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  • Poor political skills doomed Rudd’s climate policy

     

    As opposition leader Rudd embraced the ratification of Kyoto as his climate change talisman and successfully forced John Howard, under public pressure and from within his cabinet, to cede ground on an ETS.

    Encouraged by climate scare campaigns on a global scale, which cast the Coalition as climate change deniers and environmental dinosaurs, Rudd relentlessly politicised the issue and exploited the overwhelming goodwill of the public.

    While political strategists attested to the power of using climate change to divide the Coalition and portray Rudd as forward-looking and modern, the Labor leader latched on to the ratification of Kyoto as the defining difference between him and Howard, who refused to ratify the protocol because he considered it to be against Australia’s economic interests.

    Rudd, while accusing Howard of delaying action on climate change, brought forward the implementation of his proposed ETS scheme to 2010 in contrast to Howard’s 2012 start date because “inaction cost more than action”.

    Only days after becoming Prime Minister, Rudd flew to Bali and ratified the Kyoto Protocol at a climate change conference amid much fanfare. People felt good something was being done.

    But the action was purely symbolic, an empty gesture designed to get Australia a place at the table of international climate change negotiation. But it led nowhere. Indeed, according to Oxford University research just published in the journal Political Geography, the embracing of the protocol “suggests that the symbolic power of Kyoto has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia at the expense of practical legislation and implementation of projects to physically reduce Australian emissions”.

    Oxford researchers Nicholas Howarth and Andrew Foxall argue that the “veil of Kyoto” actually hid much higher emissions than the Rudd government was admitting to and has led to an international failure. “The Kyoto Protocol has framed the politics of greenhouse gas mitigation in Australia. While we find it has exhorted a powerful international symbolic norm around climate change, its success at encouraging environmentally effective policy has been limited,” the two write.

    “The lesson from the 2007 election and subsequent events in Australia is a caution against elevating the symbolism of Kyoto-style targets and timetables above the need for implementation of mitigation policies at the nation-state level.”

    Rudd moved in the opposite direction, using inflated language about challenges to our children and grandchildren, the greatest moral and economic challenge of our time while inflating the role of international bodies, meetings and agreements.

    To delay passing the CPRS into law until after the Copenhagen UN climate change conference last December was, in Rudd’s words, “absolute political cowardice”, “absolute failure of leadership” and an “absolute failure of logic” that should not prevent Australia from leading the world on climate change.

    Unfortunately, between ratifying the Kyoto Protocol at the Bali climate change conference and preparing to be “a friend of the chair” at the Copenhagen conference Rudd had failed to convince a willing Australian public about the need and justification for an ETS, a scheme that would push up the price of electricity and transport and that would threaten jobs.

    The closer the government got to actually implementing a scheme that cut greenhouse gas emissions, the less convinced the public became about the costs and effectiveness of the CPRS. As Howarth and Foxall write: “As the inconsistencies between symbolism and policy become reconciled, Rudd faces the risk of alienating Labor from groups [that] favour strong action on climate change and those more worried about short-term prosperity being damaged by mitigation policies.”

    The Rudd scheme neither achieved greenhouse gas cuts nor convinced consumers and workers the risk they faced of increased household costs or job losses was worthwhile. Instead of systematically explaining the scheme and justifying the need for cost increases, Rudd turned climate change into a moral issue and got tied down in intricate, legislative detail and was distracted by foreign baubles. His penultimate failure was pushing then leader of the opposition Malcolm Turnbull and the Coalition over the political brink before he had a deal last year and his ultimate failure has been to just drop the CPRS without a fight or conviction.

     

  • Not dealing with climate and not dealing with the Greens

     

    Penny Wong, minister in charge of the steering the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, or CPRS, through the Senate, was happy to negotiate amendments with the Liberals’ Ian Macfarlane last year. Although she is courteous enough to meet with the deputy Greens leader, Senator Christine Milne, she has refused to enter into serious negotiations about changes to the scheme to deal with Green concerns. The Greens believe Wong’s behaviour is understandable, given her background: before entering parliament she was a union official in the forestry division of the CFMEU, whose members stand shoulder to shoulder with the loggers and pulpers against the Greens. Wong later became a staffer to Kim Yeadon, then Minister for Land and Water in the NSW government and definitely not a friend of the Greens.

