climate policy
21 Sep 2009
Here's One Good Climate Idea, Kevin
Rather than tell the world what to do, Kevin Rudd should revive a policy he axed. The best way to get the clean technology we need is through feed-in tariffs, and the rest of the world knows it
Kevin Rudd has unveiled a plan to help the different countries of the world reach at least some kind of climate agreement at Copenhagen. But back home, the path to achieving meaningful reductions in emissions is beset with problems. Fortunately, there are some promising policy options — we just need to take a good look at them.As political leaders in Australia lick their wounds after the Senate contest over an Australian carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), an opportunity presents itself to re-frame the debate on economic grounds by getting a proper understanding of the real financial barriers to clean technology investment in Australia.
Whatever Malcolm Turnbull was trying to do with the recent release of his alternative ETS, carried out by Frontier Economics, the Opposition has failed to convince the electorate that it can protect Australian jobs while also achieving an improved environmental outcome.
On the Government side, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong's line of attack has run dry. By targeting division within the Opposition on the science of climate change, she has wedged herself into arguing for an emissions trading scheme on a scientific basis rather than an economic one.
While some may argue that any effective mechanism to reduce emissions is unlikely as long as the Government allows its policy to be shaped by industry and the carbon lobby, that argument is really just more reason to develop the best possible policy as a visible and persuasive alternative to that which was recently rejected by the Senate.
To do this, our political leaders need to go back to first principles and re-think exactly which economic policies make sense in overcoming the investment barriers to a low carbon economy. This begins by acknowledging that the endgame is centred on new technology, and that in situations where that is the case, the role of government is to address market failures in financing the development and deployment of these technologies.
Although the Government has focused its political campaign on introducing a carbon emissions trading scheme, it's highly debatable whether this is actually the best place to start. Indeed experience abroad suggests that before we can transit to a carbon market other economic policies need to be introduced first in order to smooth the way. Failure to lay the correct economic groundwork leads to a cost in jobs and stunts private investment in home-grown technology.
The European carbon market is a good example. It has been in operation since 2005, and offers insight into how a carbon market can fail to drive new domestic investment in technology innovation and commercialisation. Because energy generators are able to pass the cost through to consumers, they have little economic incentive to invest R&D money in new technology. In the long-run, this will only change if clean energy generation alternatives come to market which can compete on a cost basis with coal. However there are systemic barriers preventing this in the short-run and this is where the Government and Opposition need to work to come up with the best economic policy for Australia.
The main financing barrier confronting clean energy has been in taking technologies from the R&D stage to commercial deployment. The unusually high demonstration costs of clean energy generation technologies means that the up-front cost of commercial-scale demonstration is often 10 to 20 times the cost of technologies in other sectors such as pharmaceuticals and information communications.
The lack of incentive for investors to enter the market is also due to the structure of the electricity industry. Because renewable energy generators are required to sell into a market where there is a direct substitute — coal-fired electricity — technologies will not be able to reach scale and compete on a grid parity basis unless there are short-term subsidies to help bring technologies to market. A price on carbon only helps to levelise the cost of electricity after renewable energy technologies have reached real-world market scale.
This bottle-neck in private investment going into early-stage investment is clear from global investment data in the clean tech sector. Recent data from New Energy Finance reports that in 2008 US$97 billion flowed into asset financing globally for established technologies whereas only $6 billion was attracted to venture capital for new technology worldwide. This is exactly the kind of market failure that governments have a duty to fill.
Indeed, many foreign governments agree, and have been much quicker than Australia to identify and plug these financing gaps in the clean tech sector. In the UK for example, the Government has sought to stimulate the supply of finance into the venture market through tax-incentives and direct investment. In June this year, the UK Innovation Fund was launched to invest £150 million on a pari passu basis into clean tech private equity (among other technology sectors) through private fund managers. This policy is helping to inject liquidity into the market without interfering with the expertise of the private sector to make investment decisions.
