| QUESTIONS – AND ANSWERS 1. It's agreed that a 60% cut in Global greenhouse gases by 2050 is the absolute minimum to avoid catastrophic climate change (though many expert voices say even this is wildly low). And if you Google:- 60% emissions cut 2050 . . . you'll get hit in the face by the awesome evidence for that. And as, per capita, Aussies emit more CO2 than any other nation (making our example to the World crucial), by what amount do your party's policies aim to reduce our emissions by then, and can you point me in the direction of the independent, scientifically peer-reviewed evidence for that? Firstly, our Government is on track to meet our obligations for cutting greenhouse gas emissions under Kyoto for the period of 2008-2012. I make the point that while we did not ratify the agreement – we are one of the few nations that will actually meet our obligations. The Howard Government has also committed itself to setting a long-term emissions goal for the next 30-40 years. However, unlike Labor, we’re not going to settle on some arbitrary figure without doing all of the research and modelling to ensure that we know the full impact of any commitment we make. It’s very easy to set a target – but we have to ensure we’re serious about this and that any target we set will be met. It’s very easy to pick a figure, and it’s very easy to gain political mileage form doing so – but that’s not what we’re about. We have established a Treasury Modelling Team to thoroughly examine how we go about setting a long-term emissions target and, more importantly, how we can achieve it. They will report back to the Government and we will then set a target for cutting our own emissions. We do have global responsibilities and we're going to live up to them, but Australia's climate change policy must be made in Australia and take full account of Australia's unique economic circumstances, including our highly competitive resources sector that is important to our present and future prosperity. Australia's economy is very different in its economic structure, its natural advantages and in its ambitions to grow, compared with many in Europe. For example, resources account for 37 per cent of Australia's exports and that's almost five times the average of the OECD. We should also keep in mind that while we may have a high per-capita output of CO2 – for many reasons, including our smaller population and the tyranny of distance, we have to also remember that Australia produces just 1.3% or threreabouts of the world’s greenhouse gases. So to make a significant contribution, it’s not just about what we do at home, but what we encourage the world community to do. We are currently leading the world in efforts to reach agreement with developing countries on deforestation. And it’s there we can make a real difference. If we halved the rate of global deforestation we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3 billion tonnes per year – or about 10% of total world emissions - that’s close to 10 times our nations total output. That’s going to be a hugely better outcome than Australia reducing our emissions by even 60% - which is not achieveable without a massive impact on our lifestyle including the removal of all cars on our roads. Even if it were achieveable to cut 60% of Australian emissions, that would reduce world greenhouse gas emissions by just over half of a percent – and we can achieve an outcome 20 times better through a global response on deforestation. So I think there are smarter and more effective ways of helping address this global problem than setting an unrealistic target to cut domestic emissions – which is likely to impact very harshly on our economy but have little real benefit in addressing this global problem. Our government is working on practical measures and on outcomes, rather than symbolism. And, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s time some in the environmental movement looked at the bigger picture, removed their political blinkers, and got on board with some of the positive programs this Government has been involved in. Check out the leadership role we’re taking on deforestation at the Environment Minister’s website – we hosted a world conference in July, with some very positive results.
2. Have you heard of "Climate Tipping Points," and can I have your comments on this extremely dangerous phenomenon? And here's a clue, Google:-climate tipping points I think that people in this debate have to be wary about making doomsday predictions that don’t happen. I googled “climate tipping points” as you suggested and found many sites claiming that we’d already passed several crucial tipping points – and the theory is that once they are passed we’re on a slippery slope and nothing can be done to change it. Mind you – it seems to me that every scientist has a different interpretation of what is a tipping point and exactly how far along that line we’ve already gone. It’s a far from exact science. I don’t think doomsday predictions help – I think they are counter-productive… By implication the suggestion is that it’s too late to make any difference – we’ve already gone past a certain tipping point. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we have to encourage practical, rather than radical, change on a wider scale.
3. Here's a quote from Wendy Creighton, Liberal candidate for Forde "The new climate change measures announced in this Budget take the Australian Government’s investment in climate change to $2.8 billion." Is it true that that this $2.8 billion will be spent over 25 years, and do you think it's potentially misleading not to mention that? Most government programs run over several years – tackling something like climate change isn’t going to be achieved in one financial year. We’ve said this is our investment in Climate change so far – but that’s being built upon all the time. Just last Sunday the Prime Minister announced an extra $70 million to strengthen the global effort. So it’s not that this investment is all there will be for the next 25 years…some of the programs might run for that period of time, others don’t – and no doubt there will be many more initiatives over that period. As for the suggestion of dishonesty, we haven’t said “This is what we’re spending this financial year”. I would have thought it was a positive thing that our initiatives are long-term, rather than short term.
