Consultant Dan
11 July 2011
Day 1 media coverage of Clean Energy Future carbon price package
The most interesting commentary about the Clean Energy Future carbon price package will start today.
So far, the stories have been simple descriptions of the generalities of the scheme and attempts to predict and influence the politics. There is also a big sub-narrative about the power struggle played out in the Multi-Party Committee negotiations, between Labor PM Julia Gillard and Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown.
Most journalists speculate whether the compensation will be enough to sell the package electorally, without actually considering what this it does, in the real world.
For example Peter Hartcher in the SMH, who writes, ‘The Gillard government is taking modest steps to protect the planet from warming, but they’re nothing compared to the steps it’s taking to protect itself from political heat.’
ABC AM’s Sabra Lane pushes Treasurer Swan on the compensation package and tax reform elements. He responds strongly about the global warming imperative, ‘Look, Sabra what would I say to my children or grandchildren in 20 or 30 years time if we don’t put a price on carbon now…’
Opposition Leader Abbott is still crying liar, attacking the package and proposing his own tax cuts package. The Murdoch press are fondly repeating his meaningless quote that ‘It’s socialism masquerading as environmentalism’.
Chris Johnson in the Canberra Times gives fair credit to the Greens for ‘securing some big concessions from the Government’. She quotes Senator Christine Milne, ‘This historic agreement delivers the biggest investments in renewable energy and biodiversity Australia has ever seen…We are particularly delighted that this package is designed as a platform for stronger, more ambitious action into the future.’
Johnson says, ‘But it was also a historic day for the minor party that allows Labor to cling on to minority government and that now has the balance of power in the Senate.’
Rob Burgess at Business Spectator writes, ‘Viewed in its entirety, the Labor-Greens-independents carbon pollution reduction package is astonishing in its audacity.’
He looks at whether this ‘massive reform’ can be sold well enough to win Gillard the next election, which he thinks will requires convincing SME owners ‘some of whom might, just might, swing to Labor if they decide they like this package; and the ever-growing ranks of relatively well-off Australians putting green issues at the top of their voting intentions.’
Tom Arup writes on the renewables package and positive reaction from green groups.
Adam Morton in the Age makes clear the central difference between this package and the CPRS, ‘compared with Kevin Rudd’s abandoned emissions trading model, the new plan can more easily be boosted if global action increases.’
Morton writes, ‘It is a sign of the Greens’ impact on the scheme that there will be early reviews of compensation for export industries, and payments to coal-power plants stop after five years.'
Michelle Grattan is fairly negative about the complexity and difficulty of implementing the package and winning the media argument.
Strange Paul Kelly writes, “It is a strange Labor-Green synthesis. Its values are faith in the science, belief in carbon pricing, tax reform and huge investment in renewables.”
Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University’s Crawford School and adviser to the Garnaut Review writes a supportive opinion piece.
There is also qualified support from University of Melbourne academics, Professor Robyn Eckersley and Dr Peter Christoff.
John Birmingham blogging as The Geek for the SMH is one of the only reporters to write about renewables technology, which is disappointing since that is the most profound funding element of the package. He wants to know whether $13 billion for renewable energy is enough and concludes, ‘It could be, if the money goes to the right project, of course.’
He will make the Beyond Zero Emissions geeks happy by picking their favored base load solution, ‘Solar thermal towers and molten salt – a method for storing thermal energy during the dark hours – suggest themselves as two more obvious picks in which Australia could have a natural advantage.’
Peter Veness writes about how the independents in the Senate and House see the deal. He affirms the superiority of the CEF over the CPRS negotiated between Labor and Liberals, backed up by Tony Windsor and Rob Oakshott.
Windsor says, ‘As I have said all along, I want to be part of something that does something about climate change, not part of something that collects revenue and shuffles it around,’‘ he said. ’‘I believe that this climate change package is an affordable catalyst for this change as it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, clean up our environment and move our economy from its dependence on fossil fuels, ensuring the future of our children and their children.
The Australian completely misses the clean energy outcomes because it is a renewables skeptic these days, now that climate skepticism is outré for the national broadsheet.
Tom Dusevic writes a long piece on the politics, but because he omits to look at how Milne has outwitted the Greenhouse Mafia, by taking the renewables funding out of the hands of the Energy Minister Ferguson.
The Oz pitches its story about renewable energy sector purely in terms of “wind farm developers” and brings up wind ‘sickness’, which has become its favored green-bashing talking point.
Graham Lloyd looks at the biodiversity funding and the decision to prevent native forest wood chips being burned for ‘renewable’ energy. He quotes extensively from Wilderness Society national campaign director Lyndon Schneiders,
This is a far-reaching reform that represents a turning point. For more than 30 years, the need to change our economy to conserve the life support mechanisms of our planet through reduced emissions, has been resisted by government and industry.
This package is not perfect, but it is a start. The details of the package are less important than the message these reforms send and the direction these reforms take our economy. These reforms will change the game and have confirmed that the protection of nature makes sense both environmentally and economically."
SMH’s Phillip Coorey writes about Labor’s resentment that the Greens voted down the CPRS in 2009 and then won a central role in passing the current deal, ‘Labor is not without sin. It chose last time to negotiate with the Coalition and to marginalise the Greens as extremists. In doing so, Kevin Rudd overplayed his hand’
His point is that the Greens have stepped up to the main political stage now and lost purity, “Like Labor, the minor party could not afford to fail to reach a deal this time. It’s called compromise.”
Coorey also analyzes the tax cuts and compensation in some detail.
Peter Ker has a crazy yarn in the Age’s business section about a brown coal managing director (Ian Kraemer, Mantle Mining) who fantasises that there is a bright future for mining brown coal, drying it out so its only as polluting as black coal (with what, free emissions-free electricity from the Moon?) and exporting it to India and China.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon described the scheme as inefficient and expensive, one of those strange pieces of repositioning that independents sometimes do, in attempt to get reinvent their relevance.
Rob Burgesss can have the last word for day 1, on “the politics of climate change”
…if Labor does scrape home at the next election – remembering that Julia Gillard has two years to convince voters that all those shiny new solar-thermal plants in the desert are a good idea – a tug-o-war will begin between the Greens and Labor over how quickly we should progress towards the Greens' stated objective of “zero emissions as soon as possible.
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