This is a con

I've been reading the Treasury modelling on the impact of the government's carbon trading scheme - or Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as they like to call it - because that's what I do.

I was about halfway through it before I spotted the appalling piece of slight-of-hand that has been used. I'll try to explain as clearly as I can, but stick with me, as it is a little complex:

The IPCC has said that the world has to stabilise its atmospheric carbon levels at around 450 parts per million to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences. I won't go into all the consequences of stabilising at higher levels - you've heard them all before. Read the IPCC report if you're interested. Just understand that anything higher than that is really, really scary.

So, the treasury has modelled four scenarios, two based on the government's proposed CPRS, and two based on Ross Garnaut's scenarios. The four models are, in the report, known as CPRS-5, CPRS-15, Garnaut-10, and Garnaut-25. Respectively, they look at stabilising carbon levels at 550ppm, 510ppm, 500ppm, and 450ppm.

So you will hear - you are already hearing - a lot from Rudd, Swan et al about how we can achieve our carbon reduction goals at little cost. And the report shows that all four scenarios are quite cheap in terms of GDP.

HERE'S THE CATCH - the CPRS scenarios use a realistic assumption, that Australia as a first world country, in accordance with the commonly understood principle of differentiated responsibility, will take on a greater role in immediately reducing its carbon emissions, allowing the developing world time to catch up.

The Garnaut model, on the other hand, assumes unified world action in 2013 to reduce emissions, with worldwide emissions eventually being assigned equally on a per capita basis. The big advantage to this model, from Australia's point of view, is that as Australia's population is likely to grow significantly in future years, our carbon reductions as a country need not be so stringent. Unfortunately, only Garnaut is proceeding on this assumption - the rest of the world isn't. The rest of the world thinks that the developed world needs to act first to reduce emissions, and that the developing world will continue to increase its emissions in the near future as it industrializes.

Here's the point - and it's really, really significant. The unlikely Garnaut scenario is the only model in this treasury analysis that allows for a stabilisation at 450ppm. The CPRS scenarios - the realistic scenarios - don't consider the possibility of stabilisation at 450ppm. They examine stabilisation at 510ppm and 550ppm. Presumably, it would cost too much, and the Rudd government doesn't want to deal with questions about how much it would really cost Australia to play its part in stabilising atmospheric carbon levels at a point that is not catastrophic.

To put it as simply as I possibly can: the Rudd government has not bothered to model a realistic scenario for reducing carbon emissions in order to stabilise atmospheric carbon at an acceptable level. If they did, it would presumably show that it might actually cost a little bit to achieve that. And they're worried the public might not like that. They don't want to get caught having to answer the question "Do you want to fuck up the planet, or would you rather have Working Families have to pay significantly more for their electricity bills?"

They didn't even model it. They didn't ask the question. They don't want to know the answer.

But you probably won't hear this anywhere else other than on this blog - the Labor party won't tell you, the Liberals won't suggest a more stringent target than Labor is advocating, and the Greens are too stupid to understand economic modelling and will just say that all the proposals are inadequate. Go read it for yourself: Section 2.2, The Scenarios and Assumptions.

ADDED: I was probably (certainly?) a little presumptuous in assuming nobody else would notice this particular deception. Marian Wilkinson in the Herald today makes much the same points I did, and Tony Jones, god bless him, gave Penny Wong a pretty hard going-over on Lateline last night, making the problem clear by focussing on how the proposed emissions scenarios would mean the death of the Great Barrier Reef, and trying to ask Penny if she was comfortable with that? (She evaded, naturally.) In contrast, Kerry O'Brien's interview of Rudd last night was so dewey-eyed that even Angela Bishop would have thought it a soft interview. Instead of asking Rudd any difficult questions, he took the time to ask Rudd how he was going, handling so many tough problems - surely no human could manage it? Even Rudd seemed a little surprised, and had to scramble in his bag of cliches for a response, eventually settling on "Well, I don't know what you are recommending - a cup of tea, a bex, and a quick lie down."

posted by Nicholas @ 9:58 PM