Category Archives: People/Equity

Australian ETS = Carbon Tax + Consumer Welfare

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I have been rooting for the ETS for a while now but with better understanding of the legislation (thanks a lot to the commentary on BusinessSpectator.com.au) I have learned that the ETS in its current form is not going to solve Australia’s problems at all. With ability to pacify any group that the government seems fit and the issue of carbon offsets there are not guarantees on how on the scheme will work.

The latest comes from Robert Gottliebsen who explains how the money from the ETS will be used as a welfare card by the labour government to stay in power.

Over the period from 2011 to 2020 the government expects to raise a staggering $114 billion from industry based on a carbon price of above $20 a tonne.

Where will that money go? John Howard retained office via the so called ‘Howard battlers’. Rudd learned from Howard so that’s where the money goes.

About $54 billion, or just under half, goes to lower and middle income people. Around 90 per cent of all low income households – or some 2.6 million households – will receive assistance equal to around 120 per cent of the overall cost increases they face.

Around 50 per cent of middle income households – about 1.7 million – will be fully compensated for overall cost increases flowing from the carbon trading legislation. And it gets better. Once the scheme starts, assistance will continue in perpetuity because these assistance payments are indexed to CPI and upfront assistance will automatically increase in line with the increasing carbon price as it affects household cost.

Think about it, if we provide people with 120% of the increase in costs; so more than what the costs have increased; then there is no hope in changing behaviour which is the goal.

Earlier I quoted Greg Mankiw on the fundamental theorem of the ETS:

Cap-and-trade = Carbon tax + Corporate welfare.

Well Greg, we have changed that in Australia. It should now read,


Cap-and-trade = Carbon tax + Consumer welfare + Corporate welfare.

Scientists vs Greenpeace on Salmon, I will go with the the boffins

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It’s generally better for the planet to eat frozen grub that's come a lot of food miles than fresh which has travelled fewer miles by air, in fact. According to the enviro-scientists:

The choice to buy frozen matters more than organic vs conventional or wild vs farmed.

There were other conclusions from the study which could be seen as flying in the face of conventional eco-wisdom. According to the assembled boffins:

Catching salmon in large nets as they school together has one tenth the impact of catching them in small numbers using baited hooks and lures.

This directly contradicts the advice offered by Greenpeace, for instance, which says “choose line-caught fish wherever possible”.

Deep waters, these.

via Eat frozen food and avoid line-caught fish, says eco study • The Register.

Urban density, public transport and the environment

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Some sane words from Paul Mees; a senior lecturer in transport planning at RMIT. His book Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age will be released in December.

So it is possible to compare population densities and use of ”sustainable” transport (public transport, walking and cycling) across the three countries’ urban areas. Nobody has done this before, because the data did not become fully available until last year, but it can now be assembled. I have done this, using the most recent census (2006 for us and Canada; 2000 for the US).

The results are not what might have been expected. Far from being the paradigm of sprawl, Los Angeles is actually the most densely populated urban area of all. High-rise centres are not much of a guide to overall urban densities. The 8 million residents of New York City live at high densities, but the 13 million residents of the surrounding suburbs live in more spacious surroundings than their counterparts in Los Angeles, producing a lower overall figure.

The real reason Los Angeles is such an environmental disaster is not low density, but high density – combined with a huge population that depends on cars. This concentrates traffic and pollution, maximising the environmental impacts.

Melbourne, with nearly 16 people per hectare (not five), is a medium-density city, closer to the top of the table than the bottom. We are denser than Chicago, Boston and Portland, the American poster-city for ”smart growth”.

But relatively high densities have little to do with the use of sustainable transport. The best performer is the Canadian capital, Ottawa, which is much less dense than Los Angeles and about the same as Melbourne. Brisbane has barely half Melbourne’s density and a third that of Los Angeles, but use of sustainable transport is similar to Melbourne and more than twice the level in LA.

Sustainable transport use has more to do with transport policy than density, which is excellent news for anyone concerned about the environment. It would take many decades and vast expense to substantially change the density of a city of 4 million people, and we don’t have that much time. Climate change and insecure oil supplies are urgent problems, and we need solutions now. Fortunately, transport policies can be changed more quickly and with less disruption than urban form, so we might be able to keep our leafy suburbs and still save the planet.

Organic foods or bio-tech foods – for solving world hunger and helping the environment?

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  • Some anti-genetic engineering activists “talk of defending the ‘intrinsic integrity’ of crop-plant genomes,” writes Stewart Brand in his new book, Whole Earth Discipline. “What integrity? Crop plants have no integrity of their own…. Botanist Klaus Ammann points out that good old wheat, fashioned through good old breeding, has modifications that include ‘the addition of chromosome fragments, the integration of entire foreign genomes, and radiation-induced mutations.’” Next to this orgy of gene swapping, biotechnology offers a precision that makes genetically engineered food look downright tame.
  • On the mitigation front, they are creating grains that require less water and that utilize nitrogen more efficiently—a boon for the atmosphere, the oceans, and farmers’ bottom lines. And on the adaptation front, they are developing drought-resistant maize varieties for sub-Saharan Africa, rice that can tolerate flooding in Southeast Asia, and rice that can grow in China’s increasingly salty soils.
  • Next month, when experts from across the globe convene in Rome for the annual World Food Summit, … how to diminish the number of hungry people in the world, which according to the FAO, rose to an alarming 1.02 billion this year. A vital part of their conversation will be to what extent biotechnology can—or should—play a role in these efforts.
  • For the rest of us “foodies,” now is the time for some deep soul-searching, to decide whether we will allow ideology to win out over evidence, particularly when the goals of biotech are increasingly aligned with many of the values the organic community allegedly holds dear.

