Abbott urged to set carbon emission cuts at 30% by 2025

There’s a world of difference between Bjorn Lomborg and the Climate Change Authority. One says what Australia’s Coalition government wants to hear: namely that it doesn’t need to act hastily on climate change or clean energy. The other says quite the opposite: That Australia needs to act now, or it will pay a big price for dragging its heels.

That might explain why Lomborg, the “climate contrarian”, has landed $4 million in funding from the Australian government so he can add to the dialogue about climate change. And why the Abbott government has tried to close the CCA, headed by former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser, and failing that, limit its funds.

Thanks to a deal with what was once the Palmer United Party, the CCA is still alive and kicking, and pointing out the uselessness of the Abbott government’s climate policies.

That’s because its focus is on how Australia should deliver on its fair share of the 2°C target that the world has signed up for. Yet 2°C is a number which the Abbott government refuses to mention; not in its own discussion paper on emissions reduction targets, not in its energy white paper, and not in its inter-generational report.

This disappoints, but does not surprise Fraser: “Everyone these days says they accept the climate change, and that humans are causing it,” he told RenewEconomy in an interview. “If you accept it, you should be prepared to be more active to do something about it.”

In its latest report, on Australia’s future emission reduction targets, the CCA urges Australia to do exactly that. It says that Australia should aim to cut emissions by 30 per cent below 2000 levels by 2025 if it is to carry its fair share of global efforts on climate change.

And it makes clear that Australia would be best served by acting sooner rather than later. Cutting missions by just 5 per cent by 2020 – the current minimum target – would leave Australia with a steeper and presumably costlier trajectory.

Yet the government shows no sign of abandoning its current target – which amounts to just one per cent reduction if the free kick from surplus Kyoto credits are counted – and the CCA is not hopeful that it will act on its new recommendation.

“We haven’t made a good start,” Fraser said. “We recommended a more ambitious target for 2020 – 15 per cent plus the 4 per cent Kyoto carryover, but that didn’t get much of a run.

“We also recommended that RET remain at 41,000GWh – that didn’t find favour either. So that’s two strikes. We’ve stepped up to the plate a third time, we will see what happens.”

The question is, will Australia continue to do comparatively little because it doesn’t want climate policies: not a carbon price, or a RET, or national energy efficiency standards on cars or power plants, not the Clean Energy Finance Corp, and not the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

It’s not just the CCA questioning the Abbott government. Earlier this week, major economies such as US and China questioned Australia’s climate position, asking it to justify its decision to limit emission cuts to just 5 per cent by 2020, and to explain its Direct Action policy, and how that could possibly deliver meaningful abatement.

The CCA says Australia will need to go further than 30 per cent. It is sticking to its previous target range of a 40-60 per cent cut by 2030. But it recommends 30 per cent by 2025 as Australia’s fair contribution to the Paris agreement. The 2030 target will be adjusted according to what transpires at and beyond Paris.

Fraser says that the argument that Australia should not do more because it accounts for less than 1.5 per cent of global emissions is self-serving, and not credible. For a start, he notes, Australia was one of the few countries allowed to raise emissions in the first period of the Kyoto Protocol. (See graph below)

In absolute terms, Australia’s emissions are on par with those of the UK, which has about three times the population of Australia; and the fact that UK emissions are also less than 1.5 per cent of global emissions has not deterred that country from continuing to adopt ambitious actions to wind back its emissions to support the 2 degrees goal.

Fraser also points out that Australia stands out as the highest emitter per capita among developed countries. There are only half a dozen countries in the world that have significantly higher per capita emissions, and Australia is just outside the top 10 countries in aggregate emissions.

And if Australia were to cut its emissions by 30 per cent, it would still have higher per capita emissions than other countries, as this graph shows below.

The CCA argues that it is in Australia’s best interest to act.

“As the world’s driest inhabited continent, Australia is particularly exposed to climate change impacts. Some are already becoming apparent, including more frequent and intense heatwaves and bush fires, as elaborated in the report.

“To the extent that support for global action on climate change and doing its fair share of emissions reductions can avoid these dangerous impacts, it is clearly in Australia’s interests to do so.

“The assertion that, as a small emitter, Australia could sit on the sidelines of this particular global contest was always more self-serving than credible; to maintain that posture in the light of increasing international actions to reduce emissions—by developed and developing , big and small countries—makes it even less credible.

“The fact is that Australia stands to be massively affected by global warming whatever its share of global emissions.”

The question is how does Australia meet those targets? The obvious answer would seem to be with the very policy measures that the Abbott government has wound back, or sought to cut back.

Fraser says other countries are “galloping head” and clearly doing more than Australia, where the debate fails to point to the benefits – only the costs – of taking action.

The CCA argues that the costs will not be significant, but it has not done the costing, and won’t do so until late next year under the terms of reference given it by the Abbott government.