This article (co-authored with David Lindenmayer) appeared in The Canberra Times 21 Nov 07 which was in the last week before the federal election.
The Rudd government is also putting disproportionate emphasis, I believe, in forest sinks while letting emissions from the energy sector continue to grow. The danger in this is that it is harder, slower and more expensive to curb the latter, so when forest sinks are exhausted, which I believe will happen quite quickly in developing countries - and we are still well short of our targets - where will we then find rapid reductions in CO2 emissions?
Despite refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the expectation that Australia will meet its Kyoto Protocol target—when many other countries will not—is a key plank in the government’s bid for re-election.
However, Australia’s ability to meet its Kyoto target has been achieved through a retrospective change in the pattern of land clearing and some clever diplomacy rather than permanent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which is the aim of the Kyoto Protocol.
Australia successfully negotiated an 8% increase in emissions relative to 1990 levels in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol because our energy generation heavily relies on carbon-intensive fossil fuels, particularly coal, and it was argued that rapidly decarbonizing these industries was economically unacceptable.
All but two other Annex 1 countries—Iceland and Norway—committed to reduce, or keep constant, their emissions. Fifteen countries of the European Union collectively committed to a target of -8%, the United States (who did not ratify Kyoto) -7%, Canada -6% and the Russian Federation 0%.
Australia will only meet its Kyoto Protocol target because of a major change in the pattern of land clearing that occurred before the current government was elected. Between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 1996 there was a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from land clearing. This had nothing to do with climate policy.
Armed with this information Australian diplomats went to Kyoto in 1997 to cleverly and successfully argue that emissions from land use change should be included in each Annex 1 country’s baseline if it represented a net source of emissions in 1990. Australia’s emissions from land use change at the time were 24 times the next highest emitter in this sector. There was resistance from other countries to this change, but the new article was eventually inserted to the Protocol in the early hours of the morning of the last session of the Kyoto conference.
The inclusion of this article meant that the Australian Government inherited a 6% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to 1990 levels when it signed the Kyoto Protocol – without having to do anything.
This was a good platform from which Australia could buy time to institute changes that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from other sectors, particularly its carbon-intensive energy sector which represented its largest source of emissions. However, since the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in 1997 emissions from most other sectors in Australia have grown unabated.
Australia’s rate of growth in greenhouse gas emissions for many sectors is substantially greater when compared with other Annex 1 countries, which includes most countries of the European Union, USA, Canada and the Russian Federation. In particular, greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’s energy sector grew 38% between 1990 and 2004 compared with a 5% increase in this sector over the same period for all other Annex 1 parties combined. Australia’s energy sector now emits the world’s highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
The Australian Government’s own projections indicate that its greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 9% between 1990 (the Kyoto baseline year) and 2010 (the Kyoto commitment period) and by 27% between 1990 and 2020. However, if we change the baseline to 1996 (the year the current government was first elected), then Australia’s emissions will have increased 16% by 2010 and 34% by 2020.
The current government keeps highlighting that Australia will meet its Kyoto target. However, neither the target for greenhouse gas emissions the current government negotiated at Kyoto relative to 1990 (+8%), nor projected emissions between the year this government was first elected and the Kyoto commitment period in 2010 (+16%), nor projected emissions between 1990 and 2020 (+27%) demonstrate a commitment by Australia to the spirit of Kyoto and the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions (60% of 1990 levels by 2050) that are required to stabilise global warming.
Dr Philip Gibbons is a Senior Fellow and Dr David Lindenmayer a Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University.
13 May 2009
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