Nevertheless, environmentalists and environmentalist groups are being seduced into supporting the Carbon Trading ETS approach e.g. that of Obama that is now before the US Senate and the disastrous, proposed, pro-coal Australian ETS . The weak argument they offer is that “something is better than nothing”.

The pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government of Australia was elected in November 2007 with promises to the electorate that it would stop Australia’s involvement in Occupied Iraq (18 months since the election, two thirds of Australian troops are still there and there has a big boost to Australian forces in Occupied Afghanistan) and that it would take strong action on man-made climate change (but its post-election actions have been largely confined to rhetoric and propaganda while Australia’s world-leading per capita Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution continues unabated).

The Rudd Labor Government did sign up Australia to the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 (a decade late) but balanced this by helping the US sabotage the Bali Climate Conference by refusing to agree to definite targets. As a ploy to avoid having to do anything concrete to decrease Australia’s world-leading Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution (54 tonnes per person per year as compared to a world average per capita GHG pollution of 6.7 tonnes per person per year), the Australian Government appointed an economist Professor Ross Garnaut to research climate change for about a year and then proceeded to propose a softened version of Professor Garnaut’s final recommendations.

The Australian Government cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) proposal was called the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” (CPRS) but the reality as estimated from US Energy Information Administration data is that the Australia ETS will INCREASE Australian Domestic and Exported GHG pollution by about 80% above the 2000 value by 2050 (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”) whereas top climate scientists are demanding that atmospheric GHG needs to be urgently REDUCED (see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

Further, top climate scientists and climate economists are increasingly blunt in their assessments that a straightforward Carbon Tax is the way to go and that the cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach in general is highly flawed; will reward major polluters; has not and most likely will not deliver timely reduction in GHG pollution; and will lead to a destructive market manipulation “bubble” that will make the recent market meltdown look like a picnic (see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

The cap-and trade ETS of the pro-coal Australian Government is a dishonest scam that ignores top scientific and economic advice in proposing a rigged auction of GHG pollution licences in which only major polluters can participate (an auction that would be illegal in other contexts). Even worse, the receipts from the rigged auction are largely returned to the major polluters who can also keep polluting cheaply by purchasing very cheap carbon pollution offsets offshore from massively deforesting countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Politically, the Australian ETS has been a great success for spin-driven, pro-coal, pro-war, pro-US Rudd Labor because it has succeeded in fooling the public into believing that it is actually doing something against climate change – whereas the reverse is true i.e. it is doing nothing concrete to reduce GHG pollution and indeed is doing the reverse by permitting massive expansion of coal burning, gas burning and coal and LNG exports while damaging Australia’s remaining renewables industry.

While the Greens oppose the ETS as a scam and the conservative Liberal a party-National Party Coalition oppose the ETS because it is flawed and/or may harm particular business interests, an ignorant and media-brainwashed Australian electorate continues to put its faith in an ignorant, dishonest, and dangerously incompetent pro-coal Australian Labor Government.

A recent estimate was that about 25% of Australians opposed the Carbon Trading ETS, with half opposing because it won’t work and half opposing because they are climate sceptics or are otherwise pro-coal and think it may work.

The great political success of Rudd Labor has been to also split the environmentalist movement. While the over 140 Climate Action Groups who met at the Canberra Climate Action Summit in January 2009 oppose the Government’s ETS and want REDUCTION of atmospheric CO2 from the current 390 ppm to 300 ppm, other environmentalists have been persuaded to come out in support of the highly flawed Government ETS that will commit Australia to INCREASING its world-leading GHG pollution.

The pro-ETS environmental groups include the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Climate Institute have now, sadly, been joined by leading Australian environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery. The essential argument appears to be “something is better than nothing” or as stated by Professor Flannery “I personally think they [the Greens] should vote for the CPRS and get it through. Because a first step is better than nothing.”

Below is a critique of an interview by ABC Lateline presenter Tony Jones with well-known Australian environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery (see ABC TV Lateline 29 June 2009). I have treated this as a kind of “student’s oral examination” and have inserted below correcting comments with appropriate references as required in bold in square brackets. Flannery has failed the Examination in key technical areas (it is no excuse that he was originally a Humanities Bachelor of Arts graduate from Melbourne’s Humanities-eminent La Trobe University before embarking on an eminent scientific career) and has also failed the Environment by supporting the pro-coal Australian Government’s highly flawed, cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) that is misleadingly and paradoxically called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

In short, the Australian CPRS (that Professor Flannery now supports) involves rigged auctions of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution licences for major GHG polluters with the receipts being largely returned to the major GHG polluters. It is estimated that this CPRS policy means that Australia, one of the World’s worst per capita GHG polluters, will INCREASE its Domestic and Exported GHG pollution to 80% above the 2000 level by 2050 (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”).

