Smoke and mirrors on carbon cash!

Today's lead story in The Age newspaper was headlined - 'Climate cash up in smoke'. It was a rather damning report compiled by Mark Davis and Leonore Taylor exposing the cost of carbon emission reductions  across a range of Howard, Rudd and Gillard climate change carbon reduction programs. The costs according to The Age reckoning ranged from 50 cents per tonne for Incandescent Light Bulb Phase Out to $335 per tonne for the National Schools Porgram. The Cities for Climate Protection Program came out at $10 a tonne noting that CCP cost $230m to deliver! So why are Wayne Wescott and I a not living the high life? The simple answer is that ICLEI received $12m of those funds and the remainder going apparently to councils, internal departmental programming and reviews and evaluations. The letter penned to The Age today was as follows:

Dear Editor,

There was certainly no smoke and no mirrors when it came to the highly successful and reputed Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program (‘Climate cash up in smoke’ The Age 15 February). CCP was an initiative of the internationally renowned ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in the 1990s and was a worldwide program to secure the support and actions of cities and local governments.

In Australia the program started in 1997 and over a decade attracted the participation of 240 metropolitan and rural councils across the width and breadth of Australia covering over 85% of the population. CCP councils generated GHG reductions, financial savings and investments in low carbon programs and projects. The direct investment by the Federal Government in the CCP program was around $12m and not the $203m reported in The Age.

The difference can only be assumed to cover the Federal bureaucracy, funding of specific programs and projects sought by CCP councils and the cost no doubt of the reviews and evaluations of the program, each one indicating value for GHG reductions (18 m tonnes) and value for money through council investments in staff, programs and major projects.

The last (Wilkins 2008) review saw the demise of the program under the Rudd Labor Government that had became solely focused on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is ironic to many that the Howard Government supported such a voluntary and action-based initiative under successive Ministers starting with Robert Hill and concluding with Malcolm Turnbull.

Such have been the twists and turns of successive Federal Governments and their leaders that the CCP approach to building political and community support for addressing the causes of climate change through real and direct action went up in smoke along with the GHG reductions in July 2009!