Releasing his Interim Report in Adelaide [Australia] today, Professor Ross Garnaut who was appointed by the new Labor government to provide policy advice on climate change, said that Australia should
promote strong global action on climate change and be prepared to match the commitments of
other developed nations.
The Executive Summary states:
This Interim Report seeks to provide a flavour of early findings from the work of the Review,
to share ideas on work in progress as a basis for interaction with the Australian community,
and to indicate the scope of the work programme through to the completion of the Review.
There are some important areas of the Review’s work that are barely touched upon in the
Interim Report, which will feature prominently in the final reports. Adaptation to climate
change, energy efficiency and the distribution of the costs of climate change across
households and regions are amongst the prominent omissions from this presentation.
Many views put forward in this Interim Report represent genuinely interim judgements. The
Review looks forward to feedback from interested people before formulating
recommendations for the final reports.
Developments in mainstream scientific opinion on the relationship between emissions
accumulations and climate outcomes, and the Review’s own work on future “business as
usual” global emissions, suggest that the world is moving towards high risks of dangerous
climate change more rapidly than has generally been understood. This makes mitigation
more urgent and more costly. At the same time, it makes the probable effects of unmitigated
climate change more costly, for Australia and for the world.
The largest source of increased urgency is the unexpectedly high growth of the world
economy in the early twenty-first century, combined with unexpectedly high energy intensity
of that growth and continuing reliance on high-emissions fossil fuels as sources of energy.
These developments are associated with strong economic growth in the developing world,
first of all in China. The stronger growth has strong momentum and is likely to continue. It is
neither desirable nor remotely feasible to seek to remove environmental pressures through
diminution of the aspirations of the world’s people for higher material standards of living. The
challenge is to end the linkage between economic growth and emissions of greenhouse
gases.
Australia’s interest lies in the world adopting a strong and effective position on climate
change mitigation. This interest is driven by two realities of Australia’s position relative to
other developed countries: our exceptional sensitivity to climate change: and our exceptional
opportunity to do well in a world of effective global mitigation. Australia playing its full part in
international efforts on climate change can have a positive effect on global outcomes. The
direct effects of Australia’s emissions reduction efforts are of secondary importance.
Australia has an important role to play alongside its international partners in establishing a
realistic approach to global mitigation. Australia can contribute to the development of clear
international understandings on the four components of a successful framework for global
mitigation: setting the right global objectives for reduction of the risk of dangerous climate
change; converting this into a goal for stabilisation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at
a specified level; calculating the amount of additional emissions that can be emitted into the
atmosphere over a specified number of years if stabilisation of atmospheric concentrations is
to be achieved at the desired level; and developing principles for allocating a limited global
emissions budget among countries.
Australia should make firm commitments in 2008, to 2020 and 2050 emissions targets that
embody similar adjustment cost to that accepted by other developed countries. A lead has
been provided by the European Union, and there are reasonable prospects that the United
States will become part of the main international framework after the November 2008
elections. Some version of the current State and Federal targets of 60 per cent reduction by
2050, with appropriate interim targets, would meet these requirements.
Download and read the full report here: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/reports-and-papers
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer: It’s a tall order given a few of the views here
We have got more interest rate rises due which is going to again hit “working families”. Plus fuel is up.
That should keep their emissions low, shouldn’t it?
We could be like Cuba, taxed to smithereens and living a low emitting life, playing crappy music and smoking huge cigars
Just as I expected. The turkey hasn’t factored any of the 34 new nuclear power stations that China has already signed up for. This, along with India’s nuclear plans, blows all the projections right out the window. It renders the parts of the report dealing with emission intensity of GDP completely redundant.
Furthermore, they fail to recognise that an increase in the growth rate of a developing nation shortens the time it will take for that economy to reach the plateau phase when both economic growth slows and emission intensity declines.
This sorry excuse for a thorough review wrongly extrapolates from that increased growth in a way that assumes that it just goes on and on into the stratosphere. Tell that to some of the merchant bankers out there, I hear they could use a good laugh.
It is the standard, Garnaut, made-to-order bollocks. And I just can’t wait for the day when all those swing voters get handed the blank cheque they signed on election day.
Professor Garnaut must be living on a different planet. Looking at satellite temperatures for the planet for the past eight years, an upward trend is not visible.
In fact just recently, the place has been distinctly cooler. Try asking the Chinese, the Indians, the Afghans, the Tajiks, plus a few North Americans —–
Garnaut is being deceitful. Among the submissions to his review there were many that questioned the assumption that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to rising temperatures, but he seems only have been interested in submissions that support his own beliefs.
He’s just another economist who reads the self-serving publicity from many organisations for a year or so and then thinks he knows everything. I doubt very much that he’s ever looked at climate data – temperature, rainfall, ENSO conditions, winds and cloud cover.
If tossing was an Olympic sport it would be difficult to find a potential gold medallisr as good as Garnaut.
