Tag: ABARE

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Australia Economics of mitigation

December 1, 1995 – bullshit modelling put out by Keating Government

Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, December 1st, 1995, bullshit “ABARE” climate modelling put out by Australian government, as part of its push for special treatment internationally.

1995 Release of “Global Climate Change” report by Keating Government, based on ABARE AND DFAT “modelling”.

This was hardly a surprise. At the beginning of the year a front page story on The Australian (back when it was still almost a newspaper) had said as much. From January 18, 1995.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) had happened in Berlin in March. Australia was one of the nations that, thanks to the Berlin Mandate, was expected to turn up a couple of years later, with a plan for emissions reductions. But Australia had already comprehensively failed to take any action towards its first proposed target, the Interim Planning Target of October 1990. And so it was going to need other ways of responding to the challenge, as in denying the challenge and trying to push it on to other people. ABARE had already done some idiotic plant modelling and now the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade were happy to take ABARE’s modelling and create an argument that said Australia shouldn’t have to x. In essence, this was not under that wicked, wicked man, Liberal John Howard. It was under St. Paul Keating. 

What we learn is that the Australian political elites’ mendacious and rapacious hostility towards climate ambition is essentially bi-partisan and has been going on for 30 however many years and here we are, 

What happened next? Keating lost office in March of 1996. Howard simply turbo-charged the hostility to all things environmental and especially climate. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

References

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Also on this day: 

December 1, 1976 – Met Office boss still saying carbon dioxide build-up a non-issue

December 1, 2005 – David Cameron says “low carbon living should not be a weird or worthy obligation”

December 1, 2008 – Climate Change Committee fanboys carbon capture

Categories
Australia International processes Kyoto Protocol United States of America

July 23, 1997 – US climate envoy wonders what Australian leaders are smoking…

Twenty seven years ago, on this day, July 23rd, 1997, Tim Wirth called out the Australians for being bonkers.

Asked about the economic modelling by the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) on which the Howard Government’s stance is based, he said he had not seen it.

But he was generally sceptical of industry-funded models and said the US Administration believed modelling around the world showed green-house gases could be stabilised at either no economic cost or an economic benefit – a finding strongly at odds with ABARE’s work.

“I think there are some people who plug their own assumptions into models and then they flog those models as if they are the things that are going to define and predict the future of the world,” Mr Wirth said.

“Anybody who believes that an economic model is going to be able to predict to points of percentage of increase or decrease, I’d raise an eyebrow . . . or look at what those people have been smoking, because I don’t believe there’s any way in the world you are going to get that sort of accuracy.”

The ABARE modelling draws such conclusions and was partially funded by industry. “Industry groups . . . have points of view that they are paid to advocate,” he said.

Taylor, L. 1997. US rejects Aust `differentiated’ greenhouse goal. Australian Financial Review, 24 July, p3.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that at COP1 in Berlin in 1995, the rich nations had agreed that they would come to the third meeting with plans for their own emissions reductions. That meeting was to be held in Kyoto. International capital, especially oil and gas and coal, had mobilised ferociously against the science – see the attacks on the IPCC’s. second assessment report. And there were also campaigns in the US against Kyoto, Australia’s government, under that thug John Howard, trying to carve out the sweetest deal they could. And that’s what led Clinton’s climate envoy Senator Tim Wirth to say that he wanted to know what the Australians were smoking because he felt that the claims for special treatment were unjustified and demeaning.

What we learn – you can laugh at denialists and obstructors all you like. That doesn’t make them less formidable.

What happened next well, Australia wore down the other nations, it not only got the 108% so-called “reduction” target. But it also managed to insert a so-called “land clearing” clause, which meant in effect, their emissions reduction target was 130%. So, while Tim Wirth’s jibe was a good one, The Last Laugh belongs to Howard. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

July 23, 1979 – Charney Report people meet – will conclude “yep, global warming is ‘A Thing’.”

July 23, 1987 – Calvin (and Hobbes) versus climate change!

July 23, 1998 – denialists stopping climate action. Again.

Categories
Australia

March 6, 2002 – ABARE cheerleads Bush. Blecch.

Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 6th, 2002, some Australian “economists” think George Dubya Bush is smart and competent.

Reducing greenhouse emissions to levels required in the Kyoto Protocol would lift unemployment and energy prices, according to new research by Australia’s chief rural and resources forecaster.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said the US approach to reducing world greenhouse emissions offered a more realistic chance of reducing the possibility of significant climate change.

Executive director Dr Brian Fisher said the US approach offered “a potential avenue for bringing global developing countries into the abatement effort, while still facilitating their economic growth”.