Parts of the transcript of the ABC Lateline interview with Professor Flannery are given below  [my comments are in bold in square brackets].

QUOTE: “Tim Flannery, adjunct professor for Environmental and Life Sciences at Macquarie University and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council joins Lateline to discuss the latest summit.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us now in the studio is Professor Tim Flannery, well-known environmental expert, a former Australian of the Year and also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

Thanks for being here, Tim Flannery.

TIM FLANNERY, CHAIRMAN, COPENHAGEN CLIMATE COUNCIL: It’s a pleasure, Tony.

TONY JONES: Let’s start with the US energy bill, and how much does this new bill Obama has pushed through his Lower House at the very least, how much has it changed the game globally on climate change?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, it’s a very significant development. You know, that bill seeks to reduce emissions [annual i.e. per annum?] beyond a 2005 baseline by about 17 per cent [by when?]. And what that means is that for the first time ever, really, US emissions of greenhouse gases will peak about five years from now, and that’s a fantastic achievement if we can do that and then have a slow reduction. Now, of course, we’d all like it to be more ambitious, but you’ve got to live with what’s actually achievable in a place like the US.

… [discussion about the US Obama Administration Waxman-Markey energy, climate change and Carbon Trading ETS bill that is now before the US Senate] …

TONY JONES: Well, no response yet from China or India on this [proposed US carbon-related tariffs] and I suspect partly because it seems to have slipped under the bar. It’s now only being reported in fact in the ‘New York Times’ and the ‘Washington Post’. So, it happened in the middle of the night. A lot of people didn’t notice for the whole weekend and now they …

TIM FLANNERY: Including me.

TONY JONES: Well, now they’ve noticed. And so what response do you expect there will be from China and India? Because it does look like a threat: get on board or we’ll put tariffs on your goods.

TIM FLANNERY: It does. I think it’s gonna be much, much tougher for India than China, this sorta stuff. And – which is a pity, because with the Congress win in the last election in India there’s been a softening of the Indian position, and with the right signals, I think India may come on board. This may make it more difficult for India to deal with … [In actuality, India’s annual per capita GHG pollution of 2.2 tonnes CO2-e per person per year is about one third of the world average and 25 times lower than Australia’s annual per capita Domestic and Exported GHG pollution of 54; Indian PM Manmohan Singh has actually PLEDGED that India’s annual per capita will never exceed the average for Developed countries, this already being much lower than the World average and vastly lower than that of the US, Europe and Australia: http://smh.com.au/environment/.../us-says-scientist-20090709-desd.html ].

China’s different. China’s been playing tough all along. They’ve been saying, you know, “Unless you guys reduce by between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020, we’re not gonna be part of the deal.” Now that’s probably a negotiating position; we’re yet to see. But this again will make it somewhat harder, but I don’t think it makes it impossible for China.

[Flannery ignores the reality that Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a world leading greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter. Thus Australia’s domestic and exported “annual per capita GHG pollution” is 54 tonnes CO₂-equivalent per person per year –  2 times that of the US, 10 times that of China, 25 times that of India and 60 times that of Bangladesh; for details and documentation see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”].

TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, offsets will be allowed – industrial offsets, right? So, if you produce a given amount of pollution, you can offset some of it by sequestering carbon in soils on farmland, which can be done through better agricultural practices and so forth, through charcoal making, another interesting technology, through reforestation, better rangelands management, better management of cattle and so forth. So there’s a number of different ways of this occurring. It’s yet to be seen specifically how the offsets will be made, but it definitely represents a real advantage to rural America and a very genuine set of offsets too. This actually helps with the climate problem. We know that this is such an overwhelmingly large problem that about half of the avoided emissions that we’ve gotta make over the next decade will come from sequestration in agriculture and forests.

TONY JONES: It is extraordinary when you think about that level of potential sequestration, but how does it actually work? I mean, biochar, for example, will – which Malcolm Turnbull has talked about quite a bit; you haven’t heard much from the Government on this issue. Will biochar be available to US farmers to offset carbon emissions?

