If Australia is to match the efforts of other nations, let alone play its fair part on climate change, our government needs to find a way to crab-walk towards a credible climate policy. The Emissions Reduction Fund in its current form can’t even come within cooee of the kind of emission cuts we need.
The recent announcements from the United States, China and the European Union (and more to come soon) create an opening to do just that. Since 2010, the government’s constant caveat for inaction or low action has been that Australia would review its climate stance when major trading partners like the US and China took action.
That has been the case for some time, but Wednesday’s joint statement by the US and China put it in the spotlight. The US said that it would cut emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, while China pledged to peak emissions around 2030, possibly sooner.
If Australia were to try and match the US it would mean about a 30% reduction by 2025.
Our current policy doesn’t allow us to even get close of that kind of reduction. Indeed, our calculations show that using the Emission Reduction Fund to achieve a US-equivalent target would cost taxpayers $9 billion a year (if you believe that the ERF can achieve 5% within its allocated $2.55 billion budget) or up to $30 billion a year (if you consider Treasury’s low end projections of future international carbon prices).
The US and Chinese pledges come on the heels of the European Union’s commitment earlier this month to reduce carbon pollution by at least 40% by 2030 and boost renewable energy to 27% of total energy use, including transport. The latter works out to more than 40% of European electricity coming from renewables.
Meanwhile, from China to Chile and South Korea to South Africa, carbon pricing mechanisms are getting off the ground.
Wednesday’s announcement should be a cue to acknowledge that Australia’s minimum 5% by 2020 emission reduction target is inadequate, as independent bodies like the Climate Change Authority (CCA) have pointed out.
Some have responded by attacking the credibility of these new targets. There’s plenty of policy behind them.
At a federal level, the US has passed a series of rules, from emission limits on cars and existing fossil fuel power plants, to emission limits on new coal and gas plants. The country is developing emission standards for heavy trucks — responsible for 20% of American transport emissions. It is boosting energy efficiency standards for equipment and buildings.
More than half of US states now have mandatory renewable energy targets, while another eight have voluntary targets. Nearly as many states have binding energy efficiency targets. These, combined with private-sector investment in new areas like solar panel leasing, electric vehicles, smart grids and electricity storage, are driving growth in renewable electricity production, clean technologies and energy efficiency.
True, the Republican Congress could make some of the new rules harder to implement. But winding back executive action from the President can be vetoed by the White House.
China’s action shouldn’t be scoffed at either. China’s need to fix its toxic air is a key driver of efforts to cap carbon pollution and invest in clean energy alternatives. It is now the world’s biggest investor in clean energy, and the scale of Chinese investment in clean energy is transforming the energy economics of every other country.
The agreement also indicated a range of joint actions in energy efficiency, refrigerants, carbon capture and storage and cities. This builds on a strengthening lattice work of bilateral initiatives across a range of countries.
Judging by some news headlines, the US-China announcement came as a surprise. But last year Australia and other countries agreed to advance their initial post-2020 targets by early 2015. It is a mark of their serious intent that the US, China, and Europe are signalling early.
The new targets countries put forth will now be reviewed and scrutinised internationally before they are attached to the post-2020 framework to be agreed in Paris at the end of 2015. The new framework is also likely to create an ongoing cycle of ever-increasing emission reduction ambitions, and embed the principle of not backsliding on previous targets.
Just this week The Climate Institute called for the Australian government to begin an independent, transparent domestic process to define our own post-2020 targets. Our analysis found that for a serious climate effort Australia needs a net 2025 emissions reduction target of 40% below 2000 levels and decarbonisation of the economy from 2040 if there are further delays.
Ultimately, Australia needs a domestic policy framework that can survive international investment, scientific and diplomatic realities. Burying your heads in the sand on global action on climate change is dangerous. At some point you will suffocate.
15 thoughts on “US-China climate deal shows up Australia’s pathetic targets”
GideonPolya
November 18, 2014 at 12:55 pmThe world is rapidly running out of time to deal with man-made climate change. Indeed a catastrophic temperature rise of 2C now appears inevitable.
The greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution cuts announced by Obama fall far short of what is needed for the US – indeed this year the US finally used up its “fair share” of the world’s terminal Carbon Budget that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rose (most governments have agreed to t avoid 2C).
However the world as a whole has failed to tackle climate change and the 2C target of most governments is already set to be exceeded as a result of global climate change inaction. Thus the international consensus basis of the latest IPCC Summary for Policymakers (2014) has resulted in a report that softens the present acute seriousness of unaddressed man-made climate change. The IPCC Summary argues for a limitation of temperature rise to 2C through limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution of the atmosphere to 450 ppm CO2-equivalent, but hard evidence says that we have already reached 478 ppm CO2-equivalent, that 2C is dangerous and essentially inevitable (yielding a Pliocene-like sea level of plus 25 meters at equilibrium) , and that the world will use up its Carbon Budget for a 75% probability avoiding of 2C within about 4 years (see Gideon Polya, “International consensus-based IPCC Summary For Policymakers (2014) downplays acute seriousness of Climate Crisis”, Countercurrents, 12 November, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya121114.htm ).
