House debates
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
Bills
Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Bill 2012; Second Reading
9:02 am
Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source
It develops a common carbon price across economies, a common incentive to cut emissions, and fairly shares the burden of doing so.
We have a responsibility, as the leaders of this nation and as elected representatives of the federal parliament, to act in the interests of all Australians, both current and future generations. Ultimately, the scientists have warned us that the planet is warming and that warming is caused by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They have warned us that continued warming will have severe consequences, which may include more frequent droughts, more days with high fire danger, changes in rainfall patterns, increased heat waves and more intense cyclones. This poses a risk to the environment, our economy and our way of life. No responsible government can ignore these risks.
Responsible governments must take action—action that is environmentally effective, economically efficient, and socially fair. Those have been the underpinning principles of government formulation of policy in responding to climate change—environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency, and being socially fair and equitable. That is Labor's approach—action we can take to protect our economy and minimise the risk of the most extreme impacts occurring. That is the action we are taking.
This is a global problem and it requires global efforts to reduce pollution. There are many out to mislead the Australian public by saying that Australia is acting alone and our efforts are meaningless unless part of global action. But this argument falls down on two fronts, and it is important to address them.
Firstly, Australia is far from acting alone. Every major economy is taking action. From 2013, 850 million people will live in a place where polluters pay for their pollution. The world is acting and we are part of that action.
The second reason the argument of these detractors falls down is that many of these same people who say a global solution is required also categorically oppose international linking. If you accept that climate change is a global problem that needs a global solution, it follows that you should support opening up trade with other countries to ensure pollution is reduced at the least cost. A globally coordinated approach must be fundamental to Australian climate change policy.
Because the Australian and European systems both cap the overall level of emissions, the use of a European allowance by an Australian emitter means that one less tonne of carbon pollution is released in Europe. Our challenge is to reduce global emissions. One tonne of pollution reduced in Europe delivers the same environmental benefit as a tonne of pollution reduced in Australia.
We are an open economy and a trading nation. This is one more commodity that needs to be included in our trading relationships with other countries. By opening up trade in carbon, we will ensure that pollution is reduced at the least cost, which will benefit households, businesses and the environment. The type of economic xenophobia and anti-market rhetoric that has been used when it comes to linking emissions trading schemes is backward and irresponsible.
We are very proud to stand on this side of the parliament and be able to say this will be the first intercontinental linkage of emissions trading schemes. It represents an important development towards the establishment of an interlinked global carbon market and global action on climate change. It is the first link between Europe and emerging carbon markets in the Asia-Pacific region.
Emissions trading schemes, it is worth noting, are currently being developed in China, which is our largest trading partner; Korea, our fourth largest trading partner; and California, which in its own right is the world’s eighth-largest economy. These are just some examples of the development of carbon markets in our own region which ultimately we have the objective to link with.
In fact, market based mechanisms to reduce pollution are in place or being developed in eight of our top 10 trading partners.
Other key economies in the Asia-Pacific such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are also entering the carbon market.
This will lead to the development of a cooperative Asia-Pacific carbon market in the future.
The link with the EU is also very important for the competitiveness of Australian industries. The linking arrangements—this is an extremely important feature of the bills I am presenting to the House today—have the potential to increase the effective assistance delivered to our emissions-intensive trade-exposed industries by the Jobs and Competitiveness Program. For example, if a highly emissions-intensive activity is able to source Kyoto units on the market for half of the price of European allowances, their effective assistance rate in 2015-16 could rise to 97 per cent. The assistance delivery also retains the incentive for emissions reductions.
This is an extremely important measure to support the members of our community, and their families, who are employed in these important emissions-intensive trade-exposed activities like aluminium smelting, steel making, cement manufacturing and a host of others. It will support the competitiveness of those businesses.
This bill and the amendments it contains are intended to provide the legislative foundation for this link and future links with other emissions trading schemes.
The link with the European Union ETS will first allow European allowance units to be used for compliance under the Australian scheme for liabilities incurred between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2018. This will be followed by a full bilateral link from 1 July 2018 where units from both schemes may be used for compliance in either system.
To simplify the linking arrangements and facilitate the convergence of Australian and European carbon prices, the government has announced that it will no longer proceed with the carbon price floor from 1 July 2015, and that it will restrict the quantity of eligible Kyoto units that Australian entities can use to discharge their liability.
This bill eliminates the price floor from existing legislation by removing the requirement for a minimum auction reserve price for the financial years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18, and repealing the act that provided for a surrender charge on eligible international emissions units.
