talk climate lowres

8/3/2019 Talk Climate Lowres

1/20

climateactioncentre.org talkclimate March 2010 1

itshardtoavoidrising

sea-levels

talkclimatecompiled by the Victorian Climate Action Centre

March 2010

10 lessons redux Hazelwood

carbon tax words that work

rising seas movement strategy


2/20

2 talkclimate March 2010 climateactioncentre.org

itsh

ardtoavoidrisingsea-levels

CONTENTS

Ten lessons for the climate movement redux 3

Looking forward: looking back (2009) 8

Why the national movement should support

the campaign to close Hazelwood power station 9

Its hard to avoid rising sea levels 11

Is The Greens proposal for a carbon taxour priority? 15

A circuit-breaker 16

Language of a clean energy economy 19

talkclimateThis collection of provocative ideas,

reections and science has been assembled

by the Victorian Climate Action Centre as a

contribution for participants in the second

national Australian Climate Action Summit

held in Canberra in March 2010.

Climate Action Centre

www.climateactioncenre.org

phone 03 9639 3660

[email protected]

Published March 2010

March to Hazelwood power station, September 2009


3/20


10lessonsfortheclimatemove

mentredux

10 lessons for the

climate movementreduxFor the 2009 climate summit, I wrote a short article titled

Looking back - moving forward: ten lessons for the

climate movement (a summary is reproduced on page

8). It attempted to articulate some of the challenges and

opportunities for the community climate movement after

two years of rapid growth in scope and capacity.

A lot has happened since the last summit: the domi-

nance of the debate on the governments carbon-trading

plan, the failed Copenhagen conference, the division

over climate in the Liberal Party and the emergence of

the climate denier Tony Abbot as leader. In many ways

the harsh reality of the terrain in which we are working is

even more stark than it was a year ago, and requires us

to face up to the enormous challenge we face.

Much of the discussion in the 2009 article remains

important. In particular, the emphasis on deep mobilisa-

tion of society as the key to achieving the transformation

we are seeking. If we have learned nothing else in the

last twelve months, it should be that there are no short

cuts. Only by building our political power through

community organising, real alliance building and splitting

of the political and business elite will we have a hope of

achieving our goals.

So here is an attempt to articulate some of the

challenges and further lessons we might draw from the

last year.

1 The need forcommon goalsDiversity is crucial and inherent to successful move-

ments, but movements that are divided generally fail.

We need to wrestle with this paradox if we are to achieve

our aims.

Last year we got comprehensively rolled. While it

was important and correct that we opposed the polluter-

friendly carbon trading scheme, we failed to successfully

communicate why we opposed something that most

people didnt understand in the rst place. BarnabyJoyce had no such trouble, and in the US James Hansen

gained public traction by posing one simple, positive

alternative to cap-and-trade.

We should not be blind to the fact that our lack of

unity as a climate movement (with the Southern Cross

Climate Coalition minesweeping for Labor) meant that

the polluters gained the upper hand and used the failed

trading scheme as a springboard to push back against

the case for urgent action.

This was made worse when the CPRS opponents

failed to consistently articulate opposition to the scheme.

The positive moments the release by the environment

NGOs of an alternative Plan B and the coordinated

actions at MPs ofces by community climate groups

were not backed up with a strategy or ongoing

coordination.

This experience should highlight the importance

of developing a common set of concrete goals for the

climate movement and a positive, united agenda. This

platform cannot simply be set in the abstract, or neces-

sarily a long period in advance, but must be developed

dynamically in the real world with consideration to the

evolving nature, politics and capabilities of the various

forces in the movement.

The carbon tax debate kicked off by The Greens is an

opportunity to develop a strand of that common agenda.

We should use this opportunity to form a common goal

across the whole climate movement of supporting a good

carbon tax plan.

2 TransitionalthinkingThe idea of transition is increasingly popular, but trans-

formations will not happen just because we wish, hope or

even pray for them. A transition will need to be built and

often this will involve small and painful steps. That does

not mean we should lose sight of our big goal or end aim,

but only that successful movements are built through mo-

bilising support for specic concrete actions and wins that

intersect with the existing political terrain and exploit its

contradictions and weaknesses, not through abstractions.So lets demand the impossible, like closing Hazelwood

power station or building a new smart grid, but lets make

the impossible capable of being both imagined and


4/20


10lessonsfor

theclimatemove

mentredux politically relevant in the here and now so it helps build

the movement. This is what old socialists used to call a

transitional program, linking the current possibilities and

realizable practical gains to the desired future.

3 Climate changeis THE issueAcross the country every weekend thousands of people

are engaged in local sustainability projects, such as bush

regeneration. Thousands more are mobilised and sup-

portive of a range of other conservation issues such as

opposing whaling or campaigning for new national parks.

Many others are engaged in social or human rights issues

of one kind or another. All these issues and problems

have an inherent worth and value.

But are they more important than climate change?

Local habitats are rapidly moving towards the poles

and up mountains, stranding many species. (Eventuallymany of the local weekend conservation projects will be

for nought if there isnt radical emissions mitigation.) This

is the underpinning of what may be the mass destruc-

tion of ecologies, another Great Extinction. Whales, for

example, face the likely collapse of the food chain that

underpins their survival if temperatures rise by 4 degrees,

the Copenhagen outcome. Humanity itself, as a species,

is also at threat. At the very least, billions are at a high

risk of death and great misery.

Given this reality, is it time to be making the case that

climate change is THE issue and that those who do not

place it at the top of their list have their priorities wrong?

Should we, perhaps gently at rst, be pointing this out

to those who would rather save a whale than save the

planet?

4 Harmingthe poor?There is a strange dichotomy in the climate debate. On

the one hand, international aid agencies such as Oxfam

and World Vision increasingly seem to understand the

disastrous consequences of climate change for the

worlds poor. They have engaged with the danger of sea-

level rises for the delta regions of the world, and the threat

to water security from melting glaciers. They have pushed

hard for stronger pollution-reduction targets. And although

at times still locked into the incremental paradigm that

grips most NGOs, they have, more than most, looked

catastrophe in the face and been willing to articulate its

consequences.

On other hand, the welfare lobby that claims to ad-vocate on behalf of Australias poor has not, for the most

part, seen climate change as a threat to those in poverty.

Rather it views climate change mitigation as the danger,

judging from where their resources and advocacy have

been directed. For them, carbon taxes, clean energy pric-

ing and renewable energy targets mean increased prices,

and increased prices must be opposed at all cost.

I am amazed that, with some notable exceptions,

the welfare sector has been blind to what the realities of

climate change will mean for their constituencies. The

ravages of super-droughts and heat waves, bush resand oods, sea level rises and other extreme weather

and economic dislocation will fall disproportionately on

Australias poor. But where are the welfare sector confer-

ences and publications, media releases and submissions

on the impact of climate change on the poor, and calling

for stronger action? Instead, we have had campaigns to

derail feed-in-tariffs and a singular focus on the quarantin-

ing of carbon trading revenue for compensation.

Of course mitigation options have equity implications

that need to be factored into the policy design, but in the

absence of strong advocacy for action on climate change,the welfare sector ends up becoming a tool in the

campaign of the delayers and deniers.

5 Warmingto labourVery few profound policy changes have been won by

social movements in Australia without the involvement of

organised labour. So far we have failed to signicantly in-

volve trade unions in our movement, and particular unions

have been a barrier to action by opposing any attempts to

curtail the coal industry.

The ACTUs approach has been, at best, reduced

to cheer-leading for the Rudd government. This is the

danger of box-ticking alliances that have no little depth or

broad engagement. When, in the end, the ACF was nally

turning against the governments carbon trading plan, its

ACTU ally in the Union Connectors campaign was enlist-

ing its climate delegates to lobby in favour of the Senate

passage of the polluter-friendly CPRS!

