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Queensland Senator Ron Boswell writes:

The Garnaut Climate Change Review final report neglects food security and the current world food shortages.

There is a balance between food and trees and Professor Garnaut’s report tips this fine balance well and truly away from food.

This paper doesn’t give any significant consideration to food security. In fact it goes the other way and seeks to reduce Australia’s beef herd by a massive 7million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020.

The only food shortage solution Professor Garnaut comes up with is to increase the number of kangaroos from 34 million to 240million by 2020.

For Garnaut to come out with an Emissions Trading Scheme that has no thought of food security shows a lack of real balanced consideration.

Australia should be the food bowl of the world; instead Garnaut’s answer is to turn us into a tree basin.

In one fell swoop Garnaut recommends turning 9.1 million hectares of marginal sheep and cattle country into a forestry plantation. The sunburnt country will be turned into a nation covered by trees and kangaroos if Professor Garnaut has his way.

There is no discussion of the socio-economic impact on communities in the regions that will no longer have livestock and will be covered by trees that will be produced, not for timber, but to be buried in the ground (The Australian, p1, 30/09/08).

What will happen to the people, the jobs and the towns, Professor Garnaut?

It has already been established by one abattoir, that they will be paying $33.60per head extra to cover the cost of the ruminant emissions and $17 per head for increased electricity cost.

This increase of $50 per head will no doubt be taken out of the pockets of the grazier. How much will it cost for one of the world’s major protein sources if we accept Garnaut’s industry numbers decline?

Garnaut seems to be on some sort of frolic where he dreams 240 million kangaroos and 9.1 million hectares of trees solving the problems of the world.

Alas, this latest Garnaut report goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. The whole process is losing credibility by the outlandish concepts that this latest paper discusses.

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Ross Garnaut understanding that under the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme rural and regional Australian communities are “Rooted” .

He has sunk to the depths of ridiculous in ways he believes Australian farmers can benefit from the scheme.

Read the Garnaut report, in it he indicates that those farmers running cattle and sheep are in for a very tough time from day one and will be completely un - viable after Agriculture is bought into the scheme around 2013. From that point farmers will have to buy permits to cover their livestock Methane emissions.

His solution is laughable - switch from cattle and sheep grazing to Kangaroos.

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AUSTRALIANS should replace beef and lamb on the dinner table with kangaroo to fight climate change, Kevin Rudd’s chief climate change adviser says.

They conclude that by 2020, beef cattle and sheep numbers in the rangelands could be reduced by seven million and 36 million respectively, and that this would create the opportunity for an increase in kangaroo numbers from 34 million today to 240million by 2020,” he says.

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Below is a photo of Skippy fattened on Salt bush.

Garnaut in his report is desperate to find some glimmer of hope for farmers. This purely fanciful suggestion is testamony to that.

Garnaut notes there are some barriers to the switch to Roo meat. As stated by the good professor they are:

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Livestock and Farm Management issues

Consumer resistance

and a gradual Nature of change in food tastes.

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This whole business would be hilarious if it wasn’t such deadly serious nonsense. Farmers need solutions to their long term viability now not in 3 generations time when consumer food tastes change.

Garnaut knows farmers are the “sacrifical lambs” in this ETS sham. Garnaut admits the ETS will have zero impact on Global climate.

He also knows that Farmers and rural communities will be crucified by the scheme, which is chiefly desinged to give the Rudd Government global green kudos and Australian Urban dwellers a warm and fuzzy green glow.

What a national disgrace.

(thanks to Agmates reader MattB)

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Sorry guys that I’ve have not posted earlier today. I’ve been digesting Professor Ross Garnaut’s final Climate Change Review.

If you live in Rural and regional Australia it’s pretty grim reading. Rural & Regional Australia has been the casualty in the last two decades as Australia has removed import barriers and persued free trade.

Granted that free trade policy has allowed Australia to prosper via the resources boom, however it is widely agreed that Rural & Regional Auistralia has paid the price.

Ross Garnaut acknowledges that fact in his report but warns that once again it will be Rural and regional Australia that will be impacted much harder by the ETS than folk in the cities.

In Chapter 16 of His Report - “Sharing The Burden in Australia”:

Bear in mind he is not talking about the impacts of climate change here he is talking about the impacts of an emissions trading scheme.

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From the commencement of an emissions trading scheme, costs of agricultural inputs-electricity, liquid fuel and fertiliser-will rise. This will particularly affect parts of the sector where energy costs and energy-dependent costs are a large proportion of total costs.

Regional communities and industries are likely to be more vulnerable to these impacts than urban centres, due to their reliance on agriculture and other natural resource-based industries, and low levels of infrastructure stock.

Regional communities, in particular farming regions, have already been subject to structural change to a much greater extent than metropolitan centres in recent history (Productivity Commission 1998).

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And Garnaut’s only response to helping farmers & rural people:

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“These are issues for policy in the longer-term future”

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In other words Rural & Regional Australia is once again treated as expendable by policy makers. From a Rural perspective the whole report is grim - I’ll write more about that in another post later this evening.

