Jennifer Marohasy

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Australia to Embrace Carbon Trading

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On 10 December 2006 the Australian Prime Minister announced the establishment of a joint government-business Task Group on Emissions Trading. Yesterday, the Report of the Task Group on Emissions Trading was publicly released. It “outlines the state of play in international cooperation on climate change and the possible development of emissions trading at the global level. Against this background, the Report outlines a proposed Australian domestic emissions trading scheme, together with a set of complementary policies and measures, that would enable Australia to position itself for international developments while maintaining economic growth and safeguarding our competitive advantage.”

The report includes comment that, “The most common type of emissions trading systems are known as ‘cap and trade’ schemes. Under such a scheme, the government determines limits on greenhouse gas emissions (that is, sets a target or cap) and issues tradable emissions permits up to this limit. Each permit represents the right to emit a specified quantity of greenhouse gas (for example, one tonne of CO2-e). Businesses must hold enough permits to cover the greenhouse gas emissions they produce each year. Permits can be bought and sold, with the price determined by the supply of and demand for permits. Governments can choose how they wish to allocate permits, for example, by auctioning, grandfathering, benchmarking, allocating to meet specific equity objectives, or any combination of these options (a more detailed discussion of these methodologies is included in Chapter 7).
By placing a price on emissions, trading allows market forces to find least cost ways of reducing emissions by providing incentives for firms to reduce emissions where this would be cheapest, while allowing continuation of emissions where they are most costly to reduce. This underlines the fact that emissions trading is not an objective in itself, but a means of achieving a certain level of abatement at the lowest cost possible.”

Paul Kelly writing in The Australian newspaper has commented, “The essence of John Howard’s belated response to climate change is to commit early, think global and implement slowly. After years of dispute and scepticism, Australia now has a strategic blueprint for action — a blueprint superior to the defect-ridden European emission trading regime.

“This is the start of Australia exerting serious influence on the global debate. In substantive terms, it closes the gulf between Howard and Kevin Rudd on climate change. It insists that Australia must act now and not wait for global agreement. It makes the timetable for emission trading almost bipartisan — Howard in 2011 and Labor by 2010.

“While Howard’s report does not specify a target — in response to Rudd’s 60 per cent cut by 2050 — its entire “cap and trade” scheme depends upon a long-term target to be finalised next year after more analysis. Labor, equally, wants the scheme’s design finalised “by the end of 2008”.

And yesterday the Australian Prime Minister announced his support for a new US climate change initiative, a new post-Kyoto framework.

John Howard said, “The Australian Government welcomes the United States’ initiative announced overnight to build a broader coalition for practical international climate change action. This is a genuine attempt to get past the political stand-offs of previous negotiations, to cut through the entrenched positions of the north-south divide enshrined in the Kyoto Protocol and instead to focus on real solutions.

“My Government has consistently championed the need for practical action that makes a difference. In particular, we have advocated meaningful co-operation with developing countries and a new global framework in which all major economies feel able to participate.

“The US initiative – and the recent statement by Japan calling for a new global response that goes beyond Kyoto and brings in all major emitters – is further evidence that a new international consensus on climate change is starting to emerge.

“Australia has been very active in shaping this emerging consensus, which represents a significant move away from the empty symbolism of Kyoto towards the approach the Government has consistently advocated. The Government has been in frequent contact with the US Administration and our other key international partners.

“We have been at the forefront of practical, regional initiatives such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6) and the Clean Coal Partnership with China. The Government has launched a $200 million Global Forests Initiative to tackle deforestation and has put climate change at the centre of the APEC leaders’ agenda in September.

“The US approach recognises that to deal with climate change a multi-pronged strategy is required, including areas such as energy efficiency, technology development and transfer – including nuclear power – and forestry, as well as ways to adapt to changes in the climate.”

Australian ABC TV to Show ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’

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Hi Jen,

It looks as though ABC TV will be showing the UK Channel 4’s antidote to Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, The Great Global Warming Swindle in July:

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,21779177-10388,00.html .

Channel 4 defended the film, as has ABC director of television Kim Dalton, on the basis that all sides of the hotly contested global warming debate deserved to be represented.

“Currently the issue of global warming is being debated around the world,” Mr Dalton said.

