Australia is a leading country for annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, coal exports and liquid natural gas (LNG) exports. Thus “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge exported CO2 pollution is included). Indeed the data for 2010 indicate that Australia’s annual domestic plus exported GHG pollution is 64 tonnes per person per year, 71 times greater than the per capita GHG pollution of Pakistan.

In 2009 the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WBGU) determined that for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2 degree C temperature rise, the World must pollute less than 600 Gt CO2 between 2010 and essentially zero emissions in 2050. Unfortunately Australia (through disproportionately huge annual fossil fuel burning and exports) has already used up its share of this terminal GHG pollution budget and is now stealing the entitlement of other countries including acutely global warming-threatened countries such as Somalia and Bangladesh.

Australia’s disproportionately huge annual per capita GHG pollution weans that Australia is disproportionately contributing to a avoidable deraths in the Developing World due to a worsening climate genocide. Thus both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming. Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 (UN Population Division) , these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see “Climate Genocide”).

However in look-the-other-way Australia it is business as usual (BAU). The 2 major political groupings, Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition (the Libs) and the Labor Government (the Labs) have essentially the same climate change inaction policies of “5% off 2000 greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 2020″ coupled with unlimited expansion of coal and gas exports that will mean that Australia’s domestic plus exported GHG pollution will, relative to 2000, roughly double by 2020 and quadruple by 2050 (see this). The Greens are pro-environment but only have about 14% of the vote and are detested by the major parties and the mainstream media, particularly the climate change denialist Murdoch newspapers that have 70% of newspaper readership in Australia.

On 4 October 2011 The Age On-line National Times (owned by the Fairfax media organization) published a critique of the Greens by John Matthews (strategist at “Loop Branding” and writer for “ArtKritique”) entitled “”Greens should come out of the forest” (see: Greens should come out of the forest ; see also this).

Key quotes from this nonsensical article: “You know there’s a problem with a brand when your competitors use it as shorthand for all that’s bad. So when Liberal frontbenchers spit out the phrase “Green-Labor government” as an expletive you can bet they’re pretty sure the “G” word carries negative connotations that will have their supporters grinding their teeth in rage. Right now the Green brand is a problem… If we look across the spectrum of politics and consider what makes the Greens different today we see it’s not their environmental politics. Belief in climate change is mainstream to all bar a few shock jocks, the odd snarling, cynical, right-wing bully and Tony Abbott. You can believe in the need to take action on global warming and not vote Green. Which sparks the question — so why would we?”

The Age kindly published my rebuttal of this absurd article:

“Green” is universally identified with a pro-environment stance, and the defence of our common, vital, natural environment and its irreplaceable ecosystems against destructive greed and private profit. However a related generality is Green defence of human social environments (human ecosystems) against amoral greed.

Accordingly, apart from the marginalized but ethically very sound Socialists, the Greens are the only significant political group realistically and honestly defending the sustainability and richness of both non-human ecosystems (the environment) and human ecosystems (human societies).

John Matthews’ assertion that “You can believe in the need to take action on global warming and not vote Green” is manifestly incorrect. Both the Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition (the Libs) and the Labor Government (the Labs) have essentially the same climate change inaction policies of “5% off 2000 greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 2020″ coupled with unlimited expansion of coal and gas exports that will mean that Australia’s domestic plus exported GHG pollution will, relative to 2000, roughly double by 2020 and quadruple by 2050.

The Greens pragmatically support, as a carbon-pricing “first step”, Labor’s dishonest and counterproductive Carbon Tax (Treasury modelling says it will actually INCREASE Australia’s domestic GHG pollution) – ergo vote 1 Green and put Labor last.”

I could have added that before the 2010 elections the middle-of-the-road National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) conducted a survey of the policies of the major political parties on 40 issues in 7 major areas. Overall the Greens scored 100%, the ALP 53% and the LNP 23% in the NTEU survey. All anti-war, pro-environment, anti-racism, pro-Planet and pro-Humanity folk will vote 1 Green (indeed if you Google the phrase “vote 1 Green” you will get 543,000 results with articles containing this opinion of Dr Gideon Polya ranking items 1-5 on page 1).

The environmental policies of the Greens are a quantum jump above those of the do-nothing, BAU Lib-Labs and the social policies of the Greens are in agreement with the views of about half the Australian population. The Socialists have similar pro-environment and pro-Humanity polices but are more rigorous and less pragmatic than the typically middle class Greens. Sensible, pro-environment, pro-Humanity Australians – and indeed like people worldwide – have little choice but to vote 1 Green or to vote 1 Socialist.

The study looks at how much CO2 and methane emissions the citizens and the industries inside the city borders generate every year. Hoornweg and the other co-authors base their study on 100 different cities from 33 different countries around the world. The study, titled "Cities and greenhouse gas emissions: moving forward", shows that the emissions varies greatly between poor and rich cities around the world. The per capita greenhouse gas emissions vary with more than 15 tonnes in wealthy industrialized cities such as Sydney, Calgary, Stuttgart and several major US cities to less than half a tonne in poorer cities such as Nepal, India and Bangladesh.

According to the study the top 9 "dirtiest" cities in the world are: (1) Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 29,8 tonnes per capita, (2) Austin in USA with 24 tonnes, (3) Denver in USA with 21,5 tonnes, (4) Washington DC in USA with 20 tonnes, (5) Minneapolis in USA with 18 tonnes, (6) Calgary in Canada with 18 tonnes, (7) Menlo Park in USA with 16 tonnes, (8) Dallas in USA with 15 tonnes and (9) Stuttgart in Germany with 12 tonnes per capita.

This study helps strengthen activists calls for "climate justice" to help stop the huge inequality between rich and poor nations that fuels a climate of mistrust and sabotages efforts to secure a climate deal.

For over 15 years delegates and politicians from around the world have discussed, debated and negotiated the questions of dealing with manmade climate change in various COP (Conference of the Parties) summits. So why haven’t they made any real progress yet?

That is a big question that covers a whole range of topics and issues that I won’t go into. Instead I will try to focus on the actual politics and tactics used at the COP summits. I will try to see if uneven development and inequality plays any part in how the actual negotiations plays out, how the delegates attending perceive climate justice and fairness, and if all this combined somehow sabotages the efforts to secure a climate deal.

At the major United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992 more than 100 world leaders met to address the question of global climate change. At the end of the conference 187 nations signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) treaty. Without any “tough details” the agreement said nations should “protect the climate system…on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.” World leaders managed to get a consensus and reach an agreement but they still had disagreements on what kind of responsibilities nations had under the UNFCCC treaty. The “common but differentiated” phrase seems to have resulted in various different interpretations between the “North” and the “South”. The poor developing nations were, compared to the North, very precise in their interpretation of the phrase and called for the rich developed nations to take the lead in the emission reductions. They also wanted the North to help developing nations in their environmental efforts by transferring large amounts of economic and technologic assistance from the North to the South. The North on the other hand interpreted the phrase a bit differently. According to the UNFCC treaty $625 billion was needed every year for a sustainable development to take place in the developing nations. Around 20% of the money would be paid by below-market loans to the South. But the developed nations never fulfilled their promise of economic and technologic assistance to the South. In the end they paid less than 20% of the $625 billion.

In 1995, three years after the Rio Earth Summit, the first COP conference took place in Berlin, Germany. Here the so called “Berlin Mandate” declared that the developed nations in the North should reduce their emissions first while the developing nations would join in later on. Two years later in 1997 at the COP3 conference in Kyoto, Japan, the US president Bill Clinton actually signed the famous Kyoto Protocol, which called for binding reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But the protocol was never ratified by the USA because of the US senate which voted unanimously in favor for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution. Once passed the Byrd-Hagel Resolution successfully blocked any climate treaty that was, in their words, “unfair”. Because the Kyoto protocol did not require the developing nations to do any emissions cuts the US senate felt it was “unfair” and refused to ratify it.

And it is now, with the Kyoto protocol, that you can start to clearly see the different positions and opinions the North and the South, rich and poor, developed and developing nations have on what climate justice actually is. Developing nations didn’t want to accept any scheduled emission reduction targets for the future. Any mention by the North that the developing nations should in some way slow down their development and economic growth by limiting their greenhouse gas emissions was met with an “openly hostile negotiating environment” from the South. The Brazilian ambassador Luis Felipe Lampreia stated during the COP3 conference that: “We cannot accept limitations that interfere with our economic development.” And the lead negotiator from China said: “In the developed world only two people ride in a car, and yet you want us to give up riding on a bus”.

