Sea levels may rise by double earlier estimates: study
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/03/11/2512834.htm
At What Cost?
Cutting Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change would have a negligible impact on the overall economy, but would hit some industry sectors much harder and would crimp growth in household incomes over the next few decades are the key findings from the long awaited Treasury modelling of the ETS.
What Australian’s will do….
Today, most Australians consider themselves to be at least fairly environmentally conscious in their outlook and behaviours. In a series of national Ipsos online omnibus surveys, each with a sample of more than 1000 adults and weighted to match population demographics, the proportion of Australians who see themselves as fairly, very or extremely ‘green’ has risen significantly from 76% in May 2007, to 81% in May 2008.
But Australian’s may be losing interest in climate change.
In August 2007 Ipsos found that 62% of respondents said they had specifically taken action to reduce their greenhouse emissions; most commonly through recycling, using energy saver lights, generally using less energy, and walking or taking public transport more while reducing car usage.
The the Ipsos-Eureka Social Research Institute’s third annual climate change survey has found that only 46 per cent of Australians said they would take action on climate change if they were in charge of making decisions for Australia, a dip from 55 per cent last year.
Transformation of the Land
Agriculture is an area that will come under scrunity in coming years and if Professor Ross Garnaut is correct, there are changes afoot set to radically change the face of farming in Australia.
Follow the release of his report, Professor Garnaut has told The Age that farmers on marginal land would be paid more to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and grow biofuels than they could get from growing sheep and wheat. This, says Professor Garnaut, would transform the mitigation costs for Australia.
Professor Garnaut has also warned that cattle and sheep production is “highly vulnerable” to climate change, suggesting that farmers in the drier parts of Australia could cut their greenhouse emissions and reduce their vulnerability to climate change by farming kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle.
NAB get 1st
It’s not often that banks get praised, but the NAB’s managed to score first place globally for the quality of its emissions data. The company was one of 383 in the Global 500 that completed the sixth annual Carbon Disclosure Project survey.
It’s all in the slant
Newspapers around Australia have reported on a new report on energy efficiency, Defining a National Energy Efficiency Strategy Stage 1 Report has been commissioned as part of a two stage research project for The Climate Institute. Stage 2 will involve more detailed economic modelling.
The Herald Sun has picked it up announcing that the electricity sector could be hit with $40 billion worth of extra costs under emissions trading.
The Australian and most other newspapers are reporting that energy measure and renewables could save $40bn.
Climate Change News
Disappearing Sea Ice
Data showing Arctic sea ice may reach its lowest level on record this northern summer underscores the need for governments to speed up talks on a new climate pact,
The WWF said observations on ice coverage and thickness pointed towards a record low for the second year in a row, continuing a “catastrophic” trend that could threaten polar wildlife and accelerate global warming
And Record Trading
In London, emissions exchange operator Climate Exchange Plc said on Thursday trading volumes had soared in the past year, and its chief executive forecast continued growth despite a global economic slowdown.
UK-based Climate Exchange posted a pre-tax loss for the six months to end June of 304,000 pounds ($541,700), down from 2.8 million pounds for the same period in 2007, while operating revenues nearly doubled to 10.5 million pounds.
The company’s flagship exchange, the European Climate Exchange (ECX), has seen volumes rise 150 percent to 1.07 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide traded in the first half of 2008.
“We’ve had a great first half (and) I’m pretty bullish about the foreseeable future,” Chief Executive Neil Eckert told Reuters, adding that he does not see a slowdown in business.
Farmers will be mugged
Brian Fisher, executive director of Concept Economics and former head of the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics, has described the ETS as a policy made on the run at the last election.
Although farming is exempted from the ETS until at least 2015, Dr Fisher says that many small farmers will be mugged in the meantime by increases in the costs of inputs such as electricity and fertiliser.
The world is surely going to end
The controversy over who gets what in the final washup of the emissions trading scheme continues, with much doom and gloom being forecast for the power industry.
Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, the peak business lobby group on climate change says that the Rudd Government’s allocation of just 20 per cent of emissions trading permits as compensation to so-called trade-exposed industries is “unsubstantiated and arbitrary”, going so far as to claim it’s in breach of Labor’s election commitments. This would seem rather extraordinary when such detail as this hadn’t been released prior to the election.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 15 banks, investors and analysts of the electricity sector found most financiers were still willing to lend to the sector, but were now charging a risk premium because of the current uncertainty over the industry’s treatment under an emissions trading scheme from 2010. So the sooner that the scheme is introduced, the better for all concerned.
On the other hand, the coal miners’ union has hit out at its own industry, calling on the Federal Government to deny coal-fired electricity plants “palliative care” in the form of compensation as it tackles climate change. Now that’s refreshing.
Targets and Trajectories - what do we do?
The Targets and Trajectories report released by Professor Ross Garnaut says Australia should put its strongest possible efforts into securing a global agreement to limit emissions to no more than 550 parts per million CO2-e and encourage the world onto a lower emissions path as soon as feasible.
The supplementary draft report finds that, based on this objective to limit CO2 emissions, Australia should reduce emissions by 10 per cent (or 30 per cent in per capita terms) by 2020 and an 80 per cent reduction (90 per cent per capita) by 2050 over 2000 levels. This is a reduction of 17 per cent (27 per cent per capita) from the levels that are expected in 2012, at the end of the Kyoto period. A binding international commitment to the 2020 outcome would be made within the context of, and conditional on, an effective global agreement that is designed to stabilise global concentrations of greenhouse gases at 550ppm by mid-century.
Analysis suggests that the price would settle in the mid-$20 range in 2013, and rise at an annual rate of 4 per cent plus the increase in the general price level. If this were the outcome, there would be a smooth transition from the fixed permit prices of the transition period, to the floating price.
The report proposes that, in the absence of an international agreement between high-income countries and China, Australia commit to an emissions reduction target of 5 per cent by 2020 (25 per cent per capita), which is in line with the Government’s 60 per cent by 2050 emissions target. Any further commitments would be determined in the context of international progress.
Garnaut’s latest report has thrown more fuel on the climate change debate, with controversy coming from all side. Environmentalists think Garnaut’s gone in way too soft, and many scientists saying he’s has got it wrong.
See the Supplementary Draft Report - Garnaut Climate Change Review here or here.
Garnaut’s press release
The Government’s climate change adviser Professor Ross Garnaut has recommended Australia cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10 per cent of 2000 levels by 2020, but the cut will be conditional on the next international agreement on climate change.
