"Climbing out of climate policy valleys
I think you’ve backed a dud by choosing me as your speaker tonight.
I have to confess to not being amongst the bested and brightest at the 2020
Summit…
Whenever I hear talk of summits I’m reminded of what an environmental warrior
told me of his experiences in the 70s and 80s – “we grew sick of opening look
outs and longed for the park proposals that would cover the valleys and not just
the summits”.
Likewise for climate policy right now – it is in the valleys where the truly
interesting low carbon and clean energy discoveries await, where in fact many of
the agonizing technology promises and uncertainties need to be resolved, and
out of which the world as a whole must begin a steep climb by no later than
2020.
And it is developed countries, those who have contributed 75% of the emissions
up there right now, need to blaze the trail. This is not to say developing
countries, especially the more advanced ones, need to make commitments –
they do, and the Bali talks saw a historic preparedness for actions.
Back in the valleys there are dangers which are, to be frank, terrifying. The
consequences of two decades of relative inaction, here and abroad, have taken
us close to some serious precipices.
In March the pre-eminent climate scientist James Hansen wrote to the Prime
Minister calling for an “aggressive near-term fostering of energy efficiency and
climate friendly technologies [as] an imperative for mitigation of the looming
climate crisis and optimization of the economic pathway to the eventual clean
energy world. He painted this crisis in compelling terms:
Global climate is near critical tipping points that could lead to loss of all
summer sea ice in the Arctic with detrimental effects on wildlife, initiation
of ice sheet disintegration in West Antarctica and Greenland with
progressive, unstoppable global sea level rise, shifting of climatic zones
with extermination of many animal and plant species, reduction of
freshwater supplies for hundreds of millions of people, and a more intense
hydrologic cycle with stronger droughts and forest fires, but also heavier
rains and floods, and stronger storms driven by latent heat, including
tropical storms, tornados and thunderstorms
He didn’t mention the destruction of coral reefs and the alarming acidification of
the oceans threatening not only the coral reef builders but also shell forming
crustaceans crucial to the global food chain.
And as many from the PM on have recognized, Australia is the developed
country most at risk from climate change – it is in our interests to lead at home
and abroad.
Avoiding these tipping points means having national and global policies which
result in global greenhouse emissions halting their, to date, inexorable rise and
declining substantially thereafter. In reality the science tells us that we are
already in the midst of dangerous climate change.
The world hasn’t been at the current 450 parts per million levels of greenhouse
gases in the atmosphere for millions of years – it’s well over the period of relative
stability around 300 ppm of the last ten thousand years. A period that has
nurtured the entire development of modern human civilization.
The last time the planet experienced levels as high as 500ppm was about 20 or
40 million years ago, when sea levels were 100 metres higher than today.
Ensuring we halt the rise of emissions and bring greenhouse gas levels down
under the 450 ppm levels represent the only chance of avoiding the two degree
global warming that many of you may have heard scientists say constitutes
dangerous global warming. In fact, according to IPCC and CSIRO, 450 ppm is at
best a 50/50 chance – a toss of the coin – of avoiding these levels.
Professor Garnaut and Treasury are now modeling national and global policies to
achieve 450 and 550ppm. The Climate Institute, WWF and ACF have together
written to him requesting a focus on lower targets, at least 400ppm – many
others suggest 350ppm.
Lets be clear, 550 ppm is a disastrous stabilization target – a point of no return
well beyond the tipping point Hansen refers to above.
Achieving 450ppm and below is achievable but will require leadership, innovation
and a remarkable economic transformation.
It requires all developed countries emissions to be heading down well before
2015 – we believe Australian self interest in avoiding climate change means we
should have real reductions by 2012. And 2020 targets that see developed
countries as a group reduce 25 – 40% from 1990 levels. And it will require
reductions of at least 80% by 2050 from developed countries.
Australia actually has many abatement options but because of a decade and a
half of inaction, even with the renewable energy target, we are heading for a 20%
increase by 2020. The Institute believes Australia should adopt an ambitious but
achievable target of at least 25% reduction by 2020, anything less will undermine
our potential to help lead the achievement of an effective global deal.
Developing countries will need to take on increasing commitments to slow the
emissions intensity of their poverty busting development and have real
reductions before 2020. But they’ll be looking for leadership from the developed
countries that have precipitated the crisis both in terms of targets but also, and
perhaps more importantly, in terms of the arrangements and funding for
technology transfer and assistance to adapt to the already unavoidable impacts
of climate change that will hit the poorer developing countries the hardest.
As such the window for action is the next 10 or so years.
The global negotiations for that period are underway now. The negotiations in
Bali fell exhausted across the line but did set a road map for these negotiations
to conclude in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
Here in Australia, the window is even smaller. If we are to be a real leader in
these talks - it will be the next 7 – 12 months as we develop the emissions
trading schemes, low emission technology targets etc
So are we stuffed?