The union movements peak bodies will not play a

more transformative role unless until a block of unions is

built that get the problem and the scale of the required

solutions. To do this, we need to work rst with those

unions that have no interest in blocking change. White

collar and service unions, emergency and health workers,

and building unions all could be part of this block. And

many have a material interest in mitigation actions, such

as improving building and industrial energy efciency.

We have already seen the NTEU and the ETU endorse a

more realistic approach, the LHMU and the ASU engage

with the climate movement, and re ghters really take alead.

We need to seek tactical alliances around particular

events and actions, as we have with the re ghters. This


5/20


10lessonsfortheclimatemove

mentreduxbuilds relationships and condence.

And we need to confront the

green jobs paradigm. Unions have

approached the climate problem like

other industry-restructuring chal-

lenges by seeking to protect jobs

and identify opportunities for new

employment. The climate move-ments response has been to spruik

the green jobs message, while

defensively talking about just transi-

tions.

But climate change cannot and

must be reduced to just an issue

of job security. If we allow this to

happen, we will lose the argument.

For most unions, climate change

and mitigation policies will have little

direct, immediate effect on job levels, so green jobs areirrelevant to them.

Nor should climate change be sold as just another

moral community issue for unions, like the Iraq war or

refugees. We have to communicate that climate change is

an existential problem for all of us, including all workers,

a threat so great that for unions also it is THE issue of our

time.

And when we do talk about jobs, at the very least

we should be talking about clean energy jobs, not green

jobs which is bad messaging (reducing climate to an

environmental concern) and has a partisan avour (vote

for The Greens).

6 Internationalrabbit holeThe Copenhagen conference has nally con-

rmed once and for all the bankruptcy of a

strategy built around outcomes from interna-

tional negotiations.

The Australian climate movement has

sought to leap-frog community mobilisation

by appealing to international responsibility.

So while much of the world recognised that

commitments under Kyoto were a disaster,

in Australia Kyoto was used as a stick with

which to beat the Howard government. But

this strategy reinforced a public view (and

perhaps deluded ourselves) that the interna-

tional process on which Kyoto was built could

save us.

How else do we explain the decision ofthe ACF, Climate Institute and WWF to make

their targets for the governments polluter-

friendly trading scheme dependent on the

outcome of the Copenhagen summit? This strategy is

now in tatters.International negotiations can and should be used by

the movement to speak with one voice

globally, and they can also be an opportunity to message

the problem back into Australia, but they cannot be a

substitute for mobilisation here.

We will never get a worthwhile international agree-

ment until we deepen support for action within the nations

that are party to an agreement. Even something that

looks good on paper will have to be implemented, and

that will need a climate movement capable of pushing for

that change in every big-polluting country.

We should never again allow our positions to be

shackled to the success or otherwise of international

negotiations; we have to build support for a solution on

the power of community concern in Australia.

monbiot on copenhagenI came back from the Copenhagen climate talks depressed for several

reasons, but above all because, listening to the discussions at the citizens

summit, it struck me that we no longer have movements; we have thousands

of people each clamouring to have their own visions adopted. We mightcome together for occasional rallies and marches,but as soon as we start

discussing alternatives, solidarity is shattered by possessive individualism.

Consumerism has changed all of us. Our challenge is now to ght a system

we have internalised.

George Monbiot, After this 60-year feeding frenzy, Earth itself has

become disposable, Guardian, 4 January 2010


6/20


10lessonsfor

theclimatemove

mentredux

7 Living withdenialWe will never get rid of climate

deniers, at least not before it is

too late, and psychological denial

deepens as the moment of truth

nears. In one sense deniers and

climategate have failed because,

as Paul Gilding noted recently,

over 160 leaders even the

Saudis attended an international

conference on climate change

in December and accepted that

global warming is a real problem.

However, in another sense,

the deniers are gaining ground

and we can no longer continue

the defacto strategy of ignoringthem.

This is not just about a

rational, fact-based debate, and

we cannot win with the facts

alone. The deniers will twist and

turn and throw bombs like the

glacier story and then go on to

something else. They are havoc-

makers and work on an emotional

level based on paranoia and fear

of the unknown (and the state,

and the elite), so our response

needs to be based on emotion

and values too, and on their

credibility. Monbiots repeated assertion that you are a

fraud, backed by just two examples, was telling in his

Lateline debate with Plimer because it turn the debate

about credibility back onto the denier.

We need to tag the deniers for what they are: deniers

not sceptics. Deniers come in many forms, including

serial contrarians, blogging conspiracy theorists, delusion-al crackpots, amateurs and grumpy old men (there are

few women!), particularly from geology and meteorology,

who cannot deal with the fact that the body of professional

knowledge that constituted their identity and their fading

careers has been overturned by new understandings.

And we should say so, and explain to the audience what

is really going on, rather than pretending its just a rational

debate about facts.

And often we also need to respond immediately in

the news cycle to the substance of their claims and use

them as Obama would say as a teaching moment.

For example, the attack on the IPCC claim about glaciers

was an opportunity to tell the full story, but too few in the

climate movement took it up.

8 Armed with peer-reviewed science *(* UK climate camp banner)

The return and return of the climate deniers highlights the

importance of us all being willing to educate and con-

stantly update ourselves about the climate science. It is

and was wrong to ever think that the debate/denial aboutthe science is over. Part of the reason the community is

susceptible to climate deniers is that we have left it to

scientists to communicate the climate science, and they

are not trained communicators, and vary widely in their

capacity to do so. We have a role to play, and people who

are engaged and come to forums genuinely want to know

more about the science and the detail. By increasing the

depth of community understanding of the threat of climate

change, the sway of the deniers and delayers will wane

Yes, it is frightening and often boring to read about

the science of global warming and teach ourselves tocommunicate it, but necessary. As Italian philosopher

Antonio Gramsci said, we need pessimism of the intellect

and optimism of the will.

on framing climate changeGeorge Lakoff, a professor of linguists at the University of California,

Berkeley, and a specialist in framing the way language shapes the way we

think says that the future of climate change legislation depends on the words

used to explain it.

Global warming applies to climate, not weather, and most people dont think

of the difference, and so you shouldnt be talking just about global warming.

You should be talking about the climate crisis. That, I think, is very important

and then you explain what a crisis is. But the people who are in the environ-

mental movement are very bad at communication, and they havent done

that...

...and its very important for the scientists to know that they dont know

anything about communication. Theyre very bad at it. See, the scientists who

study weather dont study cognition. Theyre not cognitive scientists; theyre

climate scientists. Thats understandable, but they dont know that they cant

communicate, and they dont know they need to get some people who know

something about it.

The idea of climate change, actually, was introduced by conservatives,

by Frank Luntz in the 2004 (presidential) campaign. He found that global

warming alarmed people whereas climate change sounded ne. It was just

change, as if it just happened, and people werent responsible. And climate is

a nice word. It sort of gives an image of palm trees and nice climate, as

opposed to hurricanes and, you know, and huge snowstorms and oods...

I think the climate crisis is a much better way to talk about. You want to

say this is crisis. This is a crisis for civilization. Its a crisis for life on Earth.

Source: National Public Radio, 21 February 2010


7/20


8/20


10lessonsfor

theclimatemove

mentredux

Looking back:moving forward(2009)

[Lessons for 2009, abridged from Climate Reader,January 2009, www.carbonequity.info/download.

php?id=12]

1 Changing government does not mean a

change in policy

The honeymoon of the Rudd government on

climate is over; divorce is in the air... Yet the strategy

of most environment NGOs in 200608 seemed to be

one of mobilising the community to elect a Labor

government, and then talk softly to the new govern-ment behind closed doors, rather than continue the

mobilisation...

