Climate change contradictions

By Clive Hamilton

Australia's international climate change position has now been rejected by US President Bill Clinton, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the world's three most powerful leaders, and each has done it while on Australian soil. This ought to persuade John Howard to ask how we have become so out of step with the international community and what the implications are of a major setback at the climate change negotiations in Kyoto in December.

Australia's position - little understood even within policy circles - is to oppose uniform emission reduction targets in favour of differential targets. The Government argues that since Australia is more heavily dependent on fossil fuels for domestic production and exports, imposing uniform targets would impose a higher economic cost on this country. The argument is backed by questionable results from economic modelling funded principally by the fossil fuel industry.

Australia has put forward a number of indicators that it says should be used to determine each country's emission reduction target. These indicators would allow more lenient targets for countries which have:

· high GDP growth

· high population growth

· high emissions per GDP unit,

· high fossil fuel exports, and

· depend heavily on fossil fuels to produce exports.

It is not surprising that the international community has reacted so negatively to Australia's proposal. It means that countries that have the highest emissions would be required to do the least to reduce them, while countries that have done most to reduce emissions would be required to do more.

The Australian position is contrary to the polluter pays principle that has been the basis of environmental policy in Australia and abroad for years.

Pursuit of differential targets by other countries has been hailed by the government as a vindication of its position. However, proposals by other countries for differentiation would be worse for Australia than uniform targets. Others that oppose uniform targets want larger reductions for countries with high emission levels.

Norway, for instance, which Australia seems to regard as a major ally in seeking differentiation, has stated explicitly that countries who currently emit more than their fair share and have higher incomes should do more than other parties to reduce emissions. Under the Norwegian proposal, a country would be required to reduce its emissions by more if:

· it has higher emissions per capita;

· it has higher GDP per capita; and

· it has higher emissions per unit of GDP.

The first and third of these indicators are the precise opposite of Australia's proposed indicators.

It has always been recognised in the Framework Convention on Climate Change that developing countries will need to be required to reduce their emissions in due course, but that the OECD countries must lead the way. While China and India will, in the next decade or two, become the major global emitters, about 80 per cent of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have been emitted in OECD countries.

OECD leadership is therefore fair and will give wealthy countries some moral purchase when it comes to negotiating reductions by developing countries. The wealth accumulated by OECD countries by burning fossil fuels puts them in a strong position to meet the cost of emissions. In the face of this international understanding, the government is arguing that developing countries should have targets set now.

But there is a deeper contradiction in our position. The government has been arguing that developing countries should be brought into agreements to reduce emissions because they will be responsible for the most of the emissions in the future due to their high rates of population and economic growth - the same factors Australia is using to argue it should be given more lenient targets.

No thought appears to have been given by the government to the implications of our greenhouse policy beyond protecting the short-term interests of the coal industry. If it could see beyond the commercial lobbying it would comprehend that if Australia succeeded our economy would be severely damaged in the longer term.

Lenient targets on the basis of our apparent fossil fuel dependence would see Australia become the outstanding global emitter of greenhouse gases. Under the Australian proposal, the more other countries reduce their emissions by buying less Australian coal, the more Australia would be permitted to increase its emissions.

When more stringent emission targets are introduced in a decade or so it would be all the more costly to restructure out of fossil fuels. In addition, our growing fossil fuel dependence would mean we would deal ourselves out of the race for the renewable energy technologies that will dominate.

At present, far from Australia being almost uniquely disadvantaged by greenhouse gas targets, we are almost uniquely advantaged because of our natural endowments and technological leadership in alternative energy sources. Developing this advantage requires early and sustained measures to promote energy efficiency and alternative sources of energy.

The Howard Government's climate change position is ill-considered and self-defeating. Not only are we taking big diplomatic losses but several existing and future Australian industries that could be the foundation of the Australian economy in the next century are being sacrificed at the feet of the coal lobby.

Dr Clive Hamilton is a Visiting Fellow in the Public Policy Program and Executive Director of The Australia Institute