I believe not! I believe we can harness the leadership and innovation needed to
make the necessary transformation – and that humanity will benefit greatly from
this journey through dark and at times forbidding valleys.
But we’ll need to kindle the fires of innovation and develop - increasingly in
partnership with developing countries - the technologies, lifestyles and attitudes
which will allow all humanity to discover a new prosperity. A prosperity which
transcends grossly unequal global poverty and shifts all humanity to the global
low carbon clean energy economy of the 21st century we have to have.
Getting through this valley means we need to be clear of our bearings and leave
baggage behind we don’t need.
Most importantly we need to be clear this isn’t a 20th century exercise in pollution
control. This isn’t about just stopping “bads”, it’s about promoting “goods”.
Just seeing this as a pollution control battle is baggage that many across the
spectrum, from hard nosed economists to hard wired environmentalists, are still
carrying.
Many economists have become overly obsessed with the necessary but
insufficient task of putting a price on greenhouse emissions as a pure, and not to
be sullied, policy.
So, for example, emissions trading schemes are granted a pre-eminence against
which all other measures need to judged – if they are not complimentary they are
judged downright rude.
Energy efficiency measures are sniffed at because if they can save people
money then they should have already taken them up. Additional benefits from
greater energy affordability through to increased productivity don’t rate in their
often too narrowly constructed models.
Renewable energy targets, and other measures to encourage deployment of
clean energy technologies, are judged against text book standards of short term
economic efficiency. The criteria should be long term cost effectiveness and their
capacity to unleash Australian innovation enabling us to be technology makers
not just technology takers.
Just today we have seen the Productivity Commission release a report that
makes just these mistakes – to misquote a leading resource economist
sometimes it seems they think if the price of eggs is high enough, roosters will
start laying eggs!
Many environmentalists on the other hand, seem determined to fight the bitter
trench wars of forest and other disputes, deeming those that cross the trench
lines in search of dirty love (disobeying the rules of pure warfare) non or antienvironmentalists.
I speak here of course about our recent foray with the coal association, coal
union and WWF seeking to accelerate the determination about whether carbon
capture and storage (CCS) for coal and gas fired power can be part of the clean
energy solution.
This alliance, most heavily derided before the details emerged, actually had the
industry committing to accountability in the form of a target for CCS power by
2020 alongside, not instead of, action on renewable energy and energy
efficiency.
Even for those that think the worst of this industry, this is a clear marker that can
help make sure we don’t wander down a dark canyon of false hope for decades.
For those such as the IPCC, Al Gore and James Hansen who reckon this
technology can deliver, it is a step towards critical policy compass settings that
take us out of the era of conventional coal fired power plants (now), towards a
diverse portfolio of clean energy options in commercial operation by 2020.
All of our policy settings need to be focused on promoting the opportunities of a
clean energy and low carbon future and ensuring Australian and global
innovation is encouraged along the way. And innovation begets innovation.
Discovery is rarely a process of following straight lines.
As I’ve said I am optimistic about this challenge and the role Australia can play
We are a leading laboratory for clean energy options in geo-thermal and solar
power, and are getting there for CCS.
To continue to torture my dominant metaphor tonight – we do need though to
have policies that take us across what economists call the technology valley of
death – from research to commercial deployment. That is why deployment
policies like the renewable energy target are crucial policy supports and why we
will need additional measures for other low emission technologies unlikely to be
picked up with that measure.
Unless the carbon prices under an emissions trading scheme are very high from
the outset then these policies are vital to ensuring investment in clean energy
technologies.
And the signs are that the clean energy investment dollars are increasingly on
tap –
· predictions are for clean energy investment to triple over the next five
years from $150 billion in 2007 to $450 billion in 2012
· 20% of all investment last year was in clean energy – 10% of that in
China
· The Kyoto and other backed carbon markets leveraged some $35 billion
of clean technology investment in 2006 – really in early days
These positive indications need to be reinforced not only with good government
policies to assist deployment, but also with greater focus from the investment
community on management of carbon risks and on long term opportunities.
Superannuation funds and other long term asset managers as yet have poor
analytical and other tools to assist them, and this is another area where the
Climate Institute is doing significant work.
There are many valleys on the journey that is the challenge of climate change
beyond the clean energy terrain charted briefly here, but I am convinced we’ll
only get through them with a positive attitude.
Indeed, this can be a deeply enriching process where humanity strikes a new
humility more profoundly engaged with a good and just life, with a deeper respect
for our natural and social communities, and with a new confidence in the
potential of technological innovation and development that has taken us so far
from our ancestors beginnings in the African Rift Valleys.
John Connor, CEO, The Climate Institute
Address to FutureWorld Annual Dinner May 22 2008" John Connor
Permaculture Visions wins another award 
