 | |
| Abbreviation | The Australia Institute |
|---|---|
| Formation | 4 May 1994 |
| Type | Public policy think tank |
Director | Richard Denniss |
| Website | www |
The Australia Institute is an Australian public policy think tank based in Canberra, with offices also in Hobart and Adelaide. Since its launch in 1994, it has carried out research on a broad range of economic, social, and environmental issues.
The Australia Institute undertakes economic analysis with special emphasis on the role of the public sector as well as issues such as taxation, inequality, including gender inequality, poverty, privatisation, foreign investment, and corporate power. Some of the Australia Institute's contributions involve analysis of modelling exercises on the part of other groups. This includes assessing some of the pandemic modelling [1] as well as the modelling behind the government's intergenerational report. [2] The fiscal response has prompted attention to the tax base, and so the Australia Institute described the principles of a good tax [3] and a report on how to make the budget less sexist. [4] These are some of the topics among the hundreds of reports on economic issues generally.
The Australia Institute has been producing research in the climate and energy space since 1994. [5] In 2017, The Australia Institute took over the work of the Climate Institute, including continuing the Climate of the Nation report, the longest continuous survey of community attitudes to climate change in Australia. [6] The Australia Institute also publishes the National Energy Emissions Audit. [7]
The Australia Institute's Democracy & Accountability Program was established to "research the solutions to our democratic deficit and develop the political strategies to put them into practice". [8] Issues pursued by the program include truth in political advertising laws, [9] how state and federal governments have handled the COVID-19 pandemic, [10] and freedom of information laws. [11]
In October 2019, The Australia Institute established the International and Security Affairs Program to examine "the global connectivity that both underpins and impacts on Australia’s place in the world and the well-being of our citizens". [12] The program addresses a broad range of contemporary global issues, including new thinking on what security means, [13] a contemporary Middle east policy, [14] the proper use of the defence force, [15] the ANZUS treaty, [16] Australia's relations with China, [17] and how Australia might improve its performance in the Pacific. [18]
The Australia Institute's researchers are prominent commentators on public policy issues, including work on climate change and energy, emissions trading, taxation policy, and inequality.
Clive Hamilton helped establish The Australia Institute in 1994 to generate public debate on building a better society, in particular the environment. [19] It was formally established on 4 May 1994. [20] The first directors of the institute were Professor Max Neutze (inaugural chair); [21] Hugh Saddler, a consultant in energy policy; and John Langmore; then a Labor Party MP; John Neville; Russell Rollason, then executive director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid; Elizabeth Reid, the former first women's adviser to the prime minister Gough Whitlam in 1973; Barbara Spalding, an expert in social welfare and education; and Professor Marion Simms, an expert in the fields of gender studies and political science.[ citation needed ]
Hamilton was the executive director until his resignation in 2008. He was succeeded in the role by Richard Denniss, who stepped down in 2015 to take up the role of chief economist. [22]
Ben Oquist was executive director from 2015 to 2022. He was succeeded by Richard Denniss, who returned to the role in 2022.[ citation needed ]
The Australia Institute takes a bipartisan approach to research, but has been described as a "progressive" or "left-leaning" think-tank. [23] [24]
The Australia Institute is active in promoting global warming mitigation measures, and has been critical of the Australian federal government's perceived lack of action on climate change. The Australia Institute was critical of the Howard government's decision to refuse to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. It claims that the former Prime Minister and some senior ministers deny the scientific evidence for global warming and that the resources sector drives government energy policy. Leaked minutes of a meeting between the Energy Minister, the Prime Minister and fossil fuel lobbyists provide evidence for these claims. [25] [26]
The Australia Institute has been active in promoting renewable energy development, and other mitigation measures, and it has campaigned strongly against developing a nuclear industry in Australia. [27]
The Australia Institute criticised the Rudd Government's proposed Australian emissions trading scheme (or Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme), arguing that it failed to adequately take into account voluntary action and delivered excessive compensation to polluting industries. [28]
The Australia Institute spoke positively of the design of the carbon price mechanism implemented by the Gillard government, arguing that beginning with a fixed price and transitioning to an emissions trading scheme made sense given that there was no consensus about what the emissions reduction target should be. [29]
In 2014, Ben Oquist (then the Australia Institute's strategy director) was involved in the Palmer United Party's decision to vote against the abolition of the Renewable Energy Target, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the Climate Change Authority. [30] Oquist wrote that "The Australia Institute is disappointed that the carbon price is likely to be repealed" but that "The Palmer-Gore announcement has re-set climate policy and politics. Keeping the CCA, the RET and the CEFC is much more than most expected from the PUP. We have avoided a big step backwards." [31]
