Session One
- Background to the Summit Paper ‘A Climate of Opportunity’ - Premier Brumby
- Facilitated discussion of the Summit Paper: A Climate of Opportunity
Premier John Brumby
Thank you very much to George Negus. George is no stranger to Parliament House here. He has assisted us a couple of times in the past, I think early on in government, and mid-term when we had some outstanding regional and rural summits here, and George did a great job doing that, and we thank him for that. Joy Murphy, can I thank you for your Welcome to Country this morning. That was a magnificent Welcome to Country, and I think if we don’t feel welcome here after that, we never will.
To ministerial and parliamentary colleagues who are here today, there are a number here today, and I should mention and acknowledge all of those. Of course, Minister Gavin Jennings, Minister for Climate Change; Minister Bob Cameron, the Minister for Emergency Services; Minister Peter Batchelor, the Minister for Energy, sitting in the Leader of the Opposition’s chair, and I know Peter has always wanted to do that. It’s such a rewarding position to be in. Minister Theo Theophanous, Minister for Industry; Tony Robinson, the Minister for Consumer Affairs; Minister Jacinta Allan, the Minister for Regional Development; Minister Richard Wynne, the Minister for Local Government with us today, and Justin Madden, of course, the Minister for Planning. Also with us today, David Davis, representing the Leader of the Opposition, Paul Weller, representing the Leader of the National Party, and Greg Barber, representing the Green Political Party. Can I welcome too, all of the Climate Change Summit speakers and all of the delegates. I thank all of you for giving up your valuable time on this Friday to make this day what I hope will be a great success for our state.
Can I begin, too, by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we stand, the Wurundjeri people, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.
So ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the State Parliament of Victoria, which as you probably read in the press this morning, is now set to switch to green power. And welcome to Victoria’s first Climate Change Summit. Thank you, as I said, for being here today, and if you’re watching this via the internet, thank you for joining us.
I think it’s fair to say that Victoria is recognised nationally and internationally for its liveability, for being the best place, I believe, in the world to live, to work, to run a business, to raise a family. But the world is changing. It’s changing rapidly, and that change is creating new challenges and new opportunities. And climate change, which as George Negus has said, was seen by many, I think, as purely a matter of scientific interest a decade ago, I think is now the defining challenge of our era. And this one issue is radically changing the way the world works, the way the world lives, creating new technologies, creating new jobs and creating a new climate change economy. And the pace of the radical change, in my view, is bound to accelerate over the next decade when a global carbon trading market comes on line. Indeed, I think this is the decade of action, but time to ensure that we make the most of the opportunities by addressing the challenges presented by climate change. How we respond to this change, to this challenge, over the next five, ten, twenty years and beyond will determine whether Victoria not only remains one of the world’s most liveable places, but also whether we become one of the world’s most productive and sustainable places.
The scientific case for change, I believe, has been made out. The world’s top scientists warn that global temperatures could rise between 1.1 degrees to 6.4 degrees Celsius. Scientists at the CSIRO, who are here today, who are respected to amongst the best climatologists in the world, tell us that Victoria is warming at a rate which is slightly faster than the global average, especially in the north and the east of our state. The CSIRO suggest that Victoria’s average temperatures could increase by 0.9% by 2030, compared to average temperatures between 1961 and 1990. And I think the other thing, much of the media focus, you think of this week as been on the weather event we saw this week, the wind event – a highly unusual event in Autumn for Victoria. I met with some of the insurance industry representatives just a few months ago. The issue that they’re most concerned about climate change is actually extreme climatic events and what happens with wind speeds. Because as the wind speeds keep lifting by ten kilometres an hour on average, the amount of damage virtually doubles. It’s that sort of equation. By 2070, which is around the time the 2008 intake of Grade Preps will be thinking about retirement, that increase is projected to be between 1 1 and 3 degrees Celsius, depending on whether or not we reduce global emissions. A 3 degree rise would endanger 41 of our native species, and it would have indiscriminate and unintended impacts on our economy and our community. And for us to have a chance of avoiding a two degree rise in temperature, the world, according to the best scientific research, would need to halve greenhouse emissions by 2050.
