One of the arguments Kevin Rudd has used to deflect criticism of the White Paper is to seize on Ross Garnaut’s per capita calculations and to contend that we will still be cutting emissions further than the EU.
Finally there is the question ‘do we think we Australians deserve to pollute more than everybody else?’ This is the vexed ‘per capita’ issue that Professor Garnaut so cleverly inverted – taking what had been a powerful argument for change and turning it into a weapon in the hands of climate naysayers. He took the ‘contraction and convergence’ model that is the only equitable basis for a global agreement, and perverted it by talking up future population while sidelining current per capita pollution, stretching out convergence – the point where all people have the same pollution allocation – to the far future, and ignoring historical responsibility.
Writing in The Age, Tim Colebatch has had a close look at the numbers in the White Paper, and doesn’t think they sustain the Prime Minister’s claims.
But there are two things wrong with it. The smaller error is that their numbers are wrong — all of them!
The larger error is that they tell only a small part of the story, and the part they don’t tell matters more.
[Via Peter Martin.]
The flip side of all this is that in many ways it should be easier for us to cut per capita emissions than Europe.
Europeans largely already insulate their houses, drive smaller cars, have a lower proportion of coal in the generation mix (largely because of nuclear power), take more public transport, and cycle more.
Europe can’t do those things again, but we can.
More in today’s Crikey:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20081217-Crikey-Clarifier-emissions-per-capita-WTF.html
[for subscribers]
The fact that rud’s government feels a need to dress their GW solution in the garb of a puffer fish speaks as much about its genuineness as the figures themselves do. As nature appears to be accelerating the problem government is declerating its response. Not a good direction for my children’s future.
Yep, and there’s another example of how Rudd failed the politics of this. There’s only one chance to cash in politically on some quite easy and susbtantial initial reductions, and he blew it. What a dunce! Lots of first tranche cuts wont even require major restructuruing of our economy – just basic efficiency programs. Lots of low hanging fruit in AU.
An absolutely hopeless response Kevin. Sack yuor advisors – they’re rubbish.
Reminds me of something that Garnaut said (Targets and Trajectories, page 5):
Telling quote, Peter!
Here’s another quote. Kevin Rudd, Bali, December 12, 2007:
Indeed they will.
Garnaut’s quote is apposite. Every country likes to think they are special and deserves special consideration. But the per capita argument is important, because its the only logical way to conduct negotiations for climate change control. If we conduct the negotiations in terms of absolute limits, the pressure will always be there to push China down from its current levels, whereas natural justice demands that China be allowed to increase its per capita emissions and therefore total emissions, with a trajectory which levels it out at the world average per capita levels we need to get to.
Sure the per capita level at which you start must be taken into account in negotiations, but it should also be noted that a given per capita percentage reduction is much more in absolute terms for a larger per capita emitter like Australia as compared to Europe. And the per capita reduction we are aiming for, is a much more accurate estimate of the effort required to reduce as compared to the current crazy way of measuring reductions. So the 34% or thereabouts per capita reduction that Australia has committed to, does require more per capita effort than the European 24 or 27% per capita emissions reduction target. As Merkel demonstrates in a previous post, that extra effort is quite affordable, but we should acknowledge it is extra effort compared to the Europeans. If we are misleadingly going to characterise the Australian targets as ‘lite’ then the European targets are ‘extra-lite’. (Merkel has argued that Europe have got rid of the low hanging fruit already, so therefore the task is easier for them. I’m not so sure. A lot of their low per capita emissions is due to the production they consume being made overseas. And that brings up the other irrationality of the current international negotiations, that they are done in terms of production not consumption. But that’s another argument).
Correction. The fourth last sentence should read ‘Merkel has argued that Europe have got rid of the low hanging fruit already, so therefore the task is harder (not easier) for them’
The White Paper suggests a 5-15% reduction for Australia is equivalent to a 27-34% per-capita reduction, and a 20-30% reduction for the EU is equivalent to a 24-34% per-capita reduction for the EU. Now in 2005 Australian per-capita emissions, excluding land use, were 27.4 tonnes per person, while for the EU they were 10.9 tonnes per person (cait.wri.org). So Australia’s per-capita emissions are 2.5 times higher than the EU’s.
