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Enhanced Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming, Climate Change (Not required for the HSC but included here because there is currently great interest in the topic.) These three terms refer more or less to the same thing – the increase in average global temperature that has been observed in recent decades and its consequences in terms of changes in long-term rainfall, severe storm patterns, rising ocean levels and melting of polar ice-caps – increases and changes that are attributed to increased concentrations of carbon dioxide and a few other gases in the atmosphere mainly due to human activities. It was originally called the greenhouse effect because the Earth's atmosphere acts like the glass of a greenhouse – it lets energy (sunlight) in but slows down the escape of energy (in the form of heat) to the outside and in so doing causes the temperature in the greenhouse or on the Earth's surface to be considerably higher than it otherwise would be. For well over a hundred years scientists have known that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was keeping global temperatures about 30o higher than they would otherwise have been and so was providing a hospitable environment for all current life forms. In other words the natural greenhouse effect is a 'good thing'. Since the Industrial Revolution (that is, since about 1750) when societies started burning coal in increasingly large quantities, the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has been increasing. Since about the 1960s scientists have been predicting that global temperatures would increase as a consequence of this and since at least the 1980s clear evidence of small but significant increases have been observed. This extra warming of the Earth by these increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide from human activity is called the enhanced greenhouse effect. Today the term greenhouse effect or enhanced
greenhouse effect is less commonly used; instead the effect is generally
referred to as global warming or climate change. The latter two terms allow for
the possibility that some of the effect may be a natural phenomenon. How the greenhouse effect works In order for the Earth, or any body for that matter, to maintain a fairly constant temperature, the flow of energy out must equal the flow of energy in. All bodies emit radiation. The Sun (at 6000 K) is a very hot body. The radiation it emits is mainly in the visible and ultraviolet region. The Earth is a much colder body (288 K); the radiation it emits is in the infra-red region (longer wavelength than visible light). The major components of the atmosphere (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, water vapour, carbon dioxide) do not absorb long-wavelength u.v. or visible light. Therefore solar energy passes through the atmosphere, gets absorbed by the Earth’s surface, and so warms it up. The atmosphere impedes the flow of energy from the Earth to outer space, because it contains some gases which can absorb infra-red radiation, notably carbon dioxide and water vapour. As infra-red radiation passes from the Earth’s surface through the atmosphere, some of it is absorbed by carbon dioxide and water. These substances re-radiate some of this energy back to Earth. Figure 1 illustrates. The net effect is that carbon dioxide and water vapour slow down the flow of heat energy from the Earth. This causes the Earth’s surface temperature to be higher than it would otherwise be. If there were no atmosphere, the mean surface temperature of the Earth would be about –18°C. With the atmosphere present the mean is about 15°C. This natural warming is called the greenhouse effect. It is highly beneficial, because without it Earth would be too cold to support life as we know it.
Figure 1. How the greenhouse effect works However human activities are increasing the concentration of carbon
dioxide (and some other gases) in the atmosphere and this is leading to further
increases in global temperatures. This is called the enhanced greenhouse
effect or sometimes global warming or climate change. Main causes and effects of global warming Burning fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas, releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The huge and increasing quantities of fossil fuels being burnt worldwide for energy generation are increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Deforestation (for timber) or land clearing (for growing crops or pastures for stock) is also increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, first because the burning or decay of the forest residues or cleared scrub releases carbon dioxide and secondly because the crops or pastures absorb less carbon dioxide than the forests or scrub they replaced. Consequently atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased from about 280 ppm (parts per million) or 0.028% at the middle of the eighteenth century to about 380 ppm today. Today CO2 is increasing by about 2 ppm per year. There is evidence that over the past 100 years the mean surface temperature of the Earth has increased by about 1.0°C and that sea levels have risen about 15 cm. There have also been changes in rainfall patterns, melting of polar ice caps and glaciers and increased frequency of severe weather events such as storms, floods and droughts. Figures 2, 3 and 4 show how atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, global temperatures and ocean levels have changed in recent times.
