by frog
No Right Turn has just posted an introduction to the alternatives to an emissions trading scheme. It quotes Truthseeker:
Legislatively mandating emissions reductions to an open and transparent regulatory schedule and NOT operating a market may actually be cheaper and ultimately more effective than an ETS.
It should be required reading for right wing parties and lobby groups who noticeably have failed to put up any alternatives to the scheme, whilst still rejecting it. They’ll be interested to note the important role the oft demonised Resource Management Act takes on as the Government is compelled to legislate for a reduction in carbon emissions rather than create a reduction through a market mechanism. For instance:
Industrial: Put climate change back in the RMA, and require new factories to meet stringent energy efficiency standards (ironically, in the case of big polluters like HolCim and Tiwai Point, they do). Require some proportion of emissions from factories to be offset by planting trees. Exactly what proportion will depend on how deep a cut we want to make; 20% seems reasonable at first.
Transport: There are three ways to reduce transport emissions: reducing usage, substituting fuels, and improving efficiency. So, fund public transport properly to get people out of cars. Ban heavy trucks, and encourage the use of rail. Impose a mandatory sustainable biofuels requirement on oil companies to spur local production from sustainable sources. And finally, impose stringent fuel efficiency standards (again, look at California) on new cars, and improve the fuel efficiency of the overall vehicle fleet by refusing to warrant cars over a certain age which fail to meet rising minimum standards. The latter should cap emissions, while the former two policies gradually reduce them.
Agriculture: Require resource consent for farming (it is after all a polluting activity). Impose intensity restrictions, limiting the number of cattle you can have per hectare (this affects nitrous oxide emissions). Require the use of nitrogen inhibitors in fertiliser.
These are only some of the solutions that No Right Turn puts up, but they give a flavour of what should be next if the Emissions Trading Scheme or an alternative is not put in place quickly. Of course, the other side of the coin is that an emissions trading scheme has to be effective otherwise we will need to do all those things anyway.
Now most Greens are not philosophically opposed to regulation if it improves our quality of life. But many of the parties currently opposing the trading scheme are philosophically opposed to regulation. Given the choice appears to be between a market mechanism and government intervention, I’m surprised those parties and lobby groups aren’t doing anything to make sure the scheme works and thus does not need to be supplemented by further regulation. The Greens have no interest in introducing a scheme that does not include our big polluters, and is unfair and lacking in urgency, but we do think that a scheme of some sort needs to be there.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Fri, July 18th, 2008
Tags: Carbon, climate change, Emissions Trading Scheme, regulation, Resource Management Act
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
All of those suggestions seem like plain common sense to me. Straightforward policy instruments that do exactly what they say they do, and target specific sources. They also have the advantage of allowing you to choose to fund or penalise the activities that affect social utility most, as opposed to the scattergun approach of an ETS.
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Rail is going to be a monopoly. Something the Greens dont like.
Surely to make sure the railway is competive and as efficient as possible, the tracks (steel road) should remain its own SOE entity (for the common good) and any operator should be able to own and run a trainset on this common asset of steel roadway?
How will you know if the rail is running efficiently and as carbon emmision low as possible, when it is set up to be a monopoly?
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But many of the parties currently opposing the trading scheme are philosophically opposed to regulation.
But even more philosophically opposed to effective environmental protection,and wishing the whole issue would just go away. Again, its enough to make you wish the EU imposes a border tax, just to show them that it won’t.
I should also make clear that I favour an ETS, at least on things like energy and industrial emissions, because it implements the “polluter pays” principle and uses the market to find solutions regulators may not have thought of. But what’s most important is reducing emissions – and I’d rather have an imperfect scheme tomorrow than a perfect one which never bloody happens.
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George:
In politics, “commonsense solutions” usually aren’t, sadly. Ideology gets in the way. If only we taught civics, people might know that already.
Gerrit:
I think we’re a lot more hostile to corporate monopolies than state ones, generally, but it probably makes sense to keep the track and the trains separate in my opinion.
Well, as it’s under government ownership, we could always mandate it to measure or approximate its own emissions. We’re already implementing wider electrification, so we can push that more to future-proof our public transport against peak oil while simultaneously allowing any sufficient renewable power to be used to lower our carbon emissions.
Of course, that would require some environmental punch in the next government.
I’d favour a slowlyt escalating carbon tax, personally- doesn’t need the trading framework, and allows you to either lower personal taxes or increase social spending as a result.
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George:
In politics, “commonsense solutions” usually aren’t, sadly. Ideology gets in the way. If only we taught civics, people might know that already.
Gerrit:
I think we’re a lot more hostile to corporate monopolies than state ones, generally, but it probably makes sense to keep the track and the trains separate in my opinion.
Well, as it’s under government ownership, we could always mandate it to measure or approximate its own emissions. We’re already implementing wider electrification, so we can push that more to future-proof our public transport against peak oil while simultaneously allowing any sufficient renewable power to be used to lower our carbon emissions.
Of course, that would require some environmental punch in the next government.
I/S:
I’d favour a slowly escalating carbon tax, personally- doesn’t need the trading framework, and allows you to either lower personal taxes or increase social spending as a result.
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Whoops, excuse my double-post. Apparently I’m sleepy and accidentally pressed the button before I was ready.
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I’d favour a slowlyt escalating carbon tax, personally- doesn’t need the trading framework, and allows you to either lower personal taxes or increase social spending as a result.
That makes prices subject to political lobbying all the time, rather than just once. As for revenue, a decent ETS would auction permits rather than give them away free to polluters.
