Joel, imagine that climate change isn't an issue, and we're free to continue exploiting fossil fuels.  Imagine that we continue to so do, until they start to run out.  What happens then?

Obviously, fossil fuel prices start to go up.  

Q.  How do fossil fuel consumers respond to THAT price signal?

A.  They start looking for, and using, alternatives.

Q.  Will they wait until fossil fuels are completely exhausted before they start using alternatives?

A.  No.  Various fossil fuel users will adopt alternatives, at differing times, so as to maximise the profitability of their particular business.

So you see, we don't need emission caps (Soviet-style centralised planning).  All we need is a price signal - a price signal in which all fossil fuel users are also told that fossil fuel prices will continue to be increased in an orderly manner until sufficient emission reductions are effected.

To make sure they've got the funds available to purchase the replacement low/zero equipment and technology, other taxes are cut as the fossil carbon consumption tax is increased.  

This may require more Budget Honesty than we've come to expect from our present political leaders, but that's no problem; we can get ourselves some new political leaders more easily than we can get ourselves a new planet.

As usual David Arthur did not address the thrusts of my comment, which are (1) that only he and his fellow travellers care for their kids' futures, but (2) not enough to go ahead and install solar panels without the massive subsidies that are impoverishing the rest of us.

Tim Curtin continues, against all evidence, to insist that anthropogenic fossil fuel use is not adversely affecting the climate.  

We have had a personal email exchange, in which I have explained how and why Tim's insistence is fallacious, so that his continued insistence starts to look foolhardy.

Tim also accuses me of hypocrisy, and attempts to make a case on the basis of imagined inequities following from the present hodgepodge of inducements for people to invest in photovoltaic panels.  In so doing, Tim has constructed a straw man against which to argue, and which he accuses of hypocrisy.

Were he to actually search through my comments on this, and other Climate Spectator pages, he would see that my position is somewhat different from his imaginings.

David Arthur said on Wed, 2011-09-28 17:38.

"Remember, most people WANT to change their CO2 emissions, if for no other reason than that they want to leave a reasonable world for their kids"

That is highly offensive, as I (and my children) see no need for me to reduce my carbon footprint but I am also second to none in my desire to leave a reasonable world for my kids.

"All that they need is a price signal, because without a price signal they cannot afford to make the change" - that shows their (and your?) hypocrisy, that they are only prepared to leave a reasonable world for their kids if I pay your price signal. Pay it yourself, and leave me out of it, so that I can save and invest in nest egg for my grandson!  

 "Haven't you noticed how take-up of emission-reducing purchases eg low-cost PV, or feed-in tariffs, or whatever, are consistently ahead of expectations?" Hasn't David Arthur noticed that is because of the enormous subsidies paid to Arthur & co ($0.46 per kwh against grid's retail $0.14) by dwellers in units, care centres, and renters unable to buy those ludicrously inefficient solar panels as they have no roofs they own but have faced power increases (in Canberra, and similar in SA, NSW, etc) of 55% since 2003-04 to pay for the feed-ins.  

A price-only signal will work.  

Remember, most people WANT to change their CO2 emissions, if for no other reason than that they want to leave a reasonable world for their kids.  All that they need is a price signal, because without a price signal they cannot afford to make the change.  

Haven't you noticed how take-up of emission-reducing purchases eg low-cost PV, or feed-in tariffs, or whatever, are consistently ahead of expectations?  The truth is, Abbott, Bolt and Jones are supported by a minority - a vocal minority perhaps, but a minority nonetheless.

You don't see how other countries will get on board  - remember, other countries are composed of people who also want to leave a livable world for their children.  

Where you write that the global economy should not be based on "growth", I agree - if you define growth as the sequestration and use of evermore natural resources.

Economic growth, however, can also be derived from more efficient use of resources, that is manufacture of more efficient devices, or completely new devices, or doing things in entirely novel ways.  

For this reason, the future does not lie with suppliers of dirt that other people turn into elaborate manufactures - it lies with the people who turn the dirt into the aforementioned elaborate manufactures. 

Although, obviously, the Earth was a molten ball once upon a time, I think "the hottest ever" - experienced by humans - or in recorded history - is acceptable usage.

Ian Plimer also pedantically finds much to ridicule in claims that a warmer Earth will not recover - because that means "forever". To those who work in geological time, some tens of millions of years is not "forever" at all, but once again, "until humans are long extinct" is "forever" enough by the ordinary usage of the word.  It is probably inadvisable to put a figure on it, but, to the finite minds who give words their ordinary meanings, anything beyond four hundred generations, or ten thousand years, is getting close enough to "forever" for all practical purposes.

