PBS NEWSHOUR
Countries from around the world will meet in a few weeks to try to reach agreement on limiting greenhouse gasses. Previous climate summits have been fraught with disagreement. Will the Paris meeting produce results? Jeffrey Brown speaks to UN climate chief Christiana Figueres about what to expect.
TRANSCRIPT
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, first, in just a few weeks, countries from around the world will meet in Paris to try to reach a new agreement on limiting or reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But prior climate summits have often hit a wall over disagreements about economics, development and what should be the ultimate goals.
As the Paris conference nears, Jeffrey Brown explores the prospects ahead.
JEFFREY BROWN: Last year marked the warmest for the planet since records were first kept, lending new urgency to calls from scientists and many leaders for slowing greenhouse gas emissions.
To that end, the Paris summit could present a major opportunity — a key goal, find a way to slow the rise in global temperatures to about two degrees Celsius or by the end of the century.
President Obama, who traveled to Alaska this summer to show the effects of warming, has made it a central focus of his second term, including new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. In recent months, China, India and the European Union have all announced long-term plans.
But a similar conference in Copenhagen six years ago failed to reach a deal. And there are questions about whether voluntary commitments will work this time, and also continued political opposition here and abroad.
Christiana Figueres is the U.N.’s point person in charge of the Paris summit. I sat down with her in Washington earlier today.
Christiana Figueres, welcome to you.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES, UN Climate Chief: Thank you, Jeff.
JEFFREY BROWN: Let me start with the big question, six years ago in Copenhagen widely seen as a failure. Now Paris. Have things changed?
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Well, you know, I have often said that Copenhagen was the most successful failure of the United Nations, because we learned an awful lot from Copenhagen. But, yes, things have changed.
JEFFREY BROWN: Is that good spin? Or is that…
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: No, no, no, no, no, no. Truly, we made actually a very in-depth study of everything that went wrong in Copenhagen, so that we could learn. So, it’s not just spin. It truly is the case.
But, you know, in addition to the way that we handle conferences nowadays, in addition to that, what has changed dramatically is the context in which this meeting in Paris is going to take place, for many different reasons, technology perhaps being one of the very salient differences, where we had before — it wasn’t really sure whether renewable energies would be able to compete with fossil fuel.
But, today, we have the answer. Yes, they are already competing. So, you know, technology is definitely much better. Finance is already beginning to flow. We already have $2.6 trillion that’s already moving into green technology. The policy…
JEFFREY BROWN: OK, but let me stop you on finances then, because I want to get to some of the continuing problems you face.
The pledge by industrial countries to help poorer countries with $100 billion a year, that part hasn’t happened.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: It is a pledge to help developing countries with $100 billion by 2020.
A report that was just launched a couple of weeks ago shows that, in 2013, the flow was at $51 billion. In 2014, the flow was at $62 billion. And we don’t have the numbers for 2015, obviously not also for next year, but there is already a trend going up, and hence a very good possibility that we will be able to — that they will be able to get to $100 billion.
Those numbers that I quote have not been accepted by developing countries because there still has to be a discussion about methodologies, definitions and assumptions. But, order of magnitude, it shows that we’re moving certainly in the right direction.
JEFFREY BROWN: Political will, you think, is more there than it was?
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Political will is definitely there.
JEFFREY BROWN: Where do you see that? Give me an example. Where do you see that?
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Well, that’s very simple.
All you have to do is take a look at the 157 national climate change plans that we have already received and counting, because we will receive more before Paris, so 157 different countries, every single one of the industrialized countries, every one, and over 100 other countries who have already put in writing and in public what they’re going to do to contribute both to bringing emissions down, as well as to making their infrastructure more resilient.
JEFFREY BROWN: Most of that nonbinding agreements from these countries.
A lot of experts continue to question that. Circumstances change. Politics change. How do you know that they stick to it?
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Well, first of all, I don’t know of anything binding that is actually a guarantee.
The Kyoto Protocol is the best example of that, because we had countries adopt the Kyoto Protocol and then not ratify. We had countries adopt, ratify and then still not comply. So, you know, even if it’s legally binding, that’s not a guarantee.
