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

I ask leave of the House to make a ministerial statement relating to global initiatives on forests and climate.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is leave granted?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, as I indicated to you, the minister failed to give the shadow minister and the opposition the courtesy of providing this statement two hours in advance, as is common practice. In fact, the document was only given after question time began. On this occasion we are prepared to be very generous to the minister and allow him to proceed, because he may well not have known, even though we rang his office at 10 am this morning asking for a copy. In future, the government is on notice that we will say no. We will not give leave unless those courtesies are followed.

Leave granted.

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

The forests of the world are the ‘lungs of the earth’. They breathe in the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, they store the carbon they need for their growth and they emit the oxygen which we need for life. We need to breathe new life into the lungs of the world. We need to give the world a breathing space. And we will do so.

Around the world these lungs of the earth are being ripped from the forest floor at a rate of 71,000 football fields every day. In just the past hour forests covering the area of 3,000 football fields have been lost.

The world’s forests play a vital role in addressing climate change because they store vast amounts of carbon for long periods of time. The carbon currently stored in forests around the world exceeds the levels of carbon in the earth’s atmosphere. Dense tropical forest areas contain particularly high levels of carbon. As forests are unsustainably logged and as they are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Deforestation also contributes, tragically, to global poverty.

Around 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions (about six billion tonnes per annum) currently come from clearing the world’s forests—around 13 million hectares or an area twice the size of Tasmania. This is second only to the emissions produced from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity and is more than all of the world’s emissions from transport.

Globally, more than 4.4 million trees are removed each day—1.6 billion trees each year—and almost one billion of these are not replaced.

This must be turned around. And it can be. Countries can turn their forests, very quickly, from being net emitters of carbon to net absorbers of carbon. Up until the 1930s it is estimated that North America and Europe accounted for the bulk of the world’s carbon emissions from deforestation. Within 30 years their forests had become net absorbers of carbon, carbon sinks, as a result of tree planting and natural regeneration.

But today, deforestation is greatest in Africa, South America and South-East Asia. It is driven in large part by a demand for agricultural land in developing countries but is also a result of unsustainable forest practices and, in particular, illegal logging.

Illegal logging is a serious issue for industrialised as well as developing countries. It degrades the environment, endangers plant and animal life and adversely affects the social and economic wellbeing of local communities.

The World Bank estimates that illegal logging costs the global market more than $US10 billion a year. The International Tropical Timber Organisation estimates that nearly 82 million hectares or 85 per cent of natural forests around the world are not being managed in a sustainable way.

Sir Nicholas Stern, with whom I discussed this matter only yesterday afternoon and again this morning, in his report on the economics of climate change last year, also noted that the emissions from deforestation globally are significant and that action to address this is urgently needed.

The Australian government has been working with countries around the world to improve forest management practices and combat illegal logging but a renewed effort is needed to curb the emissions from deforestation.

Today the Australian government announced a major international initiative to do just that.

The new Global Initiative on Forests and Climate will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries through reducing illegal logging and destruction of the world’s remaining great forests; increasing new forest planting; and promoting sustainable forest management practices worldwide.

The Australian government will contribute $200 million in funding to the initiative and work closely with developed and developing countries, businesses and other international organisations to reduce emissions from deforestation and to help manage the world’s forests in a sustainable way.

This funding of $200 million will be committed to working with developing countries to:

• build technical capacity to assess and monitor forest resources, and to develop national forest management plans;
• establish effective regulatory and law enforcement arrangements to protect forests, including through preventing illegal logging;
• promote the sustainable use of forest resources and diversify the economic base of forest dependent communities;
• support practical research into the drivers of deforestation; and
• encourage the reforestation of degraded forest areas.
• The funding will also support:
• positive incentives for sustainable forest practices in developing countries and reducing net forest loss;
• the development and deployment of the technology and the systems needed to help developing countries monitor and produce robust assessments of their forest resources;
• piloting approaches to providing incentives to countries and communities to encourage sustainable use of forests and the reduction of destruction of forests;
• collaboration with the Global Forest Alliance of the World Bank and the International Tropical Timber Organisation on deforestation projects;
• cooperation with governments and businesses in other developed countries to build support for and expand the reach of the initiative.