The developed nations are responsible for about 80% of the worlds CO2 emissions. One person in Bangladesh will during a whole year emit as much CO2 emissions as one average person living the UK will in only 11 days. A single power plant in Great Britain will produce more CO2 emissions, every year, than all 139 million people living in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique combined. It is also clear that developing nations are much more vulnerable to the effects a changing climate brings such as droughts, rising tides, floods and tropical storms than rich and developed nations are. And nine Chinese and eighteen Indians release as much greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere as one average American does. The USA is alone responsible for over 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but only around 4% of the world’s total population lives in the USA. A whopping 136 developing nations are on the other hand together responsible for 24% of global emissions.

But the former US President George H. W. Bush once notoriously stated that “the American lifestyle is not open to negotiation”. His son, George W. Bush later dismissed the Kyoto protocol completely by claiming that the treaty “would cause serious harm to the US economy” and that it is “an unfair and ineffective means of addressing global climate change concerns”.

Even in light of these clearly uneven numbers the North’s perception of climate justice seems to be to disregard any kinds of historical responsibilities or economical differences, the very same issues that the South thinks are the basis of climate justice. And these rather different perceptions on climate justice between the rich and poor nations help fuel an deteriorating negotiating atmosphere.

When it comes to the negotiations during these summits, like the COP15 this past December, the income differences between developing and developed nations plays a big role in creating a hostile negotiating environment for the delegates. It is also one of the more direct examples on how inequality can dampen cooperation on climate change. Attending these yearly COP summits obviously costs money. Nations need to be able to pay for their delegate’s salaries and accommodations. Other costs involves scientists, lawyers, translators, economists and consultants that can help the nations delegation in the actual negotiations, with their draft proposals, legal argumentation as well as being able to offer counterarguments and proposals to the demands of other nations.

“The reason why many poor small countries are hardly represented in negotiations that concern them directly, writes Robert Wade, is that they cannot afford the cost of hotels, offices, and salaries in places like Washington DC and Geneva, which must be paid not in PPP [purchasing power parity] dollars but in hard currency bought with their own currency at market exchange rates (quoted in J.T. & Parks, 2006: 15).”

Unfortunately many of the less developed nations (LDCs) cannot afford all this and most of the time they will have to go without this much needed help. Just a little side note to show how just bad these things can get: At a seminar in the aftermaths of COP15, at the Lund University in Sweden, a CPS student from Bangladesh told us about how he had, at a visit to the Bella center (where the climate talks were being held), walked into the delegation from Bangladesh. And after a short chat with them he ended up helping the delegation with translations at the big UN summit.

The delegates also need to attend all the formal and informal meetings during the climate summit. And these can be many and scheduled to take place at the same time. If you have several delegates you can easily divide up the work and focus on certain issues, read every single document and draft texts. That’s why the more delegates you can send the better. Studies have shown that there is a great difference between the numbers of delegates developed and developing nations are sending to these COP summits. For example: To COP6, in the Netherlands, the USA sent 99 delegates and the European Commission sent 76 delegates. Many developing nations such as African and small island states were lucky if they could even afford to scramble together a delegation consisting of one to three delegates. Recent studies and experiences at COP10 in 2004 confirm and back this up. During COP6 the chairs decided to split up the negotiations into smaller groups, subgroups and even subsubgroups so that they could easier cover all the climate related issues in an easier manner. Sure, this move can in an equal and perfect world make the debates and meetings flow much smoother. But with the current inequality between developed and developing nations it can make things worse. As you can imagine this decision gave a huge advantage and “agenda-setting power” to the developed nations who had been able to send many more delegates to the COP summit than the poorer nations had.

Another problematic side effect of not being able to send enough people to the climate summits is that the developing nations delegates often gets “buried” in documents and papers. This of course leads to the delegation losing its strength and energy. In the last hours of the summit they could then be presented with a document or proposal to a treaty which is already done and beyond alteration and forced to accept or reject it in an unrealistic short period of time. The developed nations use this to get a tactical advantage of the developing nations. They can offer a document at the last hour and pressure everyone to sign it. If the developing countries don’t accept it they are later labeled by the developing nations as the “bad guy” and the ones responsible for wrecking the climate talks (Huffington Post, 2009). At COP6, for example, “commitments were imposed by muscular chairmanship, or gaveled through without reaction from negotiators exhausted to the point of sleep,” Ashton and Wang claim. But this approach does not always succeed as can be seen by the walkout by G77 delegates in 2003 at the Cancun trade negotiations, or from the failure of the COP6 summit where China and the G77 group felt marginalized by the developed nations. Or from the walkout by African nations at the latest COP15 summit in Copenhagen.

The nasty behind-the-back tactics and behaviors used in the past by developing nations were also present at the latest COP. During the first week of the COP15 summit in Copenhagen a potential final agreement, called the “Danish text”, was leaked to the Guardian. The draft text was apparently worked out by developed nations such as the UK, US and Denmark and planned to be adapted by nations during the final week of the summit. The draft agreement made the developing countries “furious” as it would give even more powers to the rich nations, weakening UN’s future role as well as abandon the Kyoto protocol. Many NGOs, commentators and political leaders have criticized these COP summits and the tactics being used as unfair and even undemocratic. At the end of COP15 the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for example called the summit “undemocratic”. Raman Mehta from Action Aid India said this in a statement, in light of the “Danish text”, that:

“The global community trusted the Danish government to host a fair and transparent process but they have betrayed that trust. Most importantly, they are betraying those who are disproportionately impacted by climate change and whose voices are not being heard. This unfair behaviour strikes a blow to all efforts to achieve justice and equity in the climate change negotiations process (quoted from Friends of the Earth, 2009).”

George Monbiot’s verdict on the COP15 summit wasn’t much better. He called it “stupid” and labeled the organizers and attendees of the summit as incompetent:

“This was the chaotic, disastrous denouement of a chaotic and disastrous summit. The event has been attended by historic levels of incompetence. Delegates arriving from the tropics spent 10 hours queueing in sub-zero temperatures without shelter, food or drink, let alone any explanation or announcement, before being turned away. Some people fainted from exposure; it’s surprising that no one died. The process of negotiation was just as obtuse: there was no evidence here of the innovative methods of dispute resolution developed recently by mediators and coaches, just the same old pig-headed wrestling.”

One also need to keep in mind that local environmental problems such as preventing soil erosion, providing clean drinking water, treating sewage and slowing down the spread of deserts are for most developing nations a much more critical and pressing issue than the more global ones. For developed nations the more global environmental issues such as climate change, ozone depletion and habitat loss are higher up on their priority list. This means that the developing nations need to put more effort into pursuing the South that the global issues should be a higher priority for them.

At the same time many delegates and policy makers from the less developed nations fear that the nations in the core of the world system, which I explained earlier, might just use the climate and environmental concerns to cover up their real agenda: keeping the periphery nations underdeveloped. After being literally forced to accept trade-related, intellectual and property-rights laws and agreements that gives an advantage to the North many South policy makers and even academics hold this opinion of mistrust. And this is a reason to why there is such a big “climate of mistrust” at the COP negotiations. The North has almost constantly failed to keep their promises of financial aid, technological transfer, ignored many of the ecological problems in the South and used tactics to marginalize the South at negotiations. So it’s not really that hard to understand that any suggestions from the North that the South should limit their development, for the good of global environmental issues, are met with a dismissive response from the developing nations.

Final Thoughts

So the lack of power and the extreme poverty and underdevelopment among many of the developing nations leaves them vulnerable in negotiations with the North. It’s more expensive for developing nations to purchase environmental technology and knowledge as they have to be paid with real cash and not credits or loans from the North. This makes it hard for them to perform any kinds of meaningful emission reductions or take part in the COP summits on equal terms.

The wealthy developed nations believe that climate justice is when an agreement involves all parties, both developed and developing nations. Because, they argue, the non-Annex I nations will in a near future increase their emissions with so much that they must be included in a climate treaty. The poorer developing nations on the other hand perceive this in another manner. The climate crisis is a result from the rich North’s excessive consumption. And so they argue they also have the right, just like the North, to build and develop their economy using cheap fossil fuels.

The ozone layer crisis during the 1980’s is a good example of how the world can come together to combat global environmental issues. The negotiations back then was just as hard and complex as the climate talks are today. During the negotiations a Chinese delegate said that: “The call for modernization is so irresistible that China will continue to produce these ozone depleting chemicals,” unless, of course they and other developing nations received financial compensation for their efforts. India was equally tough in their negotiations and their environment minister said in a statement that: “We didn’t destroy the layer. You did. I’m saying that you [the West] have the capability and the money to restore what you have destroyed” (Do you recognize the style of the statements back then to the ones in today’s climate debate?). In the end the North agreed to give financial aid to the developing nations so that they could afford to take proper actions and protect the ozone layer.

But the current climate change negotiations are taking place in an even tougher “climate of mistrust” between the rich and poor. This mistrust is based on decades of Western promises not kept in global environmental and economic matters. To get rid of this suspicion and mistrust that is sabotaging efforts to secure a climate deal the North needs to understand their historical responsibility in this matter. As well as taking social and economic issues into account when negotiating about climate targets. The North could do this by offering a new and fairer global environmental and development treaty that clearly shows their commitments in this issue.