Suppose Australia was to reduce its per-capita emissions by 27%, and the EU was to reduce its per-capita emissions by 24%. Then Australia’s per-capita emissions would be 2.4 times as high as the EU’s. At this rate it would take something like two centuries for Australia’s per-capita emissions to be close to those of the EU. This is why Australia’s targets are much weaker than the EU’s targets.
The atmosphere doesn’t give a stuff about how we calculate who is putting it there, and the only finally acceptable solution will be all of us getting down to a target of about 3 tonnes per person, by 2050. Yes we will have to work harder than some countries, but that’s in part because we’ve not worked very hard at all up till now. The more we delay, the worse it will become, for both the environment and the economy.
If you ignore population growth.
That is taking into account population growth
In the article you mention, Tim Colebatch gives the lie to the climate snake-oil that prime minister Rudd would have us swallow. However, in Rudd’s empty defence of Australia’s inadequate 2020 emissions reduction target, fudging the projected population increases of Australia compared to Europe and ignoring our actual per capita emissions are not the only concerns.
In an unsurprising alignment of spin, the tactic of using projections to place reductions targets in the most severe light is similar to that used by the Australian Industry Group back in September.
Rudd argues that a 2020 target will place a fixed limit on our emissions that will mean a smaller per capita share as our population rises, and therefore an increasingly bigger percentage drop to the adopted limit from our current obscenely high per capita levels.
Likewise, the AIG presented a percentage drop from the total emissions projected for 2020 – based on continuing high-emitting behaviour – down to the levels recommended by Garnaut in his report. Rudd’s 5% 2020 cut therefore comes out as a 27% per capita reduction; Garnaut’s 5-10% 2020 cut became, through the AIG’s spin filter, ‘a reduction of between 20 and 25 per cent compared to current directions’.
In both cases, the percentage drop is better considered not on 2020 projections, which are hardly unchangeable prophecies, but on the cuts from current levels needed to achieve those science tells us are necessary to avert dangerous climate change – that is, 25-40% on a 1990 baseline.
In other words, we should compare where are now to where we need to be. In that light, strong cuts appear much more achievable and the Government’s position looks inconveniently pathetic. Rudd makes no apologies for his 2020 target, but our prime ministerial snake-oil salesman beware: the climate bites.
If you want European emissions per capita, then you’ve gotta have European power generation, which means nuclear power. Anyone who thinks we can get there by simply by replacing coal with renewables is kidding themselves.
This is another inconvenient truth.
Since we are not about to get nuclear power anytime soon if ever, the way forward is to carve out energy and set ourselves the target of equal per capita non-energy emissions with Europe by say 2030 if not sooner. There’s no excuse for our transport or other emissions to be higher.
We can then set ourselves achievable targets to de-carbonise our electricity generation. No one should be under illusions that this will be easy.
The other aspect to the debate is whether we can justify Australia’s projected population rise. I think a case can be made that if Australia for some reason is unable to bring it’s per-capita emissions down quickly, then we have some amount of obligation to keep our immigration numbers in check.
Having said that, personally I don’t believe there’s any good reason Australia can’t reduce it’s per-capita emissions to something close to Europe’s current levels, certainly by 2020.
Did I just hear Rudd’s scrapped the means test on solar rebates?
Spiros, if you mean, can we replace all current coal-fired power stations with renewables capable of supplying the same baseload + peak wattage, then no, I agree, it’s not going happen before 2020. But I believe it’s possible to come close to halfing average electricity usage, significantly improving the efficiency of coal and gas fired generation, and moving close to 20% renewables, which would get it pretty close to current European per-capita levels.
Whereas nuclear isn’t going to help any 2020 target, unless it was implemented on a war-footing.
??… ???? ????? ??????.
“I believe it’s possible to come close to halfing average electricity usage”
How?
Strict standards on buildings and electrical applicances.
Quotas, if we really had to.
Can anybody refute Peter Woods’ numbers [at 10 and 13]?
Cos if not that is the per capita excuse smashed over the fence.
the Govt *has* scrapped the solar means test. Good, there’s one dimwitted, confused policy blunder binned. Now, on to this polluter-rewards scheme …
hannah’s dad, I think Peter is spot on, but we also need to take issue with blowing modest cuts entirely out of proportion by expressing them as percentage per capita cuts from projected 2020 population levels. If, for example, we laid on a massive baby bonus and drastically increased the population by 2020, the percentage per capita cuts to achieve a set limit would look even more severe than the 27% the PM is claiming, but the actual cuts would remain the same in terms of tonnes of CO2-e.
