Don Campbell poses nine great questions on climate change? (Letters, 28/4/11).
1. By how much will this Carbon Tax reduce the world temperatures, rising sea levels, floods, droughts and cyclones. If the answer is nil, why then do we need this tax?
Of the list you have provided, the most easily measurable thing is world temperatures, which is why the focus to date has been on world temperatures, even though increasing temperature has an impact on rising sea levels, frequency and severity of floods, droughts and cyclones — but because of the difficult of predicting them, they are harder to measure. This Carbon Tax will not reduce the world temperature. It will reduce the rate of increase in the world temperature and that is why it is necessary to take action.
2. If the cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action, just what in financial terms is the cost of both action and inaction?
The cost of action is about 0.7 per cent of GDP in the first year, which is about $8.4 billion in the first year, reducing to $1.2 billion in the second and subsequent years and actually going GDP positive in about 2060.
According to Professor Ross Garnaut, by 2100 inaction would mean a 12 per cent reduction in real wages, a 20 per cent drop in agricultural output, with the Murray Darling basin being unable to support agriculture, mining output declining by 13 per cent (coal by 23 per cent). In total, Ross Garnaut estimates that our GDP would be reduced by about 14 per cent. This is about $168 billion in today’s money and would be recurrent each and every year.
3. Both industry and unions have expressed concern about the loss of jobs and industry. Just what will be the degree of carbon leakage caused by industry moving overseas?
The realistic expectation is that over the next few years, the rest of the world will follow the lead of Europe, Japan, India and significant parts of the United States and Canada in implementing carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes. Those countries that do not implement such measures will no doubt be economically punished or politically isolated by the rest of the world. I would think most investors would consider it foolhardy to relocate a polluting industry overseas to a country which has not yet stated its climate change mitigation plans.
4. Why is it necessary to change the scare campaign from global warming to climate change?
Climate change is probably a better, more encompassing term, but feel free to continue to use “global warming”. I am more interested in your choice of words of a “scare campaign”. The closest equivalent to “scare campaign” that I can find in Wikipedia is “fear mongering” which is defined as “the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end. The feared object or subject is sometimes exaggerated, and the pattern of fear mongering is usually one of repetition”.
While you might find my responses to be “scary”, I hope that you do not find them exaggerated. They are based largely upon the work of Professor Ross Garnaut, who could hardly be described as someone who is prone to exaggeration.
Having said that, the suggestion that Australia could suffer a 20 per cent loss in primary production, with the end of agriculture in the Murray Darling basin, is a horrifying thought.
Continued in next week’s Independent…
Peter Alley
Labor Candidate for Port Macquarie (2011)
Dunbogan
