phill Parsons General Submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review 21FEB08

Introduction

Only a relatively few humans have experienced a changed climate by choosing to relocate for work or holidays and for some that change has been accepted as positive and they have permanently relocated. Most who have experienced particular holiday destinations have returned home from a benign or enjoyable time.

Those who stay in the ‘new’ climates where they are hotter and/or drier create for themselves habitation with a more tolerable range or look forward to an escape, sometimes one associated with their former location in a more temperate clime.

For the mass of people, especially in a democracy, to accept that there is a need for a sacrifice of lifestyle similar to wartime rationing they need to recognize a present danger.

As an analogy it could be said that the world has moved from the late 1930’s where the dangers of fascism were debated inconclusively to the 1939 period, where life went on almost normally as the threat of war grew and through the ‘Phoney War’ period where the threat still remained largely unrecognized. This was a time when people had various views about the period that war would last and its impacts and some took it much less seriously than later events warranted.

By 1945 the experience of the people in Europe had changed their outlook. Government formed a second international forum, the United Nations, in an attempt to avoid a repeat. It was only late in the war that the horrors of the extermination [concentration] camps became general knowledge.

The first camp was found by the Soviet forces [Maideneck] [3.] and even when correspondents from the west had reported on it there was still disbelief until further camps were liberated.

It would be preferable if a catastrophe of greater scale, a destabilized climate with its associated upheavals of famine, drought and possibly associated wars was avoided rather than the lessons of failing to control human caused greenhouse gas emission to a point where millions, if not billions, of people are affected by the last gasps of human activity.

Such a turbation would represent an end to the systems that have supported human development, a morally reprehensible action that we knowingly and stupidly foisted on life.

Australia cannot be sure that the other nations of the world will be able to act in concert in a comprehensive, effective and timely way to avoid such a catastrophe.

Australia also has a political reality where the government of the day is unlikely to sacrifice itself when it has not convinced the people of the necessity of a sacrifice to make the changes necessary to avoid further destabilizing the climate and the resultant catastrophe, especially when the causes can be also be sheeted home to the actions of other nations, which we cannot control.

Australians consider themselves familiar with changes in the climate and they should be relatively easy to convince of the need for action.

Therefore Australia should take a leading attitude to the cautious approach of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] and work to set high Greenhouse Gas [GHG] reduction targets for all nations, leading by example by announcing high final targets even if there are more intermediate targets between 2020 and 2050.

A 3 decade period can see a lot of technological change if the past 3 decades are taken as an example. When there is a will, driven by monetary incentive and survival instinct the rate of technological change can be great.

There is uncertainty about the pace of change that the climate will exhibit and the tipping points outlined by some scientists point to the difficulties that will be experienced trying to limit the damage and its associated economic costs in an area where we don’t have the means of reversing such changes and returning the climate to the stability that has provided the conditions of human development to date within a generation.

Failure to stabilize the climate will have implications for confidence. Confidence in government, confidence in international mechanisms and confidence in the future. 1.

Just as the economy is dependent on the environment for the natural services it provides so it is dependent on confidence. If that is lost in a perception that we are too late because we did too little now, just as the climate could runaway without the possibility of stabilization, so the global economy could collapse as the future became unavoidably bleak.

Further such a loss of confidence will see many individuals react as shown by reactions to large scale disasters by populations. I doubt if we have the experience of a relatively a well informed population that has seen a catastrophe unfold and realizes it has become inevitable and inescapable to understand how people will react.

The potential result of insufficient action resulting in passing critical tipping points is why Australia needs to support both high immediate targets and very high targets for GHG reductions, leading by its own example.

1. The likely effect of human induced climate change on Australia’s economy, environment, and
water resources in the absence of effective national and international efforts to substantially cut
greenhouse gas emissions;

A one word summary of the likely effect of a course less than the maximum possible effort is catastrophe.

Continuing activities that further induce climate instability without knowing the actual result would, when viewed from without, seem like a form of Russian roulette except that for each subsequent spin the number of empty chambers decreases exponentially.

Disaster such as drought, famine or earthquake are limited by geography to a particular area and so can be addressed by the wider community.

Current climate induced disasters are limited by time.

Runaway climate destabilization cannot be addressed after the fact, it will become permanent and will be widespread, limiting if not eliminating the capacity of the wider community to provide assistance.

