Hidden perils of Copenhagen

When you quote Alan Jones and Lord Christopher Monckton on climate change you can be sure to get a huge reaction. Go to our carbon trading conversation page and you will see a wide selection of thoughtful reactions covering many points of view. Let me pick out what happened to me after I wrote my last commentary.

Firstly, on the broader aspect of the Canberra carbon trading proposal, the weekend print press has finally woken up to the fact that Victorian Premier John Brumby has written to the federal government pleading with them to see common sense and avoid official administration of Victorian power plants. There are still reports that official administration means the power stations will shut down. They will not.

It may be a year or two before the end of long-term maintenance that follows official administration kicks in and causes major blackouts. What would happen is that the power stations' long-term supply contracts with retailers would end, meaning the retailers will suffer staggering losses if there is any interruption to supply for whatever reason.

This morning's Australian reports that the Hong Kong based CLP group (formerly China Light and Power) through its Australian operation TRUenergy has written to all politicians advocating that the five-year compensation be extended to 10 or 15 years enabling the group to build a gas-fired power station and avoid the chaos created by official administration for a majority of the Latrobe Valley brown coal power stations. CLP also told politicians that the federal government was in danger of breaching the bilateral investment treaty with Hong Kong.

Secondly, I spoke to a former top executive of one of the larger power retailers who says that while the retailers would be potentially ravaged by the end of the supply price protection, there was no way the federal government will be so stupid as to allow that. He believes the problem will be fixed by the regulations – that's also the view of Victorian Treasurer John Lenders. All I can say is that we are going very close to the wire given that the legislation goes before the Senate this week.

Thirdly, controversial comments from Lord Monckton had not been on Business Spectator long before our carbon trading and climate change writer Giles Parkinson was responding via emails pointing out that the MIT work Monckton quotes is from Robert Lindzen. According to Parkinson, Lindzen is a maverick at MIT, who has been a noted 'sceptic' since the early 1990s.

Parkinson says: "Is MIT a climate sceptic? No. Here is a report from a dozen leading experts at MIT – all bar Lindzen – who earlier this year released a report doubling their expected temperature increases from man-made global warming."

And another of our environmental contributors Paul Gilding came in with strong words about those who doubt the carbon link to climate change.

The point I was making is that this is a debate that is raging in the community. Alan Jones makes sure that it is a hot topic in Sydney and it is clearly an issue that is dividing the Liberal party much to the delight of Kevin Rudd who keeps the lid on his own divisions.

Part of the reason for the community uncertainty is that the issue is steeped in politics and no one is coming clean about the treaty we may agree to sign. One of our conversation contributors, David Willcox says: "I have read the draft Copenhagen Treaty. What Jones and Monckton say about it is true. The language shows that the United Nations are far from 'united' – this is about directed mandatory wealth transfer. And Rudd is deafeningly silent, because he knows.”