David, I'm not convinced that only having a price signal tax and no control of the target is sufficient to ever conceive of getting back to 350ppm although I am relieved that you are at least talking the right realms of carbon reduction. At least we're on the same page on that one. I think maybe you underestimate how "life changing" it will be to return to 350ppm. The global economy will have to be different in many ways, for example not based on growth, not based on fossil fuels, not based on giving everyone a current western  standard of living, not based on consumption, far more equitable, and possibly not even based on money.

I also don't see how your proposal would encourage other countries to get on board. What's in it for them?

Bill, my point is that Chubb is representing "science" in a broad sense, that this is a transcript of an interview, that he was correct in the meaning of what he was saying, just not in his choice of evidence, which was incorrect, and that this has no parallel at all to IPCC reports.

It is unfortunate that Scientists are not perfect, and so occasionally get it wrong in the public realm, but that is why we rely on peer reviewed published scientific papers based as much as possible on empirical evidence, physics and good modelling, not on political sloganeering.

Gday Bill, the long term (decades-centuries) trend is up.

CO2 retards radiation to space of the thermal energy that earth emits, thereby balancing the short-wave radiation it gets from the sun.   

Historic fossil fuel use and cement production data (Oak Ridge National (US) Laboratory Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center) shows sufficient CO2 emission from 1800 to raise atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 430 ppm.  Dissolution of CO2 in oceans has limited atmospheric CO2 to about 390 ppm, and decreased ocean pH.  

Heat thus accumulates at the surface.  About 85% of retained heat warms oceans, accelerating ice melting (sea level rise) and water evaporation (increasing rain and storms).  

No amount of sophistry from your lot will change this.  

The challenge isn't defeating some rear-guard from some mob of commie hippie druggie atheist greenies, the challenge is to transfer our economies to a non-fossil-fuel using base.

@Joel Dodd. OK so this is a transcript of an interview and not a scientific paper. It's rather amusing similar parallels can be drawn with sections of the last UN IPCC report, i.e. "Glaciergate". So how do you feel about the irony of our chief scientist appearing before the joint select committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future legislation, if as you have pointed out, he sometimes gets it right and sometimes gets it wrong?

We have government ministers touring electorates with similar incorrect statements such as "2010 was the hottest year ever", "This was the hottest decade ever", etc. Are you not concerned when unfounded statements are presented as fact by someone in authority?

I note that whilst yourself and others are deliberating over carbon pricing mechanisms, this article relates to "The deplorable state of the climate debate", to which you seem to have responded by shrugging off that our chief scientist Prof. Ian Chubb is "right and wrong". I guess if we all had a similar forgiving, easy going attitude towards the UN IPCC's climate science compendium, there would be no need for this article.

If a carbon tax is paid in another country, then the Australian border tax adjustment could allow for it.  

Note, however, that most other countries aren't stupid enough to not "zero-rate" their exports for taxation purposes.  In that case, no alteration to Australia's border tax adjustment would be warranted. 

Regarding future commitments on emissions, when are you and the rest of the central planners out there going to get that international commitments aren't necessary or even desirable to address this problem?   That sounds too much like those eminently corruptible Five Year Plans so beloved of the Soviets.  

It's far better to just rely on a steadily increasing price mechanism to drive innovation.

All we need to do is, over the next couple of decades, price fossil fuel use out of the market by replacing other taxes with a steadily increasing FOSSIL carbon consumption tax (biofuels are not fossil derived, therefore they are not adding to the problem; they would be fossil carbon tax-exempt).

Like I say, we know what the goal needs to be: to get atmospheric CO2 back to 350 ppm (we don't need to go too much lower than that, either, lest we revert to another Ice Age).

Joel, there's no need for government to set emission limits.

The reason for this is that we know that oceans will continue to accumulate heat and hence melt polar ice until atmospheric CO2 no longer exceeds 350 ppm.  This level was exceeded around 1990.  

Therefore, what we need to do is cut CO2 emissions until atmospheric CO2 gets back down to 350 ppm.  If that means 100% cessation in fossil fuel use over the next couple of decades, then so be it.  Put simply, that's what we need to achieve.

You want slow learning polluters to "buy" abatement overseas?  Business is no place for slow learners.  Note also that my method does not preclude getting a tax deduction for making investments in carbon farming. 

There is no protectionism in my method, not when you consider that 4% of the world's fossil fuel use is maritime trade (10% of Australia's).  If it results in iron ore being converted to steel in this country before export (more than doubling the revenue coming in, and decreasing fossil emission due to shipping iron ore by over 75%), then so be it.  