If the international community fails to set sufficiently high targets then there is no solution for Australia, our actions are limited by the scale of our emissions even including our coal exports.

However if Australia adopts low and deferred targets as an act of self interest we cannot expect others to bail us out by putting imposts on their own people [economies] thus cascading each and all nations toward a catastrophe.

Human feedback feeding climate instability leading to a climate catastrophe.

I commend to you the submission Climate Code Red; A case for a sustainability emergency.

2. The possible ameliorating effects of international policy reform on climate change, and the
costs and benefits of various international and Australian policy interventions on Australian
economic activity;

Demand stimulus

Given that the international community through the UNFCCC will most likely agree to a program of reduction of GHG emissions among already developed nations and that the Australian government has pledged to reduce GHG emissions by at least 60% by 2050 and that government will enter the market to undertake purchases for the conduct of government business each year and thus intervenes in Australian economic activity I commend to the Review that policy instruments be put in place to encourage the development of low carbon inputs by making low carbon products a requirement of all purchases at all levels of government as an intervention into Australian economic activity.

All levels of government should require a carbon compliance statement for all supplies so it may assess the emissions impact of each supplier against the price tendered.

This should not initially tie the government to the lowest level of emissions from the outset of such a scheme. Instead it should be used in the first stages to inform the government so it may encourage those who are taking steps to reduce GHG emissions, especially of carbon as it is common to many products and has the greatest impact on the climate by volume.

However during such an initial phase price should be remain an important determinate to allow for and support a short time for industry to make changes.

Following a period, say 3 years, where suppliers can adjust to carbon accounting scheme of compliance certification should ramp up its influence on purchase decisions until it becomes equal to price in importance, say by 2020.

However this should not exclude the government from taking immediate steps in the period whilst Australian industry is turning onto the path to a low carbon economy.

An example is the proposed government policy of supporting a green car program. Purchases of lower emission vehicles can begin immediately, especially for vehicles that are essentially urban based. There is a range from standard vehicles with fuel efficiency such as new French models through hybrids such as Toyota’s Prius through to the option of special contracts with manufacturers to reproduce discontinued lines such as Toyota’s electric RAV, manufactured for the Californian market during the mandated ZEV period. [2]

It doesn’t matter about technological breakthrough, or indeed the manufacturer’s location with vehicles, as they have a limited life in government service and can be replaced with the newest technology. The government market should be used to stimulate the investment in the Australian ‘green car’, a government policy.

There is a downstream impact in that the vehicles in government service get a second life when disposed of by sale, further extending their impact of GHG emissions.

An area of longer investment is in buildings.

Currently, in Tasmanian, one department funds the construction of a building and then the building can be managed by another, not forcing a comparison of costs over the life of the building during the budgeting and design stage resulting in higher running costs for energy and water inefficient buildings thus potentially missing on monetary savings and sustainability benefits that may exist throughout the life of the building.

Besides wasting resources this is may be an unjustifiable impost on taxpayers.

The WA Housing authority compared the cost of building new energy saving housing with the traditional model and found a designed energy efficient house was $1250 cheaper to build new. Clearly it was cheaper for the tenant to run, the heating and cooling inputs being at a lower running cost.

Government is able to take the longer term view with its investment in infrastructure and here is a means to stimulate innovative design and invention on the building materials, suppliers of internal equipments and the behavior of the services sector.

Public Transport, Travel to Work.

A similar investment area where decisions over investment determine the energy uses of much of Australia’s population. Continuing to spread Australia cities whilst depending on private car use will tie us further into higher emission patterns to meet the day to day needs of Australians without a clear alternative. Urban sprawl also impacts on sustainability.

A line has to be drawn under the spread of cities especially without an adequate public transport system to reduce GHG emissions with the continued expansion of the city leading to further traffic congestion at nodes as more people try to move through a road network that is more and more expensive to expand and maintain without actually addressing the problem of moving people to their desired work and social destinations.

Of course associated with the need to move people is the design of urban areas and indeed the desire of some to live in certain locations and of others living where they can afford and the disassociated location of their work.

Incentive to change work modes and the residential location of employees is another way to address the need for transport. Moving from a trip downtown to the one to the home office on one or more days per week and from driving across town to walking or cycling the same suburb to work is another way to change GHG emissions from transport to and from work.

A practical example could be school teachers. If they are able to remain at a school located near to their home for a long period then an investment in a home near their place of work becomes more attractive.

