AUSTRALIA can expect the cold shoulder next month at a meeting in Geneva of parties to the convention on global warming. The government has decided to oppose the push to require each country to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level. What worries me about the decision making process in Australia was the way the science was ignored to suit commercial interests.
The scientific consensus, locally and globally, favours urgent international action to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and methane. I understand that the draft proposal before Cabinet from the environment department was based on the science and accepted the need for emission targets.
But resources minister Warwick Parer called a meeting of companies in the resource sector. Mining, mineral processing, and energy production interests were well represented. These groups are all involved in one way or another with selling fossil carbon and, understandably, do not want to reduce their sales. They campaigned against the environment department’s plan and helped persuade Cabinet to oppose the idea of targets.
The decision means Australia will be isolated in Geneva. New Zealand and even the USA, sensing the public mood in an election year, are likely to support targets. Foreign minister Alexander Downer claimed that in Australia meeting targets would cost thousands or tens of thousands of jobs. I hope foreign policy is not generally based on arguments as shoddy as this. There is no hard evidence that reducing emissions would cause economic damage. Indeed, a recent study by Canberra economists Mick Common and Clive Hamilton showed that replacing payroll taxes by a carbon tax would create thousands of jobs!
The government has taken a dubious moral position. Downer said Australia should not reduce its emissions unless major polluters like China also agree to reductions. Australians use about ten times as much energy per head as the Chinese. The government is saying that people in China should continue to go without sewerage and hot water so we can continue to be wasteful. That unfortunate stance could do economic damage if other nations impose sanctions.
NEW ZEALAND has made two moves to address the greenhouse issue. They are part of the Green Package announced last month (Antipodes, 8 June). In New Zealand, emissions of methane are high compared with other developed countries because of the large agricultural sector. Research will be conducted into finding the best ways to reduce agricultural gas emissions and improving the use of agricultural land as a “sink” to reduce total levels of greenhouse gases. This effort will be the main thrust of research into controlling greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide.
The second measure involves using satellite images, aerial videos and ground surveys to gauge the potential of native forests and soils to store carbon. According to environment minister Simon Upton, New Zealand has accurate information on less than 5 per cent of the country’s potential forest sinks.
Other Green Package measures of note include an allocation of NZ$15 million to promote sustainable use of fisheries, recovery programmes for threatened plants and animals, and an extra NZ$38 million over five years to control vectors of bovine tuberculosis.
WITH debate raging about cuts to public spending in this year’s Budget, Australian scientists have gone on the front foot. Last Tuesday in Canberra, the lobby group, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, presented science minister Peter McGauran with the polices it believes Australia needs. The document, A Science Policy for Australia in the 21st Century , has much to say about the role of industry, education, university research, research training, government laboratories, and national facilities.
Industry receives a blast. FASTS claims that industry spending on R&D is “well below world’s best practice”. Growth was impressive after the introduction of the 150 per cent tax concession by the Hawke government. But the 1996 data show that the upward trend has ended and spending on R&D has levelled out. The low level of boardroom understanding of technical innovation is part of the problem, FASTS says.
FASTS also pushes its belief that the annual Australia Prize needs revamping. It would like to see several smaller prizes, not one big prize. And it wants the prizes to be restricted to local scientists, or at least to people who have done the bulk of their research work in Australia.
I’m pleased to see that FASTS strongly argues the case for basic research. In the 1960s and 1970s, FASTS reminds us, if research had been restricted to areas of clear national importance, there would not be world-class optics or laser technology industries in Australia.
WHO said art and science don’t mix? From 21 June to 3 November, the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra will celebrate 200 years of Australian science. On show will be the portraits and busts of prominent scientists. The artists include Joshua Smith, Judy Cassab and Russell Drysdale.
And in Melbourne on 17 July members of the Victorian branch of Australian Science Communicators will learn about the science of art. Tom Dixon, chief conservator of the National Gallery of Victoria, will use examples from the European Gallery to tell ASC members about such topics as the maintenance of artworks, their environmental monitoring and how to detect a forgery.
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