Go Greener, Australia

So it’s been a week since Garnaut released the draft of his Climate Change Review, and nearly everyone has had their say on it now. You can get a copy of the report from the Garnaut Review website, or see his opening remarks on YouTube: part 1 and part 2.

Garnaut has recommended that in 2010 we start an Emissions Trading Scheme where businesses will have to buy emissions permits from the government. A restricted amount of permits will be sold, so that we limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we create. Over time, the amount of permits sold would be reduced. They will be auctioned, which means that businesses will have to decide as a group how much they’re willing to pay for the privilege of creating emissions. The theory is that if a business cuts back on it’s emissions, it can either buy fewer permits, or sell their spares to other businesses who have caused more pollution than planned. The best explanation of emissions trading that I’ve seen is the Australian Conservation Foundation’s article What is an emissions trading scheme, check it out for more info.

Garnaut recommends that the revenue the government gets from selling these permits to businesses should be given back to the community: 50% going to households, with particular assistance for lower-income households; 30% going to “exposed” industries (this probably means either all of them, or just the ones that whinge the loudest); and 20% going to research and development into renewable energy technologies. Now the Treasury is doing some number-crunching for Garnaut, and the final report will be released in September.

I’m glad that Garnaut recommends selling all the permits - around the world industries have lobbied to receive permits for free, which defeats the purpose of putting a price on pollution in the first place! I’d have preferred a carbon tax, as a simpler solution, but as long as we don’t give out freebies I can get behind an ETS too. I’d also prefer to switch the 30% to industry to go towards renewables instead. On the other hand, if industry spending goes towards re-training people away from fossil fuels jobs and into green jobs, I’d be thrilled. Currently, some businesses are embracing the idea of an ETS, since it gives them solid numbers and costs to plan around, while others have a “Chicken Little” attitude that seems silly to me. We banned CFCs without causing an economic crash; we introduced a GST without too much fuss and confusion. Anyone who says that businesses can’t adapt to this kind of scheme must have a pretty low opinion of our skills and ability to innovate. ABC’s Late Night Live had a good discussion of the impacts of Garnaut’s plan with a few experts, which you can listen to on their site or download for later.

Greens Senator Christine Milne doesn’t think that Garnaut’s proposed cuts in greenhouse gas emissions are good enough: he wants 60% by 2050, and I have to say I agree that amount probably won’t be enough. The ACF thinks it’s a pretty conservative amount too. Also, there seems to be a huge emphasis on clean coal in the review, and you already know what I think about “clean” coal. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere, and I’d rather have a conservative plan that actually gets adopted by our politicians than a perfect plan that gets sunk by delayers and sceptics.

Speaking of politicians, Rudd has given his opinion on Garnaut’s draft and will be releasing his government’s Green Paper on the topic next week. He seems generally supportive, but non-committal on the details, so we’ll have to wait and see how much of Garnaut’s plan he takes on board. Meanwhile, the Opposition seems incredibly confused: some of them are repeating Howard’s 2006 position of “no point doing anything at all if China and India aren’t involved”, while others are going with Howard’s pre-election 2007 position of “we can have an ETS, but not until 2012″. I hope they get their act together soon, since it’s better to get bipartisan support for this kind of legislation. On the broader world stage, the G8 have committed to some weak targets - but it’s still more than they’ve managed to get the US and Russia to agree to before, so it’s progress of a sort.

What impressed me most, and I hope the general public will listen to, is the section of the report that details what the consequences are for Australia if we *don’t* do something about climate change. Garnaut listed the areas that are likely to be destroyed if we don’t get moving quickly: the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, the Murray-Darling river system (already in trouble from people’s poor planning), the South-West forests. Garnaut also emphasised that the longer we wait, the more jobs and income we will lose, and the more it will cost to do fix it, so it’s in our best interests to get a plan into place as soon as possible.

It seems to me that Garnaut’s draft of the Review has moved the debate forward, on the whole: instead of talking about whether the government should do something about climate change, we’re talking about what we should do, and how we should do it. And for that, I’m pretty grateful!