Two Heads Are Better Than One - Dec 09

What can we expect from Copenhagen and what will it mean for Australia?

Tim Woods

One year ago, I summed up the year's global climate negotiations with a video blog from the conference venue in Poznan in Poland[1]. At the time, the issues that seemed to stand in the way of a new global agreement were the level of emissions reduction targets of developed countries, the level and type of efforts to emissions reduction from developing countries and the funding arrangements and financial flows. In addition to finance, there were a raft of issues going to the ability to deliver on emissions reductions, including technology transfer and scientific considerations.

These are still the issues that have to be finalised, but it is wrong to say that because there is no finality there has been no progress.

As a regular participant in the last few years of the global climate negotiations, the apparent snail's pace of movement towards a new global agreement comes as no surprise. In fact, slow and careful movements are a sign of genuine intent to reach a real and proper agreement.

There was always something that smelled wrong when the Kyoto Protocol was completed in 19?? and was immediately hailed as an agreement to save the planet. Not even half the world signed up, it was incomplete, excluded sectors because of the appalling influence of the worst prejudices of the sectarian elements in the global environment movement. In short, it was fatally flawed and yet was promoted around the world as though it was a new messiah. No one was fooled.

It was just too easy to commit and too unlikely that easy commitments would be meaningful, especially without the US and China having any real involvement.

So the real effort to create a lasting and meaningful agreement at Copenhagen or perhaps in Cape Town in 2010 will be slow and the outcome uncertain because of the sheer complexity of the issues being considered and the genuineness of effort by the United Nations member nations.

And we mustn't forget either that these things are played out for national interests and advantages, first and last and so there is suspicion and cynicism aplenty, which makes an agreement harder but when one is reached, will make it all the more meaningful.

But the slow progress towards an agreement does not mean that the climate is at greater risk than if we rushed towards yet another meaningless agreement. Absolutely no country in the developed world genuinely meets its Kyoto 'commitments' to reduce emissions. Where they do, its by accounting method and where they don't its because ... well, its because they haven't reduced their emissions by as much as their commitments.

Look around the world or even just look at Australia and we can observe there is genuine effort being undertaken to reduce the carbon intensity of our economy and lives. Some of us think about the domestic measures like better insulation to reduce heating and cooling, but the big game is in stationary energy generation and the move to lower emissions and renewable energy technologies.

We should not be fooled into believing that Australia is leading the way on domestic measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but we should recognise that even if the global negotiations fail utterly and there is never a global agreement, we are on an unstoppable move to significantly reduced emissions. Consider just the extended Renewable Energy Target, the efforts towards the emissions trading scheme in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the enormous political and financial commitment to carbon capture and storage technology, the handouts for economically efficient renewable energy technologies and even the pious way your children tell you to switch the lights off. They will all make a difference regardless of whether a global agreement is in place and as we have commented, we are not the only country making emissions reduction efforts.

So long as carbon leakage from Australia is minimised by ensuring that the additional costs of lower emissions do not result in the transfer of economic activity to other countries, any early mover advantages may be to Australia's advantage in the long term.

Progress will come from Copenhagen, but probably no significant agreement and certainly not a problem.

 

Robert Eastment

What will we expect from Copenhagen is not a reasonable question. We are trying to find a political solution to a scientific problem, in fact it is worse than this, we are trying to find an international political solution.

Yvo de Boer was appointed as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by Kofi Annan in August 2006, so already de Boer is well experienced in his understanding of the global debate. In referring to achieving an agreement before the Copenhagen summit he has stated "A fully fledged new international treaty under the convention - I do not think that is going to happen."

In the first week of November there was a UN Climate talks held as a mini preparation summit in Barcelona, Spain, with UN delegates concluding finding a treaty may be a year or more away.

Prior to Spain there had already been five gatherings to prepare for the big show in Copenhagen, however, as the US diplomat George Kennan said - "the unlikely hood of reaching an agreement is the square of the number of parties around the table". 

The fourth of the preparatory gatherings was held in Bangkok in October, and had 180 delegates (1802 is 32 400 so the odds were short). The meeting resolved nothing with discussions being about developed nations reducing emissions and how much developed nations should assist developing nations financially to reduce emissions.

India and China combined account for a third of the worlds population, with China being the largest emitter of CO2 and India the fourth and together account for 26% of global emissions. Both countries have stated they are not going to agree to anything at the Copenhagen Party that may stymie their economic growth rates. They argue with conviction that when the developed world was growing economies there was no holding back because of concerns about pollution, and they want the same treatment.

The US has been coy about commitment, but just incase there is a rush of blood to the head and something is achieved, the US House of Representatives has passed a bill to exempt large cattle, dairy and pig breeding operations from reporting emissions to the US EPA. In addition many ships on the Great Lakes in North America have been exempt from being required to use low sulphur fuel because of local lobbying.

Both the Stern and Garnaut Reports were blunt about the need for clear and decisive action to constrain the negative factors causing climate change. Gordon Brown, the British PM from Scotland, has stated immediate action is needed to achieve a "decisive agreement" at Copenhagen, immediate in his terms means within a month. However, there will be 192 delegates at Copenhagen, so based on the rules above the odds have just lengthened some more.

So it looks as though we should not be holding our breath for any action at Copenhagen, even though that may make a miniscule improvement in CO2 emissions if we did.

However, the Australian government has been attempting to link an emissions trading system with climate change policy before Copenhagen, but the party has not gone to plan. The American satirist, P. J. O'Rouke summed it up nicely with one of his poignant comments - "When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

Is this a signal for the polluting industries to go to Canberra for some pre-Christmas lobbying, or most likely some all the year around lobbying.

So if you are asking "what can we expect from Copenhagen and what will it mean for Australia?" - the answers will be 'not much' and then 'further political filibustering'.

May be I can reprint these comments in a years time.

 [1] If you are interested, check it out by clicking here.

 

RECENT ARTICLES

CarbonEdge Charts - August 10 (Subscribers Only)

03-06-10 Sustainability - are we getting there? (Subscriber's Only)

02-06-10 Making sense of the REC (Subscriber's Only)

CarbonEdge Charts - June 2010 (Subscribers Only)

08-04-10 Australian Energy Resource Assessment - the CarbonEdge Analysis (Subscriber's Only)

08-04-10 - Special Report - Biofuels technologies for Australia's energy future (Subscribers Only)

VIEW FULL ARCHIVE