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Australia ‘falls off’ the map

By Dr Anthony Horton

World Bank Lead Economist Gayatri Acharya has highlighted Australia’s “glorious distinction” of being the first country to remove a carbon price in a presentation in Melbourne on 5 May 2015. She noted that on the world map of carbon pricing which includes 60 countries, Australia was no longer coloured in.

See a 2013 World Bank map of Carbon pricing systems here.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance head Kobad Bhavnagri, who was also present, gave a very pointed assessment of Australia’s policy settings, stating that it was failing in the majority of global trends towards decarbonisation and that Australia’s policy approach was incoherent. In addition, in Bhavnagri’s opinion the Direct Action policy wasn’t providing any incentive to invest and didn’t send a positive signal to the business community with regards to rational future economic planning.

In terms of energy efficiency, Bhavnagri noted that Australia was essentially “policy free”, there were no vehicle efficiency standards and Australia was essentially not on the map in terms of electric vehicles or uptake incentives. This was in contrast to a number of other nations where such incentives were provided. He did concede that Australia led the way in distributed technologies (e.g. rooftop photovoltaic systems), although that was likely a result of high electricity prices and the significant investment from individual householders.

With these assessments adding to the existing queries regarding the Australian Government’s climate change policy and social media almost constantly updating and educating people about the risks of climate change and the related actions/policies of other Governments, I think most Australians would be perplexed as to what else it would take for the current Abbott Government to revise theirs. In an earlier blog I discussed some of the queries raised by China and the United States- queries which the Government must respond to prior to attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December this year. One wonders whether other nations will take actions against Australia that are more significant and lasting than simply “removing the colour” from Australia on the world map if they deem the Abbott Government’s commitment to be insufficient and incompatible with the leadership Australia is being called to demonstrate.

Anthony Horton blogs on his own site; http://www.theclimatechangeguy.com.au

34 comments

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  1. David

    Abbott continues to enhance his ‘environmental terrorist’ label both at home and Internationally. Tragically he doesn’t give a damn!!!

  2. OzFenric

    Of course, the entirety of the world is wrong, on a staggering and almost incomprehensible scale. When the world comes to its senses and realises that climate change is a hoax, Abbott will seem prescient in being one of the only world leaders to rescue his country from the burdensome cost of making the world better. He’ll probably get a Nobel prize. I’m sure he’s just hoping the truth about climate will become obvious before the rest of the world goes putting tariffs and sanctions on us.

    The incredibly sad thing is, the above is just about the most likely interpretation of current policy. The other possibility is even worse: that Abbott and his government accept climate change but are desperately trying to prevent the world from acting because it’s going to cost the Australian economy. Rather than trying to retool an economy for a low-carbon world, they would prefer to hold everyone else back.

    We have a government that is either the most incompetent since Mugabe, or the most evil since Stalin.

  3. Terry2

    Abbott’s “coal is good for humanity” was part of the strategy to get into office, coupled with vilification of carbon pricing and the silly claim, evidently accepted by the gullible, that its repeal would put $550 back in our pockets.

    But it is not only on climate change that we have fallen off the map. We used to be a beacon for human rights in our region all sadly sacrificed on the beaches Nauru and Manus.

    It’s going to be a long haul back but a journey we must take if we are to reclaim this nation.

  4. corvus boreus

    If smoking cigarettes really killed people, they would not do it.
    They do.

  5. FERGOLO11 (@FERGOLO11)

    Bhavnagri is seriously well paid at Bloomberg, maybe it could donate some of its fat paypacket to carbon reduction. Speaking of fat – Whales are, Bhavnagri should work on a weight loss program for whales as well as advising Australia about carbon. But then really theres no pollution in Australia any more – the pollution and the jobs got sent to China – so Bhavnagrins time would be better spent lambasting the chinks up there in China – but it doesnt want to hang out in China because the food – and pretty much everything else – is better in Australia. So l guess we will have to put up with Bhavnagrins whingeing – probably for ever.

  6. OzFenric

    Jammy March, if you are seriously suggesting that smoking does not cause cancer, you are truly deluded.

