Evolution of knowledge tensions on energy transition narratives in Australia

Good afternoon.

I am presenting today a work-in-progress tackling the evolution of knowledge tensions on energy transition narratives in Australia. This work covers the period from 1996 to September 2013 during which Australia saw three changes in government leadership.

This work saw incubation during my visiting fellowship at the Program on Science, Technology and Society at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard last spring.

Since this is a work-in-progress, I appreciate comments and helpful suggestions at the end of my talk.

My presentation is in three parts.

I begin with an introduction where I will discuss briefly the context of my investigation, the questions I am trying to respond to, and a short thumbnail on the relations between climate and energy policymaking in Australia.

These sets out the second part of my presentation where I will attempt to discuss the progression of knowledge-making on energy transition in Australia within those timescales.

The final part of my presentation contains general comments and a conclusion.

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DRAFT - THIS IS A WORK IN-PROGRESS -

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Two weeks ago, the IPCC released its fifth assessment report confirming the Two weeks ago, the IPCC released its fifth assessment report confirming the

overwhelming understanding that climate change is here and it is advancing even

faster than we realized and that human activities are at the core of it.

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Earlier this year, the independent Australian Climate Commission released a report entitled The Angry Summer showing the prevalence and ferocity of recent weather events in the country. Summer showing the prevalence and ferocity of recent weather events in the country.

The report indicates an acceleration that is unlikely to tail off unless urgent and serious steps are taken to prevent further changes to the earth’s environment.

I have begun my presentation with climate change as it has been the peg at which energy transition knowledge-making and policymaking are hang.

The Australian economy is highly attached to industries which contribute to warming.

The country supplies majority of the world’s coal, liquefied natural gas and uranium requirements.

While these resources are among Australia’s major economic bastions, they are also the principal contributors to the country’s greenhouse gas emission profile.

If Australia has to make a fair contribution to climate mitigation, then its highly emissions intensive energy systems must quickly transition to low carbon sources.

It is along these lines that climate and energy policy are deeply intertwined, hence highly controversial, in Australia.

The energy transition policy domain, if ever discussed, highlights the focus on new energy technologies and pricing that come with the shift.

Less discussed is the broader social dimension of the transition; dynamics that rarely attract the attention of energy policy scholars.

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This talk tries to fill in that gap. Here, I would like to respond to the questions: This talk tries to fill in that gap. Here, I would like to respond to the questions:

How was knowledge on energy transition produced and chosen in Australia?

Who produced it?

And whose science was translated into policy?

To address these questions, I have examined two tensions that come with the

Australian energy policymaking dynamics.

First is the process that revolves around the production of knowledge on energy

transition and their employment to policymaking.

Second is the confluence meaning the influx and departures of actors who

contribute to what I will call the Australian energy epistemics.

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In the second part of my presentation, I take a narrative analysis method to storifyIn the second part of my presentation, I take a narrative analysis method to storify

expertise-policy interactions that cover 18 years of Federal Australian politics.

This is between 1996 and 2013 during which government changed guards from

Howard to Rudd and to Gillard.

I would like to respond to the questions:

How does expertise contribute to Australian climate-energy policymaking?

To what extent does expert advice were considered by governments?

What kind of accounting processes has been made to ensure credibility and

legitimacy of their claims?


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Howard Government, 1996-2007

Let’s start with Howard.

Although knowledge about the necessity of energy transition for climate has been widely produced internationally during Howard’s tenure, the government sided itself with mining and traditional energy, I mean, fossil-based sectors.

After the U.S. Congress rejected Kyoto Protocol in 2001, Howard announced to Parliament that Australia would do the same. It won’t ratify Kyoto.

In an interview in November 2006, Howard was quoted saying this: “…I believe in the coal industry and I believe in preserving the competitive advantage we now have that is why, that is why we didn’t sign Kyoto, because Kyoto could well have put us at a competitive disadvantage”.

Despite emerging expert advice from overseas and at home that time, there had been no meaningful changes in the country’s energy transition profile.

