5-12-09, 9:25 am

Original source: The Guardian (Australia)

Because of climate change, within the lifetime of children alive today it’s entirely possible that Australia’s wonderful beaches and the lower lying areas of our coastal cities will have disappeared beneath rising sea levels, and the Great Barrier Reef will be a vast, lifeless and eroding ruin. There will also be higher levels of infectious diseases, crop failures and famines in many countries, acidification of the oceans, mass extinction of native fauna and flora, and many other catastrophes.

However, there is an even more terrible possibility. Some scientists now consider that the human race could become extinct, because of the impact of climate change.

In April, scientists from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization bluntly told a Senate Committee that the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme (ETS) and its five percent target for reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases were entirely inadequate. They claimed that if the ETS is not based on higher targets “we are at risk of permanent major damage from climate change”.

The UN’s International Panel on Climate Change had previously nominated the minimum necessary reduction as 25 percent by 2020, but the government had only committed itself to achieving a five percent emission reduction, with the possibility of increasing this to 20 percent if every other country in the world agreed to do so.

Unfortunately, the government was lending a more attentive ear to complaints about the ETS from leaders of the industries with the nation’s worst emission records. They predicted the end of the coal industry, and one representative of the steel industry publicly demanded that the ETS be withdrawn and revised so as to conform to their wishes, otherwise the industry would be moved offshore.

Accordingly, the Rudd government decided to defer introduction of the scheme for a year, and to lower the initial carbon price from $40 per ton to $10. The major emitters will pay nothing at all in the initial stage, but even this appalling cave-in didn’t satisfy them. The Minerals Council of Australia described the revised scheme as just “a stay of execution.”

As a sop to concerned citizens, the government declared that if the rest of the world accepted a 2020 reduction of 25 percent it would also do so. Unfortunately, if the rest of the world follows the government’s example and holds back, the UN emission reduction campaign will become paralyzed.

The governments of other developed western nations are far and away ahead. Germany is lowering its dependence on coal-fired power generation with vast arrays of solar photovoltaic cells. Britain has banned construction of new coal-fired power stations unless the proponents can prove the feasibility of carbon geosequestration (virtually a technical and economic impossibility).

Even the US has set a far better example (at least domestically) by vigorously enforcing the stringent requirements of its acid rain emissions trading scheme, rather than lose its forests. As a result, between 1990 and 2007 the emission of corrosive sulphur and nitrogen oxides from US power stations had fallen by 50 percent.

But far, far more is needed. Carbon dioxide is the most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted by human activity, and the largest proportion of this comes from coal-burning power stations. Other energy sources must take over from coal, in order to protect the human race and the planet.

And Australia’s role is crucial. Our coal-fired power stations produce 50 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions, and Australia is now the world’s biggest exporter of coal. We previously banned the mining and export of asbestos, which is toxic for those who inhale its fibers. Now, for the sake of this and future generations, we must phase out the mining and export of coal, which is proving toxic for the planet.

This will involve the loss of jobs in the coal mining industry, but miners could be trained for and allocated jobs in new and publicly-owned renewable energy industries.

The Rudd government will not do this. It will have to be replaced by a party or coalition of parties with the courage and determination to do the job. The future of our children depends on it.