Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australian opposition politicians are aghast that the Scott Morrison government has not even bothered responding to a report prepared by the Government Climate Change Authority, which recommends stimulating Australia’s Covid-19 economic recovery by investing in renewable energy.
Morrison government ‘ignored’ Climate Change Authority’s advice on Covid recovery
Report hails the chance to jump-start the economy and deal with climate change, but Labor says there was no official response
Adam Morton Environment
Thu 22 Oct 2020 03.30 AEDTThe Morrison government has been accused of ignoring advice from one of its agencies that it should use the economic response to Covid-19 to “set Australia up to prosper for generations to come” by directing stimulus spending to measures that also addressed the climate crisis.
A Climate Change Authority report submitted to the government in July says the stimulus package offered a “once-in-a-lifetime” chance to jump-start a recovery and deal with climate change by preparing for inevitable impacts and positioning Australia to take advantage of its abundant clean energy resources.
“It’s a win-win-win opportunity for economic recovery, resilience and prosperity in a low-emissions world,” the report says.
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The authority posted the report on its website without fanfare and it received little to no media coverage. It was submitted as governments across the globe were being urged to tackle the climate crisis alongside the pandemic.
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The Climate Change Authority report is available here.
What can I say – if there was ever a report which deserved to be stored in the circular filing cabinet, that would be a report which claims a massive subsidy programme is required to kickstart the production of cheaper energy.
Real economic opportunities don’t require subsidies. Investors flock to genuine money making opportunities of their own free will.
Last paragraph pithy.
Regards,
Though it could Pith Off those rent seeking sponges
This isprecisely why the majority of Australians voted for Scott Morrison and the Liberal government. The general population is not interested in a ‘Climate Change’ that no one can see or feel. The report prepared by the Government Climate Change Authority recommending stimulating Australia’s Covid-19 economic recovery by wasting people’s money on costly renewable energy, is best located in the circular filing bin..
Good to see the Aussies have had enough of the BS.
I’ve just read the linked report. There are 5 occurrences of the word “crisis” in the text. One refers to the financial crisis of 2008, the rest to COVID. NOWHERE does it even mention “climate crisis”. That is the Guardian wackos lying again.
Hardly surprising because there is no “climate crisis”. That is made up.
Morrison’s govt clearly knows the difference between “prosper” and throwing away public money on fake crisis.
And that is why they were elected…..they still haven’t withdrawn from Paris & keep building wind-mills etc while not building a single HELI coal-fired plant nor considering nuclear….makes me ashamed of being one…
So the Australian government still has a surplus they can invest? Or would they have had to borrow it?
They would have had to borrow, the surplus was wafer thin.
I notice that they repeat the same old BS about PM2.5 … is there any reason to believe that the authors are anything but charlatans ?
Not if they mention renewable energy in a positive way for main grid use.
Isn’t it about producing free electrons though? Aren’t they Negative?
“The Climate Change Authority”
Sounds so –
AUTHORITARIAN.
(and their name would appear to be going to their heads)
I think the government sacked em years ago, but they reformed with some independent funding and still imagine that they have a say.
That was the ” Australian Climate Commission.” that got sacked.
It was full of real climate moaners. !!
The worst of the wurst !
Ah, ok.
Nothing wrong with a good brat wurst, mind…
…. morphed into the “Climate Council” with the idiot Tim Flannery as it head.
A good example of subsidised Renewable energy projects that will cost consumers a lot is Snowy 2
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/financial-case-for-snowy-hydro-2-0-just-doesn-t-hold-water-20201021-p5677c.html
Gee, you would think the Government ran the country rather than the oxymoronic Climate Change Authority wouldnt you? I was so looking foward to a windmill lead recovery too, and of course a carbon tax. You need some extra taxes to keep everything just humming along. Nothing stimulates an economy more than directing more and more taxpayer funds into the highly productive and value adding public sector.
I notice how the narrative is being changed from the government must invest in “renewables” to “save the planet” to it’s a new green deal that will bring jobs and prosperity. How anyone could honestly believe that making electricity more expensive could do anything other than destroy prosperity is beyond comprehension.
Anything that makes production more expensive is bad for the economy. Human civilization only made progress when better and cheaper ways were found to obtain energy.
You could expand that to “progress is the constant search for ways to make any process(production to consumption) use less resources of every kind.
That goes for learning how to make stronger, thinner steel to figuring out how to mold cheap plastic into a product with less plastic faster and not make it less functional and breakable.
This includes making products that are more or less lifelong- concrete, steel, stone, glass, etc. Something that is functional twice as long uses half the production inputs but not twice the process time.
Just a bunch of far-left, anti-life, non-science HACKS !
Nobody should take any credence of anything they say, ever.
Their abolishment should be very high on the government agenda.
I thought they already had been abolished? Aren’t they just an independent group thinking they are relevant now?
You are thinking of the ” Australian Climate Commission.”
They are part of the window dressing effort of the Australian government. Scott Morrison doesn’t believe in climate change, but believes in spending taxpayers’ money liberally just as much as any politician.
