Greenhouse: why Howard must set targets
By Pip Hinman
The federal Coalition government, in cahoots with mineral resources industry bosses, is running a scare campaign to convince the public that tens of thousands of jobs and Australia's economy will be harmed if it agrees to adopt greenhouse emission targets at a coming international climate change conference.
Cabinet is in the process of discussing what the government's position should be at an OECD ministerial climate change conference to be held in Geneva in July. The government is claiming that Australia is a "special case" because it is more reliant on energy-intensive industries than other OECD countries.
Media reports suggest that resources minister Senator Warwick Parer and environment minister Senator Robert Hill differ on what stand to take. Parer has the active backing of the minerals and energy sector in his bid to ensure that the government does not support legally binding targets for emissions, or a timetable to achieve a specific level of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Parer has also said that Australia should fight to protect its coal exports, which could be damaged by agreeing to emission targets.
However, it seems that any differences in cabinet have more to do with tactics than with any fundamental disagreement over Australia's position on greenhouse gas emission targets. There seems to be a unanimous view — both from this government and its Labor predecessors — that Australia should not agree to anything that would harm current forms of economic growth.
In 1992, Australia signed the Rio Convention, which committed it to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000. Australia, like other advanced capitalist countries, is nowhere near achieving this target. At October's international climate conference in Montreal, it was clear that Australia, if it continued to resist action on greenhouse emissions, would be 13% above 1990 levels by the year 2000. Now, the government is arguing that meeting targets is not economically viable.
However, this premise is under challenge from the Australian Conservation Foundation. ACF executive director Jim Downey said that the government had "based its position on incorrect data and assumptions" about the extent to which Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from energy-intensive industries.
The ACF claims that there is no special case to be made for Australia when setting domestic targets and timetables to reduce emissions. According to Downey, "Our emissions from the transport sector are below OECD average ... Our percentage of CO2 emissions from industry is only slightly higher than the OECD average, but lower than Japan.
"These figures indicate that at the national level, our economy is not over-reliant on a need to emit carbon dioxide in order to conduct our economic affairs when compared to other countries."
The ACF claims that a further breakdown of industry emissions shows that Australia's share of energy-intensive industries (metals processing and chemicals) in total emissions is not disproportionately high compared to other OECD countries (see box). "Although Australia has a high proportion of emissions from metals processing, other OECD countries have a much larger share due to the chemicals industry."
Greenpeace has urged the Australian government to "re-establish its credibility" by joining the European Union and US push for legally binding greenhouse gas targets at the July conference. The US, which has traditionally backed Australia's uncommitted position, has recently warned the Howard government that it would be taking a tougher stand at the July conference. The November US presidential elections, and the impact of the US Green Party campaign of Ralph Nader, would have had a lot to do with its change in position.
Despite an ongoing campaign to try to discredit the notion that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have any impact on global warming, there is ample and growing scientific evidence to the contrary. Releasing the second assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on June 5, co-chairperson Sir John Houghton said, "The balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence on climate change" and reiterated that the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming must be taken seriously.
Houghton warned that an increase in global mean temperature of between 1.5 and 4 Celsius expected by the year 2100 would have a serious impact on human habitats and society. He said it was now up to policy makers to set targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to take measures to mitigate the impacts of climate change on developing and developed countries.
Houghton said that significant reductions in greenhouse emissions were now technically possible.
Summarising the findings of an IPCC working group on the economic and social dimensions of climate change, Dr Michael Grubb, head of the Energy and Environment Program at the Royal Institute for International Affairs in Britain, said that analyses indicated that 10-30% of greenhouse gas emissions in most countries could be reduced at negative or zero cost — the so-called "no regrets" measures. Grubb argued that the risk of aggregate net damage from climate change provided an economic rationale for going beyond "no regrets" measures.
Reports from other IPCC working groups indicate that: some countries will face threats to sustainable development from losses in human habitat due to a rise in sea levels and reductions in water quality and quantity which would affect food security; there would be an increase in a range of human diseases (including malaria) and death due to the increase in heat waves and extreme weather events; and that sea levels are likely to rise by about 0.5 metres by the year 2010, and will continue to rise for many centuries even if greenhouse gas concentrations are stabilised now.
There is no case to be made which says that Australia should not be doing its bit to reduce CO2 emissions. In fact, there are many reasons why Australia should be doing a lot more. Because Australia relies so much on coal for its energy requirements, it has one of the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the world, nearly twice the average of all the industrialised countries.
The recent greenhouse cooperative agreements to reduce emissions by up to 25% which were signed between the federal government and companies including BHP, Shell, CRA and ICI also undercut the government's line that setting targets would be uneconomic. While ACF spokesperson Peter Kinrade welcomed these as first steps, he warned the companies to "allow full and open environmental reporting processes" so that the community could be confident that results were really being achieved.
The ACF has also urged the government to take advantage of renewable energy and efficiency technologies — in which Australia is leading the world in research and ideas — in its greenhouse gas emission abatement strategy.