Greenhouse outlaws
John Howard says Australia cannot afford to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions. He says this country is a "special case" — given our reliance on fossil fuels — and has even countenanced withdrawing from the climate change convention.
The federal government has resorted to scare tactics in its bid to push its reactionary greenhouse agenda. Howard says that if Australia is forced to implement greenhouse gas emission targets — the goal of the next United Nations climate conference in December — the economy will be ruined and the cost per capita to fix it up would be considerable.
The December conference, in Kyoto, Japan, is supposed to agree to binding emission targets for developed countries, something that to date all such conferences have failed to do.
Australia is a leading greenhouse recalcitrant; both Labor and Coalition governments have consistently lined up with the oil producing nations to thwart united action. Now, the push is on from the European Community countries and the United States to cut greenhouse emissions by 15%, based on 1990 levels, by 2010.
Having failed to enlist the support of other industrialised countries, including Japan, the PM has turned his attention to softening up domestic opinion which, until now, had largely accepted that Australia had a significant role to play in reducing greenhouse gases.
The argument that cuts to Australia's output of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse culprit) would pose a threat to the economy is ridiculous. Howard says that "it would have a devastating effect on regional economies" — a hollow line indeed given his lack of such commentary following BHP's decision to sack thousands of workers in Newcastle.
The Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics is providing Howard with many reactionary arguments. ABARE says that if Australia agrees to emission cuts, electricity charges will rise and coal and metal exports will drop, as will wages.
Howard and the ABARE conveniently fail to take into account the environmental and economic costs of maintaining the status quo.
A study commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation estimated that the production and consumption of fossil fuels had benefited from $40 billion in subsidies over the last 40 years. Another study undertaken last year for the Department of the Environment indicated that there are approximately $2 billion in annual economic subsidies and $5.2 billion in annual environmental subsidies going to the production and consumption of fossil fuels.
Such resources would be better utilised, from the environmental and social point of view, in developing the fledgling renewable energy industry.
Howard's argument that Australia's share of global greenhouse gas production is negligible (approximately 2%) and that kerbing our emissions would not significantly affect the global build-up of greenhouse gases is irresponsible. Per capita, Australia's emissions are the fifth highest in the world, the result of this country's high car manufacture and usage, petrol consumption and oil exploration and processing.
Climate scientists estimate that if emission levels of carbon dioxide are allowed to continue at the present rate, the global mean temperature will rise by 0.3° C per decade. This will have a devastating effect on agriculture, particularly in the Third World.
Howard's threats must be exposed as short-sighted attempts to maintain the profits and energy monopoly of the fossil fuel industry. The Howard government must be forced to agree to binding emission targets. To do otherwise would be environmentally and socially criminal.