We don’t know how population might change with any certainty, and in any case such things as efficiency measures and renewables might well mean more of us can still fit comfortably within a particular adopted limit, which would effectively make Rudd’s claims look increasingly weaker.
What won’t change is how that limit adopted compares to the levels science indicates we need to stabilise the climate: 25-40% reductions on a 1990 baseline. A target manifestly inadequate to achieve those levels will remain so, no matter how the government or industry lobbies spin it in terms of percentage per capita cuts.
Yes, LeftyE, the Government has scrapped the means test, and yes, that’s one “dimwitted, confused policy blunder binned”.
However, in what is now becoming typical Rudd Government style, it has replaced one “dimwitted, confused policy blunder” with another “dimwitted, confused policy blunder”.
The means test is gone because the rebate, per se, is gone. This would have given the Government the perfect opportunity to replace the rebate with the real policy setting for PV (and other renewables) – a feed-in tariff. However, instead of doing the smart thing, the Government will replace the rebate with a special temporary treatment of small-scale PV inside the increased renewable energy target (RET).
Where, under the RET, every megawatt hour of renewable electricity gets 1 renewable energy certificate (REC), for the first few years of the scheme PV will get 5 RECs for every MWh. After 2012, it will be phased down, disappearing altogether after 2015.
This is policy designed by people who either don’t understand what the hell they are doing or are deliberately undermining renewables.
It’s not particularly good for solar PV, because it’ll perpetuate the boom / bust cycle that we’ve been trying to get rid of by replacing the rebate with a feed-in. We’ll have demand for a few years, then ditch it again. It also fails to provide the certainty of pricing that a feed-in provides, because nobody knows how much exactly a REC will be worth!
The real irony is that the Government opposes a feed-in for one reason only – that it will put the increased cost of renewables on everyone across the electricity grid – every electricity bill-payer will pay that little bit more so that the retailers can pay renewables providers a premium. This is called “smearing”. Now that is exactly how the RET operates. Every electricity bill-payer will now pay a little bit more so that each PV generator can get their 5 RECs. So, we’re paying our bucks, but we’re not getting the bang. That’s just senseless.
But it’s not the end of the story. In addition, by giving each MWh of PV 5 RECs, the Government is undermining its own 20% target promised at the election. That is because the target is defined by the number of RECs, and, if 4 out of every 5 PV RECs does not actually represent any renewable energy generated, there will be a bloody great gap in the target of filled RECs but no renewables!
Why on earth would you do this? When excellent policy settings like feed-ins are on the table and available to be picked up,why would you do this?
Sorry if I’ve hijacked this excellent thread a bit with that long rant. But I think the point needs to be made.
Question that arises from both this issue and the main line of this thread: is this sheer ignorant blundering from the Government, or is it deliberate sabotage? And which is worse?
To return to thread…
Mark, thanks for the post and for the link to Christine!
Peter Wood’s numbers are spot on. And they tell a great story. But for my money, wilful has expressed it best:
This is really the point, isn’t it? The only way to an equitable solution is to work out how much carbon the atmosphere can safely hold, how much we can safely emit, divide it by the number of people, and get cracking working towards it.
It’s remarkable how many journalists are falling for the Rudd sleight of hand. Or rather, how few have not fallen for it. Colebatch deserves a prize!
Our 2.5 times per-capita carbon emissions in comparison to those of Europe says it all really.
Rudd is a wanker. I had expected better.
After Howard, I believe we deserved better, too.
Tim, Colebatch does deserve a prize, but why aren’t the Greens shooting down the spin? Rudd’s tactic is pretty much the same as the AIG approach back in September – using 2020 projections to make the cuts seem more severe. Can’t you guys blow a hole in it just as Colebatch has done? I think there needs to be more work done to deconstruct in simple terms just what the government claims are saying, or not saying. I agree that the only goal worth achieving is that indicated by the science – get that point out there!
Darren, we’re trying. I’ve spent much of the last two days (not to speak of the last two years) in the press gallery talking to people about the science, the design, the per capita twist – and the renewables stuff today, which took a lot of explaining…
Did you see the ABC TV news last night? Grabs of both Bob and Christine slamming the “spin” and “fudge” of Rudd’s abuse of the per capita idea.
Plus there’s that blog post that Mark opened with, which ran at ABC Online as well as GreensBlog.
