Penny Wong released the official greenhouse inventory for 2006 this morning, and you can read and study it in all its glory here.
The three take home messages, for me, are firstly that emissions are inexorably rising, particularly in the energy sector, when they need to peak and come down as fast as possible. Astonishing to see that increased coal use accounts for 70% of our total emissions increases since 1990. Secondly, the Climate Change Department, in crafting this document (which, by the way, is much clearer than anything the AGO had put out in the past), made an apparently quite deliberate point of noting that the small reduction in transport emissions is directly attributable to a spike in petrol prices. Thirdly, the mess around accounting for land use change and forestry desperately needs to be dealt with.
Our release from earlier in the day is here.
The messages I got were the following.
The figures for forestry, agriculture and land use change are rubbery, and guestimates at best.
Australia’s total carbon emissions are climbing and this is despite falling per capita emissions and falling emissions per dollar of GDP.
This shows that emission reductions due to efficiency gains are being outpaced by economic growth and population growth. Therefore our market economy is failing to price carbon to the point where any sort of balance can be reached, let alone a reduction in emissions.
In the absence of any controls on economic and population growth, a pricing mechanism for carbon is vital (trading or tax, take your pick). For those that believe the reserve bank is ‘controlling’ economic growth via targeting inflation, be advised that the target rate of 3% inflation (inflation being in large part a measure of demand and economic growth) is in effect compound growth, therefore Australia’s official target is for exponential growth!
Exponential growth can only be possible if matched by exponential gains in efficiency and emissions reduction. Exponential gains in either efficiency and emission reduction are impossible as the laws of physics come into play. The only way for Australia to meet it’s growth ambitions AND carbon reduction obligations, is to move to renewables.
Using an abundant, external and clean power source, aka the Sun, would mean our energy demands can increase with emissions minimized and efficiency gains less of an issue. This is so bleeding obvious and yet it really is beyond the comprehension of the domineering and old political parties.
A few related reports such as the inventory by economic sector are also out. Figure 7 on Page 11 of the inventory by economic sector is interesting. The residential sector is responsible for less emissions than either “Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing” or “manufacturing”. This suggests two things: Firstly, that while voluntary actions in the residential sector are important, it is no substitute for governments getting policies in place that reduce emissions across the whole economy; secondly, if permits in an emissions trading scheme are mostly auctioned and a portion of the money raised is transferred to households, then that could easily lead to a net transfer of wealth to households, which would mean that they have nothing to lose from increasing the carbon price. Sure, petrol, electricity and beef will increase in price, but suddenly that won’t seem so bad when you get a nice fat cheque from the government every month…
I totally agree that the mess around LULUCF needs to be dealt with. The sooner we include all lands in our greenhouse gas accounts the better. At present only land that is converted from a ‘kyoto forest’ to land which is not a ‘kyoto forest’ or vice versa is included, so if you log an old growth forest, which stores huge amounts of carbon in both its soil and biomass, and then burn it, then because a forest will grow back, the emissions from logging and burning are not included in our greenhouse gas accounts!
Very good questioning from Christine Milne in senate estimates on this subject.