Buying international permits is a cheap way to cut emissions. It's that simple

Extract from The Guardian

 

Australian election 2019

As recently as 2017 the Coalition was in favour of it. Now it’s losing its mind over Labor’s climate policy

Katharine Murphy Political editor

@murpharoo

Thu 18 Apr 2019 16.36 AEST Last modified on Thu 18 Apr 2019 16.46 AEST

Labor’s climate policy, with international permits allowed in emissions reduction, has been met by the Coalition’s ‘confected moral panic’.

Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP

It’s the climate policy debate, so veering into Numptyville is par for the course, but I confess we are there earlier than even I expected.
For the past few days of the election campaign, we have been having a conversation about the use of international permits – if you can call what’s been happening a conversation. It’s been more like a series of unconnected statements. A bout of incoherent shouting in a wardrobe.
In the interests of preserving sanity, let’s try and tether the debate to some basic facts and concepts. Labor has proposed using international permits as part of its climate policy measures to allow high-emitting businesses to reduce their pollution at least cost.
Sticking with basic facts, using international permits to lower the costs associated with reducing pollution was something the Coalition said it was prepared do.
Yes, that’s right. This government. The one that’s still in power. That happened in 2017, when it reviewed its climate policies.

In December 2017, the government’s policy was to “support, in principle, the use of international units”. If you are curious enough to click through to that source document, let me save you five minutes. Look on page eight.
So stay with me. The government that flagged using international permits, with a final decision about the timing and scope of use to be taken in 2020, is the same government that is now trying to sell the voters (and media outlets gullible enough to swallow and amplify the latest most lurid conspiracy about “carbon credits for Kazakhstan”) a big bucket of bollocks.
The official line now is the use of international permits will cost an absolute motser, and end heavy industry in this country.
Just while we are back in the vault, the same 2017 climate policy review also suggested the government would pursue a new light vehicle fuel efficiency standard to reduce transport emissions – another position the government now disavows because it wants to pretend that Bill Shorten has a secret plan to confiscate your ute.
I mean seriously, this is pathetic. How cynical can you get?
For people who have no idea about permits, why we are talking about them, what they are, why they are even remotely relevant, allow me to assist.

If you want to reduce pollution there are a couple of ways to do it. One is high-cost. The other is least-cost.
If you want to force down domestic emissions at any cost, you don’t use policy tools such as permits. You just set strict rules, and insist that heavy emitters reduce their pollution. Doing that might mean some firms go out of business, but that doesn’t matter to you if your objective is reducing pollution at any cost, because the science tells you there is an urgent problem to address.
If you don’t want to do that, if you want to reduce pollution at least cost, then policy tools such as permits enter the mix. Labor’s proposal is an emissions reduction target of 45% for heavy polluters, and it has flagged allowing businesses to buy permits to help them meet their liabilities.
Put at its simplest, having access to permits means businesses can buy emissions reduction occurring elsewhere. Having to buy permits imposes a cost on the business – but that’s the point.
If the objective is to reduce pollution, there is a price associated with doing it. The only question is whether the price is high or lower. There is no free lunch.

A point worth noting while we are on costs. The government has in recent years passed the costs of emissions reduction onto taxpayers rather than polluters. That’s what the emissions reduction fund is. It’s a pot of taxpayer money that pays for emissions reduction.
So you are paying for emissions reduction now. You just don’t know it, because nobody sends you a detailed set of accounts.
Back to our free lunch. Scott Morrison in the shadow of an election sent a number of public signals to try to reassure voters that the Coalition was taking climate change seriously.
But the fact is the Coalition has retreated to the Tony Abbott position. That’s what the confected moral panic about international permits and ute confiscation tells us. We are back to the Abbott position. Back to hyperbole and wrecking in the hope that governing by graphic novel can win you an election.
There are legitimate questions about the use of permits. The first is: should any government be allowing them in the mix when the science suggests the need to reduce pollution is urgent?
The second is: are the permits junk? The third (which links to the first) is: how much usage should you permit? The fourth concerns the relative costs associated with using them versus not using them.
It’s completely reasonable to ask Labor questions about the costs associated with its climate policies, just as it’s reasonable to ask the Morrison government about the cost of six years of inaction, which is this government’s legacy.

But while it’s fine to ask questions, this conversation also has to touch reality, and ensuing reporting and analysis has to cut through the spin.
By shouting about the dangers to the economy of businesses being forced to buy permits to reduce their carbon liabilities, the Coalition is drawing a bright red line that should not be missed.
The government is saying it doesn’t support emissions reduction if that imposes a cost on businesses.
The government is saying that emissions reduction that imposes a cost on anyone apart from you, the voter (because you are already paying), should not happen.
Just give yourself a minute to absorb that position, and line it up against what the climate science tells us needs to happen.

It’s an extraordinary thing to say in an election season where Australian voters are deeply worried about climate change.