However, the area in which government intervention has had the biggest impact in spurring investment in innovation has been through the use of feed-in tariffs. These tariffs operate by paying a government subsidy for each unit of electricity sold into the grid from a renewable energy source, and locking this subsidy in for a fixed period (often 20 years). This reduces cash flow risk and allows investors to enter the market with long-term confidence,
The main success story in this area has been in Germany, where feed-in tariffs introduced in 1999 have underpinned the strong growth of the solar industry well before the carbon market came into operation. This has created jobs and supported small businesses in the country. One company, Q-Cells, which started producing silicon PV cells to sell into the German market in 2000 with 19 employees, has grown its turnover 73 times in 8 years. In 2008, it had turnover of €1.25 billion and had close to 5000 employees.
The success of Germany's feed-in tariffs for solar energy has been emulated across the hydro and wind sectors within Germany, and by numerous governments across Europe, the US and Asia. Even China, often castigated as the renegade in international climate politics, is rumoured to be introducing a national feed-in tariff for solar electricity by year's end.
In Australia, by contrast, the Government canned the proposal for a national feed-in tariff for solar in July this year. This is despite the fact that many states have made some inroads into state-based feed-in tariffs. For the most part, the federal Government has sought to earn political capital from funds with such names as the Renewable Energy Fund and the Energy Innovation Fund. But whatever the wrapping of these funds, their underlying investment is in primary research and development rather than in addressing the equity gaps of later-stage commercialisation. Indeed, the one fund which did have a commercialisation focus — the 2006 Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund — was small in size and has since been closed.
As the climate debate heats up again around Copenhagen later this year, all political camps professing to take energy policy seriously need to re-focus their attention on those genuine financing barriers which are obstructing the commercialisation of clean energy technology. Addressing these gaps is crucial. Narrowly targeting the carbon market alone may be enough to win some votes but it won't be enough to lay a secure platform for creating clean energy jobs in Australia for builders, developers, engineers, financiers and others.
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Feed in tariffs may have a role, but are not going to get the economy to cost-effective achievement of a designated emissions target.
What will achieve economy-wide cost-effectiveness is the pricing of emissions and rigorously designed ‘complementary policies’ addressing known market failures, as in encouragement to cost-effective end-use savings of energy.
Minimising the cost of meeting such targets is logically also the way to encourage the meeting of the constantly more stringent national annual targets necessary to meet global targets about atmospheric levels, such as the 450ppm CO2e by 2050 now often deemed necessary to avoid 2 deg. C avge temperature increase and too great a risk of ‘dangerous’ climate change’.
It is worse than ironic that the some of the more ambitious advocates of stringent targets — and assistance to particular subjectively favoured ‘green’ technologies — pay insufficient attention to these principles of economic analysis and political realism, instead effectively becoming captive to interest groups associated with these particular ‘green’ technologies. Not infrequently,these latter technologies may not (yet) pass the test of cost-effectiveness relative to other alternatives that may sometimes be less heavily promoted.
These neglected alternatives, less glamourous but often more likely to pass the test of cost-effectiveness, include energy-efficient appliances, vehicles and buildings; and the subsitution out of existing coal-fired electricity generating plant into gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs). CCGTs (stigmatised as ‘fossil fuels’ by some ill-informed ‘deep greens’) are a modular form of base-load electricity generation that emits less than half the CO2 per kWh than coal-fired plant, and not only better complements intermittent renewables like windpower and solar (PVs or solar thermal), but also does not discourage improved end-use savings and energy efficiencies.
Serious and unbiassed analyses not captive to particular interests, such as those of Nicholas Stern (2007) and Ross Garnaut (2008), emphasise these principles of cost-effectiveness and political realism, as well as the dire need to meet progressively more stringent targets at the national and global levels, requiring the utmost attention to cost-effectiveness in abatement.
As also does the Rudd Government’s proposals in its (modified) CPRS, which however can be criticised (less fundamentally) on other grounds such as excessive lump-sum compensation to noisy and powerful vested interests like the coal-based power generators.
