Monday, July 11, 2011

The price of carbon


"The good news is that the modest carbon price announced yesterday will neither impoverish Australians nor bankrupt our economy. The bad news is that the modest carbon price announced yesterday won’t save the planet either."

- The Australia Institute, Has the PM "knocked the brick wall down"?

The minority Labor government in Australia has announced the details of a long-awaited scheme to put a price on carbon. The basic outline is quite helpfully explained in the animation above, and summarised in greater detail here.
I speak of a carbon price, because it is not a tax, but an emissions trading scheme with a fixed price for three years. This is not simply a matter of playing with words, as explained here.

The scheme is modest in ambition, with only a 5% reduction in emissions by 2020,* despite Australians having the highest per capita emissions of all advanced economies and the 10th largest aggregate emissions overall (it would be interesting to see figures on aggregate per capita emissions, but I haven't been able to find them anywhere). However, unlike Kevin Rudd's defeated ETS, this target is not locked in, but can be raised by an independent Climate Commission anytime from 2015 when the carbon price shifts from being directly set by the government to being dependent upon the auction of a set number of emissions permits. Furthermore, the target for 2050 has been raised from 60% to 80%.
*From a 2000 baseline, which Australia continues to use, despite a global agreement to use 1990 as the benchmark. Therefore, Australian targets cannot be directly compared to those of most other countries. The later baseline makes them less ambitious than a similar figure from a 1990 baseline.

The price for tradable permits will start at a set price of $23 per tonne, rising slightly until 2015, when the number of permits will be capped and the price determined by the market. Only the largest five hundred or so companies will be involved, who together emit the vast majority of Australian emissions. Agriculture and petrol are excluded from the scheme. The former because monitoring of agricultural emissions are too complex; the latter because petrol prices are too politically sensitive (despite this weakening the social, economic and ecological benefits of the scheme). Most households will receive compensation in the form of tax rebates and a raising of the minimum tax threshold will simplify matters for the tax office and for about a million Australians who will no longer need to lodge a return. Only the wealthiest households will be worse off (or rather, only the most carbon-intensive wealthy households).

Many experts see the scheme as representing a decent first step of what was politically possible with a few regrettable compromises. This piece gets into more of the details than I have time or inclination to do at the moment.

A few brief thoughts: with the vast majority of Australian households projected to be better off and the administrative burden falling on about five hundred major companies, the threat of bureaucratic and economic armageddon waved around by Tony Abbott will hopefully be quickly rejected.

Yet with all the focus (by both sides of politics) on what it will mean for the average household budget, most people don't seem to understand that the point of the system is encourage behavioural change. If you don't want to pay more for your energy bills, then switch to renewable power and implement some basic energy efficiency and conservation measures. If you don't want to pay more for your food, then switch to eating local and organic produce. If you don't want your small business to pay more for its inputs, then consider lower-carbon alternatives for your business model. Whether the price will remain too low to encourage these changes directly through the hip pocket remains to be seen. It may be that the primary benefit of the system in the short term will be to provide some needed stability to the renewables market.

From a political perspective, the claim that the Greens are not interested in environmental issues ought to be put decisively to rest, given the political costs Gillard has borne over the last few months during negotiations. What these demonstrate is that without the Greens pushing her, she would not be here of her own free will. This was the price the Greens and independents demanded of Gillard after the hung parliament, and it is clear that this is therefore at the heart of what the Greens hoped to achieve with their new-found political influence. Whether they were right to block Rudd's proposed scheme back in 2009 (which was superior in a couple of ways to the current proposal, though clearly inferior in many others) is a more difficult question. Hindsight offers a perspective of the enormous fallout of that earlier decision (change of leadership in both parties, an early election, a protracted chance for the opposition to pursue large swings in popular support for a carbon price), little of which was obvious at the time.

