Will Australian politics on climate change move to a situation like in the UK, where both parties are trying to out-do each other on better climate policy? Will we have a “race to the top” rather than a “race to the bottom” on how fast and efficiently Australia can reduce our emissions?
The front page of the SMH today got my little heart racing as I read that Turnbull will announce new Coalition policy on climate change at the Young Liberals convention today. It’s called the “Green Carbon Initiative” and you can read his speech here.
Turnbull wants to reduce Australia’s greenhouse pollution 150 million tonnes a year by 2020, which he claims is more than the ALP’s 5% by 2020. I’m not a maths expert so I’ll figure out later today the maths behind that claim – unless someone else can figure it out first. A focus of Turnbull’s plan is going to be biosequestration, which will no doubt please many in the farming community who have been pushing this amazing method of capturing carbon in soil through improved agricultural methods.
He will also have a focus on energy efficiency in buildings – FINALLY, a Liberal politician who understands that the cheapest way to reduce Australia’s emissions is to start with efficiency – in fact you can even make money from the energy savings! He says:
Secondly, the Rudd Government has ignored the lowest cost opportunity for reducing emissions – by increasing energy efficiency, especially in buildings. Most energy efficiency measures in the built environment have a “negative net cost” – in other words they more than pay for themselves. But there are many obstacles to them being realised and Government leadership and action is required.
I’ll have a look more closely at this policy today and keep you posted. In the meantime you can get more details from The Australian.
6 Comments
Thanks for the link to the speech – this is the first place that I found it.
There has already been a response from the Greens and a response from Penny Wong, which should be here eventually, perhaps under ‘Transcripts’.
Yes, the Greens are of course upset at the focus on CCS – as am I. Why do the ALP & Liberal party continue to believe that Australia’s future lies in coal rather than renewables, ignoring the huge potential for economic growth in these industries?
Anna, unlike the Greens and other radical left sects in Australia, the major parties recognise that an enormous proportion of our export revenues comes from coal exports. Indeed, we have so much coal that it would last several hundred years. Thus, it makes sense to invest, as part of a balanced portfolio that also includes renewables, in carbon capture and sequestration.
Just as Australia could increase its growth in renewable technology industries, it could rapidly increase growth if it was a pioneer in cleaning up coal – one of the most abundant sources of energy in the world.
Great point “Generic Person”. And then after we’ve continued to burn coal for the next few decades we should just about have made most of the planet uninhabitable in time for us to enjoy the new ‘clean coal’ technology.
The profound failure of the climate policies of both major parties is their failure to imagine an economy without coal. Sure coal is a profitable business (which is why the industry lobbies so hard to protect it) but we can replace it as an energy source relatively easily. Certainly more easily than building a system to capture a meaningful quantity of CO2 from coal plants.
To build a CCS system of sufficient scale would require the development of industrial infrastructure similar in scale to the entire global oil distribution system, except that instead of building it over a hundred years, we’d need to build it over a decade.
Carbon capture and storage for coal is a foolish idea. The coal companies know this which is why they refuse to invest serious amounts of money in it. They invest just enough to make it seem plausible – not a penny more.
John, it’s very easy sitting on the sidelines ranting on about how “easy” it is to shut down the coal industry. It simply is not. Australia’s economic success is largely built upon access to cheap and abundant energy – shutting down the coal industry puts us at an immediate competitive disadvantage and imposes a great risk on jobs and exports growth.
Of course, there must be significant investment in renewables, but equally, money should be spent on investigating the possibility of cleaning up coal. It makes sense because we have so much of the stuff.
GP, I don’t think it will be easy to shut down the coal industry. They are too politically powerful. I do think we can replace coal as our primary energy source much more easily than building CCS infrastructure. Depending on who you speak to in the renewables industry, the estimates of the possible growth rates for renewables vary. Some people think we could be generating 30% of our total energy from renewables by 2020. Others think much higher – around 50% or 60%.
When you ask the coal industry how many coal plants could be converted to fully functioning CCS by 2020, the most ambitious estimate is a functioning pilot plant or two.
Forcing the closure of the coal industry would actually put us at a competitive advantage in some industries – while it would disadvantage others. The aluminium industry would suffer because the price of electricity would rise slightly – and they use so much of it. But we would create a potentially large export industry for renewable energy. As it stands, we’ll end up importing renewables technology from the US, Japan and Germany.
Renewable energy is already cheaper than coal in some parts of the US. The cost of renewables is coming down rapidly as efficiency continues to improve and economies of scale drive production costs down. On the otherhand, the costs of coal will rise over time, particularly if we start to factor in the environmental and health impacts of coal. The two curves will cross over sometime soon, after which time the coal industry will die a slow death anyway. The question is whether it will happen before we commit the earth to runaway global warming. I don’t think we have much choice personally.