4. Sydney University estimates Australia spends around $8.9 billion dollars a year subsidising fossil fuels (which certainly puts spending $2.8 billion over 25 years on climate change into perspective). Here's their paper:- http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/CR_2003_paper.pdf What's your response to that? I think this is a very disingenuous comparison – like comparing apples with elephants. I looked up this paper, and included in that $8.9 billion figure you describe as “pork barrelling fossil fuels” are positive programs that work to benefit the environment like the Greenhouse Gas Abatement program and the exemption from excise of alternative fuels like LPG and natural gas. But apparently both these programs are on the bad side of the ledger – even though they are of net benefit to the environment - because some payments are made the coal industry to help them clean up their act, and gas is technically a fossil fuel. Also included in this figure are State government subsidies to pensioners and low income earners to help them with the cost of their electricity bills – are you suggesting that we do away with these? Also included is funding to the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia because some of their research is on fossil fuel industries. But my personal favourite – and I was quite astounded to see what else is included in this figure of $8.9 billion support for fossil fuels… Every cent spent on road maintainence and construction in this country by Federal, State and Local governments! So are you suggesting that our roads should falls into disrepair, and none be built for new housing estates because this, in some way, subsidises fossil fuels? If you’re really suggesting this, then the agenda is clearly to get all cars off the road…and you should say so. I think we have to be wary of quoting studies and throwing out figures like $8.9 billion and describing it as “Howard Government pork barrelling” and making the implication that all this spending is going into the pockets of oil or coal companies – because that is just an outright lie. I’m not having a go at the study or the University – but the context in which you continue to use their research is very, very wrong.
5. John Howard's new "Solar Cities Programme" (and Australia's only solar powered electricity station at Mildura), will offset about 476,000 tons of CO2 a year - as shown by this Government press release (April 2007), re "Solar Cities":- http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/env/2007/pubs/mr16apr07.pdf . . . and this ABC Lateline programme, re the Mildura Power Station (Oct 2006, quoting Peter Costello):- http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1773703.htm Whereas Australia's coal powered electricity stations produce about 170 million tonnes of CO2 a year:- http://www.wwf.org.au/news/n23/ . . . which means all of the CO2 saved by Australia's Solar Power (added up), only equals 0.28% of the CO2 spewed by coal in this country. What's your response to that? The Solar Cities programme is a positive start – but it’s just one solar electricity station - it’s a model that will hopefully help us plan for more alternative energy in the future. But it’s simply a fact that solar and other alternative forms of energy can’t, at this stage, offset the CO2 from coal-powered electricity stations. We couldn’t get rid of coal overnight even if we wanted to. There are both technical and financial reasons why solar is not a viable alternative on a large scale – at this point in time. But we need to add them to the mix, we need to develop alternative electricity sources – and even small steps are all steps in the right direction I would have thought. So I don’t understand the implied criticism. 6. The Chinese plan to install 60 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030:- "According to Li, China's goal to develop renewable energy is to increase its installed renewable energy generating capacity to 60 gigawatts by 2010, about 10 percent of the total power capacity, and 121 gigawatts by 2020, 12 percent of the total." http://www.china.org.cn/english/2004/Oct/110012.htm . . . and 60 gigawatts is more than Australia's entire electricity output. Do you think that proves you can run a modern economy on renewables?
Again – this is such an inaccurate comparison. The article you quote from 2004 outlines China’s “goal” of this target. There are plenty of articles since then to suggest that China is a long, long way from reaching that goal on renewable energy – it’s more likely to be less than half that. And this goal was for 10% of total power – not running an entire economy on renewables.
So we should keep that in perspective.
Other statistics you might have liked to raise include the fact that China’s coal-based energy production has more than doubled since 1990. And on top of that they’re also building 40 new nuclear power plants over the next 10 years – so again, it’s worth considering all these things in context – not looking at one stated goal, but on what the actual outcomes will be.
I’m not sure China is a shining example to hold out on the issue of climate change - During the Kyoto timeframe alone China and India together will build almost 800 new coal fired power plants.
The combined Co2 emissions from those plants will be five times the total reductions in Co2 mandated by the Kyoto accord.
That’s why bringing developing countries into reaching an agreement is so important – Kyoto didn’t do that. But this is precisely what our Government is aiming to do as part of this week’s APEC talks. We’ve put climate change at the centre of these talks. We want to bring China onboard in actively working to reduce emissions. Again, we want to see real progress on a world scale – not symbolism for domestic political purposes.
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