Recent Articles

Earth Hour this Saturday night - is it all just a waste of time?

David Jeffery
December 09, 2008 05:40

It's the second annual Earth Hour this Saturday night and the wise cynics are once again gleefully reminding us how stupid we are to turn out our lights for one hour in the deluded belief that we're doing something about climate change.Their triumphant, but I think misguided, crowing about how...

Garnaut Review out today

David Jeffery
December 09, 2008 05:40

The draft report of Professor Ross Garnaut's Climate Change Review will be released at 12.30 today here.For overseas readers, this review has been described as the Australian version of the Stern Review. The report will look at the economic impact on Australia of climate change and the design of a...

Congestion tolls in Sydney

David Jeffery
November 11, 2008 23:52

One interesting announcement in yesterday's NSW state mini-budget was the introduction of "congestion tolls" on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel: the toll will vary depending on the time of day. Tolls will increase from $3 to $4 during peak travel times, stay the same during a shoulder period...

Conflicts of interest in environmental planning

David Jeffery
October 22, 2008 23:49

Andrew Norton has an interesting article on some unintended consequences of proposed reforms to Victoria's local government legislation. Reforms desgined to reduce the potential for conflicts of interest could undermine, rather than strengthen, the rights of residents to partcipate in the planning...

Defensive investments

David Jeffery
October 20, 2008 07:01

I'm back from a very enjoyable trip to Ireland and Scotland - and two fantstic weddings. Being on holidays, I was only generally aware that there was a financial meltdown going on and that everything was costing more each day as the Aussie dollar sunk about 30% against the Euro and pound over the...

Blogging break

David Jeffery
September 05, 2008 03:19

There's been a lot going on in my life lately (in a good way) and unfortunately Oikos has been the victim of that. Ironically I've been spending more time on climate change issues than ever before but my energy in that sphere has been channeled into my environmental economics thesis which has kept...

Why do we pay people to waste our most precious resource?

David Jeffery
July 17, 2008 23:23

It's one year today since the contract to build Sydney's desalination plant was signed and ANU environmental economists Quentin Grafton and Michael Ward have run the numbers on whether it was a good deal.  Their conclusion: the net benefit to Sydney households of the plant is negative one billion ...

Thoughts on the green paper - Part 1: petrol

David Jeffery
July 17, 2008 00:24

The government’s green paper on emissions trading is now available. The government’s new phrase for its emissions trading scheme is “carbon pollution reduction scheme”.The first thing that’s captured everyone’s attention – not surprisingly – is petrol. With all the hoo-ha about petrol prices recentl...

Government's green paper on emissions trading out today

David Jeffery
July 16, 2008 02:09

It's being launched by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong at the Press Club at 12.30.I'll put up a link when I have one and hopefully some analysis tonight.

Responses to higher fuel prices

David Jeffery
June 18, 2008 02:37

Observing how people are responding now to higher fuel prices gives us some idea about how people will respond to a price on carbon under an emissions trading scheme.In the short term, we can expect pain on households and businesses as their usual ways of doing things become more expensive. In the...