Why do we want to cut emissions?
February 4, 2008 by Christine Milne
Friends of the Earth Australia have released a research report today, Climate Code Red, that prompts us to once again ask this question - why do we want to cut emissions?
I find it extremely troubling that both Prime Minister Rudd and Professor Ross Garnaut appear to see climate change in purely economic or political terms, and are largely sidelining the science that lies at its heart. Certainly there are a host of political and economic issues that are central to the climate policy debate, but there is one reason and one reason alone for reducing carbon emissions – and that is to do our best to reduce the risks of climate change as far as possible.
With Climate Code Red, David Spratt and Philip Sutton have provided a valuable and sobering contribution to the policy challenge of climate change at a pivotal moment.
Over recent months it has become ever clearer to many of us working in the field that global warming, accelerating faster than scientists had predicted, is leaving policy so far behind it is outdated as it is released. The current ambitious policies of the Australian Greens, developed on the basis of science 12-18 months ago, are now too conservative. Where, then, does that leave our new Federal Government, elected on a platform of climate action far weaker than the Greens’?
Spratt and Sutton persuasively call on us to put aside politics as usual. My great fear, however, is that none of the people now charged with setting Australia’s emissions targets – Professor Garnaut, Ministers Wong, Swan and Garrett, and Prime Minister Rudd – have grasped that this is a state of emergency and none are ready to set aside politics as usual.
Spratt and Sutton have provided a vital example for Professor Garnaut on the work that is needed to set emissions targets – not by “plucking figures out of the air because they are politically convenient or someone else said they might be OK”, and not by economic analysis of what now seems achievable.
It can never be said too often that emissions reductions have one purpose only – to avoid catastrophic climate change. That being the case, there is only one basis for setting targets – a science-based judgement of how much climate change we are willing to risk. Once that science-based target is set, we must then sensibly and coherently work out how to achieve it at least cost and as equitably as possible.
This ‘backcasting from success’ which starts from the perspective that ‘failure is not an option’ leads to Spratt and Sutton’s key insight: that the expectation of failure has become the norm in climate policy.
When you consider the implications of failing to stop runaway climate change, it is a nightmare scenario that most of the world’s leaders, relying to a greater or lesser extent on the Stern Review, have decided that it is simply too hard to constrain warming to less than 3C. Until we reverse this defeatist attitude, the prospects of success are extremely dim.
What is perhaps most disturbing of all is that many scientists and modellers also appear to have adopted this defeatist attitude. It is very telling that the lowest emissions trajectories described by Working Group 3 of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report still give us a 50% or greater risk of breaching 2-2.4C warming – a temperature range where runaway climate change would be an unacceptably high risk. Even now, it appears that very little modelling has been done of emissions trajectories that adequately minimise the risk of sending our climate out of control.
While others have persuasively suggested that somewhat lower and slower targets than called for here can be justified by the science, Climate Code Red is a significant contribution which should be read by anyone seriously contemplating how to set greenhouse emission reduction targets.
I’d encourage you to read it and pass it on to anyone who is interested in this vital choice we need to make in the coming months.
My press release on the release today is here.
“there is one reason and one reason alone for reducing carbon emissions – and that is to do our best to reduce the risks of climate change as far as possible.”
That’s not true.
A second reason is that the things which involve generating carbon emissions almost all involve depleting non-renewable resources - burning oil, coal, and natural gas, and cutting down forests. Even if burning coal gave us vitamin C, it’d be best to minimise use of fossil fuels for the simple reason that they’re a nonrenewable resource.
This then gives us two reasons to reduce carbon emissions.
The only question, then, is whether reducing carbon emissions will be painful and cause us misery (the Howard and Bush government position) or will leave us better off overall (the economic optimist position).
Your comments here seem to be saying, “it will cause us misery, but we have to do it anyway.”
In both mainstream and greenish talk, there are some strange ideas. I fail to see why building coal-fired stations “creates jobs” while building wind, solar and tidal will “hurt the economy”; building something is building something, it costs money and creates jobs. I fail to see why reforestation is seen as a cost, rather than as investing in the future. I fail to see why investing in science is good when it’s (say) studies into heart disease, but bad when it’s renewable energy.
Senator, you seem to have absorbed the Howard-Bush fiction that if we stop burning stuff and cutting down stuff, we’ll all go broke. This isn’t true, and if not what you intend to say, you should clarify that.
Investing money in new kinds of infrastructure invariably boosts the economy, whether it’s roads or rail, private transport or public, stadiums or hospitals, wind turbine or coal-fired stations. Investing in resource efficiency saves money. Doing both of these things creates jobs. For the Greens to emphasise these facts would perhaps help in persuading others to take on Greens policies.
“the lowest emissions trajectories described by Working Group 3 of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report still give us a 50% or greater risk of breaching 2-2.4C warming”
That’s not true. The lowest emissions trajectories modeled are an immediate 100% reduction - and this model gives a likelihood that “eventual warming” (ie by 2100) will be 1-2C. The lowest ones they mention in detail are “50-85% reduction by 2050″, and those keep warming to 2.0-2.4C. However, a footnote to those models is that most don’t include the effects of reduced absorption; currently the natural world absorbs a good chunk of our emissions, mostly the sea and forests, but as water warms it can absorb less gases, and as the world warms some forests will die. So in fact the lowest emissions scenario talked about may be too optimistic in its forecast.
The studies reviewed by the IPCC are not “defeatist” as such, they simply look at what’s plausible. As scientists, they’re aiming at studying things, not advocating for things. “If we do so-and-so, what will happen?” A 100% reduction today is not plausible; a 50-85% reduction by 2050 is plausible. By “plausible” is meant a combination of physical limits (eg you can’t build wind turbines for the whole world by tomorrow), and political ones (eg you can’t persuade the whole world to change by tomorrow).
I believe that the population of the developed countries is increasing (by immigration) faster than the science can reduce the per-capita impact.
Kiashu, I admire your analysis. Excellent stuff.
We Greens only damage our credibility if we play fast and loose with the truth. There really is no need for that.
With a little honest effort we can produce clear, compelling, reliable messages that enhance our credibility rather than trashing it.
would like to hear something from Green Senators in relation to dredging of Port Phillip Bay
It would be very sad to have just put away someone who was power “drunk and in charge” of a moving economy, only to get stuck behind a road hogging “crawler”. Politically now is the optimum time to be laying the basis for a restructured renewably based power industry. But it looks like the day to day running of the shop is more important than making sure that the customers will still be around to benefit from the good organisation. I am starting to realise that only a healthy dose of enviro-rage will make any difference to these polititions. It is time to take the “polite” out of leadership.
Kiashu, I disagree with your position that there are two reasons to reduce emissions.
Certainly, there are plenty of reasons to move away from burning fossil fuels. As a regular visitor to Greensblog, you know that I am a firm advocate for action on peak oil. There are also a host of public health and local environmental issues, for example, for shifting from coal, oil and gas to renewables, mass transit, etc.
However, this post is specifically about reducing greenhouse emissions and setting emissions targets. There is only one reason to do that - to bring the risks of climate change as low as possible.
I’m surprised you feel I engaged in this piece in the position, which I agree with you is fundamentally wrong, that emissions cuts will lead to economic hardship. The position I was meaning to express was that the discussion of setting emissions targets should be entirely outside the economic paradigm - it is about science. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear, and will certainly make it clearer in the future.
Working Group III did not look in depth at trajectories to constrain warming to below 2C. I think this is pretty clear.
What is even clearer is that many people around the world are recognising that the outdated policy positions that many are still clinging to have restricted the scientific enterprise. Because the focus has been on 2-3C warming, that is where most of the research effort has been concentrated on.
What we really need to do now is to start thinking outside the box, looking at making it plausible to see very steep emissions reductions. The view that such cuts are not plausible is as constrained by current orthodoxy as the view that emissions cuts will be economically damaging. Both need to be challenged.
Thanks for your comments.
Senator Milne, thankyou for your response. I think what we’re seeing here is just a question of emphasis and tone. I think it important to emphasise both climate change and peak fossil fuels. When you mention just one issue, people can respond by humming and hawing and hedging and trotting out denialists or “but the economy!” or the like. When you tie several issues together, it makes your argument very powerful.
By treating each issue separately, you allow those who wish for “business as usual” to avoid each issue in turn. I understand that dealing with issues and discussing things in the soundbite media requires a very narrow focus of topic, but I think that you can draw a few issues together without your message be any more warped than usual by the mass media. In fact, drawing a couple of issues together will perhaps help you as the mass media tries to marginalise the Greens and make them look like insane radicals.
With regard to the “economy will crash if we do anything” implication, the part I got it from was this,
“I find it extremely troubling that both Prime Minister Rudd and Professor Ross Garnaut appear to see climate change in purely economic or political terms, and are largely sidelining the science that lies at its heart.”