    Now, Labor has broken the most important promise of all – early action on climate change. The government has shelved the CPRS legislation until some time after the next election later this year. Yet only last week the prime minister told the Sydney Morning Herald that “on the question of climate change policy, our policy hasn’t changed. We maintain our position that this [the CPRS] is part of the most efficient and the most effective means by which we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions with least cost to the economy.”

    Brave words, but the prime minister has not held a double dissolution election, the logical way to break the Senate deadlock. In the meantime, support for his position on climate change has eroded. A new Climate Institute poll shows that the percentage of voters trusting Mr Rudd most on climate change fell from 46 per cent last year to 36 per cent in April. Those believing there was no difference on climate change between Mr Rudd and Mr Abbott rose from 37 per cent to 40 per cent.

    The Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate after the next election and Rudd may have to rely on them to pass a climate bill. After another election defeat, of course, there could be a change of heart among the Liberals. Tony Abbott will be dumped and the next leader (perhaps Joe Hockey or, if he reverses his decision to retire, Malcolm Turnbull) would accept the government mandate for the legislation. (All this presumes Labor would win the election, which is highly likely, but not certain.)

    But there is a broader problem with Labor’s approach to climate. Although some may say that it is better than nothing, the CPRS legislation is badly flawed. Its unconditional target for emissions reductions – 5 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020 – is way too low given that the science calls for a 40 per cent cut. The Greens say the bill should stipulate at least a 25 per cent target, and they prefer Ross Garnaut’s interim approach in the absence of a decent emissions trading scheme. Professor Garnaut suggested setting a carbon price beginning at $20 a tonne (in 2000 dollars) rising to $24.50 in 2011 and $26 after that. Polluters would be taxed on these levels, and Garnaut suggested compensation to householders could flow from revenue collected. This would also mean a quite light tax for a low-polluting industry such as car manufacturing but a heavier tax for high polluters such as coal-fired power-generating plants and oil refineries.

    In the past week even more criticism has been heaped on the CPRS for its generous handouts to polluters by way of compensation. The Grattan Institute’s new study shows that the compensation handouts to “trade exposed industries” would be “a $20 billion waste of money.” It assembled evidence that only two industries – cement and steel – would deserve assistance. Alumina, liquefied natural gas and coalmining would remain internationally competitive without assistance; granting them free permits would amount to supporting two industries that are likely to leave Australia anyway.

    The Grattan Institute’s energy research fellow, Tristan Edis, estimates free permits cost about $59,000 per employee on average, soaring to $161,100 in the aluminium industry and $103,300 in liquefied natural gas. The institute’s CEO, John Daley, explains that most of the proposed compensation would be wasted because most of the industries are unlikely to move offshore and will remain very profitable with or without a carbon price. Given that the institute’s founders include BHP Billiton and the federal government, this is telling criticism indeed. Mr Rudd’s authority and credibility in the parliament and the Labor caucus have been greatly diminished. •

    Rob Chalmers, editor of Inside Canberra, is the longest serving member of the federal parliamentary press gallery

    From the archive: Richard Dennis on the deal the government should have struck earlier this year >

  • Why would BIG Oil ignore its own demise/

     

    So why do our leaders remain silent? Why does the US push for the truth to be disguised? The risks to a peaceful life are the same for everyone, rich or poor. Why would the great oil companies appear to be so dumb? I suggest they are in fact being extremely canny, and for their own ultimate benefit.

    1. With a sudden and ‘unexpected’ crunch on oil those who control the supply will become powerful forces on the world stage. Countries will be eager to dance their tune. These corporations will, in short, be capable of having such a disproportionate influence on the world that they would be able, over time, to become the major political and economic power on the globe.

    2. If this seems far-fetched, consider the extent to which a medium-sized country would alter its laws in almost every field to maintain their supply of oil.

    3. Then consider that most of this oil comes from Siberia and the Middle East, and from countries that have very different agendas to ours;

    4. and that neither India nor China have significant quantities of oil. Both will become more susceptible to any pressure the suppliers may wish to exert.

    5. Also ask yourself, why is big oil the major owner of alternate energy technology patents and startups? This ensures control over their hegemony.

    6. This has been a long-range plan witnessed by the permanent US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan that is there to ensure the interests of their oil companies are preserved under any future scenario.

    In other words, denial that there is a problem until the last moment ensures that a few corporations will exercise long-term political and financial control over the globe and everyone on it. Its not about money, its about hegemony and power!

    If we were prepared for the crunch then these corporations would lose much of their potential to control the world.

    They will form a world government, or at the least become the world policeman, using their control of a limited resource as the ultimate weapon.

