Go Greener, Australia

Ok, so last week Professer Garnaut suggested that since the rest of the world wasn’t going to adopt tough emissions standards, neither should we. I’ve been pretty annoyed by this: I can’t stand apathy or the “can’t win, don’t try” attitude.

So here’s a list of the different campaigns I’ve found about climate change. I haven’t found any that are specifically related to Garnaut’s latest release of figures, probably because they’re too new yet for anyone to have responded. The ones listed here are more generally about getting the government to make large cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

GetUp.org.au has several members who have started climate change campaigns. You can join in any or all of these:

• Donate to get a billboard outside Parliament, asking for 50% cuts by 2020.
• Write a letter to your newspaper - you might want to update the details now that Garnaut has released new info.
• Tell your friends about the Garnaut Report, again updating the details if necessary.
• Buy t-shirts, stickers, or placards you can display to show you want 50% cuts by 2020.

Oxfam Australia is also campaigning for tougher emissions restrictions with several actions. Currently there’s a petition, help with hosting your own event (with a dvd), and advice on how to write letters to politicians on the topic. Oxfam is particularly concerned about climate change because it will affect the poorest people in the world before it hits those of us living more comfortably in Australia. Their requested target is 30% reductions by 2020.

Climate Campaign has got suggestions for letters you can write, asking for tougher action on climate change. They recommend targets of 40% reductions by 2020. They have suggestions for writing letters on the issues of rising sea-levels having an impact on coastal towns, the solar-power rebates, and other related climate-change topics.

The Climate Action Network of Australia has actions for members, although I haven’t joined yet so I can’t tell you what they are. They have a handy state-by-state description of the impact of climate change on Australia which is very informative.

Friends of the Earth has a Climate Justice campaign. They recommend 50% cuts by 2020, and a moratorium on new coal plants.

If you know of any more groups encouraging activism for greater emissions cuts, please leave a comment with details so we can all join in together.

Prof. Ross Garnaut has finally announced his recommendations for the amount of emissions Australia should cut over the next decade - and it’s pretty depressing stuff. He has recommended a target of 10% cuts by 2020, with deeper cuts to come later. Given that the IPCC and respected climate scientist James Hanson argue that we’ve got less than a decade to prevent the worst of climate change, this looks pathetic. It seems like he’s admitted that we’re going to suffer the effects of climate change anyway, and we’ll never get enough political action on the issue, so we might as well not put too much effort into making urgent reductions. I don’t think I have to tell you that I’m pretty angry about this.

The IPCC suggests that to stabilise our greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million, we would have to reduce our emissions by at least 25-40% by 2020. Setting an upper limit of 550ppm, as Garnaut proposes, means that carbon feedback cycles will have already kicked in and accelerated the rate of change well beyond what we can handle.

This really is a “business as usual” policy from Garnaut. It allows corporations to make a few changes and then carry on polluting as they always have. Combined with the free emissions-permits that will be handed out like lollies to the big polluters, I can’t see how this plan will make any difference at all. Australia will have no ability to convince other nations to do the right thing if we won’t put our money where our mouth is.

If this is the best the world can come up with, it will certainly lead to us losing the Greenland ice (I suspect we haven’t got much hope of stopping the Arctic ice from going now); sea level rises that will be terrible for neighbouring countries and a huge logistical problem for us; and a much increased rate of species extinction as the habitats plants and animals are used to are changed beyond recovery. I guess Garnaut’s completely given up on the Great Barrier Reef, the Murray-Darling Basin, the South-West region (a biodiversity hotspot), Kakadu, and countless other areas that aren’t famous, but are special all the same.

Garnaut states that if an international agreement is reached for higher cuts in our emissions, it will be worthwhile for us to make larger cuts too. This seems pretty weak considering that just a short time ago he was calling for us to lead by example and develop new technologies that would innovate our industries to create a low-carbon future. He says that there’s not much support for an international agreement that will allow the world to reach 450ppm of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, so we’ll have to plan for one that allows 550ppm instead. I say that just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try anyway.

