Australia: Greens and industry square off on climate change
Updated
Climate scientists meeting in Copenhagen this week, say sea-level rise may well exceed one metre this century, well over the prediction of between 18 and 59 centimetres made by the U-N's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year. If true, there'll be catastophic implications and the scientists have urged swift cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The news came as Australia's government released draft legislation on its plans for cutting emissions and shaping a low carbon economy. But industry is screaming it'll take the country back to candles and horses, while green groups say its a sorry tradeoff to big polluters who jeopardise the planet's future.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Penny Wong, Australia's Climate Change minister; Ralph Hillman executive director, Australian Coal Association; Brendan Pearson, deputy chief executive, Minerals Council of Australia; Christine Milne, Senator, Australian Greens; Erwin Jackson, director policy and research, The Climate Institute
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MOTTRAM: Last year, the eminent Australian economist Ross Garnaut reported to the Rudd government on climate change. This week Australia's environment minister Penny Wong unveiled draft laws on what the government wants to do about it .. legislation that's among the most disputed on the government's agenda.
WONG: We're building a vehicle that will take us to a low pollution future. Some people want it to be a Ferrari, but if you can't have a Ferrari, would you really have no vehicle at all?
MOTTRAM: Senator Wong's climate change vehicle derives from Professor Garnaut's findings that if nothing is done to slow global warming, by the year 2050 there'd likely be catastophic destruction of Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef, loss of critical agriculture, a surge in deaths from excessive temperatures in some parts of the continent and other disastrous impacts. To abate the issue, professor Garnaut said an international agreement should stabilise CO2 in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million. In that context, Australia should cut its greenhouse gases by 25 per cent by 2020 from 2000 emissions levels .. but only 5 per cent if there's no new global agreement. Professor Garnaut said a carbon market should be created. Tradable emissions permits up to the level of a government cap on total allowed greenhouse production should be largely sold to industry. Meanwhile the government would help fund alternative energy strategies. Between that report and this week's legislation, there's been a Green Paper, a White Paper and an intense lobbying battle in Canberra.
Ralph Hillman is executive director of the Australian Coal Association.
HILLMAN: What you would see is a loss of competitiveness. Our share of export markets would decline, and that would be to no benefit to the global environment because that coal supply would simply shift to competitor countries which will not be taking on targets under the proposed global emissions trading arrangements for another 15 or even 20 years.
MOTTRAM: The government's White Paper, and now the legislation, have delivered key wins for industry. Not only has the emissions target been set at 5 per cent, up to a possible 15 per cent -- well below the Garnaut report's recommended 25 per cent -- but there's no limit on free carbon permits and a wider range of industries than the Garnaut report envisaged will be allowed free permits.
Still industry doesn't like it. Brendan Pearson, from the Minerals Council of Australia.
PEARSON: We can't see anything different in substance from the white paper and that's a problem because we've got some serious issues with the white paper model and we'd need some fairly significant changes before we could support it.
MOTTRAM: Climate scientists and environmentalists are equally dismayed, but for quite different reasons. They say spending on alternative energy is inadequate -- they want farmers to be paid a tariff for producing energy from solar arrays or wind farms for example and selling it into the national grid. They want funding for preserving wilderness as a carbon sink. But there's one central change on which they won't shift .. and they could well have the numbers in the Parliament to enforce this.
MILNE: A higher target is non-negotiable.
MOTTRAM: Christine Milne is a Green party Senator.
MILNE: The whole purpose of an emissions trading scheme is to reduce carbon emissions and when you set a very weak target of five per cent then you are not making the deep cuts that are necessary to avoid catastophic climate change.
MOTTRAM: There is now a major political battle on given that the government does not control the upper house of the Australian Parliament. And while environment groups say a better overall emissions target is vital, they're also keen to win as much power as possible for a proposed expert advisory committee to the government.
Erwin Jackson from the Climate Institute says independent review is vital and it has a clear starting point.
JACKSON: Look at how much money the taxpayer is actually coughing up to big industry and whether its actually justified because at the moment we have lots of wildly exaggerated claims from many parts of industry about the economic costs of tackling climate change when the reality is that China has put one of the biggest greenhouse friendly stimulus packages on the planet together. We have South Africa putting in place a carbon tax. The reality is that the world is moving and Australia needs to move with it.
MOTTRAM: So the lines are being drawn in the Australian Parliament. Not only is the Senate an issue, so are the ruling Australian Labor Party's own internal climate-sceptics, while a question hangs over whether Australia will be seen as a leader or just another middle player when the big issue of a new global climate change agreement is dealt with in Copenhagen later this year.
