Back in December, shortly after the election, a couple of us from Christine's office went to see Professor Garnaut speak at ANU. We wanted to get a feel for how this man - who would now be so important - saw the big and small picture questions of climate change.We've copped a bit of flak here on the blog since then for telling it how we saw it: Garnaut, back then, did not seem to get it. He did not get the urgency of the issue, he was not up to speed on the science, he even extraordinarily suggested planting biofuel crops across Northern Australia's carbon- and biodiversity-rich savannah.
In recent weeks, we'd been pleased to hear reports that Garnaut had been on a steep learning curve, and was now swiftly familiarising himself with the science. That much, and much more, was clear from the interim report he released last week. [As noted in a recent post, at this rate, come June he'll be spruiking complete decarbonisation!]
As Garnaut acknowledges, the interim report is a very early stage of the process. There is much still to be bedded down in terms of both top-level issues such as targets and detail of the proposed emissions trading regime and the policies that will have to surround and support it. It also exhibits all the signs of a messy draft, with some sections appearing to have been written at a different time from others, with substantially different, and in some senses contradictory, commentary on both the science and politics of the issue. But, as a statement of direction, it is encouraging.
At the most general level, the interim report makes two clear points that the Greens and others have been arguing for some time: firstly that substantial emissions reductions do not mean economic catastrophe, and secondly that emission reduction targets must be guided by the science. It is to be sincerely hoped that the strong statements on these issues will guide not only the Government, but also the public debate, which is still frequently fixated on the belief that cutting emissions risks crashing the economy, and thus targets need to be as small as we can get away with. In fact, the science says the cuts need to be as large as possible - heading towards complete decarbonisation as fast as is technically feasible - and the economic task is to work out how to get there most efficiently.
The summary of the science in the paper is generally good, in that it accepts the findings of the IPCC, although it is troubling that the paper deems it worthwhile to mention the critiques of the IPCC that say it overstates the threat, but not those that say it is conservative. For such critiques, I do encourage people to read the recent work of NASA's Jim Hansen, who concludes that the IPCC is too conservative and that the interpretations of its data for policy are far more conservative still.
The latter is particularly important for Garnaut and others to understand: once you accept the science, you need to make a judgement call on how much climate risk you are willing to carry. Garnaut, the UNFCCC at the Bali Conference, and many others, seem willing to accept the 50% chance of breaching 2C warming that comes with stabilisation of carbon at 450ppm of CO2e in the atmosphere. It should be obvious that this is unacceptably high.
More troubling, though, is the suggestion that Garnaut is still seriously looking at stabilisation scenarios including 550ppm of CO2e - a scenario that carries such a high risk of exceeding 2C (not quantified in the interim report, but Meinshausen puts it at 63 - 99%) that it should simply not be considered. Garnaut acknowledges the high risk of such a scenario, but he does not rule it out. He also relies heavily, particularly for the lower stabilisation scenarios, on a strategy of overshooting the target and rapidly pulling emissions back down again. While this strategy may be the only way to eventually stabilise below 400ppm for example (because we are already close to that level and certain to exceed it) overshooting is a risky approach because no-one really knows how the climate will respond to short periods of higher concentrations.
In looking at the impacts of climate change on Australia, Garnaut makes a good point that is rarely raised in Australia: that impacts on us are not limited to impacts in Australia, disastrous though they may be. In addition, we need to take into account the very substantial impacts on countries in our region, including China and India, and the flow-on effect to us of major economic, social and humanitarian impacts on our major trading partners, for example.
Putting all this together, Garnaut makes the point that "it is in Australia's interest to seek the strongest feasible global mitigation outcomes - 450ppm". We would argue that it is Australia's interest to go further and that Garnaut's justification for his target, the claim that "peaking of global emissions in the near future, followed by very rapid falls, is clearly not feasible" is a contestable point, not a statement of fact. But, that said, this is an important first step to have taken.
Garnaut's suggestion that we join together in a regional partnership with PNG and Indonesia is explicable firstly because of his long personal and professional connection with PNG. But, secondly, it is quite a cynical grab for cheap emissions reduction credits. Leaving aside arguments about carbon imperialism, given the tremendous global focus on the issue, it seems highly unlikely that Indonesia and PNG would allow Australia to make dibs on these credits if they have the option of selling them on the global market to a higher bidder. Perhaps more fundamentally, there is good reason to question how robust and trustworthy emissions credits from avoided deforestation are. Given the weak governance and difficulty of enforcing protection of forests, illegal logging can easily bring the whole thing undone. Australia would carry a significant risk by relying to a great degree on that sector.
