(Download) "Greenhouse: A Scientific, Political and Moral Issue (Essay)" by Arena Journal # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Greenhouse: A Scientific, Political and Moral Issue (Essay)
- Author : Arena Journal
- Release Date : January 22, 2005
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 197 KB
Description
The atmospheric science community has long been convinced that greenhouse gas emissions are changing the global climate and demand attention. Under the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated under the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change, the developed world as a whole is obliged to reduce emissions to 95 per cent of the 1990 level. Australia has a responsibility to limit its emissions for the 2008-2012 period to 108 per cent of the 1990 figure. Despite the fact that we have very high emission levels per capita, the Australian government obtained this uniquely generous target at Kyoto by threatening to walk away from the convention unless we were given special treatment. We justified this stance by claiming that we were holding out for a realistic target, and struck a moralizing pose by suggesting that other nations were making unachievable promises. Given our public stance at Kyoto, we now look both foolish and irresponsible as our energy-related emissions spiral out of control. Our uniquely generous Kyoto target is to increase our emissions by 8 per cent above the 1990 level by the 2008-2012 period. We are already more than 30 per cent above the 1990 level, and our consumption of electricity and transport fuels is increasing rapidly. It is also our duty as good global citizens to do our share in address the most urgent environmental problem facing the world. At the time of writing, the Howard government was still using creative accounting to claim that we were within reach of our Kyoto target. Despite frequent claims, there is no convincing evidence that we would suffer economically from endeavouring to meet the Kyoto target. (1) The task has been made more difficult by more than a decade of inaction since the release of the report of the Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Group on Energy Use and the subsequent 1992 National Greenhouse Response Strategy (NGRS). (2) In 1998 the National Greenhouse Advisory Panel (NGAP) recommended a renewed commitment to the NGRS; instead, the government disbanded the NGAP and released a National Greenhouse Strategy which contains laudable sentiments but little in the way of practical measures. The only national policies that advance the Kyoto aim are the modest '2 per cent' target for renewable electricity and the range of measures imposed on the government by the Senate during negotiation of the GST package. However, the Australian Capital Territory and such cities as Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne have now set local targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Studies overseas conclude that most sensible reduction measures produce new jobs for the fundamental reason that they replace energy-intensive activity with labour-intensive processes.
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