And I think one of the major — going back to your first question, sort of the major, major shift that we had between where we were in Copenhagen and now is that countries have increasingly understood that addressing climate change is not just a global issue. It is actually also a national priority. It is national development opportunity.
So, they’re no longer seeing themselves as having to choose between what is important to them nationally and how they can contribute globally. But, rather, they’re beginning to see the coincidence of these. That, to me, is a much more compelling driving force, because countries will operate in their own interests.
JEFFREY BROWN: Going into this conference, one of the huge goals, major goal, holding the warming to two degrees Celsius, already declared unreachable, according to your analysis.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: The sum total of all of those climate change plans make a huge dent in both the growth of emissions that would have projected without those climate change plan, and certainly in the corresponding temperature.
So, without those climate change plans, we would have been where we were in Copenhagen, for example, moving into a scenario of a world that would have warmed four, five, six degrees centigrade. Today, with these climate change plans, assuming that they’re implemented, and we can talk about that, we’re moving into a world that, currently, with the current level of effort, would warm somewhere between 2.7 to three degrees.
A major improvement. Is it enough? No.
JEFFREY BROWN: No, a huge dent, but not enough.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Not enough, which is why Paris is not just going to be the receiving vessel for those climate change plans as currently being planned, but, rather, it will understand that that is the floor of global effort and certainly not the ceiling.
JEFFREY BROWN: You talk about the political will being there, but continued skepticism from many quarters in this country, in Congress.
We’re, of course, now in a presidential campaign again, where you hear about opposition to making changes in the economy, in policy for climate change. You are still facing that.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Yes.
But what I see is an increasing support on the part of certainly the private sector, as well as different subnational governments, whether they are state or city level, for President Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
But, more importantly than that, more importantly, let us remember that this is not the first time that this country has grappled with the question of, do we stay bound in an operating mode that has been prevalent in the past, or do we move toward something completely new?
It is not the first time. And if you look at the history of the United States last century, this century, it is a very tough call. But the U.S., as every other country, eventually does make the right choice, and there is only one right choice to make. And I am very confident that this country will make the right choice, clearly.
JEFFREY BROWN: Christiana Figueres, thank you very much.
CHRISTIANA FIGUERES: Thank you very much for the invitation.
50 Years After Warning, No Debate In Paris On The Science
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| U.N. climate negotiations begin in Paris in less than a month. Credit: Omarukai/Flickr |
The fundamentals of climate science, however, are not among the issues being debated.
The 50-year anniversary of the first detailed climate change warning issued to a U.S. president is Thursday, less than a month before a historic two-week climate negotiating session begins in Paris. The golden anniversary is coinciding with a rich embrace of climate science in global negotiations.
“There are plenty of challenging issues for the negotiators, but the basic science of climate change is not one of them,” said Harvard University economics professor Robert Stavins, an expert on the talks. “So-called climate skepticism is essentially irrelevant to the outcome.”
Countries that have been “trying to undercut international climate action,” including Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, often “play the bad guys,” said Jake Schmidt, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, but “not by denying that climate change exists.”
The carbon dioxide chapter of the 1965 Restoring the Quality of Our Environment report, produced by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s science advisory committee, cited climate change research dating back to 1899. The science in the chapter was “basically right,” said Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric science professor at Stanford University. It warned loosely of ice caps melting, seas rising, temperatures warming, and water bodies acidifying.
In the five decades since, a frenzy of multidisciplinary scientific endeavours has helped humanity pinpoint and project, with increasing and worrying precision, the consequences of rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, those impacts have shifted from being hypothetical to being real.
This year is expected to be the hottest ever recorded, beating a record that was set just last year. Scientists have definitively linked aspects of deadly Australian and European heatwaves and the severe nature of the Californian drought to global warming. Some major coastal American cities now flood routinely during the highest tides.
The worsening weather conditions, the growing toll of deadly air pollution from fossil fuel burning, and falling prices for clean energy alternatives are propelling the growing interest in tackling climate change.
