Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

Ed Pilkington, June 23, The Guardian

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the "perfect storm" of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

He is also considering personally targeting members of Congress who have a poor track record on climate change in the coming November elections. He will campaign to have several of them unseated. Hansen's speech to Congress on June 23 1988 is seen as a seminal moment in bringing the threat of global warming to the public's attention. At a time when most scientists were still hesitant to speak out, he said the evidence of the greenhouse gas effect was 99% certain, adding "it is time to stop waffling".

He will tell the House select committee on energy independence and global warming this afternoon that he is now 99% certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level.

The current concentration is 385 parts per million and is rising by 2ppm a year. Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, says 2009 will be a crucial year, with a new US president and talks on how to follow the Kyoto agreement.

He wants to see a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, coupled with the creation of a huge grid of low-loss electric power lines buried under ground and spread across America, in order to give wind and solar power a chance of competing. "The new US president would have to take the initiative analogous to Kennedy's decision to go to the moon."

His sharpest words are reserved for the special interests he blames for public confusion about the nature of the global warming threat. "The problem is not political will, it's the alligator shoes - the lobbyists. It's the fact that money talks in Washington, and that democracy is not working the way it's intended to work."

A group seeking to increase pressure on international leaders is launching a campaign today called 350.org. It is taking out full-page adverts in papers such as the New York Times and the Swedish Falukuriren calling for the target level of CO2 to be lowered to 350ppm. The advert has been backed by 150 signatories, including Hansen.

Hansen, Clock running out on irreversible climate change

Dr James Hansen, April 28, Online Opinion

New York: fifty years ago, Yankee Stadium had about 70,000 seats. It seldom sold out, and almost any kid could afford the cheapest seats. Capacity was reduced to about 57,000 when the stadium was remodeled in the 1970s. Most games sell out now, and prices have gone up.

The new stadium, opening next year, will reduce seating to about 51,800. This intentional contraction is aimed at guaranteeing sellouts, increasing demand, allowing the owners, in short order, to triple prices or more. The owners have learned that scarcity will fatten their wallets. The plan may discriminate against the lower middle class, but as long as the owner is footing the bill without public subsidies, there may be little grounds for complaint.

Now fossil-fuel moguls are intent on hoodwinking the entire planet with an analogous scheme.

The basic trick is oil producers overstating fossil-fuel reserves. Government "energy information" departments parrot industry. Partly because of disinformation, the major efforts needed to develop alternative energies have not been made.

The reality of limited supply forces prices higher. Eventually, sales volume will begin to decline, but fossil-fuel moguls will make more money than ever. They'll continue to assert that there's plenty more oil, gas or coal to be found, aiming to keep the suckers on the hook. Indeed, they may find somewhat more in the deep ocean, under national parks, in polar regions, offshore, and in other environmentally sensitive areas. They don't need much to keep the suckers paying higher and higher prices.

Oil "reserves" suddenly doubled when Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided that production quotas would be proportional to official reserves. These higher reserves are, at least in part, phantom. Coal "reserves" are based on estimates made many decades ago. Closer study shows that extractable coal reserves are vastly overstated, consistent with present production difficulties and rising prices. The presumed 200-year supply of coal in the United States is a myth, but it serves industry moguls well.

Conventional fossil-fuel supplies are limited, even if we tear up the Earth to extract every last drop of oil and shard of coal. Tearing up the Earth to get at those last drops - Exxon/Mobil proudly advertises that they're drilling the depths of the ocean and searching the most extreme pristine environments - is as insane as the smoker who trudged four miles through a raging storm to buy a pack of Camel cigarettes to feed his nicotine addiction.

It would be possible to find more fossil fuels, and extend our addiction and pollution of the environment, should we be so foolish as to take the path of extracting unconventional fossil fuels such as tar shale and tar sands on a large scale. That choice cannot be left to the discretion of industry moguls. The planet does not belong to them.

Basic facts on reserves must be combined with basic climate facts described in the paper Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?

Our conclusion is that, if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to the one on which civilisation developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, CO2 must be reduced from its present 385ppm (parts per million) to, at most, 350ppm. We find that peak CO2 can be kept to about 425ppm, with large estimates for oil and gas reserves, if coal use is phased out by 2030 (except where CO2 is captured and sequestered) and unconventional fossil fuels are not tapped substantially. Peak CO2 can be kept close to 400ppm, if actual reserves are closer to those estimated by "peakists", who believe that the globe is already at peak global oil production, having extracted about half of readily extractable oil resources.

