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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| Post subject: The G20: Abbott's 1950s Social Vision Vs. the World |  |
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Abbott spruiks his efforts to undermine universal healthcare, universal university access, and universal refuge. Ban Ki Moon and Barack Obama, following on from the historic US and China agreement on emissions, advance the urgent need to act on the best human understanding we have of climate change.
| Nobel Prize Winning Economist Paul Krugman in the NYTimes wrote: | China, Coal, Climate
Its easy to be cynical about summit meetings. Often theyre just photo ops, and the photos from the latest Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, which had world leaders looking remarkably like the cast of Star Trek, were especially cringe-worthy. At best almost always theyre just occasions to formally announce agreements already worked out by lower-level officials.
Once in a while, however, something really important emerges. And this is one of those times: The agreement between China and the United States on carbon emissions is, in fact, a big deal.
To understand why, you first have to understand the defense in depth that fossil-fuel interests and their loyal servants nowadays including the entire Republican Party have erected against any action to save the planet.
The first line of defense is denial: there is no climate change; its a hoax concocted by a cabal including thousands of scientists around the world. Bizarre as it is, this view has powerful adherents, including Senator James Inhofe, who will soon lead the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Indeed, some elected officials have done all they can to pursue witch hunts against climate scientists.
Still, as a political matter, attacking scientists has limited effectiveness. It plays well with the Tea Party, but to the broader public even to non-Tea Party Republicans it sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, because it is.
The second line of defense involves economic scare tactics: any attempt to limit emissions will destroy jobs and end growth. This argument sits oddly with the rights usual faith in markets; were supposed to believe that business can transcend any problem, adapt and innovate around any limits, but would shrivel up and die if policy put a price on carbon. Still, whats bad for the Koch brothers must be bad for America, right?
Like claims of a vast conspiracy of scientists, however, the economic disaster argument has limited traction beyond the right-wing base. Republican leaders may talk of a war on coal as if this were self-evidently an attack on American values, but the reality is that the coal industry employs very few people. The real war on coal, or at least on coal miners, was waged by strip-mining and natural gas, and ended a long time ago. And environmental protection is quite popular with the nation at large.
Which brings us to the last line of defense, claims that America cant do anything about global warming, because other countries, China in particular, will just keep on spewing out greenhouse gases. This is a standard argument at think tanks like the Cato Institute and among conservative pundits. And, to be fair, anyone proposing climate action does have to explain how we can deal with the free-rider problem of countries that refuse to contain emissions.
Now, there is a good answer already available: carbon tariffs levied against the exports of countries that refuse to join in the effort to limit emissions. Such tariffs probably wouldnt even require any change in existing trade law, and they would provide a powerful incentive for holdouts to get with the program. Still, until now, the suggestion that China could be induced to participate in climate protection was informed speculation at best.
But now we have it straight from the source: China has declared its intention to limit carbon emissions.
I know, I know. The language is a little vague, and the target levels of emissions are much higher than environmental experts want. Indeed, even if the deal were to work exactly as stated, the planet would experience a highly damaging rise in temperatures.
But consider the situation. America is not exactly the most reliable negotiating partner on these issues, with climate denialists controlling Congress and the only prospect of action in the near future, and maybe for many years, coming from executive orders. (Not to mention the possibility that the next president could well be an anti-environmentalist who could reverse anything President Obama does.) Meanwhile, Chinas leadership has to deal with its own nationalists, who hate any suggestion that the newly risen superpower might be letting the West dictate its policies. So what were getting here is more a statement of principle than the shape of policy to come.
But the principle that has just been established is a very important one. Until now, those of us who argued that China could be induced to join an international climate agreement were speculating. Now we have the Chinese saying that they are, indeed, willing to deal and the opponents of action have to claim that they dont mean what they say.
Needless to say, I dont expect the usual suspects to concede that a major part of the anti-environmentalist argument has just collapsed. But it has. This was a good week for the planet. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/opinion/paul-krugman-china-coal-climate.html
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Yep, great idea. I like the concept of tariffs, as wellputting your head in the sand about climate now has pretty explicit economic consequences. Eat that, Tony and Stephen.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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partypie
Joined: 01 Oct 2010
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| Hottest November day in Brisbane for 46 years, not what Tony and Joe would have wanted. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Try putting that in a more specific context. |
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London Dave 
Jete jedna pivo prosm
Joined: 16 Dec 1998
Location: Iceland on Thames
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| partypie wrote: | | Hottest November day in Brisbane for 46 years, not what Tony and Joe would have wanted. |
Or Soapy Brandis... the heat pumping off that dome must be adding to global warming! |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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How embarrassing for Australia to have such an idiot as a PM.
Utter f*ckup.
On the world stage he remains a parochial pissant as a leader. Well actually even in Australia.
Wasted opportunity to show Australia being able to take it's rightful place on the world stage & he talks about a $7 co-payment.
