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Network sector prefers carbon pricing. Truly? Or because it won't happen?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/dec/06/australias-energy-transmission-industry-calls-for-carbon-trading
It's difficult not to be cynical about an industry that has so consistently resisted strong climate action. Just like I wondered if former Australian PM Tony Abbott's climate policy was designed and intended to be voted down by the Senate - where, if not for a maverick coal baron bearing grudges The Greens and Labor rather than the policy's deep inadequacies would be set up to be blamed for Australia having no climate policy at all - I can't help but wonder if our energy network operators are saying they prefer the policy most economists and other experts think would be the most effective, because they are so confident it won't be adopted. They can claim some kind of moral high ground when the government decision, surprise, surprise, is to reject it, leaving them in the "limbo" of business as usual. I've suspected a lot of "you should use nuclear" proposals from people who have opposed strong climate action by other means and even deny there is a climate problem of using a similar tactic - raising an impossible bar too high, with anything less to be rejected. Perfection used as the enemy of good enough - or even of better than nothing.
Am I overly cynical? Overly skeptical - in the climate science denier sense of that word? I'd like to think - trust - this is evidence of an industry that has it's eyes open about climate and emissions and it's future but I just can't bring myself to put aside my suspicion there is not merely an absence of sincerity but we are seeing a dirty kind of gamesmanship being played with our future. Clearly there will be some kind of alternative policy but with a government consistent in seeking, usually with slick blame shifting, the least possible climate action I just can't feel optimistic it will be effective or adequate.
It's difficult not to be cynical about an industry that has so consistently resisted strong climate action. Just like I wondered if former Australian PM Tony Abbott's climate policy was designed and intended to be voted down by the Senate - where, if not for a maverick coal baron bearing grudges The Greens and Labor rather than the policy's deep inadequacies would be set up to be blamed for Australia having no climate policy at all - I can't help but wonder if our energy network operators are saying they prefer the policy most economists and other experts think would be the most effective, because they are so confident it won't be adopted. They can claim some kind of moral high ground when the government decision, surprise, surprise, is to reject it, leaving them in the "limbo" of business as usual. I've suspected a lot of "you should use nuclear" proposals from people who have opposed strong climate action by other means and even deny there is a climate problem of using a similar tactic - raising an impossible bar too high, with anything less to be rejected. Perfection used as the enemy of good enough - or even of better than nothing.
Am I overly cynical? Overly skeptical - in the climate science denier sense of that word? I'd like to think - trust - this is evidence of an industry that has it's eyes open about climate and emissions and it's future but I just can't bring myself to put aside my suspicion there is not merely an absence of sincerity but we are seeing a dirty kind of gamesmanship being played with our future. Clearly there will be some kind of alternative policy but with a government consistent in seeking, usually with slick blame shifting, the least possible climate action I just can't feel optimistic it will be effective or adequate.