This lower 400ppm peak can be ensured, assuming phase-out of coal emissions by 2030, if a practical limit on reserves is achieved by means of actions that prevent fossil-fuel extraction from public lands, off-shore regions under government control, environmentally pristine regions and extreme environments. The concerned public can influence this matter, but time is short, the industry voice is strong and climate effects have not yet become so obvious to the public as to overwhelm the disinformation from industry moguls.

A near-term moratorium on coal-fired power plants and constraints on oil extraction in extreme environments are essential, because once CO2 is emitted to the air much of it will remain there for centuries. Improved agricultural and forestry practices, mostly reforestation, could draw down atmospheric CO2 by about 50ppm by the end of the century. But a greater drawdown by such more-or-less natural methods seems impractical, making a long-term overshoot of the 350ppm target level, with potentially disastrous consequences, a near certainty if the world stays on its business-as-usual course.

If we choose a different path, which permits the possibility of achieving 350ppm CO2 or lower this century, we can minimise the chance of passing tipping points that spiral out of control, such as disintegration of ice sheets, rapid sea level rise and extermination of countless species. At the same time, we could solve problems that seem intractable, such as acidification of the ocean with consequent loss of coral reefs.

In any event, we must move beyond fossil fuels soon, because a large fraction of CO2 emissions will linger in the atmosphere for many centuries.

The world must move to zero fossil-fuel emissions. This is a fact, a certainty. So why not do it sooner, in time to avert climate crises? At the same time, we halt other pollution that comes from fossil fuels, including mercury pollution, conventional air pollution, problems stemming from mountain-top removal and more.

Breaking an addiction is not easy. But we may be like the smoker who trudged four miles through rain to get a pack of Camels - when he got back to his motel he threw the pack away and never smoked again.

Fossil-fuel addiction is more difficult - one person's epiphany cannot solve the problem. This problem requires global co-operation. We must be on a new path within the next several years, or reducing CO2 levels this century becomes implausible. Developed countries, the source of most excess CO2 in the air today, must lead in developing clean energy and halting emissions. Yet it is hardly a sacrifice: "Green" jobs will be an economic stimulus and a boon to worker well-being.

A major fight is brewing - it might be called war. On the one side, we find the short-term financial interests of the fossil-fuel industry. On the other side: young people and other beings who will inherit the planet. The fight seems uneven. The fossil-fuel industry is launching a disinformation campaign, and they have powerful influence in capitals around the world.

Young people seem pretty puny in comparison to industry moguls, and animals don't talk or vote. The battle may start with local and regional skirmishes, one coal plant at a time. But it could build rapidly - we're running out of time.

Meanwhile, the moguls' dirtiest trick is spewing "green" messages to the public - propaganda, intended to leave the impression they're moving in the right direction. Meanwhile they hire scientific has-beens to dispute evidence and confuse the public.

When will we know that the long-term public interest has overcome the greed? When investors, companies and governments begin to invest en masse in renewable energies, when all aim for zero-carbon emissions.

Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say

Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, March 10

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.

Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.

"The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" asked Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system than people are thinking about."

Although many nations have been pledging steps to curb emissions for nearly a decade, the world's output of carbon from human activities totals about 10 billion tons a year and has been steadily rising.

For now, at least, a goal of zero emissions appears well beyond the reach of politicians here and abroad. U.S. leaders are just beginning to grapple with setting any mandatory limit on greenhouse gases. The Senate is poised to vote in June on legislation that would reduce U.S. emissions by 70 percent by 2050; the two Democratic senators running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), back an 80 percent cut. The Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), supports a 60 percent reduction by mid-century.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is shepherding climate legislation through the Senate as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new findings "make it clear we must act now to address global warming."

"It won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is compelling," she said. "It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can duck this issue and live with themselves."

James L. Connaughton, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality, offered a more guarded reaction, saying the idea that "ultimately you need to get to net-zero emissions" is "something we've heard before." When it comes to tackling such a daunting environmental and technological problem, he added: "We've done this kind of thing before. We will do it again. It will just take a sufficient amount of time."

Until now, scientists and policymakers have generally described the problem in terms of halting the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere. The United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change framed the question that way two decades ago, and many experts talk of limiting CO2concentrations to 450 parts per million (ppm).

But Caldeira and Oregon State University professor Andreas Schmittner now argue that it makes more sense to focus on a temperature threshold as a better marker of when the planet will experience severe climate disruptions. The Earth has already warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences.