Making a loan to facilitate this is a practical action that the appropriate level of government should take. The cost of that should be viewed against the cost of the impacts of the weekday travel to and from work to determine the interest rate.

Cycling and Walking

Change the rules and make cycling user friendly. E.g. Dutch Traffic Law which puts the onus on the motorist.

Introduce walking buses for school children. I survived walking to school without one and there was traffic and pedophiles 50 years ago, not so much or so many but they were there. A walking bus addresses these problems especially if the ‘driver’ has the power [and tools] of a Tasmanian school crossing guard. If necessary make a payment to the ‘driver’ and ‘conductor’

On that matter some children have to be bused because of distance. All buses on contract to provide transport to schools should be required use low or no carbon fuels within a decade, further providing a market for alternative fuels and power sources.

Defence Forces

Whilst the a modern defence force is dependent on modern technology, including propulsion systems, and also on wasteful expenditure in training and also with long lead and life times for equipment the need to change over to low carbon fuels sourced from local supplies is inescapable.

The US Air Force is researching extracting aviation fuel from coal and capturing the carbon in the process. They may succeed.

Australian Navy ships use heavy fuel oil and it may be a simple matter of changing that fuel or its mix by incorporating biodiesel into the system at a percentage with a view to converting to such a fuel over time.

The Senate Inquiry into Alternative Fuels found that once the price of oil exceed $72 a barrel that biodiesel became economic. Production of this fuel from oilseed crops on wheat lands has a beneficial effect of wheat yield, thus limiting the impact on total food production from such an alienation.

Further, Australia’s demand for fuel can be met from the conversions of some of our land to biofuels production without impacting on export income as local production replaces the increasing cost of imported fuel.

Therefore, if it is feasible to use biodiesel in ships fuel, that change should commence as a lead into addressing the hydrocarbon fuel impact on the balance of payments over time, especially as coal exports are likely to decline as the world moves to a low carbon economy.

Using sustainable national supply sources will add a stimulus to changing the source of propulsion for farm machinery as defence force purchases, free of excise, remove a disincentive [the excise payment] for farmers to either expand or take up production of their own fuel and sell the surplus.

Land based forces should study changing their liquid fuel to one that is sustainable and once decided begin to phase out petrol as they once did the horse. In a period of peace a dual fuel supply line should be easy to manage within national borders. No doubt their decision will be influenced by the impact on supply chains when operating overseas and this is understandable.

Energy Supply

It should be mandatory for the electricity supplier to by back surplus power from a home based producer connected to the grid.

This incentive gives householders a chance to take practical action, extending the impact of solar water heater and light bulb technological changes.

Mobilizing people’s desire to take action on the climate issue will give surprising results if combined with an incentive to offset the other costs of moving to constrain carbon emissions.

The gradual nature of the change will allow current coal fired generating capacity to be phased out as the investment in each station reaches its life.

Further, an energy company looking to the future would move to assist households, the return being the sale of energy to the householder and other users.

Potentially, here is a reduction by more than half of domestic consumption from stationery energy production [without adding into the system any local storage mechanisms for night time return]. The conjuncture of sun shine and electricity use patterns makes solar photovoltaics as the energy source for domestic work and in industry good reason to make such a conversion.

Applying such systems to industrial areas if the household surplus is insufficient is a further option.

Germany has introduced a buyback measure to support household conversion to alternative energy systems.

Using a loan scheme to encourage householders to convert is one way of addressing increasing household energy costs. If it is means tested it can be targeted on the least able to afford [and perhaps the less likely for other reasons] to change to low carbon.

Worked through by the energy retailer such a scheme would put administration at in the hands of the energy supplier thus changing the reason for the payment from high carbon to low carbon energy.

The reduction of transmission loss from coal fired power adds another reason to move production closer to use.

Recycling

Government should mandate it for all consumer materials, giving industry time to adapt. European manufacturing has managed to achieve this in some areas such as VW cars and Finnish dishwashers making them entirely recyclable.

It is not a great leap from a spare parts list to knowing what your parts are made of and then ensuring they can be made of recyclable material and then in the final phase doing it. If it is to be argued that it is a barrier to trade then all countries should agree to adopt it as an international standard.

3. The role that Australia can play in the development and implementation of effective
international policies on climate change.

Recommendations

1. The name under which Australian policies are enacted should reflect the goal to be achieved and therefore become Climate Stabilization. E.g. The Department of Climate Stabilization.

