THE GREAT CLIMATE FIG LEAF

Environmental Panorama
International
August of 2005

 

01/08/2005 — Top climate bad guys, the US and Australian governments, have unveiled their own shiny new pact to allegedly save the climate. Our climate guru Stephanie Tunmore exposes the announcement for what it really is.
The US, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea - all working together to tackle climate change and save the planet? Sounds like good news!
At first glance the new 'US - Asia Pacific Pact' would seem an encouraging development. It is clear that avoiding the very worst of climate change means rapidly developing countries like China and India will need to start 'decarbonising.' And given the US and Australia's previous refusal to take any meaningful action to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, isn't it a good thing that all of these countries have signed up to the pact?

Meaningful?

Well the key word here is 'meaningful.' On further investigation the agreement has no targets for emissions reductions, no timetables or deadlines, in fact it doesn't even mention emissions reductions - oh, and it's completely voluntary. In fact it looks like nothing more than a trade agreement on energy technology.

In a perfect world even this could result in better energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies for developing countries but experience tells us that the technologies that most interest the US and Australia are the 'magic bullet' ones that claim to reduce emissions whilst allowing the continued burning of fossil fuels.

Take "carbon capture and storage" for instance; the 'suck it out of the sky and stick it under a rock' approach. This process promises to trap CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels and store it in the sea or under the Earth's surface. Even if it delivers it won't be ready for at least 15-20 years, it will increase the cost of power generation, reduce the efficiency of power plants and require long-term monitoring to make sure the CO2 stays put.

Whilst money is diverted into these future technologies in a bid to continue business as usual, proven renewable and energy efficiency technologies that are ready to use now lack investment from both governments and industry.

Motivation

Which leads us to motivation. The US and Australia have both refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the one existing international agreement on dealing with climate change. They have spent years trying to undermine and derail the treaty on the basis that developing countries don't have targets so it is unfair.

It is obvious to everyone, including the 152 nations that have ratified Kyoto, that industrialised countries that got rich through the use of fossil fuels have a responsibility to act first to correct the problem.

The average American uses more electricity in two weeks than the average person in India uses in a year. US emissions have increased by 16 percent since 11000 and are projected to be 32 percent above 11000 levels in by 2012. Australian emissions from energy are projected to be 66 percent above 11000 levels by 2020 and its per capita emissions are 6 times as high as China.

Developing countries will not be motivated to adopt targets whilst the world's biggest CO2 emitter and the world's biggest per capita emitter sit comfortably on their hands and refuse to act.

The obvious course of action would be to ratify Kyoto and get on with reducing their emissions. Instead we get this disingenuous attempt to finance minor changes abroad whilst doing nothing at home, with the clever little side effect, focussing as it does on so-called "clean coal" technology, of securing new coal markets for export.

This is a fig leaf of enormous proportions - but it fails to hide anything.

Feature:
You're invited to the Art for Action exhibition
Her paintings hang in the Australian National Gallery and London's National Portrait gallery. She has won the Archibald Prize two times. Now Judy Cassab has taken on her next artistic challenge: the Greenpeace Art for Action competition!

Art for Action is an art competition and online auction. Greenpeace are inviting you to come and view artworks entered in the competition at Sydney’s ArtHouse Hotel* and bid online on your favourite piece. Proceeds from sales of submitted works help Greenpeace work towards a green and peaceful planet.

A grand unveiling of celebrity works received in the competition will take place at the final live auction and awards ceremony at the ArtHouse Hotel on 13 September at 7pm.

Greenpeace is very pleased to have Judy Cassab's support for our Art for Action competition. Judy is one of Australia's best known portrait painters and has won many prestigious art awards. Her works hang in galleries around Australia including the National Gallery, Canberra.

Art for Action celebrates the impact our creative community has in highlighting important environmental issues. This year's theme is centred around our amazing oceans and the 20th anniversary of the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior I.

* Sydney's ArtHouse Hotel is located at 275 Pitt St, Sydney.

Feature:
Saving Australia's prize
The Murray Darling Basin is Australia's lifeblood. It irrigates 70 per cent of our crops and pastures, and provides drinking water to three million people. Now our largest river system may die because of climate change. But there are solutions to save the Murray.

The Rainbow Warrior arrived at the mouth of the Murray River on August 22 with a message to Premier Mike Rann and all South Australians: Quit coal and save the Murray Darling basin from climate change.

Greenpeace and community groups travelled from Goolwa to the Murray in inflatable boats flying a flag asking for “Clean Energy Now”.

The Murray Darling Basin covers a million square kilometres of land. It is Australia's most important agricultural region, accounting for 41 per cent of the nation's gross value of agricultural production and irrigating 71 per cent of the total area of Australia’s crops and pastures. It gives drinking water to more than a million people in Adelaide and sustains 30,000 magnificent wetlands, floodplains and unique red gum forests.

A recent government report marks the Murray Darling Basin as "highly vulnerable" to climate change. It says that higher temperatures, reduced rainfall and more frequent and intense droughts could slash run-off in the basin by up to 20 per cent in the next 25 years.

Greenpeace energy campaigner, Mark Wakeham, says, "Tackling climate change and protecting the Murray are inextricably linked. If climate change continues unchecked, the Murray River, the lifeblood of the Australian continent, will die."

To tackle climate change, we must break Australia’s addiction to using greenhouse polluting coal for electricity and export dollars and move to clean energy solutions like wind and solar power.

From August 23, the Rainbow Warrior is in Adelaide highlighting South Australia's huge clean energy potential. South Australia leads the country in wind and solar power development, reaping the benefits in jobs, investment and clean air. Premier Rann is a leading voice on climate change. Now he should set a binding target of 25 per cent clean energy by 2020, guaranteeing jobs and investment, and setting South Australia up to export clean energy to New South Wales and Victoria.

If you live in South Australia, join Greenpeace and the Conservation Council of South Australia at a public meeting to discuss how South Australia can become the "solar state".
Venue:Radford Auditorium, Art Gallery of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide
When: August 24, 7pm-9pm

 
 

Source: Greenpeace International (http://www.greenpeace.org)
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