gusom

I agree with you.

Anybody with any project management experience knows that for Targets / Objectives to be achieved, you need all stakeholders to agree with the Targets.

I believe that the Federal Government has had their representatives establish that the Mr and Mrs Average in the outer suburbs of the capital cities (mortgage belts) are currently doing it tough, and will not accept any cost of living increases that will potentially impact their life styles, so any cost increases either need to be very minor initially, or changes likely to instigate cost increases need to be delayed. Business has also advised the Government that any changes that increase their costs will automatically be handled in one of the following ways:
a. Pass cost increases back to the consumers, advising the consumers the reasons for the costs (i.e. Government policy)
b. Reduce internal costs by shedding staff where ever possible
c. Move offshore (India, China, South America) where no (minimal) cost increases will be incurred.

In the case of Melbourne, where the population is increasing by around 50,000 a year, and the Government is required to build a large desal plant just to provide water that the public is demanding, an immediate cut as proposed by Christine Milne in her recent speech to the Press, would be physically impossible. In fact I believe that the Victorian Government is planning a new gas fired electricity generation plant to meet the increased demand.

Sorry Greens, you need to work with all stakeholders to establish a long term plan to reduce carbon emissions without major impacts to the general population, and business, else we will still be arguing in 2020 about ways to cut emissions.

While I don't want any scheme at all (why fix something that ain't broke) I am pleased the Greens are following their usual radical line... any delay is a bonus as far as I am concerned.

A multi-pronged effort is needed to clean the planet however, and Australia can't go it alone!

What we can & should do is:
Make public transport free:
80% of Australia’s petroleum use is in transport... in 2007 (the most recent figure I could find) we were using 966,200 barrels of oil per day... 1 barrel reportedly produces 317kg of CO2 (min.)... thats 306.3 million kg of CO2 per day... (112 millions tonnes PA)! Free transport would take a fairly large chunk out of that! Not to mention the reduction of grid lock in our major cities which has us all sitting around in queues burning fuel!

Incentives to Industry & Homeowners:
Rather than punishments (the cost of of any scheme will ultimately be passed on to consumers) how about incentives... tax relief for businesses that can show a reduction in power use... R&D grants for alternative energy research & energy storage... decent discounts on power bills for those that install solar panels.

Increased recycling:
Aalthough I understand we are already one of the worlds leaders in certain aspects of this area, more can be done thereby reducing the need for energy to recover the steel/aluminium/glass etc.

Less packaging:
Reform the trend of double & triple packaging, and ensure it is ALL recycleable, not just part of it!

Backloading:
The number of large trucks, planes & trains that have small to neglible return loads having done their contracted job could be reduced by having a website (one that really can make a difference this time Mr Rudd) listing all freight movements... with incentives to ensure backloads become the norm... fuel tax exemption as a minimum possibility for example.

Logging:
Despite what I consistently read here and in other places, unless we want to return to mud brick houses, caves and write on clay tablets, we need to log... somewhere! The more carbon we capture as paper, housing and furniture the better. The land is then released to grow more trees and the cycle continues. It certainly needs better management... but don't let the government to do it because it needs to be done properly... the government should offer more incentive for the re-use of the land that rightly or wrongly has already been cleared, and then set the rules.... nothing more.

Hello
For the first time is more than a decade we have a Govt that wants to do something about climate change. Is it enough ? Personally I feel that it falls short by a huge amount, for starters we need much, much stronger action on renewable energy, emission control and R&D in sustainable energy areas.

But ..... do I support the legislation currently before parliament ? You bet I do because we need action now. Not in August, not after Copenhagen, not sometime later, NOW !

I'm afraid the Greens position looks and feels like political opportunism, cheap political grandstanding. Oh dear I was hoping Greens were more mature than that, but no.

Far better to have some legislation than none. If this Bill goes down that is what we will have, no action on climate change and the Greens will be in part responsible. Shame.

Well we are getting closer to crunch time for an Emission Control Scheme.

What has me tricked is, how we (Australia) are planning to try to control our emissions.

We seem to be hell bent on implementing a scheme, and announcing the scheme / targets to the world, when the Federal Government is taking every possible avenue for making sure we cannot achieve the target proposed.

Two of the major impediments I see are:

1. All stakeholders (Governments, Business, Population) must agree on targets. This is a fundermental requirement for any project, but in this case, Business, and Opposition Parties do not agree with method, or targets, and the Mr and Mrs Average, with their 15 year old car, do not appear to be rushing to reduce their emissions. Added to this, that we are putting over 800,000 new vehicles on the road each year will cause major problems with targets.

2. We also appear hell bent on increasing Australias population by around 30% over the next 20 years, while proposing a target level of emissions that were produced in I think 2000. Common logic would tell anyone that emission levels produced in 2000 would never be achived again in 20 years with a 30% increase iin population. Remember all these new residents race out and buy cars, washing machines, flat screen TVs, fridges etc, etc.
Population increase would not be a major problem if the emission targets are based on a per person output, but targets will NOT be achieved if the targets are based on the whole of Australia in 2000.

