David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
Vale Straya.
Those who subscribe to these views must be so glad our atmosphere is isolated from the rest of the world, so the changes we make can have such a remarkable difference in global outcomes.
such delusion…
But if rich countries that are going to be more affected than most other countries it allows other countries to do less. It is a feedback loop. The less we do the less the world does. The more we do then the more we put pressure on other countries to act.
At the moment we (Australia via our elected LNP officials) are ACTIVELY stopping action on climate change – by taking Santos to a climate summit and refusing to take stronger stands allows other countries to do the same!
Yes, we only make up 1-3% of worlds CO2 emissions – but Australia working with Europe, the US and others can actually make countries like China and India take stronger actions via carbon tariffs.
So you are going to be happy explaining to your grandkids how you actively played a part in killed the Great Barrier reef?
You’re right, I definitely want Australia to be able to claim moral superiority.
Can taste the Chardonnay!
Dls: china doesn’t listen to Oz in Solomon’s
Dls: china definitely listen to Oz on energy policy
Lol good stuff.
China builds an Oz of co2 every year.
Read that again and again. India is coming next.
This article makes the claim Oz policy makes global degree difference.
It doesn’t.
Why don’t you look at this chart and compare total and per cap emissions so you won’t be so ignorant in future?
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/
The logic is do x, so china does x too.
Tis working well isn’t it. Lol.
Sh!t, talk about luck; you picked letters out of an alphabet soup and lo and behold you made a sentence. lol.
You didn’t look at it, did you?
Top 13 emitters are responsible for around 58%, Australia is 14th with 1.16%. There are another 57 countries that emit less than us down to 0.1%, so the lot of us make up for around 40%. Now, I reckon if we turn turn around and say “get stuffed” why would the other 56 odd countries make any effort and if they don’t what impact would that have on temps?
Oz policy goes to zero.
Won’t change any ‘degree’ difference. But hey keep selling it if you’re inclined.
Imo invest according to expected outcomes.
I guess it’s just a matter of degrees!
Liberals can’t seem to realise the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.
No economy on an uninhabitable planet.
So Australia’s CO2 emissions alone controls the global climate then.
Nice to see Al Gore on the board of the WEF.
Do you understand what a doomsday scam is?
Now let’s use a logical fallacy (argument to authority) based on a fraudulent lie (97% consensus) to pretend we are on the side of the righteous, and not in bed with the likes of George Soros.
..that some serious mental gymnastics, next level stuff!
The CO2 emissions estimate here is our contribution as
playing our part in the bigger picture. Has nothing to
do with direct control.
In a team game like footy all players contribute to the
team goal, this is what this is!
Basically the Liberals are saying we dont care about
the team, going to the pub, deal with it tomorrow!
What Al Gore earns is completely irrelevant and is peanuts
compared to the billions and trillions the fossil fuel industry
is set to lose.
A doomsday scam and George Soros is what is called a misdirection.
You are either a troll-farmer paid by the fossil fuel industry
for the reasons above or need to google what an echo-chamber is.
Robert says “Now let’s use a logical fallacy……” I say no, let’s use conspiracy theories!
‘All science is a logical fallacy’
Is there on of these for Corruption?
There would be more than 1 degree of difference if there was!
Imagine being so delusional as to think that Australia has any impact on the globe compared to China, India and the USA.
China’s annual emissions growth alone is more than Australia’s entire annual output!
shhhh logic
Nice retarded logic there!
It’s like saying I am not gone pick up my trash because the
neighbor across the road has bigger trash he needs to pick up..
Busy day Troll Farming today?
Ahh I see, I’m a Russian Bot or something.
Did you know that Australia has more solar PV capacity per capita than any other country?
Hi Bloke, being the equal largest exporter of Liquified Methane Gas and the 2nd largest exporter of Thermal Coal in the world does put Australia right up there with China , Russia, Saudi Arabia and the USA as global polluters.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2020/07/09/australia-export-fossil-fuels/
Time we owned up to it.
Don’t export.
People die.
^^^^^ astroturfer.
^^^namey name word
You’re a loser…Friday night and you’re on here. I have an excuse, I’m an old cvnt.
Australia may dominate seaborne trade of coal, but even the total amount of seaborne coal trade globally is a mere drop in the ocean compared the amount that is produced and consumed.
I guess I’m just a bit surprised that people on an economics site don’t seem to have a grasp on the concept of scale and proportion. Is it not a requirement to be numerate to study economics?
So you’re a Coal share holder ?
Forget the nonsense about the Greens.
Vote has to go Green or Teal this election
Everything else is just noise
Lot of boiling frog commenters.
Yep, the Nationals are the Nut Job extremists here, the Libs are not far behind – completely ignoring Science.
Climate & Corruption are the 2 issues that are pretty much everything at play. The reason we have no action on climate change is because of corruption.
Probably agree about the Teals, but the Greens will not condemn Big Australia. Our per capita carbon emissions in 2019 were the same as in 1989, but our aggregate carbon emissions were 50% higher, almost entirely due to mass migration and its contribution to natural increase.
https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/australia
Better to vote for the Sustainable Australia Party instead.
What absolute unadulterated drivel, misinformation and outright lies.
Our planet is cooling, yes every year since 2016, our drought was a result of a cool Indian Ocean Dipole, our own BOM said last year was our 16th warmest year, our recent fires were not our worst in history, our recent floods were not our worst in history.
I cannot believe the absolute rubbish that is being published as the truth both misleading the public and frightening our children unnecessarily.
Perhaps Macrobusiness should do a fact check on its lefty drivel being published as the truth.