“This documentary presents a controversial side to that debate.”

Expert commentators supporting the film’s claims include Patrick Moore, a founding member of Greenpeace who has spent the past 21 years as a critic of the environmentalist organisation, and oceanography professor Carl Wunsch, who was interviewed but later claimed his views had been misrepresented.

The ABC bought the rights to the international version of the hour-long program which had previously been passed on by the Nine Network.

“There are people who still question the link between human activity and global warming. I believe it’s important that these views are heard and debated,” Mr Dalton said.

In the UK, the documentary attracted an audience of 2.5 million viewers and 246 complaints were made to the television regulator, Ofcom.

Channel 4 said, however, supporters outweighed the critics six to one.

Since we last discussed this on Jennifer’s blog, TGGWS has been under almost constant attack from the global warming industry, culminating in a complaint to OFCOM
led by Bob Ward (formerly of The Royal Society), now with Risk Management Services.

Steve McIntyre has some observations here:

http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=49

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1519

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1517

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1513

An Inconvenient Truth is also causing controversy in schools.

I think that The Great Global Warming Swindle did a good job of presenting the alternative view that there is no man-made climate catastrophe outside of flawed computer models, environmental groups are often more red than green, the politicised IPCC is not objective, and the sun-climate connection is the most likely explanation for over 4 billion years of climate change. Watch it and apply the same critical standards to An Inconvenient Truth.

Regards,
Paul Biggs

Is AGW A Useful Fiction? Bill Kininmonth Says No

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Someone asked Bill Kininmonth:

If AGW is a fiction, is it not a useful fiction?

He answered with a resounding NO!

“Firstly, the AGW debate (now proselytisation) is diverting attention from those real issues that you mention and causing public and private investment in a range of actions that will have no present or future benefit. How often does it need to be said that CO2 is a colourless, odourless gas whose only detrimental characteristic is to form a very weak acid (carbonic acid) when dissolved in water. On the other hand, CO2 is an essential component of photosynthesis – increased CO2 in the atmosphere is an effective fertiliser of the biosphere as shown by horticulturalists artificially increasing the CO2 content within glasshouses. CO2 is NOT a pollutant.

There is every reason to believe that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will have no significant impact on the climate system. The greatest impact of atmospheric CO2 on the earth’s radiation budget was the first 20 ppmv. After this concentration the source of IR radiation to space from the active CO2 radiation bands was in the stratosphere, where temperature does not change as the emanation goes to higher and higher altitudes with increasing concentration.

There is every reason to believe that earth is near an upper temperature limit given its present distribution of land and ocean and the strength of solar irradiance. The earth’s surface is heated by way of solar radiation and back IR radiation emanating from clouds, greenhouse gases and aerosols; it is cooled by conduction, evaporation and IR emission. Solar radiation and conduction are essentially constant and the earth’s surface temperature will vary according to increasing back IR radiation (radiation forcing from CO2 and water vapour) being offset by surface IR emission and latent heat of evaporation. At a global average surface temperature of 15C the rate of increase of surface IR emission with temperature is about 5 W/m2 per degree C and the rate of increase of latent energy from evaporation is of similar magnitude. This means that back IR radiation from doubling of CO2 concentration must be at least 10 W/m2 to sustain a 1C temperature rise and more than 30 W/m2 to sustain a 3C temperature rise. Using the most accurate line-by-line radiation calculations the increase in back IR radiation due to doubling of CO2, increasing atmospheric temperature by 3C and holding relative humidity constant (the full positive feedback effect at 3C) only produces an increase in back IR radiation of 18 W/m2, well short of the 30 W/m2 necessary to sustain a 3C increase in equilibrium surface temperature. The rapidly increasing surface IR emission and latent heat loss with temperature are a barrier to significant surface temperature increase unless there is a change in the solar radiation input (either directly or through a change to cloudiness and albedo).