“They could do this by providing greater “environmental space” to late developers, supplying meaningful sums of environmental assistance, funding aid for adaption and dealing with local environmental issues as well as global issues like climate change, and by identifying and investing in win-win technologies and sectors that both address local environmental issues and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (quoted in J.T. & Parks, 2006: 217).”

Basically the North needs to stop treating the weaker nations in the South as “second-class citizens” and work on rebuilding the South’s trust. Until they do we won’t get a fair, ambitious and binding climate deal (Or a planet with a habitable biosphere!).

References

• Roberts, J.T. & Parks, B.C. (2006). “A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy”
• Hornborg, A., J.R. McNeill & J. Martinez-Alier, red. (2007).”Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change”
• Age of Stupid, “UK Priemier: Message from the President of the Maldives” (2009)
• The Guardian, “Low targets, goals dropped: Copenhagen ends in failure” (2009)
• United Nations Earth Summit+5
• The Huffington Post, Pablo Erick Solón Romero Oroza, “Climate Headed for Crash Landing” (2009)
• Goodman, Amy, “The Climate Divide: Dispute Between Rich and Poor Nations Widens at UN Copenhagen Summit” (2009)
• Monbiot, George, ”Copenhagen negotiators bicker and filibuster while the biosphere burns” (2009)
• Democracy Now, ”Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on How to Tackle Climate Change” (2009)
• The Guardian, ”Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak” (2009)
• Friends of the Earth International, ”danish government slammed for bias and secrecy in role as president of un climate conference” (2009)

The bottom line in the Copenhagen Climate Summit should be (a) equal per capita greenhouse gas emissions for everyone and (b) an additional but equitable penalty for First World countries for their disproportionately huge historical contribution to atmospheric carbon pollution. Anything less is pure and simple climate racism and climate injustice leading to climate genocide. Unfortunately climate criminal First World countries believe that they are much more deserving than others, and are lead by Copenhagen sabotaging, US surrogate, climate criminal Australia which wants a 2020 per capita GHG pollution for itself that would be over 60 times that of Bangladesh.

Informed by “all men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, Climate Justice demands that “annual per capita GHG emissions” should at the very least be the same for “all men” – at the very least, because European countries have been responsible for about 73% of 1750-2006 historical carbon pollution of the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century (see Dr James Hansen’s 2008 Open Letter to PM Kevin Rudd of Australia).

Below is a quantitative analysis of “annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution by 2020” inherent in the major Greenhouse Gas reduction proposals put forward at the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

Data on the past and projected populations of Developed and Developing countries is available from the UN Population Division.

Data on the past and projected greenhouse gas emissions of Developed and Developing countries is conveniently summarized by the US Environmental Protection Agency (see “Global Greenhouse Gas Data”) and is set out below (Gt CO2-e = billions of tonnes of GHGs measured as CO2-equivalent).

Developed country GHG emissions (Gt CO2-e): 15.0 (1990), 16.5 (1995), 18.0 (2000), 19 (2005), 20.0 (2010), 21.0 (2015), 22.0 (2020).

Developed country population (billions): 1.147 (1990), 1.175 (1995), 1.195 (2000), 1,217 (2005), 1.237 (2010), 1,255 (2015), 1.268 (2020).

Developed country “annual per capita GHG pollution” (tonnes CO2-e per person per year”: 13.1 (1990), 14.0 (1995), 15.1 (2000), 15.6 (2005), 16.2 (2010), 16.7 (2015), 17.4 (2020).

Developing country GHG emissions (Gt CO2-e): 10.0 (1990), 12.0 (1995), 14.5 (2000), 16.0 (2005), 18.5 (2010), 21.0 (2015), 24.0 (2020).

Developing country population (billions): 4.143 (1990), 4.538 (1995), 4.920 (2000), 5.296 (2005), 5.671 (2010), 6.071 (2015), 6.406 (2020).

Developing country “annual per capita GHG pollution” (tonnes CO2-e per person per year”: 2.41 (1990), 2.64 (1995), 2.95 (2000), 3.02 (2005), 3.26 (2010), 3.46 (2015), 3.75 (2020).

For a detailed analysis of the above data see “Climate justice & climate injustice: Australia wants a 2020 per capita GHG pollution 15 times greater than Developing World’s”, put on the Web by the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group.

“Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) (for sources see (see Wikipedia, “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita” ; Dr Gideon Polya, “Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science”, 2009 ; Michael Szabo, “Cut CO2 to India’s level, top scientist urges”, Reuters, 28 May 2008 ; Ross Garnaut, The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Chapter 7: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp7.htm ; Hal Turton, “Greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries. Where does Australia stand?”, Australia Institute, 2004).

What do the various Copenhagen proposals mean in terms of “annual per capita GHG emissions” in “tonnes CO2-e per person per year” by 2020?

And how do these proposed per capita values compare with a conveniently assumed 2020 Bangladesh value of 1 tonne CO2-e per person per year?

Some of the major propositions at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference are listed below in order of DECREASING acceptability.

1. The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) proposal for “55% of 1990 levels by 2020 for Developed Countries” would mean that their per capita would go from 16 to 6.5 [6.5 times Bangladesh’s] while Developing Countries would “in aggregate aim to achieve significant deviations [downwards] from baselines [BAU?] by 2020 [less than 3.8 i.e. less than 3.8 times Bangladesh’s?] (see New York Times).

2. The UN Draft Proposal for “60-75% of 1990 levels by 2020 for Developed Countries” would mean that their average per capita would go from 16 to 7.1 – 8.9 in 2020 [7.1-8.9 times Bangladesh’s] (see New York Times).

3. India has revised its previous reported commitment that it would not exceed commitment that it will not exceed the average per capita for Developed Countries means that its per capita will increase on current projections from 2.2 to at most 8.9 by 2020 [see item #2; 8.9 times Bangladesh’s] (see: http://carbonoffsetsdaily.com/…/).

4. Notwithstanding China’s rapid uptake of renewable energy and its commitment to reduce carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, China’s greenhouse gas pollution is predicted to double by 2020 relative to the 2005 value according to various Western experts (see: http://news.yahoo.com/…/). This means China’s per capita will increase from circa 6 to a per capita of 2 x 7,527 Mt CO2-e/1,431 million persons = 10.5 [10.5 times Bangladesh’s] (for GHG data).

5. Obama USA’s proposal for “83% of 1990 value by 2020” would mean that its per capita would go from 27 to 0.83 x 5,177 Mt CO2-e / 346 million persons = 12.4 in 2020 [12.4 times Bangladesh’s] (for 1990 GHG data see).

6. Australia’s highly conditional best offer of “75% of 2000 value by 2020” would mean that Australia’s domestic per capita would go from 30 to 17.2 in 2020 [17.2 times that of Bangladesh] (and its domestic plus exported per capita would go from 54 to 62 tonnes CO2-e per person per year in 2020 [62 times that of Bangladesh]).

Clearly the AOSIS proposal is by far the best on offer at Copenhagen and the US and Australian proposals are so destructive and so far removed from reality as to invite sanctions, boycotts, green tariffs, reparations demands, international criminal court prosecutions and other legal and trade retaliation by an indignant World.

However the AOSIS proposal would only be an initial step because top scientists are in actuality demanding NEGATIVE greenhouse gas emissions. Thus top climate scientists are now advocating a return of the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration from the current 390 parts per million to about 300 ppm for a safe ands sustainable planet for all peoples and all species (see 300.org).

A return to circa 300 ppm CO2 will mean drawdown of CO2 from the atmosphere i.e. NEGATIVE CO2 emissions are inescapably required.

The Australian and US sabotage of the Copenhagen Climate Conference is likely to be successful. These greedy, racist, profligate countries in a process involving intrinsic climate racism and climate injustice will have essentially declared climate war on the Developing World, worsening the already-commenced climate genocide of non-Europeans..

Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – these estimates translating to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis (see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/…/ and http://bellaciao.org/…/).

What can decent people do to save the Planet from the Australian, EU and US climate criminals? Decent citizens and decent governments must respond by Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands and International Criminal Court prosecutions against the people, politicians, corporations and countries complicit in the worsening climate genocide. Buying goods and services from racist, genocidal, climate criminal Australia and like countries is like buying soap made in Auschwitz.

I did my duty as a citizen of Australia and of Planet Earth and sent them 255 Ideas (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/) which I then edited back to about 200 in the formal submission (see: http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/…/).

This was indeed an important opportunity because Australia and the World are facing a Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency as cogently outlined in the recent book “Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency” by David Spratt and Philip Sutton (see: ; for my book review on Green Blog see: climatecodered.net ; for a review of this book see Green Blog).