My method is nowhere near the Government's method.,  Especially as my proposal leaves little opportunity for the brokers and bankers to take their cut via trading activity.  My method is therefore way superior to what the government, politically beholden to these groups, is implementing.

You are assuming that ETS will not be used by other countries. How can you put a carbon tax on imports if the importer has already paid for their carbon in their own country?

What if you're shipping coal to China?

You still haven't explained how your proposal would allow Australia to honor any future international commitments directly, with an upper limit on emissions, rather than just driving up the tax and hoping and praying.

How do you reconcile your proposal with the aviation industry lobbying for inclusion of an opt in option for emissions trading? Industry doesn't want to be taxed, they want to be able to find their own most efficient means of abatement.

Like the GST, carbon pricing should apply to imports and be refunded on exports, otherwise local production and employment is unfairly penalised. Apart from these “border tax adjustments” to protect our economy from variable international carbon prices, all of the carbon revenue belongs to the people and should be distributed equally to all residents through a Carbon Dividend (half for under 16s). This is what we mean by a Carbon Tax with 100% Dividend.

The price must be high enough to generate the massive levels of investment and rapid up-scaling of the renewable energy infrastructure industries which will be necessary to enable the old fossil fuel based electricity sector to be replaced, with greater capacity for the electrification of transport (due to increasingly expensive oil) and other greenhouse gas producing processes.

The carbon price should be announced five years ahead and ramp to $180 or $200 per tonne over the first five years. The price will change slowly thereafter, adjusted by a Carbon Authority in response to how the economy is meeting various targets - much like the RBA setting interest rates.  However, the "targets" will be milestones of the project to achieve a zero carbon economy by 2040.

It is naive to imagine "costs" might not be passed on. The solution is to distribute carbon revenue back to the owners - every individual.

The GST applies to imports and local production equally, so it is not "protectionism". Failing to applying a GST or a Carbon Price to imports, means sacrificing local production and employment.

Bill, Chubb was correct in inferring that the evidence does not support the claim of "cooling", but was incorrect in stating that the last decade was the hottest ever. It clearly wasn't the hottest ever, based on paleoclimate evidence. The last two interglacials were warmer by less than a degree. But remember this is a transcript of an interview, not a published scientific paper.

Records indicate we have had on overall warming trend over the past 330 years, since coming out of the historically well recorded Little ice age. Note also the warming trend began long before man's industrial revolution and accompanying increased use of fossil fuels. To state that the last decade at the end of this most recent overall warming trend has been the warmest we have ever had on this planet, is contrary to the recent remarks of Prof. Phil Jones, a lead UN IPCC author. Jones admitted that the Medieval Warming Period (centred around 800 years ago) may have been warmer than today. If Gillard and Chubb rely on the CSIRO and the CSIRO rely on the UN IPCC and the UNIPCC can't agree amongst themselves on the Medieval Warming Period question, isn't this a case of the blind leading the blind?

In response to Timothy Curtin and in addition to David Arthur's comment.

H2O is not uniformly dispersed through the atmosphere as CO2 is.

The ability of air to absorb water vapor is a function of both temperature and pressure.  Higher altitudes are colder, and have lower pressure, and this leads to less and less H2O.

There is only an insignificant amount of H2O in the atmosphere above 6km.  There is still a lot of atmosphere above that level.

Secondly, arid regions, such as our vast desert regions, and the antarctic, have little atmospheric H2O, so the role of CO2 is more pronounced in these regions.

The purpose of pricing carbon is to match the price of energy from fossil fuels and clean sources so that zero emissions energy sources can take over. The real price of energy is the price of clean energy. Rationing carbon dioxide emissions by charging a high carbon price enables clean energy technologies to compete in the energy market, and to begin the job of replacing our fossil fuel dependent infrastructure. How "efficient" industry and householders become over time depends on the price of energy.

A carbon price is a failure if gas is cheaper than renewables. Going to gas will mean paying twice – first to install new gas infrastructure and again to replace it with zero emissions technology – before it has paid for itself.

For reliable, demand-responsive clean energy to be more economical than energy from natural gas, the carbon price will have to be closer to $200 per tonne of carbon dioxide.  (Estimating 18 tonnes per person net, adding imports and subtracting exports.) That could mean price rises totalling $3600 per person per year, which is unaffordable for most.  Affordability objections vanish if every person recieves a personal dividend around $3600. Distributing the carbon revenue, means everyone can afford clean energy as it becomes available!  And there is no need for (expensive, unsustainable, unjust) Feed-in Tariffs because the floor price for electricty would be determined by the carbon price.