“The core problem is that this is a completely unprecedented problem,” said Dale Jamieson, an ethicist and environmental philosophy professor at New York University. “If carbon dioxide were sickly green and smelled to high heaven, we’d have done something about it already. It’s really the nature of the problem, and the way that human psychology doesn’t really latch onto it.”
Climate pledges by China, the U.S. and more than 100 other nations ahead of the Paris talks suggest support for climate action has begun to build rapidly. The Paris meeting is expected to produce an agreement emphasizing voluntary but regimented pollution reductions, creating a foundation upon which more far-reaching steps can be taken and coordinated in the coming years.
With scientific consensus on climate change posing no obstacles for the negotiators, here are some of the sticking points that they aim to resolve in Paris. The outcomes of each of these debates are expected to be enshrined in an agreement at the end of the talks. The draft agreement is 51 pages — and negotiators aim to pare that back in Paris.
Loss and Damage
Low-lying island nations — whose very existences are being threatened by climate change — are among those pushing for the countries that got rich burning fossil fuels to compensate them for losses and damage. Such damage could be caused by flooding, by droughts or by wild storms — phenomena linked to global warming. Rich countries see the proposal as a dangerous call for limitless compensation.
Of all the issues that will need to be resolved in Paris, experts warn that loss-and-damage may have the greatest potential to derail negotiations before an agreement can be reached.
“This is about whether or not they have a place to live and sustain their families into the future,” said Heather Coleman, Oxfam America’s climate policy director. “So this is not a small issue, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
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| For countries like Kiribati, climate change could have existential implications. Credit: Nick Hobgood/flickr |
To reduce their impacts on the climate, and to help them adapt to the changes underway, developing countries are turning to developed countries for financial assistance. This won’t necessarily all be in the form of donations — much of it could be in the form of direct spending on clean energy programs, or through cheap loans provided by governments or by the private sector.
Unlike the loss-and-damage debate, developed countries tend to agree with their developing counterparts on this issue. During negotiations in 2010 in Mexico, it was agreed that developed countries would provide $100 billion a year in climate financing by 2020.
In Paris, the governments of developing countries will be asking developed nations to clarify how this $100 billion annually will be raised. They fear broken promises. They will also be seeking clarification on what kind of spending could count toward that figure. “There’s still some skepticism,” Coleman said.
Review Period
Ahead of the Paris negotiations, major countries have submitted pledges — known as INDCs, or intended nationally determined contributions — explaining how they plan to address the problem of climate change. The U.S., for example, has pledged to reduce the amount of climate-changing pollution it pumps into the atmosphere every year by at least 26 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. Like other pledges, that goal is expected to be relatively easy to meet.
Taken together, the pledges ahead of Paris will not do enough to keep global warming below the much-ballyhooed target threshold of 2°C. Experts say that’s OK: the idea is to create a new framework for global climate action. Future tightening of pledges is expected to further limit future warming. A consensus appears to be building around the idea that pledges should be reviewed and resubmitted every five years, though other time periods are also being considered.
Land Use
Fossil fuel burning isn’t the only way that humans are warming the atmosphere. Cutting down trees, raising livestock and fertilizing crops also take tolls on the climate. These practices are lumped into a category commonly known as “land use,” and they are addressed in many countries’ pre-Paris climate pledges. Among other things, Brazil’s pledge contains a promise to restore 30 million acres of forest.
During the Paris talks, negotiators will try to decide whether land use is “explicitly part of the agreement or not,” said Jason Funk, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “This is dividing countries. It’s dividing NGOs.” But Funk doesn’t think the outcome of the debate will matter too much, “as long as a few key principles are outlined,” because land use will figure prominently in national pledges regardless.
Pre-2020 Ambition
The planned Paris agreement will cover the period after 2020. During the negotiations, countries will also be pressured to work toward reducing their climate impacts during the coming five years.
Legal Questions
European negotiators want the Paris agreement ratified as a formal international treaty. The U.S., however, warns that its elected leaders would be unlikely to ratify, and it is pushing for an agreement that is more voluntary in nature. Many also warn that countries might low-ball their climate targets if they could face international legal repercussions for a failure to meet them.
