Parched Australia told to trade emissions
Ross Garnaut, the down-under equivalent of Nicholas Stern, offered up a draft report Friday on the costs of climate change in Australia and an emissions trading scheme for dealing with it.
The reaction? Garnaut mania, says Daniel Cressey on The Great Beyond. The report's server was overloaded at the time of this blogging - despite the gauntlet of rewrites that still stands between this document and actual legislation, as Daniel points out.
If global warming goes unmitigated, Garnaut figures projected GDP will drop 4.8% and real wages 7.8% by 2100. Agriculture is one sector set to take a beating - and that's in the context of droughts that have already dug into Asia's rice supply (thanks to Grist for link; more on climate, energy and global food supply here).
The proposed emissions market has a broad scope, including transportation and petroleum products. It won't be a revenue-raiser though - households are supposed to get half the proceeds to offset rising prices, businesses another 30% against international competition, and the last 20% goes to developing and commercializing new technologies. For wonkier details, see Reuters' factbox.
Worth noting: At the national level, what Garnaut's recommending is a short-term band-aid plan. From the report summary:
Australia's mitigation effort is our contribution to keeping alive the possibility of an effective global agreement on mitigation.
(A bit bleak, no? Other countries have called their climate policies leadership, not life support.)
Any effort prior to effective, comprehensive global agreement should be short, transitional, and directed at achievement of global agreement.
Australian carbon trading won't make the difference between ruin and recovery, says the report - only a global emissions market will. For any hint of progress on that front, look to this week's G8 summit, where Olive Heffernan is blogging from Hokkaido for Climate Feedback.
Anna Barnett
Image: Coal-fired power plant in Western Australia. If carbon consumption goes unmitigated, says the Garnaut report, coal-addicted Oz can expect quadrupled emissions, mostly from power. Credit: Nachoman-au on Wikimedia.