Of course, the fundamental point is, as LeftE said right up @ 4 – they screwed up the selling of this one. Launched it as 5% and now spinning it as 34%. It’s firmly lodged in the public’s mind as a dodgy 5% target, while the polluters and anti-environmentalists can still bitch about it being a big 34%! Truly bad management there…
I know you’re trying, Tim, and you’re doing a good job with the improved web presence, and actions like Greg Barber’s and Rachel Siewert’s in Melbourne yesterday. I’ll check out the news from last night on iView (was at my daughter’s primary school graduation). The way I see it, they run a line in media grabs that takes longer than that short space to refute. The climate doesn’t swallow spin, however.
Darren – the point is out there – I guaurantee that the Greens will have issued a number of press releases making these very points – but the MSM pick up what they want to pick up – surely you can’t believe that the MSM is dispassionate observer in all of this?
Rudd will attempt to avoid any meaningful discussion of what long-term per capita emissions level Australia should converge to – and whether his 2050 target is consistent with that level. Indeed, in any future international negotiations, Australia WILL attempt to negotiate a special deal for itself – guaranteed. And, the MSM will help him do it.
As I have said, nobody should be at the very least surprised about this.
There is an interesting parallel in Europe right now. As you all know, Europe has a 20/20/20 target by 2020 (emissions, renewable energy, energy efficiency). But to secure an agreement that delivers those broad goals, the recent European Council agreed, basically, to hand over a wad of free permits to “trade exposed energy intensive firms” that they had previously said would have to obtain them via auction (without undertaking any analysis of which ones were actually trade exposed), and allowed the Poles (and other coal dependent countries) to give free permits to their coal-fired power generators until 2020, and allowed up to 2/3 of the reduction to be achieved by buying in credits from outside Europe. Oh, and their is no mechanism to fine those European countries that exceed their targets.
Sorry PV boosters, it’s still an expensive waste of money, with many far cheaper ways of reducing emissions.
(note I have panels installed under the scheme – if they’re gonna waste money, I’ll get in line).
But this is a distraction.
Hannah’s dad, nobody here is going to dispute Peter Wood’s figures, since we virtually all think it’s a joke of an argument.
Labor Outsider: Well maybe the answer is advertising, since the MSM understands revenue. Maybe we need an Obama-style campaign built on lots of small donations to fund a simple campaign saying that the climate doesn’t swallow spin, and that there’s plenty of science to tell us the limits we must adopt to avert dangerous climate change.
Speaking of Europe, there seems to be an error in Colebatch’s article:
10.4 million tonnes EACH? In 1 year?
Then we really are stuffed.
Can the people talking about how impossible it is for renewables to power the country take the time to read whether this is the case before commenting?
And
There’s lots more interesting stuff, but it would be nice to pick holes in actual research, rather than to run with blanket statements of “renewables can’t power Australia”.
Thanks, Alister. Reminded me to point out this Stanford academic study concluding that most renewables beat CCS and nukes hands down in pure technical terms.
In the haste of many to accept that everything Tim Colebatch says is holy writ, let us examine some facts.
The first error Colebatch points out in Rudd’s figures is that he disputes the claim that Australia’s population is projected to grow 45 between 1990 and 2020 _ claiming the correct figure is 48 per cent.
Wow! Some error. What he is implying is that the Australian Government has deliberately understated Australia’s population growth and therefore the per capita emissions to make its case less compelling.
Colebatch then says Europe’s population growth has accelerated as migrants flood in and claims its population is already 6 per cent bigger than in 1990. Now, logically that would seem to suggest that in the 18 years between 1990 and 2008, Europe’s population has grown by an average of 0.3 per cent a year. That’s some flood!
Colebatch says Eurostat now projects 9 per cent growth by 2020 – presumably (although he doesn’t mention this) between 1990 and 2020, compared to his figure of 48 per cent for Australia.
Well, that means there will be a net increase of 3 per cent in the 12 years between 2008 and 2020 – or 0.25 per cent a year. Again, some flood!
But, then look at what the United Nations climate change chief Yvo de Boer said, according to an ABC report the day before Colebatch’s article appeared. de Boer said Australia should be applauded for entering the carbon market.
“Australia’s now put a figure on the table, something countries have been calling for for a long time,” ABC Radio’s AM program quoted him as saying.
The UN climate chief went on to say different countries had different circumstances. US President-elect Barack Obama had committed to return emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020. The US was 17 per cent above 1990 levels and had a strongly growing population.