TIM FLANNERY: Look, the specific technologies, I think, are yet to be debated, but I would be surprised if biochar weren’t included in there. I mean, the precise nature of the offsets, I should say, are still being worked out, but I’m sure that charcoal is one of the obvious ones. And just to let you know how that works, you know, just imagine a coal-fired power plant burns a ton of coal, you get 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide because the little carbon atoms join with bigger oxygen atoms to make them a CO2 molecule [you actually get much LESS because not all coal is carbon and not all the carbon, C, gets burned or fully oxidized to CO2]. That floats around in the air, a plant gets hold of it, strips the oxygen off again [NO, just some of the oxygen O is stripped off] and just keeps the carbon in its own tissue, so you’ve got that 3.7 going back to a single ton again ’cause there’s carbon in the plant structure itself [NOT SO; the photosynthesis equation is actually : CO2 + H2O -> CH2O + O2 i.e. carbohydrate (CH2O)n is generated, not carbon, C]. You then combust that, make charcoal out of it and then store the charcoal, which is almost pure carbon, in the soil.

TONY JONES: So, how does this work for a farmer? I mean, you’re talking about part of their crop is used obviously for export; the rest of it, the waste then becomes turned into charcoal and therefore somehow holds the carbon that’s in that waste. Is that what you’re talking about?

TIM FLANNERY: That’s absolutely right. If you look at a tree, it’s basically just congealed carbon [NO,  it is actually carbohydrate, mainly cellulose, (CH2O)n], you know, that’s what it is, effectively. And there’s people overseas developing some very ingenious ways of permanently capturing that carbon as charcoal. One of the best plans I’ve seen is out of Sweden where an agronomist is developing a thing called a “charvestor”. And a charvestor would simply go along and harvest a crop, but also harvest a crop waste. It’ll put the crop waste into a charcoal making machine and it’ll bin the synthetic gas you get out of that machine, which is a valuable protect, and the crude oil substitute’ll go into another bin, and the charcoal’ll get spat out the back and be put back into the field and give you a better crop yield next year.

TONY JONES: But how do you do it? I mean, it seems to require some kind of furnace that burns without oxygen or without using very much oxygen. How does that work?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, charcoal making’s a really ancient technology. And all you do is basically heat up any biomass – wood or crop mass or whatever – in the absence of oxygen and that basically cooks it. And so you get a gas given off which you can capture, you get a gooey, oil-like substance given off, and that’s a crude oil substitute, and at the bottom of the machine is all of the charcoal which is the carbon-dense part, it’s almost all the carbon in the plant, which is then in a mineralised form so it won’t rot away [NO, it is simply in the form of carbon, C, which will not “rot away and escape back into the air” unless it catches fire and burns: C + O2 -> CO2], and that’s the key to it. Because crop waste, normally, if it’s just put back on a field, tends to rot away and escape back to the air as carbon dioxide [NO, much ends up as methane, CH4, depending upon the conditions and organisms involved, noting that CH4 has 21 times the greenhouse gas efficacy of CO2 on a 100 year time scale], whereas if it’s turned into charcoal it’ll stay in that field for many thousands of years. So it’s locked away permanently out of the system.

….

TONY JONES: You’ve been watching very closely the progress towards the negotiations, or the progress of the negotiations towards December where there’s hope for an agreement. Is there any chance at all that what many scientists want will happen, that is, an agreement to keep temperature rises globally to under two degrees Celsius?

TIM FLANNERY: Tony, we’ve gotta see this as a step in a process, right? And we’re starting very late. There is enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to push us perilously close to that two degrees of warming over time, right? We can’t see how this is gonna play out in the longer term because things like charcoal making may pull us back from the brink a bit faster than we previously thought. But I see this Copenhagen meeting as a very important step in the process. It may not of itself limit us – limit greenhouse gas emissions to the point where we’ll be under two degrees, but it is a very important step [not good enough; Europe has set a limit of 2 degrees C warming over 1900 temperature; 90% of respondents from participants at the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference thought that we would exceed 2 degrees C: http://guardian.co.uk/environment/.../global-warming-target-2c ]. We’ve gotta get emissions to peak first before we can start that reduction [what reduction? We can start reducing net CO2 and net GHG pollution right now].

….
TONY JONES: It’s not only industry, it’s certain key politicians. Senator Steve Fielding had a very important potential vote in the Senate, is now being described by the ‘Wall Street Journal’ as something like a prophet, which is quite unusual to see, and beyond that, there’s a view that Australia is emerging as a sort of epicentre of the new scientific scepticism.

