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Author: Neville

  • Has the Republican Party stopped denying climate science, and will they begin participating in the solutions?

    Has the Republican Party stopped denying climate science, and will they begin participating in the solutions?

    Following President Obama’s climate plan, the answers appear to be yes and no, respectively

    Obama climate change speech

    President Barack Obama delivers his climate change speech. Photograph: Dennis Brack/Corbis

    Given that nearly 70 percent of Republicans in Congress and 90 percent of the party’s congressional leadership deny the reality of human-caused global warming, you might expect them to attack President Obama’s climate plan on scientific grounds. On the contrary, Republican politicians have critiqued President Obama’s plan almost entirely on the economics. Even Senator James Inhofe, who wrote an entire book based around the absurd premise that “global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” did not even touch upon climate science when responding to the climate plan.

    This is a fascinating turn of events. Perhaps Republican politicians have decided that disputing the consensus of 97% of climate research and climate experts is a losing proposition. Whatever the reason, the shift away from science denial toward the economics debate is a welcome one. As even the right-wing Washington Times admitted, remaining entrenched in climate science denial has prevented the Republican Party from becoming involved in discussions about the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the least impact on the economy.

    As a result, President Obama was forced to enforce government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions, using a stick because Congress has been unable or unwilling to solve the problem with a carrot. Putting a price on greenhouse gases would create the incentive for consumers to lower their emissions, thus creating demand for innovative new green technologies. Government regulations can only penalize the worst polluters.

    It’s important to note that while carbon pricing is preferable to government regulations from an economic standpoint, Republican claims that these regulations will kill jobs and cost huge sums of money are without merit. Since the greenhouse gas regulations have not yet been developed, we can’t estimate their costs. However, construction of new low emissions power plants would create jobs, and every dollar invested in clean energy creates two to three times as many jobs as putting that same dollar into coal energy. Estimates of the costs of environmental regulations are almost always exaggerated, and so far, alarmism about the costs of these greenhouse gas regulations appear to be no exception.

    There’s also very little Republicans can do to stop these regulations. The US Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that as long as they endanger public health or welfare (which they do), greenhouse gas emissions must be regulated under the Clean Air Act. With Democrats in control of the Senate and Presidency, efforts to undermine this Supreme Court decision via congressional legislation have no chance of passage.

    Republicans can try to score political points by criticizing President Obama for enforcing the law, but polls show that 70 to 87 percent of Americans support these greenhouse gas regulations, and even coal-heavy energy utilities appear to support them. So what other options does the Republican Party have?

    Quite simply, they can work with Democrats to craft climate legislation that would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions and replace the government regulations. Economists generally agree that this market-based approach would be even better for the economy.

    Cap and trade was originally a Republican idea as an alternative to government regulations of pollutants under the Clean Air Act. However, many political conservatives have been rallying around a simpler carbon tax approach. Although the Koch brothers managed to persuade a majority of congressional Republicans to sign a pledge to “oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in government revenue,” a revenue-neutral carbon tax wouldn’t violate that pledge.

    British Columbia implemented a revenue-neutral carbon tax system in 2008, to great success thus far. By offsetting the carbon taxes with decreased income taxes, British Columbia has the lowest personal income tax rates in Canada for incomes of less than $120,000 per year. Their greenhouse gas emissions have dropped faster than the rest of Canada, while their economy has done a bit better than the national average. Public support for the tax is at 64 percent and growing.

    In short, while regulating greenhouse gas emissions is an important and positive step, there are better alternatives available. But those alternatives require congressional legislation, which in turn requires that Republicans work with Democrats. Given that Congress is so dysfunctional that it could not pass gun background check legislation despite 90 percent public support, or a farm bill, climate legislation seems a tall order.

    Nevertheless, the options before Congress are to live with government greenhouse gas regulations, or pass climate legislation. Will Republicans begin to once again participate in crafting climate solutions, as some of them did as recently as 2010? If they so strongly object to President Obama’s greenhouse gas regulations, will congressional Republicans be capable of doing their jobs and coming up with a better solution?

