Labor Offers Alternative Climate Change Policy

SBS

With Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on his way to the Paris climate change summit, federal Labor has detailed the climate policy it will take to the voters next year.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten: Labor offers alternative climate change policy.

Labor's pledged to cut carbon emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 should they win, and promised to offset Australia's carbon pollution by the middle of the century.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten revealed Labor's climate policy during an address to the Sydney-based policy analysis centre, The Lowy Institute.
Mr Shorten says Labor would aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.
He says it's part of a longer-term plan.
"For Australia to achieve net zero pollution by 2050 - stopping global warming means stopping new pollution. If we are to meet the global target of two degrees we must reach a point where we are not adding pollution to the atmosphere. This means that by 2050 every tonne of pollution that we produce will need to be rebalanced by sequestering, offsetting or purchasing. "
Mr Shorten acknowledges it's a tough target.
"This is an ambitious goal - a goal recognised by the Australian Climate Round Table and internationally a goal recognised by global business leaders. I am very confident that the Paris conference will mark a turning point towards the de-carbonisation of the global economy with a new focus on net zero pollution."
Labor's announcement comes just days before Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives in the French capital for major international climate talks.
Labor's target is more in line with what's been recommended by the independent Climate Change Authority.
It is also significantly higher than the 2030 target the Turnbull government will table in Paris.
The coalition's 2030 goal seeks to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels.
Mr Shorten says that's simply not acceptable.
"The Abbott-Turnbull 2030 target puts Australia at the back of the international pack. No amount of saying it reduces on a per capita amount is sufficient. It certainly falls well short of Australia's obligation to help keeping warming below two degrees on pre-industrial levels."
But Treasurer Scott Morrison disagrees with Labor's calculations.
"This is the sort of thing the climate change commission said would cost Australians more than $600 billion over a 15 year period. No wonder he wants to bring back a carbon tax with full fury to pay for those sorts of commitments."
Federal Industry Minister Christopher Pyne went further, telling Channel 9 that Labor's target would hit ordinary Australians - hard.
"Bill Shorten's policy, his thought bubble, 45 per cent reduction, would require them to introduce, or re-introduce, a carbon tax at double the rate of the carbon tax before. He wants to smash household budgets and smash the economy."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he's optimistic an agreement will be reached in Paris.

Audio

Coalition's Weird Climate Rhetoric Says One Thing, Its Modelling Says Another

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

Post-Abbott, the Coalition is still claiming its own policies can cut emissions with almost no cost while wildly exaggerating the cost of alternatives

Labor has flagged a much tougher greenhouse target than that promised by the Coalition – a 45% cut in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Remember how Malcolm Turnbull promised to respect the intelligence of the Australian people if he became prime minister?
Some of his ministers seem to have missed that memo, because they are now recycling the same discredited Abbott-era claims about the cost of more ambitious climate change action, while ignoring their own up-to-date economic modelling that says deeper emission cuts would come at far lower additional costs.
After Bill Shorten announced that Labor was likely to adopt a much tougher greenhouse target than that promised by the Coalition – a 45% cut in emissions by 2030 from 2005 levels – treasurer Scott Morrison immediately dusted off the Coalition’s claim that the independent climate change authority had found such a cut would “cost” the economy $600bn. Education minister Christopher Pyne said it was a “mad” policy that would “smash” the economy.
Environment minister Greg Hunt tweeted his old “$600bn carbon Bill” press release.
But the former head of the Climate Change Authority (CCA), Bernie Fraser, has described that $600bn claim as “weird” and “misleading”. And wrong.
And the government has its own, much more recent, modelling from leading economist Warwick McKibbin, which found that the difference in economic growth between the government’s target and Labor’s target would be far, far lower.
The government first started using the $600bn figure when the former prime minister Tony Abbott unveiled the new goal of reducing emissions by between 26% and 28% on 2005 levels by 2030.
One day before that announcement, the Daily Telegraph revisited modelling done in 2013 for the CCA of a 40% to 60% emissions reduction target, in a front-page story headlined “ALP’s $600bn carbon bill”. The paper argued the cost was attributable to Labor because the party has said it would base its long-term targets on up-to-date advice from the CCA. Labor had at that time not announced its preferred 2030 target.
The CCA tried to correct the record straight away. Fraser, the authority’s chairman and a former Reserve Bank governor, immediately issued a statement saying the claim that CCA modelling showed a 40% to 60% target would cost $600bn was “wrong”.
In an interview with Guardian Australia at the time, he explained why.
“Some people who don’t understand modelling draw inferences that really can’t be drawn,” he said. “This is a good illustration of the difficulties modelling can create when misinterpreted to derive misleading meanings.”
“This $600bn figure is not drawn from any logical process and it becomes weirder and weirder the more that you look at it.
“It compares a scenario where Australia has a 44% target by 2030 and the rest of the world is taking very strong action, with a scenario where Australia has no target and does nothing and the rest of the world does very little, almost nothing at all. It is the inferred cost difference between those two scenarios.
“If you wanted a figure with some logical credibility or relevance you would model the cost of the government’s 26% target and a 40% target for 2030 and look at the difference between those two.”
And in fact the recent McKibbin modelling for the government does exactly that.
It showed the government’s 26% target would shave between 0.2% and 0.4% from continued growth in Australian GDP in 2030, and based on similar assumptions, a 45% target would cut between 0.5% and 0.7% from continued economic growth. That means the difference in the economic cost of the Coalition’s 26% cut and Labor’s 45% cut is about 0.3% of GDP in 2030. The Coalition’s $600bn figure, comparing 45% with doing nothing and then adding up the cumulative costs, finds an extra GDP cost in 2030 of more than 2%.
In a way the “weird and misleading” modelling is a perfect microcosm of the weirdness of the Coalition’s climate rhetoric – pretending its own policies can do the job with almost no cost while wildly exaggerating the cost of alternatives.
Let’s go back to what Malcolm Turnbull said on that day of drama when he launched his leadership bid.
“We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities,” he said.
“A style of leadership that respects the people’s intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans. We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.”
Quite. So why is his party ignoring its own up-to-date modelling with relevant assumptions and continuing with exaggerated cost claims?
At this rate we’ll soon be back to the $100 lamb roast.