8 December 2015, Renew Economy, How Australia can lead on climate in the final week at Paris. Australia has a final chance to shake its reputation as a global climate laggard and position our economy for a boom in growth with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop taking the reins for the final week of climate negotiations in Paris. The agreements set this week will give smart nations an opportunity to test cutting edge ideas, and could potentially enable Australia to start attracting more of the world’s leading companies and brightest thinkers to our shores. Unfortunately, the first week of negotiations suggests that Australia is on track to miss this unique opportunity to seize the lead and position Australian business to capture a share of the trillions now being invested in the shift to a low carbon economy. Given there is virtually no chance of Australia meaningfully changing it’s 26-28% reduction target at this late stage, the Future Business Council has compiled three simple yet significant actions Australia could announce instead. These actions would boost our credibility, play to our economy’s natural advantages and prepare our business community for future growth. Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
7 December 2015, The Conversation, Australia’s climate diplomacy is like a doughnut: empty in the middle. There is a profound disconnect between Australia’s international climate diplomacy and its national climate and energy policies. The diplomacy could be cast in positive terms, on the surface at least. During the first week of the climate negotiations in Paris, Australia displayed a preparedness to be flexible and serve as a broker of compromises in the negotiations over the draft Paris Agreement. Australia has also agreed to support the inclusion of a temperature goal to limit global warming to 1.5℃, which is a matter very dear to the hearts of Pacific Island nations for whom climate change is a fundamental existential threat. Australia will serve as co-chair (with South Africa) of the Green Climate Fund in 2016, which will be channelling money to the most vulnerable countries in the Pacific and elsewhere to enhance their preparedness for the harmful impacts arising from a much warmer world. …. Yet appearances can be deceiving. The A$200 million in annual climate finance comes from the aid budget and is not new or additional. Nor does it represent an enhanced commitment relative to previous contributions. And it is widely acknowledged that an enhanced commitment to climate finance by rich countries to assist poor countries to develop clean energy and adapt to climate change will be central to garnering the support of developing countries to a Paris agreement. Australia had every reason to ratify Kyoto II, since it had one of the lowest emissions targets in the developed world for 2020 (5% below 2000 levels). Australia has also been able to benefit from greenhouse gas accounting rules (including a carry over of surplus emissions allowances from the first commitment period) that will enable achievement of this target at the same time as greenhouse emissions outside the land sector are set to increase by around 11% by 2020. Read More here
7 December 2015, Renew Economy, Paris, COP21: Australia ignoring energy transition as emissions soar. Australia is being put on the spot at the Paris climate talks about its treatment of surplus credits from the Kyoto Protocol, and the fact that it will more than likely meet its short- and mid-term targets without actually reducing its industrial emissions. Indeed, it seems that the Turnbull government – like those before it since the Kyoto Treaty was first signed in 1997 – is insisting that its focus remain on accounting and ticking boxes, rather than reducing industrial and energy emissions and preparing the country to decarbonise its economy. That rise in industrial emissions is one reason why Australia will not be following the example of five European countries and cancelling their Kyoto surplus. On Friday, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain announced that they will cancel 634.6 million excess Kyoto credits that they could have counted towards their Kyoto targets for 202. They decided to do this as part of a bid to remove what has been described as a giant “hot air” loophole that has favoured some countries. “By cancelling surplus units we hope to send a strong positive signal of support for an ambitious global climate agreement here in Paris,” the European nations said in a joint statement. But don’t expect Australia to follow suit. Australia is still intent on using its surplus of 128 million units to meet its modest 2020 targets, which it will do despite it becoming increasingly clear that its industrial emissions, and its power sector emissions in particular, will continue to rise. That doesn’t appear to faze the Turnbull government. When RenewEconomy asked environment minister Greg Hunt on Friday if the government was worried that its approach would not position Australia to decarbonise its economy and compete with other countries committed to doing so, Hunt simply said that the critical thing for Australia was to meet its targets. Its Direct Action program is buying emissions abatement through its emissions reduction fund, and $2.55 billion of taxpayer money – but as quickly as it is doing this, emissions are rising in the electricity sector and elsewhere. A new report from Pitt & Sherry says electricity emissions alone are rising 10 per cent, and estimates by Reputex put the increase in industrial emissions at 6 per cent by 2020. Read More here
2 December 2015, Renew Economy, As Paris talks, Australia’s energy emissions are going in the wrong direction. As all readers will know, publication of this report comes during the first week of the crucial UN Climate Change Conference (COP21 under the UNFCCC) in Paris. For that reason, we devote most of the full report to looking at overall trends in Australia’s energy combustion emissions, including changes since 2004-05, the reference year chosen by the Australian government for its official 2030 emissions reduction target. Energy combustion emissions covered by CEDEX® include all emissions arising from the generation of electricity in the National Electricity Market (NEM), all emissions from the combustion of petroleum products within Australia, i.e. excluding international ship and aircraft bunkers, and all emissions from the combustion of natural gas by gas consumers (i.e. not including emissions from the gas industry’s own use of gas – see below) in NSW, Victoria, SA and Tasmania. All data are reported as moving annual totals, so as to remove seasonal effects on consumption of relevant products, and in terms of the changes since June 2009. The emissions reported by CEDEX® reached their historical maximum in December 2008, i.e. in the calendar year 2008. By June 2009 the annualised total, i.e. total for financial year 2008-09, had fallen by 0.7%. The financial year 2008-09 is also the year in which Australia’s total emissions from fossil fuel combustion, as reported in Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, reached their historic maximum. Read More here