Five things we learned about … the Far Right and renewables

camel
One hump, or two?

Conservatives fear renewables are a tool of the Left

Prime Minister Tony Abbott doesn’t like wind turbines, and neither does Treasurer Joe Hockey, but it seems like their antipathy towards green energy runs deeper than anyone had suspected – it must be a tool of the Left, and so must be eradicated. It’s hard to find any justification, other than ideology, for the latest broken promises from the Abbott government, the proposed repeal of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, and the disappearance of the million solar roofs program.

The decision to close ARENA – which means an end to new funding for Australia’s world leading solar research, future support for home-grown technologies in wave energy, battery storage, concentrated solar power and geothermal production – adds to a litany of actions that Abbott has taken since his election victory. The carbon price is going, the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation is going, the renewable energy target is certain to be either removed or diluted, and now ARENA and a host of energy efficiency and other schemes have been dumped. Indeed, anything that might provide a market signal that we should be making a transformation towards a clean energy economy.

Why Coalition MPs find the thought of melting glaciers amusing

There are two explanations for this – either, in the words of Climate Change Authority chairman Bernie Fraser, it is the result of the government’s “sickening and disappointing” pandering to vested interests, or it is merely continuing the Abbott “climate change is crap” ideological mantra. If you don’t have to address climate issues, then you don’t need to clean up the power supply. Or perhaps it is the result of both.

Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald appeared to speak for the majority of the Coalition MPs and ministers when he took another dig at the climate science in the Senate this week, insisting that the climate is changing, but only “as it has done for literally millions of years”. He noted that one of the reasons the south of Australia is becoming drier is apparently because of “the record amount of sea ice” in Antarctica, which he read about in that august scientific journal, The Australian newspaper.

“That always makes me smile when people talk about global warming,” Macdonald told the Senate. Less amusing, perhaps, were the scientific reports released that same day which showed that the melting of the West Atlantic Ice Cap is now considered irreversible and unstoppable, and could lead to massive rises in sea levels. Probably, however, beyond the Senator’s current parliamentary term, which is about as far as this government is willing to look.

Boganaire, unbowed by “green terrorists”, buys back into coal

That same disregard for climate policy appears to be driving not just conservative policies, but Australian coal barons – both major and minor. One of the lesser barons, Nathan Tinkler, the Newcastle “Boganaire” – as Paddy Manning’s book described him – has dusted himself off from the collapse of his first coal empire and re-entered the market with the proposed $150 million of a thermal coal mine in Queensland – vowing not to be derailed by “terrorist acts by green parties”, or even environmental considerations. He was sure, Tinkler told The Australian, that Australian coal was of such high quality that digging up hundreds of millions of tonnes of it would help the world reduce emissions.

Tinkler may be disappointed to find that it is not green terrorists and “extremists” that threaten coal projects the most, so much as the  world’s financial markets and a long term structural decline in the coal industry. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis this week noted that thermal coal prices are at a record low. Tinkler thinks that is a great time to buy, unless of course you recognise – as Citigroup suggested this week – that a combination of regulatory and technology changes will force an unstoppable transformation in energy markets. Good luck with the financing.

Conservatives continue grants to “clean” brown coal projects

Despite the death of ARENA and other incentives for renewable, one fund the federal government is continuing to support is the $90 million Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program which it shares with Victoria. The desire to export vast quantities of lignite goes against history, the financial risks identified by the Citigroup reports, and warnings from the International Energy Agency, which this week reminded everyone that coal fired generation must be phased out quickly, and gas-fired generation too from 2025, if the world is to meet climate goals. Standard & Poor’s also issued a new report highlighting increasing “sovereign risk” from climate change.

But, unbowed by what official news outlet The Australian blithely dismissed as “green alarm”, and unabashed by the aforementioned dumping of support for renewables, and its vow to remove “corporate welfare”, the Federal and conservative Victorian governments have decided to chuck $50 million into projects to turn brown coal into diesel and synthetic oils, and to try and create “vast scales” exports of a “higher grade” coal. The Victorian brown coal reserves were of national significance, said Industry minister Ian “we must extract every molecule of gas” Macfarlane.

One hump, or two?
One hump, or two?

What do camels and wind farms have in common?

One of the controversial appointments to Tony Abbott’s panel reviewing the renewable energy target (headed by climate change skeptic and pro-nuclear warhorse Dick Warburton) was Brian Fisher, a noted opponent of climate policies while at ABARE and a fossil fuel lobbyist since, who has been taking a very active role in the meetings with industry representatives.

We were quite surprised to learn that Fisher’s company BAEconomics also sponsors a web-site called Adopt a Mongolian Camel, which encourages donors to offer $700 for a camel in inner Mongolia – apparently that’s the market price, although it seems a lot. Donors are afforded the right to visit the camel whenever they please, as long as it is at their own expense and it’s OK with the herder, who you will likely find in Gobi Desert.

We found this explanation about the economic rationale for the camel adoption program to be particularly fascinating.

“Growth of an economy results in economic transformation that inevitably leads to structural adjustment pressure. Such pressures can be alleviated by appropriate economic macroeconomic policy but industry specific measures may also be useful in facilitating adjustment.”

Renewable types thought that this might suggest Fisher is softening his noted strong objection to market intervention and attempts to remedy market failure. They suggested hopefully that what’s good for the camel market, is probably good for the Australian renewable energy market too. But we’re not so sure. Fisher might be thinking that “Adopt an Australian Windmill” – preferably located in the Gobi Desert with the camels – might be the only intervention that the renewables market needs.

