We won't all be rooned by emissions trading
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday July 29, 2009
What is the basis for dire warnings of job losses because of the emissions trading scheme?From 1998 to 2008, the oil price went from $US20 to $US130, a more than sixfold increase. Yet this did not cause massive job losses or shut down the economy. When the oil price collapsed back to $US40 in less than a year, there was no corresponding job boom. During the same period the Australian dollar ranged in value between 54 and 96 US cents.So it appears the economy has some capacity to absorb significant fluctuations in the cost of energy, exports and raw materials without devastating employment rates.We also have to consider that most of the extra dollars spent on oil in the past decade left Australia forever, while the money from increased energy prices in an emissions trading scheme will stay within Australia, creating green jobs (and new trading and bureaucratic jobs).Even the most dire predictions of job losses are small compared with natural job fluctuations. The Minerals Council predicts 23,510 direct jobs will be lost in the minerals industry by 2020. Against these 2351 jobs lost annually, the mining industry has created more than 70,000 jobs since 2004 (14,000 a year), and then lost 10,000 in three months because of the global financial crisis. Thus any job losses from the emissions trading scheme could easily be erased or overshadowed by other changes in the industry.Alarmist views that the sky is going to fall if the scheme increases the cost of some forms of energy do not stack up against recent history.Greg Wilkins Manly
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald