The current debate about the introduction of a carbon price in Australia marks the nadir of policy evaluation and political commentary in Australia. It is hard to imagine an economic issue where there could be less reliance on established facts and consistent logic. Then again, recent developments in US politics suggest that we may indeed have a lot further to slide down the slippery slope of “truthiness”.
Truthiness is the phrase now widely used in the US to describe “concepts or facts that one wishes or believes to be true rather than concepts or facts known to be true”. In the words of Stephen Colbert, “I don’t trust books. They are all fact no heart”.
Truthiness is at the heart of the climate policy debate in Australia, and it is embraced by all sides of that debate.
The most obvious form of truthiness is the belief(s) that the climate isn’t changing, if it is changing it isn’t because of humans and/or that if it is changing and it is caused by humans the impacts will be minor. To feel the truthiness of these arguments requires the feeler to believe that the data is fabricated by scientists motivated by money, that scientists are monumentally (but consistently) incompetent in their observations, or both.
When challenged by the argument that any conspiracy theory that can capture climate-change fabrication needs to be big enough to capture NASA, CSIRO, John Howard, Angele Merkel, David Cameron, Greenpeace and Malcolm Turnbull the standard sceptic response is to shift the debate to the costs of reducing emissions.
The second truthy line of defence for those determined to keep polluting is that the costs of tackling climate change are much greater than the benefits. The fact that every major effort to determine the macroeconomic costs of reducing emissions finds trivially small costs in the order of a 0.1% reduction in the rate at which we will get richer is easily ignored. It is far truthier to simply add up all of the costs to the industries that are supposed to bear the brunt, multiply the number by 10, 20 or 50 to provide an “insight” into the long run cost of action, and then express the end result in tens of billions of dollars rather than as a percentage of our $1.3 trillion economy.
The final truthy argument against reducing emissions is to state that Australia “shouldn’t act first” and can’t make a difference as we are only 1.5% of the world’s emissions. In responding to such an argument experience suggests mentioning Europe will not help persuade those who feel we shouldn’t act first. Nor will pointing out that given that there is nearly 200 countries worldwide we should all, by that logic, only be emitting about 0.5% of the world’s emissions. Asking if China could escape its responsibilities by breaking itself up into a large number of ‘mini-Chinas” is particularly unpersuasive.
Of course it is not just the climate sceptics and the economic sceptics opposed to the introduction of a carbon price that are embracing truthiness. The government, the Department of Climate Change and large segments of the environment movement have also embraced truthiness when it comes to defending their preferred schemes.
The most obvious example of this is the claim that the steadily deteriorating versions of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and now the acronym-less carbon price all delivered least cost abatement. Given that the scope of the scheme kept narrowing and the generosity of the compensation kept rising how could it possibly be that the latest iteration delivers “least cost” emission reductions? Did the version of the scheme proposed in the 2009 green paper deliver “leaster cost” abatement?
When people say that the carbon price will deliver least cost abatement what they mean to say is something such as “given that there is no way we can remove the $10 billion in subsidies we currently provide for fossil fuel use, no way we can reforest on low value agricultural land, no way we will invest in public transport, stop Australians driving two-tonne cars to get the groceries or insulate their homes before they buy air-conditioners, the carbon price will deliver the cheapest abatement in the parts of the economy that are responsive to a carbon price.”
It is simply not polite in the Australian policy debate to ask why we are introducing a price on carbon before we remove the subsidies for using fossil fuels.
The other nice big truthy argument pushed by the enthusiastic proponents of the proposed carbon price is that a 5% emission reduction target by 2020 in some way represents Australia’s “fair share” in the international context. Don’t look at the absolute reduction, we are told, look at the reduction from the projected emissions on a per capita basis. Apparently doing so makes some people feel a lot better about the fact that we are completely ignoring the scientific or diplomatic consequences of pursuing such an unambitious target.
The introduction of a carbon price is an important step towards reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. But doing so will neither destroy our economy nor transform it. Neither side of politics is interested in taking the most sensible first step of abolishing the perverse subsidies that actually encourage fossil fuel use, and neither side is interested in taking the actual science of climate change too seriously. The atmospheric data may suggest we need to take urgent action, but the polling data just doesn’t support the truthiness of that conclusion.
*Dr Richard Denniss is executive director of The Australia Institute, a Canberra-based think tank.
Another excellent summary of this fairly depressing situation. My somewhat ‘truthy’ confession is that while I know the proposed carbon price will not do much as it stands, I’m prepared to accept the government’s truthy self justification and am barracking for it primarily because:
We have to get started.
It leaves the path open to future strengthening of mitigation goals to be decided by (one hopes) independent bodies.
It is accompanied by substantial boost to renewable energy projects.
Of course perverse fossil fuel subsidies must be removed (but that didn’t have to come first).
Of course idiotic overcompensation to polluting industries must be removed (but that should be accomplished by the review process built in to the package).
Depressing it might be, honesty in the carbon abatement process is an exceedingly short supply. There is no serious debate on the extent to which the price of carbon needs to be increased in order to save the planet. Instead we have bullshit argument from government that the token carbon tax gestures being implemented are going to save the planet. The government’s proposals are merely the thin end of the wedge, and nobody is defining how thick or big the wedge will be when the eventual objective of full ETS is implemented.
I understand we are currently 13% above 2000 levels of carbon emissions and government policy is to reduce this to 20% below 2000 levels, a 33% turnaround by 2020, which is clearly an impossible target in any practical terms. Instead we are fiddling around the edges with the carbon tax which will morph into an ETS and cripple Australian industry and severely impact Australian households, whilst countries such as India and China do nothing.
There is no evidence presented that even at the target of 80% below 2000 levels, with a population increase of approximately 10% in the interim, as to what the shape of the Australian economy would be. Also there is no effective source of baseload power other than coal or nuclear in the immediate future, and none of this is being discussed actively. Windmills tidal power et cetera are only token gestures and cannot fill the gap.
Assertions about “truthiness” is merely academic waffle and what we need are some hard edged quanitative facts including Australia’s massive dependence on $20 billion of coal exports which add to world carbon pollution but like the elephant in the room are seen to be undiscussable in polite circles. If saving the planet is the objective, the first thing we should do is cut off these exports.
Unfortunately neither side of politics can face the real issue, so all we have is hollow debate unrealistic and ineffective goals and a bunch of academic wankers proselytising to no real effect whilst pandering to the respective sides of politics, and operating within the abysmal ignorance of the election as a whole concerning the facts of the matter.
Ain’t that the truth. There’s a hell of a lot of truthiness around advocacy (or just plain blithe assumption) of the notion that we can maintain a functional modern economy with 100% renewable energy, using technology available today. I look forward to Denniss turning his guns on that particular segment of the environment movement.
By the way, ‘reforesting low value agricultural land’ probably isn’t a good idea, at least in southern Australia: “academicjournals.org/jhf/PDF/pdf2011/July/South 20et al..pdf”
“Neither side of politics is interested in taking the most sensible first step of abolishing the perverse subsidies that actually encourage fossil fuel use, and neither side is interested in taking the actual science of climate change too seriously. ”
To which two sides, specifically, does this refer?
If you’re talking about Government v opposition, fair enough. But the earlier part of the article implies that you mean Denialist v Environmentalist. If that’s the case, you devalue the entire article by this one statement.
There is a hard core of the environmental movement for whom the elimination of the need for fossil fuel is THE POINT. People who have campaigned and worked for alternative energy causes for, quite literally, decades. The current carbon reduction measures are a great dissapointment to any true green but we have to take what we get and use it as a stepping stone for improvement later – when the world catches up.