Friday 26/1/2007 Page: 26
Climate change is the next big market opportunity and our best and brightest are being lured overseas as a result. Anne Davies reports.Dr Tony Haymet was the chief of marine and atmospheric science at CSIRO until September when he received an offer to head San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, one of America's foremost research institutes. For Haymet it was a wrench. He loves his cricket, his footy and he is proud of CSIRO, which he says does "amazing things" given its budget.
But the Scripps board played to his weakness: he could be a scientist making a difference to policy in a state which is leading the way for the United States on climate change.
It was a Scripps scientist, Charles David Keeling, who had the foresight in the 1960s to begin measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 3.2 kilometres above sea level, at the observatory on the peak of Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The data Keeling collected over the next four decades led to the disturbing graphs that feature in Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, and tipped the scales of public opinion on global warming in Australia and the US.
Scripps scientists have been involved in the preparation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. It is the next big scientific signpost on global warming. The executive summary will be released in Paris next Friday, and according to The New York Tines, will contain "compelling evidence" of global warming, and that it is happening faster than anticipated.
Climate science is one where Australian scientists had established a big reputation. But in the past few years, the attitude of the Australian Government towards global warming and its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol has changed the way people think about Australians in the field, says Haymet.
"Scientists are social animals, so they tend to generalise about scientists from particular countries, just as we did about scientists from the former Soviet Union," he says. "Those of us who inherited this idea of Australia as a team player in the world have had to adjust over the last couple of years. We are no longer perceived as being supporters of the UN or the world scientific enterprise.
To meet someone for the first time and have them badmouth Australia, whether justified or not, is not easy." At CSIRO Haymet was responsible for reviewing the organisation's guidelines on scientists speaking out publicly, after several scientists said they had been gagged by the Government from speaking out about global warming issues.
As the director of Scripps, Haymet has found himself at the forefront of climate change research, and at the forefront of a political debate that is being fostered by government, not stifled. The Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is leading the world on climate-change reforms. "In my experience, it is unprecedented," Haymet says.
In 2005 the Republican governor, better known for his Hollywood role as the Terminator, signed an executive order establishing climate-change emission reduction targets for his state, declaring "the debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat. And we know the time for action is now." Since then, California, which would be the eighth-biggest economy in the world if it was a separate country, has been going it alone on climate change. "He's made it respectable to be a Republican and talk about climate change," says Haymet. "The members of Governor Schwarzenegger's cabinet are from all quarters of politics. I really have the sense we can do something here, that we can take Scripps science and bring it right up to the policy makers and convince them to make some profound changes." Schwarzenegger has convinced the California business community about the economic benefits of responding to climate change, rather than putting it off.
That was on display when prominent members of the Californian power, oil and gas industry, as well as Haymet, addressed the inaugural Australian-American Leadership Dialogue meetings on the West Coast earlier this month. The privately funded diplomatic exercise, led by a Melbourne businessman, Phil Scanlan, had made innovation and global warming two of its themes.
Repeatedly the Australian delegates were bowled over to hear business figures talk, not of opposing carbon limits, but of the opportunities the new carbon-constrained world would present. That means being first with the ideas, the innovations and the science - in renewables, in cleaner engines and in myriad smart technologies.
California is in the throes of implementing a comprehensive plan to meet those targets which commit the state to reducing its emissions to 2000 levels by 2010. By 2020 it plans to cut emissions to 1990 levels and by 2050 it plans to be 80 per cent below those levels.
Unlike NSW, which describes its 2050 target of a 60 per cent cut as "aspirational", Schwarzenegger seems deadly serious about achieving his. This week, the state's regulator's began public hearings on its plans to meet the targets.
There are recommendations from the Governor's Climate Action Team - in sufficient detail that it's possible to envisage how the targets might be met and who's responsible for implementing them. For example, the Air Resources Board will be expected to implement new vehicle climate-change standards which by 2020 are predicted to save 30 million metric tonnes of CO2 a year.
The Department of Forestry is expected to contribute savings equivalents of 12.5 million tonnes by reforestation projects. Efficiency programs at the municipal level are expected to save 5.9 million tonnes by 2020, and biofuels are expected to save 3.2 million tonnes. There are even recommendations about how much CO2 can be saved through farmers changing the way they handle their waste. "California has depoliticised the issue," says Haymet.
"The fatal mistake of the science community 15 or 20 years ago was we got wedged. We got drawn into a debate that was highly political and almost religious, and we weren't skilful enough to navigate our way to a place where we could patiently answer the questions on whether this effect was real. We got diverted and maybe we lost a decade in terms of response." Haymet contrasts this to the Montreal protocol on CFCs which was negotiated at the height of the Cold War and has largely stopped the production and emission of ozone-depleting CFCs.
It can be done on CO2, says Haymet. "I think we have five years to really make a plan globally and act locally," he says. "In Australia we can start thinking about our next generation of power stations, we can start thinking about our transportation needs.
"One unique thing about Australia is that the fraction of our energy used in transportation is much larger than other countries - we have special needs and we need to think through those ourselves and find our own solutions.
"I think there is an economic case that Australia should invest more in solar energy.
I have a hunch there will be some very successful solar technologies." Haymet also argues that it is a matter of doing everything. That might mean nuclear power, wind power, geothermal power, hydrogen and other renewables. " In the context of global warming, every 3 per cent counts," he says.
Greenhouse targets:
- Cut emissions to 2000 levels by 2010
- Cut emissions by 25 per cent by 2020
- Cut emissions to 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050
- State-based emissions trading scheme being set up by 2012
- Interim measure to require new power plants and electricity supply contracts to meet a performance standard for greenhouse gas emissions. Will prevent the importation of electricity from old coalfired power stations interstate
- World's toughest vehicle emissions standards being introduced in 2009 and fully implemented by 2016
- Oil companies will be required to produce cleaner fuels
- Companies must report all emissions by the end of this year
- Reduction targets for all levels of government will be set as part of the plan
- Funding for innovation in renewable technologies. Could come from philanthropic funds, from a charge on transportation and from power charges.
- California's universities to work with private sector on new technologies
- Other early steps include increasing recycling mandates, lowering methane emissions from landfills and requiring appliances to emit fewer hydrofluorocarbons
0 comments:
Post a Comment