Green bail-out: twice the bang, half the bucks
Blog Post | Blog of Christine Milne
Friday 10th October 2008, 2:17pm
by TimHollo in
I've just seen this excellent video that I felt was worth posting. It is from Van Jones talking about his new book, The Green Collar Economy, putting a concise argument for spending half the money that was spent on the Wall St bail-out on delivering an economic and environmental boom.
This is the kind of thing Christine Milne has been talking about for some time, in particular in her Budget Reply speech which you can read here, listen to here or watch here.
Here is what Van Jones has to say:
You can also read an excellent post with more detail and great links over at Huffington Post.
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Hang on, the Greens have
Hang on, the Greens have repeatedly said they are strongly opposed to investing billions of government money in renewables. They say its about the policy settings and public money is not required.
This means the Green bailout Van Jones describes is nothing like what Christene has been saying for some time.
The prospects of significant Australian private borrowing to invest in a renewables revolution has been smashed by the drying up of global credit. Loans for renewables will always be much harder than getting loans for conventional things and clearly loans for conventional things are now harder than ever to get.
This means the only way now left for us to kick start a green revolution any time in the next decade is by heavy government funding.
The Greens have been wrong about this from the start.
Why don't you tell us who you are?
Hi there anonymous, I'm pretty sure I know who you are, and I'm wondering why you've stopped telling us who you are? Why don't you give us your name next time you post?
To address your post, it is not true to say that the Greens are "strongly opposed to investing billions of government money in renewables". We have responded to your previous comments on this blog by saying that we are not convinced it is necessary. It is still the case that we are not convinced it is necessary to spend billions on what you are talking about - building the renewables generation capacity.
What we, and Van Jones, are talking about is a different thing - investing hugely in R&D and commercialisation, investing in taking the electricity grid out to areas where major renewables generation can be built, supporting the development of a local manufacturing industry by investing seed funding for clean industries as part of just transitions packages for communities currently reliant on coal, retrofitting the nation's households, etc, etc, etc.
Your comment - and your anonymous campaign against the Greens through these comments - are based on a disingenuous misrepresentation of our position.
Renewables
The Greens in Tasmania argued strongly and consistently from the party's very beginnings right up to the end of the 1990's that any level of government investment in renewables (or any other form of energy) was wrong because it meant less money to spend on hospitals and education.
That went as far as advocating oil-fired power generation at one point, solely on the basis that it didn't require the huge upfront capital that renewables do. It's all there in various publications from the time for those who care to read them.
I suspect
I suspect you are talking about large-scale hydro, Shaun, not all renewables. I would be very interested to see if you can provide any evidence to back up the claim that it was all renewables.
Anon
Tim your right people should not try to misrepresent us or our policies. It doesnt get anyone anywhere.
Bizarre comment up first.
Bizarre comment up first.
However, I think the answer to the why question is contained within the video. It would take quite a while (2-3 years) for the money to flow through the financial institutions because there is not sufficient capacity today to build the required infrastructure.
Buying financial securities at a huge premium to market rates will put cash directly into financial institutions to "ease the pain". But it's like a shot of morphine. It may ease terrible pain in the short term, but the system is still very broken.
Green Collar Economy
Whilst I am usually impressed by American can do,I think a point has been missed in having a shot at anonymous,in that simply now,most of the solar panels we could use would have to be imported.And what is this line about community,it dies for me everyday ,more so if it a resounding reality that has yet got a proper footing of definition and description,as one walks past a Real estate Office,say in Bellingen and see what is up for sale!? Price of house and land and Green type, so so society... is what!? Must I be told by the Green Candidate you are much too old to be a priority for work!? Whilst the alternative housing tours of build it yourself,was an original idea from ME! There are plainly a lot of dead skunks in the middle road who think Green is high Heaven,they have even dropped the ABC TV Tree Change idea and have been capitalising on the resale of housing to go back to Sydney.All the present nervousness about Banks implies these people to be customers,and they are not really Green,they couldn't handle the simplicity of gardens next to existing designs of close community neighbourhoods,otherwise they would of pulled out the fences dividing their suburban houses than seek beach and trees. And where will the children play! If Sydneysiders will force another Rudd Government out in the shape of Rees about public transport,then it just shows,there is hardly any interest in that population to keep trying to solve this problem through private means.Which could also include low rentals of pushbikes at strategic spots,insisting commercial vehicles carry passengers and government vehicles as well.A return to sanity re the environment will not occur,until there is a sanity of choice,opting in,rather than being beaten out.On a day to day basis in a City like Sydney ,the word care is not that important,until someone grows on you to care about.The winners use these words regularly and exploitatively,the losers rarely find they can to people like themselves.You are not a winner on a pushbike through traffic,if it like a sporting event of physical contact,to be a pious superior being ,by not polluting in the circumstances means a further Defence that is essentially useless.Street commitees are the way to go,betcha there will be real estate signs there too.I think the Greens need to start with suburbs that have all the problems,including turnover of population,and design the skills and attitudes,but I have noticed a trend to Professionalism amongst the Greens. So do you think the equivalent of pipe smoking individuals of a practical type are going to pay for a book where the money goes direct to the U.S.A.!?So somebody must be on pay for more than 25 dollars an hour.Dont speed read me into oblivion!?