2 Continuous mobilisation

So our aim must be the continuous mobilisation of the

community. Not turning people on and off like a tap

when an issue or election comes up... We must also

see our efforts to mobilise community as a long-term

project of getting every organisation in a particular

locality to recognise the full implications of climate

change and to put the heat on local MPs until theybecome advocates for the movement, not barriers to

action. We need to create movement resources that

can do this...

3 If we are not frightened then no-one else

will be

For a long time there has been a debate in the environ-

ment and now the climate movement about fear ver-

sus hope... But this false dichotomy is often a mask for

conservative positions that seek to maintain a delusion-

al strategy on climate change, which sees advocacy of

small immediately achievable steps as the only ap-

proach that will work... But the desire to propose small

steps that can be easily adopted by government not

only leads to advocacy of solutions that wont solve the

climate problem, but often also prevents the truth about

the real extent of the climate problem being told...

4 Knocking on doors is as important

as climbing smoke-stacks

... there is a danger that a one-sided emphasis on

civil-disobedience actions can substitute for the less

glamorous work of engaging the community. We need

to nd ways to take the urgency of climate change

direct to people in their communities through door

knocking, local events and other direct communications.

...the task is to focus on actions that can mobilise large

numbers in civil disobedience actions, rather than small

heroic groups... Only when we have thousands gath-

ered to sit-in at power stations will such actions move

from the symbolic and become truly powerful...

5 Alliance building is more than box-ticking...alliance building is about being able to mobilise real

political force across diverse sectors, and if that isnt

the power than has been gained by building alliances,

then in the long run they are not worth the paper they

are written on.

6 Propose solutions that will work

... When leading scientists are talking about the safe

zone being 280 to 325 ppm and the need for zero

emissions, why cant the leading climate NGOs get on

board and put the science rst?7 Stop talking about the reef and start

talking about people

To make progress, climate needs to be understood

NOT as an environment sector issue, but as a whole-

of-society problem that is as much about human rights

as anything else. Fundamentally we need to talk more

about the impact on people, not beautiful places...

8 But is it the economy, stupid?

The movement was taken down a rabbit hole partly

of its own making after the election when we allowedthe debate to be about the economic cost of climate

change... The planet cannot be reduced to the

economy.

9 We are activists not policy advisors

There is a danger in all movements of being so close to

an issue that we start to believe that all we need to do

is create and describe a perfect solution and our job is

done. But in reality policy outcomes are never about the

elegance of a solution, but about power...

10 Our movement is and must be global

We cannot solve the problem (just) in Australia and

we do need global action and cooperation. For us

this means creating more global links and coopera-

tion amongst grass-roots movements and continue to

leverage off each others actions... We must look for

opportunities in 2009 to work with groups and networks

locally and internationally which have as a goal the

mobilising of the global community around science-

based demands.

DAMIEN LAWSON

19 January 2009


9/20


whythenationa

lmovementsho

uldsupportthec

ampaigntoclose

hazelwood

why the

national movementshould support thecampaign to close

Hazelwood powerstationWhy should the national movement support the campaign

to replace Hazelwood power station with clean energy?

Because we can grow the movement, communicate

the problem with coal and have an unprecedented win ifwe focus on Australias dirtiest power station.

The biggest single cause of carbon pollution is

burning of coal, so replacing coal with clean energy is the

key to solving the climate problem. Coal also harms our

health. NASA scientist James Hansen estimates over one

million people are killed by coal pollution every year.

Australias dirtiest

Victorias Hazelwood power station is the dirtiest coal-

red power station in Australia, and one of the most

polluting in the developed world. It is outdated technology,

a polluting dinosaur of the industrial age.

Hazelwood is so old and inefcient it produces over

15 per cent of Victorias carbon pollution (over 3 per cent

of Australias pollution) and uses a lot of water, over 1.35

mega-litres per gigawatt hour of electricity produced.

It was due to be closed in 2005, but the Labor State

government extended its life past 2030 by granting Hazel-

wood an extension to its mining licence.

But the owners of Hazelwood UKs International

Power and the Commonwealth Bank (8.2 per cent) have said it could be closed much sooner if the State and

federal governments were willing to pay.

One of the best and fastest way of cutting carbon

pollution in Australia would be to replace Hazelwood with

clean energy alternatives such as investments in ener-

gy efciency, renewable energy and/or gas as a transition

fuel (groups supporting the campaign to replace Hazel-wood have a variety of views on the mix of solutions).

This shift would also keep jobs in the Latrobe

Valley, where Hazelwood is sited, and enable the valley to

become a clean-energy manufacturing hub.

Under the governments carbon-trading plan, Inter-

national Power and other generators would be getting

over seven billion dollars in compensation, but this type

of money should be used to replace power stations, not

keep them open and polluting.

Thats why we need a campaign for the State and

federal government to take up International Powers offer,

and replace Hazelwood now, not in 2030.

Politically and fnancially vulnerable

Closing Hazelwood is a real possibility because of the

convergence of nancial and political contexts.

Hazelwood is widely recognised as the most vulner-

able to future carbon pricing because it burns brown coal

(some of the worlds dirtiest) and is the most inefcient in

the country. This combined with the global nancial crisis

has made the renancing of the companies debts verydifcult.

A recent decision to shift Alcoas aluminium smelting

electricity contracts (20 per cent of Victorias electricity


10/20


whythenationa

lmovementshouldsupportthecampaigntoclose

hazelwood consumption) to another power company from 2016 is

another signicant nancial blow to Hazelwood.

For these reasons International Power has said in

submissions to government that it is open to closing if it is

given adequate compensation.

More importantly the State government is under a lot

of pressure and very defensive about coal.

Last year, when 500 people protested and stormedfences at the power station, the government went on the

back foot. Instead of the usual approach of attacking the

protesters, ministers lined up to say the government was

doing more on renewable energy. Police and the power

company sang from the same song sheet.

In December last year, the climate movement took

only limited action before the government put a decision

on possible coal exports on the back burner until after

the Victorian election, scheduled for 27 November 2010.

The Agereported on 10 December that: A senior govern-

ment source said recent media coverage of the issue hadconcentrated ministerial attention. Education Minister

Bronwyn Pike and Housing Minister Richard Wynne, who

both face a growing green vote in their inner-suburban

electorates, are believed to be among those cabinet

members to have shown interest in the issue recently.

In inner-city Melbourne, Labor is facing the loss of

three to four seats to The Greens. Wynne and Pike both

know they face political death and have been desper-

ately seeking a big green promise from the government.

And the recent Altona By-Election with an 11.7% swing

against Labor has concentrated the minds even further.

Federally, with the emissions trading scheme political-

ly dead, there are opportunities for the movement to also

push for a dramatic action from the Rudd government.

They will be under pressure from the Coalition, who

could beat them to such an announcement. Alan Kohler,

one of Australias most prominent business journalists,

discussed this possibility in Crikey:

The clever, pinpoint focus of the new Coalition policy that

the Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Greg Hunt,

has come up with, was actually lost yesterday amid thewildly incoherent antics of politicians back from holidays

at the start of an election year.

In fact its quite simple: the coalition is proposing to pay

the Latrobe Valley companies to convert from brown coal

to gas. There are a few other ideas tacked on to make it

look like a policy, not a deal, but thats the guts of it.

Its a good idea rst proposed in Business Specta-

tor last November. Im not sure the amount of money

nominated a total of $3.2 billion, with up to $2.55 billion

available for power station conversion will be enough,

but its an opening gambit.