Figure 2.
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (a) since the industrial revolution Gases that contribute to this warming effect are
called greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas. Other greenhouse gases Methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other compounds containing carbon and halogens are also greenhouse gases, meaning that they too absorb the infrared radiation the Earth emits and re-radiate some of it back to Earth and so add to global warming. Human activity has increased the concentrations of these gases also – methane from the increasing cattle, sheep and pig populations and from mining or extracting fossil fuels, nitrous oxide from increased fertiliser use and CFCs from their use in refrigeration, foam plastics manufacture and so on (though CFC releases are now stabilising and will fall because of efforts to control the ozone hole problem, CCHSC pages 247-59). The combined effect of all these gases is currently about 20% of that due to carbon dioxide. Atmospheric scientists often talk about the equivalent
carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, An indication of the sensitivity of climate
change to increased greenhouse gas emissions is this: a doubling of the
equivalent carbon dioxide
concentration in the atmosphere (over pre-1850 levels) would increase global temperature by about 3oC.
This doubling will occur by 2030 without a concerted world effort to cut
emissions. Predicting future effects While it is not too difficult to measure the increases in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over time, it is quite hard to measure the small changes in climate produced by these increases, particularly as there is usually a time lag between concentration increases and climate change and as there are other factors that influence climate. It is also very hard to predict future climate changes resulting from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases. Scientists use elaborate computer modelling to do this. World wide there are many groups of atmospheric scientists doing this modelling using a great variety of programs and approaches. To assess the work of the vast number of experts studying climate change the United Nations has set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. This panel of experts from all around the world meets periodically to evaluate and assess the findings of the various researchers and to prepare summary reports of the main findings of the scientists for governments to use for developing national and international policies to address the problems. The fourth report of the IPCC in February 2007 concluded that over the next few decades global temperatures are expected to rise by about 0.2oC per decade and sea levels by about 3 cm per decade. Even if the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases remain constant at 2000 levels there will be an increase of 0.1oC per decade (because temperature rise lags behind greenhouse gas concentrations). Longer term predictions depend upon how fast
world populations and economies grow, how quickly countries move away from
fossil fuels and what technological innovations become available. Best
estimates are that by the year 2100 global temperature will rise by between 4oC
(if there is strong economic growth and continued dominance of using fossil fuels
to generate energy) and
2.4oC (if there is only modest economic growth with major shifts away from fossil
fuels) and that sea levels will rise between 0.3 and 0.4 m. Consequences of global warming The main effects of global warming are:
In Australia
By 2020 the Great Barrier Reef will have been seriously damaged . Feedback loops In global warming contexts there are serious concerns about what are called positive feedback loops. These are situations in which a rise in global temperature causes an effect and that effect in turn causes a further rise in temperature and so aggravates the problem quite significantly. Two of the most important feedback loops are
Positive feedback loops
could lead to what are called tipping points, times when the positive
feedback becomes so strong that it keeps forcing temperatures up regardless of
what we do to try to stop it: global warming would then become irreversible. The
possibility of a tipping point being reached within a few decades is most
worrying. Preventing or slowing down global warming Until recently it was considered impractical to remove carbon dioxide chemically or mechanically from the atmosphere or from the emissions from power stations, factories or vehicles. Therefore our major method of combating global warming has to be to use less fossil fuel. This means
The last approach is the one least talked about
because it does not appeal to most people and it would have serious consequences
for national and global economies; it would dramatically slow down economic
growth which currently seems essential for the economic wellbeing of
nations. Some specific proposals for combating global warming 1. Develop sources of renewable energy that do not involve the release of carbon dioxide or other green house gases. Hydroelectricity (electricity generation from water running downhill over waterfalls or dams) is currently the major source of renewable energy. Unfortunately the expansion of hydroelectricity is limited by the availability of water at height. The main other sources of renewable energy being used at the moment are wind (via large wind turbines), photovoltaic cells (solar panels) that generate electricity directly from sunlight and thermal panels that directly heat water for use in domestic hot water systems and for some industrial processes.