The Greens' shift from principled opposition to pragmatic support of a least worst viable option represents a difficult yet crucial debate. The proposed scheme may represent the best that was actually available, that is, politically palatable, under current conditions (and so requiring plenty of sweeteners for some of the worst polluters), yet it is important to admit and repeat that it falls far short of what is necessary to avoid some very bad outcomes. Under such circumstances, is a small step better than nothing? Does this represent the strategic establishment of a system that can be scaled up as the political will builds over time? Or can much ado about very little ultimately prove a distraction from or substitute for more radical change, locking in assumptions about the viability of the status quo without addressing the root causes of the problem in our consumerist idolatry and myopic pursuit of further economic growth?

UPDATE: Ethos have kindly published a version of this post on their site, and there has been further discussion over there.

46 comments:

byron smith said...

If flights were not going to become more expensive as a result of this move, then that would have been pretty silly.

byron smith said...

Unless it hurts the coal industry over the long term, it is not working. There is no other Australian industry more to blame for climate change. We must not burn all our coal. The more left in the ground, the better.

byron smith said...

Conversation: Public transport as collateral damage.

byron smith said...

Guardian: Australia's carbon tax is a brave start by a government still gripped by fear. This article nails the politics of the situation better than anything else I've read.

And has some amazing stats about the Black Saturday bushfires.

byron smith said...

Conversation: Ross Garnaut discusses the proposal:

"I never use the word “tax” to describe the Emissions Trading Scheme with a fixed price in the early years that I recommended in 2008 and again in 2011. If I’ve got enough time for a number of words I say, “an emissions trading scheme starting with a fixed price.” If I’ve only got time for two words I say, “carbon pricing”."

byron smith said...

Liz reflects on the carbon price as a form of national repentance, a turning away from a world of ever-increasing emissions, even if this turning needs to happen again and again in ever more decisive ways. This is a very hopeful way of reading the meaning proposal: as a sign of things to come rather than itself the effectual change required.

Alan Wood said...

I think it's much too early for hindsight on Brown's decision to kill Rudd's ETS (and, separately, on Gillard and Swan's decision to do the same). Abbott has a huge lead in the polls, and he could yet ride a big backlash into office, and then into a double dissolution election that slices up the Greens' balance-of power.
Yes, that is all hypothetical, but Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan haven't sold a single success yet, and this won't be a screamingly obvious success. Greed, operating at several levels and spawning fear, is crouching at our door.

byron smith said...

To be clear, the starting price is $23/tonne CO2-e (carbon dioxide equivalent, since three other greenhouse gases are also included: methane, nitrous oxide and perfluorocarbons) in 2012, rising by 2.5% in 2013 and another 2.5% in 2014, then switching to a market in 2015.

The full plan can be downloaded here.

byron smith said...

Alan, you're right, though sometimes something can be the right thing to do at the time with the information available but later turn out to have been a mistake due to unforeseeable circumstances.

byron smith said...

I endorse the opening quote as a good summary of my reaction as long as "won't save the planet" is understood as shorthand for "won't come close to fulfilling Australia's just share of emissions reductions required to offer a reasonable chance of leaving a livable climate for the world's inhabitants in the long term".

byron smith said...

Conversation: What's in it for me? The uninspiring tenor of the current debate (from both sides).

byron smith said...

Conversation: Why a price on carbon is good news for Australian trade, even if you don't accept the science of climate change. Such "even if" arguments are sometimes useful, but secondary.

byron smith said...

SMH: Gittins is once again on the money. He explains why this merry-go-round of giving with the right hand and taking with the left makes sense - because the goal is not to raise money, but to change behaviour.

His bottom line is precisely right: "The carbon tax is neither as good as Gillard claims nor as bad as Abbott claims. Funny, that."

byron smith said...

PS Alan - It's also worth mentioning that the blame for the failure of Rudd's ETS cannot simply be placed on the Greens. The Coalition contributed most of the blocking votes, and the ALP refused to negotiate with the Greens, despite their having the ability to block the legislation (an ability given to them by the Coalition's change of policy). Going ahead without negotiation on a deeply flawed piece of legislation in such a situation was a game of chicken. Or a strategic ploy to precipitate a double dissolution. Either way, Rudd then lost his nerve. There is plenty of blame to go around.

byron smith said...