Rudd and Garnaut’s positions are more or less like the Howard-Bush positions, that if we do something to avoid climate change, the economy will be hurt; the difference is simply that the first two say, “but we should do it anyway… well, something, and slowly,” while the second two said, “so we should do nothing.” So when you say that they see things in economic terms, while not mentioning that their perception of the economy is wrong, you give implicit support to their positions. Of course I know that you don’t think that way, I’m just saying how it comes across to one not familiar with Greens positions and representatives.
Rather than saying, “the discussion of setting emissions targets should be entirely outside the economic paradigm - it is about science”, it might be productive for you to say something like,
“The science tells us that if we do nothing, we won’t even have an economy later on. And common sense tells us that it needn’t cause us economic pain - if building a coal-fired station or car factory helps the economy, then so will building a wind turbine or a tram factory.”
Working Group 3 did look at sub-2C warming scenarios, but not in depth; your post said they didn’t look at it, I was just pointing out - as you said in your response to me - that they did look, but not in detail.
As I said, I think all these are simply questions of emphasis, and of how best to present issues to keep them in the public mind and avoid too much distortion by an unfriendly media. I certainly remain a Greens supporter; while I don’t agree with each and every policy of the Greens, I agree with all those of substance which the Greens are ever likely to be able to put into effect.
Kiashu I’m with you, there are two reasons to reduce.
Christine if you frame it your way you automatically exclude the support of all the people who are unconvinced about CO2 emissions causing climate change and whats worse you leave yourself utterly exposed to the occasional spurious (but temporarily convincing to many) argument against the link.
On the other hand if you include Kiashu’s argument that it is also a precious non-renewable resource that must be used only sparingly then you make it possible to gain support for reductions from an additional section of the community and further your position is more robust in the face of the spurious research of the kind I mentioned.
Its pretty simple really. The demand that there is only one reason seems to be pointless petulant egoism that wastes breath, words and time only serving to confuse and distract.
We expect from you good strategy and thoughtful politics that are designed to be most likely to achieve the desired outcome.
As a regular visitor to KeeleyNet.com and DavidIcke.com,which arent always pleasing me with their views,but seem a good read anyway on matters discussed seriously here, I have moved on to different territory than climate change,not because I am questioning Green type activist motivations, my own mainly,and some experiences, that rarely get the light of day.Peak oil, I am now suspicious of,although I can see good reasons to not be,as a reality the world needs to deal with.The foundation of calling petro chemicals and coal as fossil fuels is a hangover from a terrible era of science,which cannot be a good reason for not wanting generally lower emissions for even human health reasons.The mining of coal,isnt that clever as rivers leak and methane gas bubbles.Fights over BHP and Rio Tinto with the Chinese wanting to win Australian Assets..means Australians have less of a chance to value coal for themselves and other mineral deposits for ourselves.This doesnt mean not sharing commodities with other countries,but where is the Australian interests!?.So there is an oddity over all this emission reality where the physical circumstances of such,are not fully accounted for when assets are bought and sold on stock exchanges.That is,the pressure of price of coal either up or down,doesnt seem to create the circumstances of applying monies to practical solutions at generators.Ownership,seems not to affect a useful outcome to do this.I have no problems,really, with the Green emphasis re alternative fuels and emission reduction standards that are real ,rather than Greenwash. But I wonder if valuing carbon dioxide as it is as a gas,in the marketplace rather than feral,really means,Australians have been losing a asset that could of long ago added further to our accounts.Because,there are many ways to use carbon dioxide in another form.And so I have concluded,that is where the problem of coal emissions is. We havent valued it as a loss of asset.And I am not committed to saying the Greens emphasis is wrong..the accounting for emissions is wrong..the inability to convert carbon dioxide to usefulness is wrong.
Guys, a lot of the time we do talk about both climate and peak oil at the same time, as you know. But there are occasions where it is appropriate to focus on one.
The big problem with your approach is that there is plenty of evidence that if we burn all our reserves of fossil fuels, we’ll go well past the climate tipping points. Peak oil is a huge issue in its own right, but we actually have to reduce fossil fuel use faster than peak oil demands in order to maintain a stable climate. We can’t let peak oil determine our emissions reductions targets because it is a separate, if closely related, consideration.
The second issue I’d personally take with your reasoning is that, for the vast majority of people out there (not, of course, for any of us), climate science is far more settled than peak oil. For whatever reason, most people still seem to think that peak oil is a crank thing, while climate change is relatively settled science. We’re trying to do battle with that assumption, driving them both.
However, this is a piece about climate change and setting emissions reductions targets that will help us reduce the risks of climate change. As such, the science of climate change is the defining issue, and peak oil a separate consideration.
The strategy being taken here is very clearly targeted to the best outcome. Climate science must guide emissions reduction targets. If any other consideration is taken into account, the scientific basis for reducing emissions, per se, is lost. Peak oil is a vital consideration in our choice of fuels and in our policy settings, but it is not a consideration in setting emissions reduction targets.
Kiashu and Gilbert, I fear you are conflating two questions - the question of emissions reduction targets and the question of the policies needed to address the range of challenges we face.
Peak oil needs to be addressed in its own right. It also needs to be addressed in ways which will not increase greenhouse emissions, and it is also, conveniently, a useful argument for backing up the call for a shift away from fossil fuels.
However, emissions reduction targets are a policy setting specific to climate change. They are targets for reducing emissions, not for reducing our fossil fuel use. Setting those targets is a scientific question.
Further to Tim’s comment, it’s worth remembering that I am essentially the Federal Parliament’s lone voice on peak oil. Almost everyone is talking about climate change.
Tim. Recognising that oil is non-renewable and thus requires conserving does not imply a plan to burn it all. It implies a plan to ensure that *all* future humans can access it. Properly appreciating this will involve radically reduce its rate of use.
I think you will find that belief in peak oil will kick in much more rapidly now. This is for the simple reason that the best explanation for the increasing hip pocket pain felt by consumers at the bowser each day is that we are at peak oil.
There is no equivalent forseeable direct connection for consumers to emissions. That link is far more elusive and cerebral and tenuous and fragile.
This means that peak oil concerns can be leveraged into reductions action and permit more time to overcome the fragility of emissions support.
The level of climate change ignorance in the community even among educated Australians is much greater in my experience than what you suggest. It is likely that your circle of associates will be among the very convinced and you not regularly encounter the agnostics and this would naturally lead you to believe the argument is won to the extent you have suggested.
However there is a huge amount of evidence the argument is not won. The evidence is in the behaviour of our citizens and in the ears that are deaf to your calls for greater reductions. Recalcitrant politicians can only be that way because of the broad ambivalence of the electorate to the issue.
I’ve some thoughts on this sort of soundbite approach to issues, and how it leads to the Greens being marginalised in the mass media, but I won’t burden the Greensblog with them, you can see them here.
What it comes down to is that I think the Greens are taking the wrong approach, and if you took the right approach could get more votes and more success in getting your policies through. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. We’ll see if the current approach manages to reduce Australian emissions by even one-tenth of one percent.
Why can’t we be a little more positive. How about some encouraging stories like this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2154292.htm
The idea of distributed plants recycling a million tonnes of Australian waste paper and cardboard among a heap of other things into a crude oil equivalent at current crude prices is a step in the right direction.
Its surely better than letting it rot back to CO2 for no benefit.
Christine, I applaud your efforts on climate change and peak oil. I do however agree with Kiashu and Glibert that there are more reasons to reduce our CO2 emissions than just climate change. I see five reasons to reduce CO2 emissions,
1. Climate change;
2. Fossil fuels are a limited resource;
3. To prevent the further acidification of our oceans;
4. To reduce air pollution; and
5. To prevent trade sanctions against us.
I am one of those climate change believers who don’t buy the majority of the greenhouse arguments, believing instead that thermodynamic considerations are the key. My view is that we are burning the energy stored over millennia in hydrocarbons (fossil fuels, energy from the past) at an unprecedented rate, this release of trapped energy heats the atmosphere causing warming, as a byproduct of the burning we get CO2 emissions. There is a correlation between a build up of atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global warming, but I contend that the cause and effect linkage operates in the reverse direction. Under the thermodynamic model the need is to stop the burning, which also means we’ll stop the CO2 emissions, but the thermodynamic model goes further, it means there is no such thing as clean coal (the burning is the problem not the CO2), and nuclear and forced geothermal also lead to global warming (its releasing energy from the future).
Burning oil is such a waste of an incredibly versatile resource.
Higher atmospheric CO2 emissions leads to acidification of our oceans, irrespective of climate change do we really want this to happen?
If we reduce our CO2 emissions by stopping the burning of hydrocarbons, we also reduce the emission of particulate pollution, sulfur compounds, mercury, and a host of other nasties. We’ll get cleaner, healthier air.