Hunt spelled it out towards the end of yesterdays pressconference when the journalists were nodding off listen-

ing to Tony Abbott, so what he said has been largely

ignored.

He said: One of the large power companies has

provided us with their advice. Because its commercial-

in-condence, they didnt want it released but they

provided us with their advice that they could convert from

coal to gas for $13 per tonne under this system.

Now we want to check that, but the oldest and least

efcient of the power providers has said to us that under

the governments ETS were just not going to be able

to afford the capital to transition because we will bestruggling just to survive Under this theyve said that

if our balance sheets are clear and theres an incentive

to change from coal to gas, this is very attractive and we

are more likely rather than less likely to change under

this system.

This adds momentum to the coalition of environment and

community groups in Victoria who are building the cam-

paign for the State and federal governments to commit to

replace Hazelwood power station with clean energy by

2012. This will be a key election test for the federal and

State Labor governments.As yet The Greens have not announced their Victo-

rian election key promises. Clear and unambiguous sup-

port for the replacement of Hazelwood would help them

make the ground they need in the inner-city seats. If they

dont have a clear message they face being left behind by

the community campaign.

Real chance or a win

We will be organising in the community, door-knocking

key electorates, talking in the media and lobbying politi-

cians over the next six months to make this the key issuein marginal seats.

We will be saying we dont want empty promises to

tackle global warming, but a real timetable for action to

replace Australias dirtiest power station.

There is a real chance of success. On March 2, The

Agereported The ALP is understood to be keen on an

announcement about Hazelwood ahead of the November

state election.

But our campaign has greater chance of success if

there is work done around the country to pressure the

federal government to also act on Hazelwood. The na-

tional movement could hold a day of action on Hazelwood

with protests at MP ofces or the Commonwealth Bank

(minority shareholder), and include the demand to close

Hazelwood in other lobbying of the federal government.

Closing a coal power station before its life is up would

be unprecedented in Australia and would have an impact

around the world. It would undermine investments in new

coal power and create real political momentum for the

big changes we urgently need to properly tackle climate

change.

TAEGEN EDWARDS, Yarra Climate Action Now

DAMIEN LAWSON, Climate Action Centre


11/20



sea-levels

its hard to avoid

rising sea levelsLocal and state governments are in trouble trying to work

out what to do about sea-level rises and planning laws,

making it an effective issue to further engage with the

public.

We dont have to sell the topic, its already a hot

potato. There are court cases and administrative appeals

and local election campaigns about the issue; developers

and real estate agents are moaning; and local residents

are confused about whether they want low estimates for

likely sea-level rises (to keep property values up) or high

estimates (so that migitation works will be done to stop

ooding). And people dont want to buy and build where

future sea-surges will ood houses and degrade land.

There is local community concern and activism on

the issue from coast to coast:

Vulnerable house owners in Byron Bay ght the

council to build barriers at the expense of public

beaches, but studies show a sea wall built in one spot

is likely to transfer erosion to another;

The risk of rising sea levels has put an end to plans

for residential development at Victorias Port Fairy

after an advisory committee told the State govern-

ment that the sand-dune development should not go

ahead, and other cases are being contested;

At Old Bar on the NSW mid-north coast, landowners

threaten to sue council as houses are condemned

as unsafe because sea surges are eating into sand

dunes on which the residences are built; The South Australian Supreme Court rules that

predicted sea level rises are a valid reason to reject

beachfront housing developments in a subdivision on

Yorke Peninsula, with cases in other States;

Under pressure from land-owners along 90 Mile

Beach, the Wellington Shire in East Gippsland says it

is not responsible for preventing construction in areas

vulnerable to rising sea levels, as councillors overturn

a planning panel recommendation to prevent

construction in low-lying coastal areas;

On the other hand, Pittwater council is looking at

planning for sea-level rises beyond the benchmarks

set by the State government, because they may be

too low; and

It is one of four Sydney councils calling for consist-

ency in government guidelines, saying the variations

(State government sea-level estimates of 0.9 metres

by 2100, but the federal gure is 1.1 metre) leaves

the councils at risk of legal action.

State governments dont want to ring alarm bells by talk-

ing about the bad possibilities (the opposite approach

they take to bushres), but they risk huge litigation costs

if a planning standard is set too low, and building is

permitted where it can later be shown the state has been

negligent in ignoring the available scientic evidence.

And local councils, although subject to State government

planning guidelines, dont want to be sued in the future

for allowing developments and buildings where they were

clearly inappropriate.

The climate movement should intervene in this public

debate to highlight the concrete impacts of the climate

crisis and the failure of government to act responsibly.

Dierent standards

Recently the NSW Government set a planning bench-

mark for sea levels of 0.9 metres by 2100. In Victoria it

is 0.8 metres based on recommendations of the (since

abolished) Victorian Coastal Council, but the state is now

looking at scenarios for 1.1 and 1.4 metres. In South Aus-

tralia the benchmark is 1 metre, and the federal govern-

ment is basing its predicted impacts (247,600 individual

buildings valued at $63 billion could be damaged or lost,while major infrastructure, including Sydney and Bris-

bane airports, are at risk of being ooded by increasingly

damaging storms) on a 1.1-metre sea level rise by 2100.

While these differing standards indicate confusion, and

may also be a legal mineeld, they are all too low.

The November 2009 issue of Science Update 2009

published by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology

reported that current estimates of sea-level rise range

from 0.50 metre to over 2 metres by 2100. A federal

government report (1) authored by Prof. Will Steffen says

that: Sea-level rise larger than the 0.51.0 metre range

perhaps towards 1.5 metre ... cannot be ruled out. There

is still considerable uncertainty surrounding estimates

of future sea-level rise. Nearly all of these uncertainties,


12/20


itsh


however, operate in one direction, towards higher rather

than lower estimates. And the outcomes of the March

2009 Copenhagen climate science conference (2) give

an estimate of 0.751.9 metres by 2100, based on peer-

reviewed research (3).So if up to two metres is acknowledged, why set plan-

ning guidelines around one metre? Just after the federal

government released its sea-level report (4) last year,

Senator Wong told ABC Insiders on 15 April that 1.1

metres .is about the upper end of the risk (empha-

sis added). This was an untruth. What the report actually

says is: Recent research, presented at the Copenhagen

climate congress in March 2009, projected sea-level rise

from 0.75 to 1.90 metres relative to 1990, with 1.11.2

metres the mid-range of the projection. Based on this

recent science 1.1 metres was selectedas a plausible

value for sea-level rise for this risk assessment

(emphasis added).

This is not risk management, but betting against the

laws of nature. It seems that plausible value is a weasel-

word for mid-range! But we dont base our re prepar-

edness on a mid-range plausible value. A safety-rst

approach means we plan for the worst possible outcome,

which all levels of government are clearly failing to do.

At the March 2010 Australian Coastal Councils

Conference Dr John Church, who is Australias pre-emi-nent expert, said sea levels will rise by close to a metre by

the end of the century no matter what the world does to

combat climate change, but warned [that] things could get

much worse if rising air and ocean temperatures caused a

massive ice sheet covering Greenland so big it could, by

itself, lift sea levels by seven metres to melt. (5).

An upper boundary to 2100

As the worlds oceans warm, they expand and sea-levels

rise, but how quickly the loss of polar ice sheets will add

to the rise is difcult to estimate, principally because ice-

sheet and sea-ice dynamics are not sufciently well un-

derstood, and they are subject to non-linear (rapid and un-

expected) changes, such as is now occurring with Arctic

sea-ice. The estimate of the 2007 IPCC report of about a

half-metre sea-level rise by 2100 is now too conservative.