However endlessly lying, Orwellian Mainstream media ensure that the public remain unaware of this unfolding disaster. Obama’s “too little too late” climate change inaction proposals are hailed as decisive climate change action. Thus, for example, the latest IPCC Summary for Policymakers (2014) offers a RCP2.6 scenario that will “limit greenhouse gas concentrations to low levels (about 450 ppm CO2-eq, likely to limit warming to 2C above pre-industrial levels)”. However, using the IPCC data-based Global Risk and Opportunity Indicator we find that the Exceedance Probability for a 2C temperature rise with an equilibrium greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration of 450 ppm CO2-eq is 58.4% , and that if this were the annual probability of fatal flight accidents there would be 17,520,000 fatal flight accidents per year instead of 30 per year (Global Risk and Opportunity Indicator: http://global-risk-indicator.net/ ).
In look-the-other-way Australia we have 4 Mainstream scenarios fro how fast we driver over the cliff : (1) the science-ignoring Murdoch media and pro-fossil fuels Coalition effective climate change denialism; (2) the Fairfax, Guardian, ABC, and Labor Right “take action to avoid 2C over coming decades” although 2C is now essentially unavoidable, (3) the Greens who want substantial climate change action ASAP , and (4) the direst science – totally ignored by the climate criminal Yellow Press of White Australia – that says that the probability of exceeding 2C at the current 478 ppm CO2-e is about 70% (see Global Risk and Opportunity Indicator: http://global-risk-indicator.net/ ) .
Science-informed Australians who are alarmed at the anti-science lying by Mainstream politician and media presstitutes will utterly reject the climate criminal Coalition, Boycott the Murdoch media, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.
Roger Clifton
November 18, 2014 at 7:50 pmGideonPolya, your science is spot-on and I must applaud your concept of a “climate criminal”. However your recommendation of the Greens is faulty.
Greens explicitly oppose nuclear energy, yet you cannot possibly decarbonise Australia without converting all heavy generation to nuclear.
If we are to vote for a Party whose number one priority is decarbonising Australia, we won’t find one! Someone will have to stand on that platform, probably for the Senate.
Tyger Tyger
November 19, 2014 at 1:46 amHandscombe @10, what these commitments mean is the debate has changed. That should be plain. Australia’s denier government can no longer say, “We couldn’t possibly act unless and until the US and China do.” Time’s up. We wouldn’t lead; now we follow.
Abbott’s ludicrous climate policy has been exposed in such inevitable fashion it’s beyond contempt. The only joy is it happened in the most public and embarassing way imaginable, with The U.S.-China emissions deal quite deliberately leaving the rest of Shirtfront Tony’s precious “I’m such a statesman” summit in the shade, showing up his desire to sideline the issue for the preposterous nonsense it always was. Honestly, what did that leering, box-headed fool expect?
Worst. Prime. Minister. Ever.
No contest.
Oh, btw, it also means climate-change deniers have gone from being ciphers to relics. Congratulations.
At the same time I fully agree with all those posting it’s nowhere near enough. What GideonPolya says @11 reminds me of what Clive Hamilton was saying as long ago as 2010 in “Requiem for a Species”: that a combination of the innate conservativeness of scientists in making predictions about the future; the ice-like slowness of governments in responding to issues which threaten powerful vested interests (not to mention the resources those interests have put into disinformation campaigns); the inadequate nature of suggested thresholds for atmospheric carbon once action began to be contemplated; and the effect of positive feedback mechanisms largely ignored by scientists in all their predictions – loss of albedo, melting permafrost, warming oceans less efficient at storing CO2, etc. – meant that even were it theoretically possible to halt catastrophic climate change, it wouldn’t happen in the society we inhabit and disaster was inevitable.
For what it’s worth, Naomi Klein is someone who has a bit each-way in the hope vs despair stakes. This is her take on the deal:
http://www.progressive.org/news/2014/11/187910/naomi-klein-good-news-china-climate-deal
GideonPolya
November 19, 2014 at 8:35 am@ Roger Clifton.
Nuclear power generation in a carbon burning-based economy is a major CO2 polluter and is quite sensibly opposed by the Greens.
Thus Australian physicist Dr Mark Diesendorf (Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales) re nuclear energy and associated CO2 pollution: “The nuclear industry has widely disseminated the false notion that nuclear energy emits no greenhouse gases. The truth is that every step (except reactor operation) in the long chain of processes that makes up the nuclear fuel “cycle” burns fossil fuels and hence emits CO2. The emitting steps are uranium mining, milling fuel fabrication, uranium enrichment, construction and decommissioning of the reactor, and waste management … The subsidy to nuclear power is almost as much as the full cost of wind power in Britain… Contrary to the claims of the nuclear industry, Van Leeuwen and Smith find that total CO2 emissions from the nuclear fuel chain based on low-grade uranium ore are comparable in magnitude with emissions from a gas-fired power station. ” (see Mark Diesendorf, “Behind Howard’s damgerous nuclear push”, Green Left Weekly: https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/34973 )
Roger Clifton
November 20, 2014 at 6:06 pm@GP … As you say, any user of electricity in a “carbon burning-based economy” is inevitably a CO2 emitter. But in a nuclear based economy, no electricity user would be a CO2 emitter.
However, the Greens need a “carbon burning-based economy” to continue, not least to endlessly make token “reductions”. In particular, they want an expansion of gas to provide backup power to the intermittent wind and solar that they get their righteousness from. Check it out: the Greens are loud when attacking coal, but not a peep from them when it comes to gas.
Mark Diesendorf does admit that renewables need gas backup. Check out his website – you will find that he attacks the enemies of gas, that is, coal and nuclear.
Instead, we need you to attack the enemies of the greenhouse: coal and gas. What side are you on?