Getting into more detail, Garnaut puts the case, as he did through the media earlier in the year, for emissions targets to be based on long term carbon budgets. Interestingly, this is an approach that we in the Greens have been discussing internally in updating our targets. A carbon budget is the total amount of emissions over time (say the 21st century) that is consistent with a particular goal - such as an atmospheric concentration target.
The budget can then be divided between nations on an equitable basis (hopefully per capita), and policies set to ensure that, by progressively reducing emissions caps, we do not go over budget.
This is an approach, as Garnaut makes clear, that accords with the international concept of 'Contraction and Convergence', proposed initially by Aubrey Meyer and gaining considerable traction in the search for an equitable solution that developing nations will be most likely to sign up to.
The key, of course, is to get the budget right. If we assume that we can afford to emit more, and therefore expend more of our budget in the early years, it will mean greater effort and greater potential disruption in later years, as we struggle to catch up. That is why we were uncomfortable with the way Professor Garnaut originally raised the issue in the media, where he set it against the proposal for a 2020 target. His clear statements in this interim report, such as "there is no risk that an emissions reduction schedule culminating in a 60% reduction from 2000 levels by 2050 will be more restrictive than would be required", give us hope that he understands this.
Which brings us, conveniently, to the question of 2020 targets. Garnaut, like the Government he serves, insists that he will recommend one, but they insist on calling it an 'interim target'. I take issue with this label, as 2020 targets are seen by many now as more important than the longer term ones - both politically and scientifically. Scientifically, we need to see global emissions peak and start to come down by 2015 or sooner - if we don't, too much of the budget will have been consumed and the window for avoiding catastrophic warming closes.
Politically, without strong mandated action in the short term, longer term action becomes even harder to achieve. It will be fascinating to see how this debate pans out in the coming months.
Regarding the proposed details of the emissions trading regime, still to be concluded, of course, there are a few key points to be made.
Garnaut's proposal for limiting compensation for trade-exposed industries is interesting. It is a huge step, in the current political context, to recognise that all-out compensation is inappropriate, noting that compensation was never given, for instance, to industries negatively impacted by trade liberalisation. However, quite a number of eyebrows have been raised in Canberra about the political realities of giving compensation to those who can argue that not to do so would lead to environmentally perverse outcomes. Surely, the cynics would argue, the aluminium industry will just cry out that they'll move to China and burn dirtier coal if they aren't compensated.
Official structures would have to be set up to require companies to furnish evidence that such a move would be realistic and economically sensible, rather than staying or moving to hydro-powered Scandinavia. It's an open question as to whether that could work. The preferable approach would be to call their bluff, with the likely outcome being that they would stay and improve their performance, as has happened in the past.
The sections on distributional impacts and structural adjustment show that Garnaut, like us, is grappling with the thorny issue of ensuring that the equity considerations of the changes can be dealt with without undermining the effectiveness of the policies. We certainly hope he will consider our suggestion, for low-income householders, of investing in energy efficiency on their behalf, to offset rising power bills while still achieving emissions reductions. On structural adjustment, it seems Garnaut is already thinking about 'Just Transitions' strategies to help coal-based communities, for example, attract cleaner industries and retrain their workforce.
Garnaut acknowledges that global experience shows that emissions trading must be backed up by an array of supportive measures in order to be truly effective. He notes the need for a substantial investment in energy efficiency - has he been reading EASI and our other efficiency policies? He notes the need for substantial 'public good' investment in renewables and shifting subsidies from polluting activities to cleaner behaviour, correcting market failures - has he been reading the Sun Fund? He notes the need for investment in transmission infrastructure to meet the new energy economy - has he even been reading Farming Renewable Energy?
Of course, we don't have a monopoly on good ideas, but it is gratifying to see so much of our work reflected here, even if only in passing.
More troubling, however, is Garnaut's call for government funding for coal with geosequestration, which runs counter to the polluter pays principle - throwing taxpayers' money at an industry which has profited from pollution for so long it can easily afford to make that investment itself if it wants to survive.
All in all, there is much to be positive about in this paper - it is something that many of us couldn't have imagined just weeks ago. But it still suffers from the fundamental problem that afflicts the vast majority of climate policy around the globe - defeatism. It is infected throughout with a view that we simply cannot achieve what we need to achieve if we are to have a really good chance of avoiding catastrophe, so we should just do what we think we can.
I am of the view that, if we set our minds to it, as a species, we can do this. If we decide to do it, we will. If we come from a position of defeatism, we haven't got a snowball's chance...