What I want to say today is that Victoria is determined to play a leading role in the local, national and global efforts to cut emissions. That’s why we set an ambitious target: 60% by 2050. That’s why we’ve led the way on the design of a national emission’s trading scheme. There will be a lot of debate about this scheme during the course of the year. We’ve seen some of that debate kick off today, in fact, in New South Wales. There will be a debate, but we do need to move in this direction. That’s why we established the Victorian renewable energy target, requiring energy retailers to source 10% of their supply from renewable sources by 2016. VRET alone will generate two billion dollars of new investment by 2016, create something like 2,000 jobs, and generate 3,261 gigawatt hours of new renewable energy. That’s why we’ve invested $187 million in the Energy Technology Innovation Strategy, supporting the development of low emission technologies, such as clean coal and solar. That’s why we’re introducing the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target. This is about helping families reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save on their energy bills. VEET is one of our policies that will help reduce household emissions by 10% by 2010. It’s why 25% of the power used by the public sector will be green power by 2010. It’s why we launched the black balloons campaign, which Vice President, Al Gore, broadcast during the Live Earth concert, and which has increased mindfulness of energy use by up to nine percent. And if you’ve got teenage children, like I’ve got, the black balloon campaign works. You know how you follow them round the house and you turn off power points and you turn off heaters. It’s important that we get a message out there that people understand about this issue. That’s why we’ve signed an MOU with California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to collaborate on climate change initiatives, and it’s also why my first trip as Premier last year, was to December’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali.
It’s certainly my view, if you look at all of those things, the question is: are they making a difference? Are they making a sensible difference, a positive difference? And I believe that they meet those tests. Victorian households have doubled their use of green power in the past two years. Victoria has cut its water usage by 28%. We are now the most water-wise capital city anywhere in the nation, and that’s a good thing. We’ve lifted water recycling levels in Melbourne from two percent in 1999, to 14% today. I was out with Tim Holding and Cheryl Batagol at South East Water just a few weeks ago. That target, we will reach our target of 20% by 2010 two years ahead of schedule. If you think of that two percent in 1999, 20% in 2010, it’s a fantastic achievement. And we’ve reduced Victoria’s annual greenhouse gas emissions by 1,664,000 tons a year. So these are positive things, and we’ve done that in the context of a strong economy with the lowest unemployment rate we’ve had in this state for more than 30 years.
But I think we need to do more. Across government, across business and across the community to secure our future prosperity. And that’s really what this summit is about today. Our government has called this Climate Change Summit because we realise that Victoria needs to embark on what is a new phase of climate change policy, drawing on the best data, but most importantly I think, the best ideas from across the state. And that’s why I look forward to all of the ideas that are going to come up today, through all of the working-through-its and the participation here in the main forum, and the contribution too, that Victorians and Australians make through the online forum.
The summit’s web address, by the way, is climatechange.vic.gov.au/summit. Now, before we get into the sessions proper, I do want this morning to release new modelling that outlines the potential scope for carbon abatement in stationary energy, agriculture, transport, land use, waste and industrial processes, and I want to talk briefly about the climate of opportunity that I believe global warming can create.
As I said, Victoria has set a target to reduce our carbon emissions by 60% by 2050, compared to levels in 2000. I guess the questions are: where can cuts to emissions sensibly be made? What technologies are available now? When will new technologies become available? What is our capacity to cut emissions whilst maintaining living standards? And today I’m releasing a new study which I believe answers many of those questions. The analysis, which has been by the Nous Group in partnership with Sinclair Knight Merz, with the support of an expert panel, shows that there is good reason – I repeat, there’s good reason – to expect that the cuts can be achieved. The analysis provides a basis on which to select the sectors for action, set the policies and encourage the changes in behaviour. The study focuses on six major emission-producing sectors: stationery energy, agriculture, transport, land use, waste and industrial processes. Three of those sectors: stationery energy, transport and agriculture account for 86% of Victoria’s current carbon footprint. So the project team developed a baseline scenario for Victoria and out to 2050, based on our current policy and the likely patterns of economic and population growth.
What their modelling shows, the scenario shows, is that unless we take action, Victoria’s carbon footprint will rise 35% by 2050; that is to 168 megatons. I think, and I think most people at this summit would believe that that scenario is unsustainable. So Victoria and Australia needs to take action. The question is: where?
The study focused on 21 areas to see where there was the greatest potential for emission cuts, factoring in existing and medium-term technologies and changes. And based on what were conservative assumptions, the modelling found that Victoria could make deep cuts that offered a 47% reduction against 2000 levels by 2050. That’s what their modelling showed.
In the energy sectors included, what they call the wedges, the analysis, included improving the efficiency of fossil fuel, reducing energy demands through energy efficiency improvements, and increasing low emission sources of fuel, including renewable energy. None of it is impossible. The greatest impact of individual wedges came from carbon capture storage and coal drying. But of course, these technologies are not sufficient alone.
To get there, we require a combination of new technologies with cogeneration, ‘waste to energy’ and, of course, renewables. Like Sir Rod Eddington’s East West Links Needs Assessment, the Nous study also found that transport is a significant source of growing greenhouse emissions in Victoria. Improving fuel efficiency and reducing congestion offers by far the largest potential for emissions reduction in that sector. And I also believe that hybrid vehicles have an important role to play, because if you look at the next generation of hybrids, as I did recently in Japan, they can be plugged in to recharge overnight, drive them home, plug them in at night, and of course, if you’ve got renewable energy coming through the system, you are fuelling that car then virtually totally on renewable energy.