This has long been a major point of contention in international climate diplomacy, but few expect the Europeans to be forceful on this issue in Paris. “They know that getting binding emissions reductions commitments out of Paris is unlikely,” said Alex Hanafi, an Environmental Defense Fund attorney who has been participating in the U.N. climate talks.
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Climate Change Poses ‘Major Threat’ To Food Security, Warns UN Expert
United Nations
Climate change poses severe and distinct threats to food security, and could subject an additional 600 million people to malnutrition by 2080, a United Nations human rights expert warned today.
“Increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather, rising temperatures and sea levels, as well as floods and droughts have a significant impact on the right to food,” said Hilal Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in a news release.
“All these climate incidents will negatively impact on crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and on people’s livelihoods,” she added, warning that responding to the food demand through large-scale production oriented agricultural models is not the right solution.
Ms. Elver also underlined that there is a need for a major shift from industrial agriculture to transformative systems such as agro-ecology that support the local food movement, protect small holder farmers, respect human rights, food democracy and cultural traditions, and at the same time maintain environmental sustainability and facilitate a healthy diet.
“Those who have contributed the least to global warming are the ones set to suffer the most from its harmful effects,” she stressed. “Urgent action is needed to respond to the challenges posed by climate change, but mitigation and adaptation policies should respect the right to food as well as other fundamental human rights.”
The Special Rapporteur made her recommendations in advance of the UN climate change conference, known as COP 21 due to take place in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. The aim of the summit is to achieve a universally applicable legal instrument under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Civil society pressure is mounting on the parties of the UNFCCC to achieve results in Paris by adopting a human rights approach to the climate change agreement that will respect, protect and fulfil human rights of all persons, and especially those most vulnerable. Any agreement must include a clear commitment by all relevant parties to ensuring climate justice and food security for all,” Ms. Elver said.
“As jointly stated by all special procedure mandate holders on World Environment Day in June, Governments should make sure that human rights are at the core of climate change governance.’”
Meanwhile, the Special Rapporteur highlighted her concerns surrounding the impact of climate change on the right to food in her recent report presented to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee in October.
Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
Climate change poses severe and distinct threats to food security, and could subject an additional 600 million people to malnutrition by 2080, a United Nations human rights expert warned today.
“Increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather, rising temperatures and sea levels, as well as floods and droughts have a significant impact on the right to food,” said Hilal Elver, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in a news release.
“All these climate incidents will negatively impact on crops, livestock, fisheries, aquaculture and on people’s livelihoods,” she added, warning that responding to the food demand through large-scale production oriented agricultural models is not the right solution.
Ms. Elver also underlined that there is a need for a major shift from industrial agriculture to transformative systems such as agro-ecology that support the local food movement, protect small holder farmers, respect human rights, food democracy and cultural traditions, and at the same time maintain environmental sustainability and facilitate a healthy diet.
“Those who have contributed the least to global warming are the ones set to suffer the most from its harmful effects,” she stressed. “Urgent action is needed to respond to the challenges posed by climate change, but mitigation and adaptation policies should respect the right to food as well as other fundamental human rights.”
The Special Rapporteur made her recommendations in advance of the UN climate change conference, known as COP 21 due to take place in Paris from 30 November to 11 December. The aim of the summit is to achieve a universally applicable legal instrument under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Civil society pressure is mounting on the parties of the UNFCCC to achieve results in Paris by adopting a human rights approach to the climate change agreement that will respect, protect and fulfil human rights of all persons, and especially those most vulnerable. Any agreement must include a clear commitment by all relevant parties to ensuring climate justice and food security for all,” Ms. Elver said.
“As jointly stated by all special procedure mandate holders on World Environment Day in June, Governments should make sure that human rights are at the core of climate change governance.’”
Meanwhile, the Special Rapporteur highlighted her concerns surrounding the impact of climate change on the right to food in her recent report presented to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee in October.
Independent experts or special rapporteurs are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.
Reducing Carbon Emissions Now Will Safeguard Australian Way Of Life – Report
The Guardian - Lenore Taylor
CSIRO study upends assumptions about domestic cost of tougher action on climate change, finding reducing emissions a ‘win-win’ for environment and economy
Australia can have stronger economic growth, much lower greenhouse gas emissions and a better environment – without individuals needing to make major lifestyle changes – if politicians take tougher action to reduce greenhouse emissions now, ground-breaking new modelling has found.