The bill also limits Australian entities' use of eligible Kyoto units to 12.5 per cent of their total liability and provides the government with the ability to introduce other limits on eligible international emissions units should this flexibility be required in the future.
In relation to the designated limit of 12.5 per cent, or one-eighth of a liability, for Kyoto units, the bill provides that this designated limit percentage may not be changed before 1 July 2020. This will provide certainty to Australian liable entities in relation to their allowable surrender of international units, and hence certainty in relation to their emissions reduction investment and compliance strategies and also certainty in relation to the level of assistance available to them under the Jobs and Competitiveness Program. That is eight years of certainty.
The bill also provides the government with flexibility to implement the most appropriate set of registry arrangements to establish the interim link with the European Union ETS, and flexibility in establishing future registry arrangements with other jurisdictions should links to other schemes be concluded in the future.
Equivalent carbon price
This bill also alters the current arrangements for applying an equivalent carbon price to synthetic greenhouse gases and some liquid fuel use, to ensure that it reflects the effective carbon price faced by liable entities under the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme when linked to the European Union ETS.
Auctions
The government proposes to make minor and technical changes to the design of the auction scheme for the Australian emissions trading scheme, to improve its operation and streamline the arrangements. These changes take account of further consultation on the detailed design of the auction scheme and the commencement of the detailed design process.
The amendments increase the carbon unit auction limit from 15 million to 40 million for 2015-16 carbon units that are auctioned in 2013-14, and 20 million for all other advance auctions before a pollution cap is set.
The amendments also establish that where there is not a pollution cap in place, units cannot be sold at auctions held more than three years in advance of their vintage year.
In addition, the bill provides for the approach to setting auction reserve prices to be determined in a ministerial determination.
Finally, the bill simplifies the treatment of relinquished carbon units.
Natural gas
There are also some measures contained in the bill in relation to natural gas. In order for the carbon price to maintain effective and complete coverage of natural gas, the bill allows regulations to be made to provide for coverage of alternative natural gas arrangements, supporting competitive neutrality in the industry.
The bill also amends the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007, so that from 1 July 2013 the methods to measure and adjust liabilities for liquid and gaseous fuels may be set out in a disallowable ministerial determination. This will give more certainty to the liquid and gaseous fuels sectors and more flexibility in emissions reporting, which is appropriate given the complex commercial arrangements in these sectors.
Conclusion
In conclusion it is important reiterate some key elements. The fact of the matter is that countries around the world are taking action to tackle climate change.
Australia’s carbon price is now part of this global action.
It is submitted in pursuit of the commitments that we have made internationally, which are supported by the opposite side of parliament, to tackle this problem in our domestic economy.
With emissions trading schemes in 33 countries and 18 subnational jurisdictions expected to be in operation from 2013, it is likely this linking arrangement is the first of many to come, which will lead to a deep and liquid global carbon market.
It gives the lie to the claims that no other countries are acting.
Linking to the European Union Emission Trading System is a historic achievement not only for Australia but for global action on climate change.
When future generations look back on the Clean Energy Act and associated acts, the emissions reductions it will have driven and the global carbon market it will have supported, I believe they will thank the members of this parliament who have rejected the argument for delay in acting on climate change and who have embraced a clean energy future. I commend the bill to the House.
Debate adjourned.
Comments
Mark Nicol
Posted on 24 Oct 2012 7:03 pm
In my book Rebirth: Towards a Living Vision for Mankind: Volume II (2010) I wrote:
"The consuming argument of Western consensus thinking precedent to the Copenhagen Summit, especially here in Australia, raged over the question of climate change real or unreal, man-made or natural. 41 Here, the deniers of gathering ecological crisis have been able to seize, very usefully, upon the current vagaries of climate-modelling predictions 42, which actually stem from the enormous challenges and understandable deficiencies of the standing science.
To create some consummate computer model of current and imminent meteorological conditions upon planet earth, it would require the input of a stupendous amount of information, solution to an enormous mathematical equation. That the fledgling science of meteorological modelling arguably provides us with near accurate predictions upon imminent global climate change, this achievement gives great credit to the skill, ingenuity, and conscientiousness of the scientists, the science involved. But to place too much creed in the exact, rather than upon the general predictions thrown up by the current computer modelling discipline, this is to over-rate the current pedigree of the science and to vastly under-estimate the enormous complexities of the workings involved.