    “Random genetic mutation” in a well-known, well understood gene in lung cells is caused by cigarette smoke. This is the reason why smokers are statistically many times more likely to develop lung cancer and die of it than non-smokers. Note the word “likely”: it’s not a direct cause. Every time you smoke, you cause genetic mutations. Most of these will kill the cells. Occasionally, the mutation will not kill the cell but instead cause it to start reproducing uncontrollably – voila, cancer. For every old smoker who beats the odds, there are many more who die early from preventable diseases.

    Studies have shown that a) smokers [as a group (AAG)] have more damage in their lungs; b) smokers AAG develop more cancers and die of them; c) quitting smoking has a measurable and predictable effect on your chance of developing cancer.

    If you wish to disagree with the science, you are welcome to; however, unless you can back up your words with reproducible and valid research, you’re blowing smoke.

    If you are seriously suggesting that burning coal doesn’t cause global warming, or that global warming is not a real issue in our environment, then you are truly deluded here too, wilfully so, and I am probably wasting my time trying to educate you.

    Practically speaking, are you in the “rest of the world is wrong on a staggering and incomprehensible scale” camp, or are you a “holding everyone else back to avoid the economic cost to Australia” devotee?

  7. Matters Not

    Yes Jammy, you are a piss taker, writ large.

  8. OzFenric

    Jammy March, it is certainly true that modern science is far too driven by the profit motive. There is little research not aimed at meeting a specific commercial need. You’re talking about something different, though: you seem to be claiming that science is making up its results for the benefit of commercial interests. In this you’re dead wrong. All the money in the world can’t defeat overwhelming scientific evidence. The tobacco lobby proved this by losing their “smoking is good for you” campaign. The real money was not in the anti-tobacco research; there was plenty of commercial agenda to disprove the smoking / cancer link. If the science of smoking’s health effects is fraudulent, who stood to gain?

    In the case of climate science, the money is with the deniers. It is true that a lot of money is being spent on climate research but – here’s the kicker – the funding pays for the research, NOT for the outcomes. A researcher’s work is paid for from grants whichever way the results fall. There is NO research anywhere that only pays if you come out with the desired result.

    If climate science is fraudulent, then not only tens of thousands of climate scientists are all in on it, but so are literally millions of people involved in governments, scientific bodies, corporations, publishers etc. Not only that, but large portions of known science in non-environmental areas would need to be mistaken also, as evidence for climate change runs across geology, astrophysics, population genetics and aerodynamics, to name a few.

    Like I said in my first comment – either the science is right, and we are in real trouble, or humanity has been conducting the longest-running, largest by a staggering amount, best-kept secret conspiracy in human history. Believe that if you like, but I simultaneously have too much respect for the scientific method to believe that, and too much cynicism about human incompetence to believe that such a conspiracy could stay so silent for so long.

  9. Jexpat

    Jimmy March: regurgitating big words that you laughably don’t understand only invites derision once you reach a certain age.

    I reckon that’s somewhere around 10 years old…

  10. Andreas Bimba

    To all the flat earthers continuing to promote climate change denial. You deserve catastrophic climate change but everyone else doesn’t so piss off.

  11. Jexpat

    Oops, I misspelled your screen name. It’s not “Jimmy,” it’s “jammy,” as in: time to get into your jammies and go to bed.

    Bedtime you see, isn’t random. Responsible parents do their best to ensure that it occurs about the same time every night- especially on school nights.

  12. Jexpat

    More like Burke and Wills, starving on nardoo.

    But hey, it could be worse.

    Wills’ journal notes: “starvation on nardoo is by no means very unpleasant, but for the weakness one feels and the inability to move oneself for, as far as the appetite is concerned, it gives me the greatest satisfaction.”

  13. PF

    Don’t take your Jamie’s off Miss March it is 3 pm and time for your afternoon nap my darling infant lass.

  14. FERGOLO11 (@FERGOLO11)

    pollution is real, the other stuff not so real. the real problem is overpopulation – in the third world. no one wants to talk about that cause theyre scared of being labelled racist. racism is great – overpopulation not great.

  15. stephentardrew

    Lazy uninformed ideologues ignore and criticise science then claim scientific credibility. Look I can say the word science a thousand times and still be ignorant of the process of developing a rational hypothesis, experimentation, replication, verification thus developing a demonstrably empirically provable theory open to further development thorough skeptical, critical analysis and experimentation thus extending confirmation and broadening of the theoretical basis of proof.