2. The new activities adopted should not have negative impacts on other areas of carbon storage overseas and therefore offshore activities of Australian based companies should be governed by the principles of Sustainability and their carbon impacts should be taken into account as a first stage countries impacts, not counted as one of the impacts of the developing world.

General

With implications for trade and Australia’s position in the world community, as well as the actual outcome for the climate, this area has a high degree of importance both in real and image terms.

I am not expert in any relevant field but I do have a long standing interest in this matter. However, as Australia moves to set an example by belatedly adopting a national emissions trading scheme for carbon several issues rank highly with me.

The name

I understand that Climate Change was a name adopted in the US to lessen the concern in their community about the issue.

Recent evidence, such as the Fourth Assessment by the IPCC and the later opinions by respected experts in their fields of research related to the climate and the monitoring of its effects should have by now destroyed any notion that it is simply a change we face, where the impacts will be minimal and very little action will be required to address the causative factors through adaptation and mitigation.

Therefore Australia should adopt another name for the policy[ies] that will govern the national response to give weight to the importance the government sees the issues of climate stability has.

As Climate Stabilization is, or should now be, the goal that should be the umbrella term under which the policy[ies] are bundled this should also be the name adopted. It will act as a constant reminder of what we wish to achieve.

Of course if we wish to change the climate and/or continue to lull the community with an ongoing sense of false security no change to the name should be made.

The market

Clearly the national interest will play the leading role in policy implementation. The utterances of this Review, industry sector lobbying and the debate within the nation’s polity will define that interest.

However, there have been negative impacts in global carbon storage through the conversion of tropical forests to biofuel production [e.g. oil palm plantations] or the impacts of diverting national crops to same and thus changing the market stimulus to increase land clearing for crop production globally [e.g. the Amazon].

Further, these actions have a humanitarian dimension by affecting the availability and thus cost of food in the groups that are poorest, including in those same tropical nations. In the case of our near neighbor it could provide evidence for the ‘evil west’ among those affected and thus ground for the activities of some religious extremists.

The logging and associated drying, including through peatland drainage, of the some tropical forests also impacts on carbon storage e.g. in Kalimantan [Borneo].

These are the types of impacts we should avoid by setting parameters for the reduction of carbon to ensure that the actions we take at home and abroad are sustainable.

The EU is taking these lessons on board in relation to biofuel. Australia should not have to relearn them.

Restrictions on the sourcing of raw materials need to be placed on suppliers both within and outside of Australia so that the carbon impact is not negative. Simple monetary value must be constrained in the initial period of emissions trading so the price of carbon is not overwhelmed by the low value foregone from releasing it.

This applies more in the land use change area where the low value of carbon stored in forest has been overwhelmed by the value of the tropical timber and the subsequent biofuel and other cropping.

If the carbon trading market is simply governed by price national action may look good but if the carbon release is moved overseas the impacts are only moved to a later date when atmospheric carbon has grown because we failed to properly regulate that market to prevent a distortion by moving carbon releases offshore.

4. In the light of 1 to 3, recommend medium to long-term policy options for Australia, and the time
path for their implementation which, taking the costs and benefits of domestic and international
policies on climate change into account, will produce the best possible outcomes for Australia.

Australia should be precautionary and work to set high targets for all nations, leading by example.

There is uncertainty about the pace of change that the climate will exhibit and the tipping points outlined by some scientists point to the difficulties that will be experienced trying to limit the damage and its associated economic costs in an area where we are uncertain of the speed of the changes our activities are forcing given that the actual impacts of GHG driven warming follow some decades behind the release of the GHG’s.

Failure to stabilize the climate will have implications for confidence. Confidence in government, confidence in international mechanisms and confidence in the future.

Just as the economy is dependent on the environment for the natural services it provides so the economy is dependent on confidence. If that is lost in a perception that we are too late because we did too little now, just as the climate could runaway without the possibility of stabilization so the global economy could collapse as the future became unavoidably bleak.

Whilst such a slowdown in economic activity may have some beneficial impacts on the climate the implications for the society should be clear to any who reflect on the markets behavior. There was nothing great about the 1929 Depression except the time of its impact.

The impact of a stock market crash caused by a climate crisis will affect the capacity to address the climate issue, if it remains possible to stabilize it, and the modes government will have to adopt in an attempt to act at a late date.