As the world continues to develop and deploy the low-emissions energy technologies needed to achieve the deep cuts in greenhouse emissions needed in the future, reducing deforestation (combined with planting new forests and encouraging sustainable forest management) is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce global emissions, starting right now.

Australia is well placed to lead the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate. Australia has a strong and proud record in sustainable management of our forests.

We have put in place a world-class regime for sustainable land use and forest management, including through regional forest agreements, the National Framework for the Management and Monitoring of Australia’s Native Vegetation and the National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan.

The government has made multibillion dollar investments in environmental programs and scientific research. For example, over the life of the Australian government’s Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality programs, we will invest $3.7 billion to address pressing environmental problems, including habitat restoration and sustainable forest management. Over the past 11 years, the Australian government has invested a total of almost $20 billion in these and other environmental activities.

As a result of these efforts, we have substantially reduced broadscale land clearing of woodlands in agricultural areas, for the benefit of both our climate and our biodiversity. In 1990, greenhouse gas emissions in Australia from deforestation were 129 million tonnes. These will fall by 65 per cent by 2010.

Since 1990, more than 1.1 million hectares of new forests have been planted in Australia. By 2010, new forest plantings will remove 21 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year from Australia.

Our forest management in Australia is world leading. Some 13 per cent of Australia’s native forests—more than 22 million hectares—are protected in conservation reserves, including World Heritage sites and forested land under Indigenous ownership. Almost half of Australia’s tropical and temperate rainforests are protected.

This includes more than 2.9 million hectares of forest (including 90 per cent of our high-quality wilderness and 68 per cent of our old-growth forest) added to conservation reserves since 1996 through the regional forests agreement system.

This system has achieved a balance between the long-term protection of our unique forest biodiversity and providing a sustainable future for forest industries. We have overcome past unsustainable forest practices, while supporting the growth of internationally competitive and sustainable forest industries, which currently employ more than 83,000 people and have an annual turnover of more than $18 billion.

So it comes as no surprise that Australia has been pressing for urgent global action on forests and climate change for many years. Since the Kyoto negotiations began more than a decade ago, Australia has led the push for effective international action on deforestation.

There are few frameworks internationally that address emissions from deforestation. It is a fact that the Kyoto protocol provides no incentive to developing countries to reduce deforestation, yet this represents one of the best opportunities for real progress against global warming over the two next decades.

This deficiency in the Kyoto framework has been widely recognised. As Michael Kennedy, the Director of Humane Society, recently wrote:

The Kyoto Protocol, through this CDM funding, is effectively financing ... massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

This global initiative will do for the planet what Kyoto couldn’t. It is often forgotten that the earth’s carbon is cycled between the ocean, the biosphere and the atmosphere. Reducing the amount in the atmosphere is not only possible via reduced emissions but also through increased uptake of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere—in the plant life and the soils of the biosphere.

Let there be no mistake—successfully addressing deforestation and forest management is an essential part of any effective global response to climate change.

If we could only halve the current rate of global deforestation, and our goals are much more ambitious than that, this new Global Initiative on Forests and Climate could lead to reductions in annual global greenhouse gas emissions of three billion tonnes a year—or around 10 per cent.

This would lead to global emission reductions five times greater than Australia’s total annual emissions and almost 10 times as large as those achieved under the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol, which will only reduce annual emissions by one per cent by 2010.

Through this initiative we will work with like-minded countries, such as the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Indonesia, and international organisations and businesses to reduce emissions from deforestation and to sustainably manage the world’s forests.

We will also work closely with the World Bank, which has stated its intention to expand its efforts on deforestation.

Through working together—with developed and developing countries across the world—we can harness the collective effort and resources to make a potentially massive contribution to addressing climate change and sustainable forest management.

As part of the initiative we are announcing today, we will be offering to nearby developing countries access to high-quality satellite measurement data for their forests and the technical help to use it to underpin sustainable forest management.

We have the forests, we have the history, we have the runs on the board and we have valuable experience to share. Through this initiative, Australia is delivering practical action that will make a real difference to global greenhouse gas emissions.

