Rudd's targets, and other problems

It's hard to know what to say about Kevin Rudd's greenhouse gas targets today.

In fact, the whole CO2 issue is an ugly mess at the moment.

On the one hand, I would like to see CO2 emissions tackled seriously, and it sure sounds like Rudd's plan is one that largely avoids taking the hard decisions. As Robert Merkel said over at LP, industry has sounded so happy with the target that it looks clear that it is too generous to them.

On the other hand, countries announcing high targets which don't appear to have any realistic hope of success under emissions trading schemes similar to those already in place are just selling false hope, and a more modest target at least has the benefit of realism.

On the third hand, CO2 sequestration seems obviously a crock that the coal industry has latched onto to try to save its skin. Yet it has seemingly captured the imagination of Rudd and (probably) the Liberals. Kevin Rudd touring a new, but tiny, solar power plant for a small outback community also gives out the wrong impression about how fast solar is advancing here.

As a whole series of posts here recently has indicated, the fundamental problem seems to be increasingly recognised: there is strong reason for believing that emissions trading schemes are a hopelessly flawed way of trying to address the issue, especially if offsets are allowed. Offsets will always be at the core of the potential for corruption, unintended consequences, and a huge and difficult verification process.

It also seems that some people on all sides of the greenhouse fence (Lomborg, Lovelock and Hansen, for example) are being more forthcoming in arguing that concentrating on ETS is a bit of a sideshow: it's more important for governments to push directly for the technological developments that will generate lots of power and actually reduce CO2 emissions. To worry too much about ETS elevates process over results, and this has been at the heart of my long standing scepticism about Kyoto. (Stories of Kyoto's failures often remind me of the "Yes Minister" episode in which a new hospital completely devoid of patients, but full of busy administrative staff, is said to be operating very successfully.)

The anti-CO2 advocates emphasising innovative nuclear technology as a key feature of reduced CO2 includes Hansen. I was surprised to see that the Australia greenhouse website BraveNewClimate has also taken to posting about new generation nuclear. Meanwhile, Obama's new Energy Secretary Steven Chu is a physicist with a lot of sympathy for nuclear over coal.

Yet the Green movement is going to resist all such talk; they all give the impression they were spooked by nuclear as children and can't grow out of it. All their talk of renewable energy as being able to save the day is just not very believable.

The best hope is probably that Steven Chu will come up with a detailed, direct and innovative plan for dealing with greenhouse in a way that has a significant role for new types of nuclear power. Obama will then have to sell it to the American public and Congress.

In Australia, the truly brave but proper thing for the Liberals to do would be to argue that they will commit to higher targets, but only on the basis that nuclear is to be an essential part of the mix. Personally, I would argue for some direct involvement in the nuclear pebble bed development going on in South Africa and China. (The timetable for getting a demonstration plant in South Africa up and running just keeps on getting extended; surely there is scope for more international involvement in funding this? The technology is not dramatically new, but has the good PR feature of not being able to melt down, and should be modular in design for easy international deployment.)

I actually think that nuclear power will soon be sell-able to the Australian public, but whether the political will is there or not is yet to be seen. (Certainly, if Obama comes out strongly pro-nuclear, it will be easier for the Liberals to adopt such a policy too.)

But for the moment, there are no strong grounds for optimism that anyone has worked out the best way forward.

UPDATE: In light of what I wrote last night, I would say that Tim Colebatch in The Age gets to the heart of the problem with Kevin Rudd's scheme here:

Ross Garnaut envisaged a rigorous emissions trading scheme with few exemptions, and raising $4 billion a year to speed research, development and commercialisation of clean technology. The Rudd model spends everything on compensation, and has nothing left over to help solve the problem.

In The Australian, George Megalogenis looks at the strange decision to pay families and pensioners more than anyone expects them to lose due to the scheme. But, as was to expected from Paul Kelly's recent article, the editorial supports Rudd and calls critics of his plan "deep Greens". Hmmph.