Kiwis not so dumb? Scaling back ETS already

21 June, 2011 by

Slightly less mad?

Following on from yesterday’s post on the New Zealand ETS that, according to PM John Key, is “working”, The Australian today reports that our neighbour across the ditch is actually scaling back its ETS in the face of economic pressures. Julia didn’t mention that, did she?

AS Julia Gillard urged Australia to follow the “gutsy Kiwi” lead on carbon pricing, Prime Minister John Key has declared New Zealand will be slowing its expansion of emissions trading and doesn’t want to “lead the world”.

Mr Key refused to offer advice to Australian politicians embroiled in the carbon tax debate and signed an agreement with the Australian Prime Minister for a joint working party on trans-Tasman carbon emissions trading.

But he warned that New Zealand would be delaying the inclusion of agricultural emissions in its system for at least four years and was unlikely to double the carbon price from 2013, as previously planned, because of pressure on consumers.

…

Earlier, Mr Key said in an interview with The Australian his government was reviewing the ETS he inherited from the former Labour government and there would be changes to the “quite expensive system”.

Mr Key said the New Zealand system, which prices carbon at $NZ12.50 ($9.55) a tonne and includes all gases and emitters, was costing consumers about $NZ150 a year but the price was due to double to $NZ25 a tonne from 2013 and include agriculture, which accounts for 50 per cent of New Zealand’s emissions.

Mr Key told The Australian the review would mean “the government is likely to move a bit more slowly because of the global financial crisis and other countries are moving more slowly”. (source)

So NZ is actually taking notice of the fact that the other major emitters are doing nothing, and responding appropriately. How refreshing. Just as the Kiwis sensibly don’t want to “lead the world”, neither should Australia.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Zombie science: the Hockey Stick lives!

21 June, 2011 by

No matter how many times it’s killed off, it keeps coming back from the dead. Now it’s Mann-made sea level rise, to go with Mann-made temperature rise:

Return of “The Stick”

See Watts Up With That? for the full press release.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

New Zealand Climate Madness: PM John Key says "our ETS worked"

20 June, 2011 by

Key... to the asylum

Hmm. “Worked” in what sense, John? Added costs to every business in New Zealand? Check. Raised electricity prices for every Kiwi in the land? Double Check-a-rooney. Made everything that they buy in the shops more expensive? Triple Check-a-doodle-doo.

But what about the climate? Did it lower temperatures? Nope. Did it make any difference to “global action” on climate? Double Nope. Did anybody, except the twits in the Gillard government, take any notice whatsoever of the fact that New Zealand had stitched up its economy like a kipper? Nope, nope and thrice nope.

New Zealand emits just 0.11% of global emissions. I’m going to write it BIG so people can see it:

0.11%

 

Even if that were reduced to zero, the planet wouldn’t give a sh*t.

What begets such total climate madness? Seriously, it’s completely, utterly, totally, mind-bogglingly beyond comprehension.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Climate scientists put out call for "respect"

20 June, 2011 by

Rank hypocrisy

Maybe they would not have lost it in the first place if they hadn’t:

  • resorted to smears and petty name calling of those who disagree (“deniers”)
  • fudged data to get their desired result (Hockey Stick)
  • avoided providing background materials for independent checking (Hockey Stick again)
  • avoided Freedom of Information requests by deleting emails (Climategate)
  • ganged up on journals that dared publish materials challenging their precious consensus (Climategate again)
  • dressed up political propaganda as impartial science (IPCC/Greenpeace, repeated occasions)

Don’t make me laugh, Anna-Maria Arabia.

UPDATE: Arabia has apparently received a “death threat” this morning – see here. I trust that it has been reported to the police.

UPDATE 2: Arabia was previously an adviser to Anthony Albanese and Kim Beazley, so there are obvious political motivations at work here.

UPDATE 3: Excellent comment on this post via Facebook:

As a real scientist I know respect must be EARNED.

These Climate pseudo-scientists are not entitled to respect. They must earn it by stopping the lies, half-truths, and deliberate politicization of their “research”.

They must perform real, verifiable work that meets the basic scientific principle that their work must be reproducible by ANY OTHER scientist who is competent in the field. They have failed that test, miserably.

