Arguably the world's most authoritative speaker on
climate change, Sir John Houghton, has been 
addressing standing-room only audiences in a most 
under-publicized but critically important Australia tour,
detailing the science behind the demand for industry 
to begin a badly-delayed global change of direction. 

 
While his audience at the Melbourne Bureau of 
Meteorology last week included a sympathetic Howard 
Government junior minister, Senator Ian Campbell, 
and prominent policy makers, Houghton's urgent 
message has been missed by too many decisionmakers.


In fact the new Coalition government is either ignorant 
of, or directly opposed to, the necessary changes to 
send Australian industries down the profitable path 
of environmental responsibility. (The contrast of 
Labor's former Environment Minister Barry Jones 
sitting next to former Treasury Secretary and National 
Party Senator John Stone could not have been greater.)


Houghton, the chairman of the British Royal Commission
on Environmental Pollution, a co-chair of the 
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IGCC), 
former director general of the UK Meteorological Office 
and former vice-president of the World Meteorological 
Organisation, says that if all the 1992 Rio de Janeiro 
United Nations Conference on Environment and 
Development agreements on emissions are met 
(we are way behind target), carbon concentrations 
do not stabilize for 500 years.


We are still pumping so much pollution into the 
atmosphere - primarily carbon from power plants and 
motor vehicles - that heat that should escape from 
the planet is trapped, warming the Earth like the 
glass on a greenhouse.


At current rates the amount of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere will double by 2050, increasing temperatures 
by about 2.5oC - which can be compared to the 5-6oC 
change between warm periods and ice ages. The 
change since pre-industrial times has been greater 
than at any other time in the past 10,000 years.


The seas are expanding, both from the general warming 
and melting glaciers and will continue to rise even if 
emissions stabilize. 


That threatens not only six million coastal dwelling 
Bangladeshis but St Kilda, Bondi, Cairns and Perth. We 
might get a better government response when Canberra 
is coastal.


With consequent rainfall changes, marginal crop regions
will  vanish while others increase yield, but face flooding.


The answer should be the Rio de Janeiro agreement 
to cap emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000, but 
that is unlikely while companies like Eastern Electricity 
(privatized SECV) say Australians don't use enough 
power for Eastern's very short term corporate profits.


Houghton quotes the World Energy Council saying the 
technology is available to achieve reductions - more 
efficient energy use can give an immediate cost-
effective 30 - 40 percent savings - but "energy is so 
cheap that nobody has a real incentive to get on with
it," Houghton said. 


The impetus needs to come from a forward-looking 
Government aware of the economic opportunities in driving market-leading technological change. Environmental 
leadership is profitable.


When the US Clean Air Acts were introduced, American 
industry needed smoke stack cleaning equipment and 
new power generating plant. Unsurprisingly, it was 
Siemens of Germany that benefitted, because 20 years 
earlier Germany had introduced tough emissions laws 
forcing dramatic industrial change. The investment paid off.


Siemens Limited's corporate communications manager, 
Geoff Fagan, said 10 to 15 percent of Siemens 
1994-'95 DM89 billion ($A80 billion) worldwide sales was 
"competitive edge" products reliant on energy savings 
and/or waste minimisation. 


Fagan said Siemens carried losses on its photovoltaic
panels because when fossil fuel prices rise, solar energy 
will become competitive and Siemens will be the market leader.


Management Information Services Inc estimated the 
1992 US expenditure on environment at $US170 billion 
and growing three times faster than the economy, providing 
25 percent of GDP growth in that year. Environment 
industries are expected to create 5 million jobs and equal 
U.S. Defense Department spending by 2000. 


UK environmental expenditure was Sterling 14 billion ($A30
billion approx) in 1990, 2.5 percent GDP and in line with the
European Union average.


The heart of the problem is the low cost of non-renewable 
fuel, which former European Union environment 
commissioner, Ionnis Paleokrassas, described as an 
environmental subsidy to the energy industry. Include 
environmental costs and the alternatives suddenly 
become competitive.


It was on the subject of financial instruments, tradeable 
permits and taxes, that I thought John Stone might have 
some interesting views. He did. But then he said they were 
"off the record". 


"No" was a repetitive theme.


It highlighted Australian government and industry choices:
engagement in technological change welcoming incentives 
to pioneer new systems; or a disbelieving rearguard, 
resplendent in self-serving catechisms of time aplenty and 
ignoring the global climatic and business environment.


And John Houghton, tirelessly, diplomatically, underlining 
the universality of the line-by-line agreement on the science 
of climate change, the causes and impacts, by 
representatives of more than 100 nations and gently advising 
that we must deal with changes which, ultimately, 
affect Australia's crop yield and economy.


A series of carrot and stick financial instruments and other
measures are required to penalise polluters and energy 
wastage and reward cleaner technologies.


In the US tradeable sulphur permits allows good performers 
to sell the balance of their emissions to bad performers 
who have to pay to pollute, rewarding cleaner companies. 
Similar systems can operate for air and water quality and 
waste reduction. 


For governments with a micron of spinal column, a carbon 
tax is a positive incentive to new and existing industries; 
raises revenue; ensures that polluters pay; and wins green
votes all in one package. But if Keating couldn't, 
how can Howard?


Australia has sunshine, open space and a great deal 
of potential for alternative energy. There is no reason for 
Australia to be an ignorant polluter, when we could be 
leading the way with Germany, Scandinavia and California. 


Senator Campbell pleased the meteorologists saying he 
would defend the Bureau to Cabinet colleagues and 
that the World Meteorological Organization was 
"doing good for mankind and had the support of 
the Coalition." 


But the sad truth is that his government is more likely to
privatize the Bureau than get serious about reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps when Canberra is coastal.



C copyright David Langsam 1996