Mandarin or doublespeak?

Tue, Dec 23 2008
Public policy

OK. Here's a little Christmas Quiz. Not hard, I promise

First, read this inspiring quote from our Great Helmsman as he rouses the unions with some hearty advice and a lovely big cheque for $180m of your money. He's giving the money to them because… well, it's a Great Australian Tradition to give big chunks of money to the motor vehicle industry when they ask for it and, after all, it's only a tiny bit of the $6 billion prezzie he promised them a few weeks ago.

'In the year ahead, there will be some very tough times,' Mr Rudd said at the company announcement, flanked by thousands of auto-industry workers and their families. 'It will be hard. There will be some cruel times. And we are in many respects in uncharted waters. But if we stick together and government continues to provide leadership in securing the nation's future, then we will see Australia through.'  extract from: The Australian

Now, here's the question: When the Prime Minister warns the boys at General Motors of 'tough times' ahead, do you think he means theirs or yours? (Hint: did you get $6 billion for Xmas?)

For bonus points: The Age newspaper says that it's 'substituting dogma for reality' to criticize these subsidies because there's every reason to think that they'll put the industry back on it's feet and we won't be 'locked-in' to propping up General Motors. Question: Does The Age believe in the tooth-fairy? Or have they forgotten that we've been propping up this industry with direct subsidies, tax subsidies, high tariffs, concessional imports, import quotas and import bans since 1948?

Your thoughts?…

Obama’s science advisor hates science

Mon, Dec 22 2008
Global issues
Climate
Public policy

In remarks that could come direct from the dogmatists in the Curia, Prof. Holdren shows that he prefers the "public discourse" that is science (and democracy, for that matter) to be a chorus.

"The few climate-change 'skeptics' with any sort of scientific credentials continue to receive attention in the media out of all proportion to their numbers, their qualifications, or the merit of their arguments. And this muddying of the waters of public discourse is being magnified by the parroting of these arguments by a larger population of amateur skeptics with no scientific credentials at all... It has delayed - and continues to delay - the development of the political consensus that will be needed if society is to embrace remedies commensurate with the challenge."  extract from: John Holdren

His claims about the lack of an evidentiary basis for 'skepticism' are simply wrong. See this summary from climate researcher Prof. Robert Carter, in the Journal of the Ecomnomic Society of Australia (.pdf, about 1.8mb)

Update:Thanks to Luboš Motl I've just learned about Holdren's publication history. You can, too, at Google Scholar. Holdren's most cited publication is a 1971 'Science' article on 'catastrophic' poplulation growth, co-authored with the ignominious Paul R Erlich. The 'deck' quote is as subtle as his recent pronouncements on climate: "Complacency concerning this component of man's predicament is unjustified and counterproductive". Holdren has a couple of other journal articles on this long-forgotten catastrophist subject, several, more recent, in the same vein on climate change and earlier on nuclear weapons strategy and nuclear energy policy. Nothing, it seems, on plasma physics, the subject of his science PhD.

It seems, alas, that Dr Holdren has the qualifications to be something of a crackpot.

Your thoughts?…

A better way ahead for WTO

Thu, Dec 18 2008
Global issues
Trade framework
WTO

"As we have argued before, governments need to look for other options such as smaller, more manageable standalone multilateral deals."  extract from: FT Editorial - The broken promise of Doha

A 'smaller, stand-alone' deal is almost certain to lead to a plurilateral agreement among a sub-set of WTO's 153 members because it will probably not offer sufficient gain to all of them. But that's OK in my view. It's still a prospective way ahead.