    It may take a few years for Congress to become sufficiently functional to tackle this problem. The good news is that until that happens, government greenhouse gas regulations will begin to reduce American emissions, and there is a growing push among conservatives for Republican policymakers to once again become constructively engaged in solving the climate problem with the maximum economic benefit. With the planet continuing to warm and the climate continuing to change, it’s only a matter of time until Republicans are forced to step up to the plate and offer constructive solutions to the problem.

  • Asylum seekers: six things Kevin Rudd should learn from Malcolm Fraser

     (It should also be remembered that the Franklin Dam was a factor in  Fraser’s election loss in the 1970’s. )

    Wednesday 3 July 2013 01.03 BST

    Asylum seekers: six things Kevin Rudd should learn from Malcolm Fraser

    When it comes to refugees, former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser looks leftwing compared to Labor’s current positioning. It doesn’t have to be this way

    Unidentified Australian sailors help to rescue children in the sea near Australia in 2001.
    Unidentified Australian sailors help to rescue children in the sea near Australia in 2001. Photograph: AP

    My first experience of political activism was at the age of three. It was the late 1970s. My parents were Gough Whitlam loyalists who believed the Liberal party prime minister Malcolm Fraser was the architect of the dismissal, an usurper with contempt for democracy. Mother, father and I were living in Canberra. Whenever we passed the Houses of parliament in the car, I remember that dad would silently park and mum would encourage me to take a wee beside the parliament lawn. Such was the loathing the man inspired in progressive Australia.

    Yet three decades later there is, astonishingly, much for the Labor party to learn from Fraser – especially on progressive policy. An emboldened Kevin Rudd is now aiming to harden his government’s stance on refugee boat arrivals. And in this context, Fraser – the Coalition opportunist who once blocked supply for nine months to bring down Whitlam – unexpectedly emerges as a human rights hero.

    It says much about what’s taken place in the Australian political discourse over the past 30 years that Labor foreign minister Bob Carr is today making headlines demonising “economic refugees”, and calling for a toughening of asylum approval processes. On the other hand, Fraser’s ongoing statements avowing the necessity of “a humanitarian commitment to admit refugees for resettlement” in this era of detention centres, offshore processing and “stop the boats” proselytising merely reaffirm the refugee policy that he enacted in government in the 1970s.

    In 1976, a year after Fraser became prime minister, the first “unauthorised and unexpected” boat boarded by Vietnamese refugees arrived on Australian shores; 54 more were to come. Immigration officials lobbied to have crew and passengers of all such vessels jailed and punished, but Fraser’s immigration minister refused, believing such “was a piece of racist barbarism“. Fraser himself noted that “desperate people will not be deterred”, but was left faced with political problem of his own: by February 1979, a Morgan Gallup poll found 61% of Australians wanted to limit refugee intake, while a further 28% wanted it to end completely.

    While early solutions taken by the Fraser government were to turn back large vessels from Australian waters and to (bizarrely) manually dissemble en-route boats that docked in Indonesia and Malaysia, Fraser’s deference to morality and the rule of law ultimately overrode poll unpopularity for his actions. What he went on to achieve in what Robert Manne has called the “halcyon years of Australian refugee policy” offers lessons that Labor would be sensible to heed. If Rudd or Tony Abbott should wish to restore Australia’a international human rights reputation as well as preserve the dignity of human life, either party leader would do well to study his experience – good and bad. To start with, they could do worse than:

    1. Control the language used to tackle the issue

    A mistake made by Fraser’s government was to allow the nefarious term “queue-jumper” to enter the political lexicon with an off-hand comment made by one of his ministers. The term – presumptive in meaning and unfactual, given Australia’s UN human rights commitments to refugee intake – was seized upon to legitimise xenophobia as an act of (false) justice. It is vital that policy-makers refuse to countenance any inflammatory and misleading language racist opponents seek to validate.

    2. Work with foreign governments to expand refugee intake at place of origin

    Fraser’s means of “stopping the boats” was to negotiate with the refugees’ origin or neighbouring nations, as well as Australian allies and the UN, to facilitate orderly migration processes. In the case of Vietnam, the Vietnamese government minimised its own exposure to human rights criticism by facilitating the non-violent immigration to Australia of dissidents and ethnic Chinese Vietnamese. Under Fraser, more than 200,000 refugee migrants were therefore able to arrive in Australia peacefully and by plane, their immigration pre-processed, rather than risk the hazards of the journey by boat and the subsequent deprivation of detention. Arrivals in boats still occurred, but were of far fewer numbers.