How can we make sure that the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme sets higher goals? I wish I had an answer. I’m off to buy a 50% by 2020 shirt from GetUp. I’m fed up: I want people to know my opinion and show that there’s public support for politicians to take the hard road instead of the easy one. I’m also going to do some research into ways that maybe we can get harder targets set - which politicians to bother, which groups are taking action. If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them, so please leave a comment!

Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. The Business Council of Australia - who represent most of Australia’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters like Alcoa, Xstrata and ExxonMobil - has released a report saying that they won’t like it if the Rudd government makes them lower their emissions.

They paid researchers to write a report about the impact of an Emissions Trading Scheme on their businesses. The report claims that these emissions-intensive businesses won’t be able to pass on their increased costs to customers, that they won’t be able to reduce their emissions, and that if they’re forced to do so, they’ll take their business overseas.

It all seems like a temper tantrum to me. The increased costs of an ETS can be passed on to customers in the same way the increased costs of BAS statements were when the GST was introduced. And if they’re saying they can’t reduce their emissions, then they’re admitting they’re less innovative and hard-working than other polluters around the world who have already made cuts. Well, maybe that’s true, but it’s not something to be proud of.

As for taking their business overseas, most of these polluters are in the mining business: how are they going to dig up Australian resources if they go elsewhere? And do they really think that there are any countries who won’t have an ETS within the next decade? Anyone can tell you that this is junk economics. As Ross Gittens says in the Sydney Morning Herald, the BCA has just written a vote of no-confidence in itself.

All the players in the heavy-polluting industries saw the problems of climate-change coming years ago, and tried to confuse the issue with their own ‘research’ rather than deal with the situation. Like the cigarette companies in the 80s arguing that their products shouldn’t be subject to any regulation, the polluters now want to continue polluting with no consequences. They’ve seen that the Rudd government’s ETS is weak, and want to turn it into a joke that won’t solve the problem of GHG emissions at all. They smell the opportunity for even more loopholes and taxpayer-funded handouts to get themselves a free ride at the expense of smaller businesses and householders.

It’s pathetic, but it was also entirely predictable. Call me when one of the major polluters actually does something useful for a change…

For the last two days, I’ve been struggling over what to write about the Rudd government’s Green Paper on how they’re going to tackle climate change. I’ve got very conflicting feelings about it!

Pros:

• Well, it’s better than nothing. No, seriously, I’d rather have this emissions trading scheme than nothing at all. It should at least slow emissions instead of letting them accelerate.
• They’re not giving away money to the nuclear power industry.
• All industries except agriculture have been included.

Cons:

• 1/3 of permits to be given away for free? What’s the point of putting a price on pollution if you’re going to let some corporations do it for free? And the freebies are for the worst polluters, not the cleanest: the second-worst polluters would have an incentive to increase their emissions so they could get the freebies too.
• It relies so heavily on clean coal. They are really banking on this technology being able to save us. What if they’re wrong? We’ll have spent billions of dollars on sequestration research for no benefit at all, when we could’ve spent that money on (already working) renewables technology or public transport.
• Agriculture is still in the “too hard” basket.

Other commentary is available online from:

The Greens’ Senator Milne
“…the Government has put its foot on the brake and accelerator at the same time.”

Bernard Keane at Crikey
“Labor was elected, in part, because of its commitment to getting serious about climate change. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”

Ben Eltham at New Matilda
“At least making big carbon exporters pay permits would distribute some of their vast wealth back to the public. Instead we’re actually subsidising them.”

Still, it’s only a Green Paper for discussion, not legislation up for vote in the Senate. It seems that the corporations have already had their input into the policy, so now it’s our turn. We have to put pressure on the government to do the right thing: no freebies for polluters. They’ve had long enough to figure out which way the (increasingly hot and dry) wind was blowing; they should have been better prepared. If they want to emit greenhouse gases, they’ve got to pay the rest of us for the damage it will cause, instead of coasting along as if they had nothing to do with it.

It looks like the Rudd government is going to go with the weakest emissions trading scheme they can get away with. So what do you think about it? What action can we take to improve on this before it becomes actual policy? How can we let them know that the bare minimum isn’t good enough?