Schmittner, lead author of a Feb. 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said his modeling indicates that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. If emissions do not drop to zero until 2300, he calculated, the temperature rise at that point would be more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

"This is tremendous," Schmittner said. "I was struck by the fact that the warming continues much longer even after emissions have declined. . . . Our actions right now will have consequences for many, many generations. Not just for a hundred years, but thousands of years."

While natural cycles remove roughly half of human-emitted carbon dioxide from the atmosphere within a hundred years, a significant portion persists for thousands of years. Some of this carbon triggers deep-sea warming, which keeps raising the global average temperature even after emissions halt.

Researchers have predicted for a long time that warming will persist even after the world's carbon emissions start to fall and that countries will have to dramatically curb their carbon output in order to avert severe climate change. Last year's report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said industrialized nations would have to cut emissions 80 to 95 percent by 2050 to limit CO2concentrations to the 450 ppm goal, and the world as a whole would have to reduce emissions by 50 to 80 percent.

European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, in Washington last week for meetings with administration officials, said he and his colleagues are operating on the assumption that developed nations must cut emissions 60 to 80 percent by mid-century, with an overall global reduction of 50 percent. "If that is not enough, common sense is that we would not let the planet be destroyed," he said.

The two new studies outline the challenge in greater detail, and on a longer time scale, than many earlier studies. Schmittner's study, for example, projects how the Earth will warm for the next 2,000 years.

But some climate researchers who back major greenhouse gas reductions said it is unrealistic to expect policymakers to think in terms of such vast time scales."People aren't reducing emissions at all, let alone debating whether 88 percent or 99 percent is sufficient," said Gavin A. Schmidt, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "It's like you're starting off on a road trip from New York to California, and before you even start, you're arguing about where you're going to park at the end."

Brian O'Neill of the National Center for Atmospheric Research emphasized that some uncertainties surround the strength of the natural carbon cycle and the dynamics of ocean warming, which in turn would affect the accuracy of Caldeira's modeling. "Neither of these are known precisely," he said.

Although computer models used by scientists to project changes in the climate have become increasingly powerful, scientists acknowledge that no model is a perfect reflection of the complex dynamics involved and how they will evolve with time.

Still, O'Neill said the modeling "helps clarify thinking about long-term policy goals. If we want to reduce warming to a certain level, there's a fixed amount of carbon we can put into the atmosphere. After that, we can't emit any more, at all."

Caldeira and his colleague, H. Damon Matthews, a geography professor at Concordia University in Montreal, emphasized this point in their paper, concluding that "each unit of CO2 emissions must be viewed as leading to quantifiable and essentially permanent climate change on centennial timescales.

"Steve Gardiner, a philosophy professor at the University of Washington who studies climate change, said the studies highlight that the argument over global warming "is a classic inter-generational debate, where the short-term benefits of emitting carbon accrue mainly to us and where the dangers of them are largely put off until future generations."

When it comes to deciding how drastically to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, O'Neill said, "in the end, this is a value judgment, it's not a scientific question." The idea of shifting to a carbon-free society, he added, "appears to be technically feasible. The question is whether it's politically feasible or economically feasible."

Fossil Fools' Day

Link: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/736/38101

Call for a national day of action against climate change on April 1, 2008 The latest research shows that the effects of climate change are speeding up, with real dangers of self-perpetuating, or “runaway”, global warming. At the same time, global carbon emissions are rising at higher rates than ever before. Australia continues to hold the position of the highest greenhouse gas emitting country per capita, and is the world’s biggest exporter of coal.

The message is clear — the world can’t wait. For far too long fossil fuel industries and other dirty industries have been dangerously fooling around with the planet and our future.

This is a call from Resistance and the Australian Student Environment Network for a national day of student action against the fossil fools in industry and parliament, who are pushing the earth towards climate chaos.

The movement for action on climate change has made a lot of progress in the past two years. We forced climate skeptics to acknowledge the problem and helped to get rid of the Howard government for its inaction on climate change. While the Rudd government’s decision to ratify Kyoto represents a victory for the movement, our job is far from over.

The reality is that if Australia does not move immediately to break its dependence on fossil fuels, no meaningful emission reduction targets will be met. We have to demand that state and federal governments stop the expansion of the coal industry, reverse the approval of the pulp mill in Tasmania, keep electricity generation in public hands and shift the billions of dollars of government funds currently spent each year to subsidise the fossil fuel industries into renewable energy industries.

