Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

That is the sort of question that you could speak about for at least an hour. I have been heavied by the opposition saying that by giving answers of three or four minutes I am somehow filibustering this debate, so I will be as succinct as I possibly can. The Stern report says, and I think it is right, that 550 parts per million is getting very risky. I agree with that. I think any national government, whether it be of the UK, which makes up around just over two per cent of global emissions, or of Australia, which makes up just over 1.46 per cent of world emissions, can have a legitimate debate about whether it is 450 parts or 550 parts. It is an important debate.

The reason we have the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to help resolve those issues. When you have some of the best scientists from around the world, from all the participating members of the UN framework convention—Australia has very high quality representation within that panel—it is an issue best dealt with by that panel.

I am not trying to say that I do not think the Australian government should have a position or a target. I want to engage on this issue in a productive way but every time I speak for longer than a few minutes I get a lecture from the Labor Party saying that somehow I am trying to expand debate. They are a party that has a two-line policy on climate change; we are a government that have written hundreds of pages and spent billions of dollars on climate change, so we take it very seriously.

Let us consider what would happen if I were to say tonight, ‘We think you should see the world’s concentrations limited to 400 parts per million’—or go even lower if you want to be more extreme about it—‘and then adjust domestic greenhouse policy to a global target.’ The reality is that, if you set the target low enough, you could say, ‘To achieve that, Australia would have to make a contribution of, as you have said, an 80 per cent reduction.’ There are figures of between 60 per cent and 80 per cent. If you want to be seriously radical—and obviously this is not the real world—to make the case you could say: ‘Let’s have 100 per cent reduction in Australia. Let’s close down the whole of Australia.’

Quite frankly, when you start talking about 60 per cent or 80 per cent reductions, it is not a huge leap to go to 100 per cent. It illustrates the point—and it is a point that I made to Mr Blair when he was here in Australia a few months ago—that if you shut down the whole of Australia the expansion in energy production and consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from China alone would entirely wipe out the global greenhouse benefits of closing down the whole of Australia, within 10½ months. That is a scientific fact, because they are a building a new power station every six weeks in China. They are urbanising at the rate of a city the size of Brisbane every month. That is a fact that you have to deal with.

Mr Blair makes the point now in his speeches in Great Britain that, if he closed down the whole of the United Kingdom, the expansion of China’s greenhouse gas emissions would entirely neutralise the benefit of that decision within two years. I think that makes the point that it is incredibly important to have a thorough understanding at the national policy level of the impact of a certain level of carbon concentration in the atmosphere.

The fact is that the level of concentration of carbon dioxide in particular has been incredibly stable for some many thousands of years and it is now at a level that is substantially above that long-term average. My strong belief, and the government’s strong belief, is that the massive increase in the carbon concentrations in the atmosphere is contributing substantially to the warming of the atmosphere, that we must stabilise and then reduce greenhouse concentrations and that we must do that through sound domestic policy and by playing a constructive leadership role within the international community. I accept that 550 parts per million is very risky. Further to that, I look forward to the further advice of the intergovernmental panel, which we will receive very shortly.