Business-as-usual was the predominant discourse.

But, things had changed.

A number of high profile events began to appear in 2006 where parts of Australia were caught in the longest, most severe drought on record.

The Australian public picked the nationwide drought—fueled by media coverage—as an everyday climate impact.

Also in 2006, the Stern Review on climate change economics was released adding to the mainstreaming of climate-energy debate which had earlier been made popular by Al Gore’s film.

The next year, 2007, the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report.


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With the spotlight now on climate-energy policy, Howard hastily convened a Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading to advise him on the matter of a domestic ETS. Trading to advise him on the matter of a domestic ETS.

In the Terms of Reference that set the Task Group’s work, Howard was quoted saying: “Australia enjoys major competitive advantages through the possession of large reserves of fossil fuels and uranium. In assessing Australia’s further contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these advantages must be preserved.”

In May 2007, the Task Group released its report which recommended, among others, a price on carbon and compensations for the coal and mining sector for their losses due to such price.

The protection of heavy greenhouse emitting industry in Australia by government was further brought to public discussion when Guy Pearse, one of Howard’s advisor published an expose of the affinity between the Howard Government and a small group of Australia’s biggest polluters.

From an insider point of view, Pearse narrated how Howard and several of his key ministers have been captured by a group of industries and their lobbyists as well as some members of the media whom Pearse branded as the greenhouse mafia.

As a result of this confluence of events, Australian public opinion polls began shifting in favour of taking action against global warming.

With the growing public dissent to the Government, Howard called for an election in 2007.

Climate change was one of the major election issues.

The election brought a strong blow to Howard’s own party.

They were defeated with the Prime Minister himself losing his parliamentary seat.


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Rudd Government, 2007-2010

With the change of government and the promises made during the campaign, there

had been a revival of hope from those who have been pushing for energy transition.

By December 2007, the newly elected Labor Party ratified the Kyoto Protocol as

their first act of parliament.

The knowledge-making for energy transition in Australia was incubated by the

government itself.

The Australian Treasury initiated an economic modeling of emissions cuts.

The new Rudd government also commissioned the first Australian expert review on

climate policy.

This was later published as the Garnaut Review, after its lead author, economics

Professor Ross Garnaut.


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In February 2008, Rudd told Parliament these: “the costs of inaction on climate change are much greater than the costs of action” and that “Australia must…seize the opportunity now much greater than the costs of action” and that “Australia must…seize the opportunity now to become a leader globally’.

Nonetheless, the initial signs that the Rudd Government would be supportive of the energy transition proved to be mere rhetoric.

Garnaut recommended the establishment of a trading scheme with broad sectoral coverage, no allocation of permits, no price caps, quantitative limits on the use of international offsets and limited transitional assistance to the coal industry.

But these recommendations were ignored.

Industry lobby exerted all the efforts they could to influence Rudd’s climate-energy policy.

In July 2008, the Rudd government released a Green Paper with a scheme that contained similar generous package for polluters recommended by previous government.

This favoring of carbon-intensive industries made some observers to comment on the

ongoing influence of the carbon lobby that Pearse had described in 2007.


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Garnaut himself registered his frustration. Garnaut himself registered his frustration.

On the road to a vote, the Government was pressured to modify the bill.

Nonetheless, it was unsuccessful. It was voted down in the Senate in August 2009.

Abandonment of the proposal sparked a series of events that ultimately led to

changes in the Australian seat of power.

A leadership vote inside Rudd’s own Party ensued.


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The next day, Labor elected a new leader who also became Australia’s first female Prime Minister.

The issue of energy transition which Rudd used to differentiate his party from that of Howard’s in 2007 was among the number of issues that contributed to his downfall. The issue of energy transition which Rudd used to differentiate his party from that of Howard’s in 2007 was among the number of issues that contributed to his downfall.

Gillard Government, 2010-2013

In July 2010, a general election was called which resulted in a hung parliament.

Gillard’s Party, however, managed to form a minority government with support from the Australian Greens and three Independents who favored a price on carbon.

