climate policy
9 Feb 2010
Turnbull Takes Abbott To The Cleaners
The polls might be smiling on Abbott, but they've shocked the Government back into form — and Turnbull is doing his bit in savaging the Coalition's climate strategy, writes Ben Eltham
You have to hand it to Malcolm Turnbull. Just when most of us thought he might fade away, he’s come out swinging with a typically bold attack on his own party’s new climate change policy. In doing so, he’s positioned himself to resume the Liberal Party leadership if and when Tony Abbott fails at the next election.
With impassioned phrasing and measured speaking tones, Malcolm Turnbull yesterday declared he would vote for Labor’s emissions trading scheme, the CPRS.
Turnbull makes the obvious — and highly ironic — point that by using "market forces" to address climate change, the Government’s CPRS "is far more in the great traditions of modern liberalism" than Tony Abbott’s new policy. (You can see footage of the speech on this Fairfax article by Michelle Grattan and Tom Arup.)
"After all," he continued, "I have always believed that Liberals reject the idea that government knows best and embrace the idea that government’s job is to enable each of us to do our best. This ETS allows Australian businesses to make their own decisions as how to reduce their emissions."
Turnbull pointed out that "schemes where bureaucrats and politicians pick technologies and winners, doling out billions of taxpayers dollars, [are] neither economically efficient, nor will [they] be environmentally effective."
He also skewered, once and for all, the idea that Australia should wait for action from the US and other big polluting nations before implementing our own emissions reduction measures. "Far from being in front of the world in action to reduce emissions, we start way behind because our per capita emissions are so large and because our sources of energy are overwhelmingly dependent on burning coal."
It was a double-barrelled broadside at the Coalition’s new climate change policy, released last week, which eschews a cap on carbon and instead proposes exactly what Turnbull decries, doling out billions in taxpayer dollars to big polluters.
Of course, so does Labor’s CPRS, in the form of free permits to pollute, but Turnbull’s point remains substantial. As I noted last week, the party of the free market has now turned its back on market forces as a tool to address climate change.
Of course, there are many who must wonder why this speech comes now and not late last year when it might have influenced the debate about climate, and perhaps swung the crucial party room votes Turnbull needed to retain the leadership. Liberal party watcher Peter van Onselen poses exactly this question. The Australian’s grey eminence Paul Kelly goes further, arguing that the content of Turnbull’s speech should have provided the talking points for Kevin Rudd throughout last year.
There seems to be a view developing in the Canberra press gallery and commentariat that on climate, as Kelly writes, "the short-term politics is decisively breaking Abbott’s way." I think that’s just another example of wishful thinking from the political media, who as usual have been bewitched by a couple of polls into suddenly believing that Australians favour Tony Abbott’s approach to climate change over Labor’s ETS.
As Possum Comitatus points out, it’s much more complex than that, with generic support for an ETS remaining solid even while specific support for Labor’s CPRS drifts and Abbott rallies his conservative base.
A number of different trends have been developing in the polls on climate policy in recent months. The first is that climate scepticism has continued to grow but in highly polarised terms. Coalition voters are much less likely to believe in the anthropogenic global warming thesis than Labor or (unsurprisingly) Green voters.
The second trend is that while the Coalition’s change of tack on climate policy has been popular with its conservative base, there is no evidence to suggest it is a winner with younger voters, women, or voters in capital cities.
Perhaps the key quote to take away from Possum’s analysis of the latest Neilsen poll was this one: "We continue to see the same old patter[n]s emerge that we’ve witnessed in previous Morgan and Nielsen polls on this issue, where women and capital city residents have much higher levels of generic support for an ETS than men and non-capital city residents."
The big problem for Abbott and the Liberal Party is that these are the voters whose minds must be changed if the Coalition is to regain government. The Coalition already holds most of the rural and regional seats and has typically polled well amongst older males for some time now. On the other hand, urban women are the kind of swing voters who often decide the marginal seats that determine elections. Keep this in mind when you read wild reports about the supposed electoral popularity of Tony Abbott’s climate change policy.