Despite the fine rhetoric of the newly-elected Australian Rudd Labor Government and its signing up to the Kyoto Protocol (a decade late for Australia), it helped the US sabotage the December Bali Climate Change Conference by rejecting specific 2020 pollution reduction targets. Rational approaches to save the Planet are STILL being resolutely opposed by racist, greedy, climate Bush America (arguably still the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter and stand-out Kyoto non-signatory) and by Bush’s “Asia Sheriff”, climate criminal Australia (the world’s developed country with the worst annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and the world’s biggest coal exporter) (see: http://green-blog.org/…/).

Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 (India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh). Neither Bush America nor Bush-ite Australia will cut greenhouse gas pollution but the countries facing devastation from global warming are the mega-delta, below-World-average polluting countries of China, India and Bangladesh.

Australia is the world’s big country with the highest annual per capita greenhouse polluter and STILL currently playing “dog in the manger” (together with the US and Canada) in opposing short-term greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets.

Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate criminality. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org), takes other parameters into account in ranking climate criminals. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US lackey), coal-rich Australia (another US satrap), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (a puppet of anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Bush US ) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://germanwatch.org) .

On this basis Australia is one of the worst greenhouse gas polluters and shows little sign of doing anything substantial in the short term to change the situation. In climate criminal Australia Coal is King.

With this as background, here are 25 carefully documented ideas for Greening Australia that I sent to the co-chairmen of the Australia 2020 (Prime Minister Rudd and University of Melbourne Vice Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis).

i. Australia’s population is too great already as assessed from the enormous environmental impact and flora and fauna extinctions – public education and action are urgently required in this area (Australia is a world leader in greenhouse gas pollution, land destruction, flora and fauna extinctions and ecocide; see “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com; http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

ii. Indigenous Australians have a tremendous cultural contribution to make in relation to sustainability – White Australia should seize this opportunity for collaboration (largely ignored for over 2 centuries) for the benefit of the land and ALL its People (the Indigenous culture involved sustainable use but was supplanted by a highly destructive non-Indigenous, non-sustainable culture that has brought Australia and the world to disastrous tipping points; see Diamond, J. (1997), Guns, Germs and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies (Jonathan Cape, London); see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

iii. Water is needed for citizen consumption, agriculture, industry and the environment and there must be a New Deal to meet these needs (thus profligate citizen and agricultural uses should be urgently controlled. While financial return/megalitre of water for vegetables can be $1,000/ML as compared to $100,000/ML for an expensive car, we must have food – but the world’s driest continent should NOT be exporting water).

iv. Enough is enough – there should be CESSATION of flora and fauna extinction in Australia and that means national and global action to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to about 350 ppm (10% BELOW the current atmospheric CO2 concentration of 383 ppm) (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

v. Urgent action on CO2 pollution is needed NOW in the light of our arrival already at key “tipping points” for mass extinctions and massive ecosystem destruction ( QUOTE: “Based on climate model studies and the history of the Earth the authors conclude that additional global warming of about 1°C (1.8°F) or more, above global temperature in 2000, is likely to be dangerous. In turn, the temperature limit has implications for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), which has already increased from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 383 ppm today and is rising by about 2 ppm per year. According to study co-author Makiko Sato of Columbia’s Earth Institute, "the temperature limit implies that CO2 exceeding 450 ppm is almost surely dangerous, and the ceiling may be even lower”” – see NASA report “Research finds that Earth’s climate is approaching dangerous point”: http://giss.nasa.gov ; see also “Climate tipping points get scarier”: http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/…/ ; Imminent tipping point for total loss of Arctic summer ice – “Arctic sea ice gone in 5 years?”: http://news.nationalgeographic.com).

vi. Stringent duty of care must be observed by local, state and federal Governments in relation to coastal assets – to avoid irreversible damage through storm surge and sea level inundation AND to avoid litigation (see NASA’s Dr James Hansen “Huge sea level rises are coming unless we act now”, New scientist: http://environment.newscientist.com).

vii. The 85% fossil-fuel-based electricity production in Australia is an international disgrace in the light of the Climate Emergency and existence of cost-effective and cost-competitive technologies that can be implemented NOW on a big scale (e.g. the top US climate expert Dr Hansen has written to UK PM Gordon Brown over planned coal-burning plants – according to a BBC Report: “present concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere (380 parts per million by volume, ppmv) had already committed the Earth to large climate impacts, such as the loss of summer sea-ice in the Arctic and sea level rise greater than one metre. But Dr Hansen stressed that the point of no return had not been reached – that irreversible change had not taken place. He said that to get the Arctic ice to recover would require a reduction in CO2 concentrations down to about 300 or 350 ppmv. He believed this was possible, and called for greater energy efficiency and corrective pricing of carbon to allow cleaner technologies to compete and take over from fossil fuels”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…/ ; and Greenpeace: “Indeed, Gordon Brown very recently committed the UK to generating around 40% of our electricity from renewables by 2020. If he means it, Britain could become a world leader in clean energy and his case for nuclear evaporates. At the moment Germany has 300 times as much solar power and 10 times as much wind power installed as the UK and has given up on nuclear”.: http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/…/).

viii. Possible Antarctic sea ice loss comparable to that already in the Arctic, impending total loss of the Great Barrier Reef, elevated Indian Ocean temperature (2 degree rise in 40 years), predicted intensifying Southern Australian drought (due to Indian Ocean warming) and cessation of Southern Ocean absorption of CO2 all represent acute “mine canary” warnings in the Australian region alone that we have gone too far – and must do everything we can to reverse the CO2 pollution of the atmosphere (see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/12/071212-AP-arctic-melt.html ; http://csiro.au/…/; http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/…/ ; http://abc.net.au/rn/…/).

ix. Examination of US Energy Information Administration data over the last quarter century shows a constant rate of increase of Australian CO2 pollution and fossil fuel exports that has been impervious to increasingly forceful and alarmed scientist and IPCC warnings over this period – “waiting for Garnaut” for a year is NOT an option for the world’s worst per capita greenhouse gas polluter, Australia (see “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency”, submission of Dr Gideon Polya to the Garnaut Climate Change Review: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

x. The Climate Emergency means that the Bali-wrecking Australian Government (US and Canada) position of “no 2020 targets” is an insult to Humanity demanding immediate retraction when according to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen and top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS we need “negative CO2 emissions” NOW (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…/ ; Lovelock, J. (2006), The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity (Allen Lane, London); http://climateemergency.blogspot.com ; http://green-blog.org/…/).

xi. Australia must act urgently on Climate Genocide NOW by observing the post-Holocaust protocol of C4A (CAAAA) involving Cessation and reversal of CO2 pollution, Acknowledgment of the ongoing crime, Apology, Amends and Assertion “never again to anyone” (see “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency”: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com ; Article 2, UN Genocide Convention, “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” : http://edwebproject.orgl ; 25 years of sustained, deliberate, remorseless, unrestrained Australian CO2 pollution that IS CONTINUING, see “Rudd Australia Report Card #2. Climate criminal Australia and Climate genocide”: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/…/).

xii. Australia must act urgently and comprehensively to avoid International Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands over its Climate Criminal policies that are contributing to a mounting Climate Genocide (see: “Climate criminal, Bali-wrecker Rudd Australia faces World sanctions”: http://green-blog.org/…/).

xiii. “Waiting for Garnaut” should CEASE – there is an urgent need for ACTION and updated public education about the Climate Emergency (the “waiting for Garnaut” approach is a complete denial of the horrendous emergency ACTUALITY: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com ; the science and technology has been well reviewed internationally (see the 2007 IPCC Reports: http://www.ipcc.ch and a recent review of renewable scenarios: http://martinot.info) as indeed has the economics of climate change via the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review).

xiv. The Government should legitimately act against racist, irresponsible, genocide-ignoring electronic and print media not reporting ethically about the Climate Emergency and Climate Genocide by removal of licences and taxpayer-funding purchase for Government schools and other bodies (this how they would act if such media engaged in denial of the Jewish Holocaust that involved the murder of 6 million Jews in the period 1941-1945 – yet Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates acute damage to 6-9 billion people and over 6 billion deaths this century: and ALREADY 16 million people die avoidably each year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease: http://www.rollingstone.com/…/).

xv. Rational Risk Management instructs that Australia must urgently face up to the harsh reality of its World leading criminal status as the World’s worst developed country for “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” (2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh): http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/…/).

xvi. Australia must urgently recognize that the Rudd Labor Government election commitments actually mean that Australia’ s annual per capita CO2 pollution will INCREASE over the next 4 decades (The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050): http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/…/).