Whether the Australian government thinks CO2 emissions have anything to do with climate change is almost an irrelevance. If the world as a whole deems that CO2 emissions are bad, and trade sanctions will be applied to those countries which exceed some limit, then we have little choice but to oblige. It should be to our advantage to make such a shift early, however, coal and aluminum are Australia’s #1 and #3 exports, which means that our balance of trade is a complete basket case if Australia was to get serious about addressing climate change. I think this goes some way to explain our inaction, and the switch from a Liberal to a Labor government changes nothing on this front.
By the end of FY09 (17 months time) the Australian economy will be awash with cash in a way that will dwarf all our previous efforts. The key reasons are that:
a) mining revenues will be even higher (due to increased production and higher average prices due to rolling off of old low price hedges)
b) agricultural production will roar back from an extreme low. This is due to a tripling of the price of wheat (and other ag commodities) and an El Nino pattern delivering rainfall not seen for a decade or more resulting in bumper yields.
Further the federal government is projecting an astonishing surplus and at the same time further cutting expenditure which will likely boost the expected surplus.
Beyond FY09 uncertainties in the global economy make the likelihood of this event continuing very uncertain.
The surge of cash presents an unprecedented opportunity to achieve once in a lifetime outcomes towards national sustainability.
I submit that it should be Green strategy to ensure that this temporary abundance is directed towards a nation transforming program that ensures clean stationary generation.
This will involve locking in a commitment to government surpluses and attracting committed private investment.
If you don’t use this opportunity then the cash will be dispersed into wasteful channels like fueling rising real estate prices, or rampant consumerism.
Its time to get very deliberate, very pragmatic and action oriented. Please don’t waste the opportunity or just blithely assume future policy settings will take care of our problems.
I think the coming boom offers dangers, too - in times of plenty, it’s hard to foresee times of hardship. “What? Bah, the party will last forever!”Nate Hagens writes well of it here, talking about a trip to Las Vegas,
“1)On the plane ride to Vegas, everyone was giddy, sociable, even manic, anticipating all kinds of unexpected reward in the Babylon of 21st century. Once you get off the plane, its like you are on one extended 72 hour search for unexpected reward. [...]
“2)I probably know more about the issues surrounding Peak Oil than 99% of people on the planet. Yet among the bright lights, freely flowing drinks, friendly company, and non-stop excitement, not only did I forget about our pending date with a global oil peak, but for about a 12 hour period, under influence from friends, Peak Oil actually seemed impossible. There is no way all this glitz and glamour could end [...]
“3)There is a shared mythology in America (and spreading) that we can each enjoy fame and opulence at the top of the social pyramid. Even though everyone (I think) knows the odds are stacked against them - they have hope they will be the big winner. [...] All cannot be first. All cannot be wealthy, which makes capitalism, on a finite resource planet not dissimilar from a Ponzi scheme.”
When the country’s doing well economically, it’s like a trip to Vegas - who can ever imagine it’ll all end? Sitting on the train and looking into car traffic, or visiting shopping malls, I often have the same feeling. Surely this can’t all just fade away? Intellectually I know it not always was, and will not always be. But it’s hard to feel that in your gut.
It’s a bit like the time I visisted Crown Casino, expecting to lose about $50, treating it as spending $50 for an evening’s entertainment. The guy next to me at the table was getting angry with the croupier for his bad hand, and did not take kindly to my saying, “mate, this is Crown Casino, not Crown Charity. See all these lights and staff and lovely tables? How do you think they pay for all that?” (I would not have said it, not liking to rain on anyone’s parade, but was trying to deflect his anger away from the croupier.) But each imagines they’ll be the exception to it, and win big.
So I agree with Gilbert that we have a great opportunity, but it’s also a great danger.
I too am very uneasy with Christine’s statement that there is only one reason to reduce emissions.
Zoltar, the thermodynamic argument is not one I’ve heard before and I’m curious to know more. I can immediately see how it would work in a closed system, however how does this argument deal with losing excess heat to space?
If the planetary temperature rises then given an unchanging greenhouse blanket then the heat will diffuse more rapidly through that atmospheric blanket due to a higher heat gradient. The differences will be subtle of course, but I’d be interested to know if this is modelled anywhere.
I recognise your thermodynamic argument must be the basis for concerns about risks of heat pollution from fusion reactors in particular.
Irrespective of the basis of the climate change argument, I agree with all your five reasons as being very important.
I agree with Senator Milne. There are many great books and docos on Peak Oil its as if not as important as Climate Change.
Im with you Christine….
There is some blind stuff here dependent on analysis of weather patterns and tying it up in a manner that suggests the climate change matter.I know it is difficult not to resort to sounding off in a manner that appeals as understanding all the climatology and everything else.That isnt the case for the scientist otherwise the word consensus would never have been used.The State governments of Vic. N.S.W. and Tasmania are boring me too tears right now with their decisions. And seeing I might of been sampled by the U.S.A. FOR SECURITY REASONS,one wonders,if its their massive computer word searches,or disheartened CIA., in Australia,or the trouble making Federal Government and its lazy A.S.I.O. officers and our ready to kiss your arse American Australian staff over in Washington. Creeps whoever they are. Garrett would have to be missing something between his ears over the Port Philip or Bay decision and dredging,and the lunacy of a Brumby as leader is apparent.Take a closer look at Iran and George wanting vengeance,because the Iranians dont want to be involved with their threats,and its easy to notice the dredging is war preparedness,for big warships,to come and go and hide under the protection of Melbournites..Jews ETC.I am not rambling,it is apparent the decisions by the State and Federal Governments,are about showing business overseas their business compatibleness,whilst that is being used by The U.S.A. forming another war manipulation readiness.American investment in Victoria in the electricity area is the excuse for bulldozing legitimate questions about international investment,and unsettling Australias interests.The Pope visiting N.S.W. is a programme to get the populace always ready for military type disruption.Chinese investment is too unsettle Australias interests again in having our own Foreign policy which includes accepting the legitimate aspirations of the Taiwanese.Japanese buying of woodchip matters and whaling matters,without even the Japanese noticing is probably being manipulated by the U.S.A. as a a matter to both encourage Japanese patriotism and to shit on it at the same time.Exactly what has been the career of Garrett,proven now by his attitudes on major to peoples interests.The leak from the Police Integrity cannot happen without Americans knowing who dunnit!?The plea to the interest affected houseowners over the Treasury decision is via the recent election encourage the population then shit on them.So when and if, a major Terrorist event happens in Oz,it will now have some environmental disastrous effects.Melbourne is bound to be the first,after all the hints from the A.S.I.O. clowns is in the Wahabi matters. Centred more in Melbourne as radical .You betya I am trying to stir up anti-American sentiment ,find all the interconnections at work in Australia on lousy decisions and there is an American influence,not always apparent.GO on about wheat,and GMO in canola are just the beginning.We should close down the Australian American links,whilst the majority of Australians havent got a fast enough Bandwith to follow the warmongers,and the clowns in Australia who would readily agree with them.Why havent the Greens noticed the internet cables for Iran traffic has been cut,and made a definitive statement..That says Australia will not be used as a base and widespread disruption will break out,if we do become a hiding place,for the Americans.
Zoltar, the question of the direct thermodynamic impact of burning fuels has been factored into climate models for a long time, and plays a very small role indeed relative to the extremely large forcings of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Can you provide any scientific grounding for your opinion on this matter to contradict that?
You are, of course, welcome to your opinions, but I would caution others that they disregard the evidence and the laws of physics and should thus be treated with extreme care.
Peter Robertson @ 4 - completely off topic, of course, but please see Bob Brown’s release here.
Daniel @ 19
I can easily agree with you that climate is the most important reason to reduce and at the same time be very alarmed by a statement that it is the *ONLY* reason to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
Christene didn’t stop at saying it is the most important reason. She said it was the only reason and when queried she strongly reaffirmed it.
Zoltar’s five reasons are excellent.
When we burn fossil fuels, it is not a pure hydrocarbon we are burning, it comes with toxic substances that are released into the environment and make there way into the food chain, concentrating as they go higher.
A significant portion of worldwide release of mercury into the environment is from burning fossil fuels. It follows that a proportion of the high blood levels of mercury in expectant mothers is an horrific consequence of burning fossil fuels.
I can visualise a TV advertisement, or series of them, educating the public as to the perils of our mad consumption of fossil fuels. This would be along the lines of anti-smoking, or anti-speeding, or anti-drink driving adds. It could conclude with some positive statements directing the concern that had been generated into actions that would see us achieve green generation.
There is more than the one reason Christine gives. What baffles me is that the other reasons are core to central green values and philosophies and yet they are dismissed as NOT BEING REASONS to reduce emissions. Look again at Christine’s quote extracted at the very top of response 1.
Gilbert et al,
it is extremely important at a policy level that we do not conflate different issues and questions.
Reducing greenhouse emissions and reducing fossil fuel use are two separate, if obviously inter-related issues.