(This comment was hopelessly unclear and has been deleted.)
Much of the above is akin to debating the merits of where to get the Emperor’s new clothes dry cleaned or how much to take in the sleeves.
If there is no climate problem that we are causing then it makes no difference how you want to enable carbon dioxide reduction plans since they are all misguided.
If Penny Wong wants to "argue for an emissions trading scheme on a scientific basis rather than an economic one", then more power to her, provided, of course, she starts to address the issue in an unbiased manner, answering questions put to her by skeptical scientists instead of pretending she can’t hear them. If the underlying science of the global warming hypothesis (and it has never been more than that) is unsubstantiated, which is certainly the case, then Australia should focus its limited environmental protection funding on issues that really matter. "Stopping climate change", a totally impossible objective, is clearly not one of them.
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
www.climatescienceinternational.org
Tom Harris makes strong claims concerning what he describes as ‘the climate change hypothesis’ and the impossibility of stopping climate change in order to argue that Australia’s limited environmental protection funding should be diverted on issues ‘that really matter’. By this, I presume he means more where spending can make a greater difference rather than whether the risks of damaging climate change to countries, communities and individuals don’t matter.
However, I don’t really want to get into a debate about whether dangerous human impacts on the climate system detailed in IPCC4 are hypothetical or not but, rather, to argue for a clearer separation between the notion of ‘stopping climate change’ (a meaningless concept given the GHG concentrations already in the atmosphere and those likely to be added in the next 20 years), and that of drastically reducing the mass emission of gases with climate forcing potential into the atmosphere. The two are too often conflated and if one major lesson should be taken from the Stern Review it is that there is a sliding scale of risk. Simply, the greater the volume of GHGs emitted into the atmosphere, the greater the likelihood becomes of moving into major and highly damaging alterations to temperature and precipitation patterns. Uncertainties about the operation of the global climate system mean that climate science cannot tell us what is a ‘safe’ level of emissions, but this is not a justification for claiming either that climate change does not matter or that action is pointless.
More directly on feed-in tariffs (FiTs), they have enjoyed some successes in stimulating renewables capacity in countries like Germany. They have also been criticised for lack of cost-effectiveness but this is partly a question of governments working out their priorities and ensuring their metrics include the full social and economic costs of different action and inaction options. Other limitations of the FiT approach, and renewables more generally, is the extent and ways in which alternative energy sources alter the energy behaviour of individuals and businesses. On the one hand, increasing RE capacity provides a signal of a society in transition; on the other, it gives the impression of inexhaustible energy that counteracts energy-efficiency measures. A more unfavourable outcome is if it encourages a significant rebound effect, whereby consumers reason that they have fulfilled their environmental duties by investing in or installing RE devices and ‘treat’ themselves with additional carbon-consuming activities. A good example here is taking that low-cost airline flight, something that it takes a large amount of renewables to generate.
To sum up, FiTs may be part of a solution to climate-energy security issues but must form part of a wider package of measures which, particularly in the Australian context, deals with personal energy behaviour and that of big business. Geographical variations must also be taken into account here, especially the greater contribution of energy generation and the resources sector to national emissions compared with many European countries, and the extent to which sectors like aluminium and steel rely on ‘over-the-fence’ electricity energy. If FiTs can make a useful contribution to reducing these as emissions sources (even if it does not have the best performance under economic-efficiency criteria), then it deserves its place within the broader portfolio of climate policy measures within Australia.
Ian Bailey
University of Plymouth UK
By what measure have Germany’s "feed-in tariff" laws been a success?
Yes, they have resulted in a lot of roofs having solar panels put on them. But has that actually achieved anything?
It hasn’t made a great deal of difference to Germany’s carbon emissions. Nor has it spurred much radical new solar technology, or big cost reductions in the tech that currently exists.
Hardly a great advertisement for the concept.
