Sorry state of play when China leaves us for dead on climate

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This was published 13 years ago

Sorry state of play when China leaves us for dead on climate

By Adam Morton

Gillard believes and Abbott doesn't - but neither will do anything anyway.

Let's try a round of word association. China on climate change. What's the first thing that comes to mind? For those paying passing attention to what qualifies as a climate change debate in Australia, the answer is likely to be: villain-in-chief.

Since 2006, the emerging giant has emitted more greenhouse gas than any other country. Its emissions have risen rapidly as a nation of more than a billion people dragged itself from poverty.

Worse, at the Copenhagen climate summit, China blocked a target of cutting global emissions in half by 2050, and showed disdain for the process by sending bureaucrats to sit alongside Barack Obama and Kevin Rudd at a leaders' meeting, while Premier Wen Jiabao cooled his heels back at the hotel.

Beijing took a whack for its role in helping derail the UN conference, and deserved it. But don't confuse obstruction at the floundering negotiations with a lack of action on climate change at home.

A series of announcements over the past month underlines what Ross Garnaut has been saying for a while - that China is miles ahead of Australia on the path to a greener economy, and the gap is widening.

Quietly and without fuss, the Chinese government last week published a list of 2087 of the country's most outdated, carbon-intensive factories - mainly cement works and steel mills. All have been ordered to shut by the end of September.

Beijing's economic planning agency also told 22 provinces to stop discounting the price of electricity to energy-hungry industries such as aluminium smelters. Two weeks earlier, an official from the Chinese National Energy Administration signalled it may cap coal production by 2015 to cut reliance on fossil fuels.

Perhaps most significantly in the Australian context, the state-sanctioned newspaper China Daily reported that the country would set up a carbon trading scheme within the next five years.

This goes beyond what is being asked of China at UN climate talks, where it is acknowledged that developed nations are responsible for the majority of historical emissions and should largely carry the can in tackling the problem.

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The debate shifted before Copenhagen, as scientists warned that the world could not avoid a 2-degree temperature rise unless the major developing nations limited emissions growth. China responded with a target to cut emissions intensity - the amount of gas emitted per unit of GDP generated - by 40-45 per cent by 2020. But there was no expectation that it would have a carbon price in the medium term.

Contrast this with the reverse momentum in Canberra, where emissions trading has been abandoned by one party and delayed by the other. Neither can guarantee they will meet even the minimum national target of a 5 per cent cut below 2000 levels by 2020. The plummet to the bottom on climate during this election campaign has only further highlighted how far Australia has fallen behind.

While Prime Minister Julia Gillard talks about record levels of investment in renewable energy, she has cut hundreds of millions of dollars from solar programs - Labor had more money committed to ''harness the wind and the sun'' before she became leader. The Coalition has promised similar cuts.

Meanwhile, China spent nearly $40 billion on renewable projects last year - almost twice as much as the US. According to Ernst & Young, it now sits at the top of a list of the most attractive places in the world to invest in renewable energy.

Gillard has proposed emissions standards for new coal-fired power plants and for cars. In both sectors, China already has either equivalent or tougher standards in place.

China is not driven solely by a desire to save the planet. Its culling of polluting factories came after a surge in electricity demand meant it risked missing a 20 per cent energy intensity target. Industrial pollution is also a major problem driving change.

But Beijing is also aware of the economic possibilities of being at the cutting edge of new industries. By contrast, neither Gillard nor Opposition Leader Tony Abbott shows much sign of understanding the risks of climate change, let alone the opportunities that come with moving early.

Abbott doesn't even accept that climate change is a problem, though there is no evidence he has attempted to understand the work of leading climate scientists.

He says that what he thinks about climate change doesn't matter, and voters should instead look at the Coalition's climate policy. But senior Liberal sources have been quoted acknowledging the policy was a political fix hatched when they were behind in the polls.

Gillard answers every question on climate change by first saying she ''believes'' in it. It's an odd choice of words, chosen for political reasons.

Would she have stated her belief in the global financial crisis and then waited? Or would she have sought expert advice on what lay ahead and how best to respond, and then acted?

From one perspective, climate change is a similar challenge - a risk-management problem requiring a swift response, which, if handled properly, could bring economic benefits. Yet the political reality is vastly different.

You would have to be an optimist to think this will change in a hurry, whoever wins on Saturday.

Adam Morton is Age environment reporter. He is on Twitter at twitter.com/adamlmorton

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