Today, if the postulations of the science reveal any developing discrepancies of prediction, any vagaries of linear postulation, the deniers of climate change opportunely seize upon such apparent errors to say that we cannot be sure any significant weather change is occurring at all. Therefor, as the extrapolating conservative argument goes, we need neither to worry, nor to act. Moreover, the populist plebiscite, fed by a press that nurtures the emotive habit of seeing every political issue as black or white, yea or nay, latches onto dramatic iconic terminology, much as if the very words GLOBAL WARMING themselves signified a flashing red light. Then, to this simpleton psyche, when the latest science or data reveals that we are not this year experiencing (global warming), but are yet to expect unspecified GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, this is read as if the red light warning has passed - we are suffering here, only,
some glitch computer error.
Given that so many scientists now concur that we face an imminent, man-made ecological crisis on this planet 43 it might be judicious for the scientific community to recognise the grave responsibility invested in the
climate-modelling practice. By no means does this mean that predictions should be tempered or tampered with, in order to lend political support to an environmentalist cause. 44 However, it would be wiser to admit the complexities, difficulties, and current vagaries of the science, and elicit just general
consensus-accepted predictions, rather than present audacious models popularly presented as emphatic red-light warning signage, and then have to recant upon the precision of that model and an implied absolute warning. Both the simpleton and the opportunistic denier of impending calamity, given these wavering alarms, then choose to hear only the bleating cry of wolf!"
We have now arrived at the very position I predicted, and feared most. The science has been myopic, the standard environmentalist has been caught out as a 'catch-crier', and, erstwhile, the witless procession of populist politics will now march straight past the most critical issue facing mankind, and all life on this planet.
rebirth Volume I is available in the National Library, with Volume II arriving shortly.
tim leung
Posted on 26 Oct 2012 2:53 pm
I think,most people use only clean energy, the Earth is the true sense of the burdens.
http://www.polorlespana.net
Mark Addinall
Posted on 14 Oct 2012 3:54 pm
The data released this week was sort of slipped under the door and never made it to the papers. There has been NO global warming for the last two decades. In spite of the industrial growth of China and India. None. Zip. Nada.
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly
released... and here is the chart to prove it
The figures reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012
there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures
This means that the pause in global warming has now lasted for about
the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996
By DAVID ROSE
PUBLISHED: 21:42 GMT, 13 October 2012 | UPDATED: 01:21 GMT, 14 October
2012
The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new
data released last week.
The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal
that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no
discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures.
This means that the plateau or pause in global warming has now lasted
for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose,
1980 to 1996. Before that, temperatures had been stable or declining for
about 40 years.
global temperature changes
The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and
sea, was issued quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and,
until today, it has not been reported.
This stands in sharp contrast to the release of the previous figures
six months ago, which went only to the end of 2010 a very warm year.
Ending the data then means it is possible to show a slight warming trend
since 1997, but 2011 and the first eight months of 2012 were much cooler,
and thus this trend is erased.
Some climate scientists, such as Professor Phil Jones, director of the
Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, last week
dismissed the significance of the plateau, saying that 15 or 16 years is
too short a period from which to draw conclusions.
Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate
science department at Americas prestigious Georgia Tech university, told
The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to
predict future warming were deeply flawed.
Even Prof Jones admitted that he and his colleagues did not understand
the impact of natural variability factors such as long-term ocean
temperature cycles and changes in the output of the sun. However, he said
he was still convinced that the current decade would end up significantly
warmer than the previous two.
Warmer: Since 1880 the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius. This
image shows floating icebergs in Greenland
The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as
it is jointly issued by the Met Offices Hadley Centre and Prof Joness
Climatic Research Unit.
Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and
reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has
warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.
Some scientists have claimed that this rate of warming is set to increase
hugely without drastic cuts to carbon-dioxide emissions, predicting a
catastrophic increase of up to a further five degrees Celsius by the end
of the century.
The new figures were released as the (English) Government made clear that
it would bend its own carbon-dioxide rules and build new power
stations to try to combat the threat of blackouts.
At last weeks Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister,
John Hayes, promised that the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing
academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need
fuel for heat, light and transport energy policies, you might say, for
the many, not the few a pledge that has triggered fury from green
activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-
turbine firms.
Flawed science costs us dearly
Here are three not-so trivial questions you probably wont find in your
next pub quiz. First, how much warmer has the world become since a) 1880
and b) the beginning of 1997? And what has this got to do with your ever-
increasing energy bill?
You may find the answers to the first two surprising. Since 1880, when
reliable temperature records began to be kept across most of the globe,
the world has warmed by about 0.75 degrees Celsius.