Perhaps the most interesting effect of these polls has been on the Government, not the Opposition. There’s nothing like a couple of bad polls to jolt any politician out of complacency, and that is exactly what appears to have happened to Labor this year. While Abbott has been far from terrible in his first week sitting in the green chair opposite the Prime Minster, the Government has been focused and savage in their parliamentary attacks. Lindsay Tanner in particular got in a couple of zingers about Barnaby Joyce as "the bearded lady of Australian politics" and Government morale in Parliament appears high.
Just as importantly, Kevin Rudd and his senior ministers have finally got their message straight on climate. On last night’s Q&A, Rudd took questions from an audience of 16 to 25-year-olds and was relentless in delivering his simple three-point message about the ETS — that it charges the polluters, puts a cap on carbon and compensates working families. Labor’s new strategy is to link climate policy with economic policy, to run on its record of dodging the global financial crisis, and to viciously attack Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce’s economic credentials.
Labor has been stung by the poll results and the criticism that it has failed to go out and sell the CPRS. Whatever happens to emissions trading legislation in the Senate, Rudd and his ministers have entered this election year with a renewed focus and vigour.
Abbott will need to move quickly to address the economic responsibility issue if he is to keep up his early momentum. Further gaffes by Barnaby Joyce could be telling.
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Rudd may have his ETS soundbite right, but Wong is still a long way off being either comprehnsible, clear, concise, or honest when she speaks.
And by ‘honest’ I don’t mean she is telling fibs when she speaks, but that she seems incapable of ever answering a basic question with a straightforward answer.
She’s certainly no Barnaby Rubble, with his ‘made up’ answering style, but she is worse than Rudd, and that says something.
MaryanneG
Methinks he doth protest too much. Malcolm is showing his true colours - they are not Blue for Liberal but Red for Labour. did he join the right party to start with? Perhaps he should resign and stand for the Labour pary at the next election, that would give the voters of Wentworth something to think about, do they want Malcolm in the Middle and his red mates or will they remain true blue Liberal.
Alex Njoo
Woe the lambofchrists and Maryannegs (sic) of the world, the naysayers and people with little faith. Almost 3 years on, the world hasn’t spun for them since Menzies’ days (I’m sure that they weren’t born at the time). Go back to school and learn something about Aus politics, it’s laregely run by a combination of right-wing pollies and a large proportion of an ignorant electorate. They (the ignorant electorate) didn’t see the ‘change’ in the early 70s when Whitlam came out of the political wilderness, they wasted their thrashy consumer-based beliefs by abandoning Keating’s visionary agenda and now, as the great Rudd (non-aligned, non-factional etc. Labor leader)has dragged the rest of the country screaming into the 21st century, lo and behold, the l and Ms are out baying foul! For chrissake, do something for your country and stop baying! Better still, get a job!
Much as I don’t like Tony Abbott’s conservative (social) fundamentalism, I don’t think Labor is looking particularly shiny yet.
It treated the public as an intrusive rabble so far as explaining the CPRS was concerned, and it needs to (take a leaf out of Tony Abbott’s book and) be frank with the Australian public, e.g:
“The future demands we cut carbon consumption. We face major threats to our way of life. Not only do we face climate change, but in the forseeable future we face astronomical costs for coal, oil, gas and petrol, as demand grows and supplies shrink.
“Every Australian faces these threats whether they live on the coast, in the mountains or in the bush. The best advice, from the most credible independent experts, tells us that a failure to act now will drastically affect the lives of every Australian, whatever their politics or beliefs.
“Prices will gradually rise because polluters must pay or change their ways. At the same time we will make sure that the battlers are compensated. No one wants or deserves higher bills, but we can all save money by being smarter about how we live.”
