30 April 2015
Terrence O’Brien
Australia’s post 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions in
UNFCC negotiations
Submission by Terrence O’Brien
To answer the technical questions posed in the PM&C Issues Paper requires
some context. One needs to form views in the light of:
 the extent and rate of global warming;
 the extent to which it is driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gas
emissions (hereinafter abbreviated as CO2);
 the costs and benefits of the warming and their profile over time (which
affect the net present cost or benefit of any warming);
 the costs and benefits of abating CO2 emissions (and their profile over
time) relative to the costs and benefits of adaptation mechanisms; and
finally,
 Australia’s particular circumstances and our national contribution to
date in abating emissions compared to other countries’ performance and
likely UNFCC commitments.
The UNFCC process, like any large international political process, seems to have
developed a substantial bureaucratic momentum. It appears unresponsive
(indeed, vigorously resistant) to recent evidence that would suggest a more
modest approach to greenhouse gas targetry, and a rebalancing of national
efforts away from mitigation towards adaptation.
The dangerous anthropogenic global warming meme has taken heavy damage
over the last 5 years, and evidence questioning or qualifying it mounts daily. It
seems likely to be in worse shape in 2020 than today. Australia should bring an
up-to-date reading of climate change evidence and their policy implications and
a realistic view of other countries’ greenhouse performances and objectives to its
contribution to the Paris UNFCC 2015 conference.
This submission notes where recent evidence seems to point, before using that
evidence to derive suggested Australian policy positions on the three specific
questions the identified in the PM&C Issues Paper.
Developments in greenhouse measurement, science and
modelling
There seems no acknowledgement in the UNFCC documentation that the
challenging experiences of recent decades, grudgingly acknowledged in the
detail of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5 – and especially its Working
Group 2 Report), should inform and impact on nations’ objectives to constrain
greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020. Nor does the PM&C Issues Paper
mention these recent developments. (For an authoritative overview of main
developments, see climatologist Professor Judith Curry’s 15 April 2015
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testimony to the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and
Technology, inquiring into the President Obama’s UN climate pledge.)
To this reader of the IPCC’s work and broader climate science, economic and
greenhouse policy debates, it appears that:
 Transitions to electrification and industrialisation based on economical
carbon-based energy sources (principally coal) have been important
elements in recent decades of economic growth in developing countries.
This process has lifted literally billions out of poverty, and significantly
improved health and life expectancies. More efficient energy sources are
substituting for burning wood and dung, yielding environmental, living
standard and health benefits in return for increased CO2 emissions.
o “$10 billion invested in renewable energy technology in subSaharan Africa could give 20-27 million people access to basic
electricity, whereas the same sum spent on gas-fired generation
would supply 90 million.” (Matt Ridley, Electricity for Africa, 28
April 2015.)
 CSIRO research shows recent higher CO2 concentrations have led to a
visible “greening” of the earth, particularly in arid zones (Science Daily, 8
July 2013). This has helped to support record agricultural output – a
further appreciable benefit.
 Notwithstanding higher CO2 emissions and concentrations, there has
been no warming at the earth’s surface for more than 15 years. There has
been no warming at the tropospheric levels between the tropics (a more
relevant indicator for human-caused warming) for some 20 years
(Professor Ross McKitrick, Open Journal of Statistics, August 2014). Some
one-quarter of the entire cumulative anthropogenic emissions of
greenhouse gasses having occurred over that period, suggesting climate
response to CO2 emissions is not as great as earlier feared (and still
modelled, in the IPCC’s AR5).
 The 75 global circulation models of the CMIP-5 suite used for IPCC
scenario estimates of warming in the AR5 continue to run very hot,
overstating actual warming trends since 1980 by a factor of 2 or more.
This suite includes the CSIRO’s models. (Chart by Dr Roy Spencer, one of
the creators and custodians of the satellite global temperature database
maintained by the University of Huntsville at Alabama ).
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The chance that such over-prediction of temperature trends may be an
accidental consequence of ‘natural climate variability’ temporarily
overwhelming model scenarios that are otherwise accurate is by now
vanishingly small. Much more likely, the models are deficient and have
estimated excessive climate sensitivity, and attributed excessive feedback
effects, to greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations. See for example
Judith Curry, The Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2014.
