Some of you may not have the capacity/strength to read the whole report and, like me, will be hoping for some kind of digest. Here is the 4 page summary of conclusions from the 51 page Supplementary Report. Below you will find a round up of some of the initial reactions. If you find other useful comments please paste them into the comments box at the bottom of this post.
While it is important to maintain a healthy skepticism of any long-term projections based on sets of modelling assumptions, the Garnaut Report is, and will be, politically important. The Supplementary Draft Report: Targets and trajectories was released on 5 September 2008. This follows the release of the Draft Report on 4 July 2008 and provides the Review’s proposals for emissions reduction trajectories and targets for Australia within an international context. The Report is informed by the economic modelling undertaken jointly with the Australian Treasury as well as the Review’s own independent modelling. The Final Report is due by 30 September 2008.
Garnaut’s central idea remains an Emissions Trading Scheme and there are many who are saying that an atmospheric carbon target of 400 ppm is actually too high…
For anyone wanting to read the Report in full, this latest addition (PDF 513KB) is now available at http://www.garnautreview.org.au
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Dr Andrew Glikson from the Research School of Earth Science at the Australian National University sent a brief submission to Crikey. It crunches some sobering numbers:
According to leading US climate and paleo-climate scientists, the current CO2 levels of 387 ppm (433 ppm CO2 + CH4 equivalent) are dangerously close to the 450 ppm CO2 level at which the polar ice sheets formed 34 million years-ago. This projection is consistent with the current fast ice melt rates in the Arctic Sea, Greenland and west Antarctica, including melting of the Wilkins ice shelf last July — one of the first times mid-winter ice shelf breakdown was observed.
The sensitivity of the atmosphere has been underestimated. Ice core studies of the Pleistocene (1.8 Ma to 11,700 years-ago) glacial-interglacial cycles display abrupt global warming and cooling events on time scales of few years to decades, including sharp climate tipping points at 14,700, 12,900 and 11,700 years-ago.
IPCC climate projections and plans for emission caps restricting temperature rises to two or three degrees and time tables for carbon emission reduction targets such as 15 percent by 2020 or 60 percent by 2060, take little account of the rates of ice sheet melt/water feedbacks loops and carbon cycle feedback loops, including release of methane hydrates from sea bottom sediments and from bogs.
Plans for climate stabilization at 450 ppm may not be able to prevent melting of the polar ice sheets. Plans for stabilization at 650 ppm may not be able to stop runaway greenhouse effects and associated extinctions.
Today Ross Garnaut has reduced expectations of Australian climate change action to a point below which anyone other than Andrew Bolt and a handful of suddenly sweating penguins could object. According to Garnaut, the best we can hope for is substantial international cooperation and an aspirational atmospheric carbon target of 450ppm.
550ppm is more likely and looks like being the mark the Australian Government will pursue. This constitutes surrender … politically, to the forces that will rage against any diminution of their capacity to dig, burn, export and boil, and environmentally to the silent but more deadly forces that by scientific consensus are placing our eco-system in almost irreparable peril.
The Garnaut targets mooted today are as clear an indication as any that our political process seems incapable of delivering the stern medicine required to arrest climate change, even under the stewardship of a government elected with a clear mandate to act. They acknowledge that we will always move first to pursue comfort and compromise. It looks, sadly, as though we will do that to our cost.
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From Environment Victoria:
Sadly, not the result any of us had hoped for – Garnaut recommends a 5% unconditional emissions reduction target by 2020 (yes, I said 5%) on 2000 levels, (which nationally are the same as 1990 levels, but sets a bad precedent state by state) with the possibility of a 10% target in the context of an international agreement (yes, I said 10%). His recommendation seems to be based upon the fact that Australia has a growing population, so these figures equate to a higher per capita reduction. He does acknowledge that to reach 450ppm stabilisation we would need to go to at least 25-40%, and he also acknowledges that 25-40% cuts or his targets are not safe targets, however his targets are not predicated on minimising emissions but on economic and political factors.
His 2050 target is 80% reductions, which is at least stronger than ALP current position if inadequate.
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Friends of the Earth Australia fear The Supplementary Draft Report released by Professor Garnaut models emission reduction targets that would lock us into a future of catastrophic runaway climate change.
“By adopting targets of 450 parts per million or 550 parts per million, he guarantees Australia will face the worst affects of climate change, with increasing droughts, species extinction, rising sea levels and loss of the Great Barrier Reef,” said Louise Morris, Friends of the Earth Climate Campaigner.
“In this report Professor Garnaut admits that “Australia is in no danger of leading the world in greenhouse gas mitigation” and with the recommendations of paltry reduction targets in the near future that continue our high emissions, he is making sure this stays the status quo.”
“Climate scientists are telling us we are already locked into a .6 degree average increase. Prof Garnaut admits that adopting cuts of 5-10% aimed towards 450 parts per million will lock us into a 2.6degree increase.”
“The current loss of the Arctic sea ice and the inevitable loss of the ice sheets and permafrost is happening at 380 ppm, this will condemn us to runaway climate change. Therefore only targets of below 350 ppm that aim at returning us to a safe climate can be justified,” said Ms Morris
“Under Professor Garnauts’ strongest recommendations we have more than 50% chance of irreversible melt of the Greenland ice sheet, almost 80% death rate in tolerant coral species and around 23% of species committed to extinction. This is simply not acceptable. We are talking about the lives of billions and the survival of most life on this planet. We cannot trade that against the ability for the fossil fuel industries to continue profiting from polluting.”
“We have an opportunity that will escape us if we fail to act now. We must work towards what we know is necessary, not easy. We need to cut our emissions by at least 50% by 2020 and 100% by 2050 if we are to stand any chance of having a stable climate that will allow us to live in a world with adequate food, clean water and opportunities for sustainable industries.”
“To achieve this we need a moratorium on new coal and political leadership that is up to this most important of all challenges.” Ms Morris concluded.
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Time is the father of truth…
