New figures show Australia will fail to meet Kyoto target

New data from the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC) shows Australia is likely to fail to meet its Kyoto target. Figures from CDIAC shows Australian CO2 emissions increased 8.5 percent between 2004 and 2005. In 2005 Australia produced 101 metric tonnes of carbon with coal consumption accounting for 58 percent of the total. Australia is the world's fourth largest coal producer and by far the world's largest exporter of coal. The data shows that Australian emissions have grown steadily since World War II and have gone exponential since the 1960s. Emissions grew every year until 1998 before declining slightly. However, the data shows emissions rising again as of 2005.

The data ranks Australia ranked as one of the world' top 10 polluters on per capita use of fossil fuels. The data also shows carbon emissions are growing more than four times faster than figures quoted by the Federal Government, placing Australia's Kyoto target at risk. The Federal Government claims that national fossil fuel emissions rose by only 2 per cent over the same period. Australia has committed to meeting a target of 108 per cent of its 1990 emissions levels (which were 80,000 million tonnes) annually by 2012. But the CDIAC figures of a 130 percent increase as at 2005 suggests this cannot be achieved.

University of Adelaide's Professor Barry Brook agrees with this finding and says the Government are doing nothing to stem the emissions. Brook is the head of the university’s climate change research institute and he condemned the rhetoric about Australia being on track to meet its Kyoto target as merely greenwash. "In terms of fuel use, [emissions are] spirally upwards at an alarming rate," he said. “Even a conservative projection based on the US centre's data suggested that by 2012, Australia fossil fuel emissions could be 37 per cent above 1990 levels.”

Brook also noted the “worrying discrepancy” between CDIAC’s data and Australia’s newly branded Department of Climate Change. Unlike CDIAC, the government’s data (pdf) tracks all greenhouse emissions (not just fossil fuels). Australia’s Kyoto target is based on 108 percent of the 1990 figure of 555 million tonnes. The government’s 2007 tracking document believes the 108 percent figure is possible despite huge increases in energy and industrial use due to significant savings in land use clearance. But as Brook points out, those gains may be illusory - land clearance in Queensland was phased out http://www.wwf.org.au/ourwork/land/qldlandclearing/ over the period 2003-2006.

So where does that leave Australia and its Kyoto commitment? According to Clive Hamilton, the Kyoto Protocol is not merely symbolic; it is a very substantial agreement that lays down the framework to begin to deal with global warming. He says the scale of the task should never have been underestimated especially with the Rudd government inheriting a huge greenhouse debt from the previous administration. When world met at Kyoto in 1997 to hammer out the deal, John Howard’s team negotiated a last minute clause into the protocol. The clause was Article 3.7 of the Kyoto Protocol which immediately became infamously known as the “Australia clause”.

The “Australia clause” allowed countries with net emissions from land use change and forestry in 1990 to include them in their 1990 baseline. “Land use change” is a euphemism for land clearing – the removal of vegetation for purposes other than forestry. Because of good agricultural conditions of the times, the late eighties and early nineties were bumper years for land clearing, particularly in Queensland. This artificially raised Australia’s emissions in the Kyoto base year of 1990 by around 30 per cent, masking extraordinary growth in fossil emissions and made the 108 per cent target far cheaper and easier to achieve.

But as Brook pointed out with the Queensland data, Australia has now already played its get-out-of-jail-free card. Any further cuts must now come from coal, oil and gas. These cuts are a legacy of 11 years of profligate Coalition rule. As former shadow environment minister Duncan Kerr put it, the Howard Government’s refusal to introduce abatement measures has turned the target from “a three-inch putt into a six foot one”.

The CDIAC data suggests the ball may actually be stuck in a bunker. Clive Hamilton believes drastic measures must be taken now. He says it is imperative federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong blocks state governments from approving new coal-fired plants. Both Victoria and NSW have been in an obscene rush to get plants off the ground before the Carbon Trading regime is installed in 2010. Last month, Victorian energy minister Peter Bachelor announced the approval of a $750 million Latrobe Valley power station expected to be operational by 2012.

While Victoria seems to be locked into a huge flow of emission for another 40 years, the NSW power industry is in disarray after Premier Iemma’s failure to privatise the industry. Iemma warned the cancellation of the original sale plan won't spare the state from having to invest in upgrading and fitting coal-fired power plants with equipment to reduce pollution, with taxpayers having to meet these costs. But one of the reasons the sale plans fell through is that investors won’t commit until NSW indemnifies them against all future carbon liabilities.

It is not just the power industry that is jockeying for position ahead of the Carbon Trading Scheme. Last week, the Business Council of Australia (representing the 100 largest companies in the country) responded to the Government’s already weak climate green paper by threatening to take industries off-shore if the carbon price was high. It claimed that if the European price of $40 a tonne was brought in, it would force the closing of half the exporting plants in the cement, sugar, paper, electricity, gas and other industries. It demanded polluting industries pay as little as possible for permits, the scheme start later than 2010 and the modest targets be reduced further. As Olga Galacho points out in the Melbourne Herald Sun, the BCA came up with a laundry list of "full compensation for trade exposed, emissions intensive industries and welfare for coal generators.”