Secondly, the emphasis on CO2 emission reduction (so-called ‘clean coal’) is encouraging research in the wrong areas. Oil, gas, coal and uranium are all non-renewable sources of energy. Global demand is already causing price increases but the real concern will be as supplies become seriously depleted and more difficult to extract. The latter may not be in this century but will surely come. Investment in geosequestration and other forms of ‘clean coal’ are increasing the amount of resource needed to produce each unit of energy by up to 30 percent (according to one IPCC report). That is, we are contemplating using the non-renewable resource 30 percent faster (and bringing the effective lifetime forward by 30 percent) in order to achieve the chimera of CO2 emission reduction. Very poor policy if we are considering the needs of future generations!

AGW is a fiction and a very dangerous fiction.

William Kininmonth
Australasian Climate Research
and author of Climate Change: A Natural Hazard

Queensland Scrub Sold for Carbon: A Note from Tom Marland

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Hi Jennifer,

You may have read on the front page of Courier Mail on Saturday the article about Queensland’s First Carbon Farmer, Peter Allen.

Here is the link:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,21794589-952,00.html?from=public_rss

The project was the first avoided deforestation project of its kind in Australia and one of the biggest in the world.

The project secured 12,000 hectares of vegetation which was eligible to be cleared under the Stat Governments 500,000 hectare clearing ballot process.

It was estimated (both ground truthed and reconciled with the AGO) that the project prevented 1,200,000 tonnes of C02 emission being released into the atmosphere.

The cut off date for clearing permits to be acted upon was the 31 December 2006 which brought an end to broad scale land clearing of remnant vegetation in Queensland

It is amazing to read some of the responses in the article and also on the blog entries linked to the project.

Instead of being supportive of a project to protect vegetation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions many people were critical of the project.

One response was:

“I thought Peter Beattie past a law a couple of years ago that said no established forest of natural growth could be bulldozed. This farmer appears to have pulled a good one to me, He’s turned a few baron and unusable acres of scrub into a million bucks”

Another response:

‘How come the farmer, was in a position to destroy all those trees in the first place? There’s no moral here, merely a financial decision! Such thinking has created the problem in the first place and that by a shear a ‘twist of circumstances’ makes the farmer look ethical.’

Green groups have come on board to say the voluntary market is open to exploitation, with no controls on who can sell carbon and no checks on the work carried out.

However, to eligible under the scheme vegetation had to be approved by the Australian Greenhouse Office under the Greenhouse Friendly initiative.

To secure the carbon, landholders had to agree to enter into ‘carbon rights’ agreements.

Briefly, the ‘carbon rights’ agreement consists of:

– A 120 year agreement not to clear the vegetation which binds to title for future owners;
– On-going grazing and management is allowed to reduce bush fires, weed outbreaks and feral animal infestations;
– The agreement areas are surveyed and added to the survey plan.

To account for fire and carbon loss a 20% buffer was added to area eligible to be sold for credits.

In the future, there are further ‘avoided deforestation’ projects planned for eligible vegetation in Queensland and Northern New South Wales.

This eligible vegetation must meet the requirements set down under the Kyoto Protocol definition of forest and enforced by the Australian Greenhouse Office.

Landholders are already skeptical of the merits of reduced land clearing after the way in which Premier Beattie and the Queensland State Government have enacted and enforced the Vegetation Management Act.

Now the job will be even harder to convince eligible landholders to enter into the project because of the criticism that the project may attract.

The Allen’s (who were interviewed for the article) did not want the media attention but where interested in the diversification of income potential in selling the rights to carbon held in their vegetation on their own land and also the opportunity to contribute something back to the environment.

However, the attitude from many (mostly urban) is that it should be an ‘ethical’ decision rather than financial.

People want the benefits but no one wants to pay for it. We (the farmers) cant win.

For more information on the project go to www.carbonpool.com.au .

Cheers,
Tom Marland

Expect Worse Droughts?

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“Research into hurricanes in the North Atlantic indirectly suggests that the last 100 years in Australia have been relatively wet. Forget about Greenhouse. Just the normal swings and roundabouts of the climate have the potential to be devastating…

Graham Young writing at his blog Ambit Gambit goes onto suggest that based on a recent paper in Nature entitled ‘Intense hurricane activity over the past 5,000 years controlled by El Nino and the West African monsoon’ governments might consider “spending more taxpayer monies reconstructing paleo-climate, and less modelling future climate scenarios.”

He also comments, “What’s more, in a challenge to vulgar Greenhouse assumptions, there appear to have been more severe hurricanes in the past than the ones we’ve seen recently, even though the sea was colder then.”