Just as I expected. The turkey hasn’t factored any of the 34 new nuclear power stations that China has already signed up for. This, along with India’s nuclear plans, blows all the projections right out the window. It renders the parts of the report dealing with emission intensity of GDP completely redundant.
They also appear to have used the fact that Chinas high current growth rates are producing emissions that exceed the early parts of the outrageous A1F1 scarenario, as an excuse for accepting the bull$hit assumptions in the rest of that scarenario. That is, they assume that China and India will achieve the USA megasprawl emissions footprint of 20tCO2/capita rather than the far more likely 5.5tCO2/capita Swedish or French (nuclear based) footprints.
Furthermore, they fail to recognise that an increase in the growth rate of a developing nation shortens the time it will take for that economy to reach the plateau phase when economic growth slows and emission intensity declines.
This sorry excuse for a thorough review wrongly extrapolates from that increased growth in a way that assumes that it just goes on and on into the stratosphere. Perhaps Garnaut should tell that to some of the merchant bankers out there, I hear they could use a good laugh.
It is the standard, Garnaut, made-to-order bollocks. And I just can’t wait for the day when all those swing voters get handed the blank cheque they signed on election day.
Interesting report. Good to see he has considered the many denialist ‘scientific’ submissions he’s obviously received and dismissed them out of hand, whilst presenting a nice graphic, for want of a better word, of the scientific uncertainties. Even gets the predicted sea-level rise with associated caveats correct as well. Top work fella!!!
I expect right-wing heads will be exploding across the country tonight. I quote:
“First, there are considerable uncertainties attached to both climate change impacts and mitigation. Many would argue that the uncertainty requires a conservative rather than
ambitious approach to mitigation. But what is conservative in a context where the
possible outcomes include some that most humans today would consider catastrophic?
Conservatism may in fact require erring on the side of ambitious mitigation. After all,
prudent risk management would suggest that it is worth the sacrifice of a significant
amount of current income to avoid a small chance of a catastrophic outcome.”
Bahahahahahah!!
I don’t wish to spoil your evening luvvies, but is that the faintest click click of a Geiger counter?
“The direct effects of Australia’s emission reduction efforts are of secondary importance”
Admission that it doesnt matter what Australia does in physical terms, it is all symbolic.
Australia is just along for the ride.
Thats fine, Nexus, as long as we can line him up and machine gun him when the Thames freezes over again and the whole scam is exposed as fraud.
Garnault’s report is like a Royal Commission – the result is known beforehand.
This global warming scam is all about creating an independent revenue source for the UN, not mitigating weather.
AGW has been comprehensively falsified scientifically.
I hadn’t seen Garnaut since the bodgie was in the lodge and was dumbfounded to discover that “THE DUDE HAS A COMB-OVER”. You people seriously expect me to take some sad poop with a comb-over seriously?
I would be inclined to assign more credibility to a guy with a piece of 3 week old roadkill on his head. A bloody COMB-OVER, for pity sake.
Trust me, I am fully cognisant of everything around me, I have no emotional crutches, and I wear a bloody comb-over? Naaahhtt.
Psssst, wanna buy a ferret pelt? First class ferret pelt, only twenty rupees.
Shit Ian, I gather you have had a look at yourself lately. No? You’re an old, fat, red-faced waddler who sounds like he has an intellectual disability and acts like it too. An octopus has a better-looking arse than your head and actually serves more purpose. Even children have more variety in their attacks than petty personal jibes and colourful (albeit unoriginal) language. Grow up moron. Plenty want to machine gun you down.
Hhmmn, not too many people willing to defend Garnaut’s ruthless exploitation of the A1F1 emission scarenario. Garnaut’s entire position depends on it and not a word in his defence.
By the way, does anyone know the actual sizes of these widely reported 840 coal fired power stations that the Chinese are supposedly installing in future? Are they all megascale? How many are small to medium scale for distinct regions?
Did Garnaut factor in any hydro power from the three gorges Dam? I doubt it.
So can we conclude then, Roger, that you might be part of the Grande Old Order of Comb-Over Captains? Can I sell you some fur balls?
See the answers to the above questions at http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002782.html#comments
Yes they are building two new coal fired power stations each week but that is because they are replacing 10.6 old small coal stations each week. They closed 553 small stations in 2007 and replaced them with larger, more efficient and less emission intensive ones that the Europeans are all queueing up to do co-generation projects on.
And the actual number of new Chinese nuclear power stations committed for the 2011-2015 five year plan is 86, not 34 as stated above. That is, one new 1000mW station with zero emissions EVERY THREE WEEKS. And they haven’t even started on the 2016-2020 plan yet.
For Garnaut to have ignored this essential information is a prima facie case of professional negligence that needs to be examined by the proper authorities.
For him to state that the situation is worse than expected is gross misrepresentation.