At the end of his column in “The Australian” today, Alan Wood told readers that this was his final column as economics editor.
So, what message did Alan view as sufficiently important to be the subject of this column?
I quote what seems to be Alan’s main point:
“If Australia moves ahead of the rest of the world to curb carbon emissions, there will be no benefit to Australia or the world but a potentially very high cost to us, involving extensive restructuring and transfers of wealth within Australia and from Australia to emerging economies.”
I think that message is worth repeating. The rest of the column can be read here.
If Australia moves ahead of the rest of the world, it will be to its great credit, and might be the start of a snowball effect.
ReplyDeleteIt could greatly benefit the world, and Aussie.
In any case selfish interests should mean Australia moving first since it probably has much to lose (drought, habitability etc) with the status quo. It might as well go first at least then there is a chance of mitigation.
It still seems to me that Alan Wood was right. The worst of all possible outcomes for Australia is to incur the cost of reducing our carbon emissions without this having any impact on climate change.
ReplyDeleteAs a very small player (in terms of contributions to global emissions)the best strategy for Australia is probably the one we look like taking now i.e. indicate that we will make an appropriate contribution if and when the U.S. signs up.