    3. Recognise that deterrent policies are completely ineffectual

    Fraser himself made the point nearly a year ago to the ABC: “deterrent policies” pursued by both Liberal and Labor governments do not work. As the man pointed out: “a democratic government such as Australia’s … could not be nasty enough to match the terror, the persecution that is meted out by the Taliban or meted out by possibly both sides in Sri Lanka and a lot of other places … We can’t cut off the heads of young Afghani girls and send them back to Afghanistan and say you better not come to Australia we’re as bad as the Taliban – therefore nothing we can do will be a deterrent.”

    4. Build cultural infrastructure and acknowledge the entrepreneurialism of migrant culture

    The financial arguments against enfranchising a refugee community within Australia are minimal. The “migrant work ethic” has been the economic engine of Australian prosperity since Aboriginal settlement. Fraser’s government worked with established migrant communities, provided funds for English language teaching and improved translator services to enable migrants to create their own economic opportunities in their new home. Adam Bandt’s fight for the Migrant Community Employment Fund, which has just been funded, is some progress in this area; unemployment rates for qualified job-seekers in newly-arrived migrant communities have been up to 85% due to lack of infrastructure.

    5. Expand the humanitarian migration intake

    Australia is one of the most prosperous nations on earth, with a stable democracy and an economy that has grown by 14% in three years. Yet we are ranked 49th in the world for refugee intake. Calls for increasing our disbursement of refugee visas from the 13,000 of last year were heeded by the Gillard government and increased to 20,000 with plans to raise them further to 27,000 over five years. These are enormously positive steps, yet it’s worth noting that Australia’s capacity for intake is far greater than these numbers: we did, after all, resettle vast numbers of post second world war migrants when our population and infrastructure was far smaller. Making acknowledgment of persecution or cultural distress a priority criteria for migration does not compromise our capacity for an orderly intake, and proactively minimises the need for boat arrival.

    6. Stop the political pointscoring and negotiate bipartisan solutions around international co-operation and moral principles

    As prime minister, Whitlam opposed expanding Australia’s humanitarian refugee intake due to a fear of importing divisive communities that would “balkanise” Australia. Facing the refugee influx from Indochina under his own prime ministership, Fraser negotiated with foreign governments, refugee agencies and the UN to expand facilitated refugee intake on the ground, and then presented a moral argument to Whitlam to support the humanity of his structural proposals. Whitlam did, and bipartisan support validated the moral authority of what had been an unpopular policy to the electorate. More than 200,000 new Australian citizens arrived and our nation is all the richer for the result.

    Analysing the sentiments on Fraser’s leadership on humanitarian policy strikes at the current Australian political conscience like an “elegant weapon from a more civilised age“. These days, of course, we do leadership in Australian politics with handmade shivs and all the conscience of a poll-driven prison brawl.

    We cannot, as a nation, allow refugee policy to be dictated by xenophobes through our political leaders. We as Australian individuals are indivisible from a collective moral consciousness of which our nationhood renders us a part. As Fraser himself wrote in March this year: “every Australian carries some part of the guilt for asylum-seeker policies that are inhumane and brutal.”

    Hear, hear, Mr Fraser. And I’m genuinely sorry that I pissed on your lawn.

  • The Amazing Energy Race

    The Amazing Energy Race

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    Published: July 2, 2013 Comment
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    President Obama delivered his most important national security and jobs speech last week. I think he also mentioned something about climate change.

    Josh Haner/The New York Times

    Thomas L. Friedman

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    The headline from Obama’s speech was his decision to cut America’s carbon emissions by bypassing a dysfunctional Congress and directing the Environmental Protection Agency to implement cleaner air-quality standards. If the rules are enacted — they will face many legal challenges — it would hasten our switching from coal to natural gas for electricity generation. Natural gas emits about half the global-warming carbon dioxide of coal, and it is in growing supply in our own country. As a result of market forces alone, coal has already fallen from about one-half to one-third of America’s electric power supply.

