Australia’s Car Industry Ignored The Elephant In The Room: Carbon Emissions

The Conversation - Anna Mortimore

Australia’s car industry got left behind on emissions standards. Exhaust image from www.shutterstock.com

Ford’s closure of its Geelong manufacturing plant on Friday is part of a broader story about Australia’s manufacturing sector. But one side of this story has so far been overlooked: the role of Australia’s lax attitude to vehicle emissions.
Globally, car manufacturers are taking climate action seriously by significantly improving fuel economy, in turn reducing a car’s CO₂ emissions.
Repeated policy failure and a marked reluctance by the Australian car industry to shift from manufacturing mostly high CO₂-emitting vehicles contributed to Ford ending operations. The Australian car industry ignored the elephant in the room.
This effectively contradicts former-Treasurer Joe Hockey’s assertion that climate change has no impediment on economic growth, as Australia gets left behind in a world embracing action on climate change.

Warning signs
In 2008, the international community launched the Global Fuel Economy Initiative (GFEI) to facilitate and promote large reductions of greenhouse gas emissions by establishing a global target to improve fuel efficiencies. The target included a 50% improvement in vehicle fuel economy in new light duty vehicles by 2030. The GFEI offered to assist successive Australian governments in the development of better fuel policy.
European car manufacturers made slow progress and continued manufacturing larger high-performance vehicles. But in 2009, the European Parliament introduced CO₂ emission standards of 130 grams of CO₂ per km by 2015 and long-term target of 95g CO₂ per km by 2021.
By 2013, 80% of global passenger vehicle sales were subject to CO₂ standards. Complementary economic measures were introduced to support the standards by influencing consumers into choosing low CO₂-emitting vehicles.

Australia left behind
In 2005, the Australian car industry adopted voluntary targets of 222g CO₂ per km by 2010. This wasn’t in line with international standards and masked the poor fuel efficiency of locally manufactured vehicles as shown in the chart below.

Average CO2 emissions (grams per kilometre) for new vehicles

Source: National Transport Commission (NTC) Reports 2010–2015 Get the data

With voluntary standards, the local car industry was under no pressure from the government to improve its fleet’s fuel efficiency. The Australian car industry failed to meet the target. Average emissions from cars manufactured in Australia in 2010 were 247g per km – 11% higher than the voluntary target.
In April 2012, the Australian government mandated that 100% of all Commonwealth vehicles would be Australian made. This explicitly excluded acquiring vehicles on the grounds of “environmental considerations, such as fuel efficiency”.
In 2013, the government announced a Productivity Commission review of the industry that would examine international competitiveness, exports, trade barriers and long-term sustainability. At this point the local car industry announced its decision to abandon manufacturing in Australia. As a result, the commission didn’t examine the impact of climate policy measures on the local car industry, although it did suggest that environmental policies could serve as a barrier to international trade.
Industry actors also criticised other measures such as vehicle or excise taxes that it said would impede Australian exports.
For example, Ireland’s 36% vehicle tax on new light passenger vehicles with emission greater than 225g per km would apply to most Australian-made vehicles. Such measures support emission standards, and are imposed on all vehicles sold (whether imported or manufactured domestically) for the protection of the environment. They have been effective in shifting consumer demand to fuel-efficient vehicles.
Under the rules of the World Trade Organization national governments can ban imports that do not comply with product standards, if they do not constitute non-tariff barriers. To meet this exception, the policy must be measurable (such as an excise tax based on CO₂ emissions), apply to all goods sold (domestic and imports), and contribute to the fight against climate change.
The adoption of regulatory standards and supporting economic instruments, meant car manufacturers/importers will not be able to sell as many larger high CO₂-emitting vehicles. To sustain economic production runs, manufacturers will seek to sell these vehicles to countries with lenient or no standards, such as Australia, which then become “dumping grounds”.

