Greenhouse gases: Australia tries to block agreement
By Pip Hinman
In a little more than six months, parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, will meet in Kyoto, Japan, ostensibly to set targets to curb greenhouse gas emissions. However, the prospect of agreement on a plan look dim.
The Australian government has declared that it will try to block a binding agreement. Like its Labor predecessor, it is arguing that the country's "national interests" (i.e. the interests of the oil, gas and coal lobbies) are more important than international action to limit the potentially devastating effects of emissions of carbon dioxide.
In effect, it is arguing that because Australia does more than most countries to cause the greenhouse problem, it should do less to solve the problem!
Even though a majority of climate scientists agree that human-induced global warming is a serious threat to life as we know it, recalcitrant governments, such as Howard's, are trying to win support for their argument that it's better to risk catastrophe than reduce the short-term profits of the fossil fuel industries.
Until recently, politicians have been able to exploit the uncertainties surrounding scientists' climate modelling predictions. However, there is now less scope for such head-in-the-sand responses.
Global warming
The world is becoming warmer. Since the regular monitoring of carbon dioxide began in the 1950s, the atmospheric concentration has risen steadily from 315 parts per million to more than 360 ppm.
Some 2500 scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Program to monitor global warming, say that the world's weather has become more extreme, with unprecedented numbers of floods, droughts and storms.
Bert Bolin, outgoing chairperson of the IPCC, is quoted in a report in the March 1 New Scientist as saying that a carbon dioxide concentration of 450 ppm could cause the earth's temperature to rise by up to 3 C, with untold ramifications for communities and agriculture.
While there is still no scientific consensus about the extent and impact of sea level rises, there is agreement that atmospheric warming is already causing oceans to expand. A report on the March Scientific American noted that most scientists agree that the ocean has been rising by two millimetres a year for the past several decades.
In a worst case scenario, geologist J.H. Mercer of Ohio State University predicts that if the greenhouse effect were to warm the south polar region by just 5 C, the floating ice shelves surrounding the west Antarctic ice sheet would begin to disappear. Robbed of these buttresses, this grounded ice sheet — a vestige of the last ice age — would quickly begin to disintegrate, flooding coasts around the world.
Targets
At the 1992 Earth Summit, the industrialised nations of Europe, North America and Japan agreed to stabilise their emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000; the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) came into effect in 1994.
Targets were not set for developing nations, because it was generally agreed that the rich countries, responsible for most of the greenhouse gas build-up, should take a lead.
However, since the developing nations are catching up (in part due to dirty technology being dumped on them by the west), some industrialised nations, including the US, have been arguing that targets must be set for all countries if the cuts are to have any effect.
The US wants new members of the OECD — Turkey, South Korea and Mexico — to accept targets, and has threatened trade sanctions if they do not.
In 1995 most governments, including Australia, signed the Berlin Mandate, which stipulated that targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be in place at the end of 1997. These will be the first such targets to commit nations under the FCCC.
The Dutch government, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, is expected to push for a 15% cut in carbon dioxide emissions, based on 1990 levels, for European countries by 2010. Britain, under the Tories, called for a 10% cut by 2010.
But because most of the rich nations have already said that they will not meet their existing targets to stabilise emissions by 2000, there is doubt as to the outcome of the Kyoto conference. Last year Australia said it will be 15% over target, Spain 24% and the US 3%.
Only Germany, by closing factories in the east, and Britain, by closing down the coal industry, are scheduled to meet the target. Many observers worry that industrialised countries will agree only to a mere 5% cut in emissions by 2010.
'Flexibility'
Despite President Bill Clinton's rhetoric about the US commitment to curbing greenhouse gases, his government has been pushing hard for targets to be treated "flexibly". He wants countries to be allowed to trade emission rights.
He also advocates allowing targets to be indefinitely postponed by countries "borrowing" against their future "pollution rights".
Michael Grubb of the Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, a long-time analyst of the IPCC, argues, "The big fear about borrowing is that governments could build up huge emissions 'debts' and then its successor could disown them".
The Australian government wants countries to agree to a different sort of "flexibility". Despite the lukewarm response from other industrialised countries, Australia seems set to push its "differentiation" position at the Kyoto conference.
The government's argument is that countries which would be economically disadvantaged by uniform targets should be set more lenient ones. It is based on misleading reasoning and false information.
Researchers for the Australia Institute — an environment think-tank — argue, "Differentiation on the basis on fossil fuel exports would mean that the more other countries reduce their emissions, the more Australia would be able to emit. The government is thus advocating a perverse and unjustifiable policy ..."
The government's arguments that Australia will be economically disadvantaged by uniform targets is also spurious, the institute's report, A Policy Without a Future: Australia's International Position on Climate Change, argues: "Cost estimates of currently proposed uniform targets made by the Government's own model show that these costs are almost insignificant when compared to the expected growth of the Australian economy".
It says that savings from introducing energy efficiency would be significant in the short term, and in the longer term, Australia would be in a stronger position "because of our natural endowments and technological leadership in alternative energy sources".