    If only opinionated fools had to follow the same rigorous process they would soon fall upon their sword clinging to the hope that ignorance is proof and fallacious opinion is fact.

    Sure science is open to opinion however such overt and blatant stupidity is rightly frowned upon.

    Go back to school and learn propositional logic first, apply it to science, then get back to me my confused and irrational friend.

  16. Harquebus

    FERGOLO11. I agree. Population growth is exponential as is the consequential consumption of resources.

  17. Clean livin

    Easily dismissed. We are tired of being lectured by these international types. Just ask Abbott!

  18. guest

    Jammy March says: “If burning coal was a real crisis, they’d stop burning it tomorrow.”

    Well, no. Even if they knew it was a crisis, they would be trapped into continuing. Tomorrow never comes. The extractors and the burners have too much at stake – they have to have certainty to attract the investors, and as the resources are depleted, they need to find more in reserve in order to attract more investment. Otherwise they are left with ‘stranded assets’. Which is the fear here in Oz right now: all that coal and the possibility that no one will want it before we can cash in the assets. Robin Klein explains it very well.

    As for science full of hoaxes. All for profit? The real hoaxers are the deniers because they need to deny in order to continue the harmful things they are doing – in order to avoid ‘stranded assets’.

    Then we have this claim for understanding ‘chaotic non linear systems.’ But we will not see Jammy discussing Climate Change in those terms because his argument would be rapidly exposed as inadequate. That is why we do not see any denier ‘science’ fully explained. What the deniers do is to attack something which.may not have turned out quite as predicted, or something has occurred which was not predicted, or they attack part of a scientific statement while ignoring the rest of the statement. Or they just deny. That is, they merely try to create chaos. They keep well away from the science which has turned out to be demonstrably correct.

  19. Kong

    Fukishima will get you before climate change but its been fatally overlooked again and again and again.Why are you worried about sea levels when the oceans are dead and full of plastic and pestacides and Cesium, why are you worried about hotter or lower temperatures whilst being dusted with plutonium why why why???

  20. stephentardrew

    Because Kong it all warrants our attention and to focus on one specific contributor is not sensible or rational. Some people focus upon different aspects of environmental degradation which adds to the pool of knowledge and information necessary to make informed decisions.

  21. stephentardrew

    Monckton wouldn’t know good science if it was staring him in the face.

    The label does not the idiot sell.

  22. Harquebus

    About being lectured by these international types.

    http://www.dailyreckoning.com.au/tpp-matter-australia-cw/2015/05/08/
    http://tppaustralia.org/what-is-the-tppa/

    Yeah, right.

    A few more while we’re at it.

    http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30848-senator-sessions-takes-a-bold-step-tells-the-truth-about-the-tpp
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/rigged-corporate-trade-agreement-the-truth-concerning-the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp/5450130
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-14/senate-passes-obamas-tpp-fast-track-trade-proposal

    Notice free trade agreement being referred to as corporate trade agreement which, I also will be doing.

  23. OzFenric

    Kong, I and others here have been watching (and blogging about) Fukushima for some time, but it doesn’t occupy my time to the same extent because I haven’t seen reliable indications that it’s more than a localised F-up. From what I’ve seen, Fukushima will contribute to a cancer cluster the size of Japan but isn’t going to be the world-killer it was cracked up to be, and that climate change definitely can be. Besides, the original article is not so much about climate change as it is about Australia’s trashed reputation and soon-to-be-trashed trade relationships.

    If you have recent and verifiable information that Fukushima is a more pressing global priority, point us in its direction and I, for one, will be pleased to research and write on it.

    Fukushima and the Whale

    When will the truth be told about Fukushima?

  24. Jexpat

    Oz Fenric:

    Even Chernobyl didn’t contribute to a “cancer cluster the size of Japan.” Especially not in terms of population.

