Countering climate extremism
Contrary to the alarmism drummed up by the climate change commentariat, Australia has a record of which we should be proud. By Nick Cater.
It has been a big week for those who prefer to talk about climate change as a crisis rather than a challenge. Rhetoric matters a lot if we are to agree on an effective and practical way to meet, and perhaps beat, our greenhouse gas commitments.
The emotion-driven response to Monday’s release of the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report has been unhelpful to say the least. Good policy requires calm, reasoned assessment of the facts, something that is difficult to do in an atmosphere of fear, as we have learned during this pandemic.
It was encouraging to see Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor respond with composure and intelligence to the report. Unlike some other world leaders, Morrison and Taylor won’t walk past two inescapable facts.
First, we don’t yet have scalable or proven technology to reduce net emissions to zero by 2050, but we will if we commit to it and avoid distractions.
Second, it is China and other industrialising countries that will be required to do the heavy lifting, since they are by far the largest emitters.
Some of the smug, self-righteousness from the Europeans is a little hard to take. It is easy to be green if you outsource your heavy industry to China, as developed countries have been doing for 20 years or more. The European Union’s share of world steel production has more than halved this century from 20 per cent to 9 per cent. China’s has risen from 20 per cent to 49 per cent. That’s the story in a nutshell.
Australia’s steel production capacity has also fallen by the way, from 0.003 per cent of global capacity to 0.002 per cent. The scale of industrial bases explains why Europe has been able to play the de-industrialisation card, but we can’t.
The good news is that the average Australian carbon footprint has shrunk by 15 per cent since 2005 at a time when our economy has grown twice as fast as the EU and we have been steadily feeding the world’s hunger for food raw materials. Australia has a record of which we should be proud.