As students and young people, we have an important role to play in propelling the climate action movement forward and forcing the government to take the necessary action. We have to break the bipartisan consensus on mythical “clean coal” technology and uranium mining. We have to end the wars for oil. And we want to see investment into our universities for researching renewable, not fossil fuel and nuclear, technologies.

The youth blocs of high school and university students at Walk Against Warming in 2007 were an example of what we can organise on a much bigger scale this year, as we build the student environment movement. Resistance and the Australian Student Environment Network are calling on everyone concerned about climate change to initiate discussions and start planning a nationally-coordinated day of student action on April 1 — Fossil Fools’ Day, as part of an international day of action planned for that day.

Answering my question

[I posted an email to an Engineers and Scientists for Sustainability group that i was briefly involved with at the University of WA, about the question of CO2 vs CO2e and stabilisation targets. This is very good and clarifying response i recieved from a friend of mine.]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 12:16:58PM +0900, Trent Hawkins wrote:
> Great article, but im confused. The articles talks about 450ppm CO2 (only)
> as being the oldskool theoretical benchmark, whereas i thought it was 450ppm

Yes, this point is confusing and being an op-ed I'll wait for a paper or further statement to clarify.

Now, apart from being a "total GHG" v CO2 issue, it's also an issue whether they're talking about stabilisation concentration or not.

> CO2e. See the confusion is that we are already somewhere close to 450ppm
> CO2e, round about 430-440 at the moment. Given the lag in the system, this

There is a lot of confusion about this point in general. What you say is both true and false. This is actually best described in terms of forcings, not gas concentrations, but I'll try to use the latter.

The current CO2 concentration is about 383ppm. There have been also increases in other greenhouse gasses, like CH4, NOx, CFCs, etc, which add approximatelly 70ppm CO2 equivalent worth of forcing on top of that.

However, there are other additional manmade forcings, such as SO2, which effectively cancel out the non-CO2 gases in the atmosphere.

So the nett effect _currently_ is about 375ppm CO2e.

Now some vocal people like Monbiot, Tim Flannery have made statement along the lines of what you're saying. There's an article about this at realclimate, here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/10/co2-equivalents/

(Monbiot is now calling for reductions of 110%, see: http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/node/251)

However, there's an additional uncertainty here, because some of the negative forcing agents have much shorter lifetimes than the long-lived greenhouse gasses and so may precipitate out quickly if they stop being emitted.

To be honest, I haven't found a clear explanation (by a climatologist) which address this issue adequatelly. I think one could expect that if all emissions ceased today, the effective forcing would go up, but probably not up to 430-440ppm CO2 equivalent levels.

> would mean that we pretty much need to be doing what the article suggests
> and stabilise carbon emissions ASAP. Obviously Hanson's research says we
> need to aim for 350ppm CO2 (only) and we are currently at 380ppm +, then we
> need to basically have negative GHG emissions, but is this really anything
> overwhelmingly different to what previous studies have shown?

So, is this saying anything overwhelming different? It seems to be, but I can't be sure, because the op-ed isn't clear. Hansen has previously advocated keeping CO2 levels below 450-475ppm (see attached letter and paper), resulting in an additional temperature increase of ~1degC (~1.8degC above pre-industrial).

Now, it _seems_ he's advocating 350ppm or somewhere closer to 1.5degC above pre-industrial. With last year's record arctic ice-melt, it's plausible his position has changed, but we'll have to wait for more information to be sure.

Alternatively, it is possible that he was just talking about 350ppm _stabilisation_, which is broadly consistent with not passing 450ppm at all (and the AR4), as well as 450ppm CO2e stabilisation.

As far as negative GHG emissions are concerned, then no, we wouldn't have to extract GHGs out of the atmosphere if we suddenly stopped emitting today (to reach 350ppm CO2 stabilisation). All we'd need to do is reduce our emissions by more than the airborne fraction.

The airborne fraction is the proportion of our emissions that ends up in the atmosphere and has historically been around 58% (though is likely to increase, and probably is already beginning to). The other 42% has been absorbed by the ocean and biosphere.

Now, the nett CO2 flux between the ocean and atmosphere is mostly dependant upon the CO2 concentration in the two systems and the temperature. (Think of the CO2 flux in a shaken beer bottle) i.e. additional emissions only have a slight effect on it in the short term.

So that if we bring emissions down by about 60% globally, the atmospheric concentration should stabilise, for a while. If we decrease by more then it would decline.

