Climate of realism must temper green delusions

THE central organising idea of the Garnaut report is that the size of Australia's climate change mitigation must be proportionate to the solution the world embraces or fails to embrace at Copenhagen in 2009.

This idea captures Australia's moral responsibility and its best national interest response. It seems irresistible in its intellectual and political logic and it is likely to become the framework adopted by the Rudd Government.

This principle, however, is fiercely resisted or ignored by a majority of the green-scientific lobby. This was demonstrated again this week in the open letter to Kevin Rudd signed by 16 scientists that argued a 25 per cent emission reduction target by 2020 as the "minimum requirement" by Australia.

This unqualified Australian commitment is rejected by Ross Garnaut. Indeed, he calls this mentality delusional. The entire thrust of his report is for Australian policy to be integrated into global agreement. Garnaut is unforgiving on this point, shunning climate change gesture and saying "you can't solve the problem by wishing it". His report demands instead a global solution that works, that must be devised in the immediate future and that rests on widely accepted principles.

This is very difficult and it contrasts with the ideological and special interests unleashed in Australia's debate that prompt Garnaut to say the issue "might be too hard for rational policymaking".

Garnaut is lethal about the Australian debate. "It is delusional for one country to develop its own views on the amount of mitigation that it is prepared to undertake without analysing whether that contribution fits into a global outcome that solves the problem," he says.

"The most inappropriate response to the climate change challenge is to take measures and to reach international agreements that create an appearance of action but (that) fail to solve or to move substantially towards a solution to the problem. Such an approach risks the integrity of our market economy and political processes to no good effect."

In Australia this delusion is pervasive. The value of Garnaut's report lies in his imposition of realism to the climate change problem. Garnaut accepts the majority science. He argues it is irrational to defer action and take a huge gamble that the minority of scientific sceptics is right.

He argues that climate change is more advanced than usually conceded. He insists that Australia must act for the world and for its own national interest. Urgency is a theme of his report and Garnaut dismisses our previous form of delusion: that "uncertainty provides good reasons for delaying".

Garnaut offers three scenarios for Australia: cutting emissions by 25 per cent, 10 per cent or 5 per cent at 2020 compared with 2000 levels, each dependent on what the world does. This will appeal to Rudd because it offers him policy flexibility.

Because strong mitigation is in Australia's interest, he recommends that the Rudd Government back a global objective of 450 parts per million and show leadership by expressing its willingness to cut its emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 and by 90 per cent by 2050, but only in the context of an international agreement where, critically, "the components of that agreement add up to the concentrations objective".

That means a credible agreement, not some late-night political fix. Garnaut thinks the prospects of such an agreement are remote. Australia should aim for it. We should signal our willingness to contribute to it. But we should not be fool enough to commit to the 25 per cent reduction, let alone a higher reduction, without qualification.

He warns the world is nowhere near such an agreement. It would run far beyond the 2007 Bali road map. "No developed country or group of countries has indicated a willingness to cut emissions by 2020 to the extent implied by the 450ppm target," Garnaut says. Not the European Union, Canada or the US presidential candidates.

Garnaut's report estimates that by 2030 China will be responsible for 33per cent of global emissions, the US 11per cent, India 8 per cent and Australia 1 per cent. Therefore, a global agreement at Copenhagen must have as many nations as possible accepting binding targets. No agreement "would be effective unless China took on binding targets", though less stringent targets in a transition period.

He says the Kyoto business-as-usual approach does not work: putting the entire burden of binding emission reductions on developed nations alone cannot reduce emissions enough to avert high-risk climate change. He argues that all except the poorest of developing nations must accept some degree of emissions limits.

His logic is persuasive, but the international negotiations are not even remotely near such ideas.

It is hardly a surprise that Garnaut concludes a 450ppm deal seems "out of reach" short of a transformation in global thinking.

In the interim, however, he thinks a global 550ppm goal is more realistic. How hard will this be? "Extremely ambitious" is Garnaut's answer. Its chances, however, are "much stronger" and it could become the path to something better. He argues the Rudd Government should play its full proportionate part in any genuine global agreement to reach 550ppm.

That would involve Australia's emission reduction of 10 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. Such a global compact would set "new standards of international co-operation in this area of policy, holding promise of avoiding the worst outcomes from human-induced climate change".

Finally, if there is no comprehensive global agreement at Copenhagen, a distinct possibility, then Australia should make an unconditional offer to reduce emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.

The purpose of Garnaut's report is to get the focus where it should be, on a global agreement. There is no such thing as an Australian solution to this problem. Garnaut offers a methodology for a global agreement, arguing it should reflect a movement towards equal per capita emission entitlements.

He says, optimistically, this may have a chance of acceptance. The pivotal point is that unless emission entitlements are allocated among nations on a basis seen to be fair, then all hope of an international agreement collapses.

Getting nations to agree on a fair division of the overall burden is the ultimate diplomatic nightmare. Listening to much of Australia's debate this issue, described by Garnaut as the "stand or fall" question, seems to be almost irrelevant.

The easy way to solve the problem is to pretend it doesn't exist and simply declare that Australia must cut its emissions by 25, 30 or 40 per cent without qualification. It's called showing the way or taking climate change seriously. Garnaut says of this thinking: "It is doubtful that this would encourage the global mitigation effort. It may deter it."

You can be sure of one thing: Rudd won't fall for it.