Interests Differ on Climate Change Findings

BRISBANE, Australia - July 10, 2013 - PRLog -- "The burning of fossil fuels represents the most significant contribution to climate change," the report, The Critical Decade 2013, says.

"Burning all fossil fuel reserves would lead to unprecedented changes in climate so severe they will challenge the existence of our society as we know it today. It is clear most fossil fuels must be left in the ground and cannot be burned.

"Storing carbon in soils and vegetation is part of the solution but cannot substitute for reducing fossil fuel emissions."

The report was written by Climate Commissioners Will Steffen and Lesley Hughes. It said most countries, including Australia, had agreed the risks of the climate changing beyond 2⁰C were unacceptably high. But to ensure the climate is stabilised, the world must "virtually decarbonise".

"In order to achieve that goal of stabilising the climate at two degrees or less, we simply have to leave about 80% of the world's fossil fuel reserves in the ground," Professor Hughes told the ABC.

"We cannot afford to burn them and still have a stable and safe climate."Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) CEO Mitchell Hooke said the report crossed the line from scientific analysis into taxpayer-funded environmental activism.

"The report comes after a range of extreme green groups promoted an end to the Australian coal industry in a secret campaign blueprint. The 'Stopping the Coal Export Boom' blueprint outlined a plan to eliminate the Australian coal industry because they claimed it 'corrupts our democracy and threatens the global climate'," he said.

"Both statements are without any foundation, so why is a taxpayer-funded agency with a charter that demands scientific rigour following the same approach as the radical green movement?"

The Federal Government, which established the independent Climate Commission in 2011 to provide authoritative information on climate change, will not necessarily accept its findings. Resources Minister Gary Gray said it was important to invest in clean energy technologies, but coal was vital to the economy.

"There is no solution to global baseload energy generation that does not figure a big contribution by coal," he said, and countries such as India and China needed Australian coal.

"We do have to accept that in a growing region there are still countries that need these resources in order to draw hundreds of millions of people out of poverty," he said.

Australian coal exports were worth about $48B in 2011-12.

Professor Steffen said action was needed immediately because many of the climate change risks scientists had warned of for years were now happening.

"The duration and frequency of extreme hot days has increased across Australia and bushfire weather has increased in the populous southeast," he said. "Rainfall patterns have shifted, with food-growing regions in the southwest and southeast becoming drier."

The World Coal Association (WCA) also weighed in on the controversy, saying the report was "ideologically driven, one-sided and inherently unscientific".

The WCA, which has many member companies with operations in Australia, said it crossed the line from scientific analysis into taxpayer-funded environmental activism.
WCA chief executive Milton Catelin said the report was extremely shallow.

"To the extent it brings any intellectual rigour to analysing coal, it [has] conducted the equivalent of a cost-benefit analysis without looking at the benefit side. It is ideologically driven and inherently unscientific," he said.

"[It] is a disappointment from a climate change perspective, and irresponsible from an economic and social perspective.

"We would encourage the Australian government to ignore extremist proposals and work with the coal industry on deploying technologies to reduce emissions from coal, whilst allowing Australia — and the developing countries who rely on Australian coal exports — to continue to enjoy the economic benefits this vital resource brings."

Catelin said leaving fossil fuels in the ground would have a minimal global impact from a climate perspective,

"[But] eliminating the Australian coal industry would reduce Australia's GDP by between A$29B and A$36B per year," he said. "It would reduce Australian jobs by almost 200,000 and reduce income to the Commonwealth by A$6B.

"The report also does nothing to address climate change in a realistic or sustainable manner. It does nothing to support improvements in energy efficiency at power stations or the deployment of carbon capture and storage – something the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have stated are necessary to tackling global warming successfully".

The report says Australia's coal reserves alone represent about 51bt of potential CO2₂ emissions, around one twelfth of the 600bt global budget that would keep temperature rise to 2⁰C or less.

"Growth in the use of coal will need to be turned around, so it makes up a much smaller proportion of the global energy mix and eventually not used at all," it says.

This report first appeared in the Australian Coal Report. Providing a comprehensive, weekly overview of the Australian thermal and coking coal markets, the Australian Coal Report includes analysis, commentary and news on this key production centre. Included is a dedicated infrastructure section, monthly export statistics, pricing intelligence, key index markers, freight figures and more.

For a free trial copy, email epi.coalinfo@ihs.com or visit http://www.coalportal.com for more information.