Climate inertia and politics

That inertia is evidenced by massive protection of the worst emitters and insistence that Australia will not commit to more than a purely tokenistic 5 per cent reduction in CO2-e emissions below 1990 levels by 2020 unless the rest of the world goes higher. Then, in the middle of the Copenhagen Conference, it was revealed that Australia had under-reported its emissions. While reporting its emissions were on target to meet its Kyoto obligations, they were in fact 82 per cent above them.

One can not argue that just because CO2-e emissions were due to drought, heat and bushfires, they have no effect on our level of emissions or global warming. Yet this is the position taken by the Rudd Government. Dr Peter Cosier of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has long questioned the accuracy of emissions measurement and veracity of reporting by Australia and his concerns appear to be justified.

Under reporting and the paltry 5 per cent reduction effectively silenced Prime Minsiter Kevin Rudd and his Minister Penny Wong. They were in no position to criticise the intransigent position adopted by China and did not do so. China rejected independent, external measurement and verification of its emissions (surprise!) committing itself to “reduce” the intensity of its future emissions by 45 per cent below 2005 levels. In plain language this means that China, presently the worlds worst polluter, proposes to continue increasing its emissions but do so more slowly.

Nor is it a surprise that China and India co-operated to undermine the Copenhagen Conference by working to ensure that it produced no national reduction targets limiting global warming to 2C or less. And what has been the reaction of our politicians? A predictable silence from government and applause from an Opposition who see the limited outcomes of Copenhagen as vindication for their position of denial and scepticism so ably voiced by those protégées of Ian Plimer, Senators Fielding, Minchin and Joyce.

So where does this leave the Australian government? Its efforts to portray itself as an honest broker on the international stage are in tatters. Government rejection of advice that it and the rest of the world needs to reduce CO2-e emissions by 25-45 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 has not inspired confidence among its scientists - nor have government efforts to censor them. Only the Greens accept scientific advice on the magnitude of emissions reduction needed and they are in no position to undertake the planning needed for its orderly (and profitable) achievement. Only government is and so far, it has refused to act.

Once we thought we had a stark choice. A responsible government determined to protect Australia and the world from the worst of climate change or an Opposition led by those who deny or are sceptical of climate change or its causes and who are determined to protect and foster on-going production and use of fossil fuels? Well, the differences seem less clear now and without such clarity, the certainty of a double dissolution election becomes less predictable. What more could Opposition Leader Tony Abbott hope for?

Rudd needs to restore the clear difference between government and opposition on climate change and how to deal with it. He needs to explain what his ETS proposals will do to reduce CO2-e emissions, how it will affect our hip pockets - allegedly less than the GST did - and why his proposals are better than those yet to be offered by the Opposition.

For its part, the Opposition has to offer a clear, persuasive and comprehensive policy for effectively dealing with global warming and climate change, a task well beyond its ability if our reduction target is increased from 5 to 25 per cent. This is a likely development if we are to meet our responsibilities for limiting temperature increase to 2C, a decision which Rudd must take by February 2010.

The problem is that an election fought on climate change and ways of minimising its effects is likely to benefit the Greens in the Senate, probably to the cost of the Opposition. For government, having to deal with the Greens has always been regarded as a fate worse than death! That, like everything else, is just an attitudinal problem.