Martin Jones

@martincjones.com

1089 Followers 160 Following

🇦🇺/🇩🇪 climate change/energy economist and policy wonk; former academic (CEEM) and consumer advocate (CUAC); amateur footballer. Personal views. He/him.

1. NSW Government decisions, particularly planning decisions, need to take the targets into account 2. Accelerate the electricity sector transition 3. Accelerate uptake of electric alternatives for transport, buildings and industry 4. Significantly reduce methane emissions 5. Strengthen the policy environment for longer-term emissions reductions across sectors 6. Improve governance of adaptation policy and action 7. Increase overall investment in adaptation 8. Enable communities to drive climate action
Bar chart of NSW GHG emissions over time (in MtCO2-e), showing 151.9 Mt in 2005 (the reference year), 114.5 Mt in 2023 (latest reported), a target of 75.9 Mt in 2030 and a target of 45.6 Mt in 2035.
Chart of electricity generation by generator type in South Australia between June 18 and June 23, showing the decrease in wind generation and replacement by gas-fired generation
Session title: "The economic theory of walls"
Diagram: How the carbon credits for protecting forests will work
No adjustment was made to calculate the net present value of future carbon abatement values, beyond what is already captured in Infrastructure Australia’s abatement values.
First, the estimated health costs attributable of $3,420 per ICE vehicle was adjusted for inflation from 2019 to 2023 prices (using an annual rate of 2.5%).
A table of challenges and solutions in the built environment and fast-moving consumer goods sectors.
Topics AI overviews aren't search results Search engine liability rules don't apply to AI "search" Google's "users can check for themselves" defense falls flat AI-generated opinions get less free speech protection Google picks up 80 percent of the legal tab Even a 91 percent accuracy rate means millions of wrong answers
A graph, "Large Majorities in most countries have negative views of Israel", showing opinion by country.
Table: How household wealth is distributed in Australia
A table titled "Grattan's 2026 Budget cheat sheet: how much do Australians earn?" It shows income measures for taxpayers, workers, adults, households, and 'households adjusted for size', at the typical (median) level, average level, 10%, 20%, 80%, 90%, 95%, and 99% percentiles.
A pen with stars, representing the Copilot AI assistant, hovering in the left-hand margin of a Word document.
Emissions standards for cars fall from 141 gCO2/km in 2025 to 58 gCO2/km in 2029. For utes and vans, the standards fall from 210 g/km in 2025 to 110 g/km in 2029.
Bar chart, "who has the most NVES carbon currency? July-Dec 2025". BYD has the most, with 4.23 million in credits; Mazda has the least, with 509k of liabilities.
The government’s childcare subsidies and energy rebates reduced headline prices and the overall inflation figure. Lower prices meant consumers had more money in their pockets, influencing inflation elsewhere.
If you have to leave: turn solar system off at inverter, then switchboard; turn solar batteries off.
KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER: In extreme heat, park your bike in the shade or indoors. If you have to park in full sun, take your battery off and take it with you. This also applies if you are leaving your e-bike in a metal storage locker in the sun at a station or outside your office, as temperatures are often in excess of 60 degrees! Charge your e-bike inside or in the shade and never leave it unattended or charging overnight.
"One of the central concerns was that the plan, without significant structural changes, could drive up prices at other times of the day and create a “cross-subsidy” whereby renters and other households unable to shift their usage times may end up paying for benefits flowing to those who can capitalise on the “free” power window to fill up their battery systems and electric cars."
Screenshot of AI summary of a web search: MWth is an abbreviation for megawatt thermal, a unit used to measure the amount of thermal power produced, typically by power plants or reactors. This unit quantifies the heat generated by a system, rather than the electrical power (MWe, or megawatt electrical) it outputs, which is always a smaller number due to the inefficiencies of converting heat into electricity. For example, a nuclear reactor might have a thermal output of 3,000 MWth but an electrical output of only 1,000 MWe. It is important not to confuse "MWth" with "meth," a common street name for the drug methamphetamine.
Graph: Top 10 countries with the biggest aviation emissions. Ranked by average flight emissions, grams of CO2 per paying passenger km. USA 96.5 China 88.6 Germany 87 Japan 86.5 Australia 83.7 France 82.0 UK 81.1 UAE 78.5 India 78.1 Spain 75.0
Likelihood of police force
Likelihood of being searched
"Judging from the Swedish case, several conditions would need to be fulfilled for this to happen. First, the exceptionalist project would have to include some substantial mitigation measures, against which an opposition can react; but these would need to be limited and incomplete, leaving the foundations of a fossil fuel-based status quo in place (or else there would be no force in the opposition). Second, the project would have to speak to the ego of the nation and fan the flames of its collective narcissism. This would not necessarily have to be framed in moral terms: one could think of national climate ambitions that hark back to notions of outstanding engineering skills or entrepreneurial stardom (both of which were present in Sweden). Third, the exceptionalism would have to be predicated on the denial of parts of reality – an ideology with much greater claims than the actual climate reforms would merit. Fourth, these dynamics will more easily lend themselves to increasing nationalism if they are bound up with similar developments on the front of immigration. If these conditions are fulfilled, an ethnonationalist party in the ascendancy might have a propitious political environment for turning prior ambitions into their opposite."
