ALP climate change policy failure

Energy market

Government needs to implement policies which increase price of coal, making its use less attractive compared with other energy sources - geothermal, sunlight, wind and wave, if not nuclear - yet. The CPRS is the antithesis of this.

By progressively increasing the cost of fossil fuels, their use to generate electricity becomes less attractive and less competitive with electricity generated from renewables. It also makes the use of and investment in renewables more attractive.

Technology funding

Funding of R&D for renewable technology is not to be sourced from CPRS revenue but from the general budget on an ad-hoc basis, competing for funds with other demands on the budget. Those demands include R&D into use of CCS at safe and competitive cost, broadly seen as a commercial oxymoron aimed at prolonging the use of coal, while actually pricing its use out of the market.

Funding of R&D for renewables must also compete for scarce funds with schools, hospitals, roads and rail, defence and a large public service. The CPRS could have been designed so that it provided R&D funding from revenue it raised from the sale of emissions permits as suggested by Professor Garnaut. That advice was rejected.

Leadership role

In connection with the CPRS and targets for CO2-e reduction Prime Minister Rudd and Climate Change Minister Wong repeatedly told us “we shall do no more and do no less than the rest of the world”.

This refusal to take a leading role internationally - indeed any role - in emissions reduction robs Australia of any moral authority to demand that other countries, particularly China, USA, Russia and India, do likewise.

It ignores the fact that most European countries have already committed to reduce their emissions by a minimum of 25 per cent by 2020. It ignores the advice of Lord Stern and Professor Garnaut that on-going delay in adopting this target will cost Australia dearly in the future when targets of this magnitude become enforceable. The price will be financial and economic disadvantage.

Overall planning

The absence of holistic planning bringing together the diverse causes of CO2-e emissions and the way they can contribute to their reduction is a concern. Without such planning there can be no effective control over emissions.

No planning to re-train the workforce displaced by reduced consumption of coal and oil, or for meeting the needs of new “green industries” associated with production of renewable energy. No planning for reducing domestic use of fossil fuels to zero, no timetables, no realistic targets and no planning to replace public revenue earned from their production and use. All serious and damaging defects.

Conclusion

Rebuilding what already exist, majority support for an ETS is not going to be achieved until the ALP recognises and addresses the serious defects embodied in its proposals. Cap and Trade is undoubtedly the most coast effective way of reducing CO2-e emissions but not the contrivance put forward by Government as its CPRS.

If government wants to see appropriate legislation passed by Parliament it should start again from scratch. And let’s have no more of this nonsense that population has nothing to do with CO2-e emissions, that 5 per cent is an acceptable 2020 reduction target, or that paying billions to polluters is the best way of reducing pollution. Minister Wong may believe it - the public does not.