Mike's Minute: The madness of the carbon auction needs to end

It's the definition of madness. And stupidity. 

How many times do you have to do the same dumb thing with no result, thus proving your system doesn’t work, before you admit your system doesn’t work and give up? 

The last of the carbon auctions was held this week. You know where this story is going. 

I first got interested in this a couple of years ago when it struck me that this auction malarkey might be one of the better examples of the sheer, ideological madness that drives so much of the climate policy. 

One of the reasons so many people have got into forestry is it's free money. 

It's on land and land, generally, is a good investment and free money isn't a bad deal either. 

Also, after a while, they might pay you some good dough for your wood. 

So if trees get carbon credits why would you turn up to an auction? You wouldn’t, and indeed this week they didn’t. 

Not one person. Not one bid. Not one credit sold. 

There are four of these each year for the past two years. No one has bought a thing. Ask yourself why. 

They have tried to price the units, to no avail, but what is really causing the issue is the Government. 

To buy something you must believe it has value. It has to have worth. 

Why would you buy into the Government carbon narrative when they keep changing the rules? 

This Government is doing their best to do as little as possible to meet their climate emissions. I applaud that because it’s the right thing to do. 

But given the rules keep changing I'm certainly not turning up to buy stuff like a credit I may not need. 

The minister, as I told you the other day, took the unprecedented step of offering commentary about the auction and telling us how committed the Government is to climate in the hope we would go "well that’s OK then, see you at the auction". 

It didn’t work. 

The auction didn’t work, again. Eight down and zero sales, no revenue. 

How long before they pull the pin on a gargantuan embarrassment? 

The longer this goes the more foolish they look. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The definition of madness a of stupidity. Question for you,
how many times do you do the same dumb thing
with no result, thus proving your system doesn't work before
you admit your system doesn't work. Are the last of
the carbon auctions was held yesterday? You know where the
story's going. Of course, I first got interested in this
a couple of years ago when it struck me that
this auction malarchy might be one of the better examples

(00:20):
of the sheer ideological madness that drive so much of
the climate policy. One of the reasons so many people
have got into forestry, of course, is it's free money.
You get carbon credits. It's on land, and land generally
is as well a good investment, and free money isn't
a bad deal either. Also, after a while they might
pay you some good day for you would So if
trees get carbon credits, why would you turn up to

(00:41):
an auction? You wouldn't. And indeed yesterday they didn't. Not
one person, not one bid, not one credit. So now
there are four of these each year for the past
two years, no one has bought a thing. Ask yourself
why they've tried to price the units to no avail.
But what's really causing the issue is the government. Now,
to buy something, you must believe it has value, It

(01:03):
has to have worth. Why would you buy into the
government carbon narrative when they keep changing the rules. This
government is doing their best to do as little as
possible to meet their climate emissions. Now, the ironing of
that is I actually applaud that because it's the right
thing to do. But given the rules keep changing, I'm
certainly not turning up to buy stuff like a credit
that I may not in fact need. The Minister, as

(01:24):
I told you the other day, took the unprecedented step
of offering commentary about the auction and telling us how
committed the government is to climate in the hope we
would go, oh, well that's okay. Then see it. The
auction didn't work. The auction didn't work again. Eight down,
zero sales, no revenue. How long before they pull the
pen on a gargantuan embarrassment. The longer this goes, the

(01:44):
more foolish they look. For more from the Mic Asking
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