    See the well sourced article on point here: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/47357

  25. OzFenric

    Exaggeration for emphasis. 🙂 I was referring to the ongoing scuttlebutt about Fukushima suffering ongoing meltdown and long-term leakage of radioactive materials. There seems some justification for their being ongoing issues at Fukushima, although most of that information comes from unreliable scare-mongering websites. Chernobyl was worse than Fukushima in terms of immediate radiation release but has been reasonably well isolated under tons of concrete since. I do not entirely trust the information from Sepco and the ongoing containment of Fukushima, but even at worst case the problems are local. Basic point being, even if the most paranoid theories about Fukushima are correct, it’s still small fry next to climate change.

  26. jimhaz

    “If burning coal was a real crisis, they’d stop burning it tomorrow.”

    The financial industry, a chaotic system, essentially works like a game of musical chairs. The GFC was only averted for the time being by using tax payer funds and expanding debt even further.

    That system is run by the sort of people, who when interviewed about crisis issues always are Colonel Klink’s. “I know nothing”. Though of course it is not humorous, so it is actually so much closer to the mafia. Big business is definitely no different – they have the same predatory and inanely competitive mindset.

    I do agree though that overpopulation and the refusal of governments to acknowledge that crisis in any way is a far bigger problem that things like whether we have a carbon tax or not.

  27. Jexpat

    I agree. Sepco has a very poor track record and have shown themselves to be non-credible. I also wouldn’t be eating many fish and so forth that comes from in and around the immediate area. But some of the things one hears (particularly from certain Americans on the West Coast) are irrepressibly so over the top that it’s hardly worth discussing the science with them.

    Indeed Monbiot made the point that, considering the level of fury mother nature threw at the reactors -a 9.0 moment magnitude earthquake with major earthquake category aftershocks plus a massive tsunami, it’s impressive that the situation wasn’t far worse. Which -in a way, is sort of an endorsement of its safety, paticularly when newer technology is sited properly.

    Having said that, I’m no proponent of nuclear power- for a wide variety of reasons, and in any case, as John Quiggin notes, it’s uneconomic.

    See, e.g. http://johnquiggin.com/2015/05/05/flogging-the-dead-horse-of-nuclear-power/

    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/reviving-nuclear-power-debates-is-a-distraction-we-need-to-use-less-energy

  28. jimhaz

    Science has a lot of problems as one can see by this article.

    http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/the-trouble-with-scientists

    I take much of what they say with lots of grains of salt. I am not able to confirm their measurements, but I can object to their conclusions.

    I object strongly to many conclusions they have made in relation to physics and cosmology as I do not believe the experiments their conclusions rest upon provide strong enough evidence – there are other conclusions that could be made and in a different starting paradigm fit perfectly. In this area I do not believe have the basic facts correct and the whole standard model and paradigm is quite faulty. This does not make their actual experiments or calculations faulty though and this empirical evidence is fine – the detail is fine, but not the summary – one still has to draw conclusions that fit the result of these experiments.

    I do not object to their overall conclusions in relation to Global Warming. I cannot see how the experiments relating to the heat effect of CO2 would not be correct, but more importantly I don’t care if they are or not, because logic say to me in an utterly clear fashion that the sooner the human race develops and implements renewable energy the more fossil fuel resources can be used elsewhere in ways that add greater value than simply burning for energy (eg oil for plastics and other products).

    When one looks at the deniers all I can see is incomplete analysis, cherry picking, non-experts posing as experts, twisted logic and massive levels of vested interest influence. One see’s politicians and opportunists, not logic using scientists.

  29. Harquebus

    I also have been following the Fukushima aftermath. It might be killing the Pacific Ocean and hardly a word on MSM.

    Home 1


    http://fukushimaupdate.com/
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-24/fukushimas-nuclear-reactor-fuel-missing
    http://drsircus.com/medicine/fukushima-world%E2%80%99s-radiation-nightmare
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-12/contained-robot-dies-3-hours-after-entering-fukushima-reactor
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/19/1372008/-Fukushima-Unit-1-Muon-Scan-Results-No-Fuel-In-Reactor-Vessel

    @jimhaz.
    Renewables can’t and never will be viable. Too much fossil fuel is required in their manufacture, construction and maintenance.

  30. Harquebus

    Chernobyl, Fukushima,
    [audio src="https://www.ecoshock.net/downloads/ES_150506_Show.mp3" /]

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