Uncertain sciences in climate change and government policy making

Comments on Michael Asten “Political interference will cripple climate debate”, 17/12/2010, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/political-interference-will-cripple-climate-debate/story-e6frg6zo-1225972366783

While Michael Asten has made very good points in terms of political interference on sciences and scientific work by scientists, it is a different matter for actions on climate change by governments.

There are indeed uncertainties regarding the science of climate change and the role of man induced global warming. That is especially so given that there were reportedly very large variations in temperature on the earth with some higher temperature periods, as well as the data used in many modelling of man induced warming cover extremely short time in comparison with the long history of the earth. It is possible that most modelling could be spurious in that context, even though many of those works in isolation could be regarded as 'sound'.

But governments have to respond to many different voices and make decisions under uncertainties. In this context, there is a question of what is the best policy that a government can make and what are the best actions to take.

While any governments should not disregard the uncertainties in climate change sciences, it would not be prudent for them to ignore the larger voices from scientists who consider that man induced warming is true.

Even for insurance purposes, governments should take active actions to reduce or limit emissions while at the same time to also take actions to adapt to higher temperature future.

The best policy, though, seems to be a flexible carbon tax which can be adjusted to best suit any new evidences or new scientific and empirical findings.

In comparison, an ETS does have the danger and runs the risk of being manipulated for financial gains by participants in the financial markets to hijack its true purposes and to increase the costs of emission reductions accordingly in the due course.

In that regard, it has been unfortunate that the Labor government from Rudd to Gillard seems to have been fixated with an ETS so stubbornly and mistaken it as a good policy.