xvii. There must be urgent changes to infrastructure and energy provision – there must be a rapid shift to high efficiency, low cost, zero CO2 polluting renewable technologies (such as wind, concentrated solar, non-silicon thin-film photovoltaics, balloon- and sliver- based silicon photovoltaics, wind power, wave power and geothermal) , fully renewable-energy-run, comprehensive public transport, demise of the private car, and cessation of urban sprawl and highway building (for details see Item #2, Economic infrastructure; see “Renewables – how they stack up”: http://newmatilda.com/…/ ; see key articles by Dr Mark Diesendorf (A sustainable Energy Futrure for Australia), Professor John Deevers (The Innamincka Hot Fractured Rock Project) and Martin Mahy (Hydrogen Minibuses) in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (a compendium of essays by 28 variously prominent Australians edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://abc.net.au/…/).

xviii. Apropos of urgent changes being required, using Australia’s annual $10 billion pa fossil fuel subsidies to build wind farms at $2 per watt would replace our current 50 billion watts of 85% coal-based electricity capacity with 100% renewable wind energy in 10 years (of course in reality there would be a sensible “mix” of renewable technologies for efficiency and base-load but the example demonstrates the climate criminal incompetence of successive Australian Governments).

xix. Deforestation contributes about 15-20% to increased net global greenhouse gas production annually and should be countered urgently by Australia both at home and abroad (According to Sir Nicholas Stern: "For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://guardian.co.uk/…/).

xx. The fundamental qualitative position that is backed by quantitative estimates of “total economic value” is that further extinctions and ecocides are intolerable and what is left of wild nature must be used sustainably (It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://sciencemag.org/…/) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation).

xxi. Australia and the World must make an immediate Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency, a State of Emergency to prevent catastrophic run-away climate change (see: http://countercurrents.org , http://green-blog.org/…/ , http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20133/42).

xxii. There must be a fundamental shift in public attitude to Government disposal of grossly under-valued public resources to selfish and corrupt private hands (there must be a new transparency in order to save Australia and indeed the World from run-away climate change).

xxiii. Massive changes to water-related infrastructure are urgently needed as Indian Ocean warming forces more drought on Southern Australia (e.g. pipes rather than channels for long-distance water carriage; expansion of enclosed hydroponic farming).

xxiv. Australia should join with other countries in applying Green tariffs, Sanctions, Boycotts and Sanctions against climate criminal countries involved in Climate Genocide (unfortunately Australia is currently on a per capita basis the worst developed country in this respect; see “Australian Genocide – Oz ignores Aboriginal, Ira2i, Afghan & Climate Genocides”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12578/42).

xxv. In addition to a Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency and urgent actions toward NEGATIVE CO2 emissions, Australia must recognize its overall PAST contribution to Greenhouse Gas (GHG) pollution and respond correspondingly with EXTRA cuts and Reparations (indeed the World will insist upon this; see climate Sustainability Emergency: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/20133/42).

Well, I hope that my amended list (shortened to meet the Submission Guidelines) gives the delegates pause for thought. I am not going to hold my breath. Coal is King in climate criminal Australia and public life in this Western Murdochracy is dominated by egregiously dishonest Mainstream media – Australia is the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths).

However my last suggestion on the final Topic #10 “Australia’s Future in the World” in my formal Submission (Submission ID 2015) was: “19. URGENT – a Global Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to a safe and sustainable level of 300-350 ppm.”

My more fulsomely-expressed, very final suggestion in my 255 Ideas sent to PM Rudd and VC Glyn Davis was as follows:

10.xx. There should an immediate Australian and Global Declaration of a Climate State of Emergency and urgent adoption of policy, as advocated by America’s top climate scientist Dr James Hansen, of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to a safe and sustainable level of 300-350 ppm (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7143567.stm).

Many of these ideas may well be relevant to Greening YOUR country too.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ). He is currently preparing a revised and updated version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a possibly 100-fold greater famine catastrophe (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310308.htm ) than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ).

A few days ago at a social function I was asked by a top US atmosphere scientist – in Australia to work with top Australian atmospheric scientists – what would I do NOW. My answer in short was as follows: Australia has 50 Gigawatt (50 billion watt) electricity generating capacity (85% fossil fuel-driven at present); it currently spends about A$10 billion pa on fossil fuel subsidies; the installation cost for large-scale wind farms is about A$2 per watt of installed capacity; simply diverting this unconscionable fossil fuel subsidy to wind farm installation would yield A$10 billion pa /A$2 per watt = 5 billion watt capacity pa = 50 billion watt (50 Gigawatt) wind power electricity capacity in a mere 10 years, i.e. by 2017.

As detailed below, stated and committed Rudd Government policy means that it will INCREASE Australia’s fossil annual fuel-derived per capita CO2 pollution (already over 10 times higher than the world average if you include our fossil fuel exports) by about 50% by 2050. Every year is important. We must act urgently NOW. “Waiting for Godot” or, with the utmost respect, “waiting for Garnaut” is not an option.

1. Committed Rudd Labor Policy is effective Climate Racism from a per capita CO2 pollution standpoint

In the recent election campaign Rudd committed to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export. What this ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and INCLUDING Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) is the following pattern of “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” (i.e. “Total Annual Per Capita Pollution” or TAPCP) of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia agrees to “25% reduction on 1990 domestic levels by 2020” this will mean a TAPCP of 44 (2020); a 40% reduction would mean 42. These values are still about 10 times greater than the “Annual Per Capita Pollution” (APCP) value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).

Australia’s TAPCP is already 10 times that of China’s 2004 value and Rudd Labor’s “do nothing, set up a committee” approach means a startling continuation in 2008 of Labor’s 2007 5-fold greater version of the racist Labor Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell’s notorious 1947 declaration: “Two Wongs do not make a White” (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17999/42/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ) – indeed on the above figures, assuming that China keeps its 2050 APCP to something like 2004 figure, Rudd Labor, for all its ostensible Philosinensis (indeed Arthur Calwell had Chinese friends and spoke Mandarin) is heading for a 2050 TAPCP (65.2) 18 times that of China’s 2004 APCP value (3.6).

2. Professor Garnaut’s “all men are created equal” position (December 2007)

Professor Garnaut (ABC, Lateline, 10 December 2007) stated: (from my notes): “Australia will be pulling its full weight”. “Pulling its full weight” means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves APCP parity (including our fossil fuel exports) with the rest of the world – something that Rudd Labor absolutely refuses to do (see #1). One hopes that the finalized Garnaut Report in late 2008 is able to convince Rudd Labor to eschew the Climate Racism of APCP non-parity.

3. Australian Greens policy consonant with non-Bush-ite “Rest of the World” consensus

The Australian Greens policy is to rapidly phase out fossil fuel extraction and to have an “80% reduction of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050”. This yields an APCP of 2.4 in 2050 and consonant both with the IPCC and Stern 2007 demands for “80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050”, “Pulling its full weight” (Professor Garnaut, 2007) and “all men are created equal” (Thomas Jefferson, American Declaration of Independence, 1776).

4. US Energy Information Administration data and the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition legacy

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) provides very detailed information about energy usage by all countries of the world for the last 10 years. Back in 1997 the decent world was so concerned about mounting evidence for anthropogenic, greenhouse gas-driven, climate change that it signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. Not only did climate criminal Australia (together with climate criminal US) not sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia’s “annual coal exports”, “annual natural gas extraction”, “annual domestic fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” and “annual total fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” plotted versus time yield beautiful straight lines UPWARDS.

Indeed this beautiful linearity gives greater confidence for extrapolation at either end of these graphs. For the convenience of the reader with some graph paper the estimates of “DOMESTIC annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” (millions of tonnes) versus time (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year in parenthesis, assuming post-2007 population stasis at 21 million) are: 256 (12.2, 1990), 348 (18.2, 2000), 424 (20.2, 2007), 554 (26.3, 2020) and 853 (40.6, 2050); using the same assumptions the “TOTAL annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production, TAPCP” (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year and year in parentheses) is 435 (25.7, 1990), 698 (36.5, 2000), 910 (43.3, 2007), 1,277 (60.8, 2020) and 2,122 (101.0, 2050).

In relation to the above estimates, the Bush-ite Coalition policy of BAU (business as usual) and no constraint on fossil fuel exports would, on the above assumptions, lead to a “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, TAPCP” of 101 tonnes per person per year in 2050, 27 times China’s 2004 APCP value and 2.5 times Australia’s present TAPCP value.

5. Major international comparisons – Australia is the world’s worst developed country per capita greenhouse polluter

Despite the rhetoric, rational approaches to save the Planet are being resolutely opposed by racist, greedy Bush America (the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter and stand-out Kyoto non-signatory) and previously Bush-ite and presently neo-Bush-ite Australia (the world’s developed country with the worst annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and the world’s biggest coal exporter).

Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, APCP” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh). Neither Bush America nor Bush-ite Australia will sign Kyoto nor cut greenhouse gas pollution – the countries facing devastation from global warming are the mega-delta, below-World-average polluting countries of China, India and Bangladesh.

Australia is the world’s big country with the highest annual per capita greenhouse polluter and is currently playing “dog in the manger” (together with the US, Canada and Japan) in opposing short-term greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets at the December 2007 Bali Conference.

6. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst CO2 polluters (#56 being worst)

Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate criminality. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), takes other parameters into account in ranking. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US satrap), coal-rich Australia (a US satrap), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (a puppet of anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Bush US ) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ) .

7. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution for the world and Australia with and without land use change (2000)

The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita ). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Out of 185 countries Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO2 equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”.

8. Annual per capita GDP is directly proportional to annual per capita CO2 emission

If you plot “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2” (2004) versus “annual per capita GDP” (2003) the data from most countries fall on a straight line (not quite going through zero on the “annual per capita GDP” axis) and with a slope of about 0.3 kilograms/US dollar of GDP or 300 grams per US dollar (300 g/US$). However many countries fall ABOVE this line, most notably the oil-rich Gulf States (2.5 kg/US$), world’s #1 coal exporter Australia (1.9 kg/US$), Kyoto-violator Canada (0.8 kg/US$) and Kyoto non-signatory US (0.5 kg/US$).

This analysis shows that GDP is currently directly proportional to CO2 emission and the consequence is that to cut emissions it is necessary to (a) cut GDP and/or (b) cut CO2-polluting energy generation for GDP generation i.e. urgently promote renewables or suffer a declining GDP.

9. IPCC summary

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has delivered 4 Assessment reports since 1990, the latest being the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. The prognosis of the latest IPCC Report is very bleak but the situation is actually even worse than they state because of (a) the cut off in scientific papers considered and (b) obfuscatory inputs by climate criminal countries such as the US. For a Summary of the Summary of the 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

The IPCC (2000) has defined various possible scenarios which are summarised in New Scientist, with the worst case scenario being the fast economic growth and globalization, fossil fuel-intensive A1F1 scenario in which global population peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and involving the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies (see: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11090). Of various scenarios discussed in the latest IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) “Category IV” seems the most favoured in public discussion (e.g. in report by Sir Nicholas Stern) and involves stabilization at 485-570 ppm CO2 , 3.2-4.0 degrees centigrade temperature rise above pre-industrial temperature (2-3 degrees above today’s) and 0.6-2.4 metres sea level above the pre-industrial sea level or 0.4 – 2.2 metres above today’s). However Professor Lovelock (“The Revenge of Gaia”) thinks that 500ppm CO2 would cause disastrous phytoplankton and Greenland ice losses with irreversible loss of major global temperature controls.

Recent data from 2 independent sources (see: “Recent CO2 rises exceed worst case scenarios”, New Scientist) reveal that ACTUAL rates of CO2 emission are the same or worse than in the worst case scenario A1F1 that, according to the 2007 IPCC Summary, will lead to catastrophic, long-term stabilization at (upper estimates) 790 ppm CO2, and a 6 degree centigrade higher temperature and 3.7 meter sea level rise relative to pre-industrial levels i.e. CO2 catastrophically at twice today’s level of 379 ppm , temperatures 4-5 degree centigrade above today’s and sea level 0.8-3.5 metres above today’s.

Thanks to climate criminal, climate genocidal countries, notably Bush America (the world’s #1 GHG polluter) and Bush-ite Australia (the world’s #1 coal exporter) – noting that neither of these will constrain GHG (greenhouse gas) pollution – the world is on track to deliver this predicted catastrophe or even WORSE to our children and grandchildren.

10. The Rudd Labor “Garnaut Report excuse”, “waiting for Garnaut” gambit contradicts the expert, IPCC-endorsed Stern injunction to “Act Now”

Both the IPCC Fourth Assessment report and the Stern Report say “act NOW”. However, stripped of mellifluous rhetoric (e.g. “there is no plan B”) the Rudd Labor position involves a roughly 1 year delay (ONE YEAR DELAY) on any concrete action to constrain greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. After nearly 12 years of sustained upward growth of CO2 pollution under the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition this is simply not good enough. If indeed “there is no plan B” why won’t Rudd Australia sign up to the “Plan A” endorsed by every country in the world except for the US and its satraps Australia, Canada and Japan i.e. “25-40% reduction by 2020”?

According to Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “The average emissions a head must fall from seven tonnes to two to three tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2050, he says. US emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Australia is currently producing 43 tonnes each per annum (including fossil fuel exports) and according to the public committed Rudd Labor scenario projects 65 tonnes each per annum by 2050 i.e a 50% INCREASE.

11. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios

As indicated above (#1) the “solid”, “committed” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” of 910 (2007), 1,277 (2020) and 2,122 (2050).

However it is salutary to consider the scenario if Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 915 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted”40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 877 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% on 2000 levels by 2050”, the “domestic annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 345 (2000), 424 (2007), 443 (2020) and 138 (2050).

12. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios – per capita projections

As indicated above (#1) the “solid” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050);

If Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050” , “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 44 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted “40% on 1990 levels by 2020” the “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 42 (2020) and 65 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s CURRENTLY PROPOSED “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% reduction on 2000 levels by 2050” the “DOMESTIC annual per capita pollution (DAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 18 (2000), 21 (2007) and 6.6 (2050) (still nearly twice that of China in 2004).

13. Who pays? Australia benefits from CO2 pollution, the World suffers

I repeat that one of the world’s leading bioethicists Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) is unequivocal in his expert judgment that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), “Writings on an Ethical Life”, Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi).

Unfortunately there is a major bipartisan agreement in Australia to ignore the global cost of Australia’s world #1 coal exports. The Australian Green proposal in the recent federal election campaign to rapidly phase out this highly irresponsible and planet-threatening industry was howled down by both the Bush-ite Coaltion and the neo-Bush-ite Labor Party.

At the next elections the Bush-ite Coalition will still have the support of about half the voters yet the former Coalition PM described as “crazy” the Rudd Labor proposal to cut emissions in 2050 to 60% of the 2000 value (a proposal that, as shown in #11 and #12 above, falls so far short of what is needed that Rudd Labor might just as well have not bothered except for the purpose of garnering the votes of the gullible).

According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004), global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia is on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders. As indicated above, according to Professor James Lovelock FRS unaddressed global warming will kill 6 billion people this century – Climate Genocide (“intent to destroy in whole or in part” according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html )

14. Who pays? The true environmental and human cost of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the present market cost

According to a Ministry of Energy Report from Ontario, Canada, coal plants kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.7 million), and cause 1,100 emergency room visits, and more than 300,000 minor illnesses per year. These and previous findings by the Ontario Medical Association were behind bi-partisan will to close Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants. This Report estimated that a “market” cost of about 4 cents/kWh increases to a “true cost” of about 16 cents/kWh (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 ): “The study estimated that the total net present value of coal-fired generation is costing Ontario $0.164 CAD/kWh. Environmental and health costs accounted for 77% to total generation costs”.

15. “True cost” of fossil fuels versus bearable cost, corporate/government-determined cost and A$10 billion pa subsidies for Australian fossil fuel burning

While the “true cost” of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the “market” cost, this will be ignored in corporate, government and diplomatic “horse-trading” to set carbon price – just as society in practice ignores the “annual death rate” due to cigarette smoking (about 1,000 per million) or due to cars (about 100 per million) in assessing the “true cost” of tobacco or cars. Extrapolating from Ontario, the annual death rate from coal-fired power generation is about 50 per million.

If the true environmental and human cost of fossil fuel-derived power were taken into account then (a) economics would dictate “keep fossil fuels in the ground” (as advocated by the Australian Greens and by George Monbiot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ), (b) subsidies would be immediately removed and (c) compensation ordered by the courts for the victims of this technological perversion (as has happened already in relation to victims of industrial use of asbestos).

16. Renewables are the way – keep fossil fuels in the ground

Here are some estimates of the cost in Australian cents per kilowatt-hour (Ac/kWh) of various sources of electricity (for a detailed discussion see “Renewables: how the numbers stack up” in New Matilda: http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetailmagazine.asp?ArticleID=2398&CategoryID=213 ):

3-4 — coal, Australia;
18 — the real cost of coal, taking into account the environmental and health impact; according to a conservative Canadian Ontario Ministry of Energy Report (CAN$0.164);
15 — nuclear via the UK’s newest Sizewell B plant;
7.5-8.5 — wind power, Australia;
15 — concentrated solar power or CSP;
25-45 — standard silicon-based photovoltaics (PVs).