He said there was little value in Australia ratifying the United Nations treaty on reducing worldwide greenhouse emissions without the United States and developing nations.

Dr Fisher’s remarks follow the first modelling conducted by the Government’s main economic think-tank since the last meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Morocco in November which finalised most treaty rules.

“The consequences of Australia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol are a significant structural adjustment to the Australian economy with a severe regional impact on jobs and on several major industries,” Dr Fisher said.

In a paper to be presented today to ABARE’s annual Outlook conference, Dr Fisher said domestic electricity prices would rise by between 37 per cent and 50 per cent by 2010 and 2015 on current projections and Australia would incur a 1 per cent loss in gross national product by 2015.

Koutsoukis, J. 2002. ABARE backs US on emissions. The Australian Financial Review, 6 March, p.4.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374.3.ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bush had pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol process the year before. Bush was spouting all sorts of bullshit about the costs of doing anything about climate change and how wonderful CCS and hydrogen would be. And this was an opportunity for sycophants at ABARE to lend their important support. 

What I think we can learn from this is that lickspittle is a really powerful word. 

What happened next

Well Bush continued to be a douche. ABARE continued to be douchey. No social movements worthy of the name ever emerged. And the emissions kept climbing. And, you know, the rest. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day:

March 6, 1992 – #survival emissions versus outright denial 

March 6, 2009 – the UK gets its first “low carbon industrial strategy”

Categories
Australia Economics of mitigation

November 26, 1996 – Australian climate modelling is ridiculed

On this day, November 26, 1996  an Australian politician ripped into the “official” modelling on which Australian governments (BOTH LABOR AND LIBERAL) had relied to say “oh, no, can’t do anything that might reduce the acceleration of our coal mining and coal exporting, or else the sky will fall.”

Leader of the Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot stated in the Senate:

“Let us not forget who ABARE is. It is the ideological cousin of the Industry Commission and it never misses an opportunity to slip the boot into environmental or social causes, churning out statistics from its largely discredited macro-economic modelling, showing how much better off we would all be if only we mined more coal, produced more electricity and puffed more carbon dioxide every day. I am willing to bet that if ABARE existed 150 years ago, it would have produced a whopping great spreadsheet proving that the economy could not afford to ban child labour in the coal mines”

(Senate Hansard 26.11.96 p 6014).

On ABARE, see also  “High and Dry” by Guy Pearse and “Scorcher” by Clive Hamilton.

On economic forecasting – I recently learnt the brilliant John Kenneth Galbraith quote – ““The  only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable,”

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

Australian governments were looking for excuses to do nothing to slow down the acceleration of Australian coal exports. ABARE helped to provide those excuses.

Why this matters. 

The way economic modelling is used to justify all sorts of horror (usually the continued enrichment of the already filthy rich, and/or the galloping desolation of our being-murdered planet), is a) by now very obvious and b) never-ending, despite a).

What happened next?

ABARE and its “MEGABARE” nonsense was thoroughly exposed and discredited(see here). Which did nothing to stop the Howard Government from continuing to use it.

Categories
Australia Denial

August 5, 1997 – Australian politician calls for “official figures” on #climate to be suspended because they are rubbery af

On this day, August 5  1997 Australian Democrat Senator Kernot called for the Federal Government to 

“suspend use of the dubious ABARE greenhouse models until the completion of a full Ombudsman’s investigation.”

(Duncan, 1997:75)

The context is this – the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics had spent the previous seven years producing dubious “reports” based on a ludicrous economic model called MEGABARE which always magically proved that any attempt to tax carbon dioxide/coal would be cataclysmic.

The development of the MEGABARE “model” was paid for by oil, gas and coal companies. Of course it was. [See August 7th post on this site…]

And the Minister would trot these numbers out, it would get reported by journalists and become received wisdom.

AND THIS HAPPENED UNDER KEATING BEFORE IT HAPPENED UNDER HOWARD.

Sorry for shouting, but the catastrophe that has been Australian climate and energy policy has been bipartisan. Labor has a faction that doesn’t want to cook the planet, that’s all.

On this day the PPM was 362.4. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Ah, official reports, with their big sounding numbers. Gramsci. Hegemony. Weaponised Common Sense. Et cetera. Et Cetera.

What happened next?

The Ombudsman’s report (forced to happen by Australian Conservation Foundation action) came out in January 1998. You can read it here.

.ABARE’s numbers kept getting used by the Howard government. Too useful not to.

There’s great stuff about this in Clive Hamilton’s two books – “Running from the Storm” and “Scorcher” and also in Guy Pearse’s “High and Dry.”