In 2017, the Australia Institute reported that Australia's greenhouse gas emissions were "rising rapidly" since the abolition of the carbon price, with economist Matt Grudnoff criticising the National Energy Guarantee proposed by the Turnbull government, saying that it would be "likely to cause our emissions to rise even faster". [32]
In 2017, The Australia Institute took over The Climate Institute's intellectual property after that institute closed, and subsequently launched a Climate and Energy Program to continue the work. [33] [34] The first Climate of the Nation report produced by The Australia Institute was released in 2018. [35]
The Australia Institute employs several economists [36] who have published papers arguing for tax reform, particularly in the areas of superannuation tax concessions, negative gearing, capital gains tax, and goods and services tax. [37]
During the 2016 Australian federal election, the Institute published a series of critiques of the Coalition's proposed policy of cutting the company tax rate. [38]
The Australia Institute criticised the final two stages of the Turnbull government's three-stage income tax cut plan, releasing research into how the benefits from the tax cut are distributed by income [39] and electorate. [40]
The Australia Institute had a total gross income A$9.05 million in 2023 [41] (A$7.7M in 2022, and A$7M in 2021) and is funded by donations from philanthropic trusts and individuals, as well as grants and commissioned research from business, unions, and non-government organisations. The Australia Institute reported 34 full-time equivalent staff in 2023. [41]
In its first decade through to 2003, the Australia Institute was largely funded by the Poola Foundation and the Treepot Foundation—philanthropic organisations run by the Kantors. [42] Other significant funders include the McKinnon Family Foundation; David Morawetz's Social Justice Fund, a sub-fund of the Australian Communities Foundation; Diana and Brian Snape, and the Susan McKinnon Foundation. [43]
In recent years, the Australia Institute has reported the number of donations it has received from individuals, with 2,000 individual donors in financial year 2015 [44] and 2,700 in the financial year 2017. [45]
The Australia Institute does not accept donations or commissioned work from political parties. [46]
Former board members include:[ citation needed ]
A carbon tax is a tax levied on the carbon emissions from producing goods and services. Carbon taxes are intended to make visible the hidden social costs of carbon emissions. They are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by essentially increasing the price of fossil fuels. This both decreases demand for goods and services that produce high emissions and incentivizes making them less carbon-intensive. When a fossil fuel such as coal, petroleum, or natural gas is burned, most or all of its carbon is converted to CO2. Greenhouse gas emissions cause climate change. This negative externality can be reduced by taxing carbon content at any point in the product cycle.
Nicholas Herbert Stern, Baron Stern of Brentford, is a British economist, banker, and academic. He is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE), and 2010 Professor of Collège de France. He was President of the British Academy from 2013 to 2017, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014.
Ted Halstead was an American author, policy entrepreneur, and public speaker who founded four non-profit think tanks and advocacy organizations: the Climate Leadership Council, Americans for Carbon Dividends, New America, and Redefining Progress. His areas of expertise included climate policy, economic policy, environmental policy, healthcare, and political reform.
The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, certain industries like cement and steel production, and land use for agriculture and forestry. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have provided the main source of energy for economic and technological development. The centrality of fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive industries has resulted in much resistance to climate friendly policy, despite widespread scientific consensus that such policy is necessary.
Carbon pricing is a method for governments to mitigate climate change, in which a monetary cost is applied to greenhouse gas emissions. This is done to encourage polluters to reduce fossil fuel combustion, the main driver of climate change. A carbon price usually takes the form of a carbon tax, or an emissions trading scheme (ETS) that requires firms to purchase allowances to emit. The method is widely agreed to be an efficient policy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon pricing seeks to address the economic problem that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are a negative externality – a detrimental product that is not charged for by any market.
The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme for anthropogenic greenhouse gases proposed by the Rudd government, as part of its climate change policy, which had been due to commence in Australia in 2010. It marked a major change in the energy policy of Australia. The policy began to be formulated in April 2007, when the federal Labor Party was in Opposition and the six Labor-controlled states commissioned an independent review on energy policy, the Garnaut Climate Change Review, which published a number of reports. After Labor won the 2007 federal election and formed government, it published a Green Paper on climate change for discussion and comment. The Federal Treasury then modelled some of the financial and economic impacts of the proposed CPRS scheme.
Carbon emission trading (also called carbon market, emission trading scheme (ETS) or cap and trade) is a type of emissions trading scheme designed for carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs). A form of carbon pricing, its purpose is to limit climate change by creating a market with limited allowances for emissions. Carbon emissions trading is a common method that countries use to attempt to meet their pledges under the Paris Agreement, with schemes operational in China, the European Union, and other countries.