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Tim Curtin is a economist who lives in Canberra. Below is a comment he posted on the article “Is Kevin Rudd another James Hansen Disciple“:

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Good stuff, Agmates.

Here are some comments of my own on Barry Brook (banned of course from his Blog bravenewclimate), what is he scared of?

Brook has been reported by the media endorsing the so-called Global Carbon project, which is yet another largely CSIRO-inspired ramp, led by James Hansen’s friends, the notorious data manipulators Pep Canadell and Mike Raupach.

Their cheer leader, Barry Brook’s [ pictured below] puff ends by citing GCP’s claim that:

“Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached the mark of 10 billion tonnes of carbon [GtC] in 2007.

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Natural CO2 sinks are growing, but more slowly than atmospheric CO2, which has been growing at 2 ppm per year since 2000″.

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Let’s analyse this more closely.

Brook chose not to explain that 2ppm equate to 4.25 GtC (i.e. 2.12 GTC = 1 ppm). So what we had in 2007, on the Brook/GCP data, is 10 GtC of emissions, and 4.25 GtC of atmospheric increase, leaving no less than 5.75 GtC (57.5%) taken up by the “slow growing” natural sinks, above the average of 56% since 1958.

But then as a mere economist whom am I to query the accounting techniques of Nobel [Peace] Prize winners like Canadell, who thinks that the rise in atmospheric CO2 since 1958, from 315 ppm to 384 ppm at end-2007, reveals an annual growth rate of 1.89 % pa. (this fictitious rate is what underpins the Garnaut Draft Report).

Finally, Brook assures us that

“450ppm CO2 commits us to >2 degrees C global warming and all the disastrous consequences this sets in train”.

Whatever happened to CO2e, which as Garnaut states, is already at 455 ppm?

These disastrous consequences should already be apparent. Perhaps the meltdown on Wall Street is caused by CO2e emissions?

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Interesting that Barry Brook has blocked Tim Curtin from commenting on his blog. Then again not surprising as the Hansen lead Climate Alarmist avoid any kind of professional academic scrutiny of their outrageous claims. Two words - Hockey Stick.

(thanks to Tim for his input)

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The reality of an economic downturn in Australia and world wide is pulling the rug out from Kevin Rudds plans for Australia to lead the world in carbon emission reduction.

The 2008 Lowy Institute Poll of 1,001 Australians conducted in July (before the Wall Street Meltdown) has shown battling climate change has slipped from the No1 concern for Australians last year to now be No5. The poll revealed:

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“a majority of 32 per cent favoured paying only $10 a month extra on their electricity bill to help solve climate change. However, 21 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay anything extra.

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Thats 53% of people polled who said that they were prepared to pay no more than an extra $10 a month to fight climate change.

Professor Ross Garnaut estimates that even a target of 10% cuts to emission by 2020 will ad 40% to consumers electricity bill.

Prime Minister Rudd Kevin Rudd will shortly be forced back to reality and have to abandon his Don Quixote windmill fighting ways.

He will soon have to reconcile the political wisdom of imposing the costs of the Emissions Trading Scheme on the Australian public who are suffering in tough economic times.

If Kevin Rudd does press ahead regardless it will be politically “Courageous, very Courageous“.

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Does the name James Scullin ring a bell.

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Emission Trading Schemes in Australia and New Zealand will have almost zero impact on global CO2 emissions. So why are both countries charging into enacting legislation that will harm our economies and decrease our standard of living?

In what can only be described as an act of madness New Zealand politicians passed Emissions Trading legislation last week to become the 28th Nation in the world to do so.

The other 27 nations are the member states of the European Union.

New Zealand out of 207 nations is ranked 69th in global CO2 emissions and accounts for just 0.1% of global emissions.

New Zealand is the first nation outside of the European Union to enact an emissions scheme, Australia will be the second.

Australia is ranked 19th on the world scale of emitters with 1.2% of global emissions.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tells Australians that we have to lead the world in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Professor Ross Garnaut has said that we can’t make deep cuts unless the major emitters also follow suit.

The top 20 emitting nations account for 79% of global emissions. Of those 5 EU nations, Germany 3.1%, United Kingdom 2.2%, Italy 1.7%, France 1.4% & Spain 1.2% are in the top 20 global emitters with a total of 9.6%. The other 22 Nations that make up the European Union emit 5.1%. Total EU emissions are 14.7%.

That leaves 15 nations including Australia accounting for 69.4% of global emissions.

If you take off Australia’s 1.2% that leaves 14 Nations contributing 68.2% of emissions, while the remaining 187 nations contributing just 21% between them.

Map of Global CO2 Emissions by Country.

Key to Map in Metric Tons.

For example The USA and China emit over 5,000,000 each in metric tons a year.

Australia emits just over 300,000 tons a year.

New Zealand emits less than 10% of Australia’s emissions at just over 30,000 tons a year.

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One would imagine that it will be these 14 nations that the Australia & New Zealand governments hope to convince / influence into adopting a legislated emissions trading Scheme:

USA, China, Russia, India, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, Brazil, Ukraine, & Saudi Arabia.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for world super powers USA, China and Russia agreeing any time soon on an agreement on anything, let alone introducing a scheme that will harm their economies.

