http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24939897-12377,00.html

The Coalition also accused him of being a climate-change “hypocrite” after it was revealed that several of these senior advisers drive fuel-guzzling motor vehicles.

“This is another case of Kevin Rudd preaching one thing but practising the exact opposite,” Shadow Special Minister of State Michael Ronaldson said.

Senator Ronaldson accused Mr Rudd of double standards just a day after the PM called on workers to defer wage claims to save their jobs.

The problem for the AGW moralists now is obvious to one the godfathers of their theory now in James Hansen. Just as they reach moral and political ascendancy now, their practical methodology of C&T going forward, lies sullied by the experience of financial derivatives and the GFC looking back. In global emissions trading and all its associated spinoff derivatives they now trust and come hell or high water they’ll set the new moral standard for China. A noble crusade doomed to achieve what it has to date, but even if minimally successful would not reduce global emissions from emerging countries and thereby be swamped. Already the free emissions permit giveaways foretell the future and what politician would ever agree to power station brownouts due to exceeding emission caps? The broad answer as Hansen recognises is to have straight carbon taxing with income tax ‘dividends’ and ditto for all countries for a level playing field. In advocating that Hansen is really separating true green wheat from much of the leftist chaff with very different agendas.

you should just use CO2 as the example — since for CO2 (and other forms of pollutants to an even great extent, many of which come with things that create CO2), China has a huge vested interest in cleaning up its act, so your point [5] is very important. Basically if you can show the cost is small, it is far more likely China (and everyone else for that matter) will do something — especially now when they also need to think of ways to spend money to keep people employed for the next year or two. Since China has options like cheap solar and nuclear power which Australia doesn’t have due to NIMBYism and the like, if Australia can do it cheaply, then China can do it even more cheaply.

Rationing systems exempt the poor? Like water restrictions perhaps?

The poor constantly ration their consumption because they cannot afford to do otherwise. Someone spending seven days a week not watering the garden they don’t have (because their land is so small, plants and fertilizer are expensive and they work long hours, coming home exhausted) probably will not be too upset finding they are restricted to a mere two days a week.

Even when rationing does bite the poor, it bites the rich much harder.

And you think we should be leaders of the Chinese in the way that a teacher teaches
pupils (not to swear)?

Possibly I didn’t pick the best example.

Let us presume (merely for argument sake) that Australians as a whole have a genuine interest in causing the Chinese to change behaviour. What methods exert influence on another?

[1] Bribery… “the carrot”
[2] Brute force… “the stick”
[3] Rational argument… “the lecture”
[4] Trickery… “the scam”
[5] Set a good example… “the role model”

You might know more (please share, I’ll find a use for them). A teacher has all options open (but [5] is still a good choice where it works), Australia has basically [5] and not much else. I guess we could cut off some of their fossil fuel supply (at great cost to ourselves), but basically the Chinese don’t bother to negotiate because they don’t really care.

Amnesty International gets housewives to write to overseas dictators saying, “Please don’t torture your political prisoners. because it’s immoral”, against all logic, it quite often succeeds. That’s essentially the position of Australia negotiating with China (except that the immorality of torture is more intuitive than the immorality of a coal fire).

Since your contribution seems to be at the level of cheap shots …

I feel more comfortable calling them rationed shots.

My understanding is that Italy would be bankrupt, the Lira trading at around one million to the dollar and interest rates well into double figures but for the Euro. Belgium meanwhile might simply have fragmented had it not come to be so relatively meaningless as a political whole.

National interest seems alive and well. To the extent that your observations are valid (and there is some point to them in other aspects of the EU) then what is happening is the substitution of political class interest for national interest – to wit, recent EU treaties.

You know the CFC worldwide agreements to stop production is an example of how reducing carbon emmissions will follow. To avoid everyone doing nothing then appealing to the moral values that voters understand is the best way forward. Peasants they may be but they have morals and a vote.