There's a good piece which touches on this issue here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/how-much-co2-emission-is-too-much/

Of course the reality of the situation is that we won't suddenly stop emitting, hence we should be cutting emissions as fast as possible.

Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million

[This is quite an interesting article, however the one confusion that i have is the distinction between CO2 and CO2e. I thought that the Stern report and other reports have indicated the need to stabilise CO2e to approx 450ppm to avoid anything more than a 2degC temp increase? Yet here it talks about 450ppm in terms of CO2 (only). Perhaps someone reading my blog can help?

Nonetheless i think the last point is the key one, i.e. the analogy with Cholesterol. What we need is a qualitative change in the way humanity interacts with nature, that is - to stop climate change we need social change. The key question for environment activists is how are we going to acheive it? Well to borrow a phrase from Lenin, without Marxist theory you can't have proper practice.

I hope to write about this question soon, as i feel there is an ever pressing need to outline some of the key tasks of eco-socialists, such as the need for a class analysis of society, what specific features of capitalism are responsible for climate change, how democratic centralised planning of socialised means of production can avert the crises (and even achieve negative GHG emissions reductions), the need to connect the organised sections of the working class with the environment movement, and the vital role a Leninist Party can play in leading the environment movement to achieve its necessary tasks - putting the strategic (and polluting) industries under control of the world's working people.

But in the meantime to borrow another phrase from Lenin (although he also borrowed this one from Napolean) we need to "engage and then see", throw ourselves into the environment movement and then see what the key problems are and how we can assist.]

Bill McKibben, December 28, 2007, Washington Post

This month may have been the most important yet in the two-decade history of the fight against global warming. Al Gore got his Nobel in Stockholm; international negotiators made real progress on a treaty in Bali; and in Washington, Congress actually worked up the nerve to raise gas mileage standards for cars.

But what may turn out to be the most crucial development went largely unnoticed. It happened at an academic conclave in San Francisco. A NASA scientist named James Hansen offered a simple, straightforward and mind-blowing bottom line for the planet: 350, as in parts per million carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It's a number that may make what happened in Washington and Bali seem quaint and nearly irrelevant. It's the number that may define our future.

To understand what it means, you need a little background.

Twenty years ago, Hansen kicked off this issue by testifying before Congress that the planet was warming and that people were the cause. At the time, we could only guess how much warming it would take to put us in real danger. Since the pre-Industrial Revolution concentration of carbon in the atmosphere was roughly 275 parts per million, scientists and policymakers focused on what would happen if that number doubled -- 550 was a crude and mythical red line, but politicians and economists set about trying to see if we could stop short of that point. The answer was: not easily, but it could be done.

In the past five years, though, scientists began to worry that the planet was reacting more quickly than they had expected to the relatively small temperature increases we've already seen. The rapid melt of most glacial systems, for instance, convinced many that 450 parts per million was a more prudent target. That's what the European Union and many of the big environmental groups have been proposing in recent years, and the economic modeling makes clear that achieving it is still possible, though the chances diminish with every new coal-fired power plant.

But the data just keep getting worse. The news this fall that Arctic sea ice was melting at an off-the-charts pace and data from Greenland suggesting that its giant ice sheet was starting to slide into the ocean make even 450 look too high. Consider: We're already at 383 parts per million, and it's knocking the planet off kilter in substantial ways. So, what does that mean?

It means, Hansen says, that we've gone too far. "The evidence indicates we've aimed too high -- that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2is no more than 350 ppm," he said after his presentation. Hansen has reams of paleo-climatic data to support his statements (as do other scientists who presented papers at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco this month). The last time the Earth warmed two or three degrees Celsius -- which is what 450 parts per million implies -- sea levels rose by tens of meters, something that would shake the foundations of the human enterprise should it happen again.

And we're already past 350. Does that mean we're doomed? Not quite. Not any more than your doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high means the game is over. Much like the way your body will thin its blood if you give up cheese fries, so the Earth naturally gets rid of some of its CO2each year. We just need to stop putting more in and, over time, the number will fall, perhaps fast enough to avert the worst damage.

That "just," of course, hides the biggest political and economic task we've ever faced: weaning ourselves from coal, gas and oil. The difference between 550 and 350 is that the weaning has to happen now, and everywhere. No more passing the buck. The gentle measures bandied about at Bali, themselves way too much for the Bush administration, don't come close. Hansen called for an immediate ban on new coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon, the phaseout of old coal-fired generators, and a tax on carbon high enough to make sure that we leave tar sands and oil shale in the ground. To use the medical analogy, we're not talking statins to drop your cholesterol; we're talking huge changes in every aspect of your daily life.