 

 

 

Comments

20 responses to “Five things we learned about … the Far Right and renewables”

  1. Alen Avatar
    Alen

    Maybe the Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program can also investigating how to convert lignite into cheap camel feed?
    The ignorance are priorities of these people is so wrong it’s just astounding.

    1. wideEyedPupil Avatar
      wideEyedPupil

      Yes it’s like you might read in some historical account of Dutch tulip enterprises or the upper classes getting caught up in gambling crazy and losing titles and fortunes. Breeding and money no marker for intellect and good instincts.

    2. Miles Harding Avatar
      Miles Harding

      Sadly, ignorance plays no part in LNP policy.

      It is inconceivable that the Phony Tony, Smokin’ Joe Hockey and Chris Paine don’t know exactly what the science means and what the future will bring. Their stance can only be one of profound dishonesty.

      We are faced with a task, not of educating the ignorant, but of exposing and discrediting cheats and liars.

  2. Zvyozdochka Avatar
    Zvyozdochka

    Respectfully Giles, is there much point in continuing to call them skeptics?

    1. wideEyedPupil Avatar
      wideEyedPupil

      Contrarians is the polite word. Denier less friendly.

      1. david_fta Avatar
        david_fta

        I prefer “Denialist” because of the implication of it being a profession (possibly in association with a think-tank), as opposed to an ideological stance that has anything to do with WW2.

    2. Giles Avatar

      Are you against the use of adjectives, or just this adjective in particular?

      1. Zvyozdochka Avatar
        Zvyozdochka

        Mostly because I hear them asking not to be called deniers and that they claim the more reasonable ‘skeptic’ for themselves. It’s beyond any meaning of the word.

    3. Alen Avatar
      Alen

      I would have to agree. skeptic would imply you have a ‘valid source’ of knowledge backing your opposing theory, and that you are open to idea of being proven wrong. Their opposition however is not based on any opposing facts to the theory, but rather the only thing that still has them unconvinced is their stubborness to listen to evidence, be that for financial or other reasons but the result is the same no matter.

  3. Chris Fraser Avatar
    Chris Fraser

    Ssh … dont let on to Mr Tinkler. It’s a pity what he considers worth investment but as long as my super is not with him it’s more ok.

  4. Peter Dufferin Avatar
    Peter Dufferin

    My greatest wish for these people is that they will live long enough to face prosecution for crimes against humanity (and the planet)

  5. John Silvester Avatar
    John Silvester

    If rooftop solar continues grow as some predict, we can look forward to a sun tax based on PV System size as is happening in at least one US state.

  6. Alen Avatar
    Alen

    That would be a disastrous proposal, both politically and for utilities as there would be big shift to off grid installations. Just a matter of time (hopefully very short) before battery price drop to an affordable level, and it’ll only take a little pushing by utilities then to have a large shift.

  7. RobS Avatar
    RobS

    I welcome people with such ideologies being successful in making large investments in the next three years, this insanity in energy policy (and social policy) will be short lived and with large investments then rendered worthless I believe such investments now will hasten the demise of coal barons and other such short sighted investors.

  8. Captivation Avatar
    Captivation

    This El Nino is going to be really interesting.
    How will Deniers respond?

    1. Alen Avatar
      Alen

      They’ll make all sorts of stupid excuses, but it’ll be the
      farmers that pay most for their ignorance. This last drought in east Australia was
      during a non-Elnino/nina period, and farmers are already saying it was one of
      the worst they can remember. With the super El nino predicted this year it
      really is a bleak outlook for them in the short-term. Long-term modelling
      evidence suggests a doubling in occurrences of these in response to GW (2014
      study “Increasing frequency of
      extreme El Nino events due to greenhouse warming.”), so a bleak outlook for the
      future too.

      Wonder if the Lignite
      Demonstration Program can investigate this problem too?

  9. Alan Baird Avatar
    Alan Baird

    I look forward (as El Nino will tighten its grip) to the first invitation to a prayer for rain from Tony Abbott, much as his mentor, John Howard did in the last drought. I eagerly anticipate the conservative climbdown as the next ENSO kicks in and ever more nasty climate envelops the “lucky” country. No doubt they’ll just keep repeating the mantra, “It’s just the weather”. And remember, when those temperatures climb onwards and upwards, it’s been brought to you by “Tony’s crap”. Enjoy.

  10. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    Puzzled by where the LNP are coming from? Wondering what they’re going to do next? Remind yourself with their policy manifesto:
    http://ipa.org.au/publications/2080/be-like-gough-75-radical-ideas-to-transform-australia

    Skip to the end of the document to see the list of policy measures and contrast these with what was in last week’s budget.

    Read about the gala dinner policy launch in April last year:
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/04/05/abbott-bolt-rinehart-fawn-in-the-ipa-court-of-king-murdoch/

    The LNP were so busy attacking Gillard, they didn’t have time to develop their own policies. So, like good neo-liberals, they outsourced the job to the ultra right-wing think tank, the Institute Public Affairs, which in turn borrowed them from the Tea Party. No mistaking the pedigree of these policies.

    Our government have implemented, or are working on, perhaps half of the 75 policy items on this list. Unless there is a palace coup they’ll finish them in their final two years in office.

    1. Chris M Avatar
      Chris M

      Hmm, not it’s half. But no 42, a different tax zone for northern Aust was the previous PM’s idea.
      Now I’m off to find an economist re explaining that economic rationale 🙂

  11. Dark green Avatar
    Dark green

    Thanks GP, it is definately useful to summarise multiple indicators on the denialists. No-one should be under any misapprehension about the incoherence and amorality of these people. Only question now is whether they are allowed to get away with it.

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