Until recently Brendan Nelson argued that Australia should not get too far in front of other countries in the battle to control carbon pollution but rather, that we should await an effective global treaty, agreed to by China and India, before introducing our own pollution control.
There are still many politicians and members of the public who believe that this is an appropriate course of action. In fact it’s deeply flawed thinking.
Anyone who is waiting for developing nations to agree to a target for a reduction in their emissions will be disappointed in the short-to-medium term. Many such countries are starved of electricity, and for some time must source it from wherever they can get it.
China’s situation highlights their general dilemma. With a population growing at a million per month, and economic growth running at nearly 10% per annum, demand growth for electricity is unstoppable. There is just no way that old coal-fired plant can be decommissioned at any scale under these circumstances. Furthermore, emissions per person is tiny compared with our own.
The only practical option at present is for the developed world to decarbonise as swiftly as it can while allowing China’s per capita emissions to grow until they have reached an agreed point, after which they must fall along with ours.
The nonsense of the Nelson view is even more starkly evident if you picture yourself at the negotiating table in Copenhagen in December 2009.
Can you imagine anyone taking Australia seriously, as we argue for global reductions, if we’ve done nothing to limit our emissions? Under those circumstances we’d have no chance at all of playing a positive role in the negotiations.
The truth is that our authority will be proportional to our efforts to limit our pollution. Our Prime Minister could be a critical player on the global stage in Copenhagen, but only in Australia’s carbon pollution reduction scheme promises to be bitingly effective and poised to take off by December 2009.
Dr Harvey M Tarvydas says: ‘Scienctst’ & ‘expert’ can be almost mutually exclusive. Flannery has earned recognition & respect for both.
Te first sentence cannot reasonably be argued against; the second can very easily be disagreed with and indeed has in many quarters.
I reconise Flannery’s laudable campaigning for the environment. With respect to AGW he has made many dramatic pronouncements some of them just plain silly and often at variance with the IPCC computer modeling he uses to base his belief in AGW .
Would someone explain why Tim Flannery, an expert on prehistoric mammals, is to be taken seriously on climate change. Has he devised or used mathematical models to test the supposedly consensual science of the IPCC? Has he the necessary skills of any good physicest to validate opinions on climate science authoritatively? And even if he can explain why the influence of the Jovian planets on the Sun’s meridional gas flows is not more important to global warming than any increase in atmospheirc CO2 from the atmosphere or why the latter matters when there is already 400 ppm in the atmostphere, can he explain why Australia is going to be better off in any sense if it causes economic damage to itself in reducing CO2 emissions? Why does he think the rulers of billions of people are going to take the sltightest notice of what the government of 20 million does or says about its own or anyone else’s CO2 emissions. And why should we do what some might regard as our fair share of emssion reductions if , in the end, it is not going to make any difference to what happens to our climate or the world”s?
Tim is right in the socio-political concepts he profers.
Nelson gets sympathy from Australians by stamping his foot as he declares Aus emissions are JUST 1.4% to 1.6% of global, less than 2% which sounds so small.
Its mathematical nonsense. 2% is huge? And1.4% is just as huge in the Global warming stakes.
How many times has the media transmitted this political information on ‘climate change’ to the Australian citizen “Australia produces only 1.4% to 1.6% of the global carbon emissions so what good will it do anyone especially us if we forge ahead with all the noble action to drop our emissions by as much as possible if the US, China and India don’t.”
The scientific & mathematical conceptual incompetence of silly desperate opposition pollies and their media fans and many significant others, from a range of eclectic groups, leaves thinking Australians floundering in disbelief as the mathematics is high school standard.
Yesterday I heard the airline industry claim emissions as a tiny 2% for the whole global industry (the interviewee’s words).
Well that leaves about 46 to 48 tiny 2% bits (that don’t make any difference) to distribute to how many countries, how many big industries on the planet before you’re over 100%. **
How big is 2% now????
Insanity (logically and mathematically) has unthinkingly pervaded this most important discussion/issue to which Australians are tremendously willing to engage with tremendous good will according to the polls.
Lets not damage such a wonderful public resource.
Here’s the insanity.
** 9 lots of 2% for China, 9 lots for USA, 4 lots each for UK, Germany & France and 5 lots for Russia, 1 lot for Australia (not completely used up),1 lot for the global airlines, 3 lots for global transport, and now you have 10 lots of the innocent 2%’s to pass around to the rest of the world and industry to circumscribe the insanity
Harvey Tarvydas
Psychology, psychology, psychology is everything
Why do we take Tim Flannery so very very seriously? We wouldn’t trust a meat eating vegetarian or a gun toting pacifist. Why do we listen to a jet setting environmentalist?
The nonsense of the Flannery view is that the world as we rich people knew it in the last part of the 20th century has come to a horrible end. The only option, therefore, is for privileged individuals from developed countries to set a decent lifestyle example and thereby give hope to the world that another way is possible.
Consider George Monbiot who is seriously worth taking seriously. He is one of the very very few contemporary thinkers who is willing to set an inconvenient example when it comes to his own carbon footprint.
KRATOE for the same reason as you should be taken seriously.
Some of your very reasonable ‘why’ questions contain questionable presumptions just like ones of which you’re complaining.
‘Scienctst’ & ‘expert’ can be almost mutually exclusive. Flannery has earned recognition & respect for both.