In July 2011, the Gillard Government through a multi-party committee produced the Clean Energy Plan which involves a temporary equivalent tax for three years followed by a trading scheme.

The proposal successfully passed Parliament.

For the first time, a mechanism to price carbon was legislated in Australia.

It was designed such that between 2012 and 2015, around 300 big polluting companies would be required to buy and surrender to the Government a permit for every ton of carbon equivalent they produce.

After this, the scheme will shift to a trading scheme.

What is important to energy transition epistemics during these times was the creation of a federal body of experts to advise government on climate policy, the Australian Climate Commission patterned after UK’s Committee on Climate Change.

There had been high hopes in this body to bring science and expertise center in policy-making; hence improving energy transition epistemics in Australia.

Such hopes, however, proved to be elusive.

In 2013, Australian politics once again became volatile.

Barely one year after the carbon pricing Mechanism became effective, Gillard was ousted as Party Leader and Rudd was back as Prime Minister.

A general election was called in September 7.

Climate-energy politics, once again, proved to be a defining issue in the campaign.

The carbon price mechanism established in July 2012 was tested for its durability.

Rudd expresses his intentions towards scrapping the carbon price and moving straight to a trading scheme once his Party won a majority.


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The Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, meanwhile, promised to scrap any form The Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott, meanwhile, promised to scrap any form

of pricing on carbon while providing more incentives to the mining sector.

Last month, Australians went to polls.

Abbott’s Party garnered majority of the seats in the House of Representatives giving

them the mandate to form a government.

Their first act of parliament was to expunge the Climate Commission.

This signals another turn in the colorful story of energy transition epistemics in

Australia.


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Discussion and conclusion

What I just had narrated provides a classic example of whose knowledge is actually important in policymaking.

Despite strong expert policy advice to adopt robust climate-energy policy, governments still tend to yield in favor of strong industry lobby.

Such disjuncture—between expert advice and actual policy—is a result of several factors.

The big influence of the resource sector on the economy and public finances is one.

Australia’s wealth of cost-effectively obtainable fossil resources creates economic obstacles to a significant energy transition.

Although this conclusion is somehow tantamount to carrying coal to Newcastle, our storifying of the Australian political dynamics made the process and take-up of knowledge-making on energy transition in Australia clearer.

Can the scheme of things be turned around?

I argue optimistically that it can be.

It could start by revisiting the process of knowledge production itself.

The primary focus on the technical and price aspects of knowledge production on energy transition haunts experts as actual policy has not even totally been reflective of their advice.

The same form of controversy also haunts the public at large.

It has been difficult to gain not only political consensus but also large-scale public acceptance of policy.

This has been shown in the recent Australian elections which served as a referendum to gauge public acceptance of the carbon price.

But why consensus building and public acceptance are both hard to accomplish especially for an issue such as energy transition?

The reasons are many.

For one, the transition itself brings challenges to our deeply acculturated and systemic ways of life which has been built on a decades-old marriage with fossil fuels.

Another is the reality that a meaningful transition calls the public to change behavior.

However, the current calculus of energy epistemics lacks to account for many of these social dimensions.

There is an option to reverse this current understanding.

It involves a more inclusive model of knowledge-making.

Here, expertise is diffused to a wide array of similarly interested audience, not only technicians, engineers, economists and bankers.

This option provides more flexibility, greater democracy and more room for accountability.

Its inclusiveness allocates others the spaces that have been once deemed as a purely technological-economic venture to where engineers, economists and scientists have sole territorial claims.

These realizations recognize the understanding that large-scale shifts such as meaningful energy transition are not only a matter of reconfiguring natural resources and redesigning engineered electrical lines.

Instead, it ought to involve the reshaping of established social fabrics, one that has been built around the same energy infrastructure that we hope to change.

By building and producing inclusive knowledges built on mutual respect such as this will give rise to new forms of knowledge- and policy-making not only for the Australian energy transition but also beyond.

It may be difficult but public acceptance is more guaranteed.

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Evolution of knowledge tensions on energy transition narratives in Australia

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