There are numerous reasons for reducing fossil fuel use, as Christine and I have both stated. These are, as you say, central to Greens values and philosophies. But they are not reasons to reduce greenhouse emissions. The mercury example you give is great, but it is not a reason to reduce greenhouse emissions - it is a reason to reduce mercury emissions. As such, it can be dealt with using scrubbers to remove as much mercury as possible, but which will still allow carbon into the atmosphere. Same as the acid rain campaigns decades ago. Not a solution to climate change.
It is undeniable that there is only one reason for reducing greenhouse emissions. No matter how many additional benefits there may be to doing so, the only reason for reducing greenhouse emissions is to reduce the greenhouse effect.
The reason we are making such a big deal of this is very clear - the major debate that is raging in Australia at the moment is about what level to set the target for reducing greenhouse emissions. We are trying to use our position to make the very clear and vital point that any decision on that issue has to be based on a science-based judgement of how much climate change we can risk. Adding any other consideration to that decision waters down its scientific basis, and therefore undermines its potential to achieve the fundamental goal of avoiding catastrophic climate change.
We are using arguments of peak oil, air pollution, etc, to back up policy proposals of how to get there, and additional reasons for reducing fossil fuel use. But the science of climate change must be the absolute fundamental driver of decisions on greenhouse emissions reduction targets. The rest is about campaigning to reach those targets ,as well as campaigning on the specific issues themselves, in the case of peak oil.
Tim, if it were as simple as you say to resolve the toxic emission question then why are coal stations permitted to continue to emit mercury.
Your position is utterly vulnerable to the carbon sequestration lobby and the nuclear power lobby.
It is inconsistent to suggest in the same breath that:
1) a mercury scrubber might be a workaround to toxic emissions.
2) sequestration is not a workaround to your position.
Your strategy leaves us open to bad solutions that satisfy governments that they won’t increase CO2.
Tim, the insistence on “one reason” looks to be sophistry. Strategically choosing a narrow basis for a stance is always weak. If someone overcomes your narrow basis then you shift to a new basis and thereby destroy your credibility by revealing you first took a view and then sought to find arguments to support.
Mainly though I just find it appalling and offensive. If a right wing think tank said this there would be a justifiable Green backlash against the cavalier lack of concern for the living world.
Your reliance on science for the targets without considering the costs suggests a serious misunderstanding of what science actually is. To highlight this we can use a nonsense example. If as you suggest you ignored costs for a moment then the immediate extermination of the human species would be the obvious solution for a safe climate. This really shows you that costs are and always will be a consideration in setting targets.
We could spend all day going through endless examples of why costs do matter and why science can’t help with that.
The problem for science is that the costs are subjective. Our various philosophies, cultures and religions will ascribe very different subjective weights to the various costs and science won’t help you.
If you want science to solve it then the real challenge here is reaching a global agreement about the worth of the costs. What is the agreed price on a potential human life, or a the value of a loss of life expectancy, or the value of disappearance of a homeland, or being hungry, or poorer health, or loss of species.
If you can negotiate agreement there then given the uncertainties you would be best applying a Kelly analysis to the costs and risks. It is very powerful and beautifully suited to the problem at hand as it automatically rejects stupid solutions like extermination of the human species.
If you can’t negotiate agreement on the costs then science loses its power to determine and then its a political question to be solved politically.
Tim wrote,
“it is extremely important at a policy level that we do not conflate different issues and questions.
“Reducing greenhouse emissions and reducing fossil fuel use are two separate, if obviously inter-related issues.”
And there’s the key - how “inter-related” are they, and how “separate”? Imagine that a man is gambling and spending the mortgage money at the pokies, and this puts stress on his marriage. So he has two separate but inter-related problems: financial, and marriage. Would it be wise to treat those problems separately, or recognise the common root of those two problems, his gambling?
It’s quite possible to have financial problems without gambling, and to have marriage problems without it, but in the particular case we’re talking about the two problems have the same root.
Likewise, the two problems of fossil fuel depletion and climate change have a common root in our fossil fuel use. It would be possible to have fossil fuel depletion without climate change, and possible to have climate change without fossil fuel use, though in both cases it’d require quite some effort. But in our particular case, we have both rapid repletion and climate change, and both problems have the same root: our heavy fossil fuel use.
Identifying the root cause of problems makes it easier to solve those problems. If several problems have the same root cause, then it becomes intellectually easier to deal with, though the practical problems remain great.
Burning fossil fuels causes pollution (CO2 is just one of the forms of pollution it creates).
We should reduce fossil fuel emissions because:
a) we should reduce all its forms of pollution, including (but not only) the greenhouse pollution.
And,
b) we should conserve the fossil fuels so they are available for posterity for their many valuable non-fuel, non-CO2 emitting purposes.
Kiashu is right. Reductionism fails here, the inter-relatedness is too complete.
Reducing the problem into pieces and creating an independant solution for each of them creates the risk that the solutions will be inharmonious.
As an example carbon sequestration arguably (to some) solves CO2 emissions but fails to conserve the limited resource.
I am curious to see how the grassroots approach responds to all these posts with their assessment of the Senator’s strategy.
So far the Greens have been defensive with a polite but strained Greens know best line. If the Greens really know best then really, why bother with comments function on the blogsite?
If the grassroots can’t influence the policy then maybe we are wasting our effort trying to make a contribution here.
It would be huge if you could show specific examples of actual changes to Greens policy that have been caused by blogsite contributions.
This doesn’t mean policies you already had that were consistent with blogsite comments. It must be changes arising from constructive criticism, otherwise what is our reason for being here?
Our being here just for you to prove to yourselves you were right in the first place is not really okay as we would just be being used.
Still I can imagine its a PITA for Tim to have to respond to a disagreeable rabble like us :)
Tim, the primary reason that I mentioned thermodynamic considerations, was to illustrate that you don’t have to believe in the greenhouse effect, in order to wish to reduce CO2 emissions. I cannot provide scientific evidence for my model, because the key observations about heat loss into space have not been made, and probably can’t be made. Key observations concerning the greenhouse model are also lacking.
Tim is perfectly correct, in that there is no need to believe my musings on this issue, I’ll freely admit that I’m a greenhouse effect denying nutter. A nutter that happens to come to very green conclusions, but for slightly different reasons.
Philbo, I believe in climatic effects beyond just thermodynamic considerations.
-When ice caps retreat (due to warming) and expose rock it effects the absorption of energy. Ice is white and a good reflector (and insulator), rock is predominantly dark and a better absorber.
-The greenhouse blanket is not unchanging. When you burn a tonne of wood, or coal, or oil, (or gas) you get much less than a tonne of ash/residue/particulates, the rest of this mass gets added to the atmosphere as gas. The more atmosphere a rock/planet has the thicker its thermal blanket. Provided there is a mixture of gases (effectively clear) with varying absorption spectra, I don’t believe that the exact composition is all that critical (in other words I think the importance of CO2 has been blown out of all proportion). We’ve been burning a lot of coal and oil over an extended period, and we’ve effectively burnt a huge amount of other material through land clearing and depletion of topsoil. So lots of liberated heat, and lots of extra mass in the atmosphere (though strictly speaking the number of gas molecules should be more important than their total weight).
Philbo, yes, energy loss to space we need to know and to measure, but where does space start? Celestial mechanics is not my strong point. By my thinking the “best” measurements for heat and mass loss, are at just beyond the very periphery of Earth’s gravity well (or Hill’s sphere, apparently) which extends 1.5 million km, and observations of Earth’s reflectivity/emission spectra from even further afield. The upshot of this, is that a moon based observatory is much too close to get a complete measure of Earth’s reflectivity/emission spectra, because more than 98% of the volume under Earth’s gravitational influence lies at a distance beyond the moon. Measurements at the periphery are nigh on impossible too, the sensor would not be able to sustain an orbit, could not use any known form of propulsion, and would need to weigh much much less than a gram in order to avoid swamping the gravitational field of the sun, and the periphery is in constant flux anyway due to the movements of planets, moons, and other bodies. In other words it can’t be done, and in any event the time lag between heat on Earth being reflected in increased heat a million miles away would take many many years.
I suspect that Earth’s heat loss to space hasn’t changed very much over the last million years or for that matter the last hundred, I think the system is effectively closed. So every Joule of energy released by burning stays with us until its locked up again forming new hydrocarbons.
Below are some comments that I have also sent to Spratt and Sutton.
These comments are concerned with the issue of uncertainty in estimating damages of climate climate change, factors such as climate sensitivity, and “slow” climate feedbacks. As has been mentioned in your report, these uncertainties are inevitably large, and policies must therefore be based on risk management.