The war analogy was used to exemplify the type of effort we can make to stabilize the climate and is worth reusing here in the context of the period where action was being debated.

Hitler may not have been so bold if Britain and France had not delayed rearming, although perhaps only deferring war because Hitler and his fellow Nazis were committed to it.

However, Hitler would have been vulnerable if those allies had acted aggressively with rearmed forces when Poland was invaded because he had insufficient forces for a 2 front war. Early intervention may have been relatively cheap in terms of the impact of the global conflict.

In both cases action was deferred because of lobbying, because of a fear that action would provoke Hitler and because war had become a horror in the light of First World War.

Looked on in hindsight we can view various what ifs. Without the means to rapidly remove carbon from the atmosphere such a luxury will not be available to us.

Energy Reduction Targets and Means

I favor and a rapid and immediate reduction of GHG emissions leading Australia to at least 30% below 1990 emission levels by 2020, a 100% reduction by 2050. Further reductions of more than 100% by 2100 will most likely be made having taking a path of innovation into a low carbon economy.

The importance of an early higher target is the arresting of growth in GHG giving a chance to miss important turning points in increasing climate instability.

Whatever point we manage to stabilize the climate at, if we do, will be what people have to live with for generations given the life of the major GHG – CO2. The sooner we can turn the growth of CO2 down the larger the margin of safety.

Comparative Rates of Emission reduction between government election policy and higher goals

First Period Second Period

ALP 2008 Election Policy
2010 – 2020 -20% = 2% pa 2020 – 2050 -60% = 1.33’% pa

Greens 2008 Election Policy
2010 – 2020 -30% = 3% pa 2020 – 2050 -85% = 1.83% pa

Preferred Australian Response
2010 – 2020 -30% = 3% pa 2020 – 2050 -100% = 2.33’% pa

Reported Garnaut Recommendations
2010 – 2020 -15% = 1.5%pa 2020 – 2050 -90% = 2.5%
Source; The Australian Garnaut Review First Report

Note: Of course actual tonnages may differ because the ALP selected 2000 as its base year when most other targets are based on 1990 CO2 emission levels.

One would expect as technological innovation came into play that the higher rate of change could be achieved later through the period when research into low carbon technologies was focused, something more likely with a higher mandated target.

Rationing of carbon may seem fair but brings with it administration and policing. To me it would be preferable to address any imbalance in living standards through welfare, taxation, grants and loan mechanisms.

An example of loan mechanisms would be for households to convert to renewable energy repaid by resale of the surplus into the existing electricity grid thus addressing a major element in the cost of living and reducing energy demand from high carbon sources.

The means of production means could vary and as technology changes the new be adopted by later entrants or those replacing their system and the growth of production could follow the ageing and obsolescence of high carbon technologies.

One would hope by the time systems passed their useful life that 100% recycling of consumer materials. From packaging through white goods and computers to cars had been achieved.

Conclusion

There is uncertainty in the community about the relative importance of the impacts of human activity on the climate and a body of opinion that dealing with carbon in a product or market sense is smoke and mirrors.

Conversely there is also a body of opinion that we have passed the point of no return and any action taken will not be effective in stabilizing the climate.

Further, there is the difficulty of successful prevention, which may then be billed as much ado about nothing if the projections for a catastrophe or even severe destabilization are weathered by people whose affluence allows them to avoid the harsher effects thus providing the basis for a return to high carbon emissions.

However, Australia cannot decline its responsibilities to others, including future generations, by taking a path that does not comprehensively and effectively reduce GHG emissions in a timely manner to avoid further destabilizing the climate than is already set in place.

There is a question for each person considering emission targets as part of the process of stabilizing the climate.

Land based ice is currently melting with an 0.8dC rise in temperature. The result is a continuing rise in sea levels.

Sea level will rise by some 80m above the current mean if all the land based ice melts and there is nothing to stop that process if temperature continues to rise.

What action does a country with its major cities on the coast need to take to avoid the damage associated with such a change?. What will that cost?.

phill Parsons
PO Box 141
Deloraine 7304
0363681184
[email protected]

1. “The thing is that confidence in the business community, confidence in the markets is everything” Brendan Nelson Leader of the Opposition on the ABC’s AM program about 0735 06FEB08
2. California Air Resources Board Program of the 1990’s
3. Russia at War 1941 -1945. Alexander Werth Pan Books1965 Edition pp 790 – 805

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