David your method still doesn't allow the government to set hard emissions limits. It would have to debate the tax increases every time AND speculate on their effectiveness. There still wouldn't be any guarantee that the costs wouldn't be passed on and there would therefore be no guarantee that the CO2 limits could be achieved. What you propose would be akin to driving a car with no brakes.  

Your method also appeas to ahve some protectionism thrown in, if I'm understanding it right, and would not allow slow learning polluters to get some of their abatemnet from overseas?

So your method is the same as the Government proposal but with no brakes and more difficult to implement.

Gday Tim, thanks for providing your paper.  Your mechanism-free application of statistics shows correlation, but does not inform causation.  To do that, you need to understand some science. 

Earth's surface is warmed by absorbtion of short wave sunlight.  Earth re-radiates to space as a 'black body' radiator with a characteristic temperature of ~255K.

All this happens above the troposphere.  Why is that important?  Because water that evaporates from the earth's surface rarely makes it out of the troposphere to the higher atmosphere, because it condenses out in the troposphere.

Stratospheric water vapour concentration is therefore quite low, IRRESPECTIVE of how much water circulates between surface and troposphere.

Stratospheric concentrations of non-condensing greenhouse gases such as CO2, however, are as high as tropospheric concentrations.

Your paper has a lot of references, which is good.  A reference which it suffers from NOT having is Lacis et al, "Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature", Science, v 330, 15 October 2010, which sets out how and why your knowledge-free analysis is inadequate.

Joel Dodd objects to my argument for a fossil carbon consumption tax, most of which I address in another comment.  Joel also asks: "Who sets the price? How do you limit emissions?"

Here's the really clever, Joel.  The fossil carbon consumption tax is introduced at a fairly low rate; it doesn't matter exactly what this initial rate is, because what we then do is increase it a bit each year and every year, until we achieve the requisite amount of emission reduction, whatever that may be.  

Note that, along with these increases, rates of other taxes are continually adjusted in order to maintain revenue-neutrality, and for money to stay in the economy for investment in low/zero equipment and technology.

Joel asks how this would limit emissions.  People and companies will have a tax incentive to invest in low/zero emission technology - electric cars, or take to using biofuels instead of fossil fuels (biofuels, being derived from non-fossil fuel sources, would be exempt from the fossil carbon consumption tax).  PV panels, wind farms, etc.

Power companies would have the same ever-increasing incentives to invest in non-fossil fuel generating capacity.

Joel adds, "All your proposed tax would do is raise prices for everybody and achieve little."

Joel, you're wrong about it achieving little: by ongoing raising of prices for fossil fuel use, it will give people and companies all the incentive they need to find alternatives to fossil fuel use - EXACTLY the same as the government's proposal, but simpler and more efficient.

In response to my argument that a revenue-neutral fossil carbon consumption tax is a much simpler mechanism for decreasing Australia's emissions without adversely affecting the trade-competitiveness of any Australian business, Joel Dodd writes" :the point of putting a  price on carbon is not to punish the polluter, it is to create an incentive to be more efficient, and to enable the government to put a limit on the country's emissions."

Exactly, Joel, the purpose of a fossil carbon consumption tax is NOT to punish anyone, but to give everyone an incentive to invest and therefore not pay as much under this tax in the future.  You're not making any point at all there.

Joel goes on to assert that: "A straight GST like tax will not achieve that."  On this point, Joel is just plain wrong.  Consider two companies - same industry, same carbon consumption tax liability, identical in every way.  In response to the fossil carbon consumption tax, Company A invests its reductions in other taxes in measures to decrease its fossil carbon use; Company B does not.

What happens next?  In future years, Company A finds that it is making larger after-tax profits than Company B, due to its decreased carbon tax expense.  What does Company A do with this greater profitability?

It decreases prices to its customers, and wins business at the expense of Company B.

In response, Company B also invests in measures to decrease its fossil fuel use, or goes out of business.

Win-win. 

Sam would you prefer the government just place a limit on total CO2 production and not put a price on it? How would that be administered and enforced? How would they deal with different sizes of polluting companies? How would they deal with constantly changing sizes of companies? How many public servants would it take to work it all out? Most importantly what about the slow learners? What if they couldn't figure out ways to reduce their carbon pollution quickly and just couldn't cope? They wouldn't have access to emissions trading to buy from other countries or from local surplus. What about all the jobs, particularly in rural areas and developing countries that can potentially be created generating carbon credits or renewable energy or energy effciency?

Carbon pollution must be turned into a commodity that can be bought and traded, and then the commodity must increase in rarity (as governments reduce their carbon pollution targets). That's the most efficient way to correct the market failure.  

Professor Ian Chubb keeps on saying we need to do "something".

