seven years and one day... to the day!

A couple of years ago someone told me that you just have to wait seven years and a day to see everything come back again. Of course I wrote this off at the time as just one of those things we all say, but yesterday I saw how true the statement is. Furthermore, I learned just how true the sentiment around the current Federal Government’s climate change inaction really was.

At a meeting on Friday it was suggested that we should put a submission together for the current consultation being under taken by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on Abatement Incentives prior to the Commencement of the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme. Fantastic idea I thought, and I was glad they had bought it to our attention because I had missed that this was out there.

So in my rush to get across the issues, I googled “early abatement consultation” and found a consultation paper titled “Encouraging Early Greenhouse Abatement”. Without pausing I hit the (double-sided, two-to-a-page) print button and headed to the café where I do my best thinking (with three other reports for good measure!).

After reading the report through, and I admit, thinking about how it felt like we were on a merry-go-round, I turned to the front cover to make some notes for the submission. It was at this point that I noticed the date on the consultation paper: November 2000! I couldn’t believe it. Not only had I read an entire paper that was seven years old without seeing anything that indicated it was out of date, but exactly seven years ago the same Federal Government had put out consultation papers with the same intent! If this isn’t evidence of just how long we have sat around and done nothing, then I don’t know what is.

Another manifestation of this inaction was last week on Difference of Opinion. The discussion was centered on Kyoto and what Australia needs to do to make significant cuts to its greenhouse emissions.

At the end of the discussion I asked a friend if he understood what they were talking about. I wasn’t surprised when he said that at best he understood only 40% of what they were talking about. What intrigued me, however, was his observation that the five ‘experts’ were all essentially saying the same thing with only marginal differences. Ironically, if said this to those experts, I’m sure they would all vehemently argue that it wasn’t the case.

And so we have it, less than two weeks away from the Federal election and the common man (or woman!) is saying “what’s the difference anyway?”. I am struck with two thoughts based on this
that climate change really wont make a difference at this election despite what some people say; and
That Rudd and the Labor opposition really missed the opportunity to actually make it the issue.

Two months ago I wrote an article entitled “What’s the difference anyway?” At that time I thought the key differences between the political parties on climate change was use of long-term targets. While the Coalition argued the benefit of aspirational targets to build flexibility into the system, Labor had argued the need for a 60 percent reduction by 2050 because that is what the science was telling us we needed to do.

Where I think Labor has gone wrong in this election is not stick to it guns on the target. Ask any financial analyst or trader what the absolute starting point the emissions trading system needs and they will tell you firm targets. These set the guidelines for carbon supply, and without supply, there can be no market.

So ironically as Labor has got caught up in this game of me-tooism, it has missed what people are most upset about: government inaction on this issue. Government inaction has created a situation where bureaucracies are wasting time writing the same report many times, where experts on national TV argue marginal differences about the same thing, and where a Federal Opposition – so scared that voters might actually not understand the real policy – forget about (or hide) their winning strategy to action on climate change.

And I ask… how did we get to this point?