“This situation is very serious, and demands proper management - not delusion or denial. We all know that change doesn’t happen painlessly, but as a society we have to immunise ourselves now to avoid drastic consequences, for the lives of our kids and theirs.” Etc
Ben is on the money as usual and at least this year won’t see us dying of boredom as the Rudd machine grinds remorselessly onwards. Abbott and company have seen to that. Next year, when they are ‘political road kill’ it will be interesting to see who inherits the quaintly named “Liberal” party leadership. For Turnbull to do so, he also needs to be re-elected. Is his preselection a given? I wonder what Ben thinks about his chances? I’ve also noticed Rudd getting out and about - on Sunrise and talking to the ‘young’. I think the young lady who asked him about his “every student will have a computer” at the Canberra talkfest this week may have given him pause. As I’m sure everyone knows she asked why she should trust him, when all he seems to do is make big promises he fails to keep. Oh yes, I’m sure he’ll be returned to power, but doubt it will be by the landslide which pundits have predicted. Abbott has zeroed in on Kevin’s habit of saying lots and doing little as well. It could be and interesting year!
Malcolm Turnbull is correct about the seriousness of man-made global warming but he and his new pro-coal Labor mates are WrONG about the ETS (CPRS).
1. The Turnbull-Rudd CPRS proposes to permanently ignore agricultural GHG contributions which means ignoring over 5!% of annual GHG pollution forever according to a recent accounting by World Bank analysts (see: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294).
2. It can be estimated from US Energy Information administration data that the CPRS will actually increase Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution by 19-31% by 2020 over 2000 values and by 73% by 2050 (see “Post-Copenhagen Australia will INCREASE its per capita Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/post-copenhag… ).
3. Many top climate scientists, climate economists and climate analysts variously reject the ETS approach (of which the CPRS is a particularly flawed example) as empirically ineffective, flawed, counterproductive,dangerous and and indeed fraudulent (see “Top science & economics experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbo… ).
Thus top Professor James Hansen (NASA, GISS, Columbia University), in an article entitled “It’s possible to avert the climate crisis” (Countercurrents, 29 November 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/hansen291109.htm) stated unequivocally: Governments must place a uniform rising price on carbon, collected at the fossil fuel source – the mine or port of entry. The fee should be given to the public in toto, as a uniform dividend, payroll tax deduction or both. Such a tax is progressive – the dividend exceeds added energy costs for 60% of the public.
Fee and dividend stimulates the economy, providing the public with the means to adjust lifestyles and energy infrastructure.
Fee and dividend can begin with the countries now considering cap and trade. Other countries will either agree to a carbon fee or have duties placed on their products that are made with fossil fuels.
As the carbon price rises, most coal, tar sands and oil shale will be left in the ground. The marketplace will determine the roles of energy efficiency, renewable energy and nuclear power in our clean energy future.
Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy.
Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground.
Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and grandchildren?”
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
I applaud Malcolm Turnbull. Even Tony Abbott won’t say “never ever” to an ETS. This shows Tony Abbott is a follower not a leader, a political opportunist to the core, and cannot be trusted to make tough decisions in the national interest.
The denialist pastime in vogue, of nitpicking isolated factoids that do not represent the lion’s share of climate change evidence, does not negate reality. We need to:
These things need be done, sooner rather than later, so that Earth has the best chance of being habitable for future generations. We should aim to leave it in at least as good a state (if not better) as when we entered it.
Bren, you are quite right that we need to act urgently on man-made climate change but unfortunately the ETS route is counterproductive.
Thus, for example, Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), 2009: “1. A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy. 2. With a cap and trade approach, the target is everything as both the emissions cap and emissions floor are locked in. No one can do better than the cap, and so the cap must be a science based all consuming sustainable target pathway that won’t lock in failure. As we don’t yet have the widespread political and economic preparedness to commit to an all consuming sustainable target pathway (either nationally or internationally), the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).” (see Professor Barry Brook, “CPRS versus carbon tax: Senate Inquiry”, 30 March 2009: “ http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/03/30/cprs-vs-carbon-tax-senate-inquiry/ . ).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Bren, you are quite right that we need to act urgently on man-made climate change but unfortunately the ETS route is counterproductive.
Thus, for example, Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), 2009: “1. A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy. 2. With a cap and trade approach, the target is everything as both the emissions cap and emissions floor are locked in. No one can do better than the cap, and so the cap must be a science based all consuming sustainable target pathway that won’t lock in failure. As we don’t yet have the widespread political and economic preparedness to commit to an all consuming sustainable target pathway (either nationally or internationally), the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).” (see Professor Barry Brook, “CPRS versus carbon tax: Senate Inquiry”, 30 March 2009: “ http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/03/30/cprs-vs-carbon-tax-senate-inquiry/ . ).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Well past time for that disgruntled spoiler, the now malcontented Malco, to go home with his ball. Best leave it to his new best friends to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.