From the start of 1997 until August 2012, however, figures released last
week show the answer is zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data
collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been flat.
Not that there has been any coverage in the media, which usually reports
climate issues assiduously, since the figures were quietly release online
with no accompanying press release unlike six months ago when they
showed a slight warming trend.
The answer to the third question is perhaps the most familiar. Your bills
are going up, at least in part, because of the array of green subsidies
being provided to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.
They will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to
rise steadily higher yet it is being imposed for only one reason: the
widespread conviction, which is shared by politicians of all stripes and
drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic action to
reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain soon to
accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of the
century when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.
Hence the significance of those first two answers. Global
industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little
difference.
And with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80
per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the news
that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as something
of a shock.
It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every
aspect of energy and climate change policy.
This plateau in rising temperatures does not mean that global warming
wont at some point resume.
Damage: Global warming has been caused in part by the CO2 emitted by
fossil fuels. This image shows smoke billowing out of a power station
But according to increasing numbers of serious climate scientists, it
does suggest that the computer models that have for years been predicting
imminent doom, such as those used by the Met Office and the UN
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and that the
climate is far more complex than the models assert.
The new data confirms the existence of a pause in global warming,
Professor Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric
Science at Americas Georgia Tech university, told me yesterday.
Climate models are very complex, but they are imperfect and incomplete.
Natural variability [the impact of factors such as long-term temperature
cycles in the oceans and the output of the sun] has been shown over the
past two decades to have a magnitude that dominates the greenhouse
warming effect.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that our attribution of warming
since 1980 and future projections of climate change needs to consider
natural internal variability as a factor of fundamental importance.
Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia, who found himself at the centre of the
Climategate scandal over leaked emails three years ago, would not
normally be expected to agree with her. Yet on two important points, he
did.
The data does suggest a plateau, he admitted, and without a major El Nino
event the sudden, dramatic warming of the southern Pacific which takes
place unpredictably and always has a huge effect on global weather it
could go on for a while.
Like Prof Curry, Prof Jones also admitted that the climate models were
imperfect: We dont fully understand how to input things like changes in
the oceans, and because we dont fully understand it you could say that
natural variability is now working to suppress the warming. We dont know
what natural variability is doing.
Headache: The evidence is beginning to suggest that global warming may be
happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed - a conclusion
with enormous policy implications for politicians at Westminster, pictured
Yet he insisted that 15 or 16 years is not a significant period: pauses
of such length had always been expected, he said.
Yet in 2009, when the plateau was already becoming apparent and being
discussed by scientists, he told a colleague in one of the Climategate
emails: Bottom line: the no upward trend has to continue for a total
of 15 years before we get worried.
But although that point has now been passed, he said that he hadnt
changed his mind about the models gloomy predictions: I still think
that the current decade which began in 2010 will be warmer by about 0.17
degrees than the previous one, which was warmer than the Nineties.
Only if that did not happen would he seriously begin to wonder whether
something more profound might be happening. In other words, though five
years ago he seemed to be saying that 15 years without warming would make
him worried, that period has now become 20 years.
Meanwhile, his Met Office colleagues were sticking to their guns. A
spokesman said: Choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales
can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-
decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system.
He said that for the plateau to last any more than 15 years was
unlikely. Asked about a prediction that the Met Office made in 2009
that three of the ensuing five years would set a new world temperature
record he made no comment. With no sign of a strong El Nino next year,
the prospects of this happening are remote.
Why all this matters should be obvious. Every quarter, statistics on the
economys output and models of future performance have a huge impact on
our lives. They trigger a range of policy responses from the Bank of
England and the Treasury, and myriad decisions by private businesses.
Yet it has steadily become apparent since the 2008 crash that both the
statistics and the modelling are extremely unreliable. To plan the future
around them makes about as much sense as choosing a wedding date three
months hence on the basis of a long-term weather forecast.
Few people would be so foolish. But decisions of far deeper and more
costly significance than those derived from output figures have been and
are still being made on the basis of climate predictions, not of the next
three months but of the coming century and this despite the fact that
Phil Jones and his colleagues now admit they do not understand the role
of natural variability.
The most depressing feature of this debate is that anyone who questions
the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate
change denier, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.
So lets be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least
has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is
beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the
catastrophists have claimed a conclusion with enormous policy
implications.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2217286/Globa...
warming-stopped-16-years-ago-reveals-Met-Office-report-quietly-released--
chart-prove-it.html#ixzz29EmUu0UX
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