The general scientic view is now for a rise of 12 metres,

but higher levels of 3-5 metres cannot be excluded.

The IPCC 2007 report was conservative

because it failed to factor in some melting of the Green-

land and Antarctic ice sheets. Yet the question is no

longer whether the Greenland and West Antarctic icesheets are losing mass (they are!), but if and when they

pass tipping points for large, irreversible ice mass loss,

and how fast that will occur.

New satellite data shows that both Greenland and

Antarctica are losing ice mass at an accelerating rate (6).

Arctic sea-ice in summer is in a death spiral according

to Dr Mark Serreze, head of the US National Snow and

Ice Date Centre (7); as it becomes thinner (8) and as its

volume continues to decrease, the data suggests total

summer sea-ice loss in the next three to ten years (9)

[See chart, page 13].As NASAs James Hansen notes in his recently

published book, Storms of my Grandchildren: It is dif-

cult to imagine how the Greenland ice sheet could survive

if Arctic sea ice is lost entirely in the warm season (page

164).

So how fast? One recent study (10) found that a

2-metre sea-level rise was the upper bound on how much

ice could physically be lost from Greenland and Antarc-

tica this century, but this was based on assumptions that

all ice shelves would remain intact, but in fact many are

already retreating (11). And a 2009 study by Siddall et

al. which suggested a sea-level rise of only 782 cms to

2100, and which was criticised as being too conservative,

has just been withdrawn due to technical errors (12).

On the other hand, recent research (13) examining

the paleoclimate record shows sea-level rises of 3 metres

in 50 years due to the rapid melting of ice sheets 120,000

years ago, when climate conditions very similar to today.

Mike Kearney, of the University of Maryland, said its

within the realm of possibility that global warming will

trigger a sudden collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet,which could lead to a rapid increase in sea levels like that

predicted by the study.

And recent Antarctic ice-core studies of the Pliocene

over the last 14 million years (14) have led Timothy Naish

of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand to

conclude: We know that [when] CO2 was around 400 or

450 parts per million in the atmosphere...there was no ice

sheet on West Antarctica...Thats where were almost at

now.

Then on 13 January this year, New Scientistpub-

lished a story (15) about calculations that the Pine Island

glacier (PIG) in the West Antarctic has likely passed its

tipping point, with estimates that this one glacier alone

could add a quarter of a metre to sea levels by 2100.


13/20



sea-levels

Richard Hindmarsh of the British Antarctic Survey

says PIG could disappear entirely, and if Thwaites

glacier, which sits alongside PIG, also retreats, PIGs

grounding line could retreat even further back to a second

crest, causing sea levels to rise by 52 centimetres. The

modelling suggests Thwaites glacier has also passed its

tipping point. Pine Island and Thwaites drain about 40 per

cent of the West Antarctic ice Sheet into the sea and arethe key to its future.

And now comes a new report in Science(16) that an

undersea ridge that may have once helped slow the loss

of the Pine Island Glacier is no longer doing so:

An unmanned autonomous submarine has discovered

a sea-oor ridge that may have been the last hope for

stopping the now-accelerating retreat of the Pine Island

Glacier, a crumbling keystone of the West Antarctic Ice

Sheet. The ridge appears to have once protected the

glacier, but no more. The submarine found the glacier

oating well off the ridge and warmer, ice-melting water

passing over the ridge and farther under the ice. And no

survey, underwater or airborne, has found another such

glacier-preserving obstacle for the next 250 kilometers

landward.

Several years ago, the experienced climate science

journalist Fred Pearce reported geologist Richard Alley

as saying there is a possibility that the West Antarctic ice

sheet could collapse and raise sea levels by 6 yards [5.5

metres] this century, leading Pearce to conclude that the

Pine Island Glacier is primed for runaway destruction.

The evidence is now heading his way, and suggestingthat 0.8 or 1.1 metres is a risk-averse foundation for sea-

level rise planning and policy-making is now way behind

the times. James Hansen said three years ago that he

would bet a thousand dollars to a donut that his esti-

mate of a 5-metre rise by 2100 (based on recent climate

history) would be closer to the mark that the 2007 IPCC

gure of less than a metre, and the grim reality is that he

is likely to be right given the worlds continued failed to

sharply mitigate.

Sea level rises in the long runIt was thought that long-term climate feedbacks would

only kick in on century to millenia time-scales, but they

are on the cards right now. Will Steffen, in his recent

report for the federal government (17), notes that:

Long-term feedbacks in the climate system may be

starting to develop now; the most important of these

include dynamical processes in the large polar ice

sheets, and the behaviour of natural carbon sinks and

potential new natural sources of carbon, such as the

carbon stored in the permafrost of the northern high lati-

tudes. Once thresholds in ice sheet and carbon cycle dy-namics are crossed, such processes cannot be stopped

or reversed by human intervention, and will lead to more

severe and ultimately irreversible climate change from

the perspective of human timeframes.

Given the catastrophic failure to date of global climate

policy-making (Copenhagen outcome: a 4-degree warmer

world by 2100), big sea-level rises are on the way for the

sorts of temperature increases now on the table. NASAs

James Hansen wrote in New Scientiston 25 July 2007

that:

Oxygen isotopes in the deep-ocean fossil plankton

known as foraminifera reveal that the Earth was last 2C

to 3C warmer around 3 million years ago, with carbon

Arctic sea-ice loss: ice volume projections and observations

Modelled monthly mean sea-ice volume (blue line) over the Arctic Ocean for the period 19792004. Green line is the mean model ice volumefor 19791995. Stars show minimum OctoberNovember values from the model (blue) and observational estimates (magenta: Kwok andCunnihgham 2008; cyan: Kwok et al. 2009). Read and black striped lines: calculated (NPS/K08 and NPS/K09) linear trend through 19952007.Blue dashed line: model trend through 19952004. Projecting the trend into the future indicates that autumn could be ice-free between 2011and 2016 (Maslowski, 2009). Purple line: An unknown minimum amount of ice volume expected to survive summer melt beyond that time.PAPRERS: Kwok, R., and G. F. Cunningham (2008), ICESat over Arctic sea ice: Estimation of snow depth and ice thickness, J. Geophys.Res., 113, C08010, doi:10.1029/2008JC004753. Kwok, R., G. F. Cunningham, M. Wensnahan, I. Rigor, H. J. Zwally, and D. Yi (2009), Thinningand volume loss of the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover: 20032008, J. Geophys.Res., 114, C07005, doi:10.1029/2009JC005312. Maslowski, W.,J. Clement Kinney, J. Jakacki, Toward Prediction of Environmental Arctic Change, Computing in Science and Engineering, vol. 9, no. 6, pp.29-34, Nov./Dec.2007, doi:10.1109/MCSE.2007.125. Maslowski, W., State and Future Projections of Arctic Sea Ice, Changes of the GreenlandCryosphere Workshop and the Arctic Freshwater Budget International Symposium, Nuuk, Greenland, 25-27 August, 2009.Source: freshnor.dmi.dk/handout_freshnor.pdf


14/20


itsh

ardtoavoidrisingsea-levels dioxide levels of perhaps 350

to 450 parts per million. It was

a dramatically different planet

then, with no Arctic sea-ice in

the warm seasons and sea

level about 25 meters higher,

give or take 10 meters.

And we are now almost at

400 parts per million! The simple

fact that seems to evade policy-

makers is that sea-level rises

measured in tens of metres are

in the pipeline for current green-

house levels.

Even more compelling, Pro-

fessor Eelco Rohling of University

of Southampton says: Even if

we would curb all CO2 emissions

today, and stabilise at the modern

level (387 parts per million by

volume), then our natural relationship suggests that sea

level would continue to rise to about 25 metres above the

present, based on his research (18).