Government and industry caught off guard
In 2014, the Abbott government supported the G20 Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which included “improving vehicle energy efficiency and emissions performance” by strengthening domestic standards in vehicle emissions and vehicle fuel efficiency. Despite the plan, there was no recommendation to introduce emissions standards in the government’s 2015 Energy White Paper.
Successive Australian governments, trade unions, and industry actors have all failed to appreciate the impact of climate action on the economic interest of the local car industry. The Australian government is now examining fuel efficiency standards and complementary measures, but will only report next year. It’s a little too late to save the industry.
Forcing the local car industry to meet similar standards would have been to its benefit and would have outweighed the costs of being shut out from the market. As more global car manufacturers began adopting emissions standards more pressure was placed on car manufacturers to remain competitive.
Car manufacturers were known to lobby their governments to adopt European emission standards to increase their competitiveness and restrict importation of high CO₂-emitting vehicles. The former Vice-Chairman on General Motors, Bob Lutz, said the fall of GM in the United States was largely a result of a terrible government policy on fuel economy, which gave its competitors, the Japanese automakers, a free pass.
The European Commission stated that if a car industry fails to embrace a shift towards more fuel-efficient vehicles, it will continue to be structurally unprepared for the future.
To compete globally, the Australian car industry had to decide whether to embrace cleaner technology to meet the standards of its importers, or abandon the export market. Unfortunately for the workers, Ford chose to close its operations on October 7, and GM Holden and Toyota will close by the end of 2017.

Links

• Could Australia become a dumping ground for high-emission vehicles?
• Australia’s weaker emissions standards allow car makers to ‘dump’ polluting cars
• No, cutting your car’s carbon emissions won’t cost you more
• Australian car industry needs lower emissions, not handouts

5 Places To Visit Before They're Lost To Climate Change

Huffington Post - Tyler Moss

As ice caps melt and wildfires rage, scientific assertions that climate change is occurring at a rate faster than formerly expected have become manifest in locales around the world. The effects of global warming have put many of the world's prime travel destinations at risk of suffering serious consequences, with some facing the prospect of vanishing entirely. From the Amazon, to Mumbai, to Napa Valley, here are places to add to your itinerary before they change irrevocably. Photographs from Getty.

1. The Great Barrier Reef
Spanning more than 1,400 miles, the Great Barrier Reef — located off the northeast coast of Australia — is the largest coral reef system in the world. Replete with marine life, the reef draws slews of scuba divers each year. But rising ocean temperatures have caused coral bleaching in vast portions — a condition in which the coral turns white and is prone to mass die-offs. Recent studies have revealed that more than 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef has experienced bleaching to some degree.

2. The Alps
This European mountain range has long served as a Shangri-La for skiers, stretching across eight countries and providing some of the most sought-after slopes in the world. With increasing temperatures, however, significant snowmelt continues to shorten the season for winter sports. Many resorts have already begun to compensate by offering spa treatments and outdoor activities like horseback riding or tennis to lure more off-season visitors.

3. The Rhone Valley
Situated in the south of France, the Rhone Valley is among the most vaunted winemaking regions in the world. Covering a corridor of more than 120 miles in length, visitors could spend a full week driving from one tasting to the next, admiring the sprawling vineyards surrounded by mountainous backdrops. But as global temperatures rise, making the environment inhospitable for grapevines, many experts predict production will shrivel and winemakers will creep further north toward cooler climates.

4. Venice
It's impossible to walk the streets of Venice without being seduced by its anachronistic charm: The Adriatic Sea coursing through its canals, the romance of a gondolier's serenade as you float beneath the Bridge of Sighs. In a place so at one with water, locals have come to expect flooding in Piazza San Marco and other parts of the low-lying city — but as ocean levels rise, Venice inches toward more serious inundation. Activists have taken on the challenge, investing in advanced flood gates and other technologies to stymie the impending swells, but only time will tell how these systems fare.

5. The Amazon
The largest rainforest on Earth, the Amazon covers roughly 40 percent of South America. Travelers will find scarlet macaws and blue poison dart frogs living side-by-side with jaguars and brown-throated sloths in the wet broadleaf rainforest. Yet despite its size, climate change has made the Amazon a fragile habitat. Extreme droughts have left tree species throughout the tropical jungle parched, leaving them vulnerable to large-scale dieback — as well as more susceptible to forest fires.

Links

• Complete list of places to visit before they’re lost to climate change
• Colourful Coral Pulses With Life In Stunning Time-Lapse Video
• Everyone Wants Leo DiCaprio To Come And See The Reef For Himself