The Global Initiative on Forests and Climate builds on the Australian government’s comprehensive climate change strategy that:

• is supporting world-class scientific research to build our understanding of climate change and its potential impacts, particularly in our region;
• has Australia tracking well to meet our Kyoto greenhouse gas emissions reduction target;
• is supporting the development of the new low-emissions technologies Australia and the world will need in the future, including renewable energies and clean coal;
• is identifying those regions and industries that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and helping them adapt to those impacts; and
• is continuing the push for an effective international agreement that will see all the major greenhouse gas emitting nations reducing their emissions.
• This strategy is underpinned by an investment of more than $2 billion, which in turn is leveraging more than $7.5 billion in additional investment.

The Australian government is committed to addressing climate change and to making a significant and material difference to the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Today’s announcement represents a quantum leap in the international effort to addressing this grave environmental challenge. This is an initiative that the entire world can embrace because it is an initiative that will make a difference and that will breathe new life into the lungs of the world. I present the following document:

Global Initiatives on Forests and Climate—Ministerial Statement, 29 March 2007.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the document.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the debate.

Leave granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent Mr Garrett speaking for a period not exceeding 14 minutes.

Question agreed to.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are entering a new era of action on climate change. There is a growing national consensus on climate change. There is a consensus on the science of climate change. There is a consensus on the need for a national emissions trading scheme and long-term targets. There is a consensus on the need for a comprehensive, portfolio approach to climate change. This is a consensus that involves business, trade unions, environment groups and the broader community. There is just one group missing from the national consensus, and that is the Howard government. Howard government ministers do not accept the science of climate change.

The Minister for Finance and Administration says ‘there remains an ongoing debate about the extent of climate change’, and he recently wrote to former Australian of the Year Ian Kiernan attacking Mr Kiernan for daring to criticise climate change sceptics. The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources proudly triumphed his scepticism on the Sunday program on 20 August 2006:

Well I am a sceptic of the connection between emissions and climate change.

That was just seven months ago. A government full of climate change sceptics cannot deliver climate change solutions, and this is a government full of climate change sceptics. There is a consensus on the science, but the government just does not get it.

There is a consensus on emissions trading and long-term targets, but the government just does not get that either. The Business Council of Australia, in their submission to the emissions trading task group, stated:

The BCA in considering how best to achieve a workable global emissions trading scheme has identified the following as essential.

• Set both immediate and long term global emission reduction targets;

Countries will need to agree to a binding emission reduction target with both immediate and long term targets and target pathways in between if an environmental impact is to be achieved ... The long term targets need to link to commercial investment horizons, so that investment decisions are sensibly informed.

Westpac’s submission makes the point that the government’s failure to act has an impact on investor confidence, saying:

Business is ... calling for greater clarity on how companies are strategically and tactically managing their response to the implications of, and exposure to, climate change.

BHP Billiton calls for not only an ‘efficient, effective and equitable domestic Australian emissions trading scheme’ but also one that:

... facilitates the trading of emissions entitlements and reductions and the crediting of off-sets developed or purchased in other countries (such as CDM or other project-based credits).

So there is a very real consensus emerging in the business community. Again, the Howard government is out of step.

Today the health minister joined the sceptics’ ranks when he said in a debate on climate change that there is nothing speculative about it. In question time today, the Prime Minister was asked a very simple question: how will he set a price on carbon? The Prime Minister’s response was extraordinary: ‘No, the market will.’ The market has operated for a very long time, but there is still no national emissions trading scheme. The Prime Minister just does not get it.

The other major area of consensus that is emerging is that we need a comprehensive portfolio approach to climate change. That is Labor’s approach. That is why a Rudd Labor government will ratify the Kyoto protocol, cut Australia’s greenhouse pollution by 60 per cent by 2050, establish a national emissions trading scheme, substantially increase the mandatory renewable energy target, establish a $500 million national clean coal initiative and establish a $50 million solar home power plan. Compare that with the Howard government’s approach. They have said no to the Kyoto protocol, no to a long-term target for emissions reductions and no to increasing the mandatory renewable energy target.