From SEED magazine

India’s goal is to address energy povery to solve economic poverty

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External affairs minister S M Krishna told world leaders that India continued to face enormous developmental challenges and poverty eradication remains the nation’s top priority.

“Nearly 200 millions live on less than one dollar a day and nearly 500 millions do not have access to modern sources of energy,” he said.

“Our overriding priority, therefore, has to be eradication of poverty for which we must address our energy poverty and use all sources of energy, including fossil fuels,” he added.

Via Times of India

A great statement from the minister. The numbers are mind boggling in terms of the sheer size of the problem.

Cadbury’s Sustainability Statement on Palm Oil

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The palm oil Cadbury uses in Australia and New Zealand comes primarily from Malaysia and is not sourced from Sumatra, Borneo or any of the regions where the Orangutan is under threat. Cadbury also has a long and proud record on the environment. Our ‘Purple Goes Green’ initiative has been widely recognized with Cadbury winning independent recognition on everything from packaging reduction, water reduction and sustainable agriculture. Furthermore, as a business we have a target to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% by 2020 – a commitment that goes far beyond what most Governments are requiring, and a commitment that we are currently on target to meet.

Cadbury stands unashamedly behind our decision to reduce the size, and the wholesale price to our customers, of our Cadbury Dairy Milk range in order to ensure that it remains a treat all Australians can enjoy. We have taken this action to ensure Cadbury Dairy Milk remains affordable, but not at the cost of the environment. That is why we pay an additional ‘social’ premium through the GreenPalm certification process to ensure the palm oil we purchase comes from sustainable sources. This premium is directly passed on to the growers and producers of sustainable palm oil so that they are rewarded for sustainable business practices, and have an incentive to grow more palm oil in a sustainable manner.

We want consumers to continue to love our chocolate, and it makes no sense whatsoever for us to make changes that the majority of people won’t appreciate. We believe as a business we are doing the right thing and are acting far more responsibly than many other companies that use palm oil without any of the assurances Cadbury are able to provide.

We remain immensely proud of our products and continue to believe that Cadbury Dairy Milk is the best tasting milk chocolate in the world.

via Palm Oil.

That is a very clear statement from a company which wants to do the right thing and make money at the same time. The language used and the direct communication used is very impressive.

Rudd takes centre stage in climate talks

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The focal point of the partnership will be Australia’s Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

The President announced the creation of the partnership in a joint press conference with Mr Rudd, who is attending the summit as part of his ongoing overseas trip.

“Australia, for example, is creating a new centre which Kevin will be introducing shortly which points to the ability for us to pool our resources in order to see the technological breakthroughs necessary in order for us to solve this problem,” Mr Obama said.

Mr Rudd first announced the formation of the Institute in April but used the meeting in the Italian town of ‘L’Aquila to relaunch it.

Mr Rudd says 23 governments and more than 100 companies are now backing the Australian institute.

“It’s mission is clear,” he said.

“It’s to get large-scale carbon capture and storage projects done around the world, not just discussed.

“Unless we do these projects we will not have an effect in bringing down those huge numbers of energy production I referred to before coming from coal, and their greenhouse emission impact.”

via Rudd takes centre stage in climate talks – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Sarah Lacy in Rwanda

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Memo from Rwanda: Eat Your Heart Out Al Gore

My driver was a bit confused about my excitement exploring and photographing the whole operation, given there was also a stunning sunset happening over the lake that I was mostly ignoring. Maybe my electric car series for TechTicker is making me into a cleantech nerd, but there are so many things to like about the potential of this project. First off, the rarity of an emerging country fueling its ascendancy into the modern age with cleantech is enough to make Al Gore swoon. But the idea that a potentially life-threatening exploding lake could prove a low-cost solution for the landlocked country and even a new cash-generating natural resource is an apt metaphor for Rwanda’s ability to rebuild itself so admirably in the aftermath of one of the ugliest chapters in modern world history.

Fielding’s Open Mind

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I saw the lateline edition on ABC Australia on their latest iView internet TV player.

Steve Fielding, a Family First Senator, is a crucial vote for the Rudd government’s Emission Trading Scheme.

He is attending a climate skeptic conference and meeting with the Obama Administration about climate change issues.  He is self-funding the trip to better understand both sides of the issue and then take a decision.

He talks about having a open mind and hearing both sides of the story. I think that is great. To be able to be calm and objective and hear all sides to a story in a issue as important as climate change is a great attitude.

It will be interesting to see what he comes back with.

He writes more about this on his blog:

I think it is very important, being an elected person that I give both sides a chance to put their case forward so that I can make an informed decision on the Rudd Government’s proposed carbon reduction scheme that I will be asked to vote on in just under two weeks.

I am not a climate sceptic and I am not a climate change extremist. What I am, however, is someone that actually wants to take a balanced view, look at the facts and then respond appropriately, unlike the Greens.

As well as meeting with various scientists I will also be having high level talks with members of the Obama Administration on how they plan to deal with reducing carbon emissions.

I hope this will give me more information so I can chart a clear course in my mind for where Australia needs to head in reducing carbon emissions.