Yvo de Boer went on: “Compare that to Europe, which is pretty much on target and does not have a growing population. Within Europe there are countries that have growth targets, countries that have reduction targets, countries that rely a lot on nuclear energy, countries that rely on coal, so the same figure doesn’t automatically mean the same thing for every country.”
Note that the UN climate chief says Europe does not have a growing population.
So perhaps we can look forward to seeing Colebatch’s scoop informing us all that the UN climate chief was wrong in saying that Europe does not have a growing population.
If we don’t see it, do you think that it could be because Colebatch was wrong and de Boer (and the Australian Government) was right. Perish the thought. It would mean all the comments here that accepted Colebatch’s claims were based on a false premise.
And, I suggest anyone who could claim that a 9 per cent population rise in 30 years represents a “flood” is guilty of gross exaggeration.
Carping over minor differences in assumed population growth is neither here nor there. Colebatch himself says it’s a minor point.
His major point, which has been made by others, is that even if match the Europeanss’ percentage cut in emissions per capita by 2020 our emissions per capita will still be much higher than theirs. And under no feasible cutting scenario will our emissions per capita be equal to theirs by 2050, which is when the deal must be sealed to avoid possible very nasty climate change, and maybe worse than that. So much for contraction and convergence.
Rudd will say the right things and try to carve out another special deal for Australia because we’ve got a growing population and coal fired electricity, and we refuse point blank to even think about nuclear power.
Unfortunately, after we dudded the world by getting an exceptionally generous deal at Kyoto (108% on 1990) which we will only meet anyway by including reduced land clearing (one of only two countries who were allowed this), which conveniently peaked for other reasons in the reference year 1990 – and then refused the sign the damn treaty! – the chances of getting another generous deal are nil.
Rudd’s strategy is, or might as well be, let’s see if the big countries agree on something. If they don’t, we’re cooked anyway, and if they do, we’ll make a sort of an effort to do the best we can. I don’t know what else he can do. Posturing with high targets will get just get a derisive snort from the rest of the world who won’t believe for a second that they will ever be reached.
He might get lucky. If the big countries reach agreement then Australia might sneak under the radar and keep on carbon polluting without anybody noticing.
Tim Hollo,
For your records take a look at http://www.infiniacorp.com ( or http://www.infiniacorp.com/applications/clean_energy.php ). They have not released their pricing yet, but this unit has the potential to power a very significant section of domestic and small business. The collector in this publication is parabolic and bulky, but I believe that the collector can be redesigned in a long flat form that can then be built into roof ridges to be minimally obtrusive. At 3Kw this formula has the ability to put most dwellings power exporters on an annual basis. Coupled with the water heating option this truly will be commercially successful.
That is an excellent link there Alister, thanks.
Let’s turn around Peter Wood’s numbers at 10 a bit and say what would Australia and Europe need to do in order to get to 3 tonnes per person in 2050. We’ll assume that Europe in 2010 is 10.9 tonnes per person, and Australia is 27.4. Then for Australia we need an annual average decline of 5.4% and for Europe 3.2% from 2010. This of course reduces Australia’s per person emissions by 89% and Europe’s by 72%.
The annual average decline for per person emissions for Australia is 69% higher than for Europe (ie 1.054/1.032-1), so that is how much higher our effort has to be if we are to get convergence at 3 tonnes per person in 2050. The proposed Government targets are 34% per person reduction for the period 1990 to 2020 for Australia (the 5% option) and 24% for Europe. The Australian per person annual average reduction implied by the 5% target is 51% higher than the European per person annual average reduction for this period. So its not 69% higher, but its not too far away. But if we went to a 37% reduction per person (which is about a 10% absolute reduction from 2000), then our reduction effort would then be 68% higher than the annual average reduction for Europe.
Sorry for the blizzard of numbers, but the bottom line is that we know for convergence we need to do a lot better than the Europeans, because our current per person carbon pollution level is much higher. And if we had a 10% target, then our relative effort over the 30 years to 2020 would be enough extra relative effort to eventually get convergence.
The fly in the ointment is that the reduction rate proposed for 1990 to 2020 for Europe and Australia, if applied into the future, would mean it would take about 140 years from now for us both to get to 3 tonnes per person. So both Europe and Australia need to lift their game dramatically, but the proposed relative efforts of Australia and Europe are about right (if Australia’s target is the 10% reduction).