The Howard government still has not established a national emissions trading scheme and it has not spent a single dollar under the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund. Now the government refuses to endorse Labor’s $50 million solar home power plan. This is a lazy government—but, when it comes to climate change, the government is more than lazy; it is reckless and indifferent. So, while we welcome today’s announcement, no-one should be under the illusion that the government is seriously committed to taking action on climate change.

In the lead-up to the election we are seeing plenty of politics with regard to climate change, but very little policy. The Prime Minister was right when he said this morning:

... 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from clearing the world’s forest and that’s second only to emissions from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity and it’s more than all the world’s emissions from transport.

But the Prime Minister may not be aware of the fact that, for trees to act as sinks for carbon, they need to be left in the ground. For a forest to work effectively as a carbon sink it needs to be left in the ground for 30 to 40 years, not just whacked in and taken out on a short rotation basis.

The government are correct to point out that, under the Kyoto protocol, forests—that is, standing forests—are not recognised as carbon sinks. The minister for the environment is also correct to point out that this has led to an obscene level of deforestation across the world, something that we on this side of the House feel very strongly about. But—and it is a very big but—what neither the Prime Minister nor the environment minister are admitting is that the rest of the world, the Kyoto-compliant world, is hotly debating this very issue right now. And we have been politely asked to leave the room—we are allowed no role in the discussion because we have not ratified. Had we ratified, were we to be in those negotiations, we could argue powerfully for native standing forests to be recognised as carbon sinks. That way, forests across Australia would make the country a great deal of money just by being allowed to exist. That way, the forests of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomons would make more money for local landholders by being left alone than they would by being cut down. That is how we create market signals in a carbon constrained world that drive good economic and environmental outcomes. That is why it is vital for Australia to ratify and be part of that debate.

If we had a national carbon trading scheme in place in Australia we could be encouraging commercial investment in reforestation schemes that obtain carbon credits. Without the government seriously embracing a comprehensive framework for dealing with climate change, it cannot be seen as serious in its approach to climate change. Labor has a comprehensive framework. Had we ratified the protocol, Australia, through the clean development mechanism, would be able to achieve carbon reduction credits and assist in meeting its greenhouse targets and help forestry in the region by investing in reforestation activities.

The ministerial statement refers to the Kyoto protocol providing no incentive for the developing countries to reduce deforestation. As a fact, a quick visit to the UNFCCC website shows that this is clearly not the case. A search on that site finds project No. 0547: Facilitating Reforestation for Guangxi Watershed Management in Pearl River Basin. Because we are not a party to Kyoto the government’s $200 million fund plan, welcome as it is, will not assist Australia in gaining highly valuable carbon credits. The fund is an entirely government driven mechanism.

If Australia were a Kyoto party Australian companies would have had the incentive to invest in reforestation in the region, through the CDM, potentially pouring large amounts of money in while achieving large emission reductions through sequestration in growing trees. We would be encouraging responsible action by building sustainable markets. This is another lost opportunity.

The ministerial statement refers to the amounts that the Howard government has spent on the environment, but it does not refer to the very poor progress on repairing, recovering and protecting our environment, clearly detailed in the last State of the environment report: growing numbers of threatened and endangered species, worsening river health and biodiversity literally in crisis.

While this initiative is welcome, the government has missed the opportunity to ratify the Kyoto protocol and set bold targets for emission reductions. There is a growing national consensus on climate change but the Howard government is standing firmly aside from that consensus. Labor is committed to forging a national consensus on climate change. That is why we are holding a national climate change summit this Saturday. This summit will bring together some of the nation’s best thinkers from business and science—and people from the community as well. The summit will begin to shape a national consensus on the best way forward for Australia over the next decade. The summit will examine a number of critical issues including the environmental, economic and social impacts of climate change both now and into the future. The summit will examine the future of emissions trading. And the summit will examine new technologies and renewable energy and community, corporate and government responsibility for reducing our energy needs.

This national climate change summit will give all those sectors of the community who have been crying out for action on climate change, and who are clearly well aware of the risks posed by climate change, the opportunity not only to enter into dialogue with one another but to put their views to the alternative government of Australia as to what we now need to do to seriously address climate change, and particularly to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It is time for a new politics—a politics of action, not a politics of denial and delay. Labor is committed to action on climate change.

Debate adjourned.