With all the fuss about the fact that a price is being put on carbon, there has been relatively little discussion of what that price actually ought to be. While $23/t is in the same ballpark as the EU carbon market and the US government's official assumption about the social cost of carbon, a new peer-reviewed study has found that the true cost is considerably higher. How much higher?

US$893 per tonne.

byron smith said...

OK, now that the headline has got our attention, we turn to the paper itself, which says "The report recalculates the [social cost of carbon] based on 16 scenarios and estimates a range of SCC values in 2010 from $28 to $893 per ton."

Which for me just raises the question: can cost-benefit analysis really handle climate change? A post for another day.

Mark said...

Byron Smith said,
"The scheme is modest in ambition, with only a 5% reduction in emissions by 2020,* despite Australians having the highest per capita emissions of all advanced economies and the 10th largest aggregate emissions overall “
Byron, I find it a bit frustrating that Australia is being called one of the "the highest per capita emitters in the world"
I cannot verify the accuracy of these wiki figures but Oz comes in at no.16 in the world and emits 1.32% of global CO2:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions

Oz also has about 22 million people concentrated mainly in cities and an economy highly skewed to the mining industry. I have not checked but am confident the OZ mining$ per capita figures will also be skewed.... 1.32% is nothing globally...

On the other hand the USA and China combined emit 41% of world CO2 (according to wiki). Their present annual growth in CO2 production is projected to be 100's of tonnes more than Australia's 1.32% annual figure!!!

Unfortunately, the facts I have quoted above will rarely make the mainstream press as there is a strong "climate change" fear and propaganda coming from the highest level of global money power. Also add local political sales/marketing and financial players who are salivating at the prospect of growing a global ETS by $$$billions each year. Globally governments will force businesses to buy CO2 credits and then pass the costs on to consumers (after the UN takes their cut).
The "high per capita emissions" label for Australia may be true but it’s also a deliberately? DISHONEST misrepresentation of the facts - in my opinion...

Mister Tim said...

Actually, the failure of Rudd's ETS can't be placed at all on the Greens. Even if Labor had negotiated with them they would have lost the vote, since in the Senate at the time they needed to get all the Greens votes plus those of the two independents, one of whom (Steve Fielding) was a climate change denialist and wouldn't have voted for the scheme no matter what. In the end they negotiated with the Coalition and nearly got the scheme up until Abbott rolled Turnbull in the leadership contest.

Another good analysis of the politics around Gillard's scheme is here. The video included there (or you can see it on YouTube here) was done by the Government and is a very, very effective explanation of the need for a carbon price - better even than the GetUp video you included.

byron smith said...

Tim - Very entertaining post and another helpful video. Being from the govt, it lacks the benefit of the YCCC video's brief critique of the too modest scope of the targets and heavy compensation to big polluters (though disappointingly, the GetUp video also failed to note the problems in their desire to plug the upsides). As you point out, it is perhaps even more direct in its explanation than the other two videos, firmly making the case for putting a price on what economists call "environmental externalities" (the otherwise hidden costs that get lumped on people without their consent by activities that damage the environment). However, its opening graph is a little misleading since it is not clear in either the image or text that it is attempting to represent per capita emissions (and the gap between Aus and US is too large from a quick eyeball. We are pretty close to parity for per capita).

But I certainly take your point about the blame for Rudd's failed ETS. I had forgotten about the needed extra vote.

byron smith said...

From the post Tim linked to:
"To believe Abbott is right is like suggesting price increases of cigarettes has been less effective at reducing smoking than warnings on packets. Sure warnings and nicotine patches (essentially direct action measures) are great, but if smokes still cost $4 a packet, a hell of a lot more of us would still be smoking."

That's a useful comparison that I hadn't heard before.

The graph indicated expected energy sources by 2050 is an eye-opener for what the government thinks is feasible. For me, the big surprises were the relative size of solar (far, far smaller than I thought) and geothermal (much larger).

byron smith said...

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I wish Blogger had an edit button. Makes me keep thinking about switching to WordPress... One day...

byron smith said...

Ross Gittins: Is Gillard's plan too flawed to be worth bothering with?

byron smith said...