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“I even went as far as becoming a Southern Baptist until I realised they didn’t keep ‘em under long enough” Kinky Friedman |
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Tannin 
Can't remember
Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Location: Huon Valley Tasmania
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| London Dave wrote: | | Or Soapy Brandis... the heat pumping off that dome must be adding to global warming! |
Actually, no. That shiny dome will have an albedo of close to 1 and, like the polar ice caps, reflect much of the radiation striking it into the atmosphere and, on a clear day, back into space, thus providing a miniscule but nevertheless calculable contribution to keeping the planet cool.
The gentleman in question is presumably too stupid to understand this: otherwise he'd be sure to wear a matte black wig in order to maximise his damage to the climate. Mind you, with a brain like his, he'd probably wear it indoors.
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�Let's eat Grandma.� Commas save lives! |
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partypie
Joined: 01 Oct 2010
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| Just watched Joe on ABCs Insiders - early morning and his jowls were sweating. Seems to think climate change is not a part of economic planning |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| The SMH Reporting Keating's Disgust at Abbott's Nonsense wrote: | Paul Keating: US-China emissions deal exposes 'nonsense' of Abbott's policies
Former prime minister Paul Keating says the landmark climate change deal struck between China and the US exposes the "nonsense" of the Abbott government's policies and its refusal to place the issue on the agenda of G20.
But Treasurer Joe Hockey says he's "not sure" if Beijing and Washington's move will ensure climate change will be front and centre of this weekend's G20 discussions in Queensland but urged leaders not to be distracted from what he said were the twin priorities of jobs and growth.
China and the United States stunned observers by announcing a secretly negotiated agreement that commits the US to cutting its carbon emissions by 28 per cent by 2025. Beijing has for the first time said its carbon emissions will peak by 2030.
Mr Keating has revealed he was aware of China and the US's private talks for seven months. He told the ABC's Lateline that the deal exposed, once and for all, the Coalition's foolishness in repealing the former Labor government's carbon tax.
"It shows what a complete nonsense policy the government has," he said.
"This idea that, you know, we get rid of the carbon tax. The carbon tax was there to price - price pollution.
"When you stop pricing pollution, you start gifting money to polluters, you know, you're on the wrong tram," he said.
Mr Keating said while some Direct Action style policies in the US and Australia could abate some carbon emissions, large scale reductions could only be achieved through market mechanisms.
"In the end, it'll be the market that delivers these very large changes in carbon, you won't get 25 to 28 per cent in the US, simply by a direct action policy," he said.
Australia as host of the G20 scheduled for this weekend is refusing to allow climate change be placed on the official agenda.
But while Mr Keating said the topic would now have to be added to the G20 agenda, Mr Hockey on Thursday defended the current agenda, saying climate change would still be discussed as part of talks on energy efficiency.
"Climate change was always going to be discussed as part of the energy security discussion," he said.
Asked if the China-American breakthrough would push climate change to the front and centre of the talks, Mr Hockey responded, "I'm not sure, that's up to the leaders".
Mr Hockey also described the landmark US-China deal as "greatly encouraging".
"We welcome that initiative, we think it's good that they are working together," he said.
But he urged leaders not to be distracted by what he said were the priorities - jobs and economic growth.
"We cannot allow ourselves to go off the focus, to walk away from the focus, on delivering outcomes that help to deliver jobs and economic growth," he said.
Mr Hockey claimed Australia and the US are reducing its emissions by the same amount over three years, even though the US has set far higher reduction targets than Australia.
"If you compare apples with apples, the American position and our position on reductions are effectively the same. We will need to have a position after 2020 and the government will obviously carefully consider what's going on around the world in the next 12 months," he told the ABC.
The Coalition government has until the Paris climate summit in December 2015 to reveal the size of its post 2020 carbon reduction targets but Mr Hockey on Thursday declined to say whether Australia would set more ambitious goals as a result of the US-China deal.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will attend a UN Summit on climate change in Lima in December but its unlikely the Coalition will reveal its hand that soon.
The government is more likely to reveal the parameters for its new reduction targets around May next year but the US-China deal puts renewed pressure on the rest of the world to set more ambitious targets than previously intended possibly sooner than Paris.
[And the typically bigoted and outdated Abbott/Bishop response to a great opportunity that Keating would have grasped with both hands:]
Mr Keating excoriated the government decision not to join a Chinese regional infrastructure bank as a "bad decision of the worst kind." Mr Keating has previously said it is the Coalition's worst decision since coming to government because it rejected Beijing's attempts to multi-laterilise. |
http://www.watoday.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/paul-keating-uschina-emissions-deal-exposes-nonsense-of-abbotts-policies-20141113-11lj5f.html
For more on the backward bigotry dressed up as "concern" and the US kowtowing that led to the rejection of the AIIB by the paranoid and dangerous anti-China US alliance in Asia, see: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/31/australia-wont-join-asian-infrastructure-bank-until-rules-change
Monstrous mistakes like Iraq, the rejection of the carbon tax, and lost opportunities to help steer China in a fruitful direction are what you get when you lack a serious world understanding, and spend all your time engaging an infantile local media cycle driven by the racist fear and hate vote.
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In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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