As well as pandering to business, Labor will also be sensitive to any voter backlash from the trading scheme. But Hamilton says the scheme must pass seven tests to be successful. It must 1) be illegal to emit greenhouse gases without a permit 2) it must include all fossil emissions, including petrol 3) give no incentives or loopholes to avoid obligations 4) avoid vested interests in the allocation of permits 5) be compatible with overseas schemes 6) avoid putting a price cap on the price of permits and 7) include the flexibility to set more stringent targets as the science changes. The CDIAC data would suggest the time for more stringent targets is already upon us.

Warm and wet

Protesters who gathered in drought-stricken Brisbane today to march against climate change, had an immediate effect. The march took place in torrential rain (despite erroneous claims from News.com the march had been cancelled). While the weather was welcome to a parched city, the timing was disappointing for event organisers with the crowd well down on expectations of a dry day. The actual crowd was about 2,000 which was exceptional in the difficult circumstances. Those who did turn up struggled to hear Democrat senator Andrew Bartlett's speech before taking part in a drenched walk to Musgrave Park in South Brisbane. The heavy rain never let up and the post-march party had to be cancelled.

Despite Brisbane’s damp squib, the Walk Against Warming successfully took place in over 30 venues across Australia. It attracted national attendance measured in the ten of thousands. Melbourne drew the biggest crowd of 30,000 who marched from the city centre to the new park of Birrarung Marr near Federation Square. Sydney’s event was also marred by poor weather but 10,000 gathered to hear Greens leader Bob Brown address the crowd. Senator Brown told the crowd the Greens would introduce a bill forcing Australia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 per cent by 2050. Opposition Environment spokesman Anthony Albanese also told the crowd a Labor government would act immediately on climate change; ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would be its first act in office.

The events come exactly a year to the day after the first worldwide demonstration to press for action to combat global warming. More than 100,000 people took to the streets in more than 30 countries timed to coincide with the most important international climate change negotiations since the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. The conference was held in Montreal and was the first meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol since it came into force in February 2005. There is broad agreement among scientists that rich countries will need to reduce carbon emissions by 80 % by 2050 if there is to be any hope of stopping the climate change escalating out of control.

The Kyoto Protocol targets will reduce greenhouse gas emission by only 5% from 1990 levels. The Kyoto objective is the "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. The Protocol covers more than 160 countries globally and over 55% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Governments are separated into two categories, developed countries (known as Annex 1) and developing countries (known as non-Annex 1). Non Annex 1 countries do not have GHG targets. Annex 1 countries that fail to meet their Kyoto target will be penalised by having their reduction targets decreased by 30% in the next period. But because the cost of meeting Kyoto is prohibitive for many countries, the protocol has “flexible mechanisms” which allow carbon trading to offset GHG targets. Countries can buy emissions reductions from either financial exchanges or from developing countries. The German based Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board will vet projects prior to accepting carbon trades.

All the Annex 1 and most non-Annex 1 countries have established Designated National Authorities to manage their GHG portfolios under Kyoto. The US, then led by President Clinton signed the protocol. The Bush administration neither ratified nor withdrew the US from the protocol. Bush has stated he supports the Kyoto principles but said in 2001, “the Protocol was fatally flawed in fundamental ways”. He will not commit the US while China, the world’s second largest emitter of carbons, is exempted. The US does not support the split between Annex 1 countries and others. It has also suppressed expert reports on global warming including a fact sheet by a panel of seven scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that found that global warming is contributing to the frequency and strength of hurricanes.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed to a set of a "common but differentiated responsibilities." These were: the developed world had the largest share of global emissions, per capita emissions in developing countries are still relatively low, and the share of global emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social needs. As a result, China, India, and other developing countries were exempt from the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol because they were not the main contributors to the greenhouse gas emissions during the industrialisation period that is the cause of climate change. Kyoto critics argue that these countries will soon be the top contributors to greenhouse gases and also claim that industry in developed countries will move to non-restricted countries meaning there will no net carbon reduction.

There is also controversy about using 1990 as a base year. The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were in a shambles at that time and there was little or no energy efficiency in their infrastructure. Therefore Russia will have little difficulty in meeting the Kyoto targets. This positive side of Kyoto - a chance to modernise industry - is a major reason why Putin signed Russia up in 2004. Defenders of the Kyoto Protocol argue that while the initial greenhouse gas cuts may have little effect, they set the political precedent for bigger and more effective cuts in the future. Six Asia Pacific nations, US, Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea have formed the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6) which aims to co-operate on development and transfer of technology to enables reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. They have agreed a Charter, Communiqué and Work Plan that "outline a ground-breaking new model of private-public taskforces to address climate change, energy security and air pollution”. The Stern Report released this week has now given impetus to push post-Kyoto talks with Germany urged to take the lead when it begins its presidency of the EU in 2007. The Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.