"Parts of a speech made by Haddad that referred directly to the conduct of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces did not breach the Racial Discrimination Act because they could not reasonably be regarded as referring to Jewish people. Further, references in the speech to Zionism were regarded by the court as referring to a political ideology, rather than Jewish ethnicity. However, the court did recognise that criticism of Zionism and Israel was sometimes coded, or included subtle references to Jewish identity. Under the act, courts must carefully consider the context of relevant speech, including the tone and language used. That means blaming Jewish people for the actions of Israel or the Israeli military, for example, could in fact breach the law. "
"Sudan, South Sudan, Myanmar, DRC are all in civil war. In Haiti there is anarchy. All of these situations might be reasonably described either as zones of zones of polycrisis, or as regions of chronic poverty (Northern Nigeria, for instance) - which itself demands a deeper explanation. By contrast, “the protracted and large-scale military operations” in Gaza that are responsible for the famine there, are not manifestations of a crisis. They are being conducted with full deliberation by Israel, a rich and fully sovereign state. Food supplies to Gaza, which are fully within Israel’s grip, are being deliberately “regulated” to a totally inadequate level. Meanwhile, water desalination facilities have been targeted by smart bombs. There is no fuel for cooking. In waging its campaign in Gaza, Israel has had the unstinting and highly public support of the mainstream of US politics and that of many countries in Europe. These are not deniable operations, as for instance the UAE’s engagement in Sudan, but publicly celebrated multi-billion dollar “aid packages”. "
"Death by starvation in Gaza is not the collateral, unintended consequence of an obscure, anonymous, amorphous crisis. It is the results of deliberate policy on the part of the Israeli government, bent on using the resources of a highly sophisticated state to render Palestinian life in Gaza impossible."
Map of south-eastern Australia showing areas of high pollution from wood heater emissions. Title: Wood heater emissions are generally highest in regional areas.
The story this tells is that Australians are most likely to hand over their ID to prove their age if asked, an age assurance method that probably carries the greatest risk of privacy and security breaches. The other methods — which most people appear to have no idea are already being used right now by companies like Meta — are less popular with people. This suggests that, if attitudes persist, the actual implementation of the teen social media ban will be less popular than it is in theory. It also suggests that the most accepted methods of age assurance are also the ones that place people at the greatest risk regarding their fears.
Why does Australia need its own taxonomy? While the European Union taxonomy is viewed by many in the market as the benchmark taxonomy, it does not cover key sectors of importance to Australia, like mining, critical minerals and agriculture. The Australian taxonomy builds and expands on the EU taxonomy’s approach while covering key sectors including green mining, metals and minerals and agriculture and has an explicit focus on credible transition activities. It is also the first taxonomy in the world to set expectations for engagement with First Nations peoples and the management of cultural heritage.
Determining the “relevant” electricity distribution networks for steps 9 and 10 is unavoidably a question for policymakers given the distributive consequences it has on electricity consumers.
Because the delta asset comes with a fixed and secure income stream with no legal ties to physical assets or the risks associated with operating a gas network, the rate of return that’s bid on the delta asset can be expected to be notably lower than the rate of return provided by the regulator – that is, the AER’s weighted average cost of capital (WACC).
Key findings of the study: Time matching, which requires hydrogen production to align with periods of renewable electricity generation, can effectively reduce grid-related emissions. However, strict compliance demands highly flexible operations and more infrastructure - leading to higher costs and a rise in embodied emissions. Annual matching, a simpler and less stringent alternative, may help the industry scale up in the short term but does not deliver the lowest emissions outcomes. The embodied emissions - mostly associated with overseas-manufactured plant and equipment - will become increasingly significant as the hydrogen sector matures, yet are largely excluded from current certification rules. In a positive finding, the study supports the exclusion of geographic correlation in the Australian Guarantee of Origin Scheme. The analysis showed that such restrictions could undermine the broader benefits of shared, inter-regional electricity flows in the NEM.
“EnergyAustralia today accepts the scientific consensus that these ‘offsets’ do not indefinitely remove greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, because carbon is stored in plants for a substantially shorter time than those emissions remain in the atmosphere. Storing carbon in plants is not equivalent to keeping it stored in fossil fuels (by not burning those fossil fuels in the first place).”
Thus, currently the financial system is not incentivised to consider sustainability in financial decision-making. There are no capital charges on unsustainable activities because the current capital framework is not intended to protect the broader economy from wider climate and nature risks. As a result there is no incentive to exit stranded assets if they are rent bearing in the short term. And because there is a market failure to price the true cost of economic activity, climate-negative and nature-degrading activities make more money than sustainable activities, directing private capital towards anticipated profits. There is also an assumption that market players will all be able to exit at once if market sentiment shifts, which multiple financial crises taught us is not the case. From a compensation perspective, the focus on short-term financial value creation is what drives the markets. Externalities are not priced in. While early voluntary leadership can build momentum, demonstrate feasibility, and give policymakers the confidence to create more supportive enabling environments – and those shaping the agenda stand to gain early mover benefits – ultimately, transformation is only possible when voluntary leadership is supplemented by policy change.
