Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed. Thank you for reminding me. Senator Eggleston said it was easy to say and difficult to do. The Climate Change Action Bill 2006, like so much else that has been done in this chamber, shows that it is actually easy to do. You have to have some courage. You have to stand up to certain sectors within the community. But, at the end of the day, it is not only easy to do; it is necessary to do.

Regarding the ‘tired mantra’ of signing Kyoto, this government would have us believe that Kyoto did not go anywhere, when in fact it has been crucial in containing emissions in countries that have signed on to it. In fact, if you listen to the government’s arguments, it was crucial for us as well. How often have we heard the Prime Minister and various other ministers assuring us that we are going to reach the target of Kyoto and telling the Australian people that we are on track? Why would we bother being on track with an agreement which has no value? I think Senator Eggleston said it has no benefit for Australia or the world and we should just forget about it. This is a ludicrous concept. As everybody knew, Kyoto was the first step in a very long process, and Australia was part of it. We agreed with it, went along with it, got a great deal from it and were very much part of the process—but we were not once the hardheads in this government took over. However, I digress.

The Democrats strongly support this bill. There is a growing acknowledgement that governments individually and collectively should act with great urgency to mitigate greenhouse emissions. But the challenge is so great that only a nationally and globally coordinated approach is going to deliver. In our view, governments will, in the not too distant future, be held accountable for greenhouse abatement by the international community as well as by their constituents domestically. The UK government recently introduced a climate change bill in which the greenhouse emissions targets are enshrined in law. That is what this bill does. It is regrettable that what we are debating here today is not a government bill. I would like to think that this will be put to the vote today and passed into law, but we all know as we sit here in this debate that the chances are very slim.

Now that climate change has, at least for the last few weeks, dropped off the front pages of the press, the likelihood is that this government will continue its politics of denial: denial that coal must be eventually phased out, denial that the 10-year drought has anything to do with COconcentrations in the atmosphere, denial that a carbon constrained future will have economic benefits and denial that Australia has a case to answer. It has rejected the truly low- and zero-emissions technology in favour of nuclear and so-called clean coal. It frankly has its collective head firmly in the sand.

Australia is the 10th largest emitter of greenhouse emissions in the world, just behind the UK, which has three times the population of Australia. Australia is the largest per capita emitter and one of the most vulnerable to climate change. Our greenhouse gas emissions are dominated by the stationary energy sector. Electricity represents 50.7 per cent of total emissions, and that is due to grow by 55 per cent between 1990 and 2010. The agricultural and transport sectors are the next largest sectors at 15.8 per cent and 14.4 per cent of total emissions respectively. But the big growth areas are in stationary energy, transport and industrial processes. The only factor that saved our bacon internationally is the one-off deal at Kyoto for a huge credit from not clearing land—not cutting down our trees—mostly in Queensland. Had it not been for the generosity of the negotiators, our emissions would have exceeded 108 per cent of 1990 levels by a huge margin.

The federal government’s failure to set a course for greenhouse emissions reductions has generated enormous uncertainty in the business sector. You would think this would be of interest to this government. The business sector knows that a tradable emissions permit system and carbon levies are inevitable. Technology is going to have to be transformed. New standards are going to have to be complied with and emissions targets will have to be met. Business needs certainty so investment decisions can be made and stranded assets avoided. The French company AXA estimated in 2004 that about 20 per cent of global GDP is now affected by climatic events and that climate risk in numerous branches of industry is more important than the risk of interest rates or foreign exchange risk.

The Democrats support the creation of an investment and regulatory environment for the innovation of low-carbon technologies and to provide certainty for industry to make that transition to a low-carbon future. We also know that it is necessary to protect our natural habitats and to prepare for adaptation to global warming. The economic restructuring necessary to do this is way behind that of almost all other OECD countries, placing our business sector at serious competitive disadvantage in new markets.