I have recently read a January 18 preprint (available from http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/weitzman/papers_weitzman) “On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of Catastrophic Climate Change” by Harvard economist Martin Weitzman that argues a similar point, and in some ways complements “Climate Code Red”. This paper can be thought of as arguing that risks of low probability, high damage (potentially catastrophic) effects are so high that their impact on climate change costs is much greater than any other impact. According to an article in New Scientist, this preprint implies that ‘”It doesn’t matter a damn what ethical assumptions you use,”… cold financial arguments are enough to decide what to do about global warming. Spend now and reap the benefits later.’
As an example of the low probability high damage effects, estimates of climate sensitvity have “long tails” in the direction of high temperatures, and on average there is something like a 1% chance that climate sensitivity (without taking into account slow feedbacks) is greater than 10 degrees, having potentially catastrophic consequences. Weitzman arrives at a ballpark estimate that when “slow” feedbacks are taken into account, this suggests a likelihood of 1% that there will be a greater than 20 degree temperature rise. The issue however is not specific probabilities of particular extreme events, but that there is a “fat tail” of low probability extreme events, that arises because of uncertainty. Weitzman includes a proof of what he describes as a “Dismal Theorem” which implies that when risk aversion and uncertainty are taken into account the only way that costs of climate change can be finite in cost benefit analysis is by introducing a very big parameter based on “something like the value of statistical life on earth as we know it, or perhaps the value of statistical civilization as we know it”, which Weitzman calls a “VSL parameter”.
Weitzman has five broad conclusions which are:
“(1) because of deep structural uncertainty about the prospects for disastrously large temperature changes, there is a strong prima facie case that the relevant probability density function (PDF) of climate change catastrophes has an extreme tail that is heavy with probability; (2) when these heavy tails are combined with very unsure high-temperature damages, this aspect can dominate the discounting aspect in calculations of expected present discounted utility (even at empirically plausible real-world interest rates); (3) all of this translates into placing severe limitations on the reliability of policy advice coming from standard cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of climate change; (4) the conventional climate-change policy ramp is an extreme lower bound on what is reasonable rather than a best estimate of what is reasonable; (5) removing the artificial limitations on conventional CBAs that comes from excluding very-high-impact disasters is capable of shifting a more inclusive economic-welfare analysis strongly away from the gradualism of a climate-change policy ramp.”
Although Weitzman’s paper is based on cost-benefit analysis, I am sure that its implications also apply to other cost metrics such as human lives lost or species lost per tonne CO2-e. Conventional cost-benefit analysis (such as the Stern Review’s conclusion that unmitigated climate change will have impacts on a “scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression”) does not adequately take into account these long-tail effects and hence underestimate the impacts of climate change.
I read with interest the discussion on “blocking” in Section 3.3 of “Climate Code Red”. I can’t help finding it ironic that environment groups will probably soon be playing catch-up with a Harvard economics professor. It seems to me that choosing any emissions reduction target for Australia (be it a conservative one like 20% by 2020 or 60% by 2050, or a less conservative one like 40% by 2020) involves implicitly making an assumption about Weitzman’s “VSL Parameter”. This analysis also seems to suggest that when estimating levels of temperature increase that constitute “dangerous climate change”, attention should be paid to low probabilities of exceeding a particular level. One thing I do find a little weird about analysing the impacts of climate change is comparing the likelihood of a loss of ~30% of species with a much lower likelihood of the loss of a much higher percentage of species that would occur if temperatures were to rise by something like 20 degrees. In any case it seems that we have overshot our target.
Thats a good paper. The thrust of it is by not reducing emissions we sufficiently elevate the probability of wiping out practically all complex life on earth that this swamps all other considerations.
Here is a version analogous to Weitzman’s work in Kelly speak.
A = Probability of extinction of 99% of complex life in the next 1000 years if we reduce
B = Probability of extinction of 99% of complex life in the next 1000 years if we don’t reduce
C = Quality of life if we don’t reduce and no extinction event occurs.
D = Quality of life if we do reduce and no extinction event occurs.
E = Quality of life if extinction event occurs.
The log of the value of reducing is:
A*log(E)+(1-A)*log(C)
The log of the value of not reducing is:
B*log(E)+(1-B)*log(D)
Basically you pick the course of action that produces the higher score.
To provide an example:
As a benchmark quality of life now is set to 1. The quality of life in the event of extinction is taken to be 0.01 (since 99% of species are lost), so E = 0.01
Lets assume a slight reduction in quality of life if we reduce and also avoid extinction so C = 0.99.
Lets assume no reduction in quality of life if we don’t reduce and also avoid extinction so D = 1
Lets assume A = 1% and B = 3%. Basically a 2% increase in the extinction risk if we don’t reduce.
And the results are:
1) reducing has a score of -0.05 and
2) not reducing has a score of -0.14
The negative score means we expect things to be worse than they are now. With these quick assumptions in this case not reducing is a much worse outcome.
Anyway you can tinker away with this and make it increasingly sophisticated by modelling a wide spectrum of possible outcomes within each case to cover the middle ground between the extremes. To do it you simply add to the sum, but make sure the sum of the premultipliers to the logs adds to 1. You can even apply calculus and model a continuous distribution of outcomes in each case given by some density function.
Even if you add a lot more cases, Weitzman argues that its really the extinction case that ultimately determines the result, so there is no need to endlessly query the science for more detail on the median outcomes.
If you have a table of emission levels with attendant extinction risk estimates you can quickly find the reductions target and it will be quite robust and not change much with further analysis.
Ok, now I know what we need to do, I’m off to the pub.
Peter I had a look at Weitzman’s paper, I read parts of it, and gave up when it became a wankfest of mathematical models, but no numbers. I gave up not because the maths were beyond me, but because I came to the realisation that a cost benefit analysis (CBA) is simply the wrong approach to take, and is the root cause of our inaction.
In a democracy, the costs and benefits of any proposition before government interplay with the election cycle. There are plenty of propositions where the CBA shows a clear benefit, but the proposals aren’t adopted because all the cost will be born by the current government, and all the benefit will flow to some future government (with a good chance that they will then be in opposition). In Australia governments have developed a strange fixation with running a surplus at all costs too, presumably so they get a good credit rating, and then never make use of it (brilliant!). The political cost of a government running a deficit currently swamps any CBA considerations, even when the CBA shows a clear benefit when the cost of debt is included.
For example training doctors takes time, all the cost now, and all the benefit gets gifted to the next government, and if you make the dumb decision to not train enough doctors for the future, then you get all the savings now, and all the headache gets hospital passed to the next government. Its the same for infrastructure, a CBA clearly shows its a good proposition, but the government bears the costs and the populous get the benefit, and all the cost is now and all the benefit is in the future, and deficits have to be avoided at all costs - so the infrastructure doesn’t get built.
The climatologists have been telling us, that if we continue to emit greenhouse gases in the manner we have been doing, then we are greatly increasing the chance of our own extinction in the future, and the longer that we wait before changing our ways, the worse it will be. You do not need a cost benefit analysis to tell you that extinction is a very bad outcome, and now that we are aware of it we should do all in our power to (at a minimum) get the probability of our extinction to stabilise, or (much preferably) to fall.
The problem with addressing climate change is that all the cost is now, and all the benefit comes many election cycles in the future. Cost benefit analysis’s show that acting on climate change “alone” gives all the costs now (including reduced international competitiveness), and absolutely zero benefit in the future. CBAs show that you need all the major emitters on board, (reducing their emissions substantially) to get any benefit, and that until all the countries you compete with for trade are on board “doing nothing” is the best option.
I have two suggestions:
1. We need some form of CO2 linked trade sanctions, so that “doing nothing” is not the best option.
2. When the revolution comes, all the economists and accountants can go up against the wall (except Ross Gittins).
Zoltar
An excellent point about cost now, benefit later makes it very hard for our form of democracy to make the correct decision.
A cost benefit analysis is still relevant, it just isn’t enough to overcome the obstacle. That is the CBA is necessary but not sufficient.
Perhaps the sensitive spot for our pollies is to goad them with how they will be remembered by history. By doing nothing they will risk being seen as grotesque monsters, worse than Stalin or Hitler since the genocide of today’s politicians on future generations will be far more comprehensive than anyone in history if we fail to not act. The fate of “Dubya” seems fairly clear, he’s already the most hated president in US history and the consequences of his worst atrocity (denial, misdirection and delay) are yet to fully unfold.
On the other hand by acting firmly the pollies will be lauded as heroes mightier than Gandhi. Regardless of what criticism you might make of Gore, the fact is he is the current standout example of lining up for this personal outcome for himself.
My pollies have pretty solid ego’s and their leadership generally has a firm sense of history. It stands to reason enough of them will be concerned about how they will be judged by history, and climate change is monumental enough issue that it will be a central theme of the history of our time, and the main players in the drama will be household names (some heroes some villians).
This tactic wouldn’t work for a mundane issue.
Anyway any obstacle has its weak point and maybe this is it in this case.
