We wait with bated breath for the white smoke to emerge from the hallowed halls. Well, at least the white paper about emissions. It’s the numbers that are the interesting part. Will Rudd listen to Garnaut? Or the Climate Scientists? Or will he listen to the shrill cries from Woodside, Xstrata and the other big polluters?
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have called on developed nations to commit to 25-40% cuts in greenhouse emissions by 2020 – based on 1990 levels. The science on which this was based has now been shown to be too conservative, and it is likely that we actually need much higher cuts if we are to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change. Even if we take this 25-40% range as a good indication of the science, there is then the political question about how much of the burden rich countries like Australia should take, give our historical contribution to the problem. So we’re looking at Australia needing to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020 – probably higher.
Garnaut basically recommended a range of 5-25% depending on what happens in the international negotiations. Reading the tealeaves in the bottom of cups in the parliamentary cafeteria and it is difficult to expect anything higher than 15% at the most. Which would essentially mean the Australian Government quitting on Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, many low lying Pacific Islands – and life as we know it.
But Rudd has a choice. His legacy will not be defined by his economic management, or workchoices or any of these other worthy but short-term considerations. His legacy will be judged on his actions on climate change. Everything else will be swept away in the rising tide of history.
Will the smoke be black like coal? Or will it be white like a shining new wind turbine, sparking in the sun? There is no point holding our breaths because if Rudd gives the wrong answer, we simply can’t accept it. Otherwise, as Garnaut put it so eloquently, “if we fail, on a balance of probabilities, the failure of our generation will haunt humanity until the end of time.”
One Comment
All you say is all too true. What the government does about climate change will influence our future and all our decendents futures. If we do not act to keep the CO2 down so that the temperature does not rise by greater than 2 degrees then anything else that happens is not important. As the inhabitants of the driest inhabited continent on earth if we do not take the correct action then how can we expect any other nation to do so?