Why direct action on climate change fails

The public sector is a very large consumer of energy, so it has an important influence on Australia’s level of CO2-e emissions. Consider the level of emissions made by the defence force operating ships, aircraft, armoured and transport vehicles, powering kitchens, offices, dining, storage and other facilities. Consider the energy used by public owned businesses for public transport, postal services, port facilities, health facilities and other federal, state and local government activities.

The DA proposal makes no mention of the public sector and places no obligation on it to reduce its present level of consumption or even to curb increased consumption arising from growth. By contrast, operation of an ETS would apply to both the private and public sector without distinction.

A significant feature of the DA proposal is to sequester 85m tonnes of carbon dioxide in the soil over the next decade in the form of char, thereby abating emissions and increasing soil fertility. A well intentioned proposal, but is it practical to bury carbon at a rate of almost 10m tonnes per annum? The Department of Climate Change has called into question ability to productively sequester more than 40m tonnes by 2020.

In summary, DA on a purely voluntary basis is not a policy likely to achieve a 5 per cent reduction below 2000 emissions by 2020. It is certainly not possible for it to achieve the 25 per cent reduction required to curb global warming to less than 2C by 2100. DA is a business as usual policy which is:

• financially and administratively a very inefficient means of reducing emissions;
• open to administrative abuse since level of CO2-e reduction claimed by businesses and level of payment made are determined individually by those who may offer or accept inducements;
• unable to achieve 5 per cent reduction because it imposes no targets, no penalties, and no compulsion on emitters to make reductions;
• not able to make a reduction in excess of 5 per cent, except at much higher cost to taxpayers with no expectation of successful outcomes;
• based on an unrealistic, government determined, low price for carbon rather than a price determined by the market;
• excludes any requirement that government operations, agencies and publicly owned businesses reduce their energy consumption; and
• does not stimulate development of technology and clean energy - e.g. conversion away from coal to gas, then conversion to clean energy.

Opting for a policy with these characteristics is not surprising given that the proponents are at the very least sceptical of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW). They are seemingly influenced by Ian Plimer, Lord Monckton and other leading deniers of AGW who’s views have never been subjected to peer review, are unsupported by established science or by empirical data.

If global warming was a faster process, its effects on climate would be far more evident and alarming. At present it is a slow process, one where we talk of annual changes in temperature measuring 0.06 of a degree centigrade. Tiny! Nobody notices such a small increase and very few understand why scientists get alarmed at these “huge” increases - even when they point out that they equate to global temperatures rising over 5 degrees by 2100.

So what? The world isn’t going to end, just because it gets a bit warmer is it? Well, yes, it can mean that, certainly the world as we know it today. Why? Because it would result in catastrophic loss of life due to sea level rise, loss of fresh water sources, inability to produce sufficient food, the spread of diseases and a whole host of other disasters - outcomes which are avoidable - but not under DA proposals.

The DA scheme does provide encouragement to take action on a voluntary basis and should not be dismissed out of hand since it contains some valuable proposals. For example, construction of a direct current grid for all long distance energy transmission, significantly reducing waste, is long overdue. Likewise continued support for households seeking to reduce energy consumption by fitting insulation, solar hot water panels or photovoltaic cells is welcome.

However, these are peripheral to the central issue which is, first and foremost, to bring about reduction of CO2-e emissions which limits global warming to less than 2C by 2100, in a cost-efficient and effective way. On this the voluntary DA approach fails.

In December, 2009 Mr Turnbull wrote an article for The Times in Britain, calling Mr Abbott a ''colourfully self-confessed climate sceptic''. He warned that any policy announced by the Coalition would be ''a con, an environmental figleaf to cover a determination to do nothing''. Alas, Mr Turnbull has been proven right.