01/10/2018

'Policy Muddle', But Ross Garnaut Holds High Hopes 10 Years After His Climate Change Review

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

When Professor Ross Garnaut released his Climate Change Review at the end of September 2008, the landmark report understandably struggled to keep the attention of then prime minister Kevin Rudd.
On that morning, 10 years ago to the day on Sunday, Wall Street was just setting its largest daily points plunge as the global financial crisis gathered pace.


Up for grabs: Professor Ross Garnaut says that Australia faces great opportunities in a de-carbonised economy but only if it moves quickly. Photo: Arsineh Houspian
Markets and economies would recover over the next decade - as the review predicted - but the same cannot be said for Australia's climate policies. “Policy has been more of a muddle than could reasonably have been anticipated," Professor Garnaut told Fairfax Media this week.
The review, including its call for an emissions trading scheme, had broad support in 2008, with the backing of all states and territories, the federal government and the opposition, the latter led by Malcolm Turnbull.
Fast forward to last month and it was Mr Turnbull's failure to secure Coalition backing for his National Energy Guarantee - intended to combine energy and climate policy - that arguably ended his prime ministership. Scott Morrison, his successor, now has few policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


A couple of fishermen on the enlarging banks of Lake Hume, near Albury, where water levels are low due to drought. Photo: Nick Moir
"The well of good policy has been poisoned by the political discourse of the last nine years," said Professor Garnaut, now a professorial fellow at Melbourne University. "This is an urgent problem. We don’t have 50 years to complete this decarbonisation if we’re to avoid very serious problems for our society."
The seriousness will be revealed on October 8 when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes its report on the impact of 1.5 degrees of warming. That's the lower end of the Paris climate accord in which nations agreed to keep warming to well-below 2 degrees compared with pre-industrial times.
The planet has warmed about 1 degree over the past century, and the lagging effects from the carbon emissions already produced mean another half degree could soon be locked in.
Many ecosystems will be hammered even at 1.5 degrees, with scientists expected to say as much as 90 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef will be lost.

Surprisingly good news
Despite the policy failures in Australia, Professor Garnaut retains much of the optimism from his 2008 report.


Lake Pejar, one of the main water sources for Goulburn, is drying up. Photo: Nick Moir
China, easily the largest greenhouse gas emitter, now looks to have peaked in its use of thermal coal for power stations - much earlier than expected. Its dive into renewable energy has also helped spur much deeper price cuts than virtually anybody imagined.
The review, for instance, modelled a 3 per cent annual fall in the cost of solar panels. Instead, the reduction has been about 85 per cent over the decade, Professor Garnaut said.
The United States, the second biggest emitter, has also done better than forecast.
In 2007, then president George Bush committed the nation to peak emissions by 2025. "We know now they peaked in 2005," Professor Garnaut said.
Australia did have "effective policy" for a few years, when the carbon tax reduced emissions in sectors it covered, he said. Its revenues helped to offset the impact for low- and middle-income families.
“Despite the incoherence of policy [since the Abbott government scrapped the tax in 2014], we’ve continued to make some progress in the electricity sector, mainly because of the Renewable Energy Target," he said.
Evidence of that trend included a 4.3 per cent fall in power sector emissions in the year to March, data made public late on Friday by the government shows. Overall emissions, though, were up 1.3 per cent.
"If we move more quickly, Australia can utilise our exceptional resources for lower carbon energy to emerge as the developed world's energy superpower," Professor Garnaut said. "That will be very good for Australia's prosperity. I hope that we don’t lose that chance."

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The Case Against Climate Despair

Project Syndicate - *

The growing severity and frequency of extreme-weather events suggests that climate scientists' nightmare scenarios must be taken seriously. Fortunately, rapid advances are being made in clean-energy technology and carbon-neutral forms of living.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