organic matter we put into the soil eventually does decay back to carbon dioxide and we again reach a steady state (as with forests) in which the rate at which carbon dioxide is released from the soil becomes equal to the rate at which we put it (as carbon) into the soil. So we reach the stage where we have to keep putting more organic matter into the soil just to keep the same concentration of carbon in the soil – much like a mature forest. We gain by building up the carbon content of carbon-deficient soils, but once we reach soil saturation we have to keep on putting organic matter into the soil for no net gain in carbon stored there. 4. Carbon capture and storage or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). This involves trapping carbon dioxide out of the effluent gases from power stations, transporting it to suitable sites (such as exhausted natural gas wells) and storing it at very high pressure in porous rock deep underground where it is claimed it will remain indefinitely. Carbon capture and storage has worked in some natural gas fields where the gas has a high carbon dioxide content (20 to 40%); the carbon dioxide has been extracted from the raw product and stored under pressure in exhausted parts of the gas field. The high concentration of the carbon dioxide, its relatively low temperature (room temperature) and the nearby availability of storage formations have led to the process being successful in these situations. In relation to coal-fired power stations however, while some encouraging results have been reported, the complete process has not been demonstrated on a commercial scale and many environmental scientists remain deeply sceptical of it and are yet to be convinced that it could be done without using more energy than was being produced by the power station. Carbon dioxide is only about 10% of the hot exhaust gas of power stations. This carbon capture and storage is the clean coal technology that politicians and the fossil fuel interests talk about. 5. Use nuclear energy. At first sight nuclear energy seems the ideal way of generating electricity without greenhouse gas emissions, because the energy comes from splitting uranium atoms (CCHSC page 80) without any production of carbon dioxide. However on closer inspection the case is not so clear-cut. Huge amounts of fossil fuels are needed to mine the uranium ores, extract the uranium from them, then enrich it so it will undergo fission (only the less abundant isotope U-235 does this), fabricate it into suitable fuel rods, build the reactor with adequate safety features for what is a very dangerous process, and provide long-term storage facilities (250 000 years) for the spent fuel rods and/or nuclear wastes. These fossil-fuel energy inputs could well be a significant proportion of the energy produced by the reactor. Nuclear reactors were first used to generate electricity commercially in the 1950s and 60s and their use steadily expanded through the 1970s and 80s, particularly in the UK, France, the USA, the former Soviet Union and Japan. Two serious reactor accidents, one at Three Mile Island in the USA in 1979, the other at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union in 1986 dampened enthusiasm for nuclear reactors, along with fears about long-term waste storage (still not solved), low-level radiation leakage, nuclear weapons proliferation (plutonium a by-product of reactors is the key ingredient for making nuclear weapons) and fear of sabotage by terrorists. Very few new reactors were built in the following twenty years. However the seriousness of the global threats from climate change has made many people, even some who opposed nuclear energy in the 1970s and 80s, wonder if nuclear energy could provide a partial answer to global warming. Were the risks from global warming greater than the risks from nuclear reactors? In keeping with this growing sentiment the Howard government in 2006 set up a committee to investigate whether nuclear reactors for electricity generation could significantly reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. The committee's conclusions were presented in the Switkowski Report in early 2007. It found that twenty nuclear reactors along the Eastern seaboard could produce half the nation's electricity requirements with the release of 25% less greenhouse gas than coal-burning stations. The likelihood of finding sufficient suitable sites without vigorous local opposition is remote. The government did not commit to the proposal. While the population generally was unenthusiastic towards the idea, the government did use it to argue that other nations may find the nuclear option attractive and that therefore Australia should lift the restrictions on uranium exploration and mining that had existed since the 1970s and so allow increased export of uranium. The Labor party concurred with this. Cynics believe that lifting these restrictions was the government's only intention right from the start. Many experts dispute the finding of the
Switkowski Report that nuclear reactors can generate electricity with a
25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The report's calculations
were based on using high grade uranium ores which if there is widespread
adoption of nuclear energy around the world will soon be used up; if lower grade ores are