FFS just because you are cold and wet doesn’t mean the planet is cooling. If you are going to quote data at least consider all the evidence, not just the bit that matches your prejudices. There is little evidence to support your assertion.
More unadulterated drivel from those that don’t look at the science,I do.
Check NASA, IPCC, NOAA , I do also check our BOM, go to see our, wonderful great barrier reefs, I did last year then wake up to the selective misreporting .. there is no global warming but there are natural cyclical changes in our climate so get used to it.
Just 13000 years ago we could walk from Australian mainland to New Guinea and Tasmania as sea level were between 120-130 Mtrs lower than today.
Try checking out solar cycles, our planets, wobbles, trajectory around the sun , solar flares, the earths changing axis and magnetic field reversals , yes climate is changing and none of the above power can be changed by humanity however they are the driving forces for climate.
We just need to be sensible about limiting destructive chemical pollution and be mindful of maintaining soils etc.
I too read the Science and you are confusing geological rates of change with ecological rates of change. Biological systems can adapt to the former and the latter can kill you if the rates of change are high. Spend any time in Alaska or the Russian Arctic and you won’t question the notion that current rates of change are extreme. Of course, the same rates of change aren’t manifest everywhere and people’s experience of climate change will differ. That said, there is plenty happening here to take notice. It’s well researched across multiple fields of Science. You can have your own opinions but you can’t have your own facts. The weight of evidence says you are wrong.
David Wilson, you’re suffering Dunning-Kruger and obviously cannot interpret the data correctly as both NASA & NOAA state the planet is warming and it’s warming because of human impact.
We lose the covid / vaxx deniers only to gain the CC nutters.
I suspect many of them feed off the same FUD teat.
How’s the Internet Troll business going? got the astro-turfer of the year award yet?
I am gone vote for you.. thats some incredible stuff you just made up!
Would love to see your amazing source for that bit of impossible maths! Every year since 2016 has been higher than the historical average so how can the planet be cooling? 19 of the hottest years on record have been in the last 21 years.
How many point of data? How much physical evidence do you need? How many changed environments do you need to see with your own eyes before you can understand that the world is warming?
Mate, even the most crazy Denier has moved on from ‘the world is not warming’ narrative!
https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/
It’s the same argument they used to use when 1998 was an abnormally hot year. Even though subsequent years were hotter than average, since they were cooler than ‘98, the world was “cooling”.
Now the new benchmark for that argument is 2016, and it’s even dumber.
Perhaps Macrobusiness should do a fact check on its lefty drivel being published as the truth.
Who would you suggest facts be checked with, if not all the major scientific institutions on the planet ?
Climate scientists have passed stiff examinations on mathematics, physics, and chemistry, served long apprenticeships, and studied the climate on a full time basis for years, if not decades, with the best instruments that our technology can devise. Most of us would be more inclined to believe them than some guy on the internet or even a scientist in another field. There is an enormous consensus that climate change is real and that humans are primarily responsible for it. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change
https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
So there are really only 3 possibilities:
(1) The scientists are correct about the risk.
(2) The scientists are telling the truth as they see it, but they are mistaken because they are overlooking something important. If you have a better theory that explains the observations, write it up, send it to Science or Nature, and collect your Nobel prize.
(3) It’s a conspiracy! You need to explain who organised it and got scientists from all over the world to cooperate. You also need to explain why some scientist nearing retirement or some young one finding it hard to break in would not blow the whistle. Who has a better motivation for a conspiracy, the scientists, or the fossil fuel companies that stand to lose billions?
1 degree, the difference between high insurance premiums & extreme insurance premiums!
2 degrees = no insurance premiums.
Ok, and assuming these parties can actually achieve their goals, what are the costs/tradeoffs? Because looking at this in a vacuum is like just saying “do you want good, bad or really bad things to happen??? Of course everyone would choose ‘good’, why wouldn’t they?
Those who argue that Australia reducing emmissions will not help are right. Those who argue that if we reduce emissions others will follow our example, you have a lot of work to do to prove your argument. Is there a single government that has said “if Australia acts, so will we?”, if so, please send the link to their policy announcement(s). Alternatively, please link to papers showing the game theoretic or agent based modelling that suggests this approach might actually work. If you have neither, then you have no evidence. Surely it is in Australia’s best interest to be a follower, not a leader. Leading is for great powers.
This assumes that any impacts of changes to the climate won’t impact us first and/or the impacts won’t be as severe as might impact those you think should lead. That’s one hell of an assumption and likely wrong.
Soudns reasonable. Evidence please.
Those who argue that Australia reducing emmissions will not help are right.
Unless it’s trying to construct an argument against immigration, right ? That’s when Australian’s high per-capita emissions mean increasing our population is suddenly relevant to global climate change.
Those who argue that if we reduce emissions others will follow our example, you have a lot of work to do to prove your argument.
I thought the argument was that change is inevitable, approaching, will likely happen quite fast, and it’s better to be prepared for it than be reactive and find ourselves on the wrong side of global sanctions ?
(Also that renewables are cheaper, faster to deploy, less polluting and less environmentally damaging in general. Ie: better.)
I don’t know why you bothered to quote my words since your replies are at best tangential. That said, I’ll respond to your second paragraph.
Any advance preparation for possible global sanctions is irrelevant to us. Most of our exports go to places that don’t care enough about warming to apply sanctions and, most of our imports come from there too. If renewable tech is better people will buy it. No need for government intervention.
“If renewable tech is better people will buy it. No need for government intervention.”
I don’t agree with this line of reasoning. Leadership in markets is one of the key roles of government. Without it markets are more likely to cultivate rent seeking capitalism, negative externalities among other problems.