Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for July 7, 2008

Reforming Water Policy Won’t End The Drought: Jennifer Marohasy Speaks with Michael Duffy on Counterpoint

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Last week the Council of Australian Governments signed an Intergovernmental Agreement for reform of the Murray-Darling Basin. The new plan involves spending $3.7 billion on water projects across the basin. Is this money well spent and how effective will it be ?

Michael Duffy invited me onto his ABC Radio National program ‘Counterpoint’ to discuss the issue this afternoon. You can listen here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2008/2296327.htm.

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Sheep near Junee, Murray Darling Basin, Photograph by Jennifer Marohasy, July 4, 2008

Virtual Science for Australian Drought Policy Review

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Australia could experience drought twice as often and the events will be twice as severe within 20 to 30 years, according to a new Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke yesterday released the report commissioned by the Rudd Government as part of a review of national drought policy.

According to the media release:

“The overall review, announced in April, will help prepare farmers, rural communities and Australia’s primary industries for the challenges of climate change.

The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO climatic report on future drought events – the first of its kind in Australia – will be considered as part of the drought policy review.

Key findings of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report include:

Under a high scenario, droughts could occur twice as often, cover twice the area and be more severe in key agricultural production areas;

The current definition of ‘Exceptional Circumstances’, which defines areas eligible to apply for Federal Government drought assistance, is out-of-date;

Temperatures currently defined as ‘exceptional’ are likely to occur, on average, once in every two years in many key agricultural production areas within the next 20 to 30 years;

We need better ways of getting information about climate change preparedness to farmers.”

So it seems the government is reverting to scenario-modelling to determine its drought policy and will focus on a worst case scenario by way of a high emissions scenario.

There is really nothing new in this approach, indeed in November 2004 then NSW Premier Bob Carr released a report by CSIRO entitled ‘Climate Change in New South Wales’ alerting us to the possiblity of more frequent droughts. Given this report was also based on scenario-modelling I suggested at the time in my The Land column that the CSIRO could have spiced the report up even more by scenario-modelling a war and a volcanic eruption into it.

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The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report ‘An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events’ is available at www.daff.gov.au/droughtpolicyreview.

Australians Deluded by Latest Climate Change Report

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Since the election of the Rudd Labor government last year Australians seem to be under some sort of delusion that what we do here in Australia will actually have an impact on global climate. These delusions seem to have increased with the release of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report last Friday.

The front page of the weekend edition of the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that unless we immediately start work on a carbon trading scheme to operate from 2010 – and accept that the price of petrol, gas, power and food will rise – then it will be the end of agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin by 2100, 5.5 million people will be exposed to dengue virus, it will be the end of the Great Barrier Reef and the beginning of political instability in neighbouring countries.

This is simply not true.

Indeed even Ross Garnaut acknowledges in his report that for there to be any impact on global carbon dioxide levels, the world’s major economies must do something about their emissions. The Professor lists China, the US, the European Union, Indonesia, Brazil, Russia then India, as the world’s largest greenhouse emitters and in that order.

Emissions from Australia make up only about 1 percent of the world total. In reality, we are a nation of just 21 million people at the bottom of the world. There are 1.3 billion people in China (India 1.1 billion, US 304 million and Indonesia 231 million) and given China and most other developing countries have no intension of limiting their greenhouse gas emissions in the short to medium term atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases are likely to continue to increase.

And I am not conceding that the apparently elevated levels of carbon dioxide are driving global temperatures.

Indeed atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have increased significantly over the last few decades and global temperatures did increase over the period 1975 to 1998, but since then they appear to have plateaued.

The prediction was that 2007 would be really hot, but it wasn’t.

There has been a breakdown in the correlation between increasingly levels of carbon dioxide and global temperatures.

Instead of acknowledging this in his report Professor Garnaut has deferred to two fellows at the Australian National University who he describes as “eminent econometricians” and quotes them apparently concluding that “viewed from the perspective of 30 or 50 years ago, the temperature recorded in most of the last decade lie above the confidence band produced by any model that does not allow for a warming trend” (pg. 113).

Why doesn’t the Professor just acknowledge that over the last 10 years, viewed from now, there has been no global warming and that now is not the time to introduce a radical new emission trading scheme that is sure to force up the price of everything, particularly given that our big neighbours, including Indonesia with a population of 231 million, have no plans to do the same.

The bottom line is that the introduction of an emissions trading scheme into Australia is likely to deliver real economic hardship while delivering no environmental benefit. Indeed it is absurd to suggest that the introduction of an emissions trading scheme in Australia will have any impact on the environment of the Murray Darling Basin or the Great Barrier Reef.

Australians are indeed deluding themselves if they think that by simply paying more for their petrol, they can influence global temperature trends, never mind that there has been no warming for 10 years now.