The CSIRO Australian National Outlook study upends traditional assumptions about the domestic impact of taking part in strong international action on climate change, finding that ambitious global action opens a possible “win-win” outcome for Australia even in the near term.
The dramatic rethink occurs because storing carbon through reforestation and other land use changes becomes a more profitable revenue earner than some existing farming, providing income that more than makes up for reduced fossil fuel exports or the costs of Australia meeting its own deeper greenhouse gas reductions.
“These win-win outcomes occur because carbon sequestration becomes more profitable than beef and other agricultural production across large areas of Australia (up to 58m hectares) ... in a world taking stronger action to reduce emissions,” 17 academics associated with the study explain in an article in the prestigious international journal Nature.
“Stronger abatement incentives also promote electrification and the use of biofuels in road transport, reducing oil imports. These economic gains outweigh the costs of more stringent national emissions targets, as well as the impacts of lower global demand for (and value added from) Australia’s emissions-intensive exports, relative to moderate national and global abatement.”
A team of 40 researchers from CSIRO have integrated modelling of global economic demand and climate policy ambition with possible Australian government policy choices on climate, water, energy use and agricultural land use as well as individual choices about working hours and consumption, to look at possible scenarios for Australia’s economic and environmental future out to 2050.
They conclude that government choices will make the biggest difference, and Australia has the chance to combine strong growth and a strong environmental performance without any major shift in the attitude of its citizens to consumerism, and without any startling new technological developments.
“Decoupling economic growth from environmental pressure before 2050 would not require a change in societal values, but is not automatic ... It is not projected to occur under existing trends, and requires, in our scenarios, collective choices to increase global and national abatement efforts,” the study finds.
The research shows that it would be in Australia’s best interests to push for much tougher global climate action and to build a higher effective carbon price into its domestic calculations than is currently the case.
It considers a moderately ambitious scenario where Australia starts with an effective carbon price of US$15 per tonne this year, a “strong scenario” with a starting carbon price of US$30, and a “very strong” scenario with a starting price of US$50 a tonne. The Coalition’s “Direct Action” policy has bought some greenhouse abatement for around A$15 a tonne, about US$10 at the current exchange rate.
“Across all scenarios analysed, we found that those scenarios where Australia and the world take stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions show higher long-term economic growth and better environmental outcomes compared to scenarios that continue current trends,” the study found.
In the Australian debate, higher effective carbon prices have been rejected because of the potential impact on household electricity bills. According to the CSIRO research, household electricity bills would be 11% to 12% higher by 2050 under the “strong” scenario or 32% higher under the “very strong scenario” compared with no policy action. But it argues affordability would be about the same because households would enjoy higher incomes and energy efficiency would improve.
The win-win scenarios occur when government policy unlocks emissions reductions across all sectors – with electricity, industrial emissions and transport delivering 40% to 75% of cost-effective national abatement by 2050 and land-based carbon storage (or sequestration) supplying 30% to 40% of total abatement in the “strong” and “very strong” scenarios. The study says reforestation becomes attractive under an effective carbon price of $A40 to $60, which Australia would reach by 2020 with very strong global abatement (on track to 2°C) and before 2030 in the strong global abatement scenarios.
“Stable and predictable policy settings are also required, as to be effective in reducing emissions carbon plantings must be maintained for a 100 years or more,” the study finds.
Direct Action originally required 100-year pledges for carbon sequestration projects but has since reduced that to 25 years for soil carbon. Many business groups expect Direct Action to be modified when the Turnbull government conducts a review in 2017, after the next federal election.
The study measures the importance of carbon capture and storage technology to the long-term future of coal in global electricity generation – predicting it would increase by between 10% and 51% by 2050 if CCS is available and fall by between 7% and 63% if it is not.
