Extract from The Guardian
Paris puts considerable pressure on Australia to toughen the targets the Turnbull government has pledged and actually meet them.
Photograph: Jacky Naegelen/Reuters
The Paris agreement puts real pressure on Australia to close the gap
between scientific and international reality and an unedifying climate
policy paralysis
First
the good news. Greg Hunt is about to join 60 heads of state and
representatives from more than 150 countries at the United Nations
signing ceremony for last year’s Paris climate agreement, and has said Australia will move to ratify it by the end of the year.
That eagerness, in itself, is a step forward. The Howard government refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol for a decade.
Now the bad news. Neither major party has yet advanced a detailed and credible policy to achieve what Australia is solemnly promising.
Bruised by the brutal politics of the barren, wasted years of climate policy war, the major parties are circling and wary – the government trying to manage its sizeable internal climate sceptic faction by saying as little as possible on the subject in the lead-up to the election, Labor making promises and sending signals it is prepared to do much more but hesitating with the detail lest it once again feel the barrage of a full-bore axe-the-tax scare campaign.
Many of the groups hanging on the outcome – climate lobbyists, energy companies, business – are treading carefully too, knowing Australia has delayed sensible policy for so long the situation is now critical, close to an emergency. Elevating hope over experience, they have made the judgement that giving the major parties at least a little bit of breathing space is the best way to return to some semblance of policy common sense.
But the Paris agreement – imperfect and incomplete in parts – does put considerable pressure on Australia (as on all countries) to toughen the targets the Turnbull government has pledged (they have been rated inadequate by the Climate Tracker thinktank and other analysts) and to actually meet them.
The government insists its “Direct Action” climate policy can meet its Paris pledge – to reduce emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030, through buying emission reductions with its $2.5b fund as well as other measures.
But data shows Australia’s emissions from electricity generation – around one third of our total emissions – continue to rise and are now 5.5% higher than when the carbon price was repealed. And analysis by Reputex shows Australia’s overall emissions are on track to keep rising through until 2030.
“At a time when almost all developed economies have begun to cut their emissions, including China and the United States, Australia’s national emissions are projected to remain on a growth pathway, with analysis indicating Australia is on track to exceed its historic 2005-06 high, with no peak in emissions expected to occur before 2030,” a Reputex analysis of the government’s emissions figures concluded.
The government has said it will review its policies after the election and change them if necessary. It is widely expected that review will have to toughen the so-called “safeguards” mechanism on industrial polluters, which at the moment is not even trying to reduce emissions, but just aiming to make sure they don’t go up so much that they undo all the emission reductions the government fund is buying. But that would take the Coalition towards a form of baseline and credit emissions trading scheme.
For its part, Labor has said it would make sure 50% of energy came from renewable sources by 2030 and would adopt a target to reduce overall emissions by 45% by 2030 and that one of the policies to get to those aims will be an emissions trading scheme. Given the experience of the Rudd and Gillard years, that’s a significant pledge.
But it has, as yet, released no specific details, and is likely to announce in the lead-up to the election that an ETS would be phased in, as part of a range of policies to gradually retire older coal-fired power stations and encourage renewables.
Recent analysis found that whichever party wins government, it will need to impose some form of relatively low carbon price, as well as regulations and subsidies to force a change to clean electricity generation and meet Australia’s climate pledges.
It also found that this has to happen quickly to avoid a massive economic shock and a huge disruption in the market and economic activity in 2030 to suddenly accelerate emission reductions enough to reach the Paris goals.
And that’s the importance of what Greg Hunt will pledge at the United Nations. The Paris agreement is the benchmark to measure the yawning gap between scientific and international reality and Australia’s unedifying period of climate policy paralysis.
That eagerness, in itself, is a step forward. The Howard government refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol for a decade.
Now the bad news. Neither major party has yet advanced a detailed and credible policy to achieve what Australia is solemnly promising.
Bruised by the brutal politics of the barren, wasted years of climate policy war, the major parties are circling and wary – the government trying to manage its sizeable internal climate sceptic faction by saying as little as possible on the subject in the lead-up to the election, Labor making promises and sending signals it is prepared to do much more but hesitating with the detail lest it once again feel the barrage of a full-bore axe-the-tax scare campaign.
Many of the groups hanging on the outcome – climate lobbyists, energy companies, business – are treading carefully too, knowing Australia has delayed sensible policy for so long the situation is now critical, close to an emergency. Elevating hope over experience, they have made the judgement that giving the major parties at least a little bit of breathing space is the best way to return to some semblance of policy common sense.
But the Paris agreement – imperfect and incomplete in parts – does put considerable pressure on Australia (as on all countries) to toughen the targets the Turnbull government has pledged (they have been rated inadequate by the Climate Tracker thinktank and other analysts) and to actually meet them.
The government insists its “Direct Action” climate policy can meet its Paris pledge – to reduce emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030, through buying emission reductions with its $2.5b fund as well as other measures.
But data shows Australia’s emissions from electricity generation – around one third of our total emissions – continue to rise and are now 5.5% higher than when the carbon price was repealed. And analysis by Reputex shows Australia’s overall emissions are on track to keep rising through until 2030.
“At a time when almost all developed economies have begun to cut their emissions, including China and the United States, Australia’s national emissions are projected to remain on a growth pathway, with analysis indicating Australia is on track to exceed its historic 2005-06 high, with no peak in emissions expected to occur before 2030,” a Reputex analysis of the government’s emissions figures concluded.
The government has said it will review its policies after the election and change them if necessary. It is widely expected that review will have to toughen the so-called “safeguards” mechanism on industrial polluters, which at the moment is not even trying to reduce emissions, but just aiming to make sure they don’t go up so much that they undo all the emission reductions the government fund is buying. But that would take the Coalition towards a form of baseline and credit emissions trading scheme.
For its part, Labor has said it would make sure 50% of energy came from renewable sources by 2030 and would adopt a target to reduce overall emissions by 45% by 2030 and that one of the policies to get to those aims will be an emissions trading scheme. Given the experience of the Rudd and Gillard years, that’s a significant pledge.
But it has, as yet, released no specific details, and is likely to announce in the lead-up to the election that an ETS would be phased in, as part of a range of policies to gradually retire older coal-fired power stations and encourage renewables.
Recent analysis found that whichever party wins government, it will need to impose some form of relatively low carbon price, as well as regulations and subsidies to force a change to clean electricity generation and meet Australia’s climate pledges.
It also found that this has to happen quickly to avoid a massive economic shock and a huge disruption in the market and economic activity in 2030 to suddenly accelerate emission reductions enough to reach the Paris goals.
And that’s the importance of what Greg Hunt will pledge at the United Nations. The Paris agreement is the benchmark to measure the yawning gap between scientific and international reality and Australia’s unedifying period of climate policy paralysis.
No comments:
Post a Comment