Australian Govt carbon reduction scheme “dead in the water” – setback for IPCC
April 17th, 2009 by Warwick Hughes
Image by davesag via Flickr
News reports are building that the Australian Government will never achieve meaningful reduction of carbon emissions.
Professor Ross Garnaut, author of the recent influential report pointing the way for the Australian Governments Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), is now saying it is a “line ball call” whether to dump the Rudd Govt’s ETS or to try and fix it.
Some aspects of the scheme could be salvaged, but ”substantial changes” were needed to fix flaws that risked entrenching ”certain vested interests”, he told a Senate inquiry yesterday.
Professor Garnaut said stronger emissions reduction targets, a high carbon price and incentives to reduce greenhouse emissions were needed to make the scheme more effective.
In the same newspaper Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is quoted saying “..coal will be the major source of power generation for many years to come”. The PM seems to be grasping at the straw of carbon capture and storage to produce “clean coal”.
In my opinion the coal mining unions (plus a strengthening common sense view of shortcomings in IPCC science) have exerted influence on the PM and this is thankfully the end of any serious carbon reduction target. The green left media will bleat on, Kev747 will continue claiming he has this or that carbon reduction target, massive taxpayer monies will be wasted on sops to the greens, clean coal, wind and solar power – but the Nation will basically stay on its present carbon emissions path for decades. Only a switch to nuclear could seriously replace coal as a source of reliable grid electricity.
Not even two years from the election of the Rudd Govt and reality has set in.
Interesting too that the new National Govt in New Zealand is also less carbon obsessed than the previous left wing regime.
So the IPCC is being sent some rough lessons in RealPolitik from the Antipodes. As a former PM said, “..the dogs bark but the caravan moves on..”.
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Posted in IPCC, News and Views, Resources | 1 Comment »
April 18th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
In a brief submission to the Garnaut Inquiry, I pointed to three fatal flaws:
1. “The purpose of the scheme is to reduce GHG emissions. It follows logically that the imposts so gathered will need to be spent on activities that generate lesser GHG or none.”
2. “Despite loud protestations from interested parties, and gagging by some, there is NO agreed scientific consensus that there is a strong link between GHG emissions and alteration of global temperatures.”
3. “The past global temperature record is flawed in many ways and should NOT be used unreservedly to claim that global warming has a certain magnitude. The true error envelope of 100-year temperature estimates is hugely greater than the much-claimed 0.8 deg C rise in that time.”
There are still no answers.
How can a scheme work when it takes monry from electricity and gas producers, gives the money to others who immediately commence activities that require more electricity and gas than before?
Try making a list of ways to spend money given to you from a carbon tax that DO NOT increases GHGs. Then place that way to spend into the context of overall global enetgy production. The benefit of any such activity is miniscule.
Blind Freddie could see that the Garnaut report was fatally flawed before it even started.