Green bail-out: twice the bang, half the bucks
Remembering that the bail outs in all countries are to strimulate economic movement NOW, I agree that part of the bailout could be utilised for green infrastructure in Australia. That is providing the green technology is being manufactured in Australia at the current time, and can be utilised beside existing not so green technology.
It would not assist in a bail out if the funds were to be utilised for other purposes, such as research, as this would not circulate funds in the short term through the Australian manufacturing sectors. It would not assist the economy if we were to just send the funds to foreign countries so their manufacturing sectors could make infrastructure to send to Australia.
However the key point is the immediate introduction to the economy of funds, either through the banking sectors (to provide working capital to business), or through the building of infrastructure using locally supplied expertise and goods.
This guy should by the US president.
Van Jones talked a lot of sense in that short 3 minute video. Shame no real world leaders have any vision to deliver on some of these outcomes he talks about. He says some fantastic points also. Australia should be getting on board and creating Green jobs and the Green economy and should only be interested in balanced budgets not huge slush fund surpluses and running Australia like a business. Australia needs to be run for the people by the people.
neo-liberalism?
As a person who has also been personally attacked for daring to question Green policy, I am curious about both Anonymous's question and the defensive personalised response.
firstly, I had assumed that because of the NSW Greens prominance in the electricity privatisation debate and the Greens strong stand against the privatisation of Telstra that the Greens would indeed be in support of government investment into publically owned energy systems. Anonymous's question comes as a surprise to me, so I went to see what the Greens policy says.
It says
section 22 of the climate and energy policy......
"drive the equitable transition to a low carbon economy through a range of market-based and regulatory mechanisms reflecting the real costs of greenhouse gas emissions."
There are policies for R&D, there are rules and regulations for the polluters, there is bureacratic reform but nowhere in the Greens policy is a commitment to government funding to build the alternative.
R&D is a distraction, we already have the technological capacity. Regulating the polluters is a perpetual cat and mouse game where the mouse is always in front of the cat, the biggest money and best legal minds in the world have no difficulty getting around regulatory obstacles.
I have commented before that the Greens have thrown their lot in with the world bank's scheme for a global response. Tim has previously said the party is committed to the UNFCCC process, which is dominated and controlled by the world bank group within it including Australia. The whole carbon trading scheme that the Greens seem to endorse is a construct of the world bank and there is ample evidence from the places that it already exists that it is just a scam by and for the polluters.
I had hoped that there was an element of naivite in the Greens commitment to the UNFCCC but it seems that there is some depth and breadth to the Greens policies in this regard.
Are the Greens a neo-liberal party? Do they think the market is the primary mechanism for change? (rhetorical question, the policy is clear - yes)
Where do the Greens stand on publically funded and owned electricity generation and what priority would such a scheme have in the Greens budget policies? To what extent would the Greens agitate for public enterprise and against private enterprise in the national energy industry as they have done in NSW?
These are issues that need to be openly discussed and, I say, a new policy paradigm needs to be developed, one outside of the world bank and neo-liberal box. To simply flick off different opinion by way of personal slur is not a good way to engage in a constructive debate.
Anonymous asks a relevant question.
Tim's answer..... "we are not convinced it is necessary. It is still the case that we are not convinced it is necessary to spend billions on what you are talking about - building the renewables generation capacity." seems to confirm what anonymous has said and is a statement that should be carefully assessed, especially in light of the money crash. Why, Tim, is it not necessary for massive public funding to build the alternative?
I for one believe that massive public spending is indeed necessary to build the renewable alternative. The market and the corporations and the polluters will not do it. The track record of carbon marketeering to date clearly indicates that the polluters will subvert and use regulation to their own polluting agendas.
The magnificent victory celebrated by the Greens - the ammendment to the luxury car tax is just greenwash, a meaningless distraction from the real task at hand, a re-arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The Greens need to articulate a real alternative, not just a scheme to tinker around the edges of a dysfunctional machine.
As Van Jones says "There are a lot of people who do not want you to hear real answers"
Green Collar Economy
So because I have a memory,which includes coming to this place and type before,am I to assume that,I have been imagining that Wind Farms already exist in Australia!? Or those girls that stand on the line at football matches in the U.S.A. and Australia,need to use their psuedonyms here! So this Van Jones man is coming over for a game of Green Talk Up! Why not mention ReNew Magazine,or even Nexus Magazine from Queensland while you are cheering! Oh!That's right,since Cundell retired we must once again strike eyes right to the U.S.A.!
I will not feed the trolls,
I will not feed the trolls, as tempting as it is.
