Writer
Jeremy Webb
Dr Webb is a former diplomat with postings in Indonesia, South Korea, Paris and New Zealand. In a former career as a journalist he was the economics writer for the Bulletin Magasine and Assistant Editor of Rydges Business Journal. He currently carries out research in the field of environmental economics at the Queensland University of Technology.
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A remote sanctioning of infanticide learnt from the US playbook
The practice of remotely and vicariously bombing cities and civilians is a longstanding technique of war over which the Israelis certainly have no ownership. Secretary of State Blinken has been trying to call time out. But the US has been the modern day architect of this brutal and destructive weapon of war. Continue reading »
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Divide and fool: The Coalition’s misinformation campaign
In a recent Q and A, the opposition’s shadow minister for Climate Change and Energy Ted O’Brien’s improbable aim was to convince Australia that small nuclear reactors (SMRs) could replace our coal fired power plants and lead us to carbon neutrality. If you examine the economics of SMRs the proposition has to be classified as Continue reading »
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Is ‘big oil’ the real problem?
While big oil is being trenchantly criticised for expanding oil and gas output it is acting in response to market forces. Much more attention therefore needs to be given to the failure of governments to end their subsidisation of oil companies, to ending the greenwashing of gas, and to redirecting investment to renewables. Continue reading »
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Our carbon colonialism
On his way to Beijing to repair bilateral climate change relations John Kerry announced to the world the US would ‘under no circumstances’ pay climate change ‘reparations’ to the developing world. Why such a statement? Continue reading »
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Are human rights abuses of the Chinese judicial system worse than that of the land of the free? A difficult call
Doing the rounds on YouTube is the case of a black American Tyshon Booker arrested when he was 16 for being present (with a gun) at a murder which he did not commit (the murderer confessed). He was given a 51 year minimum sentence. This case is, of course, is only the disgraceful tip of Continue reading »
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The federal budget: what planet does Labour live on?
It’s astonishing now that the analytical dust has settled on the budget that out of 57 leading Australian economists, most have given it top marks. What planet we may ask do they – and the Labour Government – live on? Not one critically endangered by climate change and a catastrophic decline in biodiversity which collectively Continue reading »
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Labor’s conflicted climate change policies
There is something but not much to celebrate over the safeguard compromise. It may well ensure we reduce our emissions by 43%. But the Labor government’s continued permissive attitude to new fossil fuel projects is in blatant disregard of the IPCC’s pathway to a 1.5C limit on global warming. Continue reading »
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Jim Chalmers’ new economics: a frontal assault on capitalism?
It’s no surprise that Jim Chalmers’ gentle challenge to neoliberal economics has generated an often rabid and intensely hostile response from the Murdoch media. To be hoped for is a more reasoned, informed national debate which focusses on, as Chalmers points to, fundamental changes to our economic environment. Continue reading »
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Will the Labor government take our catastrophic biodiversity decline seriously?
Now is not the time to assume Australia is back in the global forefront of environmental rectitude. Sadly, we are in the dark ages in terms of our record on biodiversity. Continue reading »
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COP27: Australia promotes fossil fuels as pathway to carbon neutrality
It seems the Australian media still has to be told: COP 27 was a disaster and the glaring flaws in Australia’s grab bag of climate change policies were there to be exposed – if any reporters cared to do so. Continue reading »
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COP 27: Sleepwalking to global armageddon
An article in the prestigious journal Nature shows a dramatic increase in the likelihood of tipping points causing a runway disruption to the globe’s environment. Australia and other governments participating in COP 27 are nevertheless sleepwalking along a path which wrongly assumes a predictable manageable rise in temperatures. Continue reading »
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An Australia-France entente cordiale?
Part of cleaning up Morrison’s AUKUS mess will be to find ways of using France’s more balanced relations with the US and China into a moderating role in the Asia-Pacific region. Albanese has just such an opportunity in his foreshadowed meeting with Macron. Continue reading »
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Stern and Stiglitz: The chaotic world of 2 degrees warming
Most of us will feel confident the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s clutch of recent reports has now delivered a globally dependable well researched path to carbon neutrality. After all its the product of thousands of the world’s scientific experts. Continue reading »
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The Coalition’s latest environmental fraud supported by Murdoch Media again. No surprise there!
If no one has noticed a central pillar of Australia’s risibly inadequate GHG reduction commitment of 26-28% by 2030 has recently been demolished by our own scientists. Continue reading »
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Britain’s Londongrad problem and investments in Australian mining companies
Sanctions imposed on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights just how interrelated the global economy is and just how difficult they are to impose if the pain is not to be too much of a two way street. Continue reading »
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Morrison’s damaging ‘Australian Way’ brands us all
The prime minister’s short-sighted climate change strategies have undermined Australia’s global standing and ignore the urgency of the threat. Continue reading »
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Morrison’s 2050 carbon neutral ‘plan’ is deceptive and damaging
The slew of new gas and oil projects in Australia amounts to a pre-emptive strike to force the widespread use of carbon capture and storage. Continue reading »
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Murdoch’s climate denialists must bear heavy responsibility for national failure
The insistence of denialists at The Australian that the 2050 emissions targets are beyond the world’s reach is damaging and flies in the face of science and technological progress. Continue reading »
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The Australian dilemma: a gas-led recovery, stranded assets and carbon neutrality
If Australia’s coal and gas industry continues to expand production, it faces the prospect of an eyewatering accumulation of stranded carbon assets when Australia formally adopts a policy of net zero emissions by 2050. Continue reading »
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The gas-led recovery repudiates Australia’s IPCC commitments
In promoting gas, the government is rejecting our IPCC commitments to achieve carbon neutrality and inviting others to follow suit. It is looney and dangerous stuff. Continue reading »
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Biden’s summit on democracy – briefing notes for Scott Morrison
There was a longstanding view nurtured in the 60s and 70s that Western liberalism would inevitably take hold and reform our regional totalitarian states as prosperity rose and the capitalist system encouraged greater individualism. This hasn’t happened. Continue reading »
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Ready or not: a carbon price on exports is coming to Australia
Those of us who have at least an elementary grasp of economics would have been astonished at the reasoning of Trade Minister Dan Tehan during his ABC interview last week on The EU’s proposed carbon levy on imports (the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Continue reading »
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Coalition government’s climate change policy too successful for its deniers?
Scott Morrison’s rationale for using the market to keep power costs as low as possible should make him a devotee of renewable energy. Meanwhile, the Nationals denialism is so absurd that it is pushing for a coal-fired power plant whose electricity would cost eight times that from a renewable plant. Continue reading »