Goonie
Agreed, by some measures, Germany’s feed-in-tariffs have been successful (increasing installed capacity). By other measures, they are less so, for example, cost-effectiveness and the carbon savings achieved compared with alternative possibilities. Freiburg is often touted as an exemplar of what can be done in the renewables field but has recently come under grater critical scrutiny.
The point about FiTs not making that much difference to Germany’s net carbon emissions is also a fair one but actually reinforces my main point, that FiTs can play a role, but only as part of a wider and coherent package of policies that also deal with energy consumption across Australian society and industry.
The UK has been experimenting for nearly a decade with mechanisms whose main focus is seeking out the most cost-effective renewable energy sources - the ‘not picking winners’ approach. The outcome? A paltry increase in renewables capacity compared with the country’s wind, wave and tidal resources, tacit admissions by government that it will not meet EU renewables targets for 2020, and growing interest in FiT approaches. The lesson, perhaps, is that governments may well have to relax cost-effectiveness as a non-negotiable performance criterion in the design of energy/climate policies. This doesn’t mean dispensing with cost-effectiveness altogether but the policy must be fit for its purpose and one gets a sense that governments in many countries are trying to fit climate solutions into existing ways of thinking rather than making solving the problems their first yardstick.
I agree with Ian that FiTs must form part of a larger package and a critical part of that package is to remove the incentive for large businesses to continue to be dinosaurs.
1. we revolt against access fees for connection to the grid [these will mirror water access fees within the next two years]
2. we support localised injection of power into localised grids [ therefore reducing loss]
3. we support the commercialization of great Australian and overseas developments like the ceramic fuel cell as a short-term proposition and CETO as a longer term proposition.
4. we demand a carbon tax rather than shifting the responsibility through gg trading schemes and forget the concept of off-sets altogether
5. we encourage the energy economy by importing only[if we can’t make the ourselves] low energy white goods; and
6. place a heavy carbon tax on high energy users.
7. households with two premises will be charged a tax on non-occupancy time to decrease emissions related to commuting, and
8. tax will be charged on businesses who require their workforce to travel further than five kilometres to work.
9. foodstuffs not produced within 150 kms will be taxed a transport tax [in Victoria this would impact on milk, for instance, transported to Warrnambool from areas around central and western Victoria for processing and then returned to its communities of origin for sale.
Just a few ideas that would create a package - the most important for this discussion - the creation of localised grids with no access fees Christopher
Ian, perhaps I should make clear that I’m not terribly fussed about the cost-effectiveness of the emissions reductions achieved to date by Germany’s feed-in tariff scheme. That’s kind of missing the point. If you wanted to achieve maximum emissions reductions, on a national scale, today, as quickly as possible and without the complications of nuclear power, there are much cheaper and more effective ways (replacing coal-fired power with gas being one obvious one).
The more important question is whether the FIT scheme has made a substantial contribution to developing a technology that can put Germany, and by extension the world, on the pathway to zero net emissions in the next few decades. I would say that, so far, the answer would be "no". Solar was a horribly expensive technology, even compared to other renewables, before the FIT scheme existed. It produces power intermittently, at times which may or may not match peak consumption (the match is decent in warm sunny countries, not so much in Germany). Electricity storage technology is primitive and costly.
Has the German scheme changed any of those things? Not very much.
My view is that the German solar FIT scheme has been a multi-billion Euro experiment that has, to date, not shown particularly promising results. That may change in the next few years, but how long do we have to keep throwing money at it before we decide it’s a waste of time?
I fully agree that we need incentives to develop new technologies that can reduce the environmental impact of our energy use, but tailoring the design of those incentives is very important, and I don’t think solar FITs are it.
The Australian MRET will, in the main, promote a whole bunch of wind turbines. Wind is cheaper than solar, which is good. But it is even more capricious in its intermittancy (and, incidentally, spreading wind turbines out over fairly large areas doesn’t cure this either). Therefore, without some kind of energy storage technology (again) wind will only be able to play a relatively small part in the grid.
Personally, I reckon if we are to have financial incentives for renewable technologies beyond a carbon price, they should be geared to provide additional incentives for renewable technologies that provide power on a more predictable basis.
Robert Merkel
I see my comments above have drawn no response, which naturally I take to mean agreement.
Robert Merkel’s comments are pertinent and sobering.
Shouldn’t we conceptually make sure that we separate mechanisms that will cost-effectively abate emissions (by pricing emissions etc.) from the question of R&D assistance granted on rigorous and accountable criteria?
The former should be the highest policy priority. We should not let the ‘best’ (which may be as yet far from cost-effective) get in the way of the ‘good’ and the cost-effective, including the ‘low-hanging fruit’ often claimed to exist in the area of energy end-uses.
In the case of granting R&D assistance to new technologies, criteria should have regard to future export opportunities for Australian products in areas like PVs. In the case of established industries such as coal, these industries should be levied to pay for R&D on CO2 capture and storage (CCS) not fund this research from the public purse.
Where ‘economies of scale’ and ‘learning by doing’ exist then these features are largely subsumed under commercial risk. Australia is a ‘small country’ in technical economic terms, and can take advantage of economies of scale and ‘learning by doing’ achieved through more extended foreign markets, whether the products concerned are manufactured here or imported.
Barry Naughten
Ian writes: "I presume he means more where spending can make a greater difference rather than whether the risks of damaging climate change to countries, communities and individuals don’t matter."
Response: Climate change impacts matter a great deal at times and in places subjected to sudden and extreme climate change, of course. For that reason we should obviously help our most vulnerable citizens prepare for likely change and also help them adapt to changes as they occur. Yet the vast majority of money and time is being spent on the other side of the climate response equation - the almost certainly flawed idea that our CO2 emissions are the primary cause of these climate changes and so we need to restrict our emissions. This is backwards. We KNOW people do and will need help. We DON"T KNOW what if any impact we have on the climate system. We should obviously continue to research what that impact may be but it is vastly premature to spent billions on something we probably have little impact on when so many of society’s well understood problems (many of them environmental) remain underfunded throughout the developed world. And, of course, projects like the building of wells in Africa would save the lives of millions of people, mainly children from dying due to contaminated drinking water, an infinitely more important problem that the possibility that we may be causing climate problems for people decades in the future.
Ian writes: "I don’t really want to get into a debate about whether dangerous human impacts on the climate system detailed in IPCC4 are hypothetical or not"
Response: But that IS the issue. If the IPCC’s forecasts are nonsense or highly improbable, then all the rest is a waste of time even discussing, much like my analogy with the emperor’s new clothes.
Ian next "argue[s] for a clearer separation between the notion of ‘stopping climate change’ (a meaningless concept given the GHG concentrations already in the atmosphere and those likely to be added in the next 20 years), and that of drastically reducing the mass emission of gases with climate forcing potential into the atmosphere. The two are too often conflated and if one major lesson should be taken from the Stern Review it is that there is a sliding scale of risk. Simply, the greater the volume of GHGs emitted into the atmosphere, the greater the likelihood becomes of moving into major and highly damaging alterations to temperature and precipitation patterns. Uncertainties about the operation of the global climate system mean that climate science cannot tell us what is a ‘safe’ level of emissions, but this is not a justification for claiming either that climate change does not matter or that action is pointless."
Response: Risk is composed of two factors - possible outcome and likelihood. If the likelihood is exceptionally low (as appears to be the case in the ‘dangerous’ human caused climate change case), then the risk is going to be low even if the possible outcome is severe (and also even if the the likelihood increases as more GHG are emitted into the atmosphere, provided the likelihood is still low in an absolute sense).
So, that is the question - is the likelihood low? It appears it is very low indeed as far more plausible explanations are being put forward by the scientific community for recent (quite modest) changes in our planet’s climate.