    Scarce oil in an addicted world is the tool of rulership.

    John James

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  • The Great Moral Backflip of Our Time

     

    Penny Wong has spent the better part of Labor’s first term in office formulating, negotiating and trying to legislate for an emissions trading scheme. The Garnaut Review dominated policy considerations through 2008 and early 2009, and the eventual bill Labor proposed, the CPRS, was its major legislative goal last year. Kevin Rudd gave a series of major speeches about it in the lead-up to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. And the CPRS was of course one of Labor’s major triggers for a double dissolution election.

    What’s changed? It’s tempting to say, simply, “the polls”. And there’s no doubt that the electorate’s former ardour for climate action has cooled somewhat since 2007, as a time-series of Lowy Institute polls on the issue shows.

    To some degree, climate scepticism has had an impact. So too has the ceaseless campaigning by the Murdoch media, and by the active proselytisers among the conservative plurality who are viscerally opposed to climate action, seeing it as a plot by radical lefties to “de-industrialise” the world (Nick Minchin’s term, not mine).

    But the polls on climate are not really that bad for Labor. Most polls still show a majority in favour of an emissions trading scheme. In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that strong action on climate change would still resonate with many parts of the electorate, including the women voters in marginal seats who will probably decide the election result.

    No, the real issue here is not the electorate. It’s Kevin Rudd’s failure of leadership. Faced with an issue which he himself painted in phrases of high principle and moral clarity, the Prime Minister has failed to screw his courage to the sticking point.

    That “sticking point” would have been a strong emissions trading scheme, one strong enough to have won the support of the Greens. Refusing to negotiate with them was a major tactical blunder.

    With a policy that embraced reasonably strong emissions reductions targets, Labor could have won Green support, isolated the Opposition and applied the screws to the cross-benches. Xenophon could have been bribed with more money for the lower Murray. As it was, history records that three Liberals voted for the ETS anyway: Malcolm Turnbull in the House plus two Liberal Senators, Sue Boyce and Judith Troeth. Those two Liberal votes, plus the Greens, would have equaled victory. It’s the great “what if” of this term of government.

    For reasons entirely to do with the vicious hatreds of sectarian politics, Labor likes to paint the Greens as dangerous extremists. In fact, experience and common sense suggests the Greens would have gladly negotiated on the ETS, given the chance. Instead, the Government tried to do a deal with Malcolm Turnbull. We all know how that tactic played out.

    Strategically, Labor’s next error was to abandon climate as an election issue. Unlike Barack Obama, who, when faced with a difficult healthcare bill and sliding opinion polls, decided to rally the troops and press on for a redoubtable victory, Rudd played safe. Climate was taken off the public agenda, to be replaced by health reform, which party strategists have decided is home turf.

    The result has been an amazing waste of political capital. Quite apart from delighting the Greens, who can now campaign as the only party serious about climate change, the backflip is a gift for a struggling Opposition. This decision plays into all of the Coalition’s talking points: that Kevin Rudd is all talk, and no action; that’s he’s ultimately a weak leader; and that the Liberal policy of waiting for the world was the right one all along. Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt looked positively jubilant as they gave their reactions yesterday. Today, they are even taunting the Government to bring on the double-dissolution.

    Labor will now struggle to win support from the left in its second term. Socially liberal, environmentally minded voters are already drifting away to the Greens, and Labor should not assume that it will always receive their second preference, as the developing strength of the Liberal Democrats in Britain all too clearly demonstrates. In time, this decision could cost Tanya Plibersek and Lindsay Tanner their seats.

    Finally, the backflip has eroded Kevin Rudd’s moral authority. It will be almost impossible for Labor to regain the high moral ground on climate. The Prime Minister has begun to look more and more like just another grubby politician, willing to break promises and compromise his principles to get elected. Labor has already abandoned its principles on refugees. Now it has caved in on climate change too.

    The way this decision leaked was telling. As Laura Tingle pointed out on Sky News last night, the announcement was badly mishandled. The Prime Minister’s performance in his doorstop press conference was terrible. He looked tired and irritable. He mumbled. It was a far cry from the confident, pleasant persona of Kevin07, or even the recent health debate with Tony Abbott.

    Paradoxically, this decision might just be good news in terms of Australia’s future climate change policies. The Greens will almost certainly control the Senate in the next Parliament, meaning Labor will have no choice but to negotiate with them on each and every bill it needs to pass. So if Labor does move an ETS bill after the election, the resulting policy will have to be stronger, featuring tougher targets than the risible reductions proposed by this CPRS.