Thanks, BilB. Interesting development there.
Just worth making the point, as well, that there is an additional complicating factor in these calculations – is 2050 a reasonable date for convergence in the contraction and convergence model?
What is implied in a 2050 convergence point is that Australia, as the highest per capita polluter, gets to continue to be the highest per capita polluter for another 42 years! Is that fair? Surely, to be really fair, we need to bring convergence on much sooner – or even see rich and high polluting countries like Australia dip under the per capita emissions levels of countries like India and China for a while.
This doesn’t mean that we need to go to domestic negative emissions somehow. What it means is that we should be cutting domestic emissions fast – in line with the kinds of numbers Peter Wood has set out – and assisting developing countries to reduce their emissions additional to our domestic effort, not as a substitute through buying CDM credits.
Tim: at some point we need to go to negative net global emissions.
Even under the kind of cuts proposed by the Greens and their allies around the world, greenhouse gas concentrations will stay too high for too long for safety.
Totally agree, Robert!
Tim Hollo, reality check. I don’t see there’s any moral case for us to dip below China’s and India’s per capita emissions. It really isn’t the fault of our evil forefathers that we were born on top a giant pile of brown coal, and had we gone nuclear in the 50s and 60s we would have a far more European (well, chinese these days too) emissions profile.
I think blaming Monash for developing the La Trobe valley, which is where your argument gets you, is a bit futile and also starts getting to the fringes of public opinion.
Not that I’m averse to the fringes of public opinion where the science is justified, but someone has got to get all this stuff past the bulk of the Australian electorate.
wilful, this isn’t about blame – it’s about responsibility and equity.
Australians have been privileged to have become rich thanks to dumping tremendous amounts of waste (which we didn’t know until much later was actually dangerous waste) into the atmosphere.
Now we have both the responsibility and, importantly, the wherewithal, to fix up the mess we have created.
It’s really strange this idea that we have to water everything down to get it past the electorate. That’s steeped in the conservative anti-environmental frame.
If Australians see that something needs to be done, and that the Government is stepping up to the mark to do it, they will support it! Australians have supported all sorts of stupid things in the past because their governments have told them that it was necessary – the Iraq War and all the infringements of civil liberties that went with the war on terror; splurging billions of dollars on tax cuts which every single poll will tell you people don’t want if it means they can’t have decent schools and hospitals.
Most voters will support something big if it is delivered with conviction. If Rudd had bit the bullet here and delivered, he would have easily gotten away with it. The point is, he doesn’t have the guts.
What johng said @ 8 and what Robert said @ 43.
I’d just like to remind people that during the last interglacial when CO2 levels were below 300ppm the sea level was 4-6m higher. 3 million years ago when the CO2 was roughly where it is now the sea level was about 25m higher. To talk of 2C and 450ppm as anything like OK is just insane.
With Rudd, I think that we are getting roughly what we voted for. The Climate Institute before the election only ever gave him 6 out of 10 whereas the other mob were stuck in 2 out of 10 territory. The worry with the whole pack of them, here I include the EU and Obama’s US, is that their ambition doesn’t reflect the seriousness of the situation and frankly there are doubts as to whether their practical policies will achieve the outcomes they are spruiking. Obama’s first big test is whether he will fall for Harper’s snake-oil of signing up to oil from tar sands in the name of energy security. If he does we’re all stuffed.
Going to a per capita calculus and somehow bring the accounting to consumption of CO2 rather than production are important changes that are needed. The problem with Rudd is that he hasn’t given himself enough moral capital to argue for these changes, even if he sees the necessity.
But on contraction and convergence, I’d like to see some work done on how that approach is going to meet even the IPCC’s outdated ambition of peaking world emissions by 2015. It seems to me that emissions under a contraction and convergence regime will grow strongly in world net terms until convergence is reached. To nominate 2050 as the convergence point at 3 tonnes per capita with 9 billion people sounds like a bloody disaster to me! For starters, just think of acidity levels and the fish in the sea.
Well I think our source of wealth has been derived from other things, such as having good governance and a stable society with cohesion and social capital. And I am deeply sceptical of the claims that we can cheaply entirely decarbonise the economy. We certainly have lots of easy gets, but behind that we’ve got a bloody lot of hard expensive stuff. I don’t think ‘big’ captures it.
Since I haven’t donated 10% or 50% of my inherited ‘wealth’ (principally a good education) to the developing world, and I’m in pretty strong company there, obviously my moral compass doesn’t quite work out that I think we have to destroy our economy to right past and current injustices in the world.