Australia establishing anti carbon systems that work will eventually be followed worldwide. Obama and Gordon Brown have followed Australia on economic policy to deal with this economic crisis. China will follow as they want the job creation that goes with the global superstition. Better to have a superstition to create jobs and keep the populace busy than religeous stupifying superstition like God and stories like sodom. Politics and Religion should not be put together.

Being self righteous is a characteristic of religion and self righteous we would be to expect developing countries to make the same sacrifice. We all know China is motivated by economics and this means that the Australian leadership is very smart and schrewd. Once Australia has obtained the Competitve Advantage and is selling carbon solutions to the world you will see China wanting to get in on the business.

As for the savings you suggest. Why? Australia has one of the worlds largest savings rates contained with super contributions. $10 spent creats $100 of value to a bunch of people. The banks would invest the savings in what – subprime and then be bailed out by govt because they dug such a massive hole with all the large savings. Then who pays? The people again through increased taxes. I would rather spend my money than have it taxed away from me.

I’m happy to sign up to that explanation. Add to it that we have a current account deficit and debt levels that the financial markets might be taking a closer look at any time soon, and that’s another reason for not paying our least skilled, least competitive workers more.

Rationing systems exempt the poor? Like water restrictions perhaps?

And you think we should be ‘leaders’ of the Chinese in the way that a teacher teaches pupils (not to swear)?

Since your contribution seems to be at the level of cheap shots, let’s just say that the condescension to the poor countries (and the poor people) is gloriously on display in your analogies though no doubt that was not the intention of your analogies.

The demand for labour is downward sloping. The demand for the labour of the young and low skilled is more price elastic (wages have a bigger effect on employment) than that for skilled workers. Raising the minimum wage at a time when the demand for labour is already contracting, will hit the young and skilled with a double whammy. If you care about the welfare of the young and low-skilled, lobby for compensation for the lower real wages through the tax-transfer system a negative income tax or earned income tax credits. Even the ACTU realised during the 1980s that such tradeoffs were a good idea.

There is of course an economic debate about just how elastic labour demand is…but it certainly isn’t zero….and certainly is higher for lower skilled individuals…Appealing to the findings of the Card/Kreuger US study of the minimum wage won’t get you very far as the minimum wage is much higher in Australia and consequently more binding on employers.

Green groups got very badly burnt when they pushed hard for a global phase out of DDT use,

Green groups got rightfully burnt by claiming that DDT was killing Bald Eagles by thinning egg shells despite excellent scientific evidence pointing out that Bald Eagles were mostly killed by good old fashioned hunting and habitat destruction. Of course DDT is easy to detect (even in microscopic quantities) and it hangs around for a long time so if you can detect it, must be a problem, right?

http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm

But with China soon to be the largest global emitter thats absurd. Imagine people being excused from water restrictions because they were poor. Thats effectively where moralism has got us in climate change negotiations. (None of this means we should be unprepared to offer compensation or to allow developing countries to temporarily increase their emissions taking a heavier load ourselves as we gradually decarbonise production).

From a moral perspective it is totally unfair to claim that China is the largest global emitter. I mean, why measure China as one entity when you could count Tibet separately? Maybe just count Hong Kong separately? This “largest emitter” status is a product of nothing more than arbitrary political boundaries.

The only consistent and non-arbitrary measurement (from a moral dimension) is per-capita.

I do agree that if we try to get global support for an unrealistic target, we are likely to end up achieving no target at all. From the point of view of getting any working treaty, Rudd’s 5% does make some practical sense. Morality continues to exist even in situations where practicality limits our options, but then again we don’t really know what our options are until we try. Possibly it is not so much the moralisers who are the problem but purists who think that morality is the only consideration.

So am I to presume that in a drought you would argue that the poor should not face higher opportunity costs of water use until the rich have lowered their water consumption? If so how far should their consumption be lowered. To the level of the poor?