Environmentalists argue that the government doesn't take into account the environmental and economic costs of maintaining the status quo.
A study commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation estimated that the production and consumption of fossil fuels has benefited from $40 billion in subsidies over the last 40 years. Another study undertaken last year for the Department of the Environment indicated that approximately $2 billion in annual economic subsidies goes to the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
Such resources would be better used in developing the fledging renewable energy industry — which Australia with its large land area, sunny climate and long coastline is uniquely placed to take advantage of.
The government, however, is sticking to its argument that targets would be disadvantageous. It points to economic modelling by the Australian Bureau of Resource Economics (ABARE) which shows that Australia will have to bear higher economic costs than the US (three times greater) or European Union countries (five times) if it accepts uniform targets.
Yet Australia already has probably the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per capita in the world, according to Australia Institute executive director Clive Hamilton.
Australia's proposed criteria to determine costs to countries (GDP growth, population growth, emissions intensity of the economy, fossil fuel trade and emission intensity of exports) would give it much less demanding cuts compared to other industrialised countries, and would be likely to lead to a greater per capita emission rate than any other country, says the institute's report.
Under the FCCC, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions was to be based on the polluter pays principle — for reasons of both equity and economic efficiency. Australia's "differential" or non-uniform targets would go against both.
Acceptance of equal economic costs based on income foregone, as the Australian government advocates, would set a dangerous precedent for both developed and developing countries, according to the institute paper. "Equalisation of economic costs would provide developing countries such as China and India with a powerful argument for extremely lenient targets."
Developing countries, rightly, dispute the notion of "equal economic cost" because they believe that the burden should be borne by countries with high per capita emissions and high incomes.
The Australian government, like the US, argues that developing countries must be included in any agreements to reduce emissions because they will be responsible for most in the future due to their high population and economic growth. But then it cites the same reasons — projected population and economic growth — for Australia being given more lenient targets!
Even more absurdly, the government wants Australia to be allowed to increase its greenhouse gas emissions by an amount equal to the decline in emissions caused by other countries importing and using smaller quantities of Australian coal or oil. As the Australia Institute report notes, this would quickly make Australia the highest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world.
The institute argues that the government is inviting all other industrialised nations to develop their own self-interested approaches, and thus is helping to undermine a consensus at Kyoto.
The Coalition government says it is receiving support from other industrialised countries. There is little evidence to support this claim. Norway, for example, which the government seems to regard as a major ally, supports the polluter pays principle.
"Those who currently emit more than their fair share should thus contribute more. Also Parties that have greater capacity, economic or otherwise, to deal with the problem, should in principle do more than other Parties to reduce GHG emissions", according to "Climate Change — some Views from a Norwegian Perspective", in Commodity Markets and Resource Management, which was presented to an ABARE conference in Canberra this year.
Other developed countries which the government claims as allies include France and Japan, both of which have low per capita emissions. Their differentiation position stems from the fact that they want to see such countries rewarded — the opposite position to Australia's.
If the Australian government was to withdraw entirely from binding targets — a threat being tossed — the long-term costs would be very large.
"The economic costs of trade sanctions, or even the threat of them, would quite likely be far greater than the small costs of complying with any foreseeable targets. Australia would of course lose all credibility on the greenhouse issue and the ability to influence the global debate any further", argues the institute.
The argument that reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Australia would be more costly than in any other developed country is wrong, according to the institute. Even modelling by MEGABARE, the government's own research body (which is partly funded by the coal industry), indicates that the impact of stabilisation of emissions at 1990 levels on the economy would be minuscule — less than half of 1% of gross national expenditure by the year 2020 (ABARE and DFAT, 1995).
"If the more demanding objective of reaching emission levels 20% below 1990 were the aim, then costs to the Australian economy would be a loss of 0.3% of economic activity in 2000, rising to a loss of 1% by the year 2010."
The MEGABARE model overestimates some of the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and no account is taken of the economic costs of climate change, the institute states.
The government's position, which threatens to disrupt and further complicate global agreement, is not only "indefensible", but also would harm Australia in the longer term when more demanding greenhouse gas reduction targets are likely to be set for all countries.
Energy alternatives
The main ways of decreasing net greenhouse gas emissions include: a greater reliance on energy efficiency, solar energy, wind and tidal power, geothermal sources, development and preservation of carbon sinks (reduce land clearing) biomass fuels and hydroelectricity.
According to Hamilton, Australia has a lot of ground to make up in energy efficiency compared to OECD countries. Between 1970 and 1992, Australia's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP fell by 13% while those of all OECD countries fell by 36%.
The government claims that the loss of jobs would be of major concern if uniform targets are adopted. Even if it was seriously worried about employment, the truth is that jobs are increasingly the casualty of greater investment in the highly mechanised fossil fuel industries.
According to Access Economic estimates, such investments generate one job per $2 million in investment capital. By contrast, capital invested in renewable energy systems, energy efficiency measures and more sophisticated manufacturing industry exporting renewable energy equipment and services would generate more jobs because of the greater labour intensity of these activities.