The paper in Nature is worth a read: http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/20070525/20070525_02.pdf

Rachel Carson: Too Successful for Her Own Legacy

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Rachel Carson was born on 27th May 1907. If she were still alive, she would be 100 years old today.

Many claim her as founding the modern environment movement. Her work also had a direct influence on government. The US Congress went on to pass the National Environmental Policy Act, establish the Environmental Protection Agency, and ban DDT based on her activism.

Before Rachel Carson became an activist she was a writer.

She was just 10 years old when her first story was published in a children’s literary magazine. She read widely including the English Romantics and was influenced by their belief in the concept of ‘the balance of nature’ and ‘pristine wilderness’.

A zoology professor urged her to major in biology rather than English at Pennsylvania College for Women, today known as Chatham College. She was later to say that science, in particular marine biology, also gave her “something to write about”.

She never married, or completed the PhD she began at John Hopkins University in marine biology. Her first job was as a junior aquatic biologist at the Bureau of Fisheries where she was soon moved into communications and within 10 years was editor in chief of all the agency’s publications.

In 1951, still at the Bureau, her second book the The Sea Around Us was published and she became an overnight literary celebrity when it was serialized by the New York Times.

Her fourth book, Silent Spring, published in 1962 was also serialized by the newspaper. It combined Rachel Carson’s passion for writing and nature, with her growing hatred of industrialization. The book was written to alert the American public to the environmental and human dangers of the indiscriminate use of pesticides and it also captured the imagination of then President John F. Kennedy.

The book became a best seller.

In the same way people like Al Gore and Tim Flannery are today warning of a climate crisis, as far back as 1945 the Reader’s Digest was publishing Rachel Carson warning of the dangers of pesticides, particularly DDT. She wrote that the pollution of the environment through ignorance and greed was the ultimate act of human arrogance. She turned the widespread use of DDT into a moral issue in the same way Al Gore has turned global warming into a moral issue, including for the US government.

Like Al Gore, Rachel Carson gave testimony before congress. She claimed that public opinion was being ignored and government must take responsibility for the damage from the widespread use of toxic chemicals. At that time the Senate Committee on Commerce was hearing testimony on the Chemical Pesticides Coordination Act which would require labels to tell how to avert damage to fish and wildlife.

She had no institutional affiliation and had no scientific publications in the area of chemical toxicology but she galvinized public and government support for more controls on the use of chemicals.

Rachel Carson died of breast cancer on 14 April 1964, aged just 56, and before much of her work had its real impact. In 1980, she was posthumously awarded the highest civilian honour in the USA, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The same year Time Magazine published a feature entitled ‘The Poisoning of America’ claiming that “Of all of man’s interventions in the natural order, none is accelerating quite so alarmingly as the creation of chemical compounds.”

Recently, with the approach of the centenary of Rachel Carson’s birth, US Senate Democrats planned a resolution to honour her legacy, but Republican Senator Tom Coburn, a practising Doctor and campaigner for the use of DDT in the fight against malaria in Africa, scuttled this.

The senator has said that Rachel Carson used junk science and that her “warnings about environmental damage have put a stigma on potentially lifesaving pesticides” like DDT.

In 1962, the same year that Silent Spring was published, Carlos Alvarado and L.J. Bruce-Chwatt* in Scientific American wrote of the hopeful outlook for the control of malaria, that during the last 15 years “modern methods” have cut the number of cases of malaria worldwide from 350 million to less than 100 million with complete eradication achieved in several areas including the USA. At that time the World Health Organization was aiming for the total eradication of the disease from the whole human population.

But Rachel Carson’s campaign cut across this effort. She advocated that mankind seek to live in harmony with ‘Mother Nature’ rather than to seek to conquer her.

Had Rachel Carson been less successful, had her books and her activism resulted in the introduction of more controls on agricultural chemicals, without the complete banning of DDT in the US, her ultimate legacy may have been a better one.

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* Malaria, by Alvarado and Bruce-Chwatt is in a special anthology of Scientific American articles entitled ‘The Insects’ selected and Introduced by Thomas Eisner and Edward Wilson published by W.H. Freeman and Company, 1977.