Victoria has a real opportunity, I believe too, to lead change in the agriculture sector. We’ve got a great agriculture sector in our state – the most productive in Australia. But of course, agriculture, too, is a major source of methane and nitrous oxide from livestock grazing and cropping. Again, I think with greater use of innovation, improved soil management, livestock efficiency, the study found that significant savings – in fact, up to 40% - could be achieved.
And of course, in the waste sector, it was found that continuing to implement the governments towards zero waste strategy until 2035 would cut waste emissions in that sector by a massive 80%. The overall conclusion of the modelling is that there is considerable potential to reduce our emissions in the short, medium and long term. And what the modelling also tells us is that there is no single sector; there is no single initiative that’s going to offer the scale of emission reductions we need by 2050. There is no single magic bullet. So there will need to be many solutions which are implemented over many years in many industries and communities.
I just want to wind up today, if I can, by focusing on what I describe as the climate of opportunity. As I said at the beginning of my remarks today, there is no doubt that climate change is now radically changing the way in which the world works and lives, creating new technologies, creating new jobs, creating a new climate change economy. And in Europe, probably Germany is the best example of that. The pace of what I think is radical change is bound to accelerate over the next decade when a global trading market, a global trading price is established. And that was made very clear to me when I visited the UN Conference in Bali. I went to Bali thinking about climate change as a big challenge, making sure that I got even more up to speed on the issue, but I came back thinking that while the challenge is monumental, so too are the opportunities. And the efforts of Nicholas Stern, Al Gore, the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change, Ross Garnaut, who of course is with us today, have been instrumental in raising the public’s consciousness of climate change.
The Garnaut Climate Change Review Interim Report, which was released in late February, and the subject of a lot of public debate, as you’d expect, found that given our climate, agriculture and geographical position, we are in fact exceptionally sensitive to the impact of unmitigated climate change. Yet given our renewable and human resources, we have an exceptional opportunity, in Ross’s words, to benefit from ambitious and comprehensive mitigation.
And in my view, that rapid change will leave international communities with just really two choices. The first is, they can either move forward and adapt to that change and benefit, I believe, from billions of dollars of new investment opportunities, new technologies, new industries and new jobs that the climate change economy will generate, or we can alternatively stand back and go on with just a business-as-usual approach, let the rest of the world move past us and squander what I believe will be a chance for future prosperity and also, of course, future sustainability. And I want to make clear today that Victoria is very much in the first camp, the first option. We’re not going to miss the opportunity to become a leader in how we address climate change. And one of the best ways we can prepare for climate change is to use innovation to grow our industry and our community in a more sustainable way. And I believe that Victoria is showing national and international leadership in this regard.
On Wednesday, of course, as you saw in the press, we began the Otway Project, the Southern Hemisphere’s first trial of carbon capture and storage technologies at Noranda in the south west of the state. And Peter Batchelor as the Energy Minister was down there. I think they had a fantastic day down there, but they nearly got blown back to Melbourne. The Cooperative Research Centre for greenhouse gas technologies, in which our government has invested six million dollars, again injecting 100 thousand tons of carbon dioxide into vast subterranean reservoirs. And the Otway project will allow us to clearly demonstrate that carbon storage is possible on an industrial scale and it can make us world leaders in the development of this emerging technology.
I just want to make this point today, because all of these technologies and all of these issues get debated, and I think our leadership on climate change technologies and in this area is now internationally recognised. I’m happy to announce today that our government will sign a landmark agreement. We’ll be doing this in the next ten days with former US President, Bill Clinton’s foundation to collaborate on large scale clean energy projects and new vehicle technologies. The Clinton Climate Initiative, as you know, was launched by President Clinton in 2006 and it’s got access to US five billion dollars in finance. And under the MOU, which we will sign, Victoria and the Clinton Climate Initiative will work together to explore a number of opportunities to further cut emissions and improve energy efficiency across the state. The Clinton Climate Initiative has chosen Victoria as the place to drive carbon capture and storage because they see Victoria as the place most likely to make this new technology work for brown coal. I think that’s great news for Victoria, and down the track, of course, it’s potentially good for other countries, such as China, that are dependent on brown coal. I think this is a major vote of confidence in Victoria’s climate change credentials. The Clinton Climate Initiative will actively assist in the development of clean energy opportunities as well, based on solar, biomass, geothermal and other clean energy options, and they will help Victoria facilitate large-scale projects that demonstrate the potential of carbon capture and storage.
I believe that the creation of a carbon capture and storage hub in the La Trobe Valley as part of this MOU, of course, will also be investigated. And can I say, we are also working with the Clinton Climate Initiative to build partnerships with the private sector to accelerate the retrofit of state buildings with energy savings technology. Many of our older state buildings, of course, were two and three star energy rating. By retrofitting and improving them, the business case pays this back over a period of just over a decade. They move to four and five star. You put that with the new buildings we’re doing, like the new convention centre – not just the biggest in Australia but the greenest in Australia – with a six-star energy rating.
