Is the world going to make it at Copenhagen?

Wednesday 26 August

Professor Ross Garnaut (Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne; Professor of Economics in the Research School of Pacific and Asian studies, ANU) led a JCR filled with students, staff, Board members and alumni, in discussion of the Garnaut Climate Change review. The review recommended that it was in Australia's national interest to see an international agreement for holding carbon dioxide equivalent concentration at 450 parts per million or lower, and that an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) should be the centre of Australia's emission-reduction plan.

Referring to the Stern report, Professor Garnaut explained his reasoning beyond the 'ambition' of the figure of 450 ppm (as opposed to Stern's suggestion of 55); discussed Australia's difficult task 'in this diabolical' time of needing to reduce carbon emissions tons - given population growth - by 95% per capita by 2020, and explained his thinking on solutions. Discussion of the need for increased policy regulation and the support of technological growth, particularly in, eg algae as a biofuel, led into the ethical questions of convergence, and the need for a standard per capital emissions rate across developing and First World regions.

While he remained hopeful, Professor Garnaut pointed out that a lot of policy was still in the discussion phase, and that the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen is only four months away.

Dispelling the belief that Australia is ahead on the issue of climate change - South Africa, for example, already has a carbon tax - Professor Garnaut then took 45 minutes of questions.