for Australia

More climate woes for Australia

AFTER the Kyoto climate convention in December last year Prime Minister John Howard was jubilant.

A series of last minute manouevres saw Australia emerge as one of only three industrialised nations allowed to increase its Greenhouse gas emissions. The scale of the increase was enormous - 8 per cent- and led to accusations from both scientists and green groups that Australia had hoodwinked the conference.

John Howard was unrepentant. His economic research showed Australia, with its industry profile skewed in favour of high-energy intensity industries, needed such leeway to avoid massive job loss es. The major contributor to that research was the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), a government think-tank based in Canberra. Now an independent probe of ABARE’s handling of its corporate sponsorship has produced damning results. As part of government policy ABARE was expect ed to raise 40 per cent of its annual budget from external sources. To help fund its two big climate change economic models, MEGABARE and GIGABARE, ABARE established two steering committees. On these sat various government organisations as well as the Australian Aluminium Council, BHP, the Business Council of Australia, CRA, Statoil, Exxon, Texaco, Mobil Oil, the Electricity Supply association and the Coal Association - all bodies which rep resented major greenhouse gas emitters. Each organisation paid a $50,000 fee a year for its involvement. The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) made an official complaint to the federal Ombusdman after ABARE refused to give it a seat on the steering committee because it could not afford the $50,000. After seven months of investigation the Ombudsman’s report is now public. It found that: * ABARE did little to invite green groups to participate in the steering committees and that the substantial membership fees had excluded organisations like the ACF. * Because the membership of the committees was limited to those able to pay “it could create a reasonable public perception that research projects were weighted in favour of the interests of

Australian industry.”

* ABARE’s failure to mention its corporate sponsorship in key documents (which played a substantial role in defining Australian policy) was “misleading” and “represents a lack of transparency and exposes it to claims of deliberate concealment.” * An independent technical adviser to the committee, Professor Allan Powell, resigned warning private sponsorship posed “major risks” for the “integrity and efficacy” of the modelling.

* ABARE had been warned the way it conducted the steering committees was exposing it to claims that it was a “captive of indus try.” * ABARE erroneously claimed a key policy document had been independently peer reviewed by Professor Peter Nixon when his assessment was not intended to be given that status.

In ABARE’s favour the ombudsman concluded that the steering committees were constituted by ABARE primarily as a means of raising revenue and that this appeared to explain the limited efforts to involve environment groups. However, the ombudsman also pointed out that by not including a balance of views the committees did not conform to characteristics for a government steering com mittee dealing with an important - and controversial - public policy issue. As a result of advice from the ombudsman, ABARE has now decided to rename the GIGABARE Steering Committee as a “spon sors advisory committee”. Throughout the heated debate over Australia’s greenhouse policy in the lead up to the Kyoto summit, green groups and more significantly a group of 131 professional economists had argued that ABARE had overestimated the costs to Australia and underestimated the benefits of reducing Greenhouse gas emissions. The ombudsman did not examine whether the assumptions put into ABARE’s economic modeling had been influ enced by industry. The Australian Conservation Foundation says the Ombudsman’s findings have vindicated its stance. It says the Australian government position on climate change - which insists on much more lenient treatment for Australia than other countries is fundamentally flawed and that the whole modeling exercise should be redone with a properly constituted steering committee.

The President of Nauru, Kinza Clodumar, agrees. He says the findings of the ombudsman provide “yet another reason why the Australian government should reconsider its stance upon the whole issue of greenhouse gas emissions.” Judging by the response of the Australian Minister for Resources and Energy, Warwick Parer, that does not seem likely. He said he was pleased to note that the ombudsman had “not found any evidence of bias in ABARE’s research.” “That is a major set-back to the environment lobby which has consistently based its attacks on what is now proven to be a false claim,” Mr Parer said. His view is that ABARE’s credibility emerged from the inquiry “intact and unblemished.” Mr Parer went on to note that external funding is the policy of his government and had been of the previous Labor government. ABARE he said, “had always been, and remains, independent of outside influence, whether political or sectional.” So the argument looks set to contin ue. At Kyoto the Pacific Island nations had demanded a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emission levels by industrialised coun tries by 2010. Even that would not be enough to stop the phenome na associated with global warming - the increased storms and floods or the sea level rise and salt water inundation to which the island nations are so vulnerable. In Australia environmentalists are com paring Australia’s stand on its greenhouse gas emissions with France’s attitude to nuclear testing and Japan’s approach to whaling.

In the next round of international climate talks negotiators will try to work out the rules by which the promises made at Kyoto (promis es which, on paper, add up to a reduction in industrialised country emissions of 5.2 per cent) will be measured. No doubt Australia, buoyed by its “victory” in Kyoto and unconcerned about doubt cast on the rationale behind its approach, will continue its campaign to extract every possible concession. ■

Jemima Garrett

Sydney