Australia Facing Questions At UN Over Post-2020 Climate Change Stance

Fairfax - Adam Morton

Australia is facing renewed international pressure to explain what it is doing to tackle climate change, with a United Nations review finding its emissions continue to soar and several countries calling for clarity about what it will do after 2020.
Countries including China and the US have put more than 30 questions to the Turnbull government, asking for detail about how Australia will meet its 2030 emissions target and raising concerns about a lack of transparency over how the government calculates and reports emissions.
It comes as the federal government has been facing calls at home - sparked by its own criticism of ambitious state renewable energy targets - to reveal what it would do on climate change and clean energy beyond 2020.
An expert review commissioned by the UN found, based on data submitted by Australia, its emissions would be 11.5 per cent higher in 2020 than they were in 1990.
Industrial emissions – not counting those from forestry and land-clearing – were expected to rise 33.5 per cent over the three decades.
The reviewers found a recent Australian report lacked transparency about how it estimated its future emissions. And they noted the report failed to mention the abolition of the carbon price scheme, or explain what impact scrapping the policy would have on it meeting targets.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressing the Paris climate summit last year. Photo: AP

Australia's previous report two years earlier put the carbon price at the centre of its response to global warming.
Separately, countries have put questions that Australia is expected to answer before the end-of-year climate summit in Morocco, including:

• China wanting to know what the repeal of the carbon price has done to Australia's emissions, and whether it has considered other approaches to carbon pricing.
• The US asking whether Australia is introducing any longer-term policies that will help it meet its 2030 target that it may not know about.
• New Zealand following up a pledge Australia made to release modelling this year of what its emissions would be in 2030.

Alden Meyer, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said the review and questions put to Australia made it made clear it was yet to convince the world it was up to playing its part in meeting the goals agreed at the Paris climate summit.

Hazelwood brown coal power plant in Victoria's Latrobe Valley. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

He  said those goals implied reaching net zero emissions by mid-century. The Paris agreement will take effect next month after the world's biggest emitters ratified the deal more quickly than expected.
"The US, China, Europe and other major economies are clearly making low-carbon development a priority," Mr Meyer said.

Average global temperatures from 1880 to 2016 (covering January to June). Photo: NASA

"There will be diplomatic and economic consequences for any country that's perceived as not joining in this effort... That's a risk that Australia shouldn't, and doesn't need to, take."
Physicist Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Action Tracker and an adviser to developing countries at climate negotiations, said the questions asked of Australia showed deep scepticism and frustration beneath a diplomatic veneer.
"It is very strange that the government had put forward no projections, which are the sine qua non [essential ingredient] of this area of policy," he said.
"It is as if the Treasury produce a report for the International Monetary Fund with no future numbers in it. It raises alarm bells."
A Climate Action Tracker analysis found Australia's emissions were headed to be more than 27 per cent greater than 2005 levels in 2030.
The Coalition's emissions targets are a 5 per cent cut by 2020 compared with 2000 levels, and a 26-28 per cent cut by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. It has committed to reviewing its climate policies next year.
Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said Australia was making an important contribution to the global effort on climate change, and was on track to beat its 2020 Kyoto Protocol target.
He said Australia was in the process of ratifying the Paris agreement and its 2030 target was one of the highest in the G20 on a per capita basis.
"Whether it's through the ambitious set of targets we took to Paris or our significant levels of investment in renewables, we have a strong suite of policies to manage our transition to a lower emissions future," he said.
The UN expert review suggests Australia's emissions are likely to be higher in 2020 than in 2000, but this does not necessarily mean it would fail to meet its 2020 target. Under Kyoto Protocol rules, the target is measured against average emissions between 2013 and 2020.
The questions Australia is facing are part of an assessment introduced to boost transparency about climate policies. Australia received more questions than the other countries examined in the current assessment round, including most of Europe and New Zealand.
Some questions submitted included praise for what Australia is doing. Japan was impressed that Australia updates emissions projections nearly every year; Brazil offered congratulations that it had listed 26 actions to cut emissions, up from six in a previous report.
But Jake Schmidt, international program director with the US National Resources Defence Council, said many countries were questioning the disconnect between Australia's international targets and what it was doing at home, including expanding coal mines and cutting its incentives for renewable energy.
Climate Institute deputy chief executive Erwin Jackson said the scrutiny Australia was facing was an example of a new global reality.
"The world is moving inexorably into a future that will be driven by clean energy," he said.
Liz Gallagher, of British think tank E3G, said Australia had been a force for good at the Paris summit last December, but it needed to have a transparent and credible plan.
"Words are important but action is what matters," she said.

Links

• Paris climate accord to go into force, Australia misses out
• Australia on outer as Paris Agreement comes alive
• Bishop welcomes Paris climate deal as Australia slow to ratify
• Australia lags behind as Paris climate deal swings into action
• Australia a 'No-Show' on Historic Paris Climate Deal