Then they may begin to earn “respect”. Until then, all they deserve is contempt.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Abbott to push for plebiscite on carbon tax

20 June, 2011 by

Interesting times

It could be an interesting day in Parliament today:

AUSTRALIANS would be asked to vote on whether they want a carbon tax under a radical plan by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to be put before parliament today.

Mr Abbott will lodge a bill to force the government to a plebiscite on the carbon tax in a move which, if successful, could force Julia Gillard to junk the tax or go to the polls to seek a mandate.

In what would be the first full national plebiscite since the conscription votes of World War I, the question to be put to the Australian people would ask: “Are you in favour of a law to impose a carbon tax?”

Motions for a bill to enable the vote, drafted by the parliamentary clerk, will be introduced simultaneously in both the senate and the house of representatives at 10am today. The bill has been deemed constitutional by the clerk, preventing the government from rejecting it for a vote in the senate.

If passed by both houses, the government would have 90 days to call the plebiscite, requiring all registered voters to cast their verdict on the tax.

While not binding on the government as are referenda, Mr Abbott said a “no” vote would have such moral authority that Ms Gillard would be forced to either dump the tax or go to an early election to seek a mandate. Mr Abbott, who has effectively pitched his leadership against the PM’s on the result, told The Daily Telegraph he believed the independents would support the bills in the interests of democracy.

“I think if the PM had any integrity she would seek a mandate at an election for her tax. Clearly she is not going to do that,” he said.

“The independents don’t want an election … this gives them a chance to have a vote without having an election. It gives them a chance to respect democratic principles.”

We’ll see. The independents haven’t shown themselves to be particularly principled in the past, but we can only hope. An opinion poll on the plebiscite proposal is currently running at 90% in favour.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Latest IPCC scandal – by Josh

19 June, 2011 by

Another blunder...

See here for the original story.

More Cartoons by Josh.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Lemon, Lime and Bitter

19 June, 2011 by

On the anniversary of his final squeeze into the gin and tonic of history, the Liberals resurrect Kevin O’Lemon in preparation for a possible return of Rudd:

The Government had “lost its way”, Ms Gillard said. Well, twelve months on it is clearer than ever that this Labor Government is just a bunch of lemons – and it is Australian families who are left with the bitter taste.

And Rudd is causing problems wherever he goes:

KEVIN Rudd has enraged cabinet colleagues with a media blitz on the anniversary of his knifing, prompting demands for the Prime Minister’s office to gag him.

As Julia Gillard declared her leadership “very secure” and dismissed “silly questions” about her plunging polling, senior ministers were despondent, lashing Mr Rudd as “dysfunctional”.

Almost 12 months after Ms Gillard brutally cut short Mr Rudd’s prime ministership, the pair yesterday engaged in a bizarre dual in the nation’s newspapers and airwaves.

The one-upmanship was played out against a backdrop of a devastating Nielsen poll that has the government at record low levels, and revealed twice as many voters want Mr Rudd as PM than Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard also did a range of media events yesterday – a photo opportunity at a solar plant in Newcastle and a major solar deal with the Queensland government – before delivering a speech to Labor faithful in Brisbane.

Mr Rudd received a rock-star welcome at the Queensland ALP conference and conducted several interviews urging colleagues to get behind the PM, ignoring Ms Gillard’s barbs about his leadership in the Saturday papers.

He also issued a mea culpa over his time as PM, saying that he should have had a better mix of experience and “greybeards” in his office.

The turmoil dragged on as independent Rob Oakeshott warned the Labor Party not to move on Ms Gillard, declaring it could prompt him to pull the pin on the government.

“From my perspective if the Labor Party organisation wants to mess with Julia Gillard, the Labor Party organisation is messing with people such as myself,” Mr Oakeshott told The Sunday Telegraph. (source)

Oh dear, it’s all going horribly wrong.

More here.

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Bonkers: IPCC's crazy geoengineering plans

18 June, 2011 by

Science fiction

There now follows a demonstration of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Start tinkering with a climate system you barely understand, and observe how it results in completely unforeseen responses, some of which could be seriously undesirable. But who cares? We have to save the planet, right?