Generally known as a “rationing system”, tends to be popular in wartime and other periods of mutual hardship.

Trying to make the world work so that the poor make no contribution until rich consumption levels have fallen (how far?) – trying to fit it up to the debating points of the greens will end in tears.

The concept of leaders leading by example does seem a little strange. A teacher wanting his students to refrain from swearing might get better results if he doesn’t emulate a sailor himself… but there’s that useless moral dimension again.

This is all presuming that there’s a solid scientific case to demonstrate that our efforts are going to make any significant difference, but that’s another argument.

may I be so impertinent as to humbly suggest that you write a post that explains to economically illiterate lefties why it is a silly idea to up the minimum wage in current circumstances.

Your humble and obedient admirer- Mel.

Thanks.

I wasn’t thinking of the countries joining, I was thinking of the countries letting them in. I can’t see what the advantage of letting, say, Turkey in is to Germany (it’ll be chaos if you believe the propaganda), but that didn’t stop all EU countries excluding Ireland offering, including ones with even more to lose (the other poor countries Turkey will compete with for subsidies).

“But theyll see it as an international issue sure enough when they see their own sacrifice and compare it with the intransigence of the Chinese”

I think you’re far too optimistic about how international the average Australian’s outlook is. Governments constantly get blamed or praised for things that really have nothing to do with them (budget deficits on the bottom of economic cycles, surpluses at the top etc.), and that’s true in many places (as the other article you posted on Obama basically shows — forget about the world economy, it’s not in people’s imaginations). Also, anyone that has been to China will realize the difference between China (lots of poor people, small amounts matter) and Australia (people so rich they buy water in plastic bottles) doing something. If China loses 1% of GDP for a few years, millions of people go into poverty. If Australia loses 1% of GDP for a few years, people won’t be able to speculate on houses quite as much.

“So theres a pretty large educational issue, and its slow going”

I don’t see that as a problem. It took 20 years for Australians to stop littering, but they did eventually. I don’t think this has to be solved completely by tommorow.

At present it’s true that people are looking at greenhouse as a national and a personal issue (though it’s amazing how little impact all those personal decisions had before public policy got into the act). But they’ll see it as an international issue sure enough when they see their own sacrifice and compare it with the intransigence of the Chinese.

I think in economic terms substantial emissions savings are available at low cost. But many are quite hard to access – because they’re cost reducing now but still not accessed. So there’s a pretty large educational issue, and it’s slow going. There are some things you can do simply – ie putting high taxes on incandescent bulbs – but a lot of the things (like more efficient machinery in factories) are ‘no regrets’ but not easy to access.

But wait till the lobbyists get going for emissions intensive industries that will move offshore without reducing global emissions. Do you really think the Australian public will support our sacrifice when they see that happening. I really don’t, and that’s one of my central concerns.

Reminds me of an experiment in Perth a decade or so ago in which the shopping public were asked if they wanted glass milk bottles back. A large number said yes, but when they were reintroduced to stores only something like 3% of people brought them. That’s my own (sceptical) view of the public’s willingness to make sacrifices on this front – especially when the propaganda from the opponents gets going, and especially if and when they can make it look like our lives would be that much easier without all these carbon taxes.

Eban Goodstein and others point to the vast range of measures that could be enacted today using current know-how to achieve large GHG cuts with negligible cost and in some cases actual gains.

The US based Rocky Mountains Institute also says the same and gives literally hundreds of examples in its book Natural Capitalism and on its website:- http://www.rmi.org/. Before you dismiss RMI as a bunch of fuzzy headed hippies, please note they have a long history of contract work with US Government agencies, including the Defence Department. It also does work with the Brookings Institution, which I note has recently been number the world’s number one think tank.

A 25% cut in GHG emissions by 2020 with no or negligible cost should be as easy as rolling out of bed.

Another point- if Oz develops policy programmes and technologies as a result of being early first out of the blocks, it will reap a financial benefit if it sells these to the johnny-come-lately types.

