Sgt Hulka Uncut

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Archive for category Politics

Are we not men?

Nov 24

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Bad Ideas, Climate Change, International, Politics | 1 Comment

[reprinted from August 2009]

In a previous article, I touched on an issue about which the Coalition in Australia has coalesced, namely taking a wait and see attitude to Climate Change, based on what comes out of the USA. I got to thinking about this issue further this morning when I watching on ABC Breakfast the speculation about whether or not Nathan Rees may see a coup in the near future. A name of a woman was dropped as someone up and coming in the Labor Party, and then quickly dismissed by the ABC commentators as still having a US accent, so unlikely to be acceptable. This was accepted without dispute by all those she was engaged in conversation with, and included no discussions of the substance of any positions held by the woman. And I got to thinking, hell that’s stupid, but its probably right, even I wouldn’t trust me on first impressions, given my accent. And it dawned on me that there is a third issue why the Coalition position on the CPRS is a loser, even amongst the Nationals.

Basically, why would we as Australians accept that anything the USA would produce programatically would be good for Australia? Do they have a history of doing things in Australia’s interest, particularly when it may be in conflict with their own self interest? On tariffs, subsidies and any number of other trade issues, nope. In my 15 years an Australian citizen alone, I have see the US dump steel, wheat, and other commodities into world markets and significantly damage Australia industries at the time. Hell, W even signed into law a major subsidy for their steel industry right after the Australians were the first to commit troops to an Afghanistan effort – BEFORE EVEN BEING ASKED TO DO SO! This is also the mob that tried to come gut our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in their last round of  trade negotiations with Australia. Hey, far be it from me to be a US basher, but there’s no way I trust these arseholes with defining my CPRS.

Remember also that the US is likely to produce nothing in the next sitting session of their Congress. They are currently heavily distracted with health care, and whether to require all their citizens to get health insurance coverage through the same private health companies that have been ripping them off, denying them treatment, and putting the US in a position where it pays twice as much as the next major industrialised country for health care per capita, but is raked by the UN 37th in health care performance (proudly next to Costa Rica). Of course their Congress and President could pass a strong government run public option for health care and demand that pharmaceutical companies negotiate on price with a large public entity, but let’s face it the Democrats are in power there, and they are likely to be too big of pussies to move anything like that through, despite their filibuster-proof majorities. So don’t even expect the US to even get to the climate change issue, and get a bill through both houses and signed into law. Remember, they are several years behind us in the legislative effort, and even we haven’t got our well discussed and heavily negotiated CPRS through yet. If we wait for the Yanks it will be another lost opportunity, and by the time we get around to it, we will be selling summer timeshares in the Antarctic.

Finally (and potentially most importantly), what are we, f**king sheep? We have to wait around for the Yanks to move on this because they are smarter than us? or more determined to make a difference? or perhaps maybe more morally and ethically prone to leadership than we as Australians are? Sure they represent the bulk of the problem on an emissions basis, and if they, China and India don’t make some moves, it will make stuff-all difference what we as Australians do.

But the fact is, we are smart enough, we do know how to develop and run a CPRS trading scheme that will set a real market for carbon emissions, and begin to internalise the cost of those emissions. And the country I embraced the culture of when I signed up is also brave enough to show some leadership and ignore the lies and doomsayers about the new economy. Sean shared a interesting article from the ACF that exposes some corporate lies in relation to the NGERS/CPRS reporting in relation to what those same companies are telling their shareholders. It’s a worthwhile read for investors as well as those interested in the CPRS.

Process, Not Completeness

Nov 24

Posted by Sgt Hulka in Climate Change, Good Ideas, Politics | 1 Comment

[reprinted from July 2009]

“Process, Not Completeness” is the theme for the next discussion about climate change that I want to take up, and this time, I am unfortunately going to have to get stuck into those who I would normally plan to have as allies in the fight to begin addressing climate change, The Greens. But I suppose I should have suspected that  they would fail me now, since they suffer from what many who are too philosophical in their approach as politicians do, by letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

You see, there is a lot of debate about the science of climate change, even amongst those who are convinced that there is a problem, it has an anthropogenic cause and it is a problem we can do something about. The point in the debate that the Greens make is that the emissions reductions under the proposed CPRS system are far too low, and the 5% and 15% targets provided by the government proposal will not solve the problem (with respect to Australia’s contributions) and the cuts should be much deeper. Without deep cuts in emissions in the CPRS they will not support the bill at all in the Senate. They point to the modelling of temperature rise and its correlation to CO2 parts per million in the atmosphere and they are possibly right, but by this point in their argument it doesn’t make much difference, as only me and a few other dweebs who want to investigate their claims in full and develop expertise in the subject matter are listening. And by making their position an all or nothing proposition, they are making the perfect (assuming their argument about targets is correct) the enemy of the good. Without Greens support, the government will be forced to negotiate with the real freaks in the Senate (I’m looking right at you, Steve), or delay or gut the legislation by making substantive changes the Coalition would require. Australia will suffer as a result, as I will detail further later, under a system that is modelled or implemented after the USA gets involved in climate change. But make no mistake, the USA and other large powerful nations will get involved in implementing a process worldwide to address climate change, and Australia will not get a fair say in that system by following the lead of the USA, as proposed by some.

So, the time to act is now, in my opinion, and a smart Green, that really wanted to have some early positive effect not only on the environment itself, but also on achieving an outcome that is in the national interest of Australia, would adopt a position that embraced the process of the CPRS, while maintaining their strong assertion that the targets need to be adjusted in the future. The process is the good in this discussion. The process by which we cap, trade, acquit and monitor emissions in our country is much more important than the actual targets. Think of the process as a big machine, not unlike the GST system implemented by the first Howard government. The targets in the CPRS are not unlike the rate of the GST, in that we don’t know exactly all the effects of it on the overall tax system, and we may find the need to adjust the rate in the future to meet our tax needs to run government. But setting the rate initially is not the important part when compared with the process of collecting it, holding it, and divvying it up, or just feeding it into general revenue of the government. Same with the CPRS, where the important parts are whether we have a cap and trade, an issue and trade, or a straight tax on carbon emissions. The discussion and decision to go with a cap and trade system has been well established over the last 10 years by those focusing on the subject that also recognise there is a problem to solve. I agree that it is the most appropriate model to use for Australia, and am interested in seeing it come into action to start to make a real difference (as far as we can make as Australia goes) in halting the rise of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, and beginning their reduction.

Under the system, the government sets the cap based on international agreements to limit CO2 emissions, and the permit acquitting system and trading system are the means by which we verify and administer that cap, and set the price for permits, respectively. The three interlocking processes are a sound means of  administering our international commitments, and the targets set carry over into the cap of the permit system, and will then directly effect the price of emissions permits. And a new commodity will be traded all over the world, like wheat orange juice or pork bellies. Will the systems be a little complicated and possibly need adjustment moving forward in order to serve their purpose and achieve the stated goals, including adjusting of the CO2 target levels – likely “YES”. But will waiting to develop and implement these processes further help to make any targets harder to achieve, fail to demonstrate leadership, and fail to protect Australia’s interests in the discussions – unfortunately “YES” again.

So lets get the process in place now, set a good example for those who follow us, and make sure that we have our interests built into the systems, rather than wait and hope the yanks treat us benevolently. Because being a puppy to W worked out so well for us in foreign affairs when Howard was running things, didn’t it?