It is just incredibly naive or stupid of prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Helen Clark to believe they have much if any influence on any of the 14 major emitting nations.

If Australia and New Zealand were to cut their emissions 10% by 2020 we would have reduced global emissions by 0.13% whilst stifling our economies and lessening our standard of living to achieve it.

Harming our economies as ‘first movers’ will be judged by history as incredible acts of stupidity.

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Prime Minister Kevin Rudds chief climate change adviser Ross Garaunt [pictured] report released last Friday has knocked the hot air out of the labor governments continual claims that to do nothing about global warming will cost us far more than taking action.

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Piers Ackerman in the Sunday Telegraph writes:

“For the whole of their period in office, federal Labor’s mantra has been simple: the cost of doing nothing about climate change will be greater than the cost of doing something.

Now, however, former foreign affairs mentor Professor Garnaut has revealed that mantra is false. Professor Garnaut has found that the cost of reducing emissions is greater than the cost of doing nothing - although that is not how he sold his paper.

It is Rudd who is the denialist on the economics of climate change, if Professor Garnaut is to be believed.

The costs of action outweigh the costs of inaction. Rudd and Swan have already warned Australians they face increasing unemployment.

To that must be added the costs of Labor’s as-yet unspecific plans to deal with its over-hyped catastrophic view of climate change.

Professor Garnaut’s report indicates Labor’s mantra on climate change to be false. Why does the ALP want to sacrifice the economy for a lie?”

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Good question Piers.

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Australia’s whole Emissions Trading Scheme is based on CSIRO research that has been independently found to be fatally flawed.

Watch here as a Bloomberg reporter Bernard Lo interviews Professor Ross Garnaut, the Author of the Green Paper that the Australian Government is basing its entire Emissions Trading Scheme on.

Watch what happens when Lo Grills Garnaut about the bleeding obvious - Australia’s pristine climate at about the 3m 50s mark. Then again at the 6m mark Garnaut rattled refers to the Australia’s leading scientific body the CSIRO modeling.

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The National Emissions Trading Scheme (NETS) is a greater threat to the viability of farming in Australia that has ever been seen. Adding 15-40% to operating costs, Australian farmers will have to compete with producers in many nations who have no such costs. The entire Agricultural Industry is at risk of collapse under such a regime.

If the Australian Farming sector is to suvive the impacts of the introduction of the NETS it is up too the National Farmers Federation (NFF) to ’step up’ to the plate.

The issue is beyond the state farming organizations. The fight to protect farmers against a 15%-40% increase in input costs from the scheme has to be carried by the NFF.

Below is NFF President David Crombies (pictured) response off the NFF web site.

“THE Garnaut Report and, now, the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) have reinforced what we already knew… there are threats to Australia’s agricultural production due to climate risks.

Farmers have long known the risks and have continually stressed the need to proactively adapt and mitigate climate affects, through research and development, new technology and modern farming techniques. Managing climate risk has been hallmark of farming’s tradition and, with the right tools, will continue to be in the future.

The Government’s announcement today of $46.2 million to reduce greenhouse pollution, better soil management and adapt to a changing climate, is a sensible first instalment - but we need to do more to provide farmers with practical, on-the-ground options and tools to adapt.

Professor Garnaut notes:”

“… food is an essential consumer good and climate change will most likely make food production more difficult.

Producers will need to adapt to climate change and this adaptation will require significant additional resources”.

“This highlights the critical need for research to underpin agriculture’s adaption to climate change and in reducing net emissions.

But, more broadly, Australia must not take an ‘at any cost’ approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly as there is no certainty about the contribution to be made by other nations - especially our trade competitors.

Garnaut says the solution needs to be global. We agree. And, while we can take a leadership role in driving global action, we must be mindful that Australia is responsible for less than 1.5% of global emissions - and our economy has a breaking point.

Our response, therefore, needs to be measured and commensurate with that reality. Australia’s farm base is among the most efficient, competitive and low-emitting in the world. If we reduce production here, the bizarre outcome could see global demand shift to high-emitting countries.

We risk a disproportionate impact on Australian food production. Our farm sector is responsible for 12% of GDP, 1.6 million jobs, $30 billion in exports and 93% of our daily domestic food supply, and it could be absolutely devastated if the ETS or transitional policies aren’t geared to account for agriculture’s ability to sequester carbon in soils and crops, not just trees.

We need to invest today to safeguard the future. But, if domestic policies hurt farmers, they won’t be unable to combat climate change, resulting in a reliance on imported food and higher food prices.

Garnaut spells out that agriculture cannot be covered by an ETS at this time. We recognise the obstacles and agree.

Importantly, Garnaut does not suggest an arbitrary timeframe for coverage, but draws attention to the major problems regarding measuring agricultural emissions and the costs associated in monitoring and verifying those emissions across some 155,000 Australian farms.

However, he concludes that we must examine alternatives that can deliver greater reductions to emissions, at lower costs. These need to be incentive-driven and developed in conjunction with the farm sector.

Farmers can and will adapt to climate change provided they have access to the right research and development, targeted to new technologies and that enable them to make informed decisions.”

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