I want to follow up on my previous post on the claim from the Australian Industry Group that ‘Emissions trading ‘could cost 1 million jobs’. It’s an even more ridiculous claim than I first thought. I’m not sure whether I’m more angry with Heather Ridout and the AIG, or the journalists that uncritically parroted the line. It’s particularly reckless in the context of the global financial instability which risks providing yet another excuse to delay action on climate change.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, there are around 10.7 million jobs in Australia, about 3 million of which are part time. The AIG’s claim of a million jobs being at risk means roughly one in ten. One in ten? Excuse the language, but this is complete and utter bulls#$t. I’m surprised they could convince an economic modeller to dream up such nonsense.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love it if the emissions trading scheme would result in replacing a million jobs in polluting industries with a million or more jobs in the low carbon economy. After all, the whole point of introducing an emissions trading scheme is to make sure that polluting industries phase out and are replaced with cleaner alternatives, renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes. But effective fearmongering from our corporate leaders has meant that the model on offer is likely to result in the creation of a few thousand jobs for lawyers and accountants who administer the scheme, while the big polluters carry on with business as usual.
As if the Aluminium industry is going to shut down their smelters and build new ones overseas – just so they can enjoy a few more years of free polluting. By the time they got their new plant up and running they’ll get slugged with a carbon tax in other countries as well. As if Woodside aren’t going to invest in Australia’s gas reserves just because their expected profit would drop from x hundred million to “x minus hardly anything” hundred million. And if the emissions trading scheme means that brown coal power stations have to close (and it’s about time they did), more jobs would be created generating the same energy from renewables. The claims from these big polluters are akin to blackmail – holding our future to ransom.
The real job losses will result from ineffective government action on climate change. For example, the tourism industry, based on Australia’s unique natural heritage, employs considerably more people than the mining and energy industries combined. It is widely accepted that the Great Barrier Reef is severely at risk from global warming – which raises the point – where the bloody hell are the tourism industry in this debate? They’ll need more than Lara Bingle to help them when reef dies due to climate change. Maybe they’ll be able to sue Heather Ridout, or the coal industry for damages? Now there’s an idea…
6 Comments
John, that’s a really intereting idea — future culpability for the environmental consequences of the way businesses are opeating today. The fight to hold the tobacco industry to account comes to mind.
I’m not aware of the legalities (the companies have to be breaking a law, which at this point doesn’t exist, and retrospective legislation is often problematic) but you would hope that the people who own the reef — ie, the citizens of Australia — would hold these companies and their lobbyists to account, if not at law then by choosing their more environmentally responsible competitors.
Kinda leaves a major void where the political and business leadership should be, however.
In the USA climate litigation has been reasonably successful and much of it is based on the notion of nuisance. Nuisance is a tort, and to be successful in that type of claim you have to show a duty of care, a breach of that duty and damage. So the interesting arguments are over whether company policies regarding carbon pollution lead to damage due to climate change.
Three US nuisance-based lawsuits have been dismissed by American district courts due to the fact that the courts believed the response to climate change was a political questions there is a new charge of civil conspiracy claim may overcome that problem.
There has not yet been any litigation in Australia which has argued the tort-based negligence approach, but you never know. In 2003, major emitters and facilitators were notified by the law firm Maurice, Blackburn, Cashman that they are particularly exposed to the potential for ‘climate litigation’.
I didn’t comment the first time but to see this nonsense repeated is too much.
I have read the Ai Group submission and it did not claim that 1 million jobs were at threat. The media reported this but that is quite different. The Ai Group submission said that businesses employing around 1 million people would be affected and would be exposed to carbon leakage.
If I say that 20 million Australians are exposed to the risk of skin cancer, this does not equate to a prediction of 20 million deaths or even 20 million cases of sunburn. Its just a statement of a threat.
For mine Ai Group is making a statement based on the number of people employed by businesses whose costs rise due to emissions trading and who are exposed to competition from businesses in countries that do not impose a carbon constraint.
On this basis I would say that JH is doing the scaremongering and not Ai Group.
PB. Thanks for your comment. I agree that the media reporting embellished their submission, but I would be very surprised if the AIG were disappointed with the way the story ran.
If the shrill media reporting were a one-off It’d be different, but there is a long history of industry invoking economic doom to delay action on environmental issues.
When reading the AIG submission, it is clear that they have been careful to maintain the impression that they are concerned about acting responsibly on climate change, while actually advocating policy recommendations that would delay and reduce effective action, and invoking fears of economic ruin.
It focusses on thier ‘grave concerns’ over the negative impacts, it implies loss of financial viability and corresponding job losses and makes scant reference to any benefits or opportunities from a transition to low carbon economy.
Really good point about the value of the tourism industry and how it might be affected by global warming. I’d like to see that industry lobbying harder for an effective ETS or carbon tax. They stand to lose the most in the short-medium term. I think there are some idiotic expectations that global warming will simply create more beach days.
American environmental and human rights activist Van Jones recently published a book called ‘The Green Collar Economy’, in which he argues that green jobs are the best single solution to both poverty and the environmental crisis. Governments all over the world really should be doing more to support the greening of industry and the creation of green collar jobs.