Australia's role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Firstly the issue is a whole world problem. We are all going to be affected. Interestingly the current science suggests that Australia will be particularly affected as we are already pretty dry and hot and increases in temperature will take us to really dangerous levels. So in that sense we have more to lose if global warming continues so in our own interest we should be particularly keen to see effective action being taken.
In the political world of pure self interest it is exceptionally hard for one country to make big changes and then watch others not follow. I suppose we could call it bludging. So any treaties that are developed to solve an international problem need some sort of oversee able and enforceable regulation that tries to ensure everyone plays their part. That is what the Kyoto agreements were intended to do. But as we know America refused to ratify it and Australia followed. That reduced the impact markedly.
It is also not accurate to say that other countries are not doing anything significant. China for example is actually a front runner in trying to reduce it's CO2 output. (Sounds crazy but I have supplied a reference) They are watching climate change lay havoc with their environment and , again for self interest, want to see effective action.
The conversation about "wrecking the economy" is interesting. We realise that the main people arguing this are companies with large fossil fuel interests who would see the value of these depreciate enormously. There will also be power companies that use coal who don't want to see these assets stranded by a change in policy. So naturally these interest are going to be at the forefront of cries of "it will wreck the economy " (Us ! Us Us!)
But if we decide that we can't accept coal as a main source of power generation (in it's current form) then we are faced with a massive but necessary re engineering of our power supplies to no carbon alternatives.
Despite what the fossil fuel industry says there are such viable alternatives. Solar thermal power stations with molten salt back ups already exists. There is a case for next generation thorium nuclear power stations. Wind works and development of onsite storage can extend it's capacity. One particular technology that I believe could be a game changer will be UCG (underground coal gasification) coupled with a low cost fuel cell that would turn the synthetic gas into electricity with no carbon output at a cost comparable to current coal fired power stations. This is very close to commercialization.
In fact we would probably need to substantially increase our supply of clean electricity if we also decided to reduce the impact of cars and general transport by going electric.
All of these projects would change the face of our industrial infrastructure. There would be new winners and old losers. But in the end we would have designed and produced a clean supply of power that was not going to inevitably run out. Not a bad result.
Now if we were quick and clever it could be Australian skills and technology that got the jobs and profits from these projects. As distinct from what has happened to the solar cell technology which was developed in Australia but has been commercialised in China and USA.
On another front there is a strong case for developing bio char as a way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and turn it into a long life charcoal that would stay in the soil AND improve the quality of our soils. (which would help grow more food.)
There are already tomes of books and papers outlining how we might quickly and effectively address the multiple problems Ifocus outlined earlier and which need to be addressed.
It would not be easy or cheap. I can't see how we could keep our current ways of living and spending going while undertaking such a huge re engineering of our society. But unless 99% of all climate scientists are dead wrong we face a starkly disastrous future if we don't have a go.
References.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_mitigation
A good overview of many of the major ways we could reduce Greenhouse gases.
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/zero-carbon-australia-2020
This is a very ambitious and detailed plan of how Australia could be running on only renewable energy by 2020. Worth reading at least the synopsis and who is contributing to this project.
http://www.energyglobal.com/sectors...g_alkaline_fuel_cell_technology_with_UCG.aspx
A brief overview of the UCG fuel cell application for cheap clean electricity from stranded coal. The australian company Linc energy holds the rights to develop this technology around the world.
http://www.csiro.au/resources/Biochar-Factsheet.html
As it says. CSIRO analysis of the potential of biochar to sequester carbon and improve soils.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/02/chinas-thorium-reactor-and-japans.html
A look at thorium nuclear reactors. Small, relatively low radioactivity . Allegedly can't cause any melt downs.
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/...tspending-us-now-matches-us-in-wind-capacity/
Interesting analysis of how much China is doing with regard to renewable energy in comparison to America
http://www.energybulletin.net/
An excellent site that pulls together many of the best ideas on how to tackle these multiple issues