TIM FLANNERY: Australia’s climate dinosaurs are a lot bigger and uglier than the climate dinosaurs elsewhere, that’s for sure. And it is depressing, because it’s just so counter-productive. And, you know, the amount of time industry will waste disputing the science and not getting on with the job of adjusting to the future and a new energy economy in this country is just dismaying.

TONY JONES: What about the other side of the coin – the Greens in Australia? You referred earlier to the pragmatism of the American vote. The Greens, of course, have chosen not to be pragmatic at all, to vote against the carbon pollution reduction scheme [CPRS; Australia’s proposed cap-and-trade emission trading scheme (ETS)], and potentially vote it down, although there are other votes obviously. Do you admire their role, or should they have been, as the American Congressmen were, more pragmatic?

TIM FLANNERY: I think The Greens have been fairly pragmatic throughout the year. I personally think they should vote for the CPRS and get it through. Because a first step is better than nothing. We need to start this journey, you know? And, yes, it’s not entirely adequate for the task, it won’t limit emissions as much as we want, but we’ve gotta start somewhere. Unless we take the first step, we’re not going anywhere [NO; leading scientists and economists argue strongly for a Carbon Tax rather than market-manipulatable Carbon Trading and are saying that cap-and-trade emissions trading schemes (ETSs) are flawed, risky and unlikely to deliver the requisite decrease in GHG pollution; see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission trading Scheme (ETS)”] .

….” END QUOTE.

Overall  a very  poor performance by Professor Tim Flannery who has clearly FAILED the “examination” as well as the environment.

Contrast Professor Flannery’s weak pro-ETS  argument that “a first step is better than nothing” with the conclusions of the following top climate scientists and climate economists about Emission Trading Schemes (for references and expanded quotes see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Columbia University; Head, NASA GISS): “The worst thing about cap-and-trade [ETS], from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren”.

Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA): “To bet the world’s climate system and global environment on an untested [ETS] approach with such clear structural flaws would appear a reckless gamble …The international community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade structure with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions”.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, UK): “His [Nordhaus’] idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face

Professor Daniel M. Kammen (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley):  “a price on greenhouse gas emissions is essential”.

Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia): “A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy …  the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax”.

Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair, U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration): ”Despite its advocates’ good intentions, cap-and-trade could put America at risk of another meltdown — one originally created and financed by the government itself. None of these painful and difficult issues arise with a carbon tax-shift. Rather, it could enable us to effectively do our part in addressing climate change, while protecting or even enhancing our economic prospects. That’s a deal Congress cannot afford to pass up”.

Stephen Lendman (leading liberal US analyst and commentator): “Contributing $4,452,585 to Democrats in 2008 (around $1 million to Obama) was mere pocket change for what it can reap from scams like cap and trade disguised as an environmental plan. The scheme [the Obama ETS and energy bill] was devised. GS [Goldman Sachs] helped write it. The House passed it and sent it to the Senate. Unless stopped, it will transfer more of our wealth to corporate polluters and Wall Street on top of all they’ve stolen so far from derivatives fraud and the imploded housing and other bubbles”.

Kenneth Davidson (respected economics columnist for “The Age” newspaper, Melbourne; co-editor of “Dissent”):”There isn’t one cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd’s cap and trade scheme benefits the worst polluters. But the Australian scheme is special. It has been rorted at the planning stage … The carbon scheme is not simply weak. It is fraudulent”.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University; 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate; former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank), December 2007: “The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments – for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it … Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a [Carbon] tax system”.

Photo credit: Mark Coulson, 5th World Conference of Science Journalists

They variously argue AGAINST carbon pricing based on a Kyoto Protocol-based Cap-and Trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of which the pro-coal Australian Government’s carbon pollution-increasing and misleadingly named Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is a spectacularly flawed, irresponsible, anti-social, anti-humanity, anti-environment, anti-Planet and disastrous example.

Thus the pro-coal Australian ETS involves a rigged auction involving only major polluters and then extraordinarily hands most of the receipts back to the major polluters. The proposed Australian ETS is estimated to mean an increase in Australian domestic and exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 80% on 2000 levels by 2050 (see my letter in the leading Australian newspaper The Age, 14 June, 2009).

Well, we hear plenty from ignorant and dishonest politicians about their pet Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). Indeed such a scheme is a key part of the Obama Administration Waxman-Markey energy, climate and cap-and-trade Bill that has just passed the US House of Representatives and now faces the US Senate.

But what do top climate scientists and climate economists say? Below are some key comments made by experts who press for a direct, global Carbon Tax rather than failed, worse than ineffective, dishonest, risky and market manipulatable Carbon Trading (for detailed, extensive and updated documentation of such views see the website of the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group).

Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies; adjunct professor, Columbia; University, New York, USA), February 2009:

“The most honest effective way to achieve a carbon price capable of driving our economy and our society to the clean world of the future is “Carbon Tax with 100% Dividend” … The worst thing about cap-and-trade [ETS], from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren.” [1].

Jonathan Leake (science and environment editor of the UK Sunday Times), March 2009:

“Britain’s faith in carbon trading as a way of reducing greenhouse gases could be dangerously misplaced, according to an independent academic working with the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Dr Chris Hope of the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School … [has] a far wider conclusion: the current European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is deeply flawed and should be replaced – or at least augmented – with a green tax … For the ETS to work, the price has to be set at a level that makes it worthwhile for consumers to cut their energy use. According to Hope’s research, the minimum price needed is about £85 per tonne [A$173] , rising at roughly 2 to 3 per cent a year … Prices now stand at roughly £9.50 [A$19] per tonne of CO2 – less than 12 per cent of what Hope’s calculations show is needed.… He believes a market-based trading system such as the ETS is very unlikely to generate consistent high prices, and this instability could undermine the whole point of the scheme”. [2].

Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA), March 2009:

“The international community is making huge wager on the Kyoto model. The wager is that the cap-and-trade structure contained in the model will do the job of slowing global warming. The new United States Administration advocated that the U.S. adopt this system as its contribution top solving the global problem, and the primary legislation in the U.S. Congress is firmly a cap-and-trade proposal. But, as I have suggested above, the cap-and-trade approach is a poor choice of mechanism… You need only to look today at the wreckage of the current financial system to see the latest example of the effects of failed regulatory and risk-management design. So, if the Kyoto model turns out to be another failed model, it has lots of company. But it would be better to recognize and change it now, rather than in one or two more decades of ineffective and inefficient efforts to slow emissions. The international community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade structure with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions.” [3].

Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, UK), March 2009:

“His [Nordhaus’] idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face.” [4].

Professor Daniel M. Kammen, (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley), March 2009:

“Evolving the filed of climate solutions science: the economics of clean and sustainable energy must be supported for individuals and companies to achieve a shared vision; a price on greenhouse gas emissions is essential (but alone it is not sufficient); innovative financing is needed to advantage clean energy; innovation and implementation is needed in the North and South; scientific, and policy innovations open the door for quantified cases of clean development that, in turn, can reset the political landscape in favour of a low carbon future.” [5].

Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia), 2009:

“1. A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy. 2. With a cap and trade approach, the target is everything as both the emissions cap and emissions floor are locked in. No one can do better than the cap, and so the cap must be a science based all consuming sustainable target pathway that won’t lock in failure. As we don’t yet have the widespread political and economic preparedness to commit to an all consuming sustainable target pathway (either nationally or internationally), the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax with complementary mechanisms that would transform the economy more effectively than the [Australian] proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).” [6].

Larry Lohmann (climate economist, The Corner House, London, UK); summary of book “Carbon Trading”, by Larry Lohmann, editor, 2006 [implicit in the GHG pollution cessation argument is taxing GHG pollution out of existence]:

“The main cause of global warming is rapidly increasing carbon dioxide emissions — primarily the result of burning fossil fuels. Some responses to the crisis, however, are causing new and severe problems — and may even increase global warming. This seems to be the case with carbon trading — the main current international response to climate change and the centrepiece of the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon trading has two parts. First, governments hand out free tradable rights to emit carbon dioxide to big industrial polluters, allowing them to make money from business as usual. Second, companies buy additional pollution credits from projects in the South that claim to emit less greenhouse gas than they would have without the investment. Most of the carbon credits being sold to industrialized countries come from polluting projects, such as schemes that burn methane from coal mines or waste dumps, which do little to wean the world off fossil fuels.” [7].

Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair, U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration), January 2009:

“A cap-and-trade system is very unlikely to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions — and more likely to introduce new, trillion-dollar risks for the financial system. The clearest illustration of the problems with cap-and-trade is the European Trading Scheme, based on the Kyoto protocols covering most of Europe. According to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, there’s little if any evidence that the ETS has had any effect at all on emissions in Europe. One reason is that major emitters such as Germany simply exempt many of their facilities generating greenhouse gases. Another factor is the “offset” permits that European “transition” economies, themselves exempt from caps, can sell to other ETS members…the volatile prices for the permits themselves, traded on financial markets, would attract speculation and new financial derivatives, putting us at risk for another crisis. Even more regulations cannot eliminate most of cap-and-trade’s inherent price volatility or the incentives for its participants, including governments, to evade or manipulate the system. These are the main reasons why the father of climate-change politics, Al Gore now prefers carbon-based taxes over cap-and-trade. A carbon tax system would apply a stable price to carbon, creating direct incentives to develop and use less carbon-intensive fuels and more energy-efficient technologies. President-elect Barack Obama is committed equally to fighting climate change and restoring economic growth. The best way to do both is to give up cap-and-trade and learn to love carbon-based taxes.” [8].

