Thursday 28th of March 2024

the PM went on the offensive...

policiypolicy

very clear about using candlelight...

"I just want to be very, very clear that energy prices are too high already. We will do everything that we can to put downward pressure on energy prices. We will not impose a carbon tax, or an emissions trading scheme – that is our position."

This is the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, talking to the Melbourne radio host, Neil Mitchell, on Thursday, talking nonsense as it turned out – which is what the government has been doing all week on the subject of climate change.

How do I know he was talking nonsense?

There are any number of reports we can draw on to call out what can only be described as unmitigated, lowest common denominator, political crap emanating from the mouth of the prime minister – but I’ll just pick a couple.

Let me share with you the findings of a report that lobbed into the public domain at the start of the week, sandwiched between the government opening what could have been a rational and productive conversation about climate change and energy policy, and the government melting in a small puddle of panic.

A firm called Jacobs was commissioned by the energy networks industry, in cooperation with the CSIRO, to look very carefully at Australia’s climate policy options. Jacobs is the same economic modelling firm used by the Climate Change Authority to analyse the impact of various policies. The CSIRO signed off on the report.

The firm looked at which policy would allow Australia to meet the emissions reduction obligations the Turnbull government signed up to when it ratified the Paris international climate agreement with the least impact on households.

The answer was very clear. It was an emissions intensity trading scheme.

That would be the scheme the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, very sensibly floated, after he cleverly and carefully set up the Direct Action review with sufficient breadth to be able to consider it – before he ran a mile when Cory Bernardi, Tony Abbott and Craig Kelly started stamping their feet and flaring their nostrils like a triumvirate of bulls in a paddock.

For readers who want more fine print, I’ll quote Jacobs: “The lowest electricity residential bills occur when the existing set of technology-specific policies are extended to all low-emission options and where trading within the generation sector is allowed.

“This is mainly because of the depressing effect on wholesale prices of bringing in and subsidising the dispatch cost of low-emission generation, with the depressing effect of wholesale prices outweighing the scheme liabilities.”

 

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/dec/09/on-climate-policy...