Andrew Bolt skewers the Treasury's ETS modelling

On the one hand, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says we can only rely on financial modelling for 6 - 12 months, yet on the other, when it relates to climate change and his precious ETS, Kevin Rudd is happy to rely on such modelling for nearly 50 years. As Andrew Bolt comments:

No wonder smarter economists are alarmed:

THE global financial crisis showed how foolish the Rudd Government would be to base its climate change response on economic forecasts for the coming century, academic and Reserve Bank board director Warwick McKibbin said yesterday....

While partly involved in the modelling, Professor McKibbin said he was not responsible for the scenarios and believed it was “stretching the imagination” to believe you could forecast 100 years in advance and use that process to determine targets....

Professor McKibbin said the Kyoto experience showed how even most environmentally-friendly countries, such as New Zealand and Canada, could commit to rigid, long-term targets only to find themselves disadvantaged when their economies or external conditions changed. He declared there would never be a uniform global carbon scheme and urged the Rudd Government to take the time necessary to develop a workable national scheme.

Read it here.