    But I would not get caught up in the anti-carbon pollution details of the president’s speech. I’d focus on the larger messages. The first is that we need to reorder our priorities and start talking about the things that are most consequential for our families, communities, nation and world. That starts with how we’re going to power the global economy at a time when the planet is on track to grow from seven billion to nine billion people in 40 years, and most of them will want to live like Americans, with American-style cars, homes and consumption patterns. If we don’t find a cleaner way for them to grow, we’re going to smoke up, choke up and burn up this planet so much faster than anyone predicts. That traffic jam on the Beijing-Tibet highway in 2010 that stretched for 60 miles, involved 10,000 vehicles and took 10 days to unlock is a harbinger of what will come.

    “In reducing coal’s historic dominance, the president is formalizing a market trend that was already taking shape,” remarked Andy Karsner, who was an assistant secretary of energy in the last Bush administration. His bigger message, though, was “no matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum, it’s useful for the nation to discuss, debate and consider a strategy for climate change. The consequences of inaction are potentially greater than all the other noise out there.”

    Sadly, many Republican “leaders” rejected Obama’s initiative, claiming it would cost jobs. Really? Marvin Odum, the president of the Shell Oil Company, told me in an interview that phasing out coal for cleaner natural gas — and shifting more transport, such as big trucks and ships, to natural gas instead of diesel — “is a no-brainer, no-lose, net-win that you can’t fight with a straight face.”

    But, remember, natural gas is a fine gift to our country if, and only if, we extract it in a way that does not leak methane into the atmosphere (methane being worse than carbon dioxide when it comes to global warming) and if, and only if, we extract it in ways that don’t despoil land, air or water. The Environmental Defense Fund is working with big oil companies, like Shell, to ensure both.

    But there is one more huge caveat: We also have to ensure that cheap natural gas displaces coal but doesn’t also displace energy efficiency and renewables, like solar or wind, so that natural gas becomes a bridge to a clean energy future, not a ditch. It would be ideal to do this through legislation and not E.P.A. fiat, but Republicans have blocked that route, which is pathetic because the best way to do it is with a Republican idea from the last Bush administration: a national clean energy standard for electricity generation — an idea the G.O.P. only began to oppose when Obama said he favored it.

    Such a standard would say to every utility: “Your power plants can use any fuel and technology you want to generate electricity as long as the total amount of air pollutants and greenhouse gases they emit (in both fuel handling and its electricity conversion) meet steadily increasing standards for cleaner air and fewer greenhouse gases. If you want to meet that standard with natural gas, sequestered coal, biomass, hydro, solar, wind or nuclear, be our guest. Let the most cost-effective clean technology win.”

    By raising the standard a small amount every year, we’d ensure continuous innovation in clean power technologies — and jobs that are a lot better than coal mining. You can’t make an appliance, power plant, factory or vehicle cleaner without making it smarter — with smarter materials, smarter software or smarter designs. Nothing would do more to ensure America’s national security, stimulate more good jobs and global exports — the whole world needs these technologies — than a national clean energy standard. And, of course, the climate would hugely benefit.

    Improving our energy system plays to our innovation strength. Clinging to our fossil-fuel past plays to the strengths of Russia and Iran. Why would we do that? Why would the G.O.P.? It’s already losing young voters. Question: How many college campuses today have environmental clubs and how many have coal clubs?

    “The Germans and the Chinese are already in this clean energy race, and we’re still just talking about it,” said Hal Harvey, the chief executive of Energy Innovation. “The question is: Do we want to control our energy future, or continue to rent it from other countries?”

    Maureen Dowd is off today.

  • Coal’s future dims under Obama’s climate plan

    Coal’s future dims under Obama’s climate plan

    Date
    July 3, 2013 – 6:08AM
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    (Week in Review reprinted with permission of Bloomberg New Energy Finance)

    Ahead of the US Independence Day holiday this week, American and UK leaders set forward their plans of attack in the on-going effort to curb the globe’s rising temperatures.

    And on the other side of the world, Kevin Rudd’s ouster of Julia Gillard as Prime Minister of Australia left some observers to wonder whether he will speed up plans to link the nation’s carbon market with Europe.

