Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dobell for his question. China is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Only a few years ago it was forecast to overtake the United States by 2020. China’s growth has been so rapid that it is expected to overtake the United States by 2010 or even 2009. So it is growing extraordinarily quickly in terms of its greenhouse gas emissions. That is because China is heavily dependent on coal. It consumes more coal than Australia does. In 2005 we consumed about 124 million tonnes of coal; the Chinese consumed over 2,200 million tonnes of coal. So our coal consumption represents a little over five per cent of China’s consumption. China is commissioning the equivalent of a 1,000 megawatt coal-fired power station every five days. Its additional growth in emissions equals Australia’s annual total every eight months. That gives an idea of the scale of the problem.

Only this morning, both in the press and on the radio, Mr Qin Dahe, the Chinese scientist who was co-chair of the United Nations scientific panel that produced the fourth assessment report, stressed China’s dependence on coal. He said that it was 69 per cent dependent on coal for its energy needs and that that would continue. He also stressed the need for technology solutions to clean up its coal.

Australia is leading the world in clean coal technology—be it through the Low Emissions Technology Development Fund, where over $200 million of projects that are relevant to clean coal technology have been announced; through the AP6; or through the Australia-China Joint Coordination Group on Clean Coal Technology, which the Prime Minister announced in January. Across a wide range of programs, Australia is, and has been for many years, working actively to develop clean coal technology—practical measures, demonstration projects, scientific research.

This is often correctly presented as being in our national interest as a great coal-exporting nation—it is a vital part of protecting our coal industry, as the head of the CFMEU said only this morning—but it is also in the world’s interest. We recognise that, no matter how much we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the critical reductions have to take place in the countries that are the largest emitters. China is saying today—as it has said again and again—that, in order to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, it needs affordable technologies that enable it to clean up its coal. Australia is working to provide that technology. It may be that, in the years ahead, the greatest contribution we will make to the reduction of greenhouse gases is giving the Chinese, the Indians and the other coal dependent countries of the world the means to clean up their coal-fired power stations and deliver their people the energy they need, but in a manner which does not exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

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