Tim McDonnell at Mother Jones has a must-read article illustrating the efficacy of a carbon tax on the output of CO2, a critical greenhouse gas:
Now, new data from the Australian Department of the Environment reveal that whether or not you liked the carbon tax, it absolutely worked to slash carbon emissions. And in the first quarter without the tax, emissions jumped for the first time since prior to the global financial crisis.
Australia’s Liberal Party has a trouble relationship with climate change science, much like the United States’ GOP, and NewScientist has been covering this little science drama. (Confusingly, NewScientist sometimes refers to the Liberal Party as the Conservative Party; NewScientist articles are paywalled). In their 09 August 2011 issue Clive Hamilton observed:
THE battle over global warming, reaching fever pitch in Australia amid plans to introduce a carbon tax, is part of a long-running and bitter culture war between conservatives and liberals dating from the 1960s. …
There, climate scientists report death threats, figures on the right of the conservative opposition party mutter about excessive United Nations power, and protesters wave placards calling Prime Minister Julia Gillard “Bob Brown’s Bitch” – a reference to the leader of the Australian Greens party, who holds the balance of power in the upper house of the nation’s parliament. …
Leader of the Conservative opposition, Tony Abbott, is vigorously stoking the fire with his trademark blend of alpha-male swagger and hyperbolic claims about the ruinous effects of the carbon tax. On paper, the opposition party has committed Australia to the same emission cuts as the government – a 5 per cent reduction on 2000 levels by 2020. Against the advice of economists and the Federal Treasury, Abbott insists the target can be reached more cheaply by “direct action”, such as paying farmers to enhance carbon sequestration in soil.
And on the corporate side:
Behind it all has been perhaps the most potent force in the nation, the mining industry. Miners have always been powerful, but the China-driven minerals boom of the last few years has created a cadre of militant rich with an enormous sense of entitlement and a willingness to fight “government interference”. A dispute in 2010, which was sparked by a proposed mining super-profits tax, was a defining moment.
The similarities to the United States situation is unmistakeable. Mr. Abbot had led the Liberal Party in a coalition with other parties during the 2010 elections, which resulted in a hung Parliament until the Labor Party made common cause with a Green MP and two independent MPs.
Meanwhile the Australian climate worsened, as reported by Andy Coghlan (07 January 2013):
Australia is baking in a record-breaking “dome of heat“, threatening to unleash the worst firestorms since those that claimed hundreds of lives in 2009. Temperatures reached almost 48 °C on Monday at the Oodnadatta airport in South Australia, and 43 °C on Tuesday in Sydney. The typical January high is 37.7 °C at Oodnadatta. The average across the country is tipped to break the previous record of 40.17 °C in 1976. …
Lack of rainfall in recent months has left soils completely dry and unable to release moisture that would take up heat from the air through evaporation. At the same time, vegetation across the continent that had been revived by rains over the past two years is now completely dried out. “Much of this grass is fully dried and is ready to burn,” says Gary Morgan of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre in Melbourne.
But it wasn’t all about drought, as was reported just a week later by Michael Slezak:
The east coast of Australia has been drenched by floods and torrential rains, even as recent bush fires affecting much of the country continued to burn. Four people are known to have died as Australians get a further taste of extreme weather that is predicted to become more common as the planet warms.
Mr. Abbot gained the position of prime minister in September of that year, as covered by Mr. Slezak:
AUSTRALIA’S landslide election result seems to be bad news for the climate. The new conservative government, headed by prime minister elect Tony Abbott, says it will axe the country’s carbon tax, disband a climate advisory body and institute a carbon reduction policy that climate scientists say will fail to meet even its meagre targets.
It will also scale back plans for a national broadband network and direct funding away from research it deems “ridiculous”.
And, in a petulant gesture of denial, the new Australian government rid themselves of that troublesome pest, science, that proxy for reality:
The government clashed with scientists almost immediately, when it dramatically switched strategy on climate change, including by dumping the nation’s emissions trading scheme. Now the prime minister, Tony Abbot, has cut the science minister post, saying education and industry can pick up the slack.
Projections are not rosy for Australia, Catherine Brahic reports:
Australia is drying out, and it’s largely our fault. The south-west of the country can expect to see average annual rainfall drop by 40 per cent compared with the mid-20th century, and a new model suggests that the main cause is human greenhouse gas emissions.
Water from the skies is the stuff of life but the expectation is that many parts of the world will see less of it with climate change. But predicting how much rain will fall where is devilishly difficult.
It is an important question, because it affects water supplies. Since 2000, the average annual amount of water flowing into reservoirs in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, has dropped to less than a quarter of the yearly average between 1911 and 1974, says David Karoly of the University of Melbourne, citing national figures. As a whole, the south-west of Australia has seen a 20 per cent decline in winter rain since the 1960s, says Nerilie Abram of the Australian National University in Canberra.
Mr. Abbot may have sensed he had gone too far, for NewScientist reports in October 2014 a small gesture to science:
A YEAR after his government was criticised for failing to appoint a science minister for the first time in decades, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott has announced he will be chairing a Commonwealth Science Council. Its aim is to “improve the focus on science” and be “the pre-eminent body for advice on science and technology in Australia”.
The budget is paltry, however.
Finally, Australia experienced an unique event: a double cyclone. Michael Slezak reported in 23 February 2015:
It was a shocking double blow. Australia is picking itself back up after being battered simultaneously by two severe tropical cyclones last week, in what meteorologists are saying is a first for the country. One of these appears to be the southern-most cyclone of such a strong intensity to make landfall, giving Australians a taste of what climate change is expected to bring.
Tropical cyclone Marcia was categorised in the highest possible category – category five – when it made landfall in Queensland on Friday and brought wind gusts of up to 285 kilometres per hour. On the same day, cyclone Lam, a category four cyclone, made landfall in the Northern Territory, knocking out a wind station with gusts up to 260 kilometres per hour.
Australia may be a continent, but it’s a small continent. Mr. Slezak continues:
Climate change is expected to make tropical cyclones less frequent but more severe on average. But global warming is also expected to bring them further south as warmer conditions move tropical weather further from the equator. And cyclone Marcia appears to fit that trend.
Which brings us back to Mr. Abbott and Tim McDonnell’s article, which reports Mr. Abbott
… declared that his government is committed to signing on to the next major international climate accord, set to be hammered out in Paris later this year.
It certainly appears Mr. Abbott may be changing his tune on climate change science; perhaps reinstating the carbon tax should be the next step, regardless of the outcry from corporations and citizens.
But it’s impossible not to ask what magnitude of weather related natural catastrophe will be necessary for the GOP to begin to understand that an adherence to ideology over reality will cost more in the long run? Sure, a carbon tax will result in higher energy costs – that’s the point. For those US citizens who cannot afford such costs, we can certainly provide help, as we already do – a simple expansion of current programs may be all that’s necessary. In the corporate sector, some companies already exist to help other companies optimize their energy use (full disclosure: I have investments in this area).
A carbon tax fits nicely into our economic system: recognizing an externality and putting a price on it is not unusual, as seen in pollution regulation; it is, in fact, simple justice to adjust the economic system to reflect the true costs of corporate operations. And some even see it as a matter of national security, as retired General and former Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark asserts in an interview with The Oregonian’s Oregon Live operation.