used the energy saving becomes much less or even zero (it takes more
fossil-fuel energy to extract the uranium from low-grade ores). In
addition the Switkowski calculations did not include adequate energy
costs for long-term storage of wastes nor for the dismantling of
reactors at the end of their lifetimes (which at the moment the UK is
finding to be prohibitively expensive). Practical steps The ways of bringing the cures listed above are:
Emissions trading scheme or carbon tax An emissions trading scheme is a program which requires industries that emit greenhouse gases to buy permits to do so. The government sells permits that allow the emission of specified quantities of greenhouse gas over a specified time (say a year or two). The total permits issued restrict the quantity of greenhouse gas emitted to the amount the government decides upon to meet its own or international emission reduction targets. Companies may trade (sell) permits they have already bought. If a company decides that it is cheaper to improve its technology and cut its emissions, it can then sell its excess permits to another company that has decided that for it it is cheaper to buy extra permits than update its technology. Although individual citizens emit greenhouse gases in many ways such as by using their motor cars, gas appliances and indirectly by using electricity, they do not need permits; instead the companies that supply the fuel for the cars or the gas or the electricity for the home have to hold permits to cover those emissions. The aim is to increase the cost of fossil-fuel-based energy and so encourage industries to use alternative energy supplies and/or to develop energy-saving processes and persuade ordinary citizens to reduce their energy consumption. An alternative to an emissions trading scheme is a carbon tax or pollution tax – a requirement that industries above a certain size pay a tax per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted (or an equivalent amount for other greenhouse gases emitted). The big difference between a carbon tax and an emission trading scheme is this: with an emissions trading scheme the government sets the total amount of emissions that it will allow (in order to reach its reduction target) and lets the marketplace determine the price (depending on demand for the permits), whereas with a straight tax the government sets the tax at a level that it thinks will produce the decrease in emissions that it is aiming for. A carbon tax is simpler to operate, though economists generally consider that an emissions trading scheme is the more efficient path to follow, not least because it can easily be integrated into similar trading schemes in other nations. In both schemes the permits or taxes apply only to specific industries or activities. For example in the Australian schemes transport and farming were both exempted, though these are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Small businesses were also exempted. The Australian carbon tax applies to only about two thirds of greenhouse emissions. Because such schemes involve increased costs to consumers, they are usually accompanied by programs of subsidies to the more vulnerable groups such as the poor and elderly; these are paid for out of the income the government gets from the tax or from sale of permits. In addition the government can use some of the extra income to subsidise industries that it considers may be unduly disadvantaged by such energy cost increases. This particularly applies to export-oriented industries if their trading competitors are not subject to similar schemes. However caution is needed with subsidies in that they could defeat the whole purpose of the scheme. Both schemes increase the cost of fossil-fuel-based energy relative to renewable energy and so encourage change from fossil fuel to renewables. And they both increase the cost of energy relative to other goods in the marketplace (even after subsidies to less-well-off groups) and so encourage consumers to use less energy overall. The only way to solve or alleviate the global warming problem is by concerted international action. With most other forms of pollution localised action solves the problem. If a region or nation is suffering from particulate and sulfur dioxide pollution from heavy industry, then controls on industrial effluents will fix it. If a city suffers from photochemical smog, then controls on exhausts from motor cars solve the problem. However when the pollutant has no immediate local effect but disperses through the whole atmosphere and so affects the whole world, then local action will not fix it: the whole world has to take action. This was the case with the ozone hole problem (release of CFCs into the atmosphere, CCHSC pages 247-59); concerted action by most nations through the Montreal Protocol and subsequent agreements is seeing the problem being contained and gradually cured. Global warming is another problem that requires
concerted international action. There have been several international ‘agreements’
