Garnaut: superficial, simplistic and naïve

31 March, 2011 by

Disconnected from reality

Ross Garnaut is pilloried again today from a number of quarters. After Tuesday’s nonsensical and frankly ludicrous claim that we should emulate China in our emissions reduction efforts, his grasp of the realities of a carbon tax on the economy seems non-existent. Miranda Devine:

WHEN the Gillard Government’s climate change adviser, Ross Garnaut, isn’t busy having dinners with independents Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, he has been releasing umpteen papers on how to remake our economy.

His work has been damned by the energy industry as “undergraduate”, “simplistic”, “superficial” and “full of high-level principles that assume away” real-world problems.

The criticism doesn’t seem to have dimmed the professor’s enthusiasm for a carbon tax, even as polling this week shows public appetite ebbing with each passing day, with just 34 per cent of people declaring they support the tax.

But this week Garnaut slapped back at the power generators, claiming electricity price hikes higher than any on the planet are all their fault. He did not mention the role of rapacious state governments who have clawed out dividends for years and demanded expensive and inefficient green alternative energy sources.

And he ruled out compensation for energy companies who make sure our lights switch on and are complaining they will go belly-up under a carbon tax.

The boss of two small Latrobe Valley coal-fired power stations, which employ 140 people directly and 1000 people indirectly, told The Australian: “We have survived bushfires and floods, but we may not be able to survive Garnaut.” (source)

And The Australian weighs in as well:

JULIA Gillard’s chief climate change adviser has been lashed by the $120 billion energy sector, which says his latest advice is a risk to investment and could lead to a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against the government if followed.

As the opposition seized on Ross Garnaut’s latest report as evidence that Labor’s carbon policy would lead to brownouts and insufficient electricity production, the sector slammed it as “naive”, “commercially unsophisticated” and “undergraduate”.

The nation’s biggest private power producer, International Power Australia, urged the government to recognise the “shortcomings and dangers” of Professor Garnaut’s update on how the electricity sector should be treated under a carbon price.

The criticism comes as a confidential report to the former Keneally NSW government, obtained by The Australian, warns that consumers in the state face electricity bill increases of up to 27 per cent from July 1, in part because of the federal renewable energy target. (source)

That’s going to go down well in NSW… It is truly frightening that someone who is so clearly disconnected from economic reality is in charge of advising the Australian government on the effects of carbon pricing.

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Dilbert on green technology

30 March, 2011 by

So true...

Thanks to WUWT.

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Garnaut: China has carbon trading, so…

29 March, 2011 by

"Low carbon" China

See? Australia is lagging behind China in cutting emissions. Disgraceful. We must follow China’s lead and implement Julia and Greg’s wonderful carbon tax to cut our emissions from 1.3% of the global total to just a teensy-weensy bit less than 1.3%, at a cost of several billion dollars each year, which will be slugged mercilessly from the wallets of every family in Australia…, every year…, for ever…

CLIMATE change adviser Ross Garnaut says China is experimenting with carbon trading in a number of large cities because it knows that’s the cheapest way to reduce emissions.

The economist held talks today with the man responsible for China’s climate change policies, Xie Zhenhua, ahead of ministerial-level meetings.

Professor Garnaut said the emerging power was trialling carbon trading in five provinces and three cities – Tianjin, Shanghai and Beijing.

“The way China tends to do these things is they try them out, sometimes in different ways, and if they seem to be working they adopt them nationally,” Prof Garnaut told reporters, adding he wouldn’t presume what China’s next step would be.

“(But) they are experimenting with broader approaches like a carbon price because the economists in China as well as other places have worked out that’s a lower-cost way of doing things.”

Maybe we should copy China in other ways, like building a new coal fired power station every fortnight… no, wait. Laughably, even Greg Combet is citing China as a shining example of “tackling climate change”:

Mr Combet’s climate change department put out a briefing paper today, outlining the action China and other countries were taking to reduce emissions.

“Thirty-two countries and 10 US states already have emissions trading schemes in place,” the paper states. [24 of those countries are in the fraud-riddled EU ETS, aren’t they? And it’s nine US states now that New Hampshire has bailed out of the RGGI, isn’t it – Ed]

On China, it notes that Beijing’s latest 12-year plan speaks of an imperative for the country to establish a “green, low-carbon development concept”.

China’s new targets include:

  • increasing the proportion of non-fossil fuels in energy consumption to 11.4 per cent by 2015;
  • reducing energy per unit of GDP by 16 per cent by 2015;
  • reducing carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 17 per cent by 2015.

