Queenslanders do it their way!

It seems that there are some Queenslanders who reflect a deep north political culture. Barnacle (sic) Joyce now aspires to be the Member for New England whilst occupying a Queensland Senate seat. This follows in the footsteps of Campbell Newman who is the defacto Leader of the State Opposition. The Liberal National Party has certainly spawned a new wave of non-political thinking and action into our national politic. It makes Belke Peterson's 'Joh for PM' campaign look  pale in comparison. It suggests it unlikely that an amalgamation of Liberal and National parties  will ever get off the ground in other states...they surely have more small 'l' liberals!  And whilst they stay as a coalition they can escape scrutiny of the political naivety or is it skulduggery in their ranks! 

Abbott shoots down talk of Joyce as deputy 

ABC Newsonline

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has dismissed suggestions Barnaby Joyce could become his deputy if the Nationals Senator wins a Lower House seat in New South Wales. Senator Joyce says he has been approached by colleagues to challenge independent MP Tony Windsor for the northern NSW seat of New England and that he has Mr Abbott's support. This has raised speculation of an attempt to depose Nationals leader Warren Truss should he win a Lower House seat, a move Senator Joyce denies. He has, however, said he would be interested in taking on the leadership in the future.

 

Barnacle (sic) Joyce delivers big time!

On Sunday mornings I watch the Insiders on the ABC between following the form of the red and black in the Sunday papers. The Insiders is not always enlightening but always revealing.

Now that Andrew Blot (sic) has gone to Channel 10 to spruik his twisted views we are left with some con(servatives) journos to make the case for the right! This morning there was no need to balance the program as  Barry Cassidy 'interviewed'  Barnacle (sic) Joyce. Joyce set sail with his hypebole and confused language as he lambasted a carbon price and in spitting fashion delivered a barage of illogical views that left even Cassidy fluxomed; argued that former Lord Mayor Campbell Newman's elevation to Queensland Leader of the LNP Opposition despite not being in Parliament as being OK because it would be tested at the election in in 2012; stated that 'call me old fashion but a I could not shoot a female soldier', and was concerned that the move to limit the play on pokies was anti-business. It was Joyce on fire! It's worth a read.....

Opportunities & Challenges As Europe Sets New Emission Goals

Anna Young in EBN writes -

 "The European Commission wants to build a "low-carbon society" and by 2050 hopes cut domestic emissions by up to 95 percent. To achieve this admirable but obviously difficult goal, the EC has issued marching orders to all segments of the society -- individuals, businesses, local governments, and other organizations -- to implement policies that restrict the use of high-carbon items and encourage the adoption of low-carbon emission products.

If you manufacture or sell products to the EU region, your company will be affected by this new policy, which offers both profitable sales opportunities as well as enormous compliance challenges. The EU's "transition to a low-carbon society" could boost sales for manufacturers of electric and hybrid vehicles but crimp revenue for companies involved in oil exploration, production, and distribution.
The EU's policy is spelled out in "Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy in 2050," which "shows how the sectors responsible for Europe's emissions -- power generation, industry, transport, buildings and construction, as well as agriculture -- can make the transition to a low-carbon economy over the coming decades."

The EU makes the case as follows:

The key driver for this transition will be energy efficiency. By 2050, the energy sector, households and business could reduce their energy consumption by around 30 percent compared to 2005, while enjoying more and better energy services at the same time. More locally produced energy would be used, mostly from renewable sources. As a result, the EU would be less dependent on expensive imports of oil and gas from outside the EU and our economies would be less vulnerable to increasing oil prices. On average, the EU could save 175 billion to 320 billion Euros annually on fuel costs over the next forty years. The transition to clean technologies and electric cars will drastically reduce air pollution in European cities. Fewer people would suffer from asthma and other respiratory diseases; considerably less money would need to be spent on health care and on equipment to control air pollution. By 2050, the EU could save up to 88 billion [Euros] a year.

Do they really not get it?

Opposition 'missing the point' on carbon compo
ABC News

"The Federal Opposition is "missing the point" about a carbon tax compensation package, the Climate Institute said. Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey claims the multi-billion-dollar scheme announced by Climate Change Minister Greg Combet today will not change consumer behaviour.

Mr Combet says more than half the money raised from the tax will go to household compensation and claims the package will leave millions of households better off. "Our commitment is that more than half the revenue will be used for household assistance, and that holds for the first year and over a period of years," he said. But Mr Hockey questioned why the tax was being introduced if households were not forced to change their behaviour, saying the tax and the compensation scheme would just redistribute wealth. "If a lot of people are better off, what's the purpose of the tax?" he said. Climate Institute chief executive John Connor says the Opposition is "missing the point" of the scheme, which was about making large carbon-emitting industries take responsibility for their pollution".

Comment: Joe does find things difficult to comprehend no doubt but his analysis of the compensation package and its impact on households purchasing power beggars belief.  Having being rolled by Abbot (and Turnbull in terms of numbers) he switches between toeing the Abbot line and pulling his baton out of the proverbial knapsack with a wavering shot at 'leadership'. He is soon brought back into line to become Abbot's man. Big men don't always act like they are!

How do we convince the skeptics?

'The Gympie Times' is your not average local newspaper informing its readers of the flooding probability in its municipality under the heading 'Coast's climate change future'. But despite the article reader's responded to the question 'Do you believe the flooding predictions? with 63% no; 23% yes and 10% not sure! It challenges our approach to informing people of what the future holds. If you don't like the message you simply don't agree with it!