Over the next few months the Federal Government will need to take a hard look at what they are proposing, and the feasibility of achieveing the targets. To me the only hope of achieving targets are to:

a. Base targets on a per head of population.
b. Reach an agreement with Business Groups on target feasibility, and actions they can take at minimal costs to the businesses.
c. Pay for energy reduction facilities for the average household (Mr and Mrs Average will never be able to just go out and purchase Solar Hot Water systems or Solar Cell (PV) systems for their homes, or upgrade their cars to more energy efficient vehicles without major Government help).
d. Dramatically put the brakes on immigration to Australia
- Reduce immigration levels
- Stop / return illegal immigrants (all modes, sea and air).
- Remove expectations that foreign students can achieve Permanent Residency at the end of their courses (this they appear to have already started, with the Minister for Immigration a couple of weeks ago stating that students would be now considered for PR on the skills they have attained, and the requirement Australia has for these skills - in other words, Australia does not need thousands of extra cooks, hairdressers, or pilots, but does have shortages of doctors, nurses and a limited number of other tertiary qualifications skills).

Anyway as stated at the start, the next few months will be very interesting, with the effect that, if the Government does not reach agreement with everybody, and forces an elections, it will delay any reduction scheme start till possibly mid next year, or even 2011.

Kyoto terminates in 2012 and we are left without a binding agreement.The current debate over a trading scheme solution diverts from the very preliminary less publicised fact that deforestation and the emmissions from the transportation industry account for a substantial contributive amount of climate change.Our very carbon banks are being felled .Unadressed unlike power generation,our very carbon banks are being felled,the emmissions from the transportation and the deforestation industry can be negated through a resource based substitutive process which would negate emmissions kerb deforestation and contributively prevent climate change.The introduction of legislation which is tax reformative,resource based and environmentally profitable is whats needed looking at the broad scheme of things.

I fear an ETS will sink a lot of money into administration unnecessarily and will be prone to inequities. Why do we need yet another revenue collecting body and all the red tape that goes with it ?

A far simpler way to encourage the big polluters to change their ways would be to simply incrementally phase out all Tax depreciation deductions and maintenance/fuel deductions for fossil fueled plant. On top of this you could incrementally increase fuel taxes (to hit people with old plant).

The money raised should be used to bolster the clean energy sector, some examples might be :-
o increase the depreciation deductions for non-fossil fueled plant like wind turbines, photovoltaics, electric vehicles etc - eg 50% per year for 3 years
o provide free transport on green public transport (electric buses like china's "capabus", trams ... maybe even free long distance solar/wind electric powered freight trains)
o provide low interest set up loans and R&D grants for green energy farmers to compete with coal fired power stations; electric vehicle manufacturers to buy out and rejuvenate and green power car manufacturing plants ;
o provide rebates for approved electric vehicle conversions like those currently offered for LPG conversions

With Private enterprise its all about risks and money and how big a carrot you dangle. If you make it more risky not to change and less risky to change then they will start considering ways to make it work for them.

The history of the IT industry has shown that the best way to make a technology standard pervasive is to give it away for free (or at least very cheap) - the same applies to green energy. By my rough calculations 11 billion dollars might provide enough solar, tidal and wind infrastructure to provide all of Australia's current energy needs - but of course most people are still talking about sequestration and offsets, which is only a clayton's solution really. That much money will never be invested by even a consortium of private companies, the return is too small. Only a Government Business Enterprise could ever pull it off and Governments have this strange view that they cant compete with private enterprise (hence why we sold Telecom off and then found out later it was like selling off our major highways).

As an aside, a simple flaw in the opposition's reasoning that taxpayers should pay for the miners legacy is that only a small portion of mining production even stays in Australia - and the countries it goes to don't pay Australian taxes (or ETS).

Hmmm ... Maybe we could even start a work for the dole scheme building low tech green infrastructure like solar thermal troughs or cheap wind turbines and inverters.

The position of the Greens appears to be best described as a Fee and Dividend approach as discussed in detail by James Hansen (Head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a leading climatologist) in his book 'Storms of my Grandchildren' (refer to Chapter 9).

In that discussion, Hansen details the major differences between Cap and Trade versus Fee and Dividend, and why he believes that F&D is not only superior, but why C&T will fail to reduce carbon (at least by an amount required to abate or mitigate climate change), and conversely will ensure a continued minimum amount of carbon pollution. In fact, his book is an extremely comprehensive discussion of the entire climate change problem, and given his credentials and experience, is a must-read for all.

I would suggest that all correspondents on this topic obtain a copy and read it entirely before crucifying the Greens for their position on the ETS.

I have only recently become a Greens voter (and not a member of the party). Previously I had been a life-long Labor voter, but came to the realisation that both major parties are pandering to the business-related special interest groups in our communities. Whilst I get it, that IF we want to continue business-as-usual it is necessary to listen to those SIGs, the greater question is; can we really continue with a business-as-usual mindset?

I was watching Air Safety Investigation last night on Channel 7; the story related the consequences of the business imperative employed by McDonnell Douglas during the development of the DC-10 which led to the eventual demise of that company, but not before costing the lives of many innocent air travellers. Is this the sort of philosophy the Labor and Liberal supporters are advocating?