China? Low carbon? My aching sides. Of course, the “trick” to “hide the incline” is the magic words “per unit of GDP”. So let’s do the math, as our US friends would say. China is likely to have a GDP growth over the next four years of, say, approximately 9% per year, so if we take 2011 as a baseline 100 units of GDP, 2012 will be 109 units, 2013 will be 118.8 units, 2014 will be 129.5 units and 2015 will be approximately 141 units. So reducing emissions by 17% per unit of GDP actually works out as an increase of 17% on 2011 figures in absolute terms.

If we take China’s 2007 emissions figure of 6.5 Gigatons of CO2, which is probably far less than in reality today, that means an increase of about 1.1 Gt CO2 per year by 2015. For comparison, Australia emitted just 0.3 Gt per year in 2007. Which means in just four years, China will increase its emissions by nearly FOUR TIMES Australia’s annual total. Any reduction our pointless carbon tax might make will be simply lost in the noise. If we manage to reduce emissions by 10% by 2015 (highly unlikely), that equates to one fortieth of China’s increase – a joke in other words.

The reality of China is that it is far more concerned with raising its population out of poverty than “tackling climate change”, and nothing Australia does will make the slightest bit of difference.

More spin than a launderette from Garnaut and Combet – but what else do we expect?

Read it here.

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Abbott pounces on Flannery's flannel

29 March, 2011 by

The ultimate Millennium Bug

Tim Flannery’s recent announcement that any cuts we make to emissions won’t have any effect for a thousand years is already coming back to haunt him, as Tony Abbott makes hay:

TONY Abbott has leapt on a declaration by Tim Flannery – Julia Gillard’s hand-picked salesman for action on climate change – that emissions abatement is a 1000-year proposition to renew his attacks on Labor’s proposed carbon tax.

And Climate Change Minister Greg Combet has distanced himself from Professor Flannery’s concession last week that even if all carbon emissions stopped today, it would take 1000 years for the atmosphere’s average temperatures to drop. While Professor Flannery, a paleontologist who is also the Prime Minister’s chief climate change commissioner, has expanded on his comments to insist the need for action in climate is urgent, his admission in a radio interview on Friday has compromised Labor’s sales pitch on its carbon tax.

In the radio interview, Professor Flannery said: “If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow, the average temperature of the planet’s not going to drop for several hundred years, perhaps over 1000 years.”

In a letter to the editor of The Australian, submitted on Sunday, he expanded on the comments, saying his observation was not “an argument for complacency”. But yesterday, as the role of the carbon tax in Labor’s massive loss in the NSW election dominated federal political exchanges, Mr Abbott quoted Professor Flannery as he ridiculed the tax as “the ultimate millenium bug”.

“It will not make a difference for 1000 years,” the Opposition Leader told parliament. “So this is a government which is proposing to put at risk our manufacturing industry, to penalise struggling families, to make a tough situation worse for millions of households right around Australia. And for what? To make not a scrap of difference to the environment any time in the next 1000 years.”

And what is the government’s response? As usual, ignore the point and blurt out a robotic sound-bite:

Mr Combet said through a spokeswoman that the Gillard government believed in the science of climate change and was determined to act. (source)

Gee, the sheer power of that argument has convinced me, Greg. But you have to feel a bit sorry for poor old Greg and Julia, they brought Flannery in as Climate Commissioner because they thought he’d give them what they wanted, and already he’s become an embarrassment. Oops.

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NSW result sends strong message to Canberra

28 March, 2011 by

NSW has sent Canberra a message

There really are Federal Labor MPs who are delusional enough to believe that Saturday’s election result in New South Wales had nothing to do with them.  Admittedly, NSW Labor was a total shambles, and had lost all credibility with the electorate. But despite this, some of the swings were nothing short of astonishing. Barry O’Farrell made the carbon tax an issue in NSW, and the electorate responded. Gillard et al will ignore this signal at their peril:

ANY Federal Labor MP who doesn’t think the thumping NSW election result has implications for Julia Gillard is kidding themselves.

Gillard’s strategy of demonising the Liberal Party as a bunch of loonies who don’t believe in climate change has been hit for six.

Barry O’Farrell is a moderate Liberal who has just given the anti-carbon tax campaign credibility.

People in NSW will look to their new Premier and realise that being concerned about the carbon tax does not put them in the wing-nut membership of the Far Right.

It has just become harder, not easier, for Gillard to run the line that the Liberal Party has been taken over by extremists.

At a more basic level, the destruction of the NSW ALP presents significant structural problems for Gillard.

And the independents in Canberra are also waking up to a new paradigm this morning:

The most significant and more immediate issue that Gillard faces, however, is the future of the federal NSW independents.

