It's cheap to tackle climate change – but that isn't the reason to do it

(The Guardian, 11 Jun 2019) What does it say about Australia if we are only willing to save ourselves if we can get a good deal on the price of renewables?

If renewables weren’t getting cheaper, would Australia still want to tackle climate change? And if world demand for coal wasn’t declining, would we still want to stop the Adani coalmine being built? After 30 years of democratic failures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in the last five we’ve witnessed technological leaps succeed where elections could not. But what does it say about Australia if we are only willing to save ourselves, and our kids, if we can get a good deal on the price of renewables?

Imagine if the Australian and UK governments declined to participate in the war in Iraq because the price of bombs was a bit high. Imagine if the US waited for the price of nuclear missiles to fall before participating in an arms race with Russia. Or imagine if we criticised people for spending more on their cars, clothes or food than was “necessary”.

The idea that we need to weigh the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions with the benefits of doing so is so widespread in Australia that it’s difficult to see how absurd – and uncommon – such an approach is. While economics textbooks suggest that we should solve all problems in such a manner, the simple fact is we solve almost no problems that way. Take cars for example.

Cars are a very expensive way to move around a city. The private costs of buying, fuelling and maintaining a car are relatively high, and then there are the social costs. Without massive public investment in roads, tunnels and bridges, cars are virtually worthless. And then there are the costs of noise pollution, air pollution and congestion that car drivers impose on other citizens.

Cars do not provide anything close to “least cost transport”, and the fact that most people who buy cars don’t simply buy the cheapest available car makes a mockery of textbook economic descriptions of rational decision making. But strangely, I have never heard the oil industry demand that countries pursue least cost transport policy. Indeed, I’ve never seen a car company determined to only sell the cheapest possible cars.

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The Guardian, 11 Jun 2019: It's cheap to tackle climate change – but that isn't the reason to do it