DrGideon, I sense that’s probably right. The ETS in its current form is inadequate (reflecting the relative complacency of current national and global targets and mitigation efforts). An ETS is not a total solution on its own. A greenhouse gas emissions tax should have been our starting point, in the mix of policy and public debate more seriously well before now. An ETS was always going to a complicated hard sell to a public that seems to want simple answers.
A carbon tax is probably the only real “Direct Action” plan of any credible necessary effect.
Disgracefully, the antics of the economic vandal Abbott and his shrieking goons about “a great big new tax on everything” are demonising the tax option before full and proper reasoned consideration of that idea has even had a decent chance in the public square. More fool all of us for letting him get away with it so lightly.
Bren, I agree that we clearly need Direct Action (renewables, reafforestation, bioochar, needs based living etc ASAP plus cessation of fossil, fuel burning, methanogenic livestock & population growth ASAP) and a Carbon Tax (or Carbon Cost Recovery or whatever euphemism works) put a Price on Carbon.
It can be estimated from simple extrapolation from Ontario, Canada medical epidemiological mortality data that about 5,000 Australians die each year from the effects of pollutants from coal burning. At an estimated risk avoidance-based valuation of $10 million each (Australia Institute, US EPA) this means a hidden subsidy of $50 billion annually for fossil fuel burning based on mortality alone, in addition to the annual $10 billion subsidy for fossil fuel burning already identified by economists.
You can see from the above that we ALREADY have a gigantic Carbon Tax of at least about $60 billion annually that is used to subsidize fossil fuel burning.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
The minority of Australians who now support Abbott’s climate change policy over Labor’s CPRS are those who either believe a) climate change does not exist or b) the Coalition’s policy will leave them better off financially. They are the selfish, misinformed Australians who a) only care about the present and b) their own hip pockets.
Abbott’s three ring circus will continue to entertain (until after election time) as he plays ringmaster to Joyce’s bearded lady (and part time clown), with Hockey as the performing bear and Bishop as the strong lady.
Then the storms of reality will hit them as Australians wake up to the possibility of having these clowns in power, and the credos of their light circus entertainment will dissolve away, as their potential acts of deception on taxpayers are fully revealed.
And then finally (after Abbott’s election loss and he’s seen as political roadkill) Turnball’s common sense and good judgement on this matter will be recognised, with his reinstatement as Coalition leader.
Oh dear, Alex Njoo seems to be sucking on the sauce bottle too hard. And may need his own advice when it comes to understanding Oz politics…. no doubt he was born during the last shower?
Rudd has hardly dragged us into the 21st century at all, although it would be fair to say that the Howard era never attempted too much of that either, and should Abbott slip in, we will all being going back to a time well before Menzies strutted the Earth, and dreamed of Kent.
I’d like to be as hopeful as Denise is, in her assurances that Abbott will fall at the last hurdle, the election, even with his gifted set of shadow ministers at the helm with him, particularly Barnaby.
Presumbaly, Denise, you are referring to the heavyweight Bronwyn from NSW, and not Julie, the bantamweight from WA?
Unless the likes of Abetz and Minchin were to go this time around, I doubt that the Liberals will change back to Turnbull ever. More chance they’d invite Costello back, and that’s hardly likely is it?
I’d say Pyne has a better chance than Turnbull, but that will never happen either.
And Dr. GPs figures can be readily seen in the subsidy cars get over public transport, and trucks get over trains, with the ever expanding network of motorways and tunnels that add yet more pollution.
Brisbane is awash with city tunnels and highways from Ipswich to Brisbane, but no train lines going in anywhere, nor any decentralisation to the regional cities- what better use for the Internet than distributing work more equitably, while building stronger regional cities, and lowering major city house prices?
It is due in no small measure to the cowardly and incompetent (to say the least) ABC that there has been essentially no ETS (useless) versus Carbon Tax (needed) debate in Australia until now.
