Climate and energy – competing policies
There is a dangerous contradiction operating in human society – we have huge and still growing demand for energy and we are in a climate crisis that requires rapid reduction in fossil fuel energy consumption.
This contradiction is evident in the ways climate and energy policies work against each other. Our hunger for energy is so great that we are happily adding renewables to our supply and overlooking the need to phase out fossil fuels simultaneously. This fits with the wish of many for the transition to zero carbon to be painless and cost free.
We all love energy!
Cheap energy grows economies and growth creates jobs, products and services that people want and enjoy. All of these produce tax revenues that governments can spend and help them stay in power. In effect, people, governments and our economic systems are all addicted to fossil fuels and the wealth they have generated in the past.
Energy trumps Climate - and Environment and Health
The result is we have a bunch of mostly ineffectual climate policies being undermined by potent energy policies that keep our emissions rising in all but the electricity sector. Some climate policies are little more than fig leaves which distract from increasing fossil fuel use and production.
The same applies to environment and health policies – our environment can sometimes be protected from local pollutants but protecting it from global carbon pollution is more difficult and gets discounted or ignored. Recent efforts to add a ‘climate trigger’ to environment assessments under the EPBC Act have been resisted so far.
The local but deadly effects of fossil fuels on respiratory health carry very little weight against our desire for the easy mobility that cheap fossil fuels bring. The climate warming effects are becoming just as deadly as air pollution by particulates but are more easily dismissed as a global problem beyond our control.
Tapping the brake while flooring the accelerator
The result is we have climate, environment and health policies tapping the brake pedal while energy policies are pressing the accelerator, hard. The fact that carbon emissions are still growing indicates that the energy pressures are stronger. One recent estimate suggests that the emissions potential from the new Australian coal mines that are awaiting approval will be ten times greater than the emissions reductions expected from the new government’s emissions reduction policies (see graph right) .
For these and other reasons, it is almost impossible to get the foot off the energy accelerator and apply the brakes to the subsidies and other political supports for fossil fuels.
Breaking the impasse
Possibly the only chance to do so is through a climate dividends approach to pricing carbon – a predictably rising fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels with the revenue returned to citizens as a dividend or ‘climate income’. This gives a clear signal to all producers and consumers that the transition is inevitable, as well as essential. It makes it pointless to apply the accelerator and allows the brakes to do their job by eliminating subsidies. And incidentally - it is the policy that will get us closest to a painless and cost free transition.