We of course support the ratification of the Kyoto protocol. I do not know how many times we have mentioned it in this place and called on the government to complete that ratification. The government says that the protocol is flawed because it does not include the growing powerhouses of China and India. That argument, of course, stymies any hope whatsoever of global cooperation. Apparently free trade agreements can be negotiated between Australia and one or two other countries, but not an agreement that deals with the greatest threat to the planet involving highly developed countries. Of course, we are out of Kyoto, as we all know, because we follow the United States. Anything Mr Bush says, we are right on board—in this case, backing his recalcitrance and protecting our markets for coal and now uranium. That is the sad fact.

Ratifying the Kyoto protocol not only is the right thing to do for the environment but also will allow Australian government and industry to access and benefit from the project based mechanisms such as joint implementation projects and clean development mechanisms. The head of the UNFCCC said that the clean development mechanism of the Kyoto protocol could generate annual turnover of $A133 billion in green investment flow to developing countries, none of which Australian companies can be part of. The carbon market in the EU emissions trading scheme was worth over $13 billion in 2005. Our farmers missed out on an annual income of $2.5 billion for land clearing avoided.

We also support a national climate change action plan. Australia does not have a nationally consistent regulatory framework to respond to climate change, and various levels of government are pursuing different and changing policies. Some states are introducing their own version of emissions trading and others have a greenhouse abatement program in place. This is not a coordinated approach; this is not a national approach. It is, in fact, a hotchpotch of state government responses. Our economy is highly dependent on energy, on the $26 billion a year in coal exports, on the $32 billion a year in tourism and on agriculture. Few companies are well positioned to manage and capitalise on the risks and opportunities of climate change.

Coordination and assessment of these cumulative impacts can only be managed through overarching principles that take climate change impacts into account. National coordination of climate change policy is crucial because the impacts, and therefore the policies, are cross portfolio: energy, water, transport, industry, primary industry and so on. We would actually go further and call for a national and coordinated climate change action plan and we would require a minister for climate change. I have no doubt that Senator Milne would agree with that as well.

An Australian Greenhouse Office report shows Australia will not meet its target of 108 per cent of 1990 greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. In fact, greenhouse emissions are projected to rise to 127 per cent higher than 1990 levels by 2020. The AGO report confirms that the Australian government’s current and committed policies are inadequate. We cannot meet our Kyoto target. The challenge is to lower CO concentrations in the atmosphere to levels that avoid dangerous climate change, and to keep them that way. This means massive and urgent cuts followed by a balance in which CO emissions match the earth’s capacity to absorb them. On average, around 45 per cent of all greenhouse emissions remain in the atmosphere and the rest are absorbed by natural systems. This has been the case for at least the last 50 years.

Greenhouse mitigation requires stabilising and then reducing emissions over the long term. In order to be sustainable, greenhouse emissions from human activity must equal the earth’s capacity to absorb them. Our objective, therefore, must be not just to deliver major cuts in emissions but also to have the planet reach what I call homeostasis—a sustainable balance where emissions are no higher than the earth’s capacity to absorb them. The government’s immediate policy objective should be to achieve the Kyoto protocol target of limiting emissions to 108 per cent in the period 2008-12. To achieve this it is going to have to find an additional six million tonnes of greenhouse gas abatement—and there is only three years to do that. That is the equivalent of a three per cent reduction in the stationary energy emissions of this country.

We also support the annual greenhouse gas inventory and national communication. We say we also need transparency in the methodologies that are behind the calculation of Australia’s emissions, particularly around land use, land use change and forestry. I note that the CRC for carbon accounting, which would have been useful in this process, no longer exists due to the government removing its funding.

We support a framework for involvement in international trading schemes. But, having said that, we think that a higher priority right here and now is for Australia to introduce domestic trading schemes so that we can be prepared for an international trading scheme down the track. We support emission reduction targets. The targets in this bill are for 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. We have some doubts about the latter target. This certainly provides certainty for industry but we would like to see flexibility built in, in case more—or even less—action is required as more information comes to hand. Forty-seven years from now is a very long way off and we would sooner stick to the principle of achieving the balance that I referred to—to restore safe levels of CO emission and concentration.

