Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The Rudd government also accepted the recommendation of the Garnaut
Review (2008) that Australia adopt two additional, conditional 2020 targets, of
2
15 per cent and
2
25 per cent below 2000 levels.
Australia has pledged to increase its commitment to
2
15 per cent if there
is a global agreement under which major developing economies commit to
substantially restrain emissions and advanced economies take on comparable
commitments. Further, Australia will increase its commitment to
2
25 per
cent if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal consistent with stabilizing
atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at 450 ppm CO
2
-e (DCCEE,
undated). It can be credibly argued that the conditions for the
2
15 per cent by
2020 target have already been met.
'Conditionality' in climate negotiations is predicated on the idea that the
conditional offer of greater mitigation effort will encourage greater cooperation
and induce other states also to adopt more stringent targets, and that delayed
action will cost less in the future. Will other parties respond to Australia's induce-
ments? Both at and since COP 15 at Copenhagen, the setting of national targets
has depended on the bottom-up nomination of effort by individual parties rather
than a top-down negotiation based on commonly agreed formulae. There has
been no sign, despite significant 'conditional' offers being made by a number of
parties, including the European Union, that these offers of enhanced mitigation
effort have had any effect on negotiations or, particularly, on the efforts of the
two major actors, the United States and China. To date, contingent promises
have proved insufficient to encourage a binding international agreement. By
contrast, early exemplary and substantial effort
may
, in a 'bottom-up world', have
a leadership effect and help to induce stronger efforts by other individual states
and build the basis for strong international agreement built on already tangible
outcomes.
'Conditionality' for Australia has also, in part, been based on the belief that
delayed abatement will be cheaper if accompanied by a stronger, later interna-
tional effort. This rationale is based on the flawed assumption that the costs of
climate change is confined to the costs of mitigation alone, and that a future
exists in which the aggregate costs of mitigation, adaptation and climate-related
losses will be less if intensive mitigation is delayed. These are implausible
expectations. A contrasting and convincing view is offered by the Stern Report,
which recognizes that the social and ecological costs of climate change must
include both adaptation and remediation costs, the costs of widespread damages
associated with warming and the value of productivity foregone. These costs all
will continue to mount if mitigation is delayed. By this broader calculus, early
action will always cost less than delayed mitigation given the value of these other
'externalities', especially once warming of 2°C, 3°C and 4°C or more occurs.
Accordingly, a 'conditional' approach should not be used in setting a revised
2020 target for Australia.