There is a significant literature seeking to explain this over-prediction by
the CMIP5 models, by now numbering over 50 hypotheses that could be
grouped into a handful of different categories (e.g., ‘heat is hiding in the
oceans’; ‘stadium waves’; low solar activity; particulates from volcanoes;
aerosols, etc.). (See Dr David Whitehouse, Warming Interruptus: Causes
for the Pause, GWPF Note 8, March 2014.)
None of those explanations of the IPCC’s overestimation of temperature
trends, alone or in combination, is reassuring for the hypothesis of
dangerous anthropogenic global warming. If those factors’ recent but
unpredicted impacts can explain the temperature ‘hiatus’ from the 1990s,
perhaps their opposite but unstudied impacts caused the appreciable
warming of the late 20th century.
The AR 5 has also downgraded previous alarmist predictions of
worsening storms and other high-cost consequences that might occur if
there were significant global warming.
The surface temperature databases on which general circulation models
partly rest are being increasingly called into question, and might prove
part of the cause of model over-prediction. The persistent gap between
high global surface temperature records and lower satellite temperature
records has caused mounting unease, as have the results of computerised
‘homogenization’ of the surface temperature records. The possibility that
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a systematic upward bias has been introduced into the surface
temperature records — in effect a computerised confirmation bias for the
hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming — is now a
matter of active statistical investigation in Australia and internationally.
(See for example the International Temperature Data Review Project.)
Lastly (and most uncertainly), the weak solar cycle (the weakest in over a
century) has caused some who place particular weight on solar influences
on climate to speculate that the next major move in global temperatures
might be downwards, rather than a resumption of the late 20th century
increases. (See for example Cold Sun, John L. Casey, 2011; or the Dutch
government’s Climate Dialogue for a debate of these issues: What will
happen during a new Maunder minimum?)
Rather than possibly runaway, dangerous man-made temperature increases
foreseen in some earlier IPCC Assessment Report scenarios, the most likely path
for global temperatures now seems to be a modest degree or two of warming
over the next century or so.
The overall impact of all the foregoing uncertainties and errors has been to
substantially affect the balance, and the distribution through time, of costs and
benefits, of risks and payoffs, from front-loaded and vigorous attempts to limit
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses with technologies available
today. The amount of warming in prospect is likely to yield net benefits, rather
than costs, over the next hundred years or so. (See, for example, Matt Ridley’s 6
April 2014 summary of the implications of IPCC AR 5 Working Group 2: Global
warming looks like it will be cheaper to cope with that to prevent, and his
argument that this view is a clear consensus of those economists using the IPCC
scenarios of warming.)
The progress of technology over the next century is likely, on the last century’s
experience, to yield significant low-cost options for a back-loaded reduction in
carbon emissions. What those technologies will be is as unforeseeable today as
mass air transport, computers, smart phones, factory robots, nuclear energy,
fracking, the internet and genetic engineering were 100 years ago. But modest
guesses relevant to cheaply abating future greenhouse gas emissions include
fourth-generation nuclear power (in which China is heavily investing), and more
efficient battery storage from intermittent energy sources.
A continued hiatus in temperature rises, or even a decline in temperatures,
remain possibilities that sensible global and national policies ought incorporate
into their planning. Sound policies should be robust to the full range of
greenhouse outcomes, not just the alarmist pole of the continuum of possibilities.
Other nations’ objectives and performance
Realistic assessment of other countries’ objectives for global climate agreements
and the commitment revealed by their performance are helpful for considering
Australia’s input to the UNFCC negotiations.
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Very few politicians, nationally and internationally, have publicly noted the
recent trends in climate change evidence noted above, or openly argued through
their implications for national mitigation policies. This perhaps owes in part to
the vicious ‘gatekeeping’ role on acceptable views in academia and the media;
see for example the behaviour revealed in the ‘Climategate’ e-mails, the attempt
by the BBC to silence former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, and the hysterical and
grossly misinformed reaction to the establishment of the Australian branch of
the Copenhagen Consensus Group at the University of WA.) What politician
needs the grief of a battle against highly organised green lobbyists?
But politicians’ actions speak louder than their words, and much louder than
their silence. It is useful to review briefly the realities of other countries’ actions
and their consequences.