Finally, Ian write: Uncertainties about the operation of the global climate system mean that climate science cannot tell us what is a ‘safe’ level of emissions"
Response: Yes, but you are jumping the gun here in that you are assuming it has already been proven that emissions cause significant climate problems in the first place. Science not only does not tell us "What is a ‘safe’ level of emissions"", it does not even tell us that that emissions have any significant impact at all. If they don’t then any level of emissions is safe from a climate perspective.
Another analogy: In the climate debate, it is as if we are building asteroid defense systems when we have to even see a dangerous asteroid on the way or even to remotely complete a full sky survey of Near Earth Objects to know what the real risks are. A good paper that discussing this problem - a high possible outcome, low probability risk if there ever was one - may be seen at http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD184/index.html . Check it out if you have time. Its hierarchy of responses applies perfectly to the climate situation.
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
www.climatescienceinternational.org
Dear Tom,
please go away - I am surprised you are not being edited out for being off-topic which is the "best way to get … clean technology" Christopher
phermon writes: "please go away."
Response: Please don’t tell me to go away. Please address my points, which are at the very root of the whole issue and is probably why I am not being censored out.
phermon writes: "I am surprised you are not being edited out for being off-topic which is the "best way to get … clean technology"
Response: "clean technology" is a misnomer in this case since carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most being restricted by these plans, is not in any way unclean. It is an invisible, odorless, non toxic gas essential to plant photosynthesis. Clean technology SHOULD mean reducing only those things that are indeed toxic substances. This is just one way the whole language of the debate has been distorted to political ends - I describe more about this in the following NZ Herald article: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/climate-change/news/article.cfm?c_id=26&object…
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
www.climatescienceinternational.org
I would have considered the topic to be about what to do about climate change in terms of improved development of and commercialisation of renewable non-gg polluting energy sources.
We have been through Tom’s evidence against man-created climate change so many times and THAT is not the topic. Christopher
Well then, if it is not the topic, such phrases as "clean energy" should not have been used in the original piece since it is an abuse of the word "clean". Also phrases such as the following should have been avoided since it is bound to attract those of us who believe the science of the issue has been distorted completely by the Minister: "By targeting division within the Opposition on the science of climate change, she has wedged herself into arguing for an emissions trading scheme on a scientific basis rather than an economic one."
Like it or not, what I am saying is quite germane to the topic at hand and is responding to topics brought up in the original piece by our venture capital firm author.
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
www.climatescienceinternational.org
"This begins by acknowledging that the endgame is centred on new technology"
Really?
Does that mean if we just figure out better military machines we can achieve peace?
I would argue that, instead, we need to address the elements of the system that amplify our worst attributes: greed, selfishness, laziness, fear and apathy. Thus the endgame is actually to consciously choose to exemplify our best attributes, like generosity, empathy, inclusion, creativity and integrity.
Addressing technology alone totally fails to acknowledge that our predicament is a product of our unchecked desires. Tech fixes only delay the inevitable consequences of living beyond our ecological means.
In that sense it’s like taking out loans beyond what you can repay, then taking out more loans to pay the first off. Unsustainable. If your 20y/o child tried it, you’d sit them down for a hard chat about the realities of finite supply.
It’s time our leaders have that chat with each other, the business sector and the public.
That said, the rest of the article makes some extremely good points. This is my first day on NM; so far, excellent.
Georgina, sounds like you might agree with my points 7,8 & 9. [7.30pm 22/9]
Like your work. Keep it coming. This should be a conversation. Christopher
What bothers me about the science of ‘climate change’ is that the climate has (and probably always will be) in a state of ‘change’.
And if CO2 is a ‘geenhouse gas’ then since we have 20% more CO2 in the atmosphere than forty years ago, why have temperatures only increased by less than 2 degrees in all of that time? Perhaps its because CO2 still makes up less than .005% of the atmosphere.
And also since our only supply of oxygen (around 21% of the atmosphere) is through the expiration of flora, shouldn’t we be more concerned with decreasing forests and verdant land, meaning dwindling oxygen supplies for an ever increasing population?