However recent advances means we must add the following to the list:

4 – the price of solar PV is set to fall dramatically to compete directly with the current “market price” of coal due to balloon, sliver and non-silicon PV technology advances. The non-silicon organic thin film technology developed by US Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger and his South Korean colleagues will reduce the cost of installing photovoltaic (PV) capacity by a factor of 20; the Swiss ETH CIGS non-silicon thin film system may be competitive with coal within 5 years (a related US Nanosolar technology is in mass production: http://www.investorideas.com/Articles/050707a_page1.asp ); Australian sliver silicon PV technology will drop silicon solar panel costs threefold. In particular, the Californian balloon solar capture technology is predicted to make PV solar competitive with “market price” coal by 2010 (see “Solar energy & the end of war. US balloon technology to slash solar energy cost 90% by 2010”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

4 – Australian geothermal. According to Professor John Veevers (“The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related related chapters by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”): “Modelled costs are 4 cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents.”

Further, wave, tidal, biomass and biofuel energy technologies are renewable technologies competitive with the “true cost” of fossil fuels. Australia’s huge reserves of economic geothermal power are expertly assessed to have the capacity to provide most of Australia’s energy needs for the best part of a millennium and Australia is blessed with huge solar, tidal, wave and wind resources.

17. Nuclear is not an option

The Bush-ite Coalition had an unerring knack of being resolutely incorrect or in denial about so many crucial matters – anthropogenic climate change, the reasons for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist threat to Australia, and the cost of meeting the climate change crisis. They are also incorrect in relation to the nuclear option. As summarized in #16 above the nuclear option is more expensive than current renewable wind and geothermal technologies and as expensive as current concentrated solar technology. Further, the FULL nuclear cycle (from uranium mining and processing to waste disposal and plant de-commissioning) can be as expensive in terms of CO2 emissions as a gas-fired power station – and we still have the intractable security and waste disposal problems.

18. Mandated efficient energy PROVISION as well as USAGE

Australia has mandated replacement of incandescent globes with high efficiency electric lights over the next year or so. If Australia can legislatively mandate efficient energy USAGE it should also mandate the highest efficiency, lowest REAL cost energy PROVISION – currently geothermal, followed by wind with both of these set to be shortly supplanted by exciting low-cost solar technologies.

Failure of Australia to mandate minimum price energy provision simply reflects entrenched dishonesty and corruption in our society. This is briefly discussed further below in relation to the Australian and global impact of fossil fuel burning.

19. Oil, strategic hegemony and 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Bush Wars in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories

The strategic importance of the Middle East in terms of oil and global hegemony is the core reason for the Bush Asian Wars that have so far been associated with 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. This explanation has been argued cogently by outstanding anti-war humanitarian Professor Noam Chomsky (from 63-Nobel- Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) in an article entitled “Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities ” in which he says of the Middle East : “the huge energy resources of the region were recognized by Washington sixty years ago as a “stupendous source of strategic power,” the “strategically most important area of the world,” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[reference] 1 Control over this stupendous prize has been a primary goal of U.S. policy ever since, and threats to it have naturally aroused enormous concern.”

Total post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now stand at about 5-8 million. There has been a horrendous human cost of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 4.5 million and 4 million, respectively) (updated figures from MWC News).

However there is a further huge cost in the US$2.5 trillion accrual cost of the Bush wars (according to 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) that has recently been updated to $3.5 trillion by a Congressional Report (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/ ) ; the $2.6 trillion post-1956 accrual cost of US aid for Zionist colonization of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/533/26/ ); the huge human cost of the US-expanded opiate trade – 0.6 million post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths (about 2,000 in Australia) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007; and huge diversion of financial support from alleviation of global warming-exacerbated poverty (the “War on Terror” has cost Australia alone about $20 billion in corporate and government domestic security measures and billions more in overseas military deployments).

20. Huge environmental cost and environmental economic cost of fossil fuel burning and deforestation for Australia and the World

It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However these estimates are IGNORED by Lib-Lab Australian Governments in the interests of “current jobs” and corporations as we see in the ongoing deforestation of Victoria and Tasmania. The true economic value of State-owned assets are not being considered – these citizen-owned public resources are effectively being given away to private corporations.

These ugly realities of dishonesty and environmental vandalism reach a pinnacle in relation to greenhouse gas pollution. The polluters are not being charged the full cost of what they are destroying. Indeed quite the reverse is happening – fossil fuel burning is actually SUBSIDIZED to the tune of about $10 billion annually in Australia (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22873649-12377,00.html ).

A further concrete Australian example is the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming as spelled out in the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) – this is of course a major tourist asset in an economic sense.

21. Biofuels represent a perversion with 57% malnourished, grain production peaking and grain price rising due to Biofuels and Meat

As outlined in #13, According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders.

Biofuels are formally CO2 neutral and renewable – however in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm ) this is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (see #16).

22. Oil is the feedstock for sophisticated organic chemical industry – it should NOT be burned

Forty years ago my organic chemistry lecturer told us that we are actually BURNING the feedstock for sophisticated chemical industry, the material used to make pharmaceuticals and plastics that dominate modern life. Today this wanton destruction of an immensely valuable resource is continuing. The “real cost” and the “real value” are ignored because of the political might of fossil fuel burning corporations.

I am acutely aware of this travesty as the author of a huge pharmacological reference text (Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003:

http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

23. Deforestation can be halved by investing US$15 billion per annum

Further to the points made in relation to environmental impacts of global warming, deforestation contributes about 15-20% to increased net global greenhouse gas production annually. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

In addition to playing a vital role in global temperature homeostasis, forest ecosystems are sources for invaluable pharmaceutical resources (see my recent huge reference book: Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003: http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

24. Climate criminal countries such as Australia face Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands

The science and technology has been well reviewed internationally (see the 2007 IPCC Reports: http://www.ipcc.ch/ and a recent review of renewable scenarios: http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf ) as indeed has the economic of climate change via the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ).

The Rudd Government intransigence in not supporting the draft Bali proposal of “25-40% reduction by 2020” is ostensibly because of the economic review by Professor Garnaut due in first draft in mid-2008 and presumably finalized by late 2008.

Yet one boundary condition of Professor Garnaut’s report is already clear – in his own words (December 2007) “Australia will be pulling its full weight” which means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves “annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution” parity with the rest of the world. However the other boundary condition (perceived “affordability” in the light of Australia-specific economic analysis) is completely uncertain for the simple reason that the World may decide to take action against climate criminal countries such as Australia and the US through imposition of Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands.

Indeed a SOLUTION to greedy, climate criminal US, Canada, Japan and Australian intransigence at Bali would be international Sanctions and Boycotts or, more precisely, “Green Tariffs” and Reparations Demands that recognize the REAL environmental and human cost of goods produced by these irresponsible and intrinsically RACIST climate criminal countries.

It is notable that these 4 countries have ANOTHER intrinsically racist and genocidal activity in common – various participation in the genocidal Bush Asian Wars – post-invasion excess deaths in the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide now total 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 4.5 million and about 4 million, respectively) (see: “Solar energy & the end of war”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

What Australia and the US are doing is far more serious and intrinsically racist than the crimes of Apartheid South Africa, a system that was eventually disposed of through international Sanctions and Boycotts. Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands may well be applied to Australia, the US and like climate criminal countries that are threatening the Planet with climate genocide. Indeed a model for this comes from outstanding American academic, writer, editor and economist, Father of Reaganomics Dr Paul Craig Roberts who explicitly demands that the world should stop the “Iraqi genocide” by “dumping the dollar” (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02122007.html ). The World is evidently doing just that – and may well act similarly towards an intransigent Australia, on a per capita basis the world’s worst developed country greenhouse gas polluter.

Summary

On a per capita basis and including our fossil fuel exports, Australia is the developed country with the highest greenhouse gas pollution. Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).

The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia continues to refuse to act on both domestic and exported greenhouse gas pollution it will very likely face international action through Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands. The Rudd “Garnaut Report” excuse for inaction at Bali is contradicted by Professor Garnaut’s recent very clear and highly ethical declaration that ““Australia will be pulling its full weight” which, given the equality of all Men, surely means massive reduction of CO2 pollution to per capita parity with countries such as India and China.

Simple notional calculations tell us that Australia could completely replace its current 50 Gigawatt electricity generating capacity with wind power within 10 years by simply investing its current $10 billion annual fossil fuel subsidies into wind farms (noting of course, that other renewable options are now ALREADY much cheaper than the “true cost” of fossil-fuel-based electricity).

In short, the world is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency that requires urgent action NOW to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 from a current 383 ppm to a level of 300-350 ppm required for biosphere sustainability. The science, technology and economics all instruct (subject to transition and related qualifications) that we should keep the fossil fuels in the ground – indeed we need to have a NEGATIVE atmospheric CO2 growth.

This has been written in the public interest.

