Be sure to let us all know when you’re doing your 90% reduction.

On to another set of goalposts. At least he’s no longer denying that all his denialism in the past about global warming is crap. But for the new set of goalposts let us know when it’s 2050.

Be sure to let us all know when you’re doing your 90% reduction.

BTW, it’s called practicing instead of preaching.

Yes, I know what a metaphor is. Point being that it was *your* metaphor, not mine, and completely irrelevant to the discussion as nobody was pretending as if this was even remotely ‘sudden’.

Sorry, dishonest? What are you on about? And it looks like the Greens may well have gained 3, lost 1, retained 1, so that would be 4, actually.

@ Prof. Brook — very sorry about your comment thread being hijacked. I won’t respond further.

It’s called a metaphor, just like your ‘clock of doom’. By the way how many seats did your dishonest watermelon party gain in the WA elections ……. Oh that’s right NONE.

Maybe that’s why you’re so snarky this evening.

Somehow, I thought he offered other scenarios.

Garnaut:

Australia should put its strongest possible efforts into securing a global agreement to limit emissions to no
more than 550 parts per million CO2-e and encourage the world onto a lower emissions path as soon as
feasible,

Yes, realists know where to put their strongest possible efforts, even when it contradicts people in denial.

Two comments.

1.

But don’t for a moment believe they are in the slightest bit interested in slowing their entire economic revolution in order to slake the environmental thirst of the west.

While China may indeed still be building far, far too many coal-fired power stations (although I read recently that what is not mentioned much in that context is the concomitant removal of old ones), they are simultaneously going nuts with new wind and solar PV capacity, not to mention rapidly increasing domestic and indigenous manufacturing capacity. I’m no apologist for China, and I agree with you that shutting down industrial activity for a few Olympic weeks isn’t that meaningful, the fact is China is in many ways doing more than the West. Certainly more than Australia.

2.

Settle down ‘near speechless’ – your panic is rather unbecoming, take a deep breath, close your eyes and breath out slowly.

Look around, the world hasn’t disappeared, it’s not a video game with instant apocalypse caused by a ctl, alt, del…

Unbecoming? How would you know? In any case I’m not ‘panicking’, I’m extremely angry that Garnaut says one thing — the world cannot have each country claiming special interest in any meaningful climate negotiations — and then proposes Australia do just that.
And I never suggested the world was a video game with some sort of ahistorical push-button climatic collapse, so you can keep your patronising quasi-climatology insights to yourself thanks very much.

Having said that, parts of the world — the Arctic and possibly Greenland spring to mind — are indeed collapsing as we watch. But more importantly this is not a process that has just begun; the clock reads 23:58 and we can hardly afford to waste what little political momentum there is with 5+ years of institutionalising nonsense soft targets that mean nothing at all for addressing the urgency of climate change mitigation. By the time that becomes overthrown and real targets implemented, the clock may well have struck 00:00. Game over.

Yeh, this is very likely.

Somehow, I thought he offered other scenarios.

Who’d ‘a’ thought old Guano was a realist after his talk of 90% cuts by 2050?

Yes, he’s a realist:

Based on a 550ppm outcome, Australia’s share of the burden would be a 10 per cent reduction (or 30 per
cent in per capita terms) by 2020 and an 80 per cent reduction (90 per cent per capita) by 2050 over 2000
levels.

I’m glad drongo now realizes that realists understand that emissions need to be reduced by at least 80% by 2050 and consequently all his denialism in the past about global warming is crap.

That is one of the dumbest comments I have read here in a while.

Australia should now honestly, thoroughly and openly evaluate and publicly discuss, the performance of the solar thermal power stations we are now building so that we know what we can really achieve instead of all the pie in the sky waffle that is being proposed.

Settle down ‘near speechless’ – your panic is rather unbecoming, take a deep breath, close your eyes and breath out slowly.

Look around, the world hasn’t disappeared, it’s not a video game with instant apocalypse caused by a ctl, alt, del…

It goes to motive dear Gaz, image is important to the Chinese regime – restraining their rapidly increasing growth in order to placate the carbon sensitives of the world is not.

The Chinese are pragmatists, if they have to lose a month’s production to look nice on the telly that’s fine.

But don’t for a moment believe they are in the slightest bit interested in slowing their entire economic revolution in order to slake the environmental thirst of the west.

They won’t be happy with parity, they will only stop or pause when they have achieved a position of unassailable power.

Once they achieve that position it will truly be time to query our future.

Not sure I can agree with you on a couple of key points, though.

1. “The target is irrelevant without knowing how we hit it.”

I’m quite happy for the government to do what Garnaut recommends – limit the total amount of emissions by auctioning emission permits, encourage basic R&D to overcome market failure in that area, and let the market figure out the best way to supply energy within that framework. (And give most of the cash back to us.)

Maybe 2,500 square kilometres of solar panels will be the best way to do it, maybe not. We’ll see.

The government doesn’t really have to pick winners in this case. It may turn out that the best form of non-GHG energy production is a natural monopoly, in which case government has an obvious role, but let business punt their money, not mine, I say.

The government didn’t have to sponsor research into alternatives to CFCs or asbestos. Why oil and coal?

I found Garnaut’s arguments for a cap-and-trade scheme rather than a tax (in his draft report) pretty compelling.

2. “Define a REAL 2020 goal, such as to have 80% of Australia’s power met by renewables by 2020, instead of some abstract target that is reliant on an unenforceable multilateral global agreement which will never eventuate.”

If the target is so ambitious the scheme is shot down by special interests then that would make other countries less inclined to join a global scheme.

And if a multilateral global agreement never eventuates, then reducing Australia’s GHG emissions by 80% will make no difference in the long run, heroic though it may have seemed at the time.

I would prefer a more ambitious target, but Garnaut (realistically I think) is trying for something that is mild enough to be acceptable to the local electorate without being gutted by special interests, but strong enough to show the rest of the world that we’re serious.

Remember, the target can be adjusted through time – five yearly reviews, I think – but only if the scheme gets off the ground. My suspicion is that once alternative’s to fossil fuels reach a critical mass the transition to lower carbon intensities will become much easier and quicker.

By the way, for those who didn’t see Garnaut’s speech today at the National Press Club (it was on TV), if they eventually post a podcast of it on his web site or the ABC it would be worth a look.

His comments on China (he was ambassador there for three years I think) were very interesting. Basically, he said China leads the world in spending on every type of alterative energy and has taken measures (eg a 15% tax on aluminium exports) to curb GHG emissions. That was in answer to a question.

I wouldn’t underestimate the ability of the Chinese government to enforce GHG emission limits. Remember, these are the people who shut down industry in a major industrial zone for several weeks recently so it would look nice on TV.