Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that climate change is occurring and the evidence of it is around us all the time. For example, in the south-west of Western Australia there has been a dramatic decrease in rainfall over the last 30 years. Something like 25 per cent less rain is falling in the south-west of Western Australia. I understand there is some evidence of melting of icecaps and glaciers in Greenland. We know there are climate changes in Europe. In the UK, for example, for the first time in many centuries water rationing has been required in the summer months, which is very unusual. Less rain has been falling in Europe. Recent news that there was an iceberg floating off the coast of New Zealand perhaps suggests that the Antarctic icecaps are also changing and melting. So climate change, it seems, is with us. I must say that there is a lot of controversy and there are differing opinions about the causes of this climate change. The world, after all, is cycling out of an ice age. We may in fact be no more than the victims of that kind of progression, or it may be that greenhouse gas emissions from the industrialised world have something to do with what is happening.

While climate change may be occurring, the Kyoto protocol is not the answer to the problem of climate change which the world now faces. The Kyoto protocol has become a symbol of concern about climate change, but beyond that, as a symbol of concern, the Kyoto treaty is a flawed treaty which would produce very little change in the level of greenhouse emissions around the world. For that reason the Australian government, while being concerned about climate change, has not signed the Kyoto protocol and has no intention of doing so.

The Kyoto treaty has very severe limitations in the sense that a mammoth 75 per cent of global emissions are not covered by the treaty. The reason for this is that most of the great emitting nations—China, India, the United States and some South American countries—are not signatories to the Kyoto protocol. While ever those great emitters are not signatories to the protocol, it is not going to make any significant difference to world greenhouse gas levels or—if they are the cause of climate change—to climate change.

Most importantly, many of the developing nations in the world have not signed onto Kyoto and, if the Kyoto protocol is to have any chance of making significant reductions in emissions, means must be found to include the developing nations of the world within its terms. It is not only inequitable but surely pointless that the developing nations can go on merrily increasing emissions while the developed nations are being asked to reduce theirs. The net outcome will be almost no change at all in greenhouse gas levels in the world.

The consensus of scientific opinion is that significant reductions in global greenhouse emissions will be needed this century. It is a good thing to do whether or not we are sure that it is causing climate change. The Australian government believes that it is important to focus our resources on finding constructive solutions to greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian government is working with other countries to develop a global response to limit climate change—a response that is environmentally effective and economically efficient, which involves all major emitters and which will reduce greenhouse gases to levels that scientists tell us are needed and achievable.

In fact, the Australian government is leading the way in this international effort, including through the major role we are playing in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. This partnership brings together some key countries, including Australia, China, India, Korea, Japan and the United States, to explore ways to develop, deploy and transfer cleaner and more efficient technologies, which the world will need to make the required cuts in global greenhouse emissions. The importance of the partnership is clear when you consider that between them these six partners account for almost half of the world’s population, GDP, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

Distinctive features of the partnership include the way it seeks to address climate change, air pollution, energy security and sustainable development in an integrated manner and the way it fully engages business in developing and implementing solutions. Importantly, the partnership builds on and does not replace the United Nations framework convention on climate change, which is most usually known as the Kyoto protocol. As a clear demonstration of Australia’s commitment to the success of this partnership the Prime Minister, John Howard, has announced an additional investment of $100 million over five years to support practical international cooperation projects. At least 25 per cent of the Australian government’s commitment is dedicated to renewable energy technologies.

Australia continues to also play a key role in international climate change negotiations. In recognition of Australia’s expertise and constructive approach to addressing climate change, the head of the Australian Greenhouse Office has been chosen to co-chair new international talks on post-Kyoto approaches for long-term cooperative action on climate change. These talks, which commenced at the United Nations climate change convention meeting in Bonn in May 2006, will address issues such as realising the full potential of technology in addressing climate change, adaptation to unavoidable impacts of climate change and the link between sustainable development and climate change. These themes are central to the work of the G8 dialogue on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development—which Australia is also playing an active and constructive role in, may I say. It is interesting also that the fact that we have a head of a Greenhouse Office in Australia is a world first. Australia was the first country in the world to establish a Greenhouse Office, just as we were the first country in the world to establish an oceans policy. We have a number of firsts.

The Howard government has a really outstanding record when it comes to dealing with the environment and climate change. Just on this issue of climate change, it is very interesting to have a look at the coalition’s record. Our record is second to none, may I say. It is a very outstanding record which we in the government are very proud of. The coalition government has taken a leadership role at an international and national level in response to the threat of climate change and is investing some $2 billion in climate change programs. These include hundreds of millions on solar and wind energy, on developing new technology to make cleaner and more efficient fossil fuels and on ways to capture and store greenhouse gases to stop them going into the atmosphere.

I will give a couple of examples. There is the $500 million Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, which aims to leverage $1 billion from industry to develop technologies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There is the $100 million renewable energy development initiative, which will provide competitive grants to support the strategic development of renewable energy technologies. Australia is one of the few countries that are on track to reach their international greenhouse gas emission targets. It is important to understand that, while we are reaching our greenhouse gas emission targets, we are doing this not having signed the flawed Kyoto protocol.

Australia’s record is proving that there is a way forward that allows emission cuts and economic growth. As a result of our climate change strategies we are forecast to save 85 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year by 2010 while the economy of Australia itself is expected to almost double in size. This is equivalent to taking every one of Australia’s 14 million cars, trucks and buses off the road, and furthermore stopping all rail and shipping activity, while still providing for major economic growth. As a percentage of our total economy, this saving represents a fall of 43 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 2010 while the Australian economy doubles in size.

Australia contributes only 1.46 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, which, when compared with China’s greenhouse gas emissions, is an extremely small percentage. If Australia were to close down all of its power stations today, the savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be replaced by the growth of China’s energy sector in less than 12 months. So there is really very little point in Australia signing on to the Kyoto treaty when in fact we are meeting our Kyoto targets and when we have such a strong record of striving to put in place programs which will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, ABARE, has estimated that ratification of the Kyoto protocol could increase electricity costs by about one-third in Australia, with consequent severe implications for energy intensive industries such as our bauxite, alumina and aluminium producers as well as industries that use electricity all over this country. One of Australia’s greatest resources in fact is that we have boundless supplies of cheap coal. Were we to sign on to the Kyoto treaty, we would no longer be able to use that coal to produce electricity. That is part of the reason why, if we were to sign Kyoto, our electricity costs would go up by around one-third. If electricity and energy costs went up, that would adversely affect industries. Not only in the coalmines of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria would there be jobs lost if the coal producers were no longer able to go ahead with mining, which would be the case were we to sign the Kyoto treaty; but closures would occur in many other industries around Australia if the cost of energy was increased as a result of us signing on to the Kyoto treaty.

It is interesting to look at liquefied natural gas, which is another matter where there is a significant flaw in the Kyoto protocol. Within the protocol there is no mechanism to recognise that, although certain actions might result in a domestic increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the net result will actually be a decrease in global emissions. Australia, for example, exports liquefied natural gas to Japan and China, resulting in significantly lower levels of greenhouse gas emissions in those countries where the Chinese and Japanese use LNG instead of coal to generate electricity. This is because the life cycle emissions of natural gas are about 50 to 60 per cent of those of conventional fossil fuels.

Our recent $25 billion liquefied natural gas contract with China illustrates this point well. The contract will add around one million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually to Australia’s emissions but, by replacing coal fired power stations in China, it will reduce China’s emissions by around seven million tonnes annually. This means that China will gain greenhouse credits from using LNG while we will in fact not be the recipient of those credits.