The Keynesian within me says that now is the time for the public sector to have an influence on the direction of our behaviour. But Keynes never said that the public sector always had to have the same influence. That is either adding to household spending on consumption or investing in non-renewables.
Now is the time for the public sector to take on debt (just look at the bond rates plummet, 4%ish when I had a look before, notes are going down as well) and spend on investments which will build capacity as commodity prices are decreasing. So now is the time to build a large scale renewable energy economy if the government wants it. It may get a little cheaper in the short term, but I don't think such an opportunity will present itself over the next crucial 10 years.
Now is the time to make the change because of the rapid reduction in prices, not an excuse to do nothing because of such a reduction.
Would Keynes have supported such actions by the public sector? We can only speculate.
social enterprise
Since my last comment I have been looking around Green energy and climate policy in a bit more detail and, beyond confirming the things I said earlier, I am convinced that there is a terrible gap in the Greens policy framework and that gap is the possibility of social ownership of social infrastructure such as energy systems. Greens policy does not even allow for the possibility of the federal state or local government building a single windmill. It is all left up to the market.
When the Greens were first formed they had a clear socialist policy framework, the party itself evolved in a large part out of a directionless political left and much of its membership are disillusioned ex ALP voters. The Greens have successfully protected themselves from the parasitic interventionism of the Democratic Socialist Party however right up until the Telstra debate the Greens stood strongly for public ownership of infrastructure and they still do today in the NSW electricity debate. When Bob Brown suggested trading the sale of Telstra for the protection of Tasmanian forest the party pulled him into line and articulated a strong united voice against privatisation.
But the new wave of Green energy policy seems to have abandoned this socialist ethic completely. It is indeed a neo-liberal policy framework designed to fine tune infrastructure to maximise business profit which is the sole engine of energy production and consumption reform.
Christine Milne's brilliant concept of energy farming is lacking in one area - it is a market driven strategy rather than a direct investment in a particular outcome. Within the energy farming policy government subsidies are provided (diverted from fossil fuel subsidies) to extend electricity grids to make commercial wind and solar plants viable. I say - a better option would be a joint venture where the government provides the capital, with farmers - (and remote Aboriginal communities) to build windmills and solar plants - with the government owning the grid, or at least the new extensions, and split the profit between the farmer and the taxpayer. (And who said that there even needs to be a centralised grid? Regional grids require considerably less infrastructure costs and don't lose so much energy)
Then of course, why are we not even considering large publically owned energy companies whose bottom line is to cover costs, create jobs and provide the cheapest possible green energy to home consumers and industry?
Between now and December the government is going to decide where to spend billions of dollars in infrastructure development - roads, airports, shipping terminals etc. All designed to provide for the needs of the market to speed it up. This is an opportune moment to push for a publically owned electricity company that will produce green energy and directly compete with the coal industry instead of fussing about its coat tails whinging.
Fast tracking electricity generators into rural and regional areas will create many jobs in the short term and provide energy for industry and residential developments to provide growth into the future in those regional areas.
Waiting for the market forces to make green energy viable is just too slow and in the current circumstances a considerably handicapped strategy.
If some of the energy companies crumble in the near future the government could buy them out at bargain basement prices and reform them.
Bravo
Having read your comments John Tracey I share your views.
I wish there was a Kyoto Ratification blog so we can discuss the penalties the UNFCCC would impose on Annex 1 countries.
Last Xmas Australia willingly signed onto this liability without much recourse. These are the two paragraphs which I think Australian had little to no knowledge of....
http://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol/compliance/introduction/items/3024.php
where the enforcement branch has determined that the emissions of a Party have exceeded its assigned amount, it must declare that that Party is in non-compliance and require the Party to make up the difference between its emissions and its assigned amount during the second commitment period, plus an additional deduction of 30%
As a general rule, decisions taken by the two branches of the Committee cannot be appealed. The exception is a decision of the enforcement branch relating to emissions targets. Even then, a Party can only appeal if it believes it has been denied due process.
.
McCain and Obama as well as the economy
The real cause of economic problem isn’t the payday loan industry, it is still unknown to us, which is the specific root of this, however, mortgage lending is said to be an element of economic crisis. Alexis de Tocqueville, a great French political philosopher, once said, “The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through.” Although that quote originated years ago, it still rings true today and is especially evident in this year’s elections. Many individuals involved in politics think cash advances are harmful to the American people. Some elected officials have even proposed measures that would ban payday loans in certain states. There are even some politicians that would like to eliminate the payday loan industry from the entire United States. For example, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland proposed a bill that would wipe out the payday loan industry, along with the 6,000 jobs it provides for Ohioans. Barack Obama and John McCain aren’t excluded from this conversation either. Both Presidential candidates supported a bill that fundamentally banned military personnel from taking out payday loans. Barack Obama is a proponent of certain measures that would put short-term lenders out of business altogether. An aristocracy is when the ruling class makes decisions on behalf of everyone else. I hope those old aristocratic colors don’t break through when determining the fate of payday loans.
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