More from Dr Robert J. Shapiro, March 2009:

“The proper approach here is a straightforward one. First, enact a carbon-based tax to move people and firms to prefer and choose less-carbon-intensive fuels and technologies. Second, as we change the relative prices of different forms of energy based on their effects on the climate, protect people’s incomes and the overall economy by returning all or virtually all of the revenues through payroll tax cuts or lump-sum payments to households. Third, use the certainty of a substantial tax on carbon, along with additional subsidies, to promote the development of new climate-friendly fuels and technologies that can capture a new and fast-growing global market. I recently co-authored a study that used the same modeling system as the Department of Energy to estimate the environmental and economic consequences of applying this specific approach. We found that we can effectively address climate change without harming our economy … And after the carnage of Wall Street’s recent rounds of malfeasance, it is painfully clear that the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department simply lack the ability (and the resources) to effectively police complex, fast-moving markets involving many, many thousands or millions of trades per day. Despite its advocates’ good intentions, cap-and-trade could put America at risk of another meltdown — one originally created and financed by the government itself. None of these painful and difficult issues arise with a carbon tax-shift. Rather, it could enable us to effectively do our part in addressing climate change, while protecting or even enhancing our economic prospects. That’s a deal Congress cannot afford to pass up.” [9].

Pro-coal US and pro-coal Australia are world leading greenhouse has (GHG) polluters. Pro-coal, climate criminal Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a world leading greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter. Thus Australia’s domestic and exported “annual per capita GHG pollution” is 54 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year – 2 times that of the US, 10 times that of China, 25 times that of India and 60 times that of Bangladesh.

If the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference opts, like the climate criminal nations of the US and Australia, for a Cap-and-Trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), then the World is facing disastrous inaction over man-made global warming and the real prospect of worsening, First World-imposed climate genocide. Top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS has estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive global warming this century, this constituting a prospective climate genocide that will kill 10 billion non-Europeans including 6 billion infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (for detailed documentation see here).

Key References

[1]. Dr James Hansen, “Carbon Tax and 100% Dividend vs. Tax and Trade”, Committee on Ways & Means, US House of Representatives, February 2009: http://cleanenergy-project.de/…/carbon-tax-100-dividend-vs-tax-trade/ ; http://www.columbia.edu/…/WaysAndMeans.pdf.

[2]. Tricia Holly Davis & Jonathan Leake, New Statesman, 26 March 2009: http://newstatesman.com/…/carbon-price-climate-hope-co2.

[3]. Professor William Nordhaus, “Economic issues in designing a global agreement on global warming”, Keynote plenary address for the 10-12 March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions”: http://climatecongress.ku.dk/…/speaker-11march2009.pdf/ ; for this and other plenary lectures see: http://climatecongress.ku.dk/…/congresspresentations/.

[4]. Oliver Tickel, “Replace Kyoto Protocol with global carbon tax, says Yale economist”, Guardian, 12 March 2009.

[5]. Professor Daniel M. Kammen, “From climate science to solutions: shared agendas in the North and South”, Keynote plenary address for the 10-12 March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions”: http://climatecongress.ku.dk/…/speaker-11march2009.pdf/ ; for this and other plenary lectures see: http://climatecongress.ku.dk/…/congresspresentations/.

[6]. Professor Barry Brook, “CPRS versus carbon tax: Senate Inquiry”, 30 March 2009.

[7]. Larry Lohmann, summary of book “Carbon Trading. A critical conversation on climate change, privatisation and power” by Larry Lohmann, editor, 2006, published by Dag Hammarskold Foundation, Durban Group for Climate Justice and The Corner House, 2006.

[8]. Dr Robert J. Shapiro, “The real choice between Cap-and Trade and Carbon-based taxes”, Roll Call, 15 January 2009.

[9]. Dr Robert J. Shapiro, “Shapiro: economy will force quick action on climate change“, Roll Call, 30 March 2009.