These predictions t a simple but alarming pattern evi-

dent in the climate history. During the last ice age 20,000

years ago temperatures were 56 degrees cooler and

sea levels 120 metres lower. If human emissions continue

along their current path, global temperatures will be 4-5

degrees warmer, enough to eventually melt all the polar

ice caps and push sea levels 70 metres higher than today,as was the case in the Oligocene, 30 million years ago.

While ice-sheets can take long periods of centuries

and more to disintegrate, the conclusion is unavoidable:

On average, each one-degree temperature rise will in

the long run increase sea-levels by 1520 metres.

On average, the coast line retreats 100 metres for

every 1 metre of sea level rise. The Insurance Council

says 425,000 Australian addresses less than 4 metres

above sea level and within 3 km of shoreline are vul-

nerable this century. Already houses and property in

Australia are being abandoned. Much of our infrastructure

and many of the worlds largest cities are on the coast and

huge river deltas are densely-populated farming lands.

Climate scientist prof. Konrad Steffen says A one-

meter sea-level rise by 2100... will affect up to 600 million

people. And Sir Nicholas Stern says rising sea-levels will

result in forced migrations: Youd see hundreds of millions

people, probably billions of people who would have to

move and (probably) cause conict around the world

(for) decades or centuries.

DAVID SPRATT

Notes1. Climate change 2009: Faster change & more serious risks,Department of Climate Change, May 20092. Synthesis report: Climate change - Global risks, challengesand decisions, Copenhagen, March 2009, International Allianceof Research Universities, June 2009, www.climatecongress.ku.dk3. Vermeer and Rahmstorf, Global sea level linked to globaltemperature, PNAS, 7 December 20094. Climate change risks to Australias coast: A frst pass nationalassessment, Department of Climate Change, April 20095. Rising sea levels put us at risk, Northern Star, 3 March 2010,http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2010/03/03/its-a-sea-

change-our-coast-could-well-do-without6. Velicogna, Increasing rates of ice mass loss from theGreenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed in GRACE, GRL36:195037. www.grist.org/.../exclusive-new-nsidc-director-explains-the-death-spiral-of-arctic-ice-brushe8. Kwok & Rothrock, Decline in Arctic sea ice thickness fromsubmarine and ICESat records: 1958-2008, GRL 36:155019. The freshwater budget of the Nordic Seas, freshnor.dmi.dk/handout_freshnor.pdf10. Pfeffer, Harper et al, Kinematic constraints on glacier contri-butions to 21st-century sea-level rise, Science321:1340-4311. Climate change melts Antarctic ice shelves: USGS, Debo-rah Zabarenko, Reuters, 22 February 2010,http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L5OH20100222;Coastal-Change and Glaciological Map o the Palmer Land Area,Antarctica: 1947 - 2009, US Geological Survey, http://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i-2600-c/12. Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sealevels, David Adam, Guardian, 21 February 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/21/sea-level-geoscience-retract-siddall13. Blanchon et al., Rapid sea-level rise and reef-stepping at theclose of the last interglacial highstand, Nature458:881-8414. Naish, Powell et al, Obliquity-paced Pliocene West Antarcticice sheet oscillations, Nature458: 32215. Katz and Worster, Stability of ice-sheet grounding lines,PRSA, 13 January 201016. Kerr, Antarctic Glacier Off Its Leash, Science327:40917. Climate change 2009: Faster change & more serious risks,Department of Climate Change, May 200918. Rohling, Grant et al., ,Antarctic temperature and global sealevel closely coupled over the past ve glacial cycles, NatureGeoscience, 21 June 2009


15/20


isacarbontaxo

urpriority?

is the greens

proposal for a carbontax our priority?On 21 January, The Greens proposed a levy on pollut-

ers or carbon price/tax to break the Senate deadlock on

climate change. The Greens are currently negotiating with

the government on the plan.

Over 30 local community climate groups have thrown

their support behind the Greens plan, in a statementreleased in February:

Neither Kevin Rudd nor Tony Abbotts policy can deliver

a safe climate.

It is time for Plan B, starting with the Greens xed

carbon price.

Australia needs a new direction if we are to urgently

tackle the climate crisis.

Labors Carbon Pollution Reduction scheme is failed

policy, it gives too much compensation to the big pollut-

ers and relies on overseas credits on the international

carbon market to produce a reduction in emissions. Itwould lock in a high polluting economy.

The Coalitions policy is no better, it also hands out

money to the big polluters and relies on techniques to

increase soil carbon to produce most of its claimed

carbon dioxide reductions. We need to increase the

planets capacity to absorb carbon and keep coal in the

ground, not one or the other.

While a carbon price is only a small part of driving the

necessary transformation to a zero-carbon economy, the

Greens plan to set a two year carbon price could get the

ball rolling on real carbon reductions in Australia.

We call on all parties in the Parliament to back the

Greens proposal and get moving on a transition to a

safe climate.

[See www.climateactioncentre.org/climategroups%20

carbon%20price%20statement for list of signatories.]

National and State wide environment groups including

Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, Envi-

ronment Victoria, Nature Conservation Council of NSW

and Friends of the Earth have also welcomed the plan.

GetUp is looking at a campaign for a carbon levy also.

What is the Greens proposal? It is for a stand-

alone carbon levy of $23 a tonne commencing 1 July

2011, increasing to $24 from 1 July 2012, and after

that escalating at CPI plus 4 per cent a year. It would

be reviewed after two years but the proposed legislation

would be ongoing (no sunset clause), so the levy would

continue unless revoked or amended (as is the case with

all legislation).Greens Senator Christine Milne said that once the

interim scheme was implemented: We can then discuss

the longer term solutions Australia will need over the

coming two years, secure in the knowledge that a carbon

price is already in place, helping to unleash

innovative and job-creating climate solutions. [It seems

The Greens position, as reected in their Safe Climate

bills, is that a good emission trading scheme is better

than a carbon tax, but a carbon tax is better than a bad

ETS, such as Labors proposed CPRS.]

The Greens say their plan would generate $5 billion

to compensate households, with the same amount for

renewable energy and energy efciency. There would be

no compensation for domestically-consumed production

and limited exemptions (20% of emissions) for emissions-

intensive, trade-exposed industries.

Is a price on carbon eective in cutting

emissions? A carbon price seems necessary, but

not suffcient. Its of limited use for liquid fuels/transport

because there are at present few technological alterna-tives, and petrol prices are inelastic. This means a large

increase in price produces only a small drop in demand.

[It would require a carbon tax of around $500/tonne to

double the price of petrol!]

But for electricity generation, a price of $23 a tonne

ramping up towards $40 in a decade is enough to make

renewables (especially wind) more than competitive now,

and more so with innovation. As energy consultants keep

on saying, a price in this range will kill off investment in

coal-red power stations now, and drive investment in-

stead towards renewable energy. This change will start as

soon as it is understood that the price is coming: even the

possibility of the CPRS with a low price held back NSW

from announcing new coal-red power stations.


16/20


isacarbontaxourpriority?

The current policies of the major parties in the federal

Parliament are not actually intended to do anything

signicant about climate change. I see them both as

elaborate deceptions designed specically to bafe the

public by creating the illusion of doing something; and

wedging the opposite side of politics.

The Greens proposal for a carbon tax is a very

clever circuit breaker that allows the government to

save face and initiate a transition into a more sensi-ble policy direction. Like it or not, we need a price on

carbon.