Greenhouse gas emissions by Australia totalled 533 million tonnes CO2-equivalent based on greenhouse gas national inventory report data for 2019; representing per capita CO2e emissions of 21 tons, three times the global average. Coal was responsible for 30% of emissions. The national Greenhouse Gas Inventory estimates for the year to March 2021 were 494.2 million tonnes, which is 27.8 million tonnes, or 5.3%, lower than the previous year. It is 20.8% lower than in 2005. According to the government, the result reflects the decrease in transport emissions due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, reduced fugitive emissions, and reductions in emissions from electricity; however, there were increased greenhouse gas emissions from the land and agriculture sectors.
Richard Denniss is the Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and a former Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Denniss was described by Mark Kenny in the Sydney Morning Herald as "a constant thorn in the side of politicians on both sides due to his habit of skewering dodgy economic justifications for policy". In October 2018, The Australian Financial Review listed Denniss and Ben Oquist of The Australia Institute as equal tenth-place on their 'Covert Power' list of the most powerful people in Australia.
Ottmar Georg Edenhofer is a German economist who is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on climate change policy, environmental and energy policy, and energy economics. His work has been heavily cited. Edenhofer currently holds the professorship of the Economics of Climate Change at Technische Universität Berlin. Together with Earth scientist Johan Rockström, economist Ottmar Edenhofer is scientific director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), representing the interdisciplinary and solutions-oriented approach of the institute. Furthermore, he is director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC). From 2008 to 2015 he served as one of the co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III "Mitigation of Climate Change".
The Climate Change Response Amendment Act 2008 was a statute enacted in September 2008 by the Fifth Labour Government of New Zealand that established the first version of the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme, a national all-sectors all-greenhouse gases uncapped and highly internationally linked emissions trading scheme. After the New Zealand general election, 2008, the incoming National-led government announced that a Parliamentary committee would review the New Zealand emissions trading scheme and recommend changes. Significant amendments were enacted in November 2009. Obligations for pastoral agriculture were further delayed. Obligations for energy and industry were halved via a "two for one" deal. Free allocation of units to industry was made uncapped and output based and with a slower phase-out. A price cap of $25 NZD per tonne was introduced.
A carbon fee and dividend or climate income is a system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address climate change. The system imposes a carbon tax on the sale of fossil fuels, and then distributes the revenue of this tax over the entire population as a monthly income or regular payment.
A carbon pricing scheme in Australia was introduced by the Gillard Labor minority government in 2011 as the Clean Energy Act 2011 which came into effect on 1 July 2012. Emissions from companies subject to the scheme dropped 7% upon its introduction. As a result of being in place for such a short time, and because the then Opposition leader Tony Abbott indicated he intended to repeal "the carbon tax", regulated organizations responded rather weakly, with very few investments in emissions reductions being made. The scheme was repealed on 17 July 2014, backdated to 1 July 2014. In its place the Abbott government set up the Emission Reduction Fund in December 2014. Emissions thereafter resumed their growth evident before the tax.
The Climate Change Authority (CCA) is an Australian Government statutory agency responsible for providing independent advice to government on climate change policy. It was established by and operates under the Climate Change Authority Act 2011, and commenced operations on 1 July 2012. It was set up by the government of Julia Gillard and has withstood concerted efforts to disestablish it. The Abbott government campaigned for the CCA's abolition, having dissolved the Climate Commission.
Sir Dieter Robin Helm is a British economist and academic.
Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) is an international grassroots environmental group that trains and supports volunteers to build relationships with their elected representatives in order to influence climate policy. The CCL is a registered 501(c)(4) with approximately $680,000 in revenue in the United States in 2018. Operating since 2007, the goal of CCL is to build political support across party lines to put a price on carbon, specifically a revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend (CF&D) at the national level. CCL is supported by notable climate scientists James Hansen, Katharine Hayhoe, and Daniel Kammen. CCL's advisory board also includes former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former US Representative Bob Inglis, actor Don Cheadle, and RESULTS founder Sam Daley-Harris.
Benjamin Richard "Ben" Oquist is a policy analyst, commentator and political and communications strategist.
Cameron Hepburn is the former Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, the Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Oxford, and formerly a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is also the Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School.
Coal, cars and lorries vent more than a third of Turkey's five hundred million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions. They are mostly carbon dioxide and part of the cause of climate change in Turkey. A quarter of the emissions are from electricity generation.
Carbon pricing in Canada is implemented either as a regulatory fee or tax levied on the carbon content of fuels at the Canadian provincial, territorial or federal level. Provinces and territories of Canada are allowed to create their own system of carbon pricing as long as they comply with the minimum requirements set by the federal government; individual provinces and territories thus may have a higher tax than the federally mandated one but not a lower one. Currently, all provinces and territories are subject to a carbon pricing mechanism, either by an in-province program or by one of two federal programs. As of April 2024, the federal minimum tax was set at CA$80 per tonne of CO2 equivalent, set to increase to CA$170 in 2030.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