The problem Gilbert is that there are many steps in addressing climate change, and the governments (and their leaders) which embraced each of them are not going to be equally remembered. The leaders of countries are predominantly old men, so the window for a legacy payback in their lifetime is relatively short. Its also rare for leaders to be remembered for more than one defining moment.
We will choose who comes to this country, and the manner …
The recession we had to have
No child will live in poverty
….. because nothing will save the governor general ….
In current political terms we’ve got these greenhouse milestones:
Setting up the greenhouse office;
Cutting emissions to 1990 levels;
Reducing emissions to 50% of 1990 levels;
Eliminating emissions so that the planet is in CO2 balance; and
Healing the planet by extracting CO2 from the atmosphere.
Howard goes down in history for the first point. Rudd should get the second. The other milestones are for future leaders, and I suspect that it will be the last 2 milestones which are remembered most.
Your goading of politicians reminds me of the movie “the girl in the cafe”, in which the girl attends a dinner on the eve of a G8 summit, and lambastes the politicians about inaction on hunger and poverty.
“… And tomorrow eight of the men sitting ’round this table actually have the ability to sort this out by making a few great decisions. And if they don’t, some day someone else will. And they’ll look back on us lot and say - people were actually dying in their millions unnecessarily, in front of you, on your TV screens. What were you thinking? You knew what to do to stop it happening and you didn’t do those things. Shame on you. So that’s what you have to do tomorrow. Be great instead of being ashamed. …”
Sure Zoltar, but they only need to believe its possible they will be remembered one way or another. What actually happens is another thing. Anyway it seems to me it is one chink in their armour available to us. I haven’t seen any other ideas to get around the problem. So until we get a better one, why shouldn’t we should use it.
Further to this a climate change catastrophe is far more serious than the problems the girl was worried about.
The main implication of Weitzman’s paper, that if there is a non-zero likelihood of catastropic climate change then this swamps all ofther considerations, may be obvious without cost-benefit analysis (CBA). However, CBA is likely to significantly influence policy some makers, so getting the CBA right has an important role achieving greenhouse gas reductions. Estimates of the costs of climate change so far have not adequately taken into account the impact of various “long-tails” and catastrophic effects, implying that Stern’s estimate that “on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century”is likely to be a gross underestimate, depending on how much you value “statistical life on earth as we know it”.
Zoltar, your point about politicians being unlikely to engage in policies which would cost the present government but benefit a future government is a good one. Perhaps this can be thought of as politicians applying very high discount rates due to uncertainty about who will be in government in the future. This will be the case when politicians value political considerations more than public goods. This was certainly the case with the Howard government. I don’t know whether it is the case with the present government, but I am not holding my breath.
One implication of Weitzman’s paper is that the “VSL-like parameter” outweighs discounting or anything else. When it comes to climate change, how much policy-makers value the “statistical life on earth as we know it” is more important than how much they value the future (unless they value the future as zero).
I should also mention that climate change very much pushes CBA to its limits. Using CBA to estimate the costs of climate change involves assumptions about the statistical value of a human life, the cost of a species extinction, methods of aggregating costs between poor people and wealthy people, discounting and the value of life on earth or civilisation as we know it.
While the above issues make CBA problematic, they also make explicit the assumptions that we have to think about when choosing an emission reduction target, global greenhouse gas concentration target, or temperature target.
The point of Wietzman’s paper is the importance of the last parameter - as far as I am aware, nobody applying CBA to climate change seemed to notice this before. Stern used the nonzero possibility of something catastrophic happening when who worked out what discount rate to use for his CBA, but treated this like it was independent of climate change impacts.
Peter, I confess I haven’t read the Stern report, I don’t view climate change as being an economic problem (apart from our fixation on growth), and its not going to have an economic solution. If Stern assumed that the risk of catastrophe is constant, then it was a heroic decision, a decision that few scientists would be happy with.
Peter, thank you, “discount rate” was the term I was getting at. There are many political considerations which influence a government’s decisions, but in CBA terms, I feel that we need to introduce another factor beyond just a “discount rate” for the financial returns, a factor that is akin to perceived value and which I will call an “emotive multiplier”. To illustrate this, consider the Australian government’s efforts in combating Japanese whaling, in purely financial terms the expense doesn’t stack up, but its a highly emotive issue, so the tenuous gains which will be achieved have been greatly magnified.
Governments care most about the near future (one or two political terms), many politicians think ahead to the sort of world their children, or their grandchildren may inherit, but any time period beyond this is pretty much discounted completely. As an extreme example, you’ve got the case of small island nations exporting a sizable proportion of their land mass as guano deposits - short term financial gain, but thought for the nation’s future has been discounted completely. Rudd would be thinking that labor has at least 2 terms in office, so any CBA returns beyond 5 years would get heavily discounted. [The juxtaposition of guano and K. Rudd, was purely coincidental.]
My fourth reason (@15) “To reduce air pollution” has the shortest lead time before you start to get some discernible return on investment, and perhaps more importantly, the return is independent of whether other countries act to reduce greenhouse emissions too (because air quality is predominantly a local factor in Australia). A move from coal fired powered stations to wind/wave/solar (not biofuels) would yield a reduction in CO2 emissions, and by reducing the amount of burning, it would have the effect of reducing the level of particulates in the air, as well as the concentrations of mercury and other nasties. This reduction of irritants should lead to a reduced incidence of asthma, fewer hospital admissions for respiratory conditions (because the number of bad air days would decrease), lower rates of cancer (predominantly lung), etc etc. In political terms such financial savings on health care should attract an “emotive multiplier” (much greater than 1.0) in any CBA consideration. It should do this because better health has value of itself, even if you completely ignore financial considerations (which you should probably do, because spending less on health is perceived as a negative politically, so savings can’t really me materialised). Children’s health has a higher emotive multiplier than health in general, and health has a higher emotive multiplier than some other areas of federal spending, such as foreign aid.
The air pollution aspect could/should be talked up rather than downplayed. I can envisage the press release now, “The government today committed itself to halving the rate at which children are admitted to hospital with severe asthma. The dirtiest coal fired power station in proximity to each capital city will be closed down within the next 4 years, and the government is hereby committing $10B for the construction of a network of wind farms around the country to replace this generation capacity. This initiative will go some way to meeting our Kyoto commitments, however the health of our children remains paramount, and the closure of even more coal fired powered stations (or industries) may be needed in the future.”
If we rely upon CBA thinking and rely chiefly upon climate change as our greenhouse emission reduction argument, then we will continue to do nothing until either: the emotive multiplier for action overcomes the high discount rate for distant returns; or until high cost penalty outcomes loom large on the current political horizon, in other words we’ve waited until its much too late.
The greens have been instrumental in changing attitudes on climate change, and thereby raising the emotive multiplier for action. By all means keep this up, but I feel that down playing the other reasons for reducing greenhouse emissions is an error of judgement.
Zoltar, I really like it. Put the pollution related aspects (i.e. negative health outcomes) of burning fossil fuels front and center in the emissions reductions argument.
Your emotive multiplier explains perfectly why the senators determination to separate the issues is deficient.
The argument that our economy *needs* coal exports at maximum levels is a very weak one.
We are swimming in cash as it is. For the greenhouse denying economic rationalists, wouldn’t it be better to conserve the non-renewable resource for when we are not swimming in cash.
Consuming less is a cleverer way to resolve a $25B shortfall than exporting more non-renewable resource, particularly if peak coal happens this century.
Rather than exporting more coal, what we need to do more is reduce our imports of fast depreciating consumer items and thankfully the RBA is doing its bit for that. Perhaps RBA has been unmasked as the true Australian climate hero here. The governments stance on no more tax cuts will help as well.
For the truly unconvinced then consider that if nothing else holds (i.e. no climate catastrophe occurs) then peak coal will happen and this means coal will get a lot more valuable, so why sell it *all* cheaply now. After all generating more revenue than we need now is inflationary and Rudd wants to overcome that.
Reducing coal production, reduces the demand for workers in coal which feeds them back into the economy reducing capacity constraints and wage pressures.
Perhaps the question should not be why do we want to cut emissions. Instead we need to ask ourselves by how much do we need to cut emissions. Christine raised the inadequacy of the IPCC 4th Assessment that has best case scenarios of 2-2.4 degrees. I would also like to raise the inadequacy of recommendations that expect no targets from China and India. Even if the developed world makes the 40% reductions these will be more than offset by projected increases in China alone. surely the choice is simple: either we want global emissions to remain at a level that avoids dangerous climate cahnge or we do not. On targets for developing nations as ell as on overall emissions trajectories the IPCC seems to have lost sight of correct choice.