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If you make this required reading for right wing parties and lobby groups you will only confirm their belief that greens are dangerous loonies.
“fund public transport properly to get people out of cars.” They tried it in Europe and it didn’t work. They tried it in San Francisco and it didn’t work. They tried it in New York and it didn’t work. They tried it in Manhattan and it did work, but only because they put all the workers in buildings with elevators
“Ban heavy trucks, and encourage the use of rail.” Maybe if you only banned trucks that compete with rail then you might reduce freight fuel consumption by 20%. But all trucks over 3.5 tonnes? Ya gotta be kidding. Ok, so I’m guessing no right turn didn’t actually mean trucks that you need a heavy vehicle licence to drive. Just the heavy truck/trailer units, the ones that carry 20 tonnes of freight using half the fuel a ten tonne truck would need to do the the same job.
http://www.railcan.ca/documents/publications/131/TrendsInFreightEnergyUse_en.pdf
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“Ban heavy trucks, and encourage the use of rail.?
I commented on the fact that the restriction to allow unlimited road transport was only lifted back in the 1980.
If we read between the lines the Greens want a state owned rail monopoly and a return to travel restrictions for freight.
Is that policy?
Wonder how long before bus operators and airlines have travel restrictions placed upon them. After all, moving people is not much different than freight.
Ari,
I dont share your faith the a “state” owned enterprise will be a better corporate citizen then a private owned one.
Any examples of a state owned monopoly being better for the people and the environment than a privately owned duopoly?
With private enterprise any competitor can start up in opposition (independent owned shops versus supermarkets) to the incumbents.
In a state owned monopoly one cant.
Oh sure, every three years you get to vote for agovernment who may or may not change the minister or the laws pertaining to the state monopoly.
I guess the closest state monopoly one could think of would be ACC. Not a roaring success that one (especially for the self employed).
Is the state owned monopoly of transpower a great success?
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Gerrit Says:
July 19th, 2008 at 4:54 am
> If we read between the lines the Greens want a state owned rail monopoly and a return to travel restrictions for freight.
> Is that policy?
no, the document Frog posted an excerpt of is not Green policy, it is from some other group, called ‘No Right Turn”, apparently. I don’t think the Green party would make the mistake of saying that banning heavy trucks would reduce emissions, for instance.
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An ETS is very much a product of the corporatist, monetarist, neo-liberal economic dogma that now runs most of the world economy. It is a way to reduce carbon emissions, possibly, though it has been noticeably ineffective so far, whilst at the same time allowing yet another, huge, trillion dollar “market” to open up where speculators and money men can make more huge profits. Wiki states that with the creation of a market for mandatory trading of carbon dioxide emissions within the Kyoto Protocol, the London financial marketplace has established itself as the center of the carbon finance market, and is expected to have grown into a market valued at $60 billion in 2007- the voluntary offset market, by comparison, is projected to grow to about $4bn by 2010. The major problem with an ETS is that whilst it does represent a charge to polluters, the real money that this charge represents does not come back to the government or society to control, where this money could be used to improve public transport or renew the railways, or invest in energy efficiency, or wind power or solar power or research or whatever. The decisions as to what offsets are used are again taken out of sovereign power’s hands, as monetarism always tries to achieve, and will be severely distorted for quick gains rather than truly sustainable activities. An ETS is basically another con, using an unworkable and entirely artificial market mechanism to deliver a particular result which remains entirely unprovable. We know quite a bit about this sort of thing in New Zealand with our electricity reforms.
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jockmoron. Thanks for reminding us of the major benefit of the ETS. Actually, the only benefit of the ETS. The major problem with this ETS is that it presents a miniscule charge to a minority of polluters, in the distant future.
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agreed, Jockmoron. I would rather see a carbon tax than an ETS or the legislated reductions suggested in the piece Frog forwarded.
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jockmoron. Sorry, that reads real badly. Hope this version makes proper sense:
The major problem with this ETS is that it presents a miniscule charge to polluters and only a minority have to start paying straight away.
Did someone actually sit down and make a list of the worst aspects of the free market and of central planning and then wrote the ETS around that list?
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Kevyn,
Almost certainly that’s what they did. The “market” is today’s religion and not to believe that the market is the only truth in our world is to be guilty of heresy. We might not be burned at the stake, but it looks like we’ll all burn together, believers and heretics alike.
Jock Moron.
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Jock,
Totally agree that this new market will only line the pockets of the Al Gores.
Notice in this new market there is no independent auditor to verify the carbon credits are related to actual carbon sinks? In fact Al Gores company not only sells carbon credits, it actually creates them. All without auditors.
Next time a proponent for the ETS says it will reduce carbon emmisions, ask them who the auditors are.
100% of the time (well 99.999%) you will get a blank stare.
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Jock, totally agree with you last comment. None of the free market zealots seem to have even a passing familiarity with the Theory of the Perfect Free Market and it’s three pre-conditions: perfect information, perfect competition and perfect rational decision makers. Because none of those are perfect in the real world the free market will never work perfectly.
On the flipside advocates of stateism and communism/socialism ignore the fact that the first and last of those conditions apply to their ideologies too. Of course where they differ from the free-marketeers (motto: all for one, all for one) is the second precondition. Statism requires perfect co-ordination and that doesn’t happen because of competition amongst departments for a share of finite resources. Communism/socialism require perfect co-operation which doesn’t happen because none of us are that perfect and, again, competion for finite resources gets in the way.
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