ENVIRONMENT
Paying the climate change piper
Tony Kevin September 09, 2008
Ross Garnaut's important public statement on Friday was largely overwhelmed by the welter of federal and state political
news. It was a world away from his impassioned, ethically challenging,
first public report on 4 July.
Quietly, government has narrowed the goalposts back to a safe world of
can-do politics, of short-term realism at the expense of long-term
responsibility. Unnerved by the hostile reaction of powerful
stakeholders to the July report, it now seeks a
conventional balance between the demands of a worried population, and a
decision-making elite uniting corporate and trade unions in
high-emitting industries and sympathisers in parliament.
Garnaut's sombre, low-key second report recommends a
narrow range of possibilities for greenhouse gas emissions limitations by Australia to
2020, likely to have minimal impacts on the Australian economy. It won
cautious decision-makers' approval. It is politically achievable,
despite disappointed green lobbies.
Unlike epic debates over industry protectionism in the 1970s–1980s, we
do not have a visionary Keating and Button driving necessary change. I
see no comparable passion in Rudd or Wong.
Now, Australia's
decision-making elite believe deep down — if indeed they think it
through, and I suspect many are instinctive climate change denialists
at bottom — that Australia is rich enough to insulate itself against
climate change.
They live on higher ground in the green coastal zone.
Food and utility costs are a small part of their budgets. If it gets
too hot, they will turn up the air conditioning.
For these status-quo
people, the issues that matter are macroeconomic — dividends, high
salaries, superanuation earnings. They want to keep the economy we
have now. The desertification of the Murray-Darling and the dying of
the Barrier Reef do not affect them directly, and they lack
imagination to conceive of polar icemelt sufficient in their lifetimes
to inundate fertile populated coastal areas of Australia. Apres nous,
le deluge.
Garnaut says Australia should establish its emissions
reduction framework within an agreed global target to stabilise
atmospheric carbon at between 450 and 550 parts per million (ppm):
the present level is 387 ppm.
Australia should advocate international agreement to stabilise
atmospheric carbon at 450ppm, but one set at 550 ppm is more likely
initially. A world of 550 ppm atmospheric carbon is, according to informed
scientific consensus, a horror scenario in which global warming
already underway would cause irreversible polar icemelt and major
inundations of global human settlements.
Garnaut defends his lowered expectations. There is no point in
Australia doing more now if the world does not follow. A country of
high immigration, Australia needs special latitude. I doubt this
argument will win us credit at the next global climate meeting in
Copenhagen.
Lost is Garnaut's firm July advocacy that developed countries must
set the example even if major developing countries China and India do
not immediately follow. We are back in the realist world where nobody
moves much unless everybody moves.
Garnaut defends his proposed 'first stage' aim of stabilising
atmospheric carbon at 550 ppm: it was his 'reluctant conclusion that a
more ambitious international agreement is not possible at this time ... My aim is to nurture the slender chance that humanity can get its act
together.'
His sadness bespeaks a man overcome by the selfish myopia of political
realism. Scientific truth and a sense of society's accountability to
future generations have been overwhelmed. (For example consider Paul Kelly's
triumphant view on Sunday's ABC Insiders that the debate in Australia
is now over, and that anyone seeking an Australian emissions reduction
target higher than 5 pet cent or 10 per cent lives in a fantasy world.)
I believe Garnaut now modestly seeks two things: getting an Australian
carbon trading system into operation and accustoming industry to it,
while waiting for mounting scientific evidence of destructive climate
change to penetrate the resistance of decision-makers. As Gwynne Dyer
recently observed, drowning polar bears and disappearing polar icecaps
will not suffice:
'The regrettable reality is there will not be a critical mass of
people willing to act decisively on cutting greenhouse gas emissions
in the developed countries where most of the cuts must be made until
some really big natural disaster kills a lot of people in one of those
countries.'
Nor, I might add, will the slow death of the Murray-Darling Basin and
the human settlements depending on its water supply. I'll be
criticised for saying this, but we may need such a disaster as a Class
5 tropical cyclone slamming into Brisbane to jolt us into decisive
action. Meanwhile, our decision-makers live on in a bland limbo-land
of short-term complacency. They do not even react when the chairman
of the Coleambally Irrigation Co operative suggests selling off this
whole Riverina town and its water rights for $3.5 billion, so the
people can decently relocate!
