Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The climate debate in Australia has descended into farce, as desperate green sympathisers try to maintain the impression that the world cares about CO2.
Withdrawing from the Paris agreement makes no economic sense
Peter Castellas
Mon 9 Jul 2018 13.48 AESTThose who advocate for leaving Paris are economically, environmentally and socially irresponsible
Withdrawing from the Paris agreement is not an option for Australia, unless we want to suffer severe economic consequences as a result.
Australia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and it is in our national interest to support effective global action. The Paris agreement sets a common multilateral platform that allows for domestic flexibility to make contributions to emissions reductions acknowledging the scale of the challenge is greater than any one country’s capacity to act.
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As our domestic policy settings will inevitably tighten, Australia’s large-emitting businesses will want access to international permits and conversely our world class domestic offset market will want to export credits to a world short in supply. Accelerated clean energy and technology transfer and climate finance will also be part of expanded trade-related rules stemming from the Paris rulebook.
Despite the mis-truths espoused regularly by some conservative politicians and parts of the Australian media, rapid developments are taking place in India and China to transform their economies and meet their increasingly ambitious climate change commitments. Our exports sit in the supply chain of global markets, where there is increasingly an explicit price on carbon. We don’t want to be locked out of these markets, or worse, penalised through trade and economic sanctions if Australia is seen to be out of alignment with global developments.
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The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, … went on to say, “The global low emissions economy is estimated to be worth around $6tn and is growing at some 4-5% per annum. We believe that through the use of technology and research and science and innovation, there will be many opportunities for Australian businesses, Australian jobs in a low emissions economy.”
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Peter Castellas is CEO of the Carbon Market Institute
What I don’t get is why “tightening policy settings” seem to be required to develop these alleged international carbon market opportunities. Australia contributes an estimated 1.8% of global CO2 emissions. Couldn’t countries like Australia and the USA sell carbon credits to overseas buyers without enforcing CO2 restrictions at home? Or are Australian and US carbon credits only valuable if they are produced by suppliers who are subject to carbon taxes? Surely the planet doesn’t care whether all those carbon credit trees are grown in states or countries which enforce carbon taxes?
Does anyone really care about this movement any? It’s becoming annoying.
So how many credits did China buy?
Maybe some long time in the future, in a galaxy far,far away.
But right now, the world wants to buy Australia’s carbon.
Why would anybody want to buy “carbon credits” from Australia at all? It is not like China, India, Brazil, US, anybody really, are not free to emit as much CO2 and Methane as they please and nobody’s going to dictate to them that they must not. Australia, incidentally, sequesters naturally more CO2 than it emits, both naturally and artificially [1]. Australia does not have a CO2 problem at all! There is no reason at all for Australia to be reducing CO2 emissions.
[1] https://doi.org/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.457
NASA OCO-2 satellite measurements
“The net flux distribution shows that the top net emitting continent is Asia, followed by Africa and Europe. North America is also emitting significantly, while South America is net sequestrating. Antarctica has a net flux close to zero. Australia (Oceania) is finally the top sequestering continent”.
School of Engineering and Physical Science, James Cook University, Townsville QLD, Australia
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/42832/1/Discussion%20of%20the%20NASA%20OCO-2%20Satellite.pdf
The EU must immediately commence paying Australia for sequestering their members’ evil carbon.
Wealthy countries must set the example so Germany first; Angela we demand payment now!
China & India have a UN free pass so the UN can pay their share as well.
Josh Frydenberg; where are you?
I wonder if big banks are getting any kind of profits off of these carbon trading scams? My guess is that they are.
Why would anyone buy Australian carbon credits when no one seems to want to buy UN carbon credits?
ICE CER Futures
Current price is 26 euro cents per tonne of CO2.
Cents. Not dollars.
The article leads me to ask this: How easy would it be to counterfeit “carbon credits” and sell them on the open market, say on eBay? Also: What organization is the clearing house for these “credits” and can they be bribed?
For the period 2006–2015, only 45% of anthropogenic emissions are estimated to stay in the atmosphere. Estimated uptake from the land accounted for 30% of emissions and 25% was by the oceans.
Global GHG emissions for 2016 = 36 Gt
Australia GHG emissions for 2016 = 0.41 Gt
55% natural uptake of 36 Gt global emissions = 19.7 Gt. Assuming all nations are credited for a share of oceanic uptake proportional to their land area, Australia’s share of natural uptake = 1.0 Gt. Considering uptake by land area alone, Australia’s share of natural uptake is still 0.54 Gt.
(Note: A study published in Science several years ago on CO2 uptake by soil in desert areas found uptake comparable to moderately vegetated areas. The mechanism is unknown.)
No matter how you figure it, Australia is a net CO2 sink. This is also affirmed in global CO2 monitoring by the Japanese Ibuki satellite. The high per capita emissions for Australia is a red herring. Australia is in fact the only advanced economy that is a CO2 sink. We are absorbing emissions from other nations and should be receiving an emissions credit. Obsessing over our emissions and saddling ourselves with the highest electricity prices in the world is beyond stupid.