Australia, Greenhouse

Opinion

Australia, Greenhouse warrior?

As Pacific Island leaders came away from the South Pacific Forum in the Cook Islands bat tered and bruised by the bulldozer tactics used by Australia to secure the result it want ed on the issue of global warming, Australian officials stood by jubilant.

They didn’t seem to care that it is these very islands which are likely to take the brunt of the effects of global warming; the more severe and frequent cyclones which will inevitably cost lives, the loss of fresh water due to salt inundation or the droughts or health problems. Nor did they seem to pay much heed to the fact that the blame for the human-induced element in this problem can be laid squarely at the feet of the industrialised nations, like Australia.

When Prime Minister John Howard and his party got home from the Cook Islands they flew in to a storm of bad press over their efforts. Rather than give him or his officials cause to question their tactics or their position, it has only redoubled their determi nation to have their way. It now looks as if it must be asked, if Australia does not manage to scuttle moves for strong and uniform Greenhouse gas emission targets at the crucial international Climate Change meeting in Kyoto, in December, whether it will try to wreck the whole process.

Since returning from Rarotonga, Howard has appointed one of his key officials there, Meg McDonald, as Environment Ambassador, In that role, this feisty and determined, some say abrasive, advocate will be leading Australia’s campaign on climate change at the official level and no doubt using the same we-shall not-be-moved tactics. She also has a new armoury of ammunition in the form of the Howard government's issues paper Australia and Climate Change Negotiations, which was released at the end

of September.

It says that without any action Australia’s greenhouse gas emis sions will grow to 40 per cent above 1990 levels by the year 2000 - a far cry from even the most limited proposal on the internation al negotiating table (which suggests industrialised countries should have to stabilise Greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2000). But there is worse to come. The issues paper claims that SAI2 billion (SUSB.S billion) worth of investments could be forced offshore if Australia froze its emissions at 1990 levels., tak ing with it 90.000 jobs. It's an assessment Howard has seized on to zealously push his case that Australia should get special treat ment when it comes to the setting of emission targets, which will be the main business of the Kyoto meeting. The guts of Howard's position is based on the fact that Australia has increasingly been carving out a specialist role for itself as a provider of minerals and

resources processing for the Asia-Pacific region. Those industries are energy intensive and John Howard argues that, therefore, uni form emission targets will hit Australia harder than other countries with a different industry structure. That is true. It is also true, as Meg McDonald points out, that if those industries were to move on to developing countries because of emission targets imposed in Australia, they would produce the same if not more pollutants elsewhere (because of less stringent environmental standards).

The net result would simply be the unfair loss of jobs to Australia.

What is lacking from John Howard's perspective is the fact that he has taken little interest in ways Australia could reduce its emis sions without damaging its job figures.

Numerous bodies, from the New South Wales government’s Sustainable Energy Authority (SEDA) through to a group of 131 leading economists, have contested Howard’s claims and are firm ly of the belief that meeting even the more stringent emission reduction targets being suggested by Europe (a 15| per cent reduc tion on 1990 levels by 2000) would not lead to a net job loss.

Cathy Zoi, a former environment adviser to US President Bill Clinton who is now executive director of SEDA, says investing in energy efficiency measures would save business money and create 70,000 jobs across the country. The energy efficiency industry is now worth more than $lOO billion globally. Most western coun tries, more affected than Australia by the OPEC oil price shocks of the 1970 s and 1980 s, are much further down the track than Australia in implementing energy efficiency measures.

Another sign of the Howard government’s determination to press ahead with an extreme position without regard to the evi dence, is that its latest issues paper still relies on economic model ing produced by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE). This modeling has been widely criticised by other economists as inaccurate and alarmist and fur ther tainted by revelations that it was substantially paid for by energy interests. Meg McDonald simply shrugs off such criticism.

The key to the Australian position is differentiation, the idea that different countries should have different targets depending on their ability to comply. Environment Minister Senator Robert Hill has vociferously attacked the European Union for being willing to offer differentiated targets within Europe, to countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece, but refusing to offer the same flexi bility to others, such as Australia. What he fails to mention is that Portugal, Spain and Greece won their concessions from Europe on the grounds that their economies were relatively undeveloped and their current emissions per head of population, low. When judged on the basis of emissions per capita, Australia is one of the worst greenhouse offenders. Canberra is now increasingly trying to link its case with that of developing nations, and this was one of the elements which created such jubilation in the Australian camp over the wording of the South Pacific Forum communique.

Developing nations are fast becoming some of the biggest emitters and will need to take steps to improve energy efficiency and con trol emissions, but linking them too closely with the Kyoto nego tiations could spell death to attempts to set targets for developed nations - a fact of which John Howard is keenly aware.

It remains to be seen whether Australia will sign up for a green house gas emission target in Kyoto. If it does not, it risks becom ing an international pariah. Sometimes it is hard not to wonder whether, in the style of Pauline Hanson, John Howard would even care. ■

Jemima Garrett

Sydney