aimed at limiting greenhouse emissions. The first international response to global warming was the Toronto Conference of 1988 leading to the Hague Declaration of 1989; this was an undertaking by the signatory nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 80% of their 1988 levels by the year 2005. Australia signed it, but the USA, UK, China and the USSR (who together produce 60% of global carbon dioxide emissions) did not. No nation, signatory or not, appears to have seriously tried to implement it. (Though Australia signed it, we virtually ignored it!) In June 1992 the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro; it is widely referred to as the 1992 Earth Summit. This was the largest gathering of heads of government in history and the most widely publicised conference on the environment ever. It produced, among other equally important documents, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its objective was to stabilise greenhouse emissions at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic climate change (anthropogenic means caused by humans). However it contained no definite timetable for emission reductions. Australia signed this framework agreement. The UNFCCC set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which is a large body of international scientists and economists that has the task of periodically preparing reports which review all the research on climate change and which make summaries and recommendations for the world's governments. There were follow-up conferences (of little consequence) in Berlin in 1995 and in Geneva in 1996. The first real attempt to introduce specific limits for greenhouse gas emissions was the 1997 Kyoto Conference (in Japan). This was a conference of the parties to the UNFCCC. Based on the second report of the IPCC in 1996, it set targets for specific countries. 'More developed' countries were to reduce their annual greenhouse gas emissions below their 1990 levels by amounts varying from 7% to zero (depending on the effectiveness of their special pleadings). 'Less developed' countries (including China and India) were to be 'encouraged' to reduce their emissions but without specific targets. The agreement was to run until 2012 when a new (hopefully more effective) one would start. On the basis of the Kyoto targets, atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration was expected to increase (from 1990 levels) by about 10% instead of the 11 or 12% expected without the agreement. Not a great improvement! In fact the concentration had increased by about 20% up to 2008. Sufficient nations signed up to the Kyoto agreement (but not the USA or Australia) for it to come into force. The two main principles
underlying the Kyoto agreement (and probably future ones) are However the rapid economic growth of China and India in the last two decades probably means that they (and possibly other developing countries) will have to be included in any future agreement. If there are to be limits on greenhouse gas emissions, then what is a fair basis for allocating them? At Kyoto the negotiations were mainly about arbitrary cuts – what nations were prepared to do and what they could afford. Since then a general principle has been emerging, that each person on the planet is entitled to emit the same amount of greenhouse gas. It is now emerging that the steps in developing future global policies on restricting greenhouse gas emissions should be:
There have been annual Conferences of the Parties to the UNFCCC since Kyoto in 1997 but not all have been of great significance. The Bali Conference in December 2007 that followed the Second Report of the International Panel on Climate Change was significant in that it set a long term goal of a 50% cut in emissions by 2050 and began plans for a world-wide emissions trading scheme to be begin in 2010. The Copenhagen Conference in December 2009 was intended to draw up a detailed plan to meet the goals set by the 2007 Bali conference – a 50% cut in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The conference failed to establish any workable agreement on introducing and policing emissions cuts after the 2012 expiry of the Kyoto agreement. Some nations, notably the European Union, undertook to cut their emissions by varying amounts but nothing binding was achieved. Much had been expected of this conference and there was great pessimism when it ended in virtual failure. Conferences in Cancun (Mexico) in 2010, Durban (South Africa) in 2011, Doha (Qatar on the Persian Gulf) in 2012 and Warsaw (Poland) in 2013 produced little of any significance. The next conference is scheduled for Lima (Peru) at the end of 2014; coming soon after the expected release of the fifth report of the IPCC, it may produce something significant. Australia's approach Until recently Australian governments (both Labor and Liberal-National) have not been very supportive of international actions to curb greenhouse gas emissions. In 1981 the Office of National Assessment, one of Australia's key intelligence-gathering bodies, warned of possible damage to Australia's energy exports (mainly coal) if the nations of the world decided to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although the report was not published, its warning has been a prime concern of governments of all persuasions ever since. In 1989 after the Hague Declaration, state governments (and later the federal government) undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005. A few voluntary