The independents have been delivered a body blow.

Rob Oakeshott is already erratic and is likely to become more so in light of what was a resounding rejection of both his and Tony Windsor’s deal to support Labor federally.

The impact on the psychology of the independents will be critical to the future of the Gillard Government.

Windsor may be unmoved by the result but Oakeshott must now know he is facing his own political oblivion.

Labor MPs today are now pondering not just if but when Oakeshott realises that sticking to the current deal will be the end of his political future. (source)

Fun times. Also read Tim Blair here.

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New South Wales whacks Labor

27 March, 2011 by

Onya

Difficult to know whether it was NSW Labor’s hopelessness or Julia’s carbon tax that was more to blame. Probably both, in equal measure.

BARRY O’Farrell has become the 42nd premier of NSW in the biggest landslide seen in modern Australian political history.

Kristina Keneally stepped down as leader after conceding defeat to the Coalition in an electoral rout which ends 16 years of Labor government and may leave the ALP with just 20 seats, down from 50.

With a 17 per cent swing and a surge in its primary vote even beyond its expectations, the Coalition is set to win about 70 lower house seats, Labor 20 and independents the remaining three.

That sort of majority will carry the Coalition, which has governed in NSW for only seven of the past 35 years, through to the 2019 election at least.

The Nationals had a highly successful night, and are expected to pick up five seats for a total of 18.

Nationals beat sitting independents in three seats – Dubbo, Port Macquarie and Tamworth – and were likely to take Monaro from Labor’s Steve Whan and, in an extraordinary result, Bathurst, with a swing of 37 per cent.

In a typically self-effacing victory speech, Mr O’Farrell stressed the achievements of his staff and parliamentary team, rather than his own efforts, and remained focused on practical issues of service delivery and infrastructure.

“We are determined to end the rorts, to restore confidence in the government in this state once again,” he added.

But his speech at the Parramatta Leagues Club would have sent a shudder through the Gillard government as he pledged he would “take the fight up to Canberra” on the proposed carbon tax.

Early figures from the upper house also indicate Mr O’Farrell will have no problem passing his legislation.

Apart from Labor, the big losers are the Greens, who look unlikely to win either Balmain or Marrickville, the two inner-western Sydney seats they were tipped to secure. (source)

Time to start putting New South Wales back together again.

 

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Lights ON for Earth Hour

26 March, 2011 by

As pointless environmental gestures go, this one takes the cake. The Sydney Moonbat Herald loves this kind of nonsense, and they have even created an Earth Hour section on the SMH web site. So you will be pleased to hear that at ACM Towers we have done our bit as usual:

Not a single CFL in sight

ACM is an Earth Hour-free zone, and always will be.

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"Thousand years" for CO2 cuts to take effect

26 March, 2011 by

Josh skewers Flannery

Thus spake Tim Flannery, on Melbourne Talk Radio with Andrew Bolt yesterday. Here’s a transcript:

Bolt: […] But we’re just trying to get basic facts, without worrying about the consequences – about what those facts may lead people to think. On our own, by cutting our emissions, because it’s a heavy price to pay, by 5 per cent by 2020, what will the world’s temperatures fall by as a consequence?

Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.

Bolt: Have you got a number? I mean, there must be some numbers.

Flannery:  I just need to clarfy in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.

So the pain we will endure today by wrecking our economy to make an insignificant change to global emissions may make a difference to Australians 30 generations away. Which means the bleeding heart arguments about “children and grandchildren” are, like most of the AGW scam, complete bulldust. And there’s more:

Yesterday we tried to get precisely the same answer (listen here) from Professor John Daley, CEO of the Grattan Institute, which is releasing a report which finds that our state and federal governments tipped $12 billion into emissions-cutting schemes that were close to useless, and which argues we should go for emissions trading instead:

Bolt: […] I’m very familiar with that argument, that if we don’t move, no one else will, and nothing’s done and it all goes to hell in a handbasket. What I’m trying to do is just get to the bottom-line facts: if we spend these umpteen billions on cutting emissions further, to the five per cent by 2020, how much will Australia’s action alone cut the world’s temperature by? That must be measured somewhere. That must be part of your report.

Daley: Well, I think it’s not been measured anywhere because it’s not seen as being the right way to think about this.

Bolt: Well it would be. People want to know the gain for the pain.  Have a guess then.

Daley: The reality is that no country in the world is cutting their emissions alone…So to what extent are we doing our fair share?…

Bolt: Look, we’ve got that argument….  I’ll ask just one last time… If you don’t know just say so, but if you do know, I know it’s got all those caveats, but just tell us how much the world’s temperature will fall if we do what you recommend and what Julia Gillard plans.

