Shooting ourselves in the foot

Something I've been thinking about in the last few days, are the severe effects that even the slightest climate change will have on Australia. According to most of the predictions (and you could say according to some events that we are already experiencing like the heatwaves, droughts, floods, and bushfires) it is expected that Australia will experience some of the most severe and early negative impacts of climate change. 

So from an entirely selfish perspective we really need to act and we really need the world to act, to help protect our country! [I also think that we should be acting because it's the right thing to do for the world and we have a moral obligation] We actually need world action more than some other places do. And as a place that will experience severe and early effects of climate change, we should be trying to set a good and challenging example for the rest of the world with regards to Climate policy, and actions to meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. 

I mean really, if the most-effected place (and most-able to act) won't make meaningful changes, why would anyone else?

Yet we're stuck in this mindset of "we won't act unless everyone else does", which at best seems very childish, and in the context of the drastic and negative impacts climate change will have on Australia, almost seems like we're cutting off our ear to spite our nose...

"Speaking at a business lunch in Sydney, the prime minister was quoted by the ABC as stating 'It is essential that action is rapid, comprehensive and global'. True, he wasn't speaking about climate change, but urging action from the G20 and the world's banks on so-called 'toxic assets', which he said were endangering the international flow of credit.

Australia's GDP represents a similar percentage of the world economy that its greenhouse contribution represents as a percentage of global carbon emissions. So why - modest player that we may be - can we have bold statements of leadership by our prime minister on one vital global issue but not the other? Why is climate defeatism acceptable, but economic capitulation unthinkable?"

From http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2519215.htm

Will the real economic managers please stand up?

From the Executive Summary of the Stern Review:

"Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more.

"In contrast, the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year."

To borrow from Liberal MP Bob Baldwin, either the Liberal Party supports jobs, or it doesn't.

Over the past week it has become abundantly clear that it does not.

Apparently we're back to the days of fear-driven politics from the Liberal Party.

Climate change represents the greatest market failure the world has ever seen, and the Liberal "small government, free market" Party is backing away from clean, market-based responses which ensure the right outcome, in favour of clumsy government interventions that have no guaranteed outcomes.

The Liberal Party criticises the Government when it forgets or ignores Treasury modelling on economic stimulus, yet when it ignores Treasury modelling saying that 25% emissions reductions costing us 1.2% of GDP are well below the "no-action" cost at 5-20% of GDP there is ... ... silence.

Will the real economic managers please stand up?

Inspired by http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/17/2518463.htm?section=justin

Ok, so its mainly the targets

OK, so in general an ETS isn't a bad idea, but the CPRS isn't a good example of one:

• The targets are far too low, being set according to politics, not the 25-50% climate science demands
  
• It's confused ... its purpose is to fundamentally change the structure of our economy, but in every area where change is most likely and necessary, the CPRS tries to minimise the change??
• It ignores all the advice sought and received from the CSIRO, Treasury, the Garnaut Review, as well as the free advice from the UK's Stern Review