Given what we know about the need to turn things off in China in order to stage the games, I have no problem with the concept of clean energy in any context. And I ,too, believe the science of the issue and I am a Greenie and make my own electricity with a ferret powered generator, and refuse to buy water from big business, and will soon be in a position to make the local trips on a sunbeam. Hope that terrifies your financiers, Tom
Christopher
PS an ETS can’t be argued on either a scientific or economic basis [by Wong or any other egocentric sophist] any more than carbon offsets - GHG tax or nothing in my view ands with no compensation to polluters - they’ve had five years to get on with it, longer if they’ld been listening to anything other than the Toms of this world
phermon says: "Hope that terrifies your financiers, Tom"
Response: This is a rather weak example of the logical fallacy (see http://www.fallacyfiles.org/introtof.html ) referred to as "motive intent". I say it is a "weak example" since phermon has no idea who donates to ICSC since this information is not shared with the public (as is the case with many non-profits such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club).
The motive intent, besides being insulting, is illogical. It assumes that our opinions are for sale, which would make it an implied ad hominem logical fallacy as well of course since it implies we are dishonest, and it also illogically assumes that vested interest funding sources make what a person says wrong. However, it is a biased use of the Motive Intent Logical Fallacy since it is only applied to one side. The fact that the David Suzuki Foundation, for example is known to be funded by groups that stand to benefit financially if the climate scare continues is not brought up by the phernom’s of this world, only the hypothesized vested interest of funders of those who oppose the climate scare. I find it ironic that also never brought up is the fact that oil and gas companies also fund Suzuki’s and other groups on his side.
When I see logical fallacies such as these start to creep into the postings opposing what we are saying, I know that our actual debating points must be pretty solid.
Now, back yo my main point, that the above discussions amount to a debate of where to get the emperor’s new clothes dry cleaned, unless we have convincing evidence that he actually has any new clothes (which we don’t).
Tom Harris
Executive Director
International Climate Science Coalition
Ottawa, Canada
www.climatescienceinternational.org
Dear Mr Harris
You have a background as a professional public relations consultant who has represented the interests of the fossil fuel lobby for many years. See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_Harris_%28Canadian_engine…
One of your PR tactics is to seek to muddy the waters about climate science in order to create confusion and to slow down the policy progress in this area (such as it is). You yourself have admitted to as much in an earlier post to another forum at
http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=73474&start=15
Your intervention in this current post is a not dissimilar tactic. You are entirely within your rights to make these comments and conduct yourself as you do. This is not an ad hominem attack or a denial of your freedom of speech. However, it is a fundamental principle of media literacy that we should be aware of the possible interests that are represented by particular sources of information and opinion. Forewarned is forearmed.
Sincerely
Peter Cook
Going back to the main argument put forward by Eric, I agree that Fits are a very important ingredient in stimulating research, development and commercialisation of energy that is not a result of pulling sequestered carbon out of the ground and releasing it into the atmosphere. And the FiTS need to be secure over a period of at least ten to twenty years in order to give renewable energy some level of foothold in the market-place.
Apart from the use of geothermal energy, there seems to be little that can be done now in terms of the mining of CLEAN energy. We now need to make the most of that which lands on the planet from elsewhere or in the short-term replenishable from the hot core of our planet.
Better building, reducing the need to travel [particularly for political and commercial reasons -Kevin Rudd and Lindsay Tanner please note], using locally produced products etc are all part of the deal - and under the current regime they are simply not happening.
So for me it is FiTS, and an immediate cap on emissions with a severe GHG tax - it will be amazing the way the all-important jobs suddenly creep out of the woodwork. Forestry demolition employs few people - why are they sacred? Coal-mining employs quite a lot, but why are they sacred? Only because their lobbyists have the ear and hip pocket of Government.
Christopher
PS I have shares totalling less than Au$10,000 in renewable energy enterprises. My only other shares I inherited, BHP Au$2500, and the last are going this week.
PPS. Thanks Peter - you were very measured in your contribution.