 Many EU members have taken the global lead in restricting emissions of
greenhouse gasses in the belief that domestic adjustment would be low
cost, and that renewables would quickly become substitutes in cost and
reliability for traditional base load generation. They have been proven
wildly wrong. (See, for example, Dr Benny Peiser’s Testimony on EU
climate policy to the Committee on Environment and Public Works of the
US Senate, 3 December 2014.) Many EU economies are suffering heavy
damage from energy price rises greatly outstripping inflation, consequent
‘energy poverty’ among citizens, losses among base-load electricity
generators, losses among energy intensive industries and ‘carbon leakage’
to developing countries and the US (where fracking has reduced US
greenhouse emissions by more than all the solar panels and windmills in
the world, while significantly lowering gas and electricity prices). Faced
with these consequences of failed policies, European countries will
obviously be keen at the UNFCC to induce others to follow them down
their failed path.
 Notwithstanding professions of commitment to greenhouse gas
reductions, Germany is building modern coal-fired power stations as fast
as possible, as the combined limitations of its intermittent supplies from
renewables and its self-imposed de-commissioning of nuclear plants force
greenhouse-damaging adjustments to keep the lights on and limit
increases in energy poverty (if not to keep industry competitive). See for
examples Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, 5 December 2014, Germany’s manmade energy crisis deepens.
 For all President Obama’s enthusiasm on greenhouse issues, the US
Energy Information Administration predicts on current policies moderate
growth in US CO2 emissions from 2013 levels to 2040, as CO2 savings
from switches from coal to fracked gas and new renewables in electricity
generation are offset by growth in industrial CO2 emissions as a result of
relatively cheap electricity, gas and feedstock prices (Annual Energy
Outlook 2015).
 Canada quit the Kyoto protocol in December 2011, after substantially
overshooting its earlier commitments. Its energy endowments and policy
history seem likely to discourage any dramatic post-2020 UNFCC
commitments.
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Japan’s CO2 emissions are rising again as it relies more on coal-fired
power in place of nuclear energy (see Bloomberg New Energy Finance, 13
April 2015). Forty-three new coal-fired plants are under construction or
planned. In November 2013 Japan relaxed by 25% its earlier
commitments to greenhouse emission reductions by 2020.
Russia rejected commitments to greenhouse gas reductions beyond its
initial Kyoto commitments ending in 2012, and might be expected to be
cautious about committing to significant reductions beyond 2020.
China is building a coal-fired electricity plant every 7 to 10 days. By 2040,
China’s coal-fired power capacity is expected to be 50 per cent larger than
today’s (Institute for Energy Research, 24 April 2015). Its expectation
that its CO2 emissions might peak around 2030 is not a binding
commitment, and is a projection of how it sees its coal fired and other
generation capacity evolving.
India is to overtake China as the world’s biggest coal importer. Its
Government will not hold its citizens in unnecessary poverty to underpin
bold international commitments to CO2 emission reductions. The
Government is cracking down on foreign-funded NGOs such as
Greenpeace that are argued to be acting against India’s national interests
in modernisation and poverty reduction (Hindustan Times, 28 April
2015). PM Modi has observed: “The world guides us on climate change
and we follow them? The world sets the parameters and we follow them?
It is not like that.”
Pakistan is accepting Chinese finance of some US$15.5 billion to build
new coal-fired power plants to reduce chronic electricity shortages (Wall
Street Journal, 19 April 2014).
Indeed the rise of the Chinese-financed Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank owes significantly to the World Bank Group’s effective ban on
financing coal projects and coal-fired power projects. Protracted inaction
in modernising World Bank governance has finally produced a
development bank so biased to rich country sensitivities that it will not
lend on a key family of projects most wanted by poor countries to
alleviate poverty.
The developing world in general seems unlikely to make significant,
enforceable commitments to greenhouse gas reductions or caps in the
UNFCC process.
Themes relevant to Australia’s negotiating position
The combination other countries’ emissions performance and intentions, recent
developments in the climate debate and remaining uncertainties point to several
ideas that should inform Australia’s policy towards UNFCC processes in Paris:
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The temperature ‘hiatus’ cannot be ignored and will cast a pall over
UNFCC attempts to secure significant binding agreements to reduce
greenhouse emissions beyond 2020.
The dangerous anthropogenic global warming hypothesis has been
severely damaged by the last decade’s evidence and debate. By 2020, the
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case for front-loaded, expensive mitigation actions seems likely to be
weaker still.
