The 1992/3 Cabinet Papers have been released. The Conversation let me (I badgered them) do the article on what we learn from them about the environmental policy battles. It's posted here, and I think they did their usual excellent job editing me. Here is the full (much too long for their format) version, in case... Continue Reading →
Last week in #Australian #Climate Politics – a bluffer’s guide
What happened? This week the government executed a massive policy backflip and its backbenchers weakened a leader who they despise and will probably knife quite soon. The opposition rolled its eyes and sighed and secretly squealed with delight. There were assurances that Australia is on track to meet its international obligations on emissions reductions when in... Continue Reading →
#Australian #climate politics – a crazy week explained
The policy oscillations around a price on carbon in Australia are one of the few sources of reliable and seemingly endlessly renewable political energy. This article tries to answer the following questions How did we get here (a quick run through Australian climate policy debacles - skip this if you are familiar with the sorry... Continue Reading →
Buy popcorn stocks! Next year of #Australian #climate politics = HILARITY/BLOOD #auspol
Read this and weep (with laughter) Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027. Energy Networks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero... Continue Reading →
It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for… or “Gaudy versus powerful”…
So, imma try to join dots between The Last of Sheila, Australian climate politics and Bobby de Niro as Louis Cypher, with a little Clarice Starling, 'Parker,' Gene Hackman and Julian Rathbone thrown in for good measure. It all starts with this, from my PhD thesis research - The incredible Lenore Taylor wrote a piece in... Continue Reading →
Podcast on #Australia #climate policy #auspol
The very cool people at Beyond Zero Emissions, on 3CR (community radio in Melbourne) interviewed in November. Here's a link to their page about it. (it's cut and paste below) BZE radio talks to Marc Hudson: Marc is studying the strategic responses of the Australian coal industry to the challenge of climate change. He is... Continue Reading →
But which BIT of big business gets its way in which circumstances, eh?
The State is merely the committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie, innit? The evil moustache-twirling CEOs get together and tell their political meat-puppet underlings what to do. Simples. Well, sometimes, but every so often maybe it is more complicated. I’m collecting examples of these every-so-often moments for my PhD thesis. I have quite... Continue Reading →
Event Report: Voices from the Climate Front line
Australians have known about climate change since 1988. In 1989 at the South Pacific Forum, the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke found himself in discussion with leaders who worried (rightly, as it turned out) that their island nations were in danger [see below]. The intervening 28 years have been ones of promises broken, hopes dashed, while... Continue Reading →
Blame games and framing battles over renewables in South Australia
Adelaide and energy systems have one thing in common – they rarely dominate the news agenda in Australia. However, twice in the past three months they have been front and centre. That reveals something interesting about the 'framing battles' taking place over renewable energy and whose vision for Australia's future will win. Price spike and... Continue Reading →
The upside of coal
See below for a truly extraordinary coal advert from 1975, where, looking for fresh workers, the UK National Coal Board basically says "this job is a fanny magnet." Meanwhile, I just finished Evelyn Waugh's Put Out More Flags, which some say is his best. Published in 1942, it is about the phoney war - it... Continue Reading →
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