The best approach would be to get all those that want to fund such a plan to sign up to donate extra tax. The more they donate, the more money could be spent.
I’ve thought that for years. If everyone who thinks it’s a problem voluntarily pays to fix it, and stops doing evil CO2 things, surely at least half of the problem would be fixed?
That’s assuming that half of people think it’s a problem, of course. If less than half think it’s a problem, then be democratic about it.
Hello Fred,
sound idea.
In the U.K. we have the Commitee for Climate Change for which a similar fate should occur but I don’t see it happening as our Conservative (In name only) government is in awe of them it seems?
“Transitioning to clean, reliable and affordable electricity”
This whole report appears to be on how to spend more money to transition AWAY from the above. I really don’t know why I bothered to read it. The only thing the report managed to do was increase my blood pressure. Why are we paying for such drivel.
Serge has it nearly right, but use their own weapon of compulsory taxation against them, tax every socialist, green voter making them put their money behind their ideologically driven financially, and engineering illiterate ideas, corral them into South Australia and let them live their dreams. The rest of the great nation could then get on to a recovery via the the capitalist free enterprise system that made Australia an envied place to live.
On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, the BBC’s environmental consultant – whatever that is, Harrabin talked about a farm where a Aneurobic Digestion system provided methane fuel for generating its required electricity. He talked of this being cheaper electricity and about their being locally a very small increase in rainfall compared to the past and stated it was due to CO2 driven Climate Change(CAGW). He then said that this data was based on a local network of measurements and that, with more stations within the network, a more accurate (meaning greater ) increase would be indicated.
His distorted logic and deductive reasoning is embarrassing and unbelievable. The man has no scientific or technological qualifications or working experience, yet the BBC continues to use him as their lead reporter on CAGW matters. The BBC’s Science Editor on Environmental matters is also equally non-qualified and inexperienced.
Just how many “once in a lifetime” opportunities do we get? About one every couple of months apparently. That’s about how long they think it takes for the general public to forget the last one they mewled on about.
Bit like being told the filling of Lake Eyre is a “once in a lifetime” event. I guess I’ve been reincarnated at least five times in as many decades.
I’m told there’s an interesting climate change article in The Navy journal this month. Any Returned Vet got a copy?
Quote:
As a celebration of the triumphant outcome of the war, Duchess Gloriana and Tully Bascomb are united in marriage.
As a sequel to the marriage, Dr. Kokintz accidentally drops the Q-Bomb onto the stone floor of the Grand Fenwick castle dungeon. As a result of this mishap, the scientific director inadvertently discovers that the Q-bomb is, and always has been, a powerless dud. The book concludes with Kokintz deciding to keep this key fact to himself.
Endquote
Patient: Doctor, what are you doing?
Doctor: Cutting your leg off to “stimulate” you.
Patient: !#%$^%&&*&(*!!!!!!!!
Doctor: See? It’s working already.
And we would have one more death doctor.
Tax dollars should only ever be spent when/where there is a NEED for an actual product/service.
Never, ever, ever, ever should tax dollars be spent to “create” jobs.
Maybe they are too busy eyeing the CCA instead of the climate advocacy army.
Australians to lose even more liberty (if there is anything left of it)
https://youtu.be/IhrqASAelHc
A view from Australia :
1 : There has been a major crisis – the Covid 19 crisis
2: This real crisis completely overshadowed the false climate ‘crisis’ that the ideologues at the ‘Climate Change Authority” have been pushing for a decade or so. And in fact we Aussies overwhelmingly ignored the poor little darlings.
3: So to reve up their image and profile, they generated this pretty ‘plan’.
4: Meanwhile we’re getting on with our lives ignoring them.
5: The Morrison government’s simply following massive public opinion.
If only the government had the numbers to abolish this leftover from the Rudd/Gillard days of yore. But sadly it doesn’t at the moment.
“The authority posted the report on its website without fanfare and it received little to no media coverage.”
Irony. The Guardian (aka – a member of the media) complaining an important report has received little to no media coverage.
Also, considering every man and their rent seeking dog has been trying to jump on the ‘report bandwagon’ is it any wonder no one really cares when a new one stating exactly the same thing comes out?
It also doesn’t say very much and some of it is circular
1.) Invest in electric cars and infrastructure.
Australia has no car manufacturers they are all imported. There is no clear market indication of
when cars will be suitable for the bulk of the Australian market as they have lack of travel range.
There is no point in investing in charge infrastructure for cars that don’t exist, how would you even
work out what voltage/connectors etc you need for yet to exist cars.
2.) Invest in renewable energy projects.
They already have a fund for that and there are large commercial players in that space getting there green brownie points. There simply are not that many projects around ready to go.
3.) Foster R&D in renewables
There is already massive grants available for ALL R&D … why should renewables get special attention they can compete on the existing grants.
The rest is all froth by some public employees justifying their jobs, so there really isn’t that much that needs to be said.