Tag: Ross Garnaut

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

July 4, 2008 – Garnaut’s draft report released

Seventeen years ago, on this day, July 4th, 2008, economist Ross Garnaut’s draft report about what to do about Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions is released.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 385ppm.  As of 2025, when this post was published, it is  430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context was that Australian political elites had made various noises about putting a price on carbon dioxide (a real no-brainer, while still being a drastically inadequate response to the problem) since 1989 (you could say earlier, if you were being particularly uncharitable).  Liberal Prime Minister John Howard (1996-2007) had twice had proposals to Cabinet for an emissions trading scheme. One of his underlings had scuppered the first, in 2000, and he himself had vetoed the second in 2003.

The specific context was that in late 2006 public pressure had meant Howard needed to do a U-turn.  In 2007 new Labor leader Kevin Rudd had asked establishment economist Ross Garnaut to produce a report on carbon pricing…

What I think we can learn from this  is that elites – and perhaps especially the Australian political “elite”- have been failing for a very very long time.

What happened next

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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: 

4 July, 1957 – popular UK magazine The  Listener mentions carbon dioxide build-up

July 4, 1989 – UK Energy Committee ponders greenhouse implications – All Our Yesterdays

July 4, 1996 – article in Nature saying ‘it’s partly us’

July 4, 2004 – @WWF_Australia try to shame John Howard into #climate action…

Categories
Australia

April 30, 2007 – Rudd hires Garnaut

Seventeen years ago, on this day, April 30th, 2007, new Leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd hires an economist…

On 30 April 2007, the leader of the federal opposition Australian Labor Party, Kevin Rudd,(along with the state and territory governments) engaged world renowned economist Professor Ross Garnaut to conduct a wide ranging review into the effects of climate change on Australia and its economy (Garnaut 2008).

(Rice and Martin, 2016:48)

and

BRISBANE, April 30 AAP – The federal opposition has commissioned an economics professor to head a Stern-type review into the impact of climate change on Australia’s future.

Labor leader Kevin Rudd announced the Garnaut Climate Change Review in Brisbane today, saying it would outline the threat to the country’s economic prosperity and investigate mitigation strategies.

It will be headed by Australian National University economics Professor Ross Garnaut, who will hand down interim findings mid next year, and a completed report by October 2008.

Marszalek, J. 2007 Fed: Opposition commissions Australia’s own climate report. Australian Associated Press General News, April 30

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that new opposition leader Kevin Rudd was using climate as a stick to beat John Howard with, in much the same way that the UK Conservative leader David Cameron was using climate issue as a way to detoxify the Tory brand at more or less the same time. 

The broader context was that there had been multiple efforts to get emissions trading schemes going. Two had happened at the federal level in 200- and 2003, defeated by Tim Nick Minchin and John Howard, respectively. And also state led States led Emissions Trading had been on the agenda. So for example, especially the Victorian and New South Wales Premiers Bob Carr, leading the charge. And Garnautr who had been involved in some of that was a well respected economist who’d worked for Hawke on opening up the Australian economy, ie, reducing tariff barriers. 

What we learn is that policy might be good or bad, but it gets used as a blunt instrument in political wars to its cost. Because once it becomes part of political war, implementation is fragile and reversal is possible. That’s what happened in this case. (this is not an argument for pas devant les enfants technocracy, btw). 

What happened next Garnaut produced his final report rather in the middle of the following year, but by that time, Rudd as prime minister had set up a parallel process and Garnaut was kind of on the outer. The parallel process gave us the CPRS bless it 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: 

April 30, 1985 – New York Times reports C02 not the only greenhouse problem

April 30, 2001 – Dick Cheney predicts 1000 new power plants