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Thursday 21 February 2008

RAPID ROUNDUP: Garnaut Interim Report on Australia’s response to climate change - experts respond

Professor Ross Garnaut released his Interim Report today in Adelaide. It describes the need for Australia to promote strong global action on climate change and to be prepared to match the commitments of other developed nations. The Interim Report provides early insights from the Garnaut Climate Change Review’s work to date before recommendations are finalised for the final reports later in the year.

Copies of the interim report are available from the Garnaut Review website

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories.  If you need assistance tracking down an expert, contact the AusSMC on 08 8207 7415. 

Barney Foran is a Visiting Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at ANU, Canberra

"The tough news from Garnaut for bigger cuts delivered much quicker than we'd expected, is welcome. That said, the report hides behind economic orthodoxy and avoids saying what the physical challenge tells us, 'that we can't have our cake and eat it too!'

Simply put, Australians have to reduce our average emissions from 20 tonnes per person today to about 1.5 tonnes in 2050, to contribute towards the global equity and atmospheric stabilisation needed for humankind to endure. This challenge requires Australia to aim for population stabilisation, a retrofitting of every house, ten star standards for every new building, future proofing our agriculture and water infrastructure, a radical change in human diet, rapid investment in low carbon transport within and between cities and much, much more. An emissions trading scheme (ETS) will help, but not without a physical roadmap of where we have to get to. An ETS is the equivalent of requirements for road worthiness, seatbelt wearing and drink driving limits.

The endorsement that Garnaut gives for continuing population growth, carbon sequestration and storage, and molly coddling emissions exposed industries are not supported by environmentally focused analysis. In the final report, such appeasement of the status quo will need to be balanced by advocacy for constrained lifestyles, interposing 'development' for 'growth', and low carbon energy systems that are distributed and renewable, and probably of much higher cost."

Dr Jack Pezzey is Senior Fellow at the Fenner School of Environment and Society and Co-Founder of the Economics and Environment Network, ANU.

"A very welcome if tucked-away point in Garnaut's Interim Report is on p50: 'There is no tradition in Australia for compensating [firms] for losses associated with economic reforms of general application'. This must mean selling all the emission permits, rather than selling some of them and handing out the rest free as compensation to selected firms. That's good news, because free handouts from government to firms always cause arguments ('rent-seeking' in econ-speak) which burn up costs without yielding any benefit, and cause delays in curbing emissions which we can ill afford."

Dr Ben McNeil is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales' Climate Change Research Centre.

"Both the consequences and the solutions to climate change will disproportionately impact the Australian economy this century.  In a world that will ultimately move away from greenhouse intensive energy sources, there isn't a more important analysis than the Garnaut review to ensure the long-term economic prosperity for Australia. This is a long overdue step towards an Australian led global low carbon economic transition."

Professor John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the School of economics at the University of Queensland.

"At this point, the risk of moving too fast on climate change is non-existent. As Garnaut shows, even moving fast, it is going to be very difficult to divert the global economy from a path leading to ever-rising CO2 levels, and increases in global temperature far beyond anything our species (or most species currently in existence) has ever experienced. The consequences of such a path are hard to predict in detail, but highly likely to be disastrous."

Hugh Outhred is a Professorial Visiting Fellow and the Presiding Director of the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets in the School of Electrical Engineering & Telecommunications at The University of New South Wales.

"Garnaut’s Interim Report released today is an important Australian milestone in recognising the need for urgent action by Australia to avoid dangerous climate change. Importantly, the interim report identifies that rapidly increasing emissions are correlated with rapid economic growth – it is a strange irony and an indicator of our loss of control of this problem that the long term interests of humanity may now be best served by a global recession.

Garnaut goes on to reiterate that an emission trading scheme (ETS) should be the centre-piece of Australia’s domestic mitigation strategy. That is economics hubris. Establishing an efficient ETS and waiting for it to take effect will take too long to avoid dangerous climate change. Rather, more specific and direct policies should first be deployed to drive dramatic de-carbonisation of our energy infrastructure for both energy supply and energy use, as well as necessary changes in our attitudes to energy use – which must become more frugal as they have with water. Only once those fundamental changes have been achieved should a carefully designed and efficient ETS be used to drive improvements and refinements in the economic efficiency of the new, low-carbon energy industry."

Dr Pep Canadell is the executive director of the Global Carbon Project.

"The review is in the right track for a comprehensive and progressive set of recommendations on how to address climate change in Australia and globally. I am very pleased to see that Garnaut is prepared to put forward targets even higher than 60% emission reductions, as I believe they are required.

Great to see an appreciation on the urgency of the problem based on the recent growth acceleration of atmospheric carbon dioxide and increased of the carbon intensity of the global economy."

Professor Barry Brook is Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability.

"The interim report of the Garnaut Review aligns closely with what the most recent science and impact assessments on climate change are saying – and underscores the urgency of the crisis now facing the global community and environment.

It is credible because, like the Stern Review for the UK in 2006, it does not fall into the trap of just considering the direct costs of action – such as emission trading or a carbon tax. It also considers the cost of making the implicit choice NOT to act, and thereby committing to massive future adaptation and damage costs.

Beyond 2°C of global warming, the impacts of climate change risks being severe and in many cases irreversible. But to have a reasonable chance of avoiding 2°C, global emissions must reduce 25-40% by 2020 and 60-85% by 2050. The bases of these targets are clearly described in the 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report. The ambitious but necessary 2020 target was put on the table at the Bali Conference and, with sufficient leadership from developed nations such as ours, is likely to be what is agreed upon in Copenhagen in 2009. Garnaut says that we have only this narrow window of time to act, or ‘the show will be over’. I couldn’t agree more – the situation is that critical.

Garnaut rightly states that if climate change proceeds along a business-as-usual pathway, Australia will be disadvantaged relative to many other nations because climate change impacts will be particularly severe on our continent. He also points out, conversely, that Australia stands to gain much by moving early on addressing this global issue, taking a regional leadership role, and enhancing international ambitions.

I thoroughly applaud the forthright and logical argument of the interim Garnaut report. It’s a clarion call for Australia to act – in all of our interests."

Dr Peter Cook is Chief Executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC)

"The aim for Australia has to be ‘large scale reduction in emissions at lowest possible cost’ and my impression, based on the interim report, is that the final report will provide a realistic roadmap for attaining this. There is clear and unambiguous recognition in the report that low emission technologies, notably carbon capture and storage (CCS) have a major role to play in mitigation of climate change.

Importantly it also acknowledges that an ETS alone will not drive implementation of the technology or generate optimal levels of investment in technology; whilst we will have to wait for the final report to learn how this ‘market failure’ will be addressed, Professor Garnaut clearly sees the need for government intervention/assistance of some form will be required. I find myself very much in broad agreement with the views expressed in the interim report."