[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?