G’day Christine Milne & Tim Hollo et al,
Despite all the passionate arguments proffered in this blog I am rather dumbfound that with such a strong emphasis of being guided by the science you could assert “.. but there is one reason and one reason alone for reducing carbon emissions – and that is to do our best to reduce the risks of climate change as far as possible. ..” Forget climate change for a minute as serious as it is, that CodeRed report skims across what in late 2007 was demonstrated to be an equally (if not more worrying reason for the imdeiate cessation of CO2 emmission. On page 15 the CodeRed report skim across the area thus;-
“In addition to this, satellite data gathered over the past ten years shows that the growth of marine
phytoplankton, the basis of the entire ocean food chain, is being adversely affected by rising sea
temperatures (Behrenfeld, Worthington, et al., 2007). Phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that
permeate the oceans remove up to 50 billion tonnes of CO2 per year from the Earth’s atmosphere, as
much as all plant life on the planet’s terrestrial surface.
Marine life will also be further weakened by ocean acidification. The oceans are already 30% more
acidic than they were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. If emissions continue as business
as usual, CO2 levels in the oceans will rise to a point where, by 2050, ocean acidification will reach a
level considered to be equivalent to industrial waste by the US’s own water quality standards
(Caldeira, Archer et al., 2007). If unabated it will have the potential to cause extinction of many
marine species What we’re doing in the next decade will affect our oceans for millions of years
CO2 levels are going up extremely rapidly, and it’s overwhelming our marine systems (Eilperin,
2006; NASA, 2006b).”
What they do not say is that since then scientist have discovered that the Phytoplankton fondation of the whole marine food pyramid is precipiously close to collapse. Recently recorded examples of Phytoplankton exhibit calcium / exoskeleton shell densities at only 50% of the long-term historical mean. Levels so low that said scientist were amazaed that the Phytoplankton was even now surviving. The Phytoplankton a either this very day sitting on, or extermly close to their extinction threshold. So it is not a case of “if” but when the Phytoplankton colapse the rest of the marine food chain will srivel in short order. In a world already over-populated by the human species how much can survive if marine protien is removed from the planets food supply? Is that not reason enough to be extremly concerned about CO2 levels irrespective of what is happening with Climate Change?
Sweet dreams, W.Shawn Gray
Sarah, Ian Gould and I made comments recently at Quiggin’s(Ian from #28 and me from #66) which indicate that China is already well over where it will need to be in per capita terms if we are going to get the climate back into a safe zone, which is what the authors of Climate Code Red are seeking.
Weitzman’s paper, which I read in an earlier draft (well, as much as I could read, given that I don’t understand squiggles), is essentially about taking risk seriously, especially very high value risks (like the end of civilisation as we know it and perhaps life on earth) with low probability but probability high enough to scare the daylights out of us if we actually thought about it for a nanosecond.
Weitzman’s saying that while ‘climate sensitivity’ (the warming resulting from a doubling of CO2) is about 3C (plus or minus 1.5) it is important to note that the parameters have a ‘fat tail’ on the upper end. There is virtually no chance that it will be less than 1.5C. There is, however, a significant chance that it will be above 4.5C. David quotes Weitzman saying that there is a 1% chance of climate sensitivity being above 10C, without the effects of slow feedbacks.
The Climate Code Red authors are on the same page (though they don’t quote Weitzman.) This is from page 36:
So Labor’s policy gives us a one in 7 chance of cooking the planet to the degree that the sea level would go up by 70 meters (as it was 35 million years ago, when the planet was last free of ice sheets.)
Spratt and Sutton suggest that we should use the same standards of risk avoidance that we do in other areas of our lives. Commonly we require risks of less than one in a million if we are thinking of aeroplanes crashing or nuclear power accidents.
Spratt and Sutton then conclude that in order to establish a stable “safe-climate zone” the temperature should be no more than 0.5C higher than pre-industrial levels and CO2e should be no more than 320ppm. They point out that three million years ago levels of CO2 similar to what we have now yielded temperatures 2-3C higher and sea levels 25 metres (plus or minus 10) higher than now.
They argue cogently, I think, that the economies of the world should be put on a war footing and basically decarbonised within 10 years.
Christine in the post argues:
John Quiggin in the post linked to says:
That’s a bit hopeful. Nicholas Gruen seems to have high expectations of Garnaut but I guess that’s from an economics viewpoint. We’ll just have to wait and see.
After reading this interesting article by George Monbiot, in which he deplores the British government’s lack of post-peak oil planning and identifies several major problems with biofuels, I’m beginning to wonder if one solution might not be to recycle waste oil from homes and industries?
I am no scientist, nor even much of an educated environmentalist, so maybe a more educated reader could help me out: is this a plausible strategy? Is it already being done?
I doubt there would be enough waste oil (even if it could all be collected) to fully fuel transport needs, but it would surely add to the fuel stockpile without reducing food crops or clearing more land.
Goodness there is so much to absorb on this site. I would however like to suggest to Ghandi 44 that the combustion of waste oils (for cars, for example) still produces carbon dioxide, and in fact more carbon weight is converted from oils to gas per joule (energy unit) because they are inefficient fuels compared to petrochemicals. In which case, you have to pump more oils in and excrete more carbon dioxide to produce the same amount of energy required, which would be the inverse of what we are aiming to achieve.
I did do an Hons project which involved trying to perfect biological a system for ethanol production. An unfortunate truth is that proposals have to be commercially viable, otherwise you would seldom find a person who would invest in it. I am fairly familiar with the age old “ethanol - fuel of the future” arguement, but I’ve come to realise that Ethanol will pump more CO2 into the atmosphere than petrochemicals per carbon weight in automotive systems, and with the world’s population increasing… that’s more than a little worrying. So here I am left torn as to what values I should stand behind in the dilema of tranpsort caused CO2 emmissions. Using hybrid technology with electric cars? On Beyond Tommorrow, back in 2005 there was an episode that demonstrated a car fueled by air pressure. That was a very facinating invention, with a completely different system for kinetic movement. Of course to fill the scuba-type air tank requires electricity. But the very first downfall that triggered in my head was - imagine automotive accidents. If the tank was pierced, there would be catastrophic injuries and higher mortality rates from car accidents.
I have other thoughts that bug me, that I hope can be resolved for future generations. But I feel I shouldn’t share them. I mean, I absorb a lot of information and have a lot of questions and opinions, but who am I to express them? I feel rather insignificant right now.
~ a perplexed Vicki ~
Well, Vicki, it sounds like you know more than me, so don’t be TOO shy!
That air pressure car was in the news recently: the manufacturer now ways he will be producing it in India very soon, and is looking for investors to set up factories around the world. It’s an extremely basic and lightweight car.
This is from the BBC site:
“The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500.
It will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks built into the chassis.
The tanks can be filled with air from a compressor in just three minutes - much quicker than a battery car.
Alternatively, it can be plugged into the mains for four hours and an on-board compressor will do the job.
For long journeys the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel.
The designers say on long journeys the car will do the equivalent of 120mpg. In town, running on air, it will be cheaper than that. ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7241909.stm
I had the same thought about safety! But here’s the response:
“Mr Negre says there’s no issue with safety - if the air-car crashes the air tanks won’t shatter - they will split with a very loud bang. “The biggest risk is to the ears.”
Vicki, I happen to believe that vehicles powered by compressed air may indeed have merit, provided that we are prepared to make some compromises on details such as vehicle range, vehicle size and shape, vehicle weight, vehicle speed etc. For me the biggest hurdle is “what do you do if you run out of gas”, rather than “what if the tank explodes”.
I suspect that the resource cost for a high pressure tank competes favourably against the resource cost for the battery banks currently needed in electric vehicles (and we bypass any peak lead problem too). Whether or not compressed air vehicles ever take off, compressed air tanks may be viable as an energy storage device for wind farms. The wind turbines would drive air compressors, the compressed air gets stored in high pressure tanks, and is then used as needed to drive electricity generators. Via this process you effectively have “baseload” power, or better than baseload power. The “what about when the wind doesn’t blow” argument is answered with, “we’ve banked the wind”.
Vicki, I suggest you check out some of the peak oil threads, and I’d encourage you to share comments or ideas.
Vicki,
You are completely off the mark with the ethanol comment. Some quick facts based on Australian cane ethanol production (and fully verifiable if you care to phone the farmers growing the cane and producing the ethanol). Australia is growing around 120 tonnes of cane per hectare and extracting approximately 95 litres of ethanol per tonne (read 12,000 ethanol litres per hectare of cane field). The cost in fuel of cultivation and harvesting is a few litres per tonne. At present most of the vehicles used are diesel powered, but there is no reason at all why these cannot be powered by the ethanol that the process produces. The crushed fibres not used to produce ethanol are burned to produce electricity which provides a huge surplus of electricity beyond that required to power the distillation process. There is a lot of information floating around about ethanol production, methods, and efficiencies. Most of it is out of date. What is correct is what is working today.