Significant developed countries have breached their Kyoto emission
commitments, unilaterally reduced them, or quit them. There is no reason
to expect any better performance by them after 2020.
Serious economic, poverty and energy problems evident in the EU as a
result of unwise earlier pushes to implement excessively ambitious green
energy schemes stand as a warning to other countries tempted to follow
EU paths.
As the Issues Paper shows, Australia has been a stronger than average
performer in meeting targets to reduce emissions by 5 per cent from
2000 levels by 2020 – very significant achievements given our economic
structures, resource endowments and population growth.
While the parties in the UNFCC have agreed post 2020 national targets
are for national determination, not international negotiation, there will
obviously be temptation for many governments to play to domestic green
lobbies by claiming ‘our commitments are bigger than other countries’”.
The obvious (if dishonest) tactics for other countries wishing to
apparently offer dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions are to choose an
early base year (e.g. 1990), and a distant end year (e.g. 2030).
o The early base year allows countries to claim as policy
achievements the general advances in energy efficiency and the
decline in the energy intensity of GDP, plus in some cases historical
accidents such as the termination of uneconomic energy intensive
industries in central Europe and the former East Germany.
o The distant end year means success or failure is too hard to
predict, too far in the future to be a concern of current
governments, and to hold open the possibility that future
developments (in energy efficient technologies, or a continued halt
in temperature trends or their reversal) might let successor
governments off the hook cheaply.
What should Australia’s post-2020 target be, and how should
it be expressed?
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Australia has a record of making international commitments seriously
and actually meeting them. It should avoid bold commitments in Paris,
even if others are claiming to offer them.
The target should be expressed off a 2020 base year to underscore its
path towards achievement of its earlier Kyoto commitment, and ensure a
realistic base for subsequent reductions. It also preserves some flexibility
should evidence against front-loading expensive mitigation measures
continue to build.
The end year for Australia’s offer should be 2025, reflecting the present
uncertainties arising from both ‘the pause’ and the unresolved attempts
to explain why the CMIP-5 models are running hot. This would also
underscore commitment to a more transparent and accountable political
horizon for the target. This too would preserves some flexibility should
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evidence against front-loading expensive mitigation measures continue to
build by 2020 and beyond.
As to the quantum of the commitment, Australia should use the evidence
noted above about its particular economic and population growth
characteristics and uncertainties about the causes and future of the
‘hiatus’ to argue for a low national commitment that it can argue from its
past performance that it will assuredly meet.
A modest and short post 2020 target would realistically reflect the fact
that presently foreseeable small global warming over the next century
will confer net benefits, and does not warrant expensive (but probably
futile) front-loaded mitigation attempts.
If future evidence warrants larger, back-loaded reductions, they are likely
to be made at less cost with more advanced technologies than now
available.
The ‘caution while learning more’ rationale for this approach needs to be
openly argued by the Australian Government as a realistic response to
uncertainties and the modelling failures revealed in recent experience.
Australia’s proposals should not offer integration with global carbon
markets, which experience has shown to be shallow, volatile, prone to
rorting and corruption, and with often-doubtful connection to real
environmental benefits.
What would the impact of that target be on Australia?
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A modest target of short duration as suggested above should desirably
have few adverse effects on the Australian economy, while nonetheless
keeping Australian research and investment connected to any global
advances in tomorrow’s cheaper green technologies.
The fewer empirically unjustified mitigation imposts Australia embraces
in the UNFCC processes, the more degrees of economic and fiscal freedom
it retains to pursue its preferred national priorities in practical
environmental and climate policies.
There will certainly be climate change in the future, as there always has
been in the past. Whatever the pace and direction of tomorrow’s climate
change, Australia will continue to experience droughts, floods, fires,
coastal erosion and soil degradation. There are national adaptation
policies in these areas of certain benefit that Australia could rationally
adopt, regardless of what the rest of world agrees, or fails to agree.
These adaptation policies should make up an increasing part of
Australia’s greenhouse efforts. They will pay dividends to Australians’
welfare, regardless of how present climate uncertainties are resolved.
Which further policies complementary to direct action should
be considered?
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As argued above, unless future evidence supports credible and more
ambitious international agreement to reduce CO2 emissions, the direct
action program should be progressively re-aligned away from mitigation
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efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and toward adaptation
efforts.
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