We support a national energy savings target, also known as an energy efficiency target. We have been strong advocates for that in this place in the last few weeks. We would go further and introduce incentive mechanisms for energy efficiency supported by a strong baseline of energy efficiency regulation. We support a minimum price for renewable energy. We support a feed-in tariff for specific renewable energy technologies but we prefer the creation of specific markets for carbon,‘black’, emissions trading; renewable, ‘green’, emissions trading; and energy efficiency, ‘white’, trading.

Like the Greens, we have for many years been advocating the end of harvesting old growth forests, for many reasons that are well laid out in the bill. As the population grows so do greenhouse emissions and their impact on natural habitats. We think it is essential then to de-link greenhouse emissions from economic growth—and the expansion into natural habitats that that growth implies—to prevent more species being threatened and lost. We think it is critical that the environment is protected from uncoordinated singular development activities that have cumulative impacts that already threaten the compromised habitats and environment systems. We need to move to other practices which increase the carbon sequestration in the soil and biosphere, and of course to maintain and protect existing old growth for its value in storing carbon, protecting habitat and promoting adaptation.

We strongly support the increase in the mandatory renewable energy target and we have moved countless amendments in this place to do that. In this bill the target has been pushed up, as we know it is possible to do. It is a proven and successful market based measure that was introduced in 2001. The concept originally was that it would deliver an additional two per cent of our electricity supply from renewable sources. But, as we all know, the promised two per cent target was so watered down that it was met within three years. Renewable energy had a 10.5 per cent market share before MRET was introduced and now, in 2007, that is down to a nine per cent market share. So clearly, although more renewable energy is being generated, it failed as a mechanism to increase the total percentage. In fact, instead of being two per cent, it looks as if by 2010 it will represent less than 0.5 per cent of total electricity use.

We know that renewable energy has enormous potential to meet our energy needs, with solar, bioenergy and geothermal opportunities being barely explored in this country. The renewable energy target could be doubled and the industry could respond without even a groan. Combined with energy efficiency targets to reduce the overall consumption, it is possible to increase the relative renewable energy contribution to much higher levels than we have—in the order of 30 per cent by 2015 we understand would be reasonable. The Democrats moved an amendment in parliament in June 2006 to increase MRET to 20 per cent by 2020. Naturally the government did not support the amendment. No doubt it has wiped its hand of MRET. MRET will finish in 2010 and leave the renewable energy sector in the lurch.

We support amendments to the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act. We have spent time this week debating what is missing from that act. The uptake of energy efficiency is a front-line tool in the transition to a carbon constrained future. It is the least-cost greenhouse abatement activity and it has very positive economic and productivity benefits. Yet energy efficiency is underutilised, with the government having only introduced voluntary measures. Other sectors, including agriculture, are not included in the Climate Change Action Bill, but we think that they are important. We need action in the agricultural sector in the research, development, demonstration and commercialisation of low-emission technologies. I would like to stress the importance of action in all sectors of the economy in the transition to that carbon constrained future.

It is understood that enough carbon can be stored in the living biosphere, particularly in the tropics of our planet, to offset all of the atmospheric carbon emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Australia has great opportunities in sequestering or storing carbon in the soil, and the agricultural sector will be a large beneficiary of carbon-trading schemes, as well as a beneficiary of turning climate change around—if we can possibly do that—or avoiding dangerous climate change events.

Increasing carbon in the biosphere can be achieved through soil carbon retention or biosequestration, such as tree planting. There are a number of practices that can increase soil carbon retention, such as organic and low-till practices. They all coincide with good soil management and enhanced soil fertility. Change in management practices and crop choice, such as growing perennial vegetation rather than annual grasses, can sequester carbon in the longer term. Having deep-rooted plants helps store carbon in the soil. If you are dealing with a forested situation, the leaves fall and rot away and store carbon in the soil. The greatest challenge is in quantifying carbon sequestration. This requires basic research to be done and the development of methodologies to account for the carbon. It is essential that methodologies for measuring soil and biosphere carbon sequestration are developed so that the agricultural sector can take the opportunity that should be provided to them with emissions trading. The Democrats would like to reward and support farming communities that transfer to low carbon or carbon sequestering agricultural practices. A solution to greenhouse abatement and transition— (Time expired)