Your thoughts?…

Emission controls not warranted by facts

Tue, Dec 16 2008
Global issues
Climate

Some environmentalists (and The Age newspaper) are predictably crying foul at Kevin Rudd's relatively modest White Paper option of up to 25% or 35% cuts from the estimated business as usual level of Australian GHG emissions in 2020. Nevertheless, the proposed ETS conforms to the government's threat to "reform and transform our economy" (Climate Minister, Penny Wong), by effectively choking it just when it is running out of puff

• In response to an alarm that is not ringing: Temperature trends over the past century or more (not to mention high-quality satellite data from the past thirty years) are almost indistinguishable from flat, (0.6°C over the whole of the 20^th century) except when portrayed as dramatically scaled anomalies based on arbitrary baselines—that, even so, show no warming trend in the past seven years
• Without any regard to the relevant context: The paleo-climate record is undisputed. Our climate continues to warm (slightly) as the planet recovers from the last ice-age; another ice-age cycle seems highly likely (soon in a geological time-scale); direct evidence of climate history shows at least 8 warming (up to +6°C from today's levels) and cooling (up to -12°C from today's levels) cycles over the past 800-thousand years that very likely have solar or galactic origin, and certainly have nothing to do with human influence
• Adopting prescriptions dreamed up by the adherents of a theory that is dis-confirmed by its own predictions and has no support other than some modeled 'scenarios' that predict warming that has not taken place, in fact: click the thumbnail above.

This mad policy has democratic credentials, but not much intellectual credence because its strongest support (in Australia, Ross Garnaut's investigation) depends on an argument from authority to justify a refusal carefully to (re)evaluate the evidence.

A sort of millenarian madness has gripped governments that should be seeking ways to promote knowledge and growth, not to stifle both with a fog of so-called 'settled science' (a silly claim that borders on being a lie) and public dread.

Your thoughts?…

A Pisgah sight of the Doha deal

Mon, Dec 08 2008
Global issues
Trade framework
WTO

(Update: the Ministerial meeting will not take place) Ahead of a likely attempt by WTO Minsiters to spy the promised land before the year is out In one last attempt to wrest consensus from growling discord, the (retiring) Chair of the WTO Agriculture Negotiations has released another version of his 120-page 'modalities' paper (.pdf, about 1mb) for the proposed Doha Round agreement on Agriculture. The Chair of the NAMA group has simultaneously released a new text on non-agricultural market access negotiations.

Predictably, the agriculture text contains new regressions—that is, new means of increasing, rather than 'substantially reducing' protection—that have been grafted to the proposals by an ugly sort of frankenstein surgery. Will the monster rise from the table at Ministers' command? I hope not; I would prefer another route to the completion of Doha.

This is Ambassador Crawford Falconer's last attempt to lead WTO members out of the wilderness. He has done his best with an impossible brief: to make an agreement among governments that don't agree.

"Everything is conditional in the deepest sense in any case. But the changes made at this time now represent a best estimate of where there is additional good reason to believe there would prove to be consensus if everything was to come together as a modalities package." (extract from Crawford Falconer's press release)

A short list of the changes (I can't call them highlights) I've noticed in the agriculture text follows

Read more…

A better way to negotiate on agriculture

Thu, Dec 04 2008
Data
Trade data
Global issues
Trade framework
WTO

Next week, at the Institute for International Trade in Adelaide, Andrew Stoler (Institute Director, former Deputy Director-General of WTO) and I are presenting a conference in our project on future frameworks for WTO agriculture agreements.

In addition to our own research (some linked here) we've commissioned the help of leading agriculture and trade policy research centers in Brazil, China, India and Indonesia to help us examine the political economy of the WTO agriculture negotiations. We've also benefited from comments from several of the world's leading analysts of agricultural trade policies; summarized in our 'Work in Progress' paper produced for the conference.

We are especially interested in testing an hypothesis first raised by the Warwick Commission about the value of so-called critical mass agreements as an adjunct to—or even as one of several substitutes for—the WTO's single undertaking.

Below: an extract from our Work In Progress report that asks whether recent discoveries about the rapid growth of intra-industry trade in food products suggests that CM agreements for food might be a good bet as a road to future market-opening agreements.

Read more…

Anti-NAFTA Congressman for U.S. Trade Rep?