The sad fact is that Australia’s private passenger vehicles contribute only 7% to our CO2 emissions. The main reason for producing ethanol has to be to extend the oil that is left. Apart from all of that, ethanol is good business, as long as it is produced efficiently and responsibly. Ethanol is an excellent CO2 recycling medium with excellent energy characteristics. The only thing more promising than this is oil from algae, and the only thing more promising than that is electricity from the concentrated solar thermal process, geothermal process or high yield solar photovoltaic cells, and the only thing more promising than that is fusion power.
On the future generations comment, we only have one generations worth of time to get this all right. So you, we, are in the hot seat and have to all work on this together.
Ghandi - excellent. I am actually glad to hear that the safety issue was both addressed and solved to a satisfactory extent. I had the fortune of having a hippy-of-a-chemistry teacher back in highschool. He literally inspired me to look into Ethanol as the fuel for the future. But I am now of the opinion that many minds are thinking in many directions so I should be more receptive to ideas outside the chemical combustion concept. And really, I should keep my eyes and ears open and not just sit one one idea that feels to be the correct one in my mind.
Zoltar,
I do beleive the “run out of gas” problem is not hardly an issue. What is to stop us from having several filled air tanks in the boot, and having them easily removeable - I believe that this car works on these principles (but really I should check before I shoot my mouth off). It’s only be a slight inconvenience to stop your vehicle and exchange tanks whilst you are on the road. And have a weekly run to the pressure station to fill the tanks, as opposed to our weekly petrol fill up.
I am concerned about safety because driving is a highly appreciated mode of transport that is used globally. There is a high incident of acciedents that cost lives and property damage, and technology is driven to accomodate features for safety. To risk higher incidents of mortality because of the way the invention is designed will not be looked at favourably as a viable replacement for the current modes of driving. Essentially - peoples lives and safety are very significant, and that has to be taken into account when approaching solutions.
On another note (Bflat to be exact), I am also concerned about plastics. They are derived from petrochemicals. They are the most important material in modern society because they are easily moulded, reusable and cheap to manufacture. To date there has not been any cheap materials to replace them. BUT I had dappled in readings about biologically created pseudoplastics - really they are called bioplastics. Made naturally, degrade naturally and have similar chemistries and physical properties to synthetic plastics. Only discovered recently (I think withing the last 20 years or so). So, I am lead to question whether using such chemicals to replace current plastics is feasible in both the physical sense and the commercial sense. I would like to help make it happen. For me this is a strong belief. Mmm, many things worth pondering over. I don’t mean to side track, my mind does not work in a striaght line, so to speak.
I don’t know if I’m allowed to post links. I have seen a VERY bizarre approach to addressing climate change. It simultaneuosly pisses me off and intrigues me. But in all honesty, many speculations spoken by this David Keith fellow are correct in my view.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/192
Of course the very first thing that triggers in my head is : America has the resources, they’re going to do it without the rest of the world’s permission. The clouds will diminish light absorption. This will effect every living system on the earth because all energy is derived fromt he sun. And the cooling stage has not been measured, how can it even conceivably be controlled. I am of the belief that Americans should just freaking chuck out their playstations and cut out that extra wasted energy consumtion dammit! (ironically I communicate through a computer)
BilB,
Your discussion is very intriguing, I must say. I believe that I was addressing the carbon emmisions issue, not the reducing petrochemicals consumption issue. I’ll go check my textbooks again but I really do recall that combustion of ethanol per carbon unit produces less energy than petrochemicals.
I think also that a lot of research is being done to have biological systems ferment lignocellulosics becasue they are cheap and easily obtainable biological material. The current downfall is that approximately half the sugars in lignocellulosics are “pentose” sugars that are not easily metabolised. So in essence only half the carbon is able to be converted to ethanol.
Another though just came to me actually. Don’t planes combust a lot of oil? Imagine the airline industry diminishing, unless some technology has arisen to replace their current modes or air travel.
Vicki
The argument for liquid biofuel is that it is a highly convenient form of energy useful for sustaining civilisation and that it should be used sparingly and only where no good alternative exists.
I don’t agree that it is an overriding concern that combustion of ethanol produces more CO2 per unit energy output than combustion of crude oil production.
Surely the overriding concern is the net emissions of the whole process from production to consumption.
Since bio-ethanol gains its carbon out of the atmosphere which is then returned to the atmosphere at combustion then there is the *potential* that for a given energy output it will make a lesser contribution than fossil fuels to an increase in CO2 levels.
Fossil fuels simply don’t first reduce our present CO2 levels before increasing them. They reduced CO2 concentrations a long time ago when CO2 concentrations were *much* higher than they are today and the world was *much* hotter and very human unfriendly and if we go there I doubt civilisation will make the journey.
If a system is designed such that all the input energy for ethanol production is sustainable and no detrimental land use change occurs then it is even *possible* that a bio-ethanol fuel cycle will not raise at all (although seriously I doubt this will happen any time soon if ever).
I personally don’t think ethanol is our best biofuel, but I don’t think we can’t write ethanol off just because crude produces a more “energy per unit carbon” form of fuel.
On another topic, I just finished reading the Revenge of Gaia by Lovelock. Its definitely worth a read for anyone who has simply accepted arguments against nuclear without first seriously testing those arguments. I dare say Lovelock understands the issues as well or better than anyone and try as I might I could not seriously fault his arguments. I am on record on several forums being anti-nuclear and I am now a little embarrassed to admit that Lovelock has revealed to me that my nuclear objections were entirely superficial.
I would not call myself pro-nuclear, but I will be far more skeptical of the anti-nuclear arguments from here. I will be looking for the anti-nuclear stance to properly rebut the Lovelock position. If anyone knows of a proper rebuttal to Lovelock that actually stands up then I’d love to know about it.
Gilbert,
I think you speak correctly, especially in terms of carbon emmisions. I think also I was speaking in terms of having ethanol as the sole fuel source for cars. For me, personally I think ethanol on it’s own is not the way to go. If ethanol were tied in with solar or air pressure (for example) then it would be super in the sense that it works as a backup or strengthened source of energy (for long trips), whilst at the same time, does not have that strong demand that petrochemicals have these days. On the other hand, our dependancy for electricity will go up. In which again I think combustion of biofeuls should not be the sole energy source. They can combine with solar/wind/geothermal etc at the backup source on days where collecting natural energy yields poorly. In my personal opinion, just because the opportunity to combust other carbon chemcicals is there, it does not mean it is the sole, correct solution.
I agree with Christine that Garnaut and PM Rudd do look at climate change from an economic and political perspective. Fortunately / unfortunately this is the political system we live under.
The PM knows that if he tries to make radical changes to reduce climate change, then a large number of voters would vote for an alternative political party who does not believe in radical change.
MP Rudd needs to look at all views, set some high level objectives, then commence planning for reductions over, say the next 20 years, that will not dramatically impact employment or living standards for the average voter.
For example Canberra can look at what they can do in the states to increase volume public transport viability. I believe that most capital cities are in real trouble trying to increase public transport to outlying suburbs due to no transport corridors being left for rail etc. therefore requiring residents to drive into the CBD. Canberra could assist the states to encourage business to move out into satellite suburbs,
One overriding issue that Canberra needs to workout, is how to progress with a minimal amount of expenditure, as we need to remember that the Labor Government has been instructed by the RBA to reduce expenditure by $10+ billion, while the government has committed to large income tax cuts (which are inflationary anyway) which will further reduce budget allocations for any actions.
Gilbert (comment 52), there are many problems, not only with ethanol, but with all types of alternative non-fossil fuels. For example, ethanol based fuel cannot not be utilised in aircraft (piston type) engines, due to varying burn rates, which obviously eliminates electric power from aircraft usage. Pressurised natural Gas, as well as hydrogen have possibilities for motor vehicles, but will take, maybe, 10 years to become economically viable.
Grant
Thanks, although I wasn’t advocating ethanol. I was discussing that a key reason for using liquid biofuels is the huge convenience of that form of energy for very particular tasks which will outweigh a whole series of negatives related to biofuel to the extent that a small amount of biofuel will be a mandatory part of our future energy landscape.
I should have been clearer that I was thinking much further out in time than ten years to some (possibly mythical) time when we have whole life cycle biofuel systems that do not contribute to increasing CO2 levels, I can explain more. I am thinking to when the majority of our transport uses an alternate energy paradigm than crude and we also make substitutions like extremely high bandwidth immersive video (possibly holographic) conferencing in place of business travel.
To be clear I consider biofuel as being in the same energy paradigm as crude, although with enough distinguishing characteristics to crude (i.e. life cycle emissions and simple economic availability post peak oil) to make it more desirable than crude.
The range of biofuels extends beyond ethanol obviously giving us an array of unmodified fuel properties overcoming shortcoming of ethanol. Chemical synthesis techniques can also extend or shorten the length of the raw biofuels carbon chain and thus alter the burn characteristics.
Further to this combustion chambers can be redesigned for fuel type ch