The environment versus the economy?

Last week we had more follow up on discussions surrounding the delay of the CPRS. On May 7 The Sydney Morning Herald published an article, ‘Wong wants to pass ETS before December’. The article focused on the federal government’s determination to pass its emissions trading scheme through Parliament, while counterbalancing this with the coalition’s reluctance to commit without reassurance of a global agreement.

The following day The Australian continued on this theme, focusing on business views with an article, ‘Commerce group calls for brake on emissions trade law’. In typical fashion both articles employed the usual frame of economy versus environment to portray Australia’s ongoing policy debate. From The Sydney Morning Herald:

“We are worried about the impact that a lot of this scheme will have on the balance sheets.

“Some companies in my view are seeing half their profitability on average in the last eight years taken up with the impost that they are going to face.”

From The Australian:

The Opposition has also been emphasising the potential cost of the scheme for smaller businesses that will not have to purchase emissions permits, but will still face higher electricity costs.

ACCI has commissioned a study from Castalia Strategic Advisers on the impact of the scheme on plastic and chemical manufacturing, food processing and freight and transportation, to be finalised in June.

Undoubtedly this frame has merit. The economy is indeed an important consideration and the single biggest concern of politicians and the business community when weighing in on climate policies. Nonetheless it dichotomises the economy and the environment, portraying them as necessarily in conflict. This distinction in overly simplistic and potentially damaging. It reminds me of a scene from An Inconvenient Truth where Al Gore mocks a slide from a Republican convention displaying a picture of the globe and a pile of gold bars on either side of a set of scales. I would argue that this is the way we are encouraged to think about economic reform as it relates to climate change. Certainly not conducive to an open and enquiring attitude.

CPRS concessions to placate coalition

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Minister for Climate Change and Water Penny Wong during the announcement of the Government s changes to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme in Canberra. Photo: Andrew Meares

The media was abuzz today with news of Rudd’s proposed changes to the government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS). After being being stymied by left and right, the new scheme offers increased compensation for big polluters and sets a higher range target for 2020 in an attempt to placate big business and environmental opposition. So far the changes have failed to generate support from either end of the spectrum.

As has been pointed out in a number of media commentaries (See ‘Rudd’s U-Turn’ featuring Michelle Grattan from The Age), the bulk of the changes are directed at the coalition. Unsurprisingly then the media chose to focus primarily on the Malcolm Turnbull’s response. The Australian published an article with the headline, ‘Labor pressures Malcolm Turnbull over ETS:’

THE Rudd Government today increased pressure on Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull to state his party’s position on emission trading.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday’s announcement of an amended Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme had met with wide support, but said it is “quite clear” from the opposition’s response to yesterday’s amended scheme “that the coalition remains hopelessly divided”.

Meanwhile, The Sydney Mornings Herald’s front page piece, ‘Carbon bill burns as Rudd fiddles’, zeroed in on Turnbull’s response, and contained only a brief reference to independent senator, Nick Xenophon and the Greens party in the foot of the article. The Illawarra Mercury took the business angle with the article ‘BlueScope Steel welcomes delay to carbon scheme.’

To be fair all the major Australian papers gave some space to environmental concerns in shorter articles or opinion pieces. The Age published an article: ‘Emissions rethink could trigger early election: Greens’, while The SMH tuned into the greens debacle with environmental groups on page four of the paper (‘A wedge through green movement’):

THE Federal Government’s revised emissions trading scheme has caused the environmental movement to cave in on itself.

The Greens dismissed the Government’s decision to reconsider the 25 percent green-house pollution reduction target as an “almost irrelevant green distraction” and were privately critical of the groups that supported it.

These environmental groups, the Australian Conservation Foundation, WWF and the Climate Institute, said it was important the amended package was passed by Parliament.

Despite this there was no doubting the preponderance of interest in coalition and business responses. Of course this is not in the least bit surprising. The Liberal party has far more media salience then the Greens, and business interests have been the major determinant of Labor’s climate policy thus far, as has become all the clear in Rudd’s latest policy maneuver. To date, environmental pressures have taken a backseat in Australia’s climate change policy debate, and this does not seem to be changing.

Quite naturally the media has responded to this and mirrored back to the government the major terms of the debate. Once again, it seems, green views will be drowned out by political bickering over the economy.