I'm strongly reminded of the cautionary fable of the Pied Piper of
Hamelin. A greedy town council, faced with terrible threat, tries to
buy a solution on the cheap, refusing to pay a fair price for what
needs to be done. It is not until they lose their children that they
realise, too late, the cost of their greed and stupidity.
I pray that
Garnaut's second report, by keeping the carbon trading ball in play
and keeping Australia however imperfectly in the international debate,
will protect the Australian people from the short-sighted 'realism' of
our decision-making classes.
Tony Kevin served as an Australian diplomat in Moscow (1969–71), UN New York (1973-76), and as Australian Ambassador in Poland (1991–1994).
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SUBMITTED COMMENTS
Judy08-Sep-2008
What an indictment on the community we have become.
Vivien Holmes09-Sep-2008
We, 'the worried population', must not take this lying down. We owe it to our children to do everything we can to counter the influence of the 'decision-making elite uniting corporate and trade unions in high-emitting industries and sympathisers in parliament'. May we not foresake our children and grandchildren.
Jeff Kevin09-Sep-2008
A provocative, disturbing article. I share Tony Kevin's prayer, and add my hope that our political leaders will have the courage to make decisions for the long-term good of the nation and not be prisoners to short-term thinking that would sentence future generations to unimaginable hardships.
joe annetts09-Sep-2008
Thank you for this article Tony. I agree with Vivien Holmes comment, it is up to those of us who see the long term threat (and in big numbers)to take action. Disagreeing is OK, but "the worried population" must organize to loudly and continuously voice its concerns.
David Arthur09-Sep-2008
I note that a previous Commonwealth government excised parts of Australian territory from the region within which it would acknowledge human rights. The present Commonwealth government has similarly excised parts of the Environment portfolio from the remit of Mr Garrett.
Mr Garrett was not born in the Labor Party, and I suspect that there remains a suspicion within Labor ranks that he is a Lathamite loose cannon. By excising the most important environmental issues of the next three decades from the portfolio, the political damage to relationships with corporate Australia that would ensue from a ‘misfiring’ of the cannon is minimised.
As far as the present Commonwealth Government is concerned, Wong has a safe pair of hands. Corporate Australia is relaxed and comfortable.
Professor Garnaut argues for limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide to 450 ppm. He is an economist. James Hansen (of NASA) argues for limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 ppm. He is a climate scientist.
Prior to the 20th century, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations had not exceeded 315 ppm for at least half a million years. The world was, however, susceptible to global cooling, descending into glacial periods with minor variations in its orbit about the Sun.
We have now put paid to such cooling for the foreseeable future, but so long as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels remain above 350 ppm, trapped heat will continue to heat the earth’s oceans, and carbon dioxide will continue to be absorbed into those oceans, and making them more acidic.
As far as the present Commonwealth Government is concerned, Professor Garnaut has a safe pair of hands. Corporate Australia can be relaxed and comfortable.
George Emeleus09-Sep-2008
As Australian Scientists involved with the UN International Panel on Climate Change criticise Garnaut's weak proposals it is doubly disappointing to find the Prime Minister saying that there will always be arguments among scientists. The previous PM used that as an excuse for downplaying the seriousness of scientific predictions. I had hoped for better from Kevin Rudd.
Furthermore, as others have already noted, Ross Garnaut is an economist, not a scientist. Anyone reading the UK Stern reports will appreciate that economists do not have to make it easy for politicians.
tony kevin10-Sep-2008
The Prime Minister's flippant brush-off yesterday of criticism of the second Garnaut report recommendations by three eminent IPCC members and climate scientists (Hare, Karoly and Lynch) is distressing. I did not expect my comment that many members of Cabinet are at bottom climate change denialists to be demonstrated so starkly, by the Prime Minister himself, in saying:
"There's always going to be argy bargy within the scientific community and the policy community and the business community over climate change and what should be done about it ... some people will say we've done too much, others will say we've not done enough."
He said his experience was that scientists, like all people, had different views and did not always agree." (numerous media reports)
So either the Prime Minister does not understand the mainstream science of atmospheric carbon feeding climate change, or he does understand it but does not care. Both are shocking conclusions. It is now time for intensive public lobbying of government MPs. Support the current Get Up campaign!
Mr Rudd said his government was determined to implement a carbon reduction scheme that would be both tough and controversial and a far better response than the alternative government's proposals.