I’m in favour of early action. Early collective action – which I believe is the only real action here, for reasons outlined below.

Conrad,

You make a very worthwhile point. You point to some public goods that seem to be built from private good intentions and which are reasonably robust to the bad intentions of a few. I’ve tried to discuss this before – though in somewhat different terms. I tried to distinguish the standard public goods as economists tend to discuss them (lighthouses, roads) with the kinds of public goods you’re talking about. I called the public goods of language and social mores ecological or organic public goods – they spontaneously evolve.

But I think they have to be distinguished from the other kind of public good which the literature shows us is pretty fragile to free riding – where people are discouraged easily by others’ free riding. And some kinds of free riding are actively destructive of public goods, they don’t just generally undermine them.

Thus for instance with a common pool, as in fishing or grazing on common property, if one party free rides, they take out more fish or feed and then there’s a strong incentive for all the players (both economic and emotional I would say) to dive back into the pool and extract all the more before others get in for their chop – which of course destroys the common resource very rapidly. Greenhouse isn’t quite as bad as that, but I think it’s similar – it should be seen as similar to people not paying their tax. The reason tax is compulsory is that you get vastly less of it if it’s voluntary.

People have to have some sense that there’s an (enforced, however imperfectly) equality of obligation for them to willingly participate. As I said above, I don’t know any serious piece of international negotiation that isn’t based on some strong sense of countries representing their own interests and trying to find collective accommodation within that framework, rather than the ‘saints bargaining’ that’s being proposed here where the developed countries say “no, it may be hugely inefficient, but we really are very rich and we’re using more of this resource than you are anyway, so we’ll just cut back and hope that you’ll respond positively to us setting the example.”

Name any successful piece of international negotiation where countries vital national interests are at stake that has been constructed along those lines.

I suggest you look at the work done by Prof Eban Goodstein on the costs of early action verses the cost of later remedial action- http://www.lclark.edu/faculty/eban/

I blogged on his work here: http://allocasuarina.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-do-astrologers-old-hags-who-read.html

It’s proposed as a mature action, not a peevish one.

I’m not into acts of gratuitous and pointless self sacrifice. If the developing world isn’t on board or signalling its preparedness to do so, this thing is doomed and is not worth doing.

Most people have a similar approach to tax. If people aren’t reasonably confident that efforts are going into ensuring that a reasonable number of people are pulling their weight and paying tax, they won’t do it themselves.

There’s a burgeoning literature with ‘public good experiments’ as well as the old public choice literature that illustrates this point. People won’t sign up to collective action if they see free riders everywhere. And visa versa. If there are few free riders, they will be well disposed to putting in some effort themselves and to maintaining the public good by punishing free riders.

That’s real mature, Nick.

But there are many other ways of looking at it. John is scandalised that we’re only going for 5% reduction on 2000. Against our previous foot-dragging I can see why he thinks that’s pretty poor. But lots of people – including (I think) me – don’t think that a 25% per capita reduction in emissions in 12 years is such a bad unilateral offer.

I’d like to see the Chinese commit to something comparable. What is comparable? It’s a damn hard question. They should certainly be able to increase absolute emissions and probably per capita emissions for some period. And we ought to be able to get fairly strong agreement from a wide range of interests that we should converge towards global per capita emissions entitlements.

But we need action from all major players now. I for one am against making anything but relatively desultory action if we’re not clearly heading in that direction.

I think the problem is this:

Everyone knows that, whatever our faults on this issue, China is far worse and in no position to lecture anybody.

Of course ‘everyone’ knows. Have you ever asked someone Chinese? By everyone you mean your friends.

Chinese complaints would be correctly perceived as obfuscation designed to take off the heat.

As they are in this context as well. In fact the environment and emissions are much more urgent issues for poor countries who a) can less afford management of them and b) are more susceptible to civil unrest from displacement etc.