Maybe too huge. The problems of global equity alone may be too much -- the Chinese aren't going to stop burning coal unless we give them some other way to pull people out of poverty. And we simply may have waited too long.

But at least we're homing in on the right number. Three hundred and fifty is the number every person needs to know.

Australia scores badly on emissions growth report

Tim Colebatch and Jewel Topsfield, November 1, The Age

AUSTRALIA is the ninth biggest contributor to increased global carbon emissions, a new World Bank report has found.

The bank report shows that between 1994 and 2004, Australia's annual emissions of carbon dioxide (the world's main greenhouse gas) increased by 107 million tonnes, or 38 per cent. Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull declared yesterday that Australia was "leading the world on climate change".

Australia's emissions grew by more than the combined increase in emissions by Britain, France and Germany, which have 10 times our population.

In Denmark, which has become the world leader in wind energy, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 9 million tonnes, or 13 per cent.

The report, Growth and CO2 Emissions: How do different countries fare?, released in October, examined the trends among the world's 70 biggest producers of greenhouse gases. Australia was almost unique in being a developed country whose emissions are not only very high but growing rapidly.

It said that on a population basis, Australia had the sixth highest emissions of carbon dioxide — 19.36 tonnes per head in 2004, roughly three times that of Sweden and Switzerland, more than five times that of China, 19 times that of India and 72 times that of Bangladesh.

The figures undermine the Government's efforts to present Australia as a world leader in tackling climate change.

Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd this week pledged not to sign any new agreement on climate change that does not include developing countries, but the figures show why developing countries will not agree to cut their emissions.

For Australia, there was some good news in the report. First, the bank found the rate of Australia's emissions growth fell sharply in the second half of the decade, suggesting that government, business and households' efforts to slow the pace had some effect.

Second, the figures show no strict correlation between emissions and incomes. Switzerland, Sweden and France, which are as rich as Australia or richer, all produce only a third as much carbon dioxide per head as Australia. All rely heavily on nuclear and hydro power for their electricity.

Australia's emissions are high largely because it relies on heavily polluting coal for electricity; specialises in energy-intensive industries such as aluminium; has a large car fleet with poor fuel efficiency; and lags behind Europe in energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances.

Mr Turnbull said the post-Kyoto agreement was now the main issue in the climate change debate, and he accused Labor of again adopting a Coalition policy.

"Climate change is the biggest economic challenge the world faces," Mr Turnbull said. "You have to ask yourself whether a team which was wrong all year, and then in the space of a few hours does a complete backflip, has either the commitment, the capacity or the competence to get the job done.

"Australia is leading the world on climate change. We are going to meet our Kyoto target. We are leading the world to reduced deforestation, the second largest source of emissions. Who is leading the world in clean coal research? Australia. Who is slapping the coal industry in the face? Labor."

But Mr Rudd denied that Labor's post-Kyoto policy was a copy of the Government's. "Mr Howard, as a climate change sceptic, has never embraced a carbon target for Australia in the existing commitment period," he said. "His historical scepticism, rejection entirely of the Kyoto framework, stands on the record."

Mr Rudd's plan for Labor to lift its target for "new" renewable energy to 20 per cent of electricity demand by 2020 left the Coalition having a bet both ways yesterday. While Mr Turnbull and Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce criticised Labor's target for shutting the door on future coal-fired power stations, Mr Howard said he was considering adopting it as Government policy.

The coal miners' union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, said employers were relaxed about it.

"That's what they tell us privately, they're relaxed about emissions trading. Really, it's political scare campaigning by the Government," the union's Tony Maher told the ABC. "You've got to bear in mind the energy growth between now and 2020 will be between 30 and 40 per cent, so there's plenty of room for various energy sources."

Opposition resources spokesman Chris Evans said the renewable energy target would deliver only half the new capacity needed to meet future energy demands.

Meanwhile, the Victorian Government said that proposed legislation creating renewable energy targets, introduced in State Parliament yesterday, would be the first in Australia to cut greenhouse emissions. Under the targets, which would see 10 per cent of electricity come from renewables by 2016, retailers will be obliged to provide incentives to householders to install measures such as energy-efficient lighting and ceiling insulation.

Victorian Energy Minister Peter Batchelor said the scheme aimed to cut the average household power bill by about $45 a year.

With PETER KER and AAP

http://www.worldbank.org