should embrace the Kyoto Protocol. For an effective and realistic climate policy to emerge, these questions must be addressed separately.

The time frames over which policy needs to be clarified are measured in many decades and not in one or two electoral cycles. Kyoto was doomed to failure because of the approach of choosing arbitrary emission targets at a point of time regardless of costs. The US, Australia and major developing countries have made it clear they will not sign an international agreement of fixed targets with potentially unbounded costs.

Rather than looking beyond Kyoto through Kyoto glasses, it is time to consider realistic alternatives. One such alternative, the McKibbin Wilcoxen Blueprint, is based on designing national institutions to manage climate risk and creating clear incentives to mitigate carbon emissions over time. Although designed as part of a globally co-ordinated response, it is intended to be implemented in individual countries.

Australia could adopt this approach using much of what has been negotiated within the Kyoto framework but moving forward from that, and could lead the world in the debate on what to do in the post-Kyoto world.

It is not in the national interest to just meet the Kyoto targets and offer some subsidies. It is in the national and global interest for Australia to steer the world away from the fundamentally flawed approaches being considered.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. All

First published in The Australian Financial Review on February 16, 2005.



Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

1 post so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Professor Warwick McKibbin director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis in the College of Business and Economics at ANU and a professorial fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy and a non-Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution. His website is Sensible Policy.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Warwick McKibbin
Related Links
MCKIBBIN SOFTWARE GROUP
Sensible Climate Policy
Uncertainty and Climate Change: The Challenges for Policy
Photo of Warwick McKibbin
Article Tools
Comment 1 comment
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy