ETS vs compulsion in New Canuteland

Looks like climate change has joined the equipment list in the long standing game of political football. The announcement by United Future leader, Peter Dunne, that his party would not support the proposed ETS is a disappointment on several levels.

It is a perversity of human nature that when a risk appears to be far away and apparently low, no one will lift a finger to do anything about it. Despite warnings for most of 16 years now that something should be done to address the real risk of climate change, almost nothing has been done in practical terms. Had we implemented some form of emissions trading scheme a decade ago, we would already be seeing the economic benefits and the rewards that would come to a country that showed leadership in political terms and in terms of technology and processes that others could purchase or copy and adapt.

But no. Yet another red-flags-waving, bells-ringing opportunity has passed us by as we join the ranks of the climate change knuckle-draggers on our way to the insert-head-in-ground convergence point for the terminally short sighted.

The other leg of the human behaviour double is that when the risk does become more real and more obvious, instead of doing anything, we have a study and a report, then another study and another report. Then we all squabble over who will pay for it with each sector trying to preserve their own position on the shrinking ice floe that could metaphorically represent the world the way it used to be.

The politically strong (business and farmers) gang up on the politically weak and / or unengaged (most people) and seek to make them pay for the carbon footprint as they pay for most other things.

Privatise the profits. Socialise the cost. Business 101. It`s a clever strategy by the politically engaged as it gets the cost off their shoulders and onto the shoulders of those who do have the power - ultimately - to spit the dummy and then no one pays anything and nothing is done.

The problem, however, is that doing nothing isn't really a viable option in the medium to long term and the longer we leave it, the more costly it will be for everyone.

The National Party, as usual when change comes along, are the last to see it coming. I mean that in the nicest possible way. This tendency to drive via the rear-vision mirror can be a life-saver when some idiot wants to turn the world upside down for no good reason. Society needs this tendency.

Unfortunately, however, when real change does come along, being conservative also has the downside of NOT changing things even when change becomes all but irresistible. The last years of Rob Muldoon's National government were a Canute-like stand against irresistible global forces. Madness in a way, yet typical of the broader conservative mind that seeks to keep things as they are. Or rather, were.

National has not changed. Despite 20 years of discussion and debate about climate change at global and local level, they remain among the ranks of those who don't want to know - not really. To look at it would mean actually CHANGING something and they don't (want to) do change. Instead, they cling to shonky research by think tanks funded by vested interests populated by other conservatives elsewhere who seek to frustrate change.

The irony in all this is that the Emission Trading Scheme was built on the market ideology of conservatives. Setting levels of acceptable emissions and then making them tradeable was a key element in getting buy-in from governments in thrall of market ideology. The problem with markets is they require willing participants and when it comes down to it, the conservative elements don't want to participate.

Ok, the alternative to market mechanisms always was compulsion. Governments CAN reduce emissions by simply mandating reductions to a schedule and requiring compliance. Take it for granted that by the time they actually do that the streets lining the waterfronts of the world will be crumbling into the rising seas.

Tradeable schmadeable.....if the market has failed, then why not just DO it? The "law 'n order" version of greenhouse gas reduction. Enough of the politically correct, market-oriented taurine fecal matter, just get the job done.

By dragging their heels on dealing with climate change the easy way, the opponents of the ETS may simply be bringing us all to the day when emission cuts will be legislated for and the costs incurred along the way may be far higher than what people are duck-shoving around the shrinking ice floe today.

Bottom line: If the public understood what was at stake, we would be seeing an ETS law passed by a large majority that was fair to everyone and included all sectors. To the extent that any sector is currently disadvantaged, reflects the lack of active awareness and engagement by that sector - in this case that's the average voter and citizen.

Perhaps we should consider changing the name of the country to 'New Canuteland'. It may even be literal one day as we stand on the beaches watching the tide coming in higher and higher.