'Inskip Point and its campgrounds will be mostly under water at some high tides and will probably disappear into the ocean because of storm erosion and channel migration, according to Queensland government forecasts of climate change effects on the Cooloola shoreline. The government’s strongly favoured but locally controversial Fraser Coast marina plan will also be in trouble, with its entire Norman Point location under more than a metre of water. The same fate is predicted for the Tin Can Bay Esplanade and most of the town’s foreshore on both the Tin Can Inlet and Snapper Creek sides of its peninsula. The Rainbow Shores Stage II project will find itself on a much narrower and more vulnerable Inskip Peninsula, with much of its western side turned to tidal swamp. Islands in the Tin Can Inlet are mostly predicted to disappear or to remain only as tidal sandbanks'.

Methinks they protest too much!

Combet reassures business ahead of meeting

AAP


"Climate Change Minister Greg Combet says the government is making a genuine effort to consult business over the carbon price, but he expects "argy bargy" until the final details are settled. Corporate leaders have been publicly critical of the business round table - due to meet again on Friday - set up by Mr Combet to consult over the government's planned emissions trading scheme (ETS).
BlueScope Steel chairman Graham Kraehe has described it as a "sham".
  And Minerals Council of Australia chief Mitch Hooke said this week he feared industry compensation would be based on the previously dumped Rudd government ETS. Mr Combet said the government was committed to holding "detailed talks" with industry over the scheme. "We are making a genuine effort to consult with business," he told Sky News on Thursday".

It seems to me that Kraehe and Hooke have their jobs on the line for not preparing for the inevitable carbon price. I can see the Board and shareholders meetings being told we did everything we could to stop the carbon price. What they should be telling their Board and shareholders is we never had a Plan B!

Grattan Institute serves it up!

or.....

 Learning the hard way: Australia's policies to reduce emissions
- A Grattan Report

Because Australian governments have introduced more than 300 programs to tackle climate change since Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, we can assess the evidence of what works and what does not in reducing carbon emissions. The evidence shows that what reduces emissions most effectively and cheaply is the creation of a market.

In this report, Grattan Institute analyses these 300 programs and finds that three market-based schemes have produced 40 per cent of Australia’s emissions reductions since 1997 (excluding once-off land clearing). This is easily the largest reduction in emissions induced by any mechanism government has tried.

By contrast, $7 billion worth of grant-tendering schemes – upfront grants to companies for proposals to reduce emissions – have done very little to reduce greenhouse pollution. Governments have also spent $5 billion on rebate programs to encourage the purchase of low-emission products. Again, the impact on emissions has been minimal.

Read on....

Debit where debit is due!

Carbon emissions 'unrelated to city density.

"When analysing the carbon footprint of a city, most research studies look at the emissions generated by the inhabitants of that city. Typically they come to the conclusion that denser cities produce less carbon emissions on a per capita basis. But Jukka Heinonen and his colleague Seppo Junnila from Aalto University, Finland, have a different way of examining this issue. They believe that emissions should not be allocated to where they are produced, but to where they are consumed. "For example, if a television is made in a big factory in the countryside, but bought by someone living in a city, the carbon emission generated from the production of that television should be allocated to the consumer, not the factory," Heinonen told environmentalresearchweb. 

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/45604

I first heard a similar accounting approach at COP15 in Copenhagen where it was proposed that GHG emissions be sourced at the point of consumption. It makes sense given we in the so called developed world make demands on the developing world to produce. It would lead surely to distributed systems and measuring consumption kilometers.

But do they need to look like this?!

Energy efficient buildings are vital to sustainability guardian.co.uk

• By 2050 Earth's population will have grown by 3 billion
• Now is the time to build energy efficient buildings

With the global population set to grow by 3 billion by 2050, now is the time to invest in energy efficient buildings. Photograph: Alamy

In the coming decades, our planet will be a very different place. By 2050, there will be an additional 3 billion people on Earth and 70% of the world's population will be living in cities. While many things about the future remain unclear, one thing is certain: more people in urban areas means an increased demand for new buildings. And unless we change the incredibly inefficient nature of today's buildings, it means an unprecedented increase in energy use. It's a ticking time bomb. The fact is we can no longer ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room – our inefficient buildings consume 40% of the world's energy and are responsible for nearly the same amount of emitted carbon – more than in the transportation or industrial sectors.

Product differentiation or a coalition coming on?

The Age

Bob Brown has vowed to raise personally with Julia Gillard her swingeing attack on the Greens, when she alleged they did not share the values of ''everyday Australians''. The Greens leader lashed out at Ms Gillard yesterday, saying her comments were ''an unfortunate and unwarranted and gratuitous insult''.
''It's not becoming of a prime minister to be talking in those ways about millions of other Australians … for some reason, the Prime Minister has turned her fire on the very people who have supported her in government,'' he said.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/brown-to-take-gillard-to-task-over-values-attack-20110401-1crpk.htm

It would certainly appear that PM Gillard has taken on with increasing gusto the need to differentiate the Labor Minority Government from the Greens Party despite their role in providing the numbers in the House of Representatives to enable Labor to govern. The Greens Party will soon have the numbers in the Senate to make or break legislation and given that the Opposition opposes at all cost it is likely that the Greens will increasingly be seen as in 'coalition' with Labor. This will have its downside for both parties as they seek to differentiate their policies especially in a polarised political world. Labor can no longer count on the Greens providing preference votes that matter and the Greens can no longer expect disaffected Labor voters to support them. The NSW election proved that Labor supporters can vote Liberal. Given Labor's difficulty in retaining its traditional base of support the Greens may offer the only way for Labor to retain and gain government in the future....a coalition maybe in the offing!