CSIRO study upends assumptions about domestic cost of tougher action on climate change, finding reducing emissions a ‘win-win’ for environment and economy
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| Australia has the chance to combine strong growth and a strong environmental performance without any major shift in the attitude of its citizens to consumerism, according to a new CSIRO study. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images |
Australia can have stronger economic growth, much lower greenhouse gas emissions and a better environment – without individuals needing to make major lifestyle changes – if politicians take tougher action to reduce greenhouse emissions now, ground-breaking new modelling has found.
The CSIRO Australian National Outlook study upends traditional assumptions about the domestic impact of taking part in strong international action on climate change, finding that ambitious global action opens a possible “win-win” outcome for Australia even in the near term.
The dramatic rethink occurs because storing carbon through reforestation and other land use changes becomes a more profitable revenue earner than some existing farming, providing income that more than makes up for reduced fossil fuel exports or the costs of Australia meeting its own deeper greenhouse gas reductions.
“These win-win outcomes occur because carbon sequestration becomes more profitable than beef and other agricultural production across large areas of Australia (up to 58m hectares) ... in a world taking stronger action to reduce emissions,” 17 academics associated with the study explain in an article in the prestigious international journal Nature.
“Stronger abatement incentives also promote electrification and the use of biofuels in road transport, reducing oil imports. These economic gains outweigh the costs of more stringent national emissions targets, as well as the impacts of lower global demand for (and value added from) Australia’s emissions-intensive exports, relative to moderate national and global abatement.”
A team of 40 researchers from CSIRO have integrated modelling of global economic demand and climate policy ambition with possible Australian government policy choices on climate, water, energy use and agricultural land use as well as individual choices about working hours and consumption, to look at possible scenarios for Australia’s economic and environmental future out to 2050.
They conclude that government choices will make the biggest difference, and Australia has the chance to combine strong growth and a strong environmental performance without any major shift in the attitude of its citizens to consumerism, and without any startling new technological developments.
“Decoupling economic growth from environmental pressure before 2050 would not require a change in societal values, but is not automatic ... It is not projected to occur under existing trends, and requires, in our scenarios, collective choices to increase global and national abatement efforts,” the study finds.
The research shows that it would be in Australia’s best interests to push for much tougher global climate action and to build a higher effective carbon price into its domestic calculations than is currently the case.
It considers a moderately ambitious scenario where Australia starts with an effective carbon price of US$15 per tonne this year, a “strong scenario” with a starting carbon price of US$30, and a “very strong” scenario with a starting price of US$50 a tonne. The Coalition’s “Direct Action” policy has bought some greenhouse abatement for around A$15 a tonne, about US$10 at the current exchange rate.
“Across all scenarios analysed, we found that those scenarios where Australia and the world take stronger action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions show higher long-term economic growth and better environmental outcomes compared to scenarios that continue current trends,” the study found.
In the Australian debate, higher effective carbon prices have been rejected because of the potential impact on household electricity bills. According to the CSIRO research, household electricity bills would be 11% to 12% higher by 2050 under the “strong” scenario or 32% higher under the “very strong scenario” compared with no policy action. But it argues affordability would be about the same because households would enjoy higher incomes and energy efficiency would improve.
The win-win scenarios occur when government policy unlocks emissions reductions across all sectors – with electricity, industrial emissions and transport delivering 40% to 75% of cost-effective national abatement by 2050 and land-based carbon storage (or sequestration) supplying 30% to 40% of total abatement in the “strong” and “very strong” scenarios. The study says reforestation becomes attractive under an effective carbon price of $A40 to $60, which Australia would reach by 2020 with very strong global abatement (on track to 2°C) and before 2030 in the strong global abatement scenarios.
“Stable and predictable policy settings are also required, as to be effective in reducing emissions carbon plantings must be maintained for a 100 years or more,” the study finds.
Direct Action originally required 100-year pledges for carbon sequestration projects but has since reduced that to 25 years for soil carbon. Many business groups expect Direct Action to be modified when the Turnbull government conducts a review in 2017, after the next federal election.
The study measures the importance of carbon capture and storage technology to the long-term future of coal in global electricity generation – predicting it would increase by between 10% and 51% by 2050 if CCS is available and fall by between 7% and 63% if it is not.