He avoids and was not asked the question of, why is doing "something" that achieves nothing better than doing nothing?

If he had addressed that question he would have said the Australian Carbon tax was useless. That it had to be a Global solution and it had to involve massive reductions in Global CO2 emissions in a short period of time.

But no, as a nation we go on with the sham that a carbon tax and a "Great future" for our coal industry are compatible.

Well they are if tax revenues and not climate are the objectives.

David Arthur said: "H2O condenses and precipitates to earth" - but it then evaporates again sooner or later.

He added "Without CO2 to retain at least some energy at the earth's surface, then the surface is too cold for water to evaporate, and the atmosphere has insufficient H2O content to retain warmth. H2O thus functions as the "force magnifier" for the controlling greenhouse gas, CO2".

Actually, as my regressions of temperature change on changes in H2O and CO2 show, it is the H2O that is the controlling gas, and CO2 is at best a marginal amplifier.  Please go to my website (www.timcurtin.com) for my paper reporting those results.

bob smith,

I doubt whether many socialists looking for more reasons we should be taxed into submission will agree.

it's hilaroius what he is saying, he probably does'nt know what a sunspot is either.

Very very funny, it took me all of 30 secs to google a chart that shows the temperature for the last 4000 years, and guess what. He has no idea what he's talking about. Perhaps he needs to go back to school. Maybe the medieval warm period was just an illusion. Someone sack this idiot, and the people believing him, get an education.

http://rkmdocs.blogspot.com/2010/01/climate-science-observations-vs-models.html

Can someone please clarify WTF he is saying? I added in a few bracketed items items trying to understand what if any real facts there where to be seen.

 Again, the evidence I have seen suggests that you could not get that Arctic melt (which, disregarding any external factors has been measured and resulted in a given fact), if you did not factor in the increased emissions that have been occurring through human activity; as a consequence of which, it (Artic melt/ human activity) is at its lowest or equal-lowest level that has ever been measured. Those measurements go back some time now because of the enhanced scientific capability of measuring sediments and all the rest of it. The broad understanding is it (Artic melt/ human activity) is a direct reflection of human activity. Of course, it (Artic melt/ human activity) always happened. The point about these things is we have human activity superimposed on natural processes but it (Artic melt/ human activity) is as low or equal lowest as it has ever been. If it (Artic melt/ human activity)  is not the lowest then it is the second lowest and the lowest was three years ago. The evidence is there to be seen.

There are large numbers of scientists on both sides of the debate crying "wolf". Public knowledge and opinion depend upon our respective media choices. Hence it's no surprise our government wants to investigate the media which don't tow the UN IPCC company line. Visiting the CSIRO website we are referred to the UN IPCC on climate science. On whose behalf is Prof. Chubb speaking? According to Ban Ki-Moon our last chance to act was in the lead up to the Copenhagen conference of late 2009. I guess Chubb wants to give us a second chance to sign up to the IPCC's manufactured climate crisis. In retrospect, the Global financial crisis seemed like a perfect opportunity to shut down a considerable chunk of human economic activity, but our award winning Treasurer took the path of an economic stimulus to get the economy moving again. It is these contradictory concerns to support economic activity, whilst alleging the same activity is harming the planet, which seem disingenuous. It is also disingenuous to complain about a science debate which was never had. Our ABC doesn't even acknowledge sceptical scientists when they appear on screen. It is disingenuous to allude to the workings of science, implying your opponents don't play by the rules, when the IPCC has been caught out fiddling the books so often. It is disingenuous to cry wolf about alleged attacks on alarmist scientists, when sceptical scientists have been subjected to the equivalent of an ethnic (career) cleansing over the past two decades.

David Arthur, the point of putting a  price on carbon is not to punish the polluter, it is to create an incentive to be more efficient, and to enable the government to put a limit on the country's emissions. A straight GST like tax will not achieve that. Who sets the price? How do you limit emissions? All your proposed tax would do is raise prices for everybody and achieve little.

Bruce Smith, have a look at a recent listing of the total carbon output of the countries ranked in descending order and add up the percentages of all those that emit as much or less than Australia. You'll find the answer to why Australia must act and WILL make a difference. That's even assuming that Australia's policies don't rub off onto China, India and USA, which is debatable.

Diana Ryan, I'm not sure what you are alluding to. Do you expect all scientists that agree with AGW to don burlap sacks and live on roots and bugs? Yes the western culture must be rationalised and the economy must be transformed to one that is not dependant on growth and somehow that has to also be adopted by the developing nations or we won't be able to solve climate change or any of the other environmental and social problems of the world.

Graham Bartholomew, Chubbs credentials as a scientist exceed Lord Monckton's, however.