meeting targets set by scientists is going to take painful effort. it is useless to say to developing countries that they must bear the pain ahead of those countries whose profligate cultures created the problem. australia is one of those countries. australia must lead by example. after plans are in train to achieve national goals, advice and admonishment from australia will have some weight. until substantive action is taken, australian pollies will have no influence.

Australia can hardly create problems on the scale of, say, India and China.

The Australian figures are per capita, and a mere puff compared with high population countries.

Whilst we continue our increasing importation of goods from developing countries, we very much contribute to the climate change problem.

I think Australia should be debited with emissions from LNG and the 80% of black coal that is exported; after all we could simply not renew contracts. In that light Australia is a major international carbon pusher not just a domestic energy glutton. If we were taking meaningful steps to cut emissions at home we would have the moral authority to exercise several forms of leverage. First I would extend the long awaited carbon cap to exports so customers have to go on the same carbon diet. Cap and trade is supposed to arrive in 2010 but I suspect it will be full of loopholes. Second we could stipulate that supply of yellowcake and ores are conditional on coal cutbacks in the importing countries. Third we could slap a punitive carbon tariff on their finished goods...this seems to be the latest EU thinking.

Put it another way; Australia needs something from China, namely export dollars but also carbon cuts. China needs something from Australia, namely raw material imports and a buyer for finished goods. Surely there must be a trade-off somewhere.

Arthur Tomas' paper seems to be written on the assumption of business
as usual. It assumes that coal imports will rise to match the demands
of all those new coal fired power stations.

It also assumes that the increase in car ownership will continue on
in an unrelenting surge. Already China is having problems keeping fuel
up to their present fleet of cars and trucks.

If PM Rudd think China will reduce its production of CO2 I feel he is in
for a disappointment. China seems determined to bring its population
up to western standards of living no matter what.
They will find it is not possible, but they will destroy everyone's
economy trying.

The next Kyoto agreement has already failed simply because China can
not accept CO2 levels that will mean other countries reductions have
any purpose and will be abandoned.

The only possibility is that the peak of oil, coal & gas will mean
that China's economy will be brought to a halt.

Leigh? hello?

China will do as it pleases.We only have to look at Tibet and Tiernamin Square.They are just starting to get the scent of Global power in their nostrils and nothing will stop them.

They won't allow democracy as we know it,since a unionised workforce will reduce the power of the elites.Only 400 million people are now involved in this present industrial revolution,there are another 900 million waiting in the wings.

Taswegian and Bazz

China considers growth is business as usual and a matter of face.

China is a coal based economy with in excess of 80% of its energy base coal reliant, and a massive employer in both legal and illegal mines and power stations. How effective are calls for penalties on exported Austrlian coal to pressure China into compliance?

Ranked No 3 in the world for known coal reserves, China is ranked No 1 in annual coal production and consumption.

To get this in perspective, China's coal mines produced an estimated 1.8 billion tonnes in 2007. Australia's coal exports to China totalled 5.9 million tonnes representing 2.4% of our total coal exports. (0.3% of China's own production)

Australia is only one coountry exporting coal to China. Indonesia alone exported 193 million tonnes in 2006 and is targeting 370 millions tonnes per year by 2009. China is rapidly developing new large open cut coal deposits in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other provinces to meet the domestic shortfall.

Neighbouring Mongolia has vast coal reserves that are being developed by China and other nations dedicated to China's demand. New railways are under construction to bring this coal into China. China is also building new large power generating plants on some of these reserves. China imports the electricity but not the emissions; they become Mongolia's greenhouse contribution to global warming.

The suggestion that Australia imposes penalties on finished goods exported to China is impractical because of the relatively minimal volume and value.

Motivating China to compliance requires considerable economic clout well beyond Australia's capability. Without US participation that clout lays solely within the G8 and the EU. Responding to the challenge, the 27 EU leaders issued a blunt reference to sanctions in an early March warning about "… appropriate measures to be taken …" against heavily polluting nations that refuse to implement appropriate global warning mitigation measures in order to gain an economic advantage in global trade.

In respect to pressure within Kyoto? Yes, Australia is part of the G20 and the OECD, but look at our rankings.

Arthur Thomas
18 March, 2008

Arthur Thomas's manifesto on Kyoto, China and Ross Garnaut cover's a number of glaring inaccuracies, factoids and dated information. It creates more soul searching anxieties than optimistic solutions. His jocular eulogising of Rudd as a World class messiah, mediator, strategist and living panacea on Global Climate Change is tongue-in-cheek ?

More likely in cuckold land perhaps ?

Self promoter Rudd, midnight oil Garrett, and Kuala Lumpa expatriate Penny Wong are all showing signs of Bollywood mass hysteria/ mania.Strutting the World stage at taxpayers expense, Ian Tang's largesse and China's formidable propaganda machine, our Pollies are following in the footsteps of the now defunct JWH Inc ! Apparently, some are still intoxicated by the November Election euphoria.