Table projecting the two-party vote under various proposed scenarios. ALP results range from 52.7% under 2022 preference flows to 50.1% under the flows claimed by JWS Research polling.
While baselines declined across the board under the reforms, it is crucial to note that they are set at the facility level. This means that, despite the overall downward trend, some facilities still received higher baselines, enabling them to earn credits even as their emissions rose. Shell’s Prelude FLNG, the world’s largest floating liquefied natural gas facility, generated the most SMCs at 1.1 million, accounting for 13% of the total. Interestingly, Prelude reduced its overall emissions compared to last year but still received SMCs due to an increase in its baseline – raising questions about how facility-level adjustments are being applied. In contrast, Capcoal Coal Mine, owned by Anglo Coal, tells the opposite story: its baseline was slashed by more than 50%, yet it earned 1 million SMCs (12% of the total) despite an increase in emissions. In Capcoal’s case, a previously inflated baseline, driven by an underestimation of methane emissions, meant the adjustment still left ample room to generate credits. Chevron illustrates this well. It topped the list of emitters under the framework, accounting for 12.9MtCO2e from just two facilities – constituting 9% of Safeguard emissions. Its Gorgon LNG project, one of the largest in the world, was Australia’s single biggest industrial emitter in FY2024, responsible for 6% (8.8MtCO2e) of all emissions covered by the mechanism. Emissions at Gorgon rose 7% from the prior year, yet a 10% increase in its facility-level baseline enabled the company to generate 388,803 SMCs. A similar pattern played out at Inpex’s Ichthys LNG facility, which saw a 15% increase in emissions but still received 768,900 credits after a 6% baseline rise.
PBO Figure 1-10: Major categories of Australian tax revenue (all governments) Shares of total
Treasury chart: Income taxes as a percentage of total taxation, selected economies, 2012
Pie chart showing 'Livestock and Manure' are the source of 32% of global methane emissions; the single largest category.
Welfare optimal climate policy in DICE 2023 using either the standard damage function outlined in [Barrage L and Nordhaus W 2024] or the revised damage function recalculated to fit the projections of economic loss presented in figure 1 of the article.
We hypothesise that global weather may impact the ability of international trade to serve as a means for economies to insulate themselves from local weather shocks. In a stable climate during any given year, a number of countries will experience favourable weather conditions while a number of others will experience relatively poorer weather. If poor weather causes adverse outcomes such as crop failures or capital loss, that country can usually rely on good conditions in other countries to import the affected commodities at a competitive price. When globally averaged weather is particularly warm or dry in a given year, it increases the likelihood of more countries experiencing poor weather simultaneously and can have a large impact on the global supply chains of important commodities and cost-push inflation (for the case of agricultural commodities, see [25, 26] for a similar argument). Future climate change increases the risk that these conditions will occur (by raising global average temperature), and accordingly including global average temperature in the regression allows the model to incorporate this risk into future projections.
Median projected economic loss in 2100 by country, economic model, and whether global weather ('GW') was included. Loss is presented as percentage loss projected from SSP5-8.5 relative to a baseline of forecasted GDP per capita under SSP1-2.6.
While Victory's A-League Women players wore rainbow names and numbers on their jerseys in their 2-1 win, their ALM players had standard white names and numbers. It's understood Victory were initially planning to just have captain's armbands for both their ALM and ALW teams, but the women's team had specifically requested to have rainbow names and numbers. The men's players had not requested not to wear rainbow names and numbers. Both of Adelaide's teams wore rainbow names and numbers.
How is climate change affecting cyclones? Our atmosphere, land and oceans are warming, primarily due to greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. Scientists have confirmed 2024 was the hottest year on record globally.¹ The latest State of the Climate report shows Australia’s average land surface temperature has increased by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (°C) since 1910.² The oceans around Australia have warmed by about 1.1 °C since 1900. Recent increases in sea surface temperatures have 9 of the 10 warmest years on record occurring since 2010.² These warming trends are having wide-ranging effects on global weather, including the characteristics and impacts of cyclones. For example, a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour than a cooler one, leading to heavier rainfall.³ Warmer oceans can also provide more energy for tropical storms and cyclones⁴, while potentially expanding the area of ocean over which tropical cyclones can form.⁵
Excerpt of news article: "The incidents allegedly directed by the mastermind include, but are not limited to: • The Dural caravan in January. • Anti-Semitic graffiti in Kingsford and Randwick on February 2. • Anti-Semitic graffiti at three locations in Sydney’s eastern suburbs on January 30. • Two October fire-bombings in Bondi, including on a Jewish kosher deli. • January anti-Semitic vandalism on the Newtown and South Sydney synagogues. • Firebombing and vandalism in Woollahra on December 11."