Tag: CRA

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Australia Economics of mitigation

December 4, 1989 – first anti-climate action economic “modelling” released in Australia

On this day, December 4 in 1989, the first anti-climate action “economics modelling” in Australia came out, and was reported by the business press. Oddly, they neglected to mention that the funding for this “research” came from… a company that was digging up and selling coal.  Can only have been space constraints that stopped them mentioning it, oh yes….

Australia will have to suffer the consequences of reduced economic growth to achieve the proposed international goal of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 15 years, according to a group of leading economists.

A paper to be presented to a conference entitled Greenhouse and Energy, which starts at Macquarie University in Sydney today, states that, among other effects, the fight against the greenhouse effect will result in increased electricity bills and reduced increases in real wages.

Lawson, M. 1989. Fighting Greenhouse has an economic cost. Australian Financial Review, 4 December.  

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

Everyone was talking about emissions cuts and how much (earlier in the year the Thatcher government had shat all over the Toronto Target (see here).

Why this matters. 

The “models” do not “reflect” reality. They are just made up bullshit.

John Kenneth Galbraith said it best – “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

What happened next?

Those who want to stop climate action – because it would cut their profits and/or power, because it offends them, will always find some shonky “modellers” to give them the answers they want. Then equally shonky “journalists” will uncritically run the crap on page 1, and it will get picked up by shonky politicians… and presto, “common sense” is created.

See also – May 13, 1992 – Australian business predicts economic armageddon if any greenhouse gas cuts made

Categories
Australia Ignored Warnings Industry Associations

January 20 (1992) Gambling on climate… and losing #auspol

On this day 30 years ago…, well, let me speculate. Imagine a middle-aged Australian businessman. Let’s call him Dave (“Dave-o” to his mates). Two kids, chasing his third tawdry affair with his fourth secretary, trying to dodge a second heart attack. Doctor telling him to cut back on the booze and the smoking.

Dave is sitting at the lunchtime talk of the CEDA in Australia, and he’s listening to the keynote speaker Don Carruthers of mining giant CRA (now Rio Tinto) say that the federal Government’s stance for the Rio Earth Summit in June – lead by that silly woman minister Ros Kelly – is going to threaten the Australian economy. And Dave’s next pay rise.

Here’s what the Australian newspaper reported the following day

Stewart, C. 1992. Green policies ‘flawed’. The Australian, January 21, p.3. 

“The Federal Government’s environmental proposals for the United Nations inaugural earth summit conference in Brazil in June are seriously flawed and run counter to our own economic interests, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia heard yesterday. Mr Don Carruthers, a director and group executive of mining giant CRA Ltd, told a CEDA lunch in Melbourne that the Australian stance in the lead-up to the Rio de Janeiro conference – which will be the world’s largest environment forum – would, if adopted, pose a direct threat to the international competitiveness of our economy.”

Let’s imagine, Dave is sat there, hearing Don Carruthers fulminate, and he remembers that before coming to the event he had, uncharacteristically, idly leafed through the Canberra Times (one of the more serious newspapers in Australia).

On page three, he had seen the following. 

Anon, 1992. Greenhouse cynics gambling with future. Canberra Times, 20 January. 

“One of the CSIRO’s top scientists says doubters of the greenhouse effect are gambling with the future of the world. Dr Graeme Pearman, coordinator of the CSIRO’s climate change research program, said yesterday there was little doubt global warming was a reality according to all the best scientific models.”

I wonder how Dave reconciled these two items. Does he decide that he’s 45 or 50 in a position of authority, but not necessarily power and there’s no margin in rocking the boat? That it might not be happening, anyway. Is he gonna think about being able to retire and leave the problem  – if it exists – for his teenage children, who’ve been on the demonstrations have encouraged him to join Greenpeace and buy recycled toilet paper, to deal with?

Which way does Dave-o jump? Any given individual might jump one way or the other. They might struggle (see Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg’s book about Australian middle-managers at a later date). 

But ultimately, as a species, as a society, as a political class, we know which way Australia jumped – towards ever more fossil fuel exports, and disdaining the domestic possibilities of renewables until the late 2000s.

As a species, it turns out that we lost Pearman’s gamble. What would you say to those people, to Dave, if you could have them here now for five minutes?