One of the things the climate movement has

missed in hammering home its (quite justied) opposi-

tion to the CPRS was the important disclaimer that no

single policy is going to get us there. We are dealing

with a completely unprecedented challenge and while

many of us feel very comfortable with the evidence on

the urgency of the problem, the reality is we dont have

enough detail on what particular suite of policies we

need to turn around rapidly escalating climate change.

We need to accept and sell the message that a

suite of policies is what is needed, and by rolling out

many different initiatives we will learn what works. But

we havent got time to try them one by one.

So a carbon tax is important, and it is a better

choice than the CPRS. A carbon tax:

creates an incentive to reduce emissions;

is simpler and more transparent than emissions

trading;

provides a reward for more long term (and higher)

structural changes, while the ETS just encourages

low-cost reductions;

provides a steady ow of revenue for governments

to direct to lower the costs of further emission

reductions (or direct investment into zero emission

technologies);

provides more price certainty for business than

emissions trading;

doesnt create any issues with voluntary action so

individual reductions still count;

sets no upper limit on emission reductions,unlike an ETS, which creates a ceiling (beyond

which emissions will not occur) but also a oor for

emissions reductions.

And a tax will be more efcient economically. A 2008

study from the US Congressional Budget Ofce found

that on economic efciency measures, the net benets

of a tax were roughly ve times that of a cap and trade

(ETS), with reductions achieved at a fraction of the cost

(1).

But in addition to establishing the right targets and

putting a price on carbon, there are many concurrenttasks, including:

* developing strong regulatory standards for energy

efciency for buildings

* regulation of transport emissions

* restoring carbon sinks through reafforestation;

* smart grids and smart meters

* regulation of waste (e.g. cradle to grave obligations,

and mandatory recycling)

* initiatives to improve climate literacy, and so on.

Of course we must also throw in investment in

education to skill people for new green jobs (and

to transition from old brown ones) and invest in

research (for innovation + evaluation). Certainly the

great big policy package what is required, which will

mean lots of different policy tools, and these may

vary across sectors.

We must also remove the current perverse

incentives that work in opposition to these goals,

particularly the $10 billion that is currently provided

in subsidies to fossil fuel industries in Australia.

I think the Greens proposal is nifty politics andsensible policy. The introduction of carbon price will

always need to be staggered and $23 is enough to

start the ball rolling and start to make existing tech-

nologies like solar thermal and wind more viable.

It doesnt allow for any offsets and it will generate

much needed revenue to direct into green initiatives,

which are all good things. I think it deserves support.

FIONA ARMSTRONG

1. Congressional Budget Ofce, Policy Options for Re-ducing CO2 Emissions, February 2008. www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/89xx/doc8934/toc.htm

A circuit-breaker


17/20


isacarbontaxo

urpriority?As well, a carbon tax now can help undermine the

push for carbon capture and storage, because as well

as the additional 40-50% cost of this technology, CCS

would not scrub all carbon dioxide from emissions, so it

would be hit by a carbon tax as well.

A carbon tax is not the full answer, but it doesnt

preclude the many other things that need to be done

and it raises revenue that makes some other actions(direct investment, feed-in tariffs, energy efciency)

easier to fund.

Arent we just responding to someones elses

agenda? Yes, the nature of politics at the moment is

that we dont set the agenda as much as we would wish

(looking back at 2009, did we really set the agenda at

all?), and so our attention is often drawn to organising in

response to those issues that are already in the public

light and being talked about regularly in parliament,

the media and the community. We are more likely to beheard when we participate in a conversation that has

already started.

The problem comes if we simply respond on their

terms, rather than also pushing the terms of the debate

towards our territory. And there are other, less publicly-

recognised, but strategically important, issues which we

seek to move to the top of the public agenda by

mobilising broad support for them.

The recent public agenda on climate has been

dominated by Labors CPRS (dying, if not dead in its

present form), the Nationals opposition to it and Abbots

alternative plan (which will result in increased emis-

sions), and the circuitbreaker proposed by The Greens

of a carbon tax. Recently, climate denial, stuff-ups on

green loans, energy efciency (for the wrong reasons,

thanks to Garrett), and Wongs massacre of the RET

have also gained public attention, unfortunately more so

than renewables and replacing coal.

But the big three Abbotts plan versus the CPRS,

or a carbon tax will likely be prominent in the next

few months debate, with the parties and lobbies alsolaunching new proposals as the election approaches.

Should we intervene in this current public debate by

actively supporting a carbon tax? There are three

possible reasons: its a good idea; it is a platform to push

stronger proposals; and/or building support for good

Greens policies so that they start to win lower house

seats is strategically important, because until Labor

materially fears The Greens and others with stronger

climate action policies, their agenda of appeasing the

big polluters will not change.

Wont the tax be bastardised in negotations

and end up being a dud? Of course that possibil-

ity is an occupational hazard with everything in politics,

and support for a carbon tax should be premised on

sound foundations, which should not be compromised.

But if you only support something when you are 100 per

cent satised that you are going to get exactly the result

you want before you start, you may end up doing a lot of

sitting around.

The effectiveness of any policy depends on the intent

and motivations of the government implementing it, andthat depends on the broader balances of forces in the

society and how keenly governments feel the pressure

and/or reect the views of the climate movement and

lobby. Ditto whether the polluter pays or not.

Isnt this still creating a carbon market? A

carbon tax/price in not an ETS and it is not the CPRS.

With a proper carbon tax, there is no market in pollu-

tion rights, no nancial speculation on permit prices, no

purchase of scam offsets (through the CDM, rainforest

credits and other mechanisms) as an excuse not to cutdomestic emissions, banks cannot trade in permits, there

is not the disincentive to voluntary action, and it does not

create a oor on emissions.

Wont a carbon tax increase energy prices or

poorer people? Yes, but some of the revenue can be

used for compensation, as is the case in The Greens

proposal. Energy efciency programmes can also help

reduce energy costs. However we also need to recog-

nise that coal and gas-red electricity is cheap because

its price fails to account for its pollution that is killing the

planet. [Not that the pollution can simply be reduced to a

monetary price!] There is a question of equity, but keep-

ing the price abnormally low for coal-red power is also

an inter-generational equity question.

Isnt the price too low to be eective? It needs

in the end to be much higher, but $23 a tonne and rising

would straight away change a lot of investment decisions,

especially once it was understood the price was there

to stay for the long term. Under The Greens proposal, itwould get to around $40 in a decade. In 1991, Sweden

imposed the worlds rst carbon tax at $US100 a tonne

and today is one of the four most competitive economies.

Arent there better ways to cut emissions?

When all is said and done, there are only a limited

number of ways to reduce emissions, principally:

pricing mechanisms, which can be a tax on carbon

pollution so that these technologies become more

expensive than the low-pollution alternatives; and/or

subsidies (negative taxes) such as feed-in tariffs and

direct subsidies for investment;

regulations which outlaw certain emissions, technolo-

gies or processes;


18/20


isacarbontaxourpriority? investing in innovation and scaling up alternative

technologies so they they become price competitive

with fossil fuels; and direct government investment in

the safe, clean-energy technologies; and

encouraging behavioural change.

A carbon tax does not preclude any of the other actions,

and can generate revenue to support them.

What about eed-in taris or paying people

to store carbon in soils? These mechanisms also

involve carbon pricing. Instead of taxing the carbon pol-

lution, they provide a subsidy to engage in actions that

reduce carbon dioxide levels (storing carbon in soil) or a

subsidy to produce clean energy (feed-in tariff). Thus they

are a negative carbon tax which subsidies the pollution

not emitted, rather than putting a price on pollution which

is emitted.

But arent carbon markets bad? A carbon market(trading in the commodity known as carbon pollution

rights or permits, such as the CPRS) is very different from

putting a carbon tax. A carbon tax does not create trade-

able emission permits at all, it simply prices pollution at a

point in the production process.