In descending order of climate change responsibility (ETS no, Carbon Tax yes scores 2/2) we have the following score card (in my current understanding; positions may shift or have shifted):
1. Top Australian & overseas climate scientists, climate economists, climate analysts: ETS no, Carbon Tax yes (2/2) ***.
2. 140 Oz Climate Action Groups consensus at the 2009 Australian Climate Action Summit in Canberra , Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Wilderness Society, Climate Emergency Network, 300.org, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group : ETS no, Carbon Tax yes (2/2).
3. Greens: ETS no , Carbon Tax yes (2/2).
4. Coalition : ETS no, Carbon Tax no (1/2).
5. Australian Conservation Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Climate Institute, Professor Tim Flannery: ETS yes, Carbon Tax no ? (0/2 ?).
6. Labor & Turnbull: ETS yes, Carbon Tax no (0/2).
Note that Australian Conservation Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Climate Institute, Professor Tim Flannery, Labor & Mr Turnbull all score LESS than the Coalition.
*** Just SOME expert “ETS no, Carbon Tax yes” (2/2) opinions (see “Science & economics experts: Carbon Tax needed NOT Carbon Trading”: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbo…):
1. Professor James Hansen (Head NASA GISS): “cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren… The honest approach, the effective approach, for solving the global warming problem would be a tax with 100% dividend.”
2. Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA), March 2009: “The international community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade [ETS] structure with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions.”
3. Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, UK), March 2009: “His [Nordhaus’] idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face.”
4. Professor Daniel M. Kammen, (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley), March 2009: “a price on greenhouse gas emissions is essential (but alone it is not sufficient); innovative financing is needed to advantage clean energy; innovation and implementation is needed in the North and South.”
5. Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), 2009: “the cap and trade [ETS] mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).”
6. Larry Lohmann (climate economist, The Corner House, London, UK); summary of book “Carbon Trading”, by Larry Lohmann, editor, 2006 [implicit in the GHG pollution cessation argument is taxing GHG pollution out of existence]: “The book concludes that the ‘carbon trading’ [ETS] approach to the problem of rapid climate change is both ineffective and unjust. The bulk of fossil fuels must be left in the ground if climate chaos is to be avoided.”
7. Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair, U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the US Clinton Administration), January 2009: “A cap-and-trade system is very unlikely to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions — and more likely to introduce new, trillion-dollar risks for the financial system…. the father of climate-change politics, Al Gore now prefers carbon-based taxes over cap-and-trade. A carbon tax system would apply a stable price to carbon, creating direct incentives to develop and use less carbon-intensive fuels and more energy-efficient technologies”
8. Greenpeace (leading global environment protection organization), 25 June 2009: “As it comes to the floor, the Waxman-Markey [EIS] bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets. The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions. To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.”
9. Kenneth Davidson (respected economics columnist for “The Age” newspaper, Melbourne; co-editor of “Dissent”), 2009: “The [Australian] Rudd Government’s environmental credentials are in tatters: the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme has been exposed as sham. This shouldn’t be surprising. There isn’t one cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd’s cap and trade scheme benefits the worst polluters. But the Australian scheme is special. It has been rorted at the planning stage.”
10. Richard Denniss (executive director of the Australia Institute, Canberra, Australia), 18 February 2009: “The CPRS [ETS] locks us into failure, in that it will prevent emissions falling below the timid targets proposed by the Rudd Government. So, where to from here? A simple way to get the ball rolling without locking in the worst features of the CPRS {ETS] is to introduce a carbon levy of $25 a tonne.
11. Dr Vandana Shiva (Indian physicist, feminist, founder of eco-feminism, author of several books and of hundreds of scientific and technical papers, and a very prominent environmental analyst and activist): “ Such [Carbon Trading ETS] schemes are more about privatising the atmosphere than about preventing climate change… Regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns… We face a stark choice: we can destroy the conditions for human life on the planet by clinging to “free-market” fundamentalism, or we can secure our future by bringing commerce within the laws of ecological sustainability and social justice” … and many, many more.
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.