By Pip Hinman
Australia, with the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, has lined up with the oil-producing nations of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria in refusing to agree to greenhouse gas reduction targets at a climate change meeting of industry and environmental groups in Geneva between July 8-19.
More than 140 countries are attending the Framework Convention on Climate Change Convention, the first since last year's Berlin conference. The meeting is supposed to assess progress on the 1997 deadline to adopt concrete targets and timetables to cut carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2005. Australia's federal environment minister, Senator Robert Hill, is arguing that it is "premature" to act on cutting greenhouse gas pollution.
Last year the US-led group of countries, including Japan, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, unsuccessfully tried to scuttle an in-principle agreement on binding targets. The 1995 Berlin Mandate agreed that, by the third conference in 1997, concrete targets and timetables would be in place and industrialised countries would consider committing to a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2005. The 36-country Alliance of Small Island States — those most threatened by rises in sea levels as a result of global warming — argued strongly for the 20% cut.
Based on the conclusions of the second assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the main scientific body on climate change, some industrialised nations seemed to have shifted their positions. The European Union, the US, Russia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, as well as the Alliance of Small Island States now all agree that strong action is necessary to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"The Australian government is ignoring the advice of its own scientists including the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology", said Keith Tarlo of Greenpeace. He argues that food production, sustainable development and ecosystems will be threatened if action is not taken now.
Scientific evidence that air pollution from burning oil, coal and gas, together with the impact of agriculture and forest clearing, has begun to impact on the world's climate, raising temperatures by up to 0.6C since last century, has pushed some previously intransigent nations to take action.
Germany wants industrialised countries to reduce emissions by 10% by 2005, and a further 5% by 2010. A June meeting of European Union environment ministers agreed that global efforts to reduce greenhouse gases were too slow, although they did not set specific targets. Denmark supports the 20% reduction by 2005 target; Britain supports a 5-10% reduction by 2010; and Canada, Russia, Japan, New Zealand and the G77 developing countries (including China) all agree that action needs to be taken now.
By contrast, successive Australian governments, in cahoots with big business, have steadfastly refused to co-operate. The Coalition, and the former Labor government, argue that economic rather than "narrow" technological and environmental concerns should determine greenhouse policy. Australia is the third largest energy exporter in the OECD: it is the world's largest exporter of coal, a major natural gas exporter and a major exporter of aluminium smelted using vast amounts of electricity from coal-fired power stations.
The pro-business Australian Industry Greenhouse Network is arguing at Geneva that the costs of implementing greenhouse gas reduction strategies are shared by too few countries and that Australia will be unfairly affected. It goes further, pushing the spurious argument that because the Third World will generate most of the greenhouse gases over the next quarter century, developing countries should take the lead. The fact that temperatures are rising as a result, scientists believe, of the build-up of human-induced greenhouse gases, is ignored by these lobbyists who prefer to blame those countries with least control over their own industrial development.
This line is being echoed by the Australian government. A foreign affairs background paper notes that, "The Australian government believes that there must be ... a sharing of responsibility globally. And there must be freedom for countries to pursue their own priorities." Senator Hill has even dismissed concern about figures from Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory released on July 9 which reveals that Australia's emissions have risen by about 2.5% from 1990-94.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) disputes that the greenhouse emission trend is benign. It estimates that if current trends continue, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will grow by approximately 16% between 1990 and 2000. This makes a mockery of Australia's international commitment, made in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, to stabilise emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
Currently, Australia's national greenhouse response is under review. Signed by state and federal governments, the 1992 National Greenhouse Response Strategy and the additional measures agreed to by the Commonwealth in 1995 in Greenhouse 21C seem to be all but obsolete. Greenpeace believes that unless the Australian government changes tack, emissions look set to increase by about 24% between 1988-2000, with power stations and industrialised energy use the major contributors.
If governments implemented the 1992 measures in full Australia would be able to achieve the stabilisation target, ACF's Jim Downey believes. "This could be done at net cost to the economy. Measures required include better energy planning, energy efficiency standards, promotion of renewable energy, better public transport and urban planning and more effective controls on native vegetation clearing."