{"id":8953,"date":"2013-03-26T09:53:38","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T23:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/knowledgetoday\/?p=8953"},"modified":"2013-03-26T09:55:38","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T23:55:38","slug":"states-of-decay-complementing-the-federal-carbon-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.unsw.edu.au\/BTOpinion\/blog\/2013\/03\/states-of-decay-complementing-the-federal-carbon-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"States of decay: complementing the federal carbon policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Martin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Martin C. Jones<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In a survey last year<\/a> of 22,812 people across 22 countries (including Australia), the polling organisation GlobeScan found that environmental concerns had fallen worldwide since 2009, and fewer than one in two people (49%) now viewed climate change as a \u201cvery serious\u201d problem. GlobeScan\u2019s chairman, Doug Miller, commented: \u201cScientists report that evidence of environmental damage is stronger than ever \u2013 but our data shows that economic crisis and a lack of political leadership mean that the public are starting to tune out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s comments could have been tailor-made for Australia. The famous \u201chockey stick graph\u201d of rising temperatures has been confirmed<\/a>, and atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations spiked dangerously upward in 2012<\/a>. The Australian Climate Change Commission found that climate change is already adversely affecting Australians with record-breaking heat, severe bushfires, extreme rainfall, and damaging floods \u2013 byproducts of the \u201cAngry Summer\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet with the centrepiece of Australia\u2019s climate policy not even a year old, most Australians are sick of it, or sick of hearing about it \u2013 fewer than 13% trust what politicians say<\/a> about major public issues like climate change. And in the shadow of the Clean Energy Future package (CEF)<\/a>, state and federal governments are quietly letting other climate policies slip<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This \u201cabdication of climate policy\u201d, as Tristan Edis calls it<\/a>, wouldn\u2019t be so bad if Australia\u2019s climate policy were perfect. But it isn\u2019t; no policy is. The carbon price, while worth having, is a broad, blunt tool that covers two-thirds of Australia\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions. The rest of the CEF fills in some gaps, but there is ample room for further complementary climate policy at a state and federal level.<\/p>\n

I wrote last year on this topic<\/a>, giving reasons why state (or other federal) climate policies could still be worthwhile under the CEF. This would mean innovative approaches such as:<\/p>\n