A waste of national effort

Ben Quin Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Discussion Paper 2

I would like to follow on from my earlier contribution to TT on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

I argued that the CPRS, as currently proposed, will be a waste of national effort. We need a National Environmental Framework, not simply an emissions trading framework, if we are to take sensible action against the global warming-climate change-human induced greenhouse effect hydra.

During the last two Federal election campaigns, one theme in the public psychology impressed me more than any other – the overwhelming desire for a new vision. There was an unspeakable concern that the result of our daily national effort was making the future worse, not better. This is a terrible worm to harbour. Coupled with the collapse of public confidence in our “representative democracy” it has created a fertile bed for mistrust, confusion and fear.

This is not the solid platform which Australia needs to step off confidently into one of the biggest economic and social adjustments in our history and provide a model to which the rest of the world can subscribe. But Australian’s have said loudly that we do want to step off. With a clear plan and good leadership, we are better than any other nation at this kind of team game.

If we are to focus the national effort, one of the major fault lines we must bridge first is between “believers” and “deniers” in the existence of the hydra. We should set this matter aside. Hydra or no hydra, there are clear challenges ahead for Australia. Our national effort – our vision of the future – should be towards building an harmonious and resilient society and economy, which exists in balance with our natural environment.

An emissions trading scheme by itself, no matter how it is tarted up, will not deliver this vision. We will end up in a mess of conflicting interests, nationally and internationally. Our national effort – the daily work of 20 million willing Australians will be lost, wading our way though the mess for little gain.

We should contemplate a National Environmental Framework in place of the proposed CPRS, in which both water use and greenhouse gas emissions are capped and traded within the same framework. The basic unit of trade is a nitrogen permit.

To introduce this concept, I find it useful to distinguish between two economies in operation – the Natural Economy, which is driven by photosynthesis and supports the natural world, and the Technical Economy, which is driven by technologies which enable us to extract products from the Natural Economy.

Few will argue that the Technical Economy is out of balance with the Natural Economy. We see Governments around the world moving in different ways to limit access to the Natural Economy. But there is no common economic theme. Given the perfect synthesis of the carbon, water, nitrogen and oxygen cycles in the Natural Economy, it does not seem rational that we develop (for example) emissions policy, independently of water policy, independently of land use policy in the Technical Economy.

I contend that a National Environmental Framework can provide a single, market based system to support harmonisation arrangements between the Natural Economy and the Technical Economy. It will allow us to deal with two heads of the hydra in one blow – climate change and the human induced greenhouse effect. It will also accommodate an economic response to several of Australia’s other main environmental challenges within the same framework. It will magnify, rather than dissipate, national effort. It could provide a successful global model.

I will discuss ideas for the design and implementation of the National Environmental Framework in a future article.

Ben Quin

Triabunna