By Stephen de Tarczynski
MELBOURNE, Mar 2 2008 (IPS)

An interim report on Australia’s ability to combat climate change has called on the government to take action now as a matter of urgency.

Developments in mainstream scientific opinion, says Prof. Ross Garnaut (as well as the government-commissioned Garnaut Climate Change Review’s work), “suggest that the world is moving towards high risks of dangerous climate change more rapidly than has generally been understood.”

Ben Pearson, energy campaigner with Greenpeace Australia, told IPS that Garnaut’s report underlies the need for urgent action. The interim release “is essentially catching up with what the scientists have been saying for a while now,” he says.

Garnaut, an economist, was commissioned by federal, state and territory governments last year to lead the review into the impact that tackling climate change will have on Australia’s economy.

While the final report is due in September – with a draft to be released in June – Garnaut’s interim findings warn of Australia’s exceptional sensitivity to climate change. “Australia would be a big loser – possibly the biggest loser amongst developed countries – from unmitigated climate change,” says Garnaut.

In addition to Australia’s climate already being hot, dry and variable, “the sensitivity of our temperate agriculture assumes special importance because of the large role that agriculture plays in the Australian (economy) relative to other developed economies,” he writes.

The release of the interim report was welcomed by the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong.

“His work will be an important input into the government’s policy development on a range of climate change issues,” says Wong.

While this may well prove to be the case, it is already apparent that Garnaut is calling for a greater commitment than the government, at this stage at least, is willing to provide.

“Australia should make firm commitments in 2008, to 2020 and 2050 emissions targets that embody similar adjustment cost to that accepted by other developed countries,” says Garnaut, referring to the “lead” provided by the European Union. The EU is in the process of pushing through legislation that would commit it to a 20 percent cut, compared to 1990 levels, in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

Senator Wong says that the Australian government will also “make substantial cuts to domestic emissions – 60 percent of 2000 levels by 2050”.

But Garnaut argues that an effective post-Kyoto global agreement – with full participation by developing countries such as China and India – which would reduce the risks of dangerous climate change to what he describes as “an acceptable level”, requires Australia to go considerably further than this target.

However, reconsidering Australia’s commitment to a 2050 target does not appear to be a step which the government is currently willing to take. While Wong says that decisions made by the Rudd government will be informed by the science, she argues that “the government’s commitment is one we made prior to the election and that we took to the Australian people.”

Pearson is disappointed with the minister’s stance. “We’re hoping that Minister Wong will accept that the science and the evidence is showing that we do need to go beyond 60 percent,” he says, while also calling on the government to adapt to the most recent data.

“The fact is that things move quickly in this world. They agreed on that target, I think, a couple of years ago,” Pearson told IPS.

The Greenpeace campaigner, agreeing with Garnaut’s advice, says it is “most critical” that Australia commit to an interim target for 2020. “We’d certainly be urging Australia to make a target up towards a 40 percent [cut on 1990 levels] as we are the world’s highest per capita emitters and given that we got such a free ride in the first [Kyoto] commitment period,” he says.

A report released in November by the United States’ Centre for Global Development found that Australians are the world’s worst polluters per capita when it comes to generating power. Australia also ranks highly in per capita emissions from all sources.

A key to reducing emissions will be the introduction in 2010 of an emissions trading scheme (ETS) that “will use a market mechanism to lower emissions at the lowest possible cost to the economy and to households,” says Wong.

But while the ETS is central to the government’s strategy of mitigating climate change, Garnaut says that an effective trading scheme “will be difficult and will make heavy demands on scarce economic and finite political resources.”

Pearson argues that an ETS needs “complimentary measures to drive investment in energy efficiency, sustainable transport and agriculture.”

Since the release of Garnaut’s interim report on Feb.21, the government has been keen to present its actions on climate change in a positive light. A statement by Wong says that current projections indicate that greenhouse gas emissions will be 120 percent of 1990 levels compared to a 2006 estimate of 127 percent.

The minister argues that emissions will be further cut by the government’s “drive to ensure that 20 percent of Australia’s electricity supply is from renewable energy by 2020.”

Additionally, a self-assessment of the government’s first 100 days, released on Feb.29, spoke of achievements such as ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, establishing a department of climate change – along with Wong’s own ministerial position – as well as helping to forge the Bali roadmap.

While Pearson agrees that the government’s actions have included “some big positives”, he says there is more work ahead.

“The government is really going to be judged from this point onwards,” he argues.

“Now it’s time for the hard work,” says Pearson. “Now it’s time for the really difficult stuff where we actually start to transform the Australian economy to one based on clean energy.”

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