GLOBAL climate change moved to the centre of the political stage this week.
In place of the usual politicians or economists, the National Press Club in
Canberra invited three of Australia鈥檚 leading climate scientists to present the
growing body of evidence that global warming is a serious issue. John Zillman of
the Bureau of Meteorology, Graeme Pearman of the CSIRO Atmospheric Research and
John Church of the Antarctic CRC argued their case before the assembled press
gallery and a national television audience.
Australia is right up with the times. When I was in Europe last week, the
news that the Arctic ice-cap had melted to the North Pole caused a considerable
stir. Clear water at the Pole served as a real wake-up call to politicians,
which has since been reinforced by a report from the World-Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF).
The report, Global warming and terrestrial biodiversity decline,
warns that climate change looks like causing significant losses of habitat and
species. The report estimates about one-third of the world鈥檚 habitat is likely
to be affected in the next 100 years, but this is more of a problem for extreme
latitudes than for Australia and New Zealand.
Advertisement
The species most at risk are those that are rare or live in fragmented
habitats. In Australia, for instance, the mountain pygmy possum (Burramys
parvus) was singled out for special mention. The report also identified the
Australian Alps as one of three mountain ecosystems worldwide that are
particularly vulnerable to climate change.
And while the governments of Australia and New Zealand have placed
considerable faith in tree planting to absorb carbon from the atmosphere,
scientists in both countries have been warning that the effects of trees on the
carbon balance are still uncertain. Their concerns have been backed by an
important report from the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied
Systems Analysis (IIASA). The report, entitled Full carbon account for
Russia, documents the vagaries in accounting for carbon movements in
forests. In policy terms, the report says, the inclusion of forests in the Kyoto
Protocol makes it impossible to verify whether countries are meeting their
greenhouse targets or not. So, trees should be planted, but we cannot rely on
them to solve global warming.
I have been hearing disturbing reports of the Australian Government鈥檚
activities at negotiations in Lyons leading up to the Climate Change Convention
conference to be held in The Hague in November. One issue to be finalised at
that November meeting is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)鈥攁n
arrangement whereby industrial countries can be given credit for helping to
install systems to supply carbon-free energy in developing countries.
The Australian submission argued that there should be few specific rules for
CDM. The trouble with that, critics say, is the absence of clear guidance will
mean investors cannot be sure if a proposed project will qualify. And rather
than taking a punt on an innovative scheme, they are likely just to re-label
activities that are already under way. That鈥檚 certainly a cheap option, but it
won鈥檛 do much to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. We need a more positive
approach.
THESE days the Net is being used to study all sorts of things. For instance,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and UNESCO are
currently conducting a global s