This was part two of two. You can find part one here.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

Truth, Reason and Words having failed in the Western Murdochracies, as an artist as well as a scientist he has painted several huge paintings relating to the Climate Emergency, namely “Terra”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ and “Apocalypse Now”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17652/42/ .

This submission by a senior scientist is in response to a general invitation for submissions made on the Garnaut Climate Change Review Website.

This is part one of two parts. You can find part two here.

Background

The Garnaut Climate Change Review is an independent study by Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by Australia’s State and Territory Governments on 30 April 2007. A new Australian Government under Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sworn in on Monday 3 December, 2007 and the newly-elected PM Rudd has confirmed the participation of the Commonwealth Government in the Review.

The Review will examine the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy, and recommend medium to long-term policies and policy frameworks to improve the prospects for sustainable prosperity. The Review’s final report is due on 30 September 2008, with a draft by 30 June 2008. A number of forums will also be held around Australia to engage the public on various issues relating to the Review.

This submission to the Garnaut Change Review is by a senior scientist committed to Rational Risk Management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ).

Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which the most critically important are Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess Indigenous deaths under 11 years of Coalition rule) , the Iraqi Genocide (1.5-2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4.5 million refugees), the Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4 million refugees) and prospective Climate Genocide through Global Warming that threatens 6 billion avoidable deaths this century (see: The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock; for detailed and documented analyses see Rudd Australia Report Cards #1, #2 and #3:; Iraqi Genocide; Climate Genocide; Afghan Genocide).

16 million people die avoidably in the world each year (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com) but global warming is already impacting human excess mortality and eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ).

The world is facing a potential catastrophe due successively to industrial profligacy, greenhouse gas pollution, global warming and declining per capita sustainable resources. This potential problem of environmental pollution and impacts on biological sustainability has been familiar to scientists since the 19 th century research of John Tyndall; was addressed by the Club of Rome in circa 1970; and which was further addressed by successive Assessment Reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change ).

As a chemistry-based scientist for 4 decades, I was aware of the finiteness of the atmosphere, the oceans, arable land and fossil fuel reserves from the start of my career. I was made aware of the mounting atmospheric problems back in 1972 as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the department of one of Australia’s top hydrologists and biophysicists who later went on to be Chief Scientist of Australia.

In 1998 I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). In short, I argued that history ignored yields history repeated, holocaust ignored yields holocaust repeated and that the ignoring of successive Bengali Holocausts under the British – the 1769-1770 Bengal Famine (10 million deaths) and the 1943-1944 Bengal Famine (4 million deaths) – will permit a horrendous disaster in the 21st century due to industrial profligacy, man-made global warming and destructive inundation of mega-deltaic Bengal. My predictions of holocaust ignoring and irresponsible industrial profligacy are already being realized – recently formerly densely populated Bengali islands permanently disappeared under the waves, and the last major Bay of Bengal hurricane was the worst for several decades.

Indeed at the height of the “forgotten” 4 million excess death WW2 Bengal Famine (experienced and studied by 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen of Cambridge and thence Harvard universities) millions of tons of wheat were used to run the railways in Argentina due to the WW2 shortage a coal (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – an obscenity now mirrored in the current huge diversion of US grain production to biofuel production with (together with other factors) a consequent steep increase in food prices, the lowest number of food supply days for decades and looming famine for the 2 billion people ALREADY suffering food deprivation.

Climate change is already contributing to the 16 million avoidable deaths (including 9.6 million of under-5 year old infants) that occur each year on Spaceship Earth with the profligate First World in charge of the flight deck (2003 figures; see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). Worse is yet to come due to DECLINE in agricultural sustainability, potable water, fisheries, tropical and sub-tropical agricultural productivity, drought, developing world nutrition and even safe living space for mega-delta communities subject to sea level rise, storm surges and salinization.

A must-read document for policy makers is the 2007 “Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)” (for a Summary of the Summary see: http://green-blog.org/ and http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

Sir Nicholas Stern his authoritative Stern report on the economics of climate change states that it will be cheaper to act now rather than later. For example, in a recent lecture Sir Nicholas Stern states: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (which contributes 10-15% of greenhouse pollution) and after describing climate change as the “world’s worst market failure”, he says that there must be an 80% reduction in rich nations’ greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 if the world is to avoid “destructive” consequences of global warming (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Indeed the draft recommendation at the December 2007 Bali Conference was for a developed country 25-40% reduction on 1990 levels of greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 – a position opposed by climate criminal countries the US, Canada, Japan and Rudd Australia (see:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22910382-5013871,00.html ).

Unfortunately Rudd Labor, while having secured an urgently needed victory in the elections over the greenhouse sceptic and greenhouse unresponsive Bush-ite Coalition, is simply not green enough (see: link ). While Rudd Labor has ratified Kyoto, it is using the otherwise sensible need for “evidence before policy change” as an EXCUSE not to commit to short-term greenhouse reduction targets until the final form of the Garnaut Report in late 2008. With due respect to the eminent and respected Professor Garnaut and his Report-in-Progress we ALREADY have the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ) from a former Chief Economist of the World Bank (endorsed and indeed criticized as too conservative by former World Bank Chief Economist and 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University) and the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) endorsed by leading climate change scientists from essentially all countries.

Indeed the likely target of Stern (500-550 ppm atmospheric CO2 ) is a catastrophe for the planet – according to Professor James Lovelock FRS at 500 ppm atmospheric CO2 the Greenland Ice Sheet goes and so does the ocean phytoplankton system that is crucial for cloud formation (through dimethyl sulphide production), planetary temperature homeostasis (through CO2 sequestration) and oceanic food chains (J. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006).

PM Rudd has stated that before making a decision on short term targets his Government needs to have the “facts”. Well, the World has had the “facts” for a dozen years and what follows is a scientist’s assessment of the “facts” drawn from authoritative American and European technical sources. Unfortunately in the Australian Murdochracy, the politically correct racist (PC racist) Land of Lies and Flies, Australia’s world #1 coal exports that contribute over 50% of Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas pollution are not even a matter for public discussion (except for the ethical and responsible Australian Greens) (for how a mature society regards the matter see George Monbiot’s “The real answer to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ).

Indeed any specifically “economic impact” research in 2007-2008 by the eminent Professor Ross Garnaut Climate Change Review will be instantly trashed if the Rest of the World (i.e. other than the US-Australia-Canada-Japan quartet opposing 25-40% reduction in CO2 pollution by 2020) decides officially or unofficially to impose Sanctions, Boycotts or Green Tariffs on the goods and services of climate criminal countries.

Further, what we are facing is a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency as revealed by the eminent American atmosphere scientist Dr James Hansen who has recently stated that 300-350 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the safe, sustainable level for the biosphere and human survival – whereas it is actually 383 ppm now and increasing by 2.5 ppm every year. Dr Hansen is effectively calling not for ZERO EMISSIONS but NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS (see the Friends of the Earth’s ”Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ and http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/ ).

Australia and the World are already experiencing mass flora and fauna extinctions. Qualitatively, this huge destruction of what we can never replace is utterly unacceptable. This economic barbarism is dramatically illustrated by the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

A recent paper in the prestigious journal Science reveals that at 450 ppm CO2 world coral reefs will start dying from ocean acidification (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2115399.htm ). The coal industry (that is helping to destroy world coral reefs) is worth about A$25 billion pa to Australia (A$2 billion to 25,000 workers and at 30% company tax, about A$8 billion to the taxpayer) – as compared to A$7 billion pa from tourism and 63,000 jobs associated with the Great Barrier Reef (Access Economics: http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/22661/rp_87-GBRCA-economic-contribution-2005-06-final-report.pdf ).

However what is INESTIMABLY more important than a mere circa 1% of Australia’s annual GDP is the prospective destruction of organisms that have been around for half a billion years, the destruction of complex coral ecosystems that have been around for tens of millions of years and the attendant devastation of the ecosystems crucially required for numerous other marine organisms and crucial, humanity-sustaining fisheries.

A crucial paper in the top scientific journal Science of major importance for the Garnaut Review is the seminal, multi-author paper by Balmford et al entitled “Economic reasons for conserving wild nature” (Science, 9 August 2002, 950: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/297/5583/950.pdf ; http://www.envirosecurity.org/conference/working/ReasonsConservWildNature.pdf ). These authors estimate that for a number of ecosystems (biomes) studied the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater if the natural resource is used sustainably as opposed to irreversibly and destructively. They have further found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature exceeds the cost of doing so by a factor of over 100 (one hundred).

The outstanding Australian bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) has stated that: “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi ). Accordingly we must act NOW in the face of what can be reasonably decribed by sober, informed, economically conservative scientists as a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency.

This was part one of two parts. You can find part two here.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

Truth, Reason and Words having failed in the Western Murdochracies, as an artist as well as a scientist he has painted several huge paintings relating to the Climate Emergency, namely “Terra”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ and “Apocalypse Now”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17652/42/ .