    It used to be a word that made some US politicians blush, but President Barack Obama does not seem to be afraid to say it anymore.

    ‘‘Climate’’ was the focus of the President’s speech at Georgetown University in Washington 25 June. Obama proposed a sweeping plan that sets goals to reduce carbon emissions and bolster renewable energy while also preparing the country for the consequences of planetary warming.

    His ‘‘climate action plan’’ includes an order to the Environmental Protection Agency to limit carbon dioxidemissions from existing power plants. Mr Obama has directed the EPA to issue a revised proposal for new power plants by 20 September 2013, with a final rule following in a ‘‘timely fashion’’.

    EPA draft rules for existing power plants are now due by 1 June 2014, with final standards to be issued by 1 June 2015. If the standards for existing plants are similar to those that have been proposed for new plants so far, they would likely spell the end of coal-fired generation in the US.

    Some clean energy portions of the plan include an initiative to increase renewables’ share of federal power procurement to 20 per cent by 2020, from 7.5 per cent now. Another proposal would direct the Interior Department to permit 10 gigawatts more renewables capacity on public lands by 2020.

    As much as possible, the plan is designed to be carried out without Congressional assent. Yet, actions that Obama may consider to be entirely within his administrative purview, such as public land use and energy efficiency at federal properties, will likely be targeted by Congressional opponents.

    Looking abroad, Obama pledged to end US government financing of overseas coal projects, a promise that could end millions of dollars in support for power plants in nations such as Vietnam and India. He called for ending US support, unless these projects are in the poorest nations or have expensive carbon-capture technology.

    UK reforms

    Over in the UK, energy companies were given new details relating to the nation’s Electricity Market Reform, which promises ‘‘low-carbon, affordable and reliable power for the long term’’. Just a few weeks prior, the House of Commons narrowly voted against an amendment to the Energy Bill that would introduce a 2030 carbon intensity target for the power sector in 2014, rather than potentially in 2016, as the government proposes.

    The most important of the new announcements last week was of the strike prices for the contracts for difference for all renewable technologies. Though the incentives are roughly in line with current Renewable Obligation Certificates, the announcement now allows developers to compare the attractiveness of the two schemes while they overlap in the period 2014-17.

    The government also said it will run its first capacity market auctions next year, for delivery by the winter of 2018-19. The purpose of the mechanism is to ensure there is enough generation capacity that can be brought online at times of peak demand.

    The UK is concerned that it is facing a capacity shortfall as coal plants retire due to EU emissions regulations and gas power stations are mothballed on account of poor generation economics.

    Political shift

    In Australia, politics caught many people’s attention last week, including that of carbon market watchers.

    Some media reports have suggested Mr Rudd may now be forced to give way on the country’s controversial fixed carbon price now that he is back in power after three years.
    The Australia market is set to link with the European Union in July 2015. Until then, emitters pay a fixed price of $23, about four times the market price in Europe.

    Now Mr Rudd may be pressured to move from a fixed carbon price to a trading scheme earlier than planned. However, this requires legislative change so it could not occur until after Australia’s election in September, if he were to win.

    Finally, the WilderHill New Energy Global Innovation Index (NEX) recovered from an early swoon to finish up 2.3 per cent in the trading week ended 28 June. The top NEX weekly gainer was US biofuels source KiOR, which was up 39.3 oer cent.

    Advanced biofuels producers such as KiOR are benefiting from expectations that there will be insufficient supply to meet the US Renewable Fuel Standard blending mandate for 2013.

    Carbon prices

    European carbon slipped last week as traders closed positions ahead of a vote on an emergency plan to fix the region’s oversupplied emissions market.

    European Union allowances for December 2013 lost 3.9 per cent over the week to close at 4.21 euros per tonne on Friday, compared with 4.38 euros per tonne at the end of the previous week.

    EUAs had a bearish start to the week, dropping to an intraday low of 4.05 euros per tonne on Tuesday, after the majority of European People’s Party (EPP) working group spoke out against the carbon-market rescue proposal.

    The European Parliament is set to vote 3 July on the plan, known as backloading, which would delay sales of some carbon permits.