Awesome rant (H/t bill). Here is a taste:

"This taps into a very prominent feature of our political landscape: the constant line from Tony Abbott that Australian families are hurting, that Aussies are doing it tough, that life is somehow getting harder, that the cost of living is on the rise.

"Shenanigans, Tony. Let’s get one thing very clear. Australians, en masse, are enjoying a better standard of living than has ever been enjoyed in this country’s history.

"And not just marginally, but by a huge degree. Really, along with a few other developed countries, we are enjoying a better standard of living than any group of people has in human existence. We have every kind of food and beverage from around the world deliverable to our doors. We have technological advances that make a decade ago look archaic. We have goods and luxuries of every conceivable kind; cheap and accessible. We have more and better options with transport, entertainment, comfort, place and style of residence. We have the most advanced medicine and best life expectancy of all time."

(PS Language warning - it gets a little stronger than "Shenanigans, Tony".)

byron smith said...

DeSmogBlog: Australia's main contribution to climate change is not included in the plan: coal exports.

byron smith said...

@Mark Ed - I cannot verify the accuracy of these wiki figures but Oz comes in at no.16 in the world and emits 1.32% of global CO2
Those figures are basically accurate, though they are not per capita. It is true that in aggregate terms, China and the US are the major players, covering about 40% of total current emissions between them. But mitigation efforts are required pretty much across the board (excepting those whose emissions are less than 1 tonne CO2 per capita per annum. Australia is close to 20 tonnes per capita per annum).

Focussing only on aggregate numbers can be quite misleading. It could be a little like comparing the total net worth of Vaucluse to the total net worth of Mexico City in order to say "Vaucluse is not wealthy". Blaming China when the average Australian emits about four times as much as the average Chinese person is, in my opinion, intellectually and ethically dishonest. Australia is a rich and prosperous country. A significant part of the reason for why we are is that we have a long history of high energy use from fossil fuels. Both per capita and in terms of aggregate emissions, we are big hitters on the world stage. We are also a strong example to many other nations, especially the US and China. The US because they (and Canada) share similar per capita emissions levels and similar ways of life. If we can show that it is possible to reduce emissions while embracing a better way of life, then it will be a powerful example. China is one of our major trading partners and a very significant purchaser of our minerals. They watch what happens here too. Remember that China is already putting more money into renewable energy R&D than America. The developing world as a whole is spending more on renewable R&D than the developed world. They are not waiting for us to move first. I am no advocate of China's ethics or politics, but if they are taking bigger steps than we Australians on this, then shame on us.

Speaking as a Christian now (rather than as an Australian), why defend ourselves? Why not assume that we are prone to pointing out specks in the eyes of others rather than logs in our own vision? Why not be more than eager to do not just "our fair share" but to go the extra mile? Love compels us to heed our neighbours and care for their needs above our own. Are people in other countries still our neighbours? If our emissions are destroying their livelihood then they are.

byron smith said...

SMH: "Unlike Labor's carbon price, Mr Abbott's direct action policy would pay polluters from the budget to cut emissions, costing at least $10 billion by 2020. Despite the policy differences, Labor and the Coalition share the goal of reducing emissions by 5 per cent by 2020. On Monday, Mr Abbott described this target as ''crazy'' because any reductions made by Australia would be more than made up for emission increases from China. Yesterday, he claimed he was calling Labor's policy ''crazy''. Ms Gillard said he had abandoned any last pretence of belief in climate change. ''Tony Abbott apparently decided that cutting carbon pollution is crap,'' she said. ''He's going to bandwagon with Lord Monckton and say this nation should do nothing about cutting carbon pollution.''"

byron smith said...

CCR: Carbon price is not about your hip pocket.

byron smith said...

Paul Gilding: Coal crash coming?

I wonder whether he isn't too optimistic about the ability of governments to take the time lag of emissions (and of switching infrastructure) seriously.

Mister Tim said...

At least the Liberals have Malcolm Turnbull, who is *the* most effective communicator about climate change in the Parliament. Last night he had these things to say:

"So in the storm of this debate about carbon tax and direct action and what the right approach to climate change should be, do not fall into the trap of abandoning the science. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that what Lord Monckton says or what some website says is superior to what our leading scientists or leading universities would say."