Thu, Dec 04 2008
Global issues
Trade framework
Trade politics
WTO

An experienced Member of the Ways and Means trade subcommittee, another Californian lawyer (a profession that has not distinguished itself in the Trade Representative's office, except by a take-no-prisoners advocacy), Xavier Becerra sounds pretty much what Obama promised during his campaign:

"Becerra did originally support NAFTA, but he has apologized for this and worked to oppose CAFTA, giving Bush fast-track authority for trade agreements, and granting China MFN…[He] has an 87% lifetime rating from the AFL-CIO. It's not an A, but it's still pretty good."  extract from: Daily Kos

'Good' of course is something that 'Daily Kos' and I will never agree on. I hope that this story is not true, but I fear otherwise because Obama advocated these same views during the campaign. Let's still hope that those people who argued Obama's tired old anti-trade stump rhetoric would change once he was in office are right. But it doesn't look that way right now.

Thanks to Ben Muse for this link.

Your thoughts?…

The WTO’s objectives

Wed, Nov 26 2008
Global issues
Trade framework
WTO
1 comments

On 11-12 December, the Institute for International Trade will host a conference that Andrew Stoler (its Director) and I have arranged as part of our year-long research project to find a better way to negotiate WTO agriculture agreements.

In a paper he has prepared for the conference on 'Variable Geometries', Professor Peter LLoyd of Melbourne University poses a question about WTO's objectives. The paper will be available to participants at the conference, (and I'll post links afterwards), but in the meantime here's what Pascal Lamy (Director General of WTO) thinks are the objectives of the Doha Round, or possibly the objectives of the WTO:

Read more…

Transition to a non-carbon economy

Fri, Nov 21 2008
Global issues
Climate

The objectives of climate-change mitigation programs such as those in the Garnaut Report or in the Australian Government's absurdly-named 'carbon pollution reduction scheme' cannot be achieved by 2020 or 2050 without a massive, and rapid, transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources of primary energy for base-load power generation, transport etc.

But forcing rapid change in the way we power production and consumption across the economy —for example, by means of carbon-quota (or tax) penalties— will cut growth and will redistribute resources to less productive sectors such as government and (probably) some households. Certainly, the emission controls will affect business and consumer plans, but the wealth impacts also risk undermining our capacity to invest in the infrastructure necessary for an eventual energy transition.

Prof. Vaclav Smil argues that the inertia of energy systems is much greater than these 'transformational' programs acknowledge. Unlike information systems that the micro-processor revolutionized within the span of half a working-life, a transition in energy systems takes generations because it requires fundamental changes in large-scale 'cooperative' infrastructure such as transmission networks as well as in the organization of production and consumption.

Read more…

Temperatures in Victoria

Wed, Nov 19 2008
Data
Global issues
Climate

An update to the previous post on the temperature record in the state of Victoria. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology says that 2007 was the hottest year on record, although satellite data show the Southern Hemisphere is not warming. The chart (above) shows their records for Victoria since 1950.

Read more…

How hot has it been in Victoria?

Sun, Nov 16 2008
Data
Global issues
Climate

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology claims that 2007 was the hottest year on record for Victoria

"The year 2007 was Victoria's warmest year on record with a mean annual temperature 1.18°C above the long term norm. This is 0.37°C above the previous record, set in 1988"  BOM

But, if so, Victoria must have had a dramatically different year from the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, whose land-temperatures show almost no trend over the past twenty years—except possibly a slight cooling since 2001 (click the thumbnail).

Read more…

A modest proposal for the ‘G-20’ summit

Sun, Nov 09 2008
Data
Trade data
Global issues
Trade framework
WTO

The IMF's Managing Director should not try to talk down expectations for next weekend's summit. We deserve much more from these leaders that, so far, have done little to match their promises of reform of global governance over the past decade.

The G-20's role should be to set up the best conditions for a recovery in real markets, not just in financial markets. But, on their past behavior, it is likely they'll re-cycle yet another low-credibility statement about completing the noxious Doha deal that was on the table last July.

