New climate protocol needs long-term plan to reduce emissions

Canberra Times
Tuesday 8/4/2008 Page: 11

Four months ago in Bali, Australia was enthusiastically welcomed as the newest member of the Kyoto club. Having finally ratified the Kyoto Protocol, Australia, along with the rest of the international community, is now focusing its attention on what will happen when the Kyoto Protocol ceases to exist in 2012. The international community is now negotiating the next international climate change protocol and is currently meeting in Bangkok to continuing the work that was begun in Bali last year.

The importance of this new protocol cannot be understated. It is increasingly clear that the primary success of the Kyoto Protocol was in raising public awareness of climate change more so than actually reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Another "success" of this magnitude will have catastrophic consequences for Australia and the rest of the world.

As Professor Ross Garnaut, Sir Nicholas Stern and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have made clear in recent months, dramatic and radical reductions in greenhouse emissions are necessary immediately to minimise (not avoid - it is too late for that) the effects of climate change. But the post-Kyoto "road map" accepted at the Bali negotiations last December will not deliver such reductions. The international community must base the next climate change protocol on the following seven principles.

Firstly, the new binding targets must be based on science rather than political expediency. How many Australians are aware that Australia's Kyoto target actually allowed its to increase our emissions by 8 per cent over 1990 levels? To keep global warming to just 1-2 degrees in the coming decades, global emissions must be reduced in 2050 to just fifteen per cent of 2000 levels. Australia cannot be allowed to negotiate an emissions increase.

Secondly, both poor and wealthy countries must be bound by these new targets. Certain developing countries, such as China and India, are amongst the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases. The global targets can only be achieved if all countries reduce their emissions. It does not matter how much Australia cuts its emissions if China and India do not cut theirs.

Thirdly, requiring developing countries to reduce their emissions will have consequences for the poor of those countries. After all, economic growth is necessary to improve the lives of the poor, and so investing in technology that delivers economic growth without increasing greenhouse emissions is necessary. Wealthy countries must support emission reductions in poorer countries by technology transfer.

Fourthly, it is important to recognise that different countries have specific circumstances that largely determine their emissions in the short term. Therefore, the next international climate change protocol must be sufficiently longterm in its outlook - probably to 2050 - that new investments can be trade over the life-cycle of existing infrastructure. Having said that, global emissions trust peak no later than 2015.

Fifthly, some countries have the advantage of certain natural resources that also can reduce global emission levels. The majority of these carbon sinks exist in developing countries and these countries trust be encouraged and supported in both protecting and expanding these sinks. If a country can increase its carbon sink, this must supplement its overall emission rights.

Sixthly, the current focus on emissions from production must be replaced by a focus on emission consumption. Even though global production and consumption levels are necessarily equal, the focus on consumption of emissions is an important issue when allocating the rights to emit.

Finally, the market is a powerful tool in allocating scarce resources. Emission rights in the future will become increasingly scarce and so market-based or market-conforming instruments must be used to support the ultimate goal of global emission reductions. These seven principles are a radical departure from the Kyoto framework. If followed, they will support the reduction of emissions that is now necessary.

The international community must also determine how to best allocate the rights to emit greenhouse gases. Under the Kyoto Protocol, future emission targets were based on past emissions. This approach is incompatible with the six principles outlined above. The only ethical manner in which future emissions can be allocated is on a per capita basis. Certainly, I have no greater right than someone living in Thailand, Nigeria or Peru to emit greenhouse gases simply because I emitted more in the past.

Of course, the consequence for high per capita emission countries, such as Australia, will be more stringent reductions in emissions. However, there is no other ethical way in which to allocate such scarce resources. Indeed, such a per capita allocation may facilitate technology transfer as countries such as Australia trade emission rights with poor countries not "consuming" their fall allowance of emissions.

A change in the current post-Kyoto road map to an emissions per capita allocation based on the seven principles outlined above is urgently needed. Such a change will be dramatic, but not as dramatic as the climate change we will experience if this does not occur.

Dr Matthew Clarke teaches at Deakin University and has a book on the next climate change protocol out later this year.