    That is, assuming Labor wants to pass a emissions trading bill at all. Perhaps it doesn’t.

    In the meantime, Big Carbon is laughing all the way to the bank.

  • Controlled burn of gulf of Mexico oil slick begins

     

    “They lit it with a little float that has a fuel source on it that floats into the oil and ignites. It did successfully ignite,” Coast Guard petty officer Cory Mendenhall told AFP.

    The decision to start burning the slick, which has a 965km circumference, gained even greater import when the US government’s weather service warned that the previously kind winds were about to shift.

    “Stronger southeast winds are forecast to persist from Thursday night through Saturday night,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast chart showed.

    “These onshore winds will move floating oil towards the delta with possible shoreline impacts by Friday night.”

    If large quantities of the crude, which is leaking from the debris of a rig that sank after a deadly explosion last week, drift into Louisiana’s marshy wetlands, mopping up would be next to impossible.

    It would be disastrous for natural parks full of waterfowl and rare wildlife and could also imperil the southern state’s $US2.4 billion-a-year fisheries industry, which produces a significant portion of US seafood.

    As miles of inflatable booms were set up to protect the Louisiana coast, Governor Bobby Jindal evoked memories of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated his southern state in August 2005.

    “As I’ve said many times before, we must hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Mr Jindal said, after a flyover of the spill. “We’re approaching this situation just as we would do before a hurricane comes ashore.”

    “We’re doing everything we can to protect the livelihood of our citizens who make their living in the fishing industry and the wildlife that grace our coastal areas.”

    Oil, at the rate of 42,000 gallons a day, is spewing from the riser pipe that connected the Deepwater Horizon platform to the wellhead before the rig sank last Thursday, two days after a huge explosion that killed 11 workers.

    The widow of one of the dead has filed a lawsuit accusing the companies that operated the rig — BP, Transocean and US oil services behemoth Halliburton — of negligence.

    The accident has not disrupted offshore gulf oil production, which accounts for more than a quarter of the US energy supply.

    BP, which leased the semi-submersible rig from Houston-based contractor Transocean, has been operating four robotic submarines some 1.5km down on the seabed to try to cap the well.

    They have failed so far to fully activate a giant 450-tonne valve, called a blowout preventer, that should have shut off the oil as soon as the disaster happened but only partially reduced the flow.

    As a back-up, engineers are frantically building a giant dome that could be placed over the leaks to trap the oil, allowing it to be pumped up to container ships on the surface.

    Another Transocean drilling rig is also on stand-by to drill two relief wells that could divert the oil flow to new pipes and storage vessels.

    But that would take up to three months and the dome is seen as a better interim bet even though engineers need two to four weeks to build it.

    Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mary Landry, who is leading the government’s response to the disaster, warned on Tuesday that if BP fails to secure the well it could end up being “one of the most significant oil spills in US history.”

     

  • Voters want climate action now: Greens

     

    “They don’t want it delayed. They’re in favour of this alternative now that the Government’s CPRS scheme is not going ahead until 2013,” Senator Brown said.

    “This is the live option now before the Parliament and Australians are swinging in right behind it.

    “[Prime Minister] Kevin Rudd should have another look at the simplicity of this alternative which was recommended to him by Professor Ross Garnaut.”

    On Tuesday the Government announced that it was shelving the controversial emissions trading scheme (ETS) until at least 2013.

    Mr Rudd has previously described climate change as the “great moral challenge of our generation”.

    But he said the ETS was shelved because of the Opposition roadblock in the Senate and the lack of a breakthrough at last year’s Copenhagen climate talks.

     

    Climate jobs

     

    Meanwhile, the Community and Public Sector Union has dismissed calls to sack the public servants who have been working on the Federal Government’s emissions trading scheme (ETS).

    Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says there is now no need for the 500 staff in the Climate Change Department following the Government’s decision to delay the ETS.

    CPSU national secretary Nadine Flood says the idea that you could just sack highly skilled employees who could be used elsewhere is unfathomable.

    “These are highly skilled people that the public service is struggling to attract and retain,” she said.

    “The notion that you should just sack them because a program doesn’t go ahead is just silly.”

    Tags: environment, climate-change, government-and-politics, federal-government, greens, brown-bob, brown-bob, australia

    First posted 2 hours 52 minutes ago