A sure sign the Warburton Review into the Renewable Energy Target was flawed was the lavish praise in yesterday’s editorial in the Weekend Australian. It was the second of two editorials with the main one bemoaning the lack of decision making in the “national interest” which is Weekend Oz’s code for “Murdoch’s interest”. Murdoch’s interest applauds the Abbott Government for its foreign affairs stance, fiscal consolidation and market-based reforms but castigates it for the way it sells its economic messages, as well as taxing high earners, introducing a “gimicky” medical research fund and bringing back knights and dames. Rupert Murdoch remains doggedly republican.
His pride and joy The Australian is now 50 years old – a month younger than me – and we are both showing our age. I’m still in control of my faculties but I’m not so sure about the Oz / Woz. This sorry excuse for a broadsheet is becoming more unhinged, especially on climate science. The page 5 exclusive yesterday from “environment editor” Graham Lloyd talks about “Records detail heat that ‘didn’t happen”, a giveaway it is climate change Oz headline writers think “didn’t happen”. The story is muddled junk which took forever to get to its dubious point the BOM are fudging figures to over-egg increasing temperatures. Lloyd’s sole “proof” is old weather records from Bourke in northern NSW. There is also a dubious graph which show local temperatures heading downwards over 150 years. The graph ignores its own spikes in the last 20 years. The lede is buried in the last sentence from a man who rescued the old records: “At the moment they (BOM) are saying we have a warming climate but if the old figures are used we have a cooling climate”.
Lloyd didn’t interview anyone who might gainsay that remark. His only expert is another sceptic “Queensland researcher” Jennifer Marohasy who agreed temperatures were warmer earlier in the century. Lloyd doesn’t mention Marohasy’s views are not widely shared. Lloyd has form with kooky climate theories and his employers always push them prominently. Dissenters to climate science interpretation like Marohasy and Bjorn Lomborg get a good run in the op eds. Though many organisations reacted negatively to the results of the RET review, they were absent from the Weekend Oz news pages. There was not a single article on RET nor any op eds, leaving only His Master’s Voice in the editorial.
The editorial began by attacking favourite enemy Christine Milne for petulance in throwing the review in the bin before calling it a “balanced, rational assessment”. Most of what followed was a direct copy and paste from the review. As Lenore Taylor said, the RET did exactly what it was designed to do: it pushed investment from fossil fuels into renewables.
The Woz said it was too expensive and heavy subsidies were ultimately lowering productivity and national income. The key statement in the review picked up by Peter Martin was the RET was helping the “transfer of wealth among participants in the electricity market”. This line is pure Dick Warburton, who led the four-person review and a man of commerce who prefers the hands of the market to move invisibly.
Warburton was the perfect choice to lead the review to a particular outcome, a successful businessman who doesn’t think climate change is caused by humans. When appointed review chair in February, Warburton told the Australian’s Sid Maher he was not a climate sceptic. The Australian did not ask Warburton if he believes climate change is real and if so, what is causing it and what we should do about it. As Taylor said, the result of the review only made sense if the intention was to deny the problem it was trying to solve.
The Australian quotes the review’s statement the RET created jobs at the expense of other industries. It claimed removing “inefficient subsidies” would free up investment for research into more efficient renewable energy sources. But with no carbon tax or any other market mechanism to support it, it would just as likely lead to more investment in fossil fuels. The RET exceeded its 20% target, generated a large surplus of electricity and lowered prices.
The scheme would cost $22b to its end point in 2030 (less than $1.5b a year or about 15 super hornet planes) which is a small tax price to pay for a good outcome. But the review didn’t see it that way. It was “distorting investment decisions” (again, doing what it was designed to do), the low prices were “artificial” while the cost of the scheme meant added 4% to those prices, though that figure was trending to negligible. The Warburton Review said it was not generating any new wealth just transferring it to other players in the market. As Martin picked up, the big losers are the mining companies who backed Abbott’s axing of both taxes (carbon and mining).
The RET helps reduce carbon emissions by an additional 300 million tonnes to 2030, the equivalent of 100,000 cars taken off the road. But cars aren’t coming off the road, they are increasing as is the impatience of those who rely on them, paying an increased price in transport and electricity. Warburton said abatement cost was too high but that cannot be proven. The Government’s hollow sounding “direct” action has no modelling or explanation how it might achieve its (low) targets. It is also unlikely to pass an increasingly feisty Senate that Abbott has managed to alienate, despite it containing many philosophical fellow travellers.
Abbott was able to “axe the (carbon) tax” but not do much else other than clear the cupboard. He dismantled the Climate and Science ministries, gutted CSIRO and abandoned the Climate Commission. Removing the hated RET is the next step in the ideological agenda that undersells the problem of climate change and leaves Australia behind in solar, wind and geothermal research. Murdoch’s rags are only too willing to help to put the boot in. The Government continues its brutal search and destroy mission of all legislation enacted between 2008 and 2013. If this is evidence of the “adults in charge” then for god’s sake bring back the children.
Woolly Days 