Economic estimates don't account for tragic bushfire toll

AS THE DEATH and destruction caused by the bushfire catastrophe continue to mount, Westpac has issued estimates suggesting that the associated reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) will be very modest, between 0.2 and 0.5%. There is plenty to argue within the way this estimate has been derived, but the biggest problem is with the use of the GDP concept.

Scott Morrison's Government has prioritised money over the environment.

I’ve pointed out many times that considered as a measure of economic wellbeing, GDP has three major deficiencies: it’s gross, meaning that depreciation (including the destruction caused by natural disasters) is not taken into account; it’s domestic, meaning that it includes output generated in Australia by foreign capital; and it’s a product, when the real interest is in income. 

In the case of the bushfires, the big problem is that GDP is gross. The destruction of houses, businesses and infrastructure by disasters is, in economic terms, a particularly drastic form of depreciation. But, since GDP takes no account of depreciation, it is unchanged.

Read the story from the Independent Australia by John Quiggin - “Economic estimates don't account for tragic bushfire toll.”

GDP is destroying the planet. Here’s an alternative.

GDP is a poor measure of progress — it increases as we destroy the natural capital of the planet.

The value of the planet needs to be factored into our financial system.

We need economic growth, but we cannot continue to measure it using GDP. We need a ‘quality adjusted’ GDP linked to transactions which recognise how much social and natural capital they are building.

Although the International Energy Association reported that carbon emissions stabilised for 3 years in the 2014–2016, the best estimates for 2017, which are waiting formal confirmation, are that they increased 2%. This is in the context of Christina Figueres, former chair of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, together with leading scientists, saying that we have “three years for carbon emissions to peak and drop rapidly to avoid catastrophic climate change”. That was June 2017. We now have two years.

Read the World Economic Forum story - “GDP is destroying the planet. Here’s an alternative.”

Josh Frydenberg responds to Age Editorial

Australia's emissions

Josh Frydenberg.

Your editorial, "Dismal record on climate change" (19/1) was a misleading account of Australia's emission reduction performance. Our emissions today are the lowest on a per capita and GDP basis in 28years. 

Renewables investment is the highest on record, with the Clean Energy Council hailing an "unprecedented wave of investment”.

Absolute emissions in the last quarter came down in the electricity sector by 1.8per cent and across the economy by 0.6per cent, the biggest quarterly drop in the last four years.  The latest data indicates we'll overachieve our 2020 target by 294million tonnes, a 30per cent or 70million tonne improvement on the year prior. One million tonnes of carbon abatement is the equivalent to taking 300,000 cars off the road for a year.

Contrary to your claim, we do not need to count the 128million tonne surplus from the first Kyoto period to achieve our 2020 target; on the current numbers, we can achieve it without it. As for the 2030 target, the abatement task ahead of us has fallen 122million tonnes over the year and around 60per cent in the past two years.

Josh Frydenberg, Minister for the Environment and Energy 

GDP is a fundmetally flawed measurement

The traditional measure of success in the developed world is fundamentally flawed.

Maintenance the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as that measure is of particular interest to those who gather each month Beneath the Wisteria to consider individual and societal response to climate change.

GDP is clearly inappropriate in that it measures good and bad happenings, takes no account of costs to the environment and so when considered objectively is unsustainable.

The complete ineffectiveness of using the GDP to guide countries toward “success” has been discussed in a story headed: “Dethroning GDP as a measure of our progress” has been the subject of discussion on The Drum on the ABC.

Author, Tim Dean argues that it is time to move beyond GDP and adopt a more enlightened metric of our national progress.

Our refusal to acknowledge climate change puts development at risk



World Bank vice president, Rachel Kyte.

Development throughout the world is threatened by our refusal to acknowledge climate change, according to World Bank vice-president and Special Envoy for Climate Change, Rachel Kyte.

An article published on the Future Earth website headed: “Rachel Kyte:Climate change threatens to wipe out development progress” lamented the inattention paid the climate change.

“If you are committed to ending poverty and you are committed to building prosperity, you have to grapple with climate change,” she said.

Praising the fact that European countries were giving 0.7 per cent of their GDP to development,  Ms Kyte said that was being done while letting climate change go ahead in an unmitigated way.

“You are cancelling one out with the other” she said. “That is why climate becomes so important”.

Future Earth is a new 10-year research program aimed at providing the knowledge needed to tackle the most urgent challenges of the 21^st century related to global sustainability.

Community health should be 'key' election issue

Prof Anthony McMichael.

Climate change, according to Professor Anthony McMichael, should be a key issue at the coming Federal Election.

Prof McMichael, a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow with the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, is concerned that Australians are more concerned about GDP than health.

Writing on The Conversation in a story headed: “Why climate change should be a key election issue”, he argues that although the GDP and affiliated matters are  important, such discussions are about short-term issues and the conversation should really be focused on population welfare, health, survival and social stability.