It is one thing to beleive in one's convictions, but to fall victim to one's own spin doctors and PR super-doper hype, is stretching the boundaries !

Effulgent Ross Garnaut's latest submission plays down the subsidising of Oz's coal-fired power Industry generators when emission trading begins in 2010.

Quote: " free permit" allocation ( to electricity generators ) should NOT be supported as a means of compensation for changes.." However, he favours free permits provide a buffer to Giant's BHP-Billington, Rio Tinto and Alcoa ? The mind boggles at such provincial idealistic approach ? By comparison, their combined revenue put's our National GDP in the small beer stakes ! His permit auctions - an estimated $ 20 billion will provide a wind-fall for Labor's coffers, to the detriment of coal fired power producers, who deprived of this ' cash cow ' will soon go into receivership. Insouciant Mrs Wong welcomed the discussion paper ? Whatever next.

Kyoto Organisation fallout:

Mistake #1

Granting China the right to continue on a path of massive emissions to 2010. Head of State, Hu Jingtao ambitious 11th 5-year (2006-2010) Plan. Envisages, among other programmes, 19 new Nuclear Reactors supplied from France, Russia and Canada. Environmental goals - to reduce 29 % energy requirements, i.e. 4 % per year.

Factoids: 1/5 World's population, consumes 1/2 World's cement; 1/2 World's steel; 1/4 Aluminium and uranium oxides. World's leading gas house emitter,

All concerned with global warming should read this site! It's long on info from one at least I believe to have the quals. to comment.

http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/002848.html

Our continued proposal to trade CO2 emissions is a mistake and just adds to revenues and profit, for some. We the electricity users are the suckers who will pay.
fluff4

..displacing US. Electricity generation: fossil fuels 80 % coal; hydro 18%, NPR 2 %. Already online 11 Nuclear Power Reactors, 6 presently under construction.

Mistake #2

Urging Developed countries to outsource manufacturing and service industries to 'coolie-wage' sweat-shops in China, India, Vietnam Korea etc. In effect massive emissions shifted ( goal post ) to developing countries. No nett gain.

Mistake # 3

Emboldened by Kyoto, President Hu Jingtao's proposed 12th 5-Year (2011-2016) Plan. 86 NPR. 5 World's most technologically advanced, with 40 GWE each. Roughly a 3-4 increase of 120/160 GWE by 2030. A Super Power and economic colossus, the Middle kingdom is wholly committed to long term economic reform and modernisation at any price. It's extremely unlikely, Rudd, Kyoto will impact on the dynamics and slow the momentum. Short of WWIII, the collapse of the yuan, there is absolutely no way to grid the emerging powerhouse roller coaster. China's agenda will widen the chasm between the have's and the have-not's. Obviously, emissions per se, have been lost in the translation !

What appears to elude the Western media, China's growth is never going to abate - Kyoto notwithstanding. Paying lip service, it is a signatory to 15 environmental International agreements and conventions. From Kyoto, Ozone Layer Protection etc to ship pollution. None have been ratified.

Historically:

Mismanagement, corruption, repression, Human Right's abuses, persecution of minorities, organ transplant harvesting in Gulags,psychiatric/ sexual exploitation, torture, women and children trafficking, illicit drug manufacture and trade, SARS, HIV/AIDS data fraud and suppression, instability etc - even allowing for hyperbole, is alive and prospering.

The CIA Factbook chronicles China's International participation, priorities and predictions.

In perspective: Oz needs clout - more Global robustness, less rhetoric and fanforonade. A minnow in the Cosmos, our rationale is too self-oriented.

Our Uranium reserves World's largest. Rated 24th in production / export. 10,000 tonnes U/yr or 8500 tU's from 3 mines. In 5 years produced 50,000 tonnes @ $ 2.4 billion.

China, North Korea, Iran, India are not beholden. There is a plethora of other sources elsewhere.

Bibliography: CIA Factbook, World's Nuclear Assn, Aust Parliamentary Library.

Hi Shellback

Definitely tongue in cheek.

Read page 2 of article for details. "India and China on the other hand represent about 40%" ..... not just China.

Offset your 29% energy reduction and 4% pa against current increasing shortfalls, projected energy demand, increasing problems with hydro and the logistics of building the nuclear reactors within the time frame, and you get a totally different set of numbers.

You forgot to mention the 1.95 mW South African pilot pebble bed reactor under JV with Tsinghua University and Huaneng. Not all reactors are to be fully imported. Check out China's domestic nuclear industry and plans for its future development and the global market.

You probably mean leading "greenhouse gas" emitter.

regards
Arthur Thomas