schemes were introduced but green house gas emissions continued to increase. Federal and state governments were supportive of the Rio Conference (Earth Summit) of 1992 but did little to implement its goals. Australia participated in the 1997 Kyoto conference, and after special pleading, was allowed to maintain its emissions at 1995 levels (or 8% above 1990 levels, the base date for the Kyoto decisions; Australia was one of very few nations allowed to increase its emissions above 1990 levels). But more importantly at the last minute in the negotiations the Australian delegation managed to force into the agreement a clause that would allow nations to use reductions in emissions resulting from changes in land use to offset actual emissions. The Australian delegation knew that 1990 had been a year of extremely high land clearing and that there had been a steady decline in land clearing ever since. This clause, which became known as the Australia clause, was of no relevance to the other 'more developed' nations because land clearing was not an issue with them and the 'less developed' nations that were engaged in extensive land clearing were not subject to mandatory limits anyway. Despite these favourable treatments the Howard government in 1998 decided not to ratify the Kyoto agreement unless the USA ratified it; the USA refused to ratify it. The Australia clause has had great significance for the emissions debate in Australia. The government maintained that from 1998 to 2007 Australia was meeting its Kyoto target, while environmentalists claimed that it was exceeding them by large amounts. Both claims are correct! Our actual greenhouse gas emissions from non-land use sources have increased by 30% since 1990, but because the amounts of land clearing (and their associated CO2 emissions) have decreased significantly from the very high peak of 1990 the net increase is within the 8% increase allowed by the Kyoto agreement. In 1997 after Kyoto the federal government set up the Australian Greenhouse Office to oversee efforts to reduce emissions and to monitor progress of various voluntary abatement schemes. In 2000 the Australian Greenhouse Office proposed Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets for electricity providers. However by the time the legislation had passed through parliament they had been watered down from 2% (over the then existing renewables) to just 1%. Eventually in 2010 legislation was passed to require electricity generators to produce 20% of their output from renewable sources by 2020. This is still the target (as at early 2014). Most ministers in the Howard government, at least until 2006, were greenhouse sceptics, meaning that they did not believe that global warming was being caused by human activity. Hence they were reluctant to take any action that could conceivably disadvantage Australian industry, particularly the fossil fuel industry. This was partly because they (and the Hawke-Keating government before them) were heavily influenced by an effective lobby group made up of representatives of the coal, oil, cement, aluminium, mining and electricity industries. Some members of this group unashamedly described themselves as the 'greenhouse mafia'. The aim was to sabotage any government efforts at restricting greenhouse gas emissions. Voters generally were not particularly upset by government inaction, apart from small environmental groups. However things changed quite dramatically in the second half of 2006. The devastating drought in the Eastern states was dragging on into its seventh year, the Stern Report (by a British economist) was published and claimed that the economic cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be less than the costs of coping with the consequences of global warming, a movie An Inconvenient Truth by a former US vice-president Al Gore presented in graphic form and in clear and simple language a convincing case for the reality and dangers of global warming, and finally in October there were two record hot days. People at last started believing that global warming was real and began to accept the need for action. By year's end opinion polls showed for the first time a majority of voters in favour of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Labor Party was quick to adopt policies for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and went to the 2007 election with ambitious plans for doing this, including ratifying the Kyoto agreement, a long term goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 60% by 2050 and an emissions trading scheme (to cut emissions in the short term). By the middle of 2007 even the Howard government was reluctantly accepting the reality of the problem and also went to the 2007 election with a proposed (though weaker) emissions trading scheme. Labor won the November 2007 election. The new government immediately ratified the Kyoto agreement (at the December 2007 Bali conference), gave in principle support to the Bali goal of a 50% cut in emissions by 2050 and began plans for an emissions trading scheme to be begin in 2010. In 2007 Labor commissioned an economist with strong credentials in climate change policy, Ross Garnaut, to prepare a report on the likely economic consequences for Australia of global warming and to recommend cost-effective ways for Australia to tackle the problem. The Garnaut Report was released in September 2008. Its main recommendations were:
The government proposed introducing such an emissions trading scheme to start by 2010, though only for an unconditional 5% emissions reduction with the possibility of going to 15% if an international agreement was forthcoming. Its proposals included much more extensive compensation to industry (including electricity generation) that the Garnaut Report recommended. Environmental groups were disappointed that the government appeared to have backed away from its more ambitious pre-election proposals and to be spending a disproportionate amount of its research funds on so-called clean coal technology (described above) at the expense of possibly more promising new energy-generation methods. The legislation for the Labor government's original emissions trading scheme was introduced into parliament in early 2009 but was defeated in the Senate where the coalition with support from a couple of independents held a majority. The government then entered into negotiations with the opposition to try to develop a compromise proposal – after all the coalition had gone to the 2007 election with its own proposal for an emissions trading scheme (though a much weaker one than Labor's). Late in 2009 agreement was reached on a compromise scheme that more closely resembled the coalition's pre-election promise than Labor's one, but there was a revolt within the coalition. The then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull was replaced by Tony Abbott and the coalition repudiated the agreement and so the legislation for the compromise scheme was defeated. During 2010 partly as a consequence of the failed Copenhagen Conference (see above), Australians became less enthusiastic about reducing emissions. This mood change and growing economic problems flowing from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 caused the prime minister Kevin Rudd in early 2010 to decide not to proceed with his plans for an emissions trading scheme. Rudd was replaced as prime minister by Julia Gillard in June 2010. In the election of September 2010 Labor scraped back into government by forming a coalition with the Greens and three independents and started developing plans for a carbon tax (favoured by the Greens) as opposed to an emissions trading scheme (Labor's preferred option) and was able to get the legislation through both houses of parliament in 2012. The carbon tax came into operation on 1 July 2013. After two years it was to change into an emissions trading scheme very similar to (but an improvement on) the one originally presented to parliament in early 2009. In the 18 months since the start of the carbon tax there has been a small reduction in emissions from industries subject to the tax (particularly electricity generation) but a small increase in overall emissions because of significant increases in emissions from sectors of the economy not subject to the tax such as transport, farming and land clearing. The carbon tax covers only about two thirds of total emissions. From the installation of Tony Abbott as Opposition Leader in December 2009, the Liberal-National coalition campaigned vigorously against any form of a price on greenhouse gas emissions and went to the 2013 election with the repeal of the carbon tax as a major policy. Although they had adopted the same goal as the government – a 5% reduction in emissions below the Year 2000 levels, they proposed to achieve it by "direct action" not by a tax or an emissions trading scheme. 'Direct action' meant the government paying industries and businesses to reduce their emissions (instead of making them pay a fee for the right to emit) and paying farmers to increase the amount of carbon stored in their farmland. The coalition comfortably won the September 2013 election but to date (Feb 2014) have not been able to repeal the carbon tax because the senators elected in September 2013 do not take office until July 2014 when it is almost certain that the carbon tax will be repealed. No details of the new government's proposed direct action plan have been released yet. Although both sides of politics have the same target – a 5% reduction in emissions (below 2000 levels) by 2020, it is almost impossible for it now to be reached. Since 2000, emissions have increased by about 12% so a reduction of 15% from current levels over just six years would be required. Labor's very weak carbon tax or proposed emissions trading scheme was not going to get us there and the coalition's undeveloped "direct action" proposal will not do it either. Australia's poor attitude towards alleviating climate change is not much different from that of most other nations in the world. There is little cause for optimism about the world solving this problem as it did with the ozone hole problem. Future generations are just going to have to learn to live in a less hospitable environment with all the extra economic costs that will involve. What is said above about the Australian scene is correct at the time of writing (February 2014). However things could change fairly quickly. Sources IPCC Fourth Assessment Report,
2007 (www.ipcc.ch)
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