Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator Williams, it is smaller than China. We are smaller than China. We also are part of an international agreement that recognises that we cannot simply ask people to stay poor, that what we have to do is have a framework which enables some growth in developing countries, then a peak and then a decline. That is what we signed up for. What we have to do is encourage the same thing in China as what we are encouraging here: a low-carbon growth path. We have to, for the first time in human history, really de-link emissions growth and economic growth. We have to stop making worsening climate change the price of economic growth, because if we do not we know it will cost us much more in the long term. That is why we have before the parliament a scheme that is about reducing our contribution to climate change as a nation.

Senator Barnett asked me for some comparators. I think this is the fourth time I have read this table out and I am happy to do it again. I will then also give you some figures in relation to 1990. You know our targets, which I think we have bipartisan agreements to; they are minus five, minus 15 or minus 25 per cent on 2000 levels. Canada has a target of 20 per cent below 2006 levels. The European Union has 20 to 30 per cent on 1990 levels. Japan has 25 per cent on 1990 levels. Mexico has agreed to reduce emissions by 50 million tonnes annually until 2012 against business as usual and then by 50 per cent below 2002 levels by mid-century. The Russian Federation has officially announced 10 to 15 per cent below 1990 levels. The Republic of Korea has committed to reducing emissions by 30 per cent below BAU by 2020. The United States has announced a 17 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2020. It has given subsequent targets for 2025, 2030 and 2050. Brazil has agreed—this is an announcement by President Lula—to reduce emissions by between 36.1 and 38.9 per cent relative to business as usual by 2020. Deforestation targets will equate to a more than 80 per cent reduction in the rate of deforestation between 2006 and 2020.

China has agreed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 2020 from 2005. The margin that was announced was, I think, 40 to 44 per cent, but I will check that—the notes I am reading from predate the announcement. India has announced a national energy efficiency plan, including a cap and trade system, to save about five per cent of India’s annual energy consumption by 2015 and reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by 100 million tonnes. It has a solar target of 20,000 megawatts by 2020. Indonesia has agreed to reduce emissions by 26 per cent below business as usual to 41 per cent with overseas support and agreed to seek to convert forestry from a net source to a net sink by 2030. The South African environment minister outlined a plan last year to peak emissions around 2020-25, stabilise for a decade and then decline.