"Now it is up to us, as friends of Virginia Chadwick and as Liberals, to be prepared to look beyond the horizon and recognise that we must act responsibly as custodians for the future of this country and this planet. For our children and our grandchildren and the many generations beyond them. We must treat the science with respect and rely on the best science which is the only responsible and prudent thing to do."

http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/homepage-speeches-articles/inaugural-virginia-chadwick-memorial-foundation-lecture-sydney-july-21-2011/

Mister Tim said...

Also, you should definitely switch to Wordpress. It's a much better, more powerful, more flexible and more customisable system. You can also easily import all your content, including comments, from Blogger when you switch.

byron smith said...

Yes, I admire Turnbull and can only hope that he keeps on creating space for the (entirely unradical) thought that conservatives might want to conserve something like the conditions under which human society has persisted, that liberals might want to avoid a situation in which we'll be lumped with really big government telling us what to do.

byron smith said...

PS Re WordPress - yes, I've basically reached the point where I probably to go ahead, but have never set aside the time it would take to do so. Then there are the associated hassles for readers and subscribers replacing bookmarks/RSS feeds and so on. And then there's the issue of whether internal links will still work (I've heard conflict reports on this), which is a deal breaker for me, given the amount of time I've put into creating internal links (as much for my records as anything).

byron smith said...

SMH: David Cameron backs carbon price. This is very interesting. It gets a bit harder to claim that the great big tax on everything based on absolute crap science that has put the Greens in charge of government policy will result in economic armageddon if the most powerful conservative leader in the world gives it the thumbs up.

Mister Tim said...

Re your last commentL

The problem is that the straw man position you just mentioned is not actually the official policy of any political party in Australia. It is frequently mentioned or insinuated by commentators, but they would have no problems aiming the same critiques at David Cameron either.

The problem I allude to is, that while it is not the official position of the Coalition here, it is effectively their unofficial policy. The official policy is that climate change is real and that action needs to be taken for a 5% reduction below 2000 levels by 2020, but that an economy-wide carbon tax will be bad for the economy and direct action is preferable. However, the tone of the debate implies that the argument you mentioned is what they really think, but are just not game to say it. This (very funny) article gives a good summary of the state of play, the last three paragraphs in particular: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-22/crabb-freed-from-facts-abbott-goes-ballooning/2806640

byron smith said...

For the official position of the Australian opposition (based on direct unrepudiated quotes from Abbott), simply remove the phrase "based on crap science" (also a direct quote, but since repudiated - at least on some days...).

I don't think it will do to equate Abbott's position with Cameron's. Cameron is closer to Turnbull; I think he gets it (maybe not quite as clearly as Turnbull), but is struggling with a significant minority of his party who are closet or not so closet deniers.

byron smith said...

The Crabb piece is brilliant.

byron smith said...

ARRCC: A response to the proposed carbon price from the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: A comment on Australia's actual targets based on Treasury's modelling. I haven't had a chance to check the references for this comment, but it is damning if correct.

byron smith said...

SMH: CSIRO says carbon tax hit will be small (smaller even than the Treasury modelling estimated).

byron smith said...

ABC Drum: Worse off under a carbon price? Some fascinating stats about electricity use in Oz compared to other items in the household budget.

byron smith said...

Inside Story: A clean energy future for whom? One of the most intelligent analyses of the current legislation, getting into the details of which elements originated with the ALP and which with the Greens, as well as a useful discussion of the place of international offsets after 2020.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: When the price isn't right. The ACCC and misleading claims about price rises associated with the carbon price.

byron smith said...

The Chaser satirise fear mongering about the carbon price.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: Politically astute but profoundly inadequate.

"The paradox is that in Australia there is bipartisan support for protecting the Great Barrier Reef at the same time as there is bipartisan support for allowing carbon pollution to exceed levels that will destroy the Great Barrier Reef."

byron smith said...

The Conversation: The carbon tax: markets won’t deliver necessary emission cuts.

byron smith said...

The Conversation: A critique of emissions trading schemes.