Ross Garnaut's important public statement on Friday was largely overwhelmed by the welter of federal and state political
news. It was a world away from his impassioned, ethically challenging,
first public report on 4 July.
Quietly, government has narrowed the goalposts back to a safe world of
can-do politics, of short-term realism at the expense of long-term
responsibility. Unnerved by the hostile reaction of powerful
stakeholders to the July report, it now seeks a
conventional balance between the demands of a worried population, and a
decision-making elite uniting corporate and trade unions in
high-emitting industries and sympathisers in parliament.
Garnaut's sombre, low-key second report recommends a
narrow range of possibilities for greenhouse gas emissions limitations by Australia to
2020, likely to have minimal impacts on the Australian economy. It won
cautious decision-makers' approval. It is politically achievable,
despite disappointed green lobbies.
Unlike epic debates over industry protectionism in the 1970s–1980s, we
do not have a visionary Keating and Button driving necessary change. I
see no comparable passion in Rudd or Wong.
Now, Australia's
decision-making elite believe deep down — if indeed they think it
through, and I suspect many are instinctive climate change denialists
at bottom — that Australia is rich enough to insulate itself against
climate change.
They live on higher ground in the green coastal zone.
Food and utility costs are a small part of their budgets. If it gets
too hot, they will turn up the air conditioning.
For these status-quo
people, the issues that matter are macroeconomic — dividends, high
salaries, superanuation earnings. They want to keep the economy we
have now. The desertification of the Murray-Darling and the dying of
the Barrier Reef do not affect them directly, and they lack
imagination to conceive of polar icemelt sufficient in their lifetimes
to inundate fertile populated coastal areas of Australia. Apres nous,
le deluge.
Garnaut says Australia should establish its emissions
reduction framework within an agreed global target to stabilise
atmospheric carbon at between 450 and 550 parts per million (ppm):
the present level is 387 ppm.
Australia should advocate international agreement to stabilise
atmospheric carbon at 450ppm, but one set at 550 ppm is more likely
initially. A world of 550 ppm atmospheric carbon is, according to informed
scientific consensus, a horror scenario in which global warming
already underway would cause irreversible polar icemelt and major
inundations of global human settlements.
Garnaut defends his lowered expectations. There is no point in
Australia doing