Low Impact

Garnaut's proposed emissions cuts for 2020 are surprisingly mild

The news broke a few days ago that the Australian government’s climate change policy advisor, Professor Ross Garnaut has proposed two emission reduction targets for Australia for 2020.  He proposes a cut of 10% if the rest of the world gets on board to globally reduce emissions.  If other countries choose not to sign up, he suggests a cut of 5% by 2020, with a final target of 60% by 2050.

I think a lot of people are surprised at these figures.  Garnaut is on the record as saying that global cuts of 80% to 90% are required by 2050.  In fact, while proposing the 5% and 10% cuts, he points out that these cuts are not large enough to save the Great Barrier Reef, and may well destroy the remaining farming viability of the Murray Darling basin.

So why these meek targets?  From Garnaut’s speech transcript:

The analysis suggests that a more ambitious global objective would better suit Australian interests. However, the Review has reluctantly concluded that more ambitious international agreement is not possible at this time.

In his speech he goes on to point out two aspects of climate change that make it such a difficult policy problem.  One aspect is the uncertainty.  While there is little serious scientific opposition to the concept of climate change, the timing and effects are more contentious.  Waiting until the fine details of climate change’s impact on our planet is completely modelled will be too late - by the time we know the precise details of the dangers, we will be powerless to prevent them.

The other issue is that of cooperation between different nations.  Combating climate change will involve economic costs.  So, it’s always going to be tempting for individual nations to drag their feet - if one country can delay its own efforts on climate change, while all the other nations are working hard to prevent it, it will have a competitive advantage!

Garnaut argues that targets such as what he proposes will help address both these problems, by virtue of their relative “mildness”.  Neither special interest groups nor politicians need feel too threatened by them.  In the meantime, the science can continue to refine its predictions for the future, reinforcing the case for stronger cuts.  Individual nations, having instituted systems to start making these modest cuts as part of a global framework, will be better placed to make larger cuts when convinced by the science.

At the end of the day it seems that Garnaut is arguing that the priority is to make a start on reducing our emissions as soon as possible.  The amount of the cut is secondary to the importance of beginning the process.  By instituting a modest target, the global community can make a start without too much political or industry resistance - more meaningful goals could come later.

I see the logic of what Garnaut says, yet intuitively feel that the targets could be higher.  For instance, with the unconditional target he proposes of 5% by 2020 with a goal of 60% by 2050, a lot of the hard work is left to later years.  Assuming that a scheme starts in 2010, a cut of 60% requires a 15% cut every 10 years.  Only delivering 5% in the first 10 year block makes the task of later years that much harder.

In the last 4 years, I have reduced my household’s power consumption by 30%.  No major changes like solar cells, or solar hot water - just common sense measures.  Before anyone protests, I’m aware that the issues facing a household to reduce power consumption is vastly different from industry - an aluminium smelter can’t just go out and replace their light globes! :)  Nonetheless, there’s clearly scope with today’s technology to make substantial cuts to domestic power usage (and therefore emissions) without incurring huge costs - I imagine that there’s at least some scope in the commercial world.

And that’s just today - technology is advancing all the time.  Think back to the brick of a mobile phone you might of had 10 years ago…and ponder the fact that the cuts proposed aren’t due to take effect for another 12 years!

Personally, I’d like to see Australia adopt much bolder targets.  Perhaps an unconditional target of 10% regardless (for the reasons of “making a start” that Garnaut states), with an offer of 25% if the rest of the world will get on board.  But admittedly, that’s all based on feel - hopefully, everyone will be in a much better position to discuss hard numbers for targets when Treasury release their modelling in October.

Categories: current affairs, environment, reduce

Tags: climate change, cuts, emissions, garnaut