STOCKHOLM – Heat waves and extreme-weather events across the Northern Hemisphere this summer have brought climate change back to the forefront of public debate. Early analyses strongly suggest that natural disasters such as Hurricane Florence – which barreled into the US East Coast this month – have been exacerbated by rising global temperatures. Though US President Donald Trump has reneged on the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the rest of the world is becoming increasingly convinced of the need to limit greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions.
Last month, a group of climate scientists published a report in the US Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warning that the planet could be on a path to becoming a “hothouse” that may not be habitable for humans. The Earth has already registered the highest temperatures since the last Ice Age. But, as the report notes, what we are experiencing today will be nothing compared to what is in store if average global temperatures surpass 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
At that point, the authors write, “[global] warming could activate important tipping elements, raising the temperature further to activate other tipping elements in a domino-like cascade that could take the Earth System to even higher temperatures.” The scientific debate about climactic tipping points and nightmare scenarios is ongoing. But no one can say for certain that the risks outlined in the “Hothouse Earth” report are not real.
But there is another risk: that warnings such as these will lead to despair. Numerous reports have already concluded that it will be exceedingly difficult to meet the targets outlined in the Paris agreement. But to conclude that the situation is hopeless is not just dangerous; it is also factually incorrect. After all, political and technological developments that are currently underway offer grounds for genuine hope.
At the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, California, this month, there was plenty of talk about the numerous alarming reports that have come out in recent months and years. But the real focus was on the Exponential Climate Action Roadmap, a major new study showing that progress in the use of non-fossil-fuel technologies is advancing not just linearly, but exponentially.
You may not realize it, but solar- and wind-power usage is doubling every four years. If that continues, at least half of global electricity production could come just from these two forms of renewable energy by 2030. And there is no good reason to think that progress couldn’t accelerate further. Just in the past few years, there have been rapid advances in solar-energy technologies and energy storage.
The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimates that $90 trillion will be invested in new infrastructure around the world over the course of the next 15 years. Owing to the new technologies that are now emerging – not just in energy but in the digital domain as well – humanity could have an historic opportunity to leapfrog into far more sustainable, carbon-neutral patterns of habitation.
Moreover, in addition to the far-reaching advances in technology, there is also growing private- and public-sector awareness of the importance of factoring sustainability into all decisions. New approaches to energy, industry, architecture, city planning, transportation, agriculture, and forestry have the potential to halve GHG emissions by 2030. But that will happen only if a broad coalition of decision-makers decides to deploy them.
Fortunately, governments and major corporations have begun to show leadership on these issues. As a result, GHG emissions have already peaked in 49 countries that account for 40% of global emissions; and ten countries have even committed to being carbon-neutral by 2050. California and Sweden say that they will produce zero net emissions by 2045.
The Exponential Climate Action Roadmap shows that we do still have a say over our climate future. The dangers that await us cannot be denied. If GHG emissions and rising temperatures continue on their current trajectories, we could well reach the point at which future generations will have to endure “Hothouse Earth,” assuming that they can survive at all.
But just as recent scientific work has underscored the dangers of climate change, so, too, has it shown the way forward. There is hope in the rapid diffusion of new technologies, and in the growing awareness of the problem within industry, government, and civil society. If we can ensure exponential technological progress and marshal the necessary political will, we can tackle the climate crisis. A “Stable Earth” is still within our reach.

*Carl Bildt was Sweden’s foreign minister from 2006 to October 2014 and Prime Minister from 1991 to 1994, when he negotiated Sweden’s EU accession. He is Chair of the Global Commission on Internet Governance and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe. 

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The Guardian View On Climate Policy Failures: Don’t Give Up

The Guardian - Editorial

News that governments are not meeting targets is alarming, but the actions of activists are a reason to hope
Anti-fracking protesters outside Preston crown court, where three environmental activists were sentenced to between 15 and 16 months in jail. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
The world is failing to combat the threat of climate change. Global carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas increased by 1.6% in 2017, after three years when they rose little or not at all. Demand for oil is increasing by around 1.5% a year. Last week one of the authors of a key United Nations climate report warned that governments are “nowhere near on track” to meeting their commitment, made in Paris three years ago, to avoid global warming of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
When it is unveiled next week, the report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will give a clearer idea of the probable consequences of this failure. One recent study suggested the impact of a temperature rise of 2C could be more severe than previously thought, and include sea level rises of six metres by 2100. The relationship between climate change and specific weather events is complex, but modelling suggests global warming made this summer’s European heatwave twice as likely. The increased frequency and severity of tropical storms fit with longstanding predictions that warmer oceans will bring more chaotic weather.
Slowing the rise in temperature means taking steps towards decarbonisation that are more dramatic than anything achieved so far, such as the eradication of emissions from cars and air travel. Activists are hugely important in raising public awareness. So it was disappointing that three environmental activists were sentenced to between 15 and 16 months in jail for their part in a protest against fracking in Lancashire. This punishment, for causing a public nuisance, is unduly harsh and disproportionate. The 2008 Climate Change Act, committing the UK to an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050, was a world-leading piece of legislation. Now the advisory Committee on Climate Change says we are on track to miss legally binding targets, and that this looming failure is partly attributable to government. As well as transport emissions and the removal of incentives for insulation, it has raised concerns about the regulation of fracking. Fracking – or shale gas extraction – is unpopular in England (it is banned in France and Scotland). Campaigners are also opposing government proposals to smooth the planning process for frackers. We do not advocate breaking the law. But when the news on climate change is so alarming, the commitment of green activists around the world is one reason for hope.
The UN’s role in leading and coordinating multilateral action is also crucial. The crisis surrounding its environment chief, Erik Solheim, is all the more unfortunate given the timing. Questions over his $488,513 travel expenses, and his wife’s position at a company that has a contract with the UN, must be resolved as a matter of urgency. Governments must also start to take seriously suggestions such as the one made by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, that if the US eventually quits the Paris climate accord, other countries should refuse to trade with it. Donald Trump’s administration is a threat to global stability. Last week it emerged Trump officials argued that because global temperatures, on current trends, will be 7C higher by 2100, the US should not bother doing anything to inhibit global warming but instead ought to loosen restrictions on carbon emissions. This is absurd nihilism. Mr Trump needs to be convinced of his wrongheadedness, for the world’s sake. The UN’s report is expected to say it will be extremely difficult to meet the 1.5C goal – but not impossible. We should all hold on to that idea.

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