Recession presents economic opportunities
Updated
British Climate economist Nicholas Stern whose ground breaking report gave climate change a financial perspecitve, says the world's economic crisis presents opportunities for countries in recession.
He's told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland they should be using idle labour in the construction industry to build green projects. And he says that if Australia wants to continue its dependence on coal, it should be aiming to have up to four carbon capture plants built within the next decade
Presenter: Emma Alberici
Speaker: British Climate economist Nicholas Stern
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NICHOLAS STERN: Australia has great opportunities. Australia could be a leader in carbon capture and storage, both in the technology and in the application of the technology. I mean Australia has holes in the ground where you can put the carbon that's captured. So I think this is an opportunity for Australia and I believe the leading thinkers on this, like Ross Garnaut and Kevin Rudd himself, understand these issues very well.
So I do think that going forward, incorporation of the heavy emitters in a trading scheme must be a priority. A clear target must be to include everybody in the scheme.
EMMA ALBERICI: We've only got a target of five per cent by 2020. Is that enough?
NICHOLAS STERN: I think a clear path too for all the heavy emitting countries, that includes Australia, the United States, you know, UK, a clear path for those rich emitting countries to cut by 80 per cent by 2050 is absolutely fundamental and we all have to ask ourselves, are we on a credible path.
From where we are now, 2009, 2010, to get us to 80 per cent reductions between 1990 and 2050. That is the test and you have to look and see Australia's position and see whether it passes that test.
Perhaps it is on the low side and we all have to recognise how tough it is going to be. Australia is a rich country relative to the rest of the world and everybody has to tackle the transition and I believe Australia can be a leader in showing how that can be tackled.
EMMA ALBERICI: It can be difficult when you are trying to balance the politics and then the vast number of jobs that Australia has tied to the big polluters.
NICHOLAS STERN: In the short run, moving to alternative energy is actually going to be more labour intensive. You can't switch away from coal quickly but you can switch towards carbon capture and storage for coal within a period of a decade or so and Australia can lead on that.
And what is absolutely clear is that nobody, not Australia, not China, not the United States, not Europe can, if we were to handle this problem, go on using coal without carbon capture and storage for very much longer.
It is the future of the planet that is the issue so we all have to find ways of either doing carbon capture and storage and continuing, or substituting a way, or over time doing both. And as I said I believe Australia can and will be a leader in this.
EMMA ALBERICI: The problem is of course with carbon capture, it doesn't exist yet.
NICHOLAS STERN: The technology is well understood. What we need to do is the world to show that it can work on big scale.
EMMA ALBERICI: That hasn't been shown yet.
NICHOLAS STERN: That has not yet been done yet and what we need in this next decade is 20 or 30 plants, ideally 30 or more around the world with different types of coal, with different kinds of geology to really show that this works on commercial scale.
EMMA ALBERICI: And you would like to see Australia lead the way?
NICHOLAS STERN: We should be doing 12 in Europe, that's the target. If there were two or three or four in Australia, maybe another dozen in the United States, then you will actually start to get the 30 or so and we will understand much, much better what the challenges are and how they work.