Don’t get me wrong, Australia’s got to play its part, and contraction and convergence is the only ethical way to end up. But for us to get right out ahead of the pack, I just don’t see it happening, and nor would I particularly welcome it. Which is not to say I don’t think the pack should be moving a lot faster than it currently is.
wilful re reality check; Mark, TC TH et al are providing the reality check here…
China and now South Africa have taken the dudd’s army spin @ PB and Possum’s ‘smart politics’ take for a quiet walk in the park here…
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24816553-11949,00.html
A bit of a correction. I wrote:
Having had another look at the White Paper, the per-capita reduction for Australia is 27-34% compared to 2000 levels, while the per-capita reduction for the EU is 24-34% compared to 1990 levels. The per-capita reduction for Australia in the White Paper compared to 1990 levels is 34-41%.
So I should have used the 34% reduction for Australia to compare it to the EU figure. Then to see how long it takes for Australia and the EU to converge to equal per-capita emissions I should use 1990 emissions to compare per capita emissions. In 1990 Australia had per-capita emissions (including LULUCF) of 24.5 t, and the EU had 11.8 t (from cait.wri.org). Australia’s were 2.08 times as large as the EU. By 2020 Australia’s 5% target would mean that our per-capita emissions would be 1.8 times that of the EU ( 24.5/11.8*((1-.34)/(1-.24)) = 1.803 ). This a change over 30 years.
At this rate our per-capita emissions would be the same as those of the EU in the year 2140.
( 24.5/11.8*((1-.34)/(1-.24))^5 = 1.025, 5*30 = 150, 1990 + 150 = 2140 )
Codger, I dare you to say it to their faces (figuratively) =P
I agree with Brian that to “talk of 2C and 450ppm as anything like OK is just insane”. In Hansen’s recent paper he suggested that:
The question is how much does the world need to reduce emissions to stabilise at 350 ppm? In Meinshausen et al. (2006) Multi-gas Emissions Pathways to Meet Climate Targets Climatic Change 75: 151–194, it is suggested that we can stabilise at 350 ppm if we reduce emissions globally by a bit over 5% per year. If we want to reduce emissions slower than that, we will need to have more negative emissions later.
For detail on contraction and convergence scenario’s, there is information at the Global Commons Institute website.
I think that I prefer the iterative approach to GW arrest. That is: do something positive then test to see if you have had an effect; if no then redouble your efforts until an effect is detected; adjust your efforts to achieve the appropriate improvement rate; maintain.
The current “talk about it endlessly then test to see if peoples perceptions have changed”, then talk some more. Leaves me cold.
Of course, the other option, BilB, is to everything you bloody well can as fast as you can possibly do it in the desperate hope that it might not be too late…
Yes Tim and I agree in principle, however it really does come back to (and this really isn’t a cop-out) that this is a global problem and Australia can do everything and then be less resilient if/when the rest of the world does SFA.
Which is not to say that Australia is doing anything nearly enough so far.
That would be even better, Tim. I’m ready! Who else is with us??
I see GetUp is actually going to mount a TV advertising campaign during the Boxing Day cricket attacking the weak 2020 target and is calling for donations small or large to help fund it – good on them. You can already watch the ad on their website, and it’s well worth a look.
The major environment groups should pool a small proportion of their funds to run a series of similar campaigns – fewer separate brands vying for a slice of the media spotlight; more climate unity and a bigger impact in the MSM.
Also worth a listen is Senator Christine Milne’s recent interview on NZ radio – clarity, concision, power. Great stuff!
Hmm, I have to say – I’ve donated money toward several GetUp’s campaigns in the past, but I don’t think that ad’s nearly strong enough for the measure it’s trying to convey.
They should have a “what 5% will mean” type ad – i.e. if developed countries followed Mr Rudd and reduced CO2 by just 5% by 2020, your kids/grandkids will be living in a world with no great barrier reef, permanent drought throughout southern Australia, etc. etc.
Ross Garnaut wrote that “the rate of convergence is the main equity-lever in ‘contraction and convergence’.
Here’s a link to an exploration of that observation: -
http://max.mailbigfile.com/4c59170fa0ca0c00b42187f52e5862b7/listFiles.php
If its down and you wnat to see the animation, mail me:
aubrey.meyer [at] btinternet.com