Gone are the days when governments figured out how laws could be enforced before they made them. In their own words this is only “a massive transformation of the economy”, so who cares about the details like, is it possible, and what will it cost?
And of course that all important detail “why bother in the first place?”
The Australian government has just legislated a 43% cut to emissions of a beneficial trace gas, of which Australia makes 1.1% of human output and about 0.05% of the emissions of all the plants, algae and oceans on Earth. We’ve only got 8 years to do it in and even the head of the our largest national scientific institute admits nearly half of the technologies we need are not even invented yet.
Even the minister calls it “insanely late”.
What could possibly go wrong, apart from bankrupting the nation in an effort to change the weather?
Climate target set, now for the tricky bit on cutting emissions
Greg Brown, The Australian
Anthony Albanese’s climate change agenda will shift to creating two road maps to slash emissions in the transport and industrial sectors after his 43 per cent 2030 target became law in a momentous parliamentary vote.
Ahead of the passage of the bill, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen warned there was a lot of work to be done to ensure Australia lowered emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
“We have a lot of work to do and we have to do it urgently. We are starting on the journey for a 2030 emissions reduction target in 2022, which is leaving it insanely late,” Mr Bowen told a CEDA forum in Parliament House. “Eighty-seven months is not long for a massive transformation in our economy.”
The Minister is actually bragging about doing something insane as if it’s a good thing to be mentally deranged. Governing the country is a game of fashion now, and may the biggest poseur win.
Can’t we just legislate inventions?
It would be so much simpler:
Highlighting the task ahead of the Albanese government in meeting its targets, CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall said 40 per cent of the technologies needed to reach to net zero were yet to be invented.
The Labor government apparently relies on the CSIRO plan which assumes these inventions can be invented (and in time):
“It’s largely the plan that the government has adopted moving forward, which is great because it’s based in science, but it requires us to invent some things to get there,” he told the CEDA conference. “About 40 per cent of the things we need to get to net zero, have to be invented. But this country has the power to invent those things. If you think it’s hard, you’re right.”
Attacks on cars coming soon:
A consultation paper on low-emission vehicles will be out in the “next few weeks”, while submissions for reforming the safeguard mechanism close on September 20.
The Safeguard Mechanism is the cheating name for the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme that Australians didn’t want and for the most part — don’t know we had. Documents related to it are here. Submissions can be made here. Please share your most entertaining suggestions below!