The black fingerprints of the greenhouse mafia ...

Some people call it “the lost decade” in climate policy. It's actually 20 lost years. I call that a crime against humanity. I don't think anybody, even climate campaigners, can fully comprehend the magnitude of the crime that has been committed against the people of this world by Australian fossil fuel lobbyists in delaying effective global action.

Way back in 1988, Bob Hawke agreed to an interim target of reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions 20 per cent by 2005. This was on the back of successful negotiations to limit ChloroFluoroCarbons (CFCs) and restore the Ozone Layer, which was agreed on within a few years. Such decisive action - aimed at solving the problem - is a long way from current government policy.

The vested interests are far more formidable with climate change than CFC manufacturers alone: Rudd’s extremely weak targets of 5-25 per cent will not solve the problem, and have recently been the subject of strong criticism from Professor Jiahua Pan, a Chinese climate policy expert. If similar targets are adopted around the world, they will almost certainly lead to failure. Even 450 parts per million, the most ambitious option in Garnaut's paper (which corresponds to a 80-90 per cent reduction in Australian emissions by 2050), has a 50 per cent chance of spiralling into an uncontrollable climate scenario, where positive feedback mechanisms (such as methane being released by the permafrost melting) kick in and cause the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere to keep rising.

I don't know any risk insurance policy that would cover for a 50 per cent chance of annihilation. Our targets must be several orders of magnitude higher in order to restore the atmosphere to a safe concentration of 350 parts per million CO2e or below. We need to use the next 10 years to implement an emergency program to cool the planet, aiming at entirely replacing our grid with renewables within a decade.

There is one glimmer of hope. The government’s CPRS, covered with the black fingerprints of the “greenhouse mafia”, is likely to be voted down. Chances of a strong international deal at the UN conference in Copenhagen in December will become greater, as Australia will not be locked into a maximum target of 25 per cent, and will not have to protect its exporting industries that qualified for free permits under the CPRS.

I resent the continued influence of the fossil fuel lobby. I hope the international community will have the insight, the courage and the stamina to resist Australia’s backward-thinking, quarry-vision lobbyists, and develop a robust and enforceable international framework that responds proportionately - within ten years - to the climate threat we face.

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