A more modest program to open world markets that is not burdened with the second-thoughts, exceptions and safeguards would do much more to lift global market confidence if it could be quickly implemented. Here's a blast-from-the-past idea that could also set up a still more effective resumption of Doha when the new U.S. administration (and the new EC Commission and Indian Government) is ready to deal

Read more…

Automobile tariff cut irrelevant

Tue, Sep 16 2008
Data
Public policy
Micro-economics
1 comments

Why it's impossible to get too excited about the planned cut in automobile tariffs from 10% to 5% in 2010. Despite the howls of capital and the unions, the volatility of the Australian exchange rate makes a 5% margin irrelevant. Already in 2008 the trade-weighted index has fallen more than 7 percent. Click the thumbnail for a larger image.

 

Your thoughts?…

Bombs or bridges?

Wed, Sep 10 2008
Public policy
Micro-economics

Billions of dollars spent on armaments would be more productively spent on infrastructure. This would be a less wasteful and much more certain way to maintain Australia's supposed global 'middle power' status (Is that a 'status'? Or is it a bunch of diplomats exercising their vowels?). Our balance of payments plunged back into the red this month because—among other reasons—we cannot ship the minerals and coal ordered by our customers on time and in the volumes required. Our export performance—not to mention our national productivity—is held back by decades of neglect of essential infrastructure. But the Prime Minister, according to reports, wants to give priority to keeping up with an arms race.

Some analysts have described this as a "catching up" exercise, suggesting more investment would be necessary. Mr Rudd appears to agree.
"For the government, a major priority is to ensure we have enough naval capabilities in the future, enough naval assets, enough naval performance, and therefore enough funding put aside to invest in that, long term," he said.
Mr Rudd also insisted in his speech that Australia, which is a close ally of the United States, wanted to maintain its status as a global "middle power".  [From BBC NEWS | Australia fears Asian arms race]

Your thoughts?…

Garnaut Review Economic Model

Fri, Sep 05 2008
Global issues
Climate

On a quick first reading of the supplementary report, this seems to be the key data related to the modeling results. For the more moderate 550ppm CO₂ objective, the costs of a 10% cut in 2000 carbon emissions to 2020 are estimated at 1.1% of GDP (1.8% cut to consumption) comprising a net decrement of about 0.1+% of GNP per year. In other words, the expected net benefits are somewhere toward the end of the century (and seem to comprise assumptions about 'avoiding catastrophies').

Despite the boost to growth in the second half of the century, the sacrifice in the first half of the century is substantial, though the loss to GNP is fully recovered with a margin by the end of the century. The benefits that are purchased by this sacrifice take several forms. One is insurance against the effects of severe and possibly catastrophic outcomes on material consumption during this century. Another is increased protection against loss of non-market services this century. Yet another is avoidance of all of the rapidly increasing costs in through the 21st and into the 22nd century and beyond: the rapidly increasing negative impact on material consumption; the risk of outcomes much worse than the median expectations from the applied science (although beyond the 21st century, the median outcomes include more and more of the severe and possibly catastrophic); and the impacts on non-market values.

Your thoughts?…

Drought in the “Sunburnt Country”

Fri, Sep 05 2008
Global issues
Climate

Ian Castles has published—as a tribute to Dorothea Mackellar's poem, My Country (often known from a line in its second verse as 'A Sunburnt Country'), published just one hundred years ago today—a typically well-mannered but meticulous criticism of the CSIRO's paper on the future incidence of drought in Australia. Ian detects, and documents, the CSIRO authors' habits of ignoring pertinent but inconvenient criticism and points to some not-quite-credible claims that the CSIRO authors have previously published—in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment report.

It defies belief that the range of rainfall change in 2080 (relative to 1990) from all of these scenarios and models could be from minus 27 per cent to plus 54 per cent for “Northern NSW, Tasmania and central Northern Territory” - and yet be from minus 80 per cent (i.e. one-fifth of the 1990 level) to nil “within 400 km of western and southern coasts”   [From One hundred years of drought and flooding rains - On Line Opinion]

Your thoughts?…

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