How to slash emissions without pain

Age
Friday 4/4/2008 Page: 1

VICTORIA could slash its greenhouse gas emissions by using technology that is already available, according to a report to be launched at today's State Government climate change summit. The report, commissioned by the Government, says emissions could be cut by as much as one third by 2020 without substantially reducing the state's reliance on brown coal. Consultants the Nous Group found emissions should stop rising between 2005 and 2015 purely due to existing government policies and the rising use of forests as "carbon sinks."

Most of the cut would come from efficiency drives - improving energy use in business, agriculture and transport, including making cars more environmentally friendly. After 2020, further cuts would depend on renewable energy and the success of clean coal technology, mainly storing carbon dioxide emissions underground. Modelling suggests the cut in greenhouse gases could reach 47% below 2000 levels by 2050.

Climate Institute Australia policy director Erwin Jackson, a discussion leader at the summit, said the report was encouraging. "We have the technology, now the question is: do we have the political will?" he said. Despite the State Government's optimistic report, leading climate scientist Professor David Karoly said he was sceptical about clean coal and called on the Government to use the summit to address the state's reliance on high-polluting brown coalfired power stations.

Professor Karoly - a coauthor of the UN's Nobel prizewinning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, now working at University of Melbourne - challenged Mr Brumby's claim Victoria was a leader in the global fight to tackle climate change.

"Victoria is leading the way in terms of brown coal. It's leading the way in high emissions per person (from energy) because of the brown coal." The climate change summit will bring together 120 experts and industry figures to debate issues including how to cut energy and transport emissions, position Victoria to capitalise on growing industries, and help poor households cope with rising electricity and petrol costs.

The Government will promise a climate change draft policy paper by the end of the year, to completed in mid-2009. Climate scientists argue growing evidence suggests Victorian and federal pledges to slash emissions by 60% by 2050 do not go far enough to avert the potential consequences of climate change - species extinction, rising seas and mass starvation. In an interim report last month, government climate adviser Ross Garnaut said the science indicated a 70-90% cut was needed.

Speakers to day include former chief Australian scientist Robin Batterham, who will argue the financial benefits of new energy technologies have been overstated, potentially increasing the price of dealing with climate change.

In his discussion paper to be presented to the summit today, Professor Batterham - who is also Rio Tinto's chief scientist - says major new technologies such as geothermal power are expensive and carry high risks in early commercialisation. "This all suggests we have to discount some of the optimism of those who are pushing new technologies and, equally, discount some of the forward projections of cost reduction from those that have been in the marketplace for many years," his paper states.