Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me say from the outset, a reduction of 43 per cent of CO2 emissions by 2030 on 2005 levels is an admirable target. It is a good target. It may be ambitious but it is an admirable target. It has already been adopted by the government and they have submitted it to the UN, the Prime Minister said. But legislating the 43 per cent is a different thing and it is a bad idea. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy has said they don't need to, so why would they do it and why is it a bad idea?

Targets have been tremendously successful for Australia. Kyoto 1 and 2 were both reached and exceeded. We will exceed our Paris target, which was 26 to 28 per cent, easily; in fact, probably reaching around 35 per cent under current projections without new policies coming from the government. We have done so much better than many others without smashing our economy and by adapting day by day to the delivery and development of new technologies.

I take umbrage with the members opposite making allegations that the previous government was doing nothing. We reduced emissions by 23 per cent on 2005 levels, one of only a handful of 193 countries around the world that could claim that. I am sure you are familiar with it, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas. In Grey alone there are over 2,000 megawatts of installed capacity of either solar or wind, and there are more than 1,000 megawatts planned or under construction under the previous government's policy. Australia has the highest penetration of rooftop solar on the planet and it is adding large-scale wind and solar at a per capita at twice the rate of the next fastest country. In Grey, as we have in the rest of South Australia, we have reached almost 40 per cent of premises with rooftop solar.

I think this is a very important point: we need to have some comparisons and an idea of what the rest of the world is doing. China has promised to slash by 2030—I have a figure here somewhere but I just can't seem to dig it up at the moment—65 per cent of CO2 per unit of GDP. Perhaps it will do that. Good luck with that, I might say, because China has already increased its GDP by more than 200 per cent since 2005, and if it keeps growing at the projected rate through to 2030, its GDP will be 450 per cent bigger than it was in 2005. So making a commitment about per capita GDP and reducing that needs to be measured up with the increase of the GDP over the same period. Extrapolating the 65 per cent cut, that still allows for a 60 per cent increase on their real 2005 levels. Well, good luck with that, because in 2005 they emitted five billion tonnes per annum. By 2021 they'd already more than doubled that, to 11.7 billion tonnes. They say they're only going to go up by 60 per cent, but they've already gone up by over 100 per cent and are increasing emissions by more than half a billion tonnes a year. Australia only emits half a billion tonnes a year, and China is increasing by that much each year. In fact, China has already gone three billion tonnes a year past their commitment for their 2030 target. On that note, China had 90 gigawatts of new coal-fired generation capacity under construction last year, which was about the same as the year before. If anyone needs a comparison, Loy Yang is rated at 1.2 gigawatts and the much-noted Liddell Power Station at 1.7 gigawatts. China is building 90 gigawatts a year.

Historians argue over whether it was Churchill, John Maynard Keynes or someone else who first said, 'When the facts change, sir, I change my mind. What do you do?' The question here is: what if the circumstances change over the next five years or so, and we're locked into legislation? What if in five years we find the 22,000-strong entourage that trooped off to COP26 in Glasgow last year spoke with a collective forked tongue, or China and India continue merrily along, or if European nations keep bringing their fossil fuel power stations out of retirement, or even building new ones? And what if in five years time Australia is losing aluminium production, or losing steel production in Whyalla, in your home state, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas? What if food manufacturing and fertiliser manufacturing are being undercut by those around the world who choose not to reduce their CO2 emissions? What then, when we have a legislated 43 per cent? When we have the legislated target, it will be used by activists to block the progress of new projects in this country.

The scientific facts may not have changed, but the political and economic ones will have. What of a bid to build a world-class fertiliser plant in Australia if an activist chooses to block its progress, in the courts, on the basis of the legislation? We'll have a situation where the High Court will effectively have power to block government projects or the preferences of government via use of the government legislation. And I'm indebted to the shadow minister for climate change and energy for bringing forward that exact example of these circumstances in the UK.

I conclude that legislating this target is no more than a bit of political grandstanding, a bit of politics within the warm inner glow. The minister has said that the government does not need to legislate, so why would we risk stranding Australia, like a shag on a rock, while the world changes around us? By all means let us strive for the 43 per cent—let's go further—but only on the basis that we are not that shag on the rock, that we do not rush ahead of the evolving technologies before they are mature enough to give us low-cost transmission that will protect our jobs, our economy and our place in the world.

There are a number of issues I've brought up in this place before, and one that nags me is the international accounting methods for carbon emissions. These are designed by European nations for European nations. There's no other way to describe it. Nations that import the bulk of their energy actually shift their emissions onto third countries. Take the case of uranium—a lot of it is mined in our home state, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas. The emissions that are generated in the mining and refining of that uranium, through to yellowcake standard, and its transport—normally diesel but also electricity, and it's all generated in Australia—go on Australia's debit sheet. In fact, we are supplying clean fuel to the rest of the world so that they can claim a net benefit. It's gone on our debit sheet, but we didn't use the energy!

Another example is our gas industry, where we provide a relatively clean fuel to much of the world, to many mature markets. The fact that 30 per cent of the energy of the gas is used in compression within Australia goes on our debit sheet. Another country can put their hand up and say: 'Look how clean we are. We're using gas, and it's hardly got any'—by comparison—'emissions, because the emissions have actually been emitted by Australia on behalf of another country.' That is a corrupt system. It should operate like a GST, where the consumer actually lists where the CO2, right through the chain, is passed on to the consumer. Unless we get a system like that, it is corrupt from top to bottom.

I hear members on the other side telling us that Australia has the highest per capita emissions in the world, but if we took out the products that we supply to the rest of the world that actually lessen their emissions then we would not be in that position. I don't know exactly where on the graph we would sit, but I know we would not be the highest. And so as long as that system is allowed to continue, decisions will be made based on the wrong information. Not the wrong information necessarily for our particular country, but the wrong information for the world. One of the things we do know about CO2 emissions and global warming is that it is a worldwide problem that can only have a worldwide solution.

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