Reflective aerosols would be sent into space under a series of radical “geo-engineering” measures being considered by the UN climate science body to tackle climate change, leaked documents disclose.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) papers, leaked ahead of a key meeting in Peru next week, outline the series of techniques in which scientists hope will manipulate the world’s climate to reduce carbon emissions. [WTF? Geoengineering won’t reduce CO2 – it theoretically negates the theoretical effect of CO2 on the climate – Ed]

Among the ideas proposed by a group of 60 leading scientists from around the world, including Britain, include producing “lighter coloured” crops to reflect sunlight, blasting aerosol “mirrors” into the stratosphere and suppressing cirus clouds.

Other suggestions include spraying sea water into clouds as another reflection mechanism, depositing massive quantities of iron filings into the oceans, painting streets and roofs white and adding lime to oceans.

Experts suggested that the documents, leaked from inside the IPPC to The Guardian, show how the UN and other developed countries are “despairing” about reaching agreement by consensus at the global climate change talks. [Not despairing, just plain desperate – Ed]

But the newspaper reported that scientists admit that even if the ideas theoretically work, they could cause irreversible consequences.

Many of the scientists also accept there are major uncertainties surrounding the technologies.

As Watts Up With That? puts it: batshit crazy.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate

"Horror poll" for Gillard

18 June, 2011 by

Is Kevin sharpening the knife?

The Sydney Morning Herald tries valiantly to put a favourable gloss on this (see here), but in the end, it’s lipstick on a pig. Gillard is sinking faster than a Pacific island. And to add to Gillard’s woes, Kevin 747 is almost twice as popular, demonstrating that it has become a case of ABJ – Anyone But Julia:

SUPPORT for the Labor government has fallen to 27 per cent, its lowest point in almost four decades, while Julia Gillard’s personal ratings have collapsed to levels not seen for a prime minister since John Howard introduced the GST more than 10 years ago.

The latest Herald/Nielsen poll also shows that a week away from the first anniversary on June 24 of Kevin Rudd’s dumping as prime minister, twice as many voters prefer Mr Rudd as Labor leader to Ms Gillard.

The poll, taken from Tuesday to Thursday night, contains a sliver of good news for Labor in that support for putting a price on carbon has jumped 4 percentage points in a month to 38 per cent.

But the government is in dire straits. A little more than one in four voters would choose Labor first should an election be held today, and almost 60 per cent disapprove of Ms Gillard’s performance.

She urged her colleagues to hold their nerve, suggesting that unlike Mr Rudd a year ago, she had a strategy to turn things around.

”We’ve got a plan which we are working through to deliver, which we did not have at the start of my prime ministership,” she told the Herald.

Since the last poll a month ago, Labor’s primary vote has fallen 4 percentage points to 27 per cent – the lowest primary vote for any main federal party in the poll’s 39-year history and the first time a major party has fallen to less than 30 per cent.

The Coalition’s primary vote rose 2 points to 49 per cent, giving it a two-party preferred lead over Labor of 59 per cent to 41 per cent.

This represents a 9-point swing towards the Coalition in the 10 months since the election and is the Coalition’s biggest lead since May 1996, two months after John Howard trounced Paul Keating.

Read it here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Labor/Green climate talks in trouble

17 June, 2011 by

Falling out?

“Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” The more trouble these negotiations find themselves in, the better for Australia. It was always inevitable that the extreme demands of the Greens to shut down Australia’s economy would clash with Gillard’s desire to keep the core Labor vote. And now the cracks are beginning to surface. We can only hope that the gap between them eventually becomes too great to bridge.

As the ABC reports:

A meeting today between the Government and the Greens on climate change has broken up quickly amid reports of serious disagreement between the two parties.

It is understood the Greens are unhappy with the Government’s preferred deal on industry compensation, including substantial assistance to coal miners.

Other sticking points include compensation to coal-fired electricity generators and the emissions target when the carbon tax moves to an emissions trading scheme.

An informed source has told ABC News Online “the temperature of the negotiations has been pretty high lately”.

The source said the Government appeared unwilling to budge from its position.

Neither side is willing to comment publicly, but Greens leader Bob Brown issued a terse statement saying he and his deputy Christine Milne met Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Treasurer Wayne Swan and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet.

Senator Brown said more discussions are expected on the weekend, however a spokesman for the Prime Minister would not confirm that.

The two independent members of the multi-party committee, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, have returned to their electorates and may be unavailable for quickly convened weekend talks.

Meanwhile, Mr Windsor has renewed his attack on the Government’s planned $12 million carbon price advertising campaign, describing it as “presumptuous”. (source)

We can only wait, and hope.

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