But isnt a price on carbon a market

mechanism? Yes, and a few people say they are

opposed to market mechanisms (and hence using taxes

to change market prices) in principle. Sure, the world

would be a different place without commodity and capital

markets, but thats not the reality within which we must

make big changes now. The climate system will be long-

past big tipping points if we simply wait to abolish the free

market before acting decisively.

If you really thought all carbon prices were bad, then

the rst thing you would need to do to be consistent would

be to argue that the current excise on petrol should be

removed, because for all practical purposes, it is a carbon

tax too. A feed-in tariff is also a market (negative tax)

mechanism, and judging from the experience in Europe,it works. Corporate tax is also a market mechanism (it

changes the rate of return in capital markets), but few

beyond big business think it should be cut or abolished.

Cant we just regulate emissions out o

existence? Some people say there should not be a

price on carbon and it should be regulated out of exist-

ence. But you can only progressively regulate certain

technologies out of existence once there are replacement

technologies and sources of energy. So how do you get

the new technologies built, when their current cost is

greater that the current fossil fuel systems? At the

moment, the options are through price mechanisms

(RETs/RECs which have prices) and using subsidiessuch as feed-in tariffs and/or tax concessions (also price

mechanisms). If these are also out because one is op-

posed to pricing mechanisms, what you left with is the

state directly investing and building the whole system.

Thats one proposition, but in the current political climate,

whats the chances of that alone (as opposed to a suite of

measures?) actually being realised in the near term?

In an economy with markets and prices, the simple

reality is that by making something scarce (prohibition/

regulation/rationing) tends to increase its price, whether

on the black market or a legal market for the rationedgood (as the experience of war rationing shows). We

cant easily get away from a relationship between the

supply and demand for carbon pollution and the price

on it. For example, if you use administrative measure to

ration everyone to fewer litres of petrol that they presently

on average use, what would happen to the black market

price? It goes up!

Why not campaign or total, direct government

investment in renewables instead? Yes we need

that as well, at a scale that isnt on the political radar yet,

but it is silly to counterpose one to the other. Saying we

need an action that is off the mainstream agenda and

is unlikely to be implemented at scale in the near term

(massive state investment in the tens of billions of dollars

annually) is no reason not to support a proposal for a

carbon tax that can drive down emissions, and is on the

political radar, and has a chance of being implemented

relatively soon.

In the end, the question is whether a carbon price

helps the transition to the new economy and the newenergy system, or not, and whether we can develop the

political power to drive a broader agenda.

DAVID SPRATT


19/20



sea-levels

lan

guage

ofa

cle

anene

rgy

economy

The slides at right are extracted from

a presentation by Republican pollster

Frank Luntz called The Language of

a Clean Energy Economy. While the

ndings are for the USA, some may

have useful resonances for Australia.

Heres the backgound: GOP pollster

Frank Luntz used to be famous for

advising Bush in 2002 to focus on

the lack of scientic certainty in the

debate about global warming. Fast for-

ward eight years and now hes jumped

the fence, well, sort of. Hes helping

the Environmental Defense Fund help

gure out how to talk to the American

people about global warming in a way

that makes them care about it. Luntzsreport, The Language of a Clean

Energy Economy, says generally

Americans do believe the environment

is worseningthat the quality of our

air, water and general environment

is deteriorated over the last decade.

Ditto for the quality of the worlds en-

vironment. Turns out Americans want

action on climate change but not for

the reasons they have heard over the

years. How To Sell A Climate Change Bill

to Americans, Eliene Zimmerman,

TrueSlant.com, 23 January 2010

9 2009 The Word Doctors

www.theworddoctors.com

Carbon NeutralShould be Eliminated from your Vocabulary

People want companies to focus on greater energy efficiency and a

healthier environment not on being carbon neutral

Total

Greater energy efficiency 47%

A healthier environment 41%

A cleaner environment 32%

Reduced energy consumption 29%

Greater environmental stewardship 24%

Becoming carbon neutral 12%

None of them it is a waste of time 8%

If a company was genuinely interested in energy

and environmental issues, which of the followingdo you MOST want them to focus on?(Choose 2, Combined Answers)



57%

23%

20%It doesnt matter if

there is or isnt

climate change. It

is still in Americas

best interest to

develop new sourcesof energy that are

clean reliable,

efficient and safe

The cost of doing nothing of continuing to use dirty,

unsafe energy is actually far more expensive than

taking smart, effective action now.

Slightly higher

energy costs today

are worth the

investment if they

lead to more

affordable, more

efficient and cleanerenergy down the

road

Which of the following paragraphs about energy costs

gives you the most favorable impression?

Regardless of Beliefs About Climate Change

Its Still the RIGHT TIME to ACT



Total

Imagine a future where energy in the U.S. is abundant,affordable, and clean. Imagine feeling secure knowing that our nation can produce its

own energy instead of relying on Middle Eastern oil. Imagine an economic boom that

creates high-paying, permanent American jobs. We dont have to imagine it clean,

safe energy already exists. All we have to do is use it. So lets start. Now.

60%

Using dirty energy like that from coal-fired power plants is like eating greasy food at every meal It works as fuel, but its damaging to our

health in many ways. The longer we feed our economy with unhealthy energy, the

sooner well begin to experience the painful side-effects. Just as there are healthier

ways to feed our bodies that will help ensure we live long, productive lives, so too are

there healthier ways to feed our economy and the sooner we switch to clean, durable

energy the better.

20%

We see the visible damage to the environment

because of dirty energy every day. Climate swings. Tsunamis across the globe.Hurricane Katrina right here on American soil. More children sick with asthma. Polar

Ice caps melting. These arent assumptions. They are facts. Investing in cleaner,

safer, more secure energy now will cost a few cents more a day, but if we dont,

imagine the consequences.

19%

Positive Language Wins EVERY TIME

Which of the following paragraphs about energy would most convince you

that we need to do something about dirty energy NOW?


20/20

itsh




TotalOpinion

Elite

Reliable Technology 36% 29%

Efficient Technology 31% 24%

Green Technology 27% 25%

Sustainable Technology 24% 33%

Clean Technology 17% 16%

Intelligent Technology 16% 16%

Cutting Edge Technology 15% 21%

Smart Technology 14% 17%

Advanced Technology 12% 11%

Ground Breaking Technology 9% 9%

When it comes to American technology,

which do you want most? (Choose 2, Combined Answers)

People want technology to be Practical

Total Opinion Elite DEM GOP

American Jobs 53% 52% 50% 61%

Permanent Jobs 41% 39% 45% 31%

High Paying Jobs 38% 41% 31% 44%

Skilled Jobs 32% 29% 37% 24%

Future-ProofJobs 8% 11% 8% 10%

Green Jobs 6% 6% 10% 2%

Union Jobs 2% 1% 3% 1%High Tech Jobs 1% - 1% 2%

American, American, American



And thats if the scientists are wrong.

If the scientists are right, we get all of those things, and begin to

solve what could be the most catastrophic environmental problem

that any of us have ever faced.

Thats a pretty good bet to make -- because its a No Regrets

strategy. It doesnt mean its easy. But it means if we do it, and do itright, we get all of those benefits out of this policy approach.

We think thats why its the right thing to do.

WORDS TO USE

If we do it right, we get cleaner air.

We get less dependence on fossil fuels

and enhanced national security.

We get more innovation in our economy.

More jobs, and more sustainable jobs.

It avoided dogma and

didnt try to scare us.

-Participant

lan

guage

ofa

cleanene

rgy

eco

nomy

talk climate lowres

Documents