Daley: As I said, we haven’t run the numbers on how much it will make a difference if Australia acts completely alone.

Bolt: You should have.

Daley: The reason we haven’t done that is because Australia is not acting alone. Therefore it’s not a very helpful thing to analyse.

“Not helpful” means you’d realise the pain is not worth the gain. Whever we do – whatevery anyone does – hardly seems worth it, really.

And by “not helpful”, the people pushing the schemes say they’d rather not tell you the truth. You might ask too many awkward questions.

That is why no one yet pushing an ETS or a carbon tax will answer our question. And why we drew exactly the same blank a fortnight ago with Jill Duggan, from the European Commission’s emissions trading scheme.

It’s all smoke and mirrors, as we’ve known all along.

Read it here.

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From the archives: the 1996 Parliament House Riot

25 March, 2011 by

What is it with the Left and violence? Listening the Gillard, Combet, Brown and their ilk over the past day or so, you would think that the carbon tax protesters, mainly honest, hardworking Australians angry at the contempt shown to them by the Labor government, were a bunch of dangerous, radical extremists. And that is precisely what you are supposed to think. The Labor/Green smear machine works very well, with the help of the compliant ABC and Fairfax, spreading innuendo and bile to discredit anyone who dares criticise a Labor policy. But again, people have very short memories.

The 1996 Parliament House riot was flagged by a commenter, and a little research shows that the union thugs were a far uglier bunch than anything the carbon tax protesters could compete with (from Wikipedia) – and just look whose name crops up:

The Australian Council of Trade Unions called the “cavalcade to Canberra” rally to protest against the industrial relations reform agenda of the Liberal–National Coalition Howard Government. The protest began with senior Australian Trade Union officials including ACTU President Jennie George and Assistant Secretary Greg Combet, as well as senior members of the Australian Labor Party. The initially peaceful protest deteriorated into violent action when a new group or demonstrators arrived in the early afternoon and attacked the entrance to Parliament. Around 90 personnel were injured —including lacerations, sprains, and head and eye injuries. Damage to the forecourt and foyer of Parliament was initially estimated at $75,000 and the Parliamentary shop was looted. Nine rioters were arrested and charged with a variety of offences. (source)

Read also the graphic description of the violence:

[T]his group refused to accept police direction, forced a breach in police lines and ran towards the main front entrance of Parliament House. Unfortunately, it was apparent that some of these demonstrators were affected by alcohol. This group was supported by participants from the more general demonstration who were incited to join those involved in riotous conduct by a speaker from the official platform.

Police formed a protective line along the perimeter of the Great Verandah which was subsequently forced back to the main doors. The police line was withdrawn from this area due to the level of violence being experienced by officers and was redeployed to an area inside the front doors in support of parliamentary security personnel. This deployment stabilised the situation for a short period. However, demonstrators using increasing force broke through the first line of doors.

Once inside this area, demonstrators used weapons, including a large hammer, a wheel brace, a steel trolley and a stanchion torn from the external doors to break open the internal doors. Simultaneously, a second group of demonstrators used other weapons to break into the Parliament House shop, but were held at the internal doors. The shop was ransacked by demonstrators and major damage was caused by persons who subsequently occupied the area. After some two hours, the demonstrators were finally repelled from Parliament House and driven back onto the forecourt area and, shortly afterwards, they dispersed.

In addition to the events which took place at the front entrance to the building, incidents also occurred on the Members Terrace, the roof of the Great Verandah and the Queens Terrace. There were 197 Australian Federal Police on duty at the start of the demonstration, in addition to the Australian Protective Service officers and parliamentary security personnel. A further 60 Australian Federal Police reinforcements were called out under established contingency plans.

Michael Smith of 2UE has footage of the news reports, which I have uploaded to YouTube for a wider audience. Just look at the disgraceful scenes shown here, and compare with the politeness and respect (barring a few inappropriate placards) on show at the Carbon Tax rally (and we also get to see Combet and Bob Brown plying their trade):

Just one word from this: hypocrisy.

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Brown's Bitch: Hero or Villain?

24 March, 2011 by

Hero or villain?

A well-known media organisation has contacted me today asking for help to find the person behind the Brown’s Bitch placard which featured so heavily in media images from the carbon tax rally yesterday. As part of that search, I am asking for readers of ACM for help. If you know the person, please ask him to contact us in confidence at ACM (simon@australianclimatemadness.com). There are some journalists who would be very keen to speak to you.

Sorry, no comments.

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