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16 comments on The Bullroarer - Thursday 22nd May 2008
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These issues are bewildering. It is possible that depletion and stagflation could achieve carbon cuts unassisted so there is no need to buy carbon permits. In that case there is no revenue to hand back for cleantech and the ETS becomes a white elephant. Nonetheless I think a low key ETS could simmer away provided everyone thinks it is fair ie no giant loopholes.
As to mixed signals from an overdue climate cooling cycle I think $200 oil will make people think hard about carbon alternatives provided they can see that coal is not forever. Sea level rise and the now possibly permanent collapse of the Murray Darling will be a sobering reminder of climate vulnerability. Things could happen so fast that none of clean coal, nuclear, renewables or coal-to-liquids could make a difference, only living with less. The ETS must be set up for the long term even if the economy slows.
Mostly the rise in fossil fuel prices is going to reduce carbon emissions, without the need for extra carbon tax. The exception is coal-to-oil. Apparently Martin Ferguson is a keen supporter of CTL (and GTL, though that seems silly because in at least one respect gas is better than liquid: it's reticulatable). To do enough CTL in Australia to eliminate oil import needs would be massive. That will make it impossible to sign any serious greenhouse gas agreement. So we'll see. Does anybody remember the guy in the Senate hearing saying that oil won't go above $40/barrel because that's when CTL is profitable? What's the current guess, not counting carbon cost?
The right answer for Australia is to switch transport to use compressed natural gas. The previous government actually tried to get that going in 2004, but gave up.
We are in a La-Nina phase at present, so any notion the world is cooling is wrong. Arctic sea ice is at it lowest ever for this time of year.
My big worry is that one or both of the Greenland and W. Antarctic ice sheets starts to collapse. As we saw with other ice sheets this can happen VERY quickly. If sea levels start really rising by more than a few inches a year, politicians may be forced to act. This could take the form of simply turning off coal fired power stations.
A minor correction - arctic sea ice isn't at its lowest ever for this time of year - we'll see how it goes over the summer though.
Definitive data here :
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Hi Big Gav
I wasn't only referring to the extent of sea ice. A crucial factor is that ice that has formed since last September over open water is young and thin; and therefore is much more likely to melt this northern summer.
Source: http://environment.newscientist.com