    Prices later recovered and stabilised below 4.50 euros per tonne over the next few days, on low trading volumes. UN Certified Emission Reduction credits (CERs) for December 2013 gained 6.4 per cent last week to close at 0.50 euros per tonne.

    Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/coals-future-dims-under-obamas-climate-plan-20130703-2pam8.html#ixzz2XwOSwc66

  • State scraps Cobbora mine and will pay liabilities

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    State scraps Cobbora mine and will pay liabilities

    Finalised: Eraring power station has been sold.Finalised: Eraring power station has been sold. Photo: Darren Pateman

    The NSW government has abandoned plans to develop the controversial $1.5 billion Cobbora coalmine near Mudgee, and has agreed to pay $300 million in compensation to Origin Energy, one of the main buyers of coal from the mine.

    It has also finalised the sale of the Eraring power station to Origin for just $50 million.

    Earlier, Origin entered into long-term agreements to buy the output from the power station for $659 million.

    As part of the original sale agreement, the government had to pay damages to Origin whenever the station was out of action. When the sale agreement was finalised under the Keneally state government, it is believed these damages were estimated at $100 million to $150 million over the life of the contract.

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    However, a recent assessment by KPMG put the liability at $250 million. The sale of Eraring, and the small Shoalhaven dam, removes this potential liability.

    ”We pulled back the curtain and found $1.75 billion of extra liabilities,” Treasurer Mike Baird said of the extent of the Cobbora mine and Origin exposure.

    ”We’ve paid just $75 million to clear it up.” The original cost to develop the Cobbora mine was put at up to $1.2 billion, which has risen to $1.5 billion.

    The Keneally government had agreed to develop the mine to supply cheap coal to Eraring along with Macquarie Generation and Delta Electricity’s central coast power stations.

    Cancelling these contracts has potentially boosted the value of these power stations since they are able to source coal more cheaply from nearby mines.

    It is believed coal sales contracts would have covered little more than the operating costs of the mine, leaving a significant potential risk from construction and production at the mine.

    Planning approval is being sought for the mine and after it is received the government plans to either sell, or lease, the mine. Whitehaven, Xstrata or perhaps Peabody could be interested in coal from the mine for blending to sell in export markets, industry sources said.

    The NSW government is also negotiating with Hong Kong-owned EnergyAustralia for the sale of two power stations at Lithgow.

    Completion of this deal is awaiting approvals for a mine extension made by one of its coal suppliers, Coalpac.

  • Coal waste to be reused for biofuel

     

    Coal waste to be reused for biofuel

    3 July, 2013 Malavika Santhebennur 0 comments

    Coal waste to be reused for biofuel

    One of the biggest coal-fired power stations in Australia is looking to use greenhouse gas emissions emitted from coal to generate biofuels in a bid to lower its carbon cost.

    Biofuel company Algae. Tec has signed an agreement with NSW government-owned power company Macquarie Generation to erect a carbon capture and biofuels production plant next to the Bayswater Power Station, in the Hunter Valley.

    Under the deal, waste carbon dioxide from the power station emitted into the algae growth system will be utilised for biodiesel and jet fuel, the SMH reported.

    NSW Energy Minister Chris Hartcher made the announcement with Macquarie Generation CEO and managing director Russell Skelton and Algae. Tec executive chairman Roger Stroud attending.

    “Carbon is now our single largest cost,” Macquarie Generation chief executive Russell Skelton said.

    “This technology should reduce our carbon output, reduce our carbon bill, and at the same time improve our bottom line.”

    Stroud said Australia can have fuel security with algae biofuels.

    “At a time when all the petroleum refining capacity is closing down in NSW, this is the beginning of an era of renewable fuel which can be ‘grown’ in the state and can substitute imported petroleum products,” he said.

    Bayswater generates power for a district between South Australia and North Queensland and utilises around 7.5 million tonnes of coal a year.

    The state’s Energy Minister Chris Hartcher said this agreement would mean Hunter Valley gets a locally-generated eco-friendly fuel supply.

    “This deal is an innovative means of capturing and reusing carbon emissions and providing the Hunter region with a locally produced green fuel source,” he said.