Other projects identified under the MOU include using the Clinton Foundation’s Purchasing Consortium to deliver low-cost clean technology, such as hybrid buses; using new financing models to accelerate the transition to low energy lighting across the state’s 460,000 street lights, and procuring alternative waste treatment technologies to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by landfill waste.
In many ways, of course, tackling climate change is as big an economic change and opportunity as the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions. You think of China – I have just come back from China – China will invest approximately US 400 billion dollars on energy efficiency projects before 2010. Twenty-five percent of the buildings in medium size cities, and ten percent of those in small cities, will be refurbished by 2020. Likewise, you look at the United States. I think it’s true to say the next president of the United States, whether it’s Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, Senator Mc Cain, will need to lead a huge effort to reduce the carbon dependency of the US economy, and all of the candidates are committed to doing that. And I think that Victoria is ideally placed to capitalise on this global shift. We’ve created, as I said, a market for renewable energy through the Victorian renewable energy target. We are creating a market for household energy savings through our Victorian energy efficiency target. We are creating a market - we are the Australian leader in this regard – for ecosystem services through the eco markets program. We’re creating a market for carbon abatement through our support for emissions trading, and we are stimulating innovation and new technologies through our Energy Technology and Innovation Strategy.
It was through ETIS, of course, that we put 50 million dollars into Solar Systems photovoltaic power station in north-western Victoria. I should just mention that it will be the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, with, of course, Federal Government’s support as well, 154 megawatts, generating enough power for 45 thousand homes. What’s that equivalent to? It’s approaching a city the size of Geelong or Hobart in terms of then providing them with a zero emissions path line. It was through ETIS also that we contributed 30 million in support and investment funds to the Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies in La Trobe Valley. And at last count, they had something like 250 applications seeking $370 million dollars in funding for projects.
Can I say to you today that our government wants to keep encouraging new projects, and in this context, I am delighted to announce today that we will be investing an additional $72 million in the Energy Technology Innovation Strategy for renewable energy projects. And that $72 million is on top of the $187 million that we’ve already invested in ETIS. The Energy Technology Innovation Strategy has been a great success for our state. It’s led to more funding from the Commonwealth and from the private sector. We’ve leveraged $250 million in support from the Commonwealth and $1.2 billion of co-investment from the private sector. The new $72 million, the new injection, will of course build substantially on that momentum. That funding will go towards large scale sustainable energy demonstration projects that position Victoria as a world leader in the fight against climate change. We will be seeking proposals for large scale pre-commercial demonstrations of sustainable energy technologies, such as solar, energy storage, biofuels, biomass conversion, geothermal energy efficiency and clean distributed energy. And our aim is really to enhance Victoria’s leadership in greenhouse technology development and expand our investment in a large scale demonstration of sustainable energy projects.
Finally today, and very briefly, the message today is that Victoria isn’t going to miss the opportunity to become a leader in the world’s rapidly emerging climate change economy. This is, we believe, a decade for action and we are already moving forward. I believe moving forward rapidly, leading the nation on sustainable energy and water recycling. We will continue to forge climate change alliances with like-minded governments, such as California and international agencies, such as the Clinton Foundation. We will continue to make new investments and find new innovations in response to climate change. And we will continue to act decisively to secure both our future prosperity and our future sustainability. Climate change is not just a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to protect our standard of living by changing the way we live and work, but doing that for the better. And it’s about preserving the health of our environment, the health of our society and about preserving the health of our economy.
Thank you for being with us today, and I hope that today is very successful as we build this partnership in tackling what is, I believe, the challenge of our generation. Thank you.
George Negus
Thanks Premier. I don’t think there is a better indication, the fact that we’re dealing with a global problem here with obviously global solutions, to have a deal being done or an arrangement being met between the Victorian Government and Bill Clinton and his lot. I’d be a bit careful, John, if I could be gratuitous about that. I would watch my back where Clinton is concerned, because if Hillary doesn’t get up, they could be looking for somewhere to live and he might to try to reinvent himself within the Australian political context. But I think the words that resonate for me from John’s opening remarks were ‘climate change economy’. Just when we thought we were getting our head around the information economy, now they’ve got another one to deal with. Thank you very much. But we need to obviously. That term itself, ‘climate change economy’, is so loaded and so potentially powerful and just a little bit ironic, that we’re trying to work out ways to take advantage of a disadvantage, proves yet again that we’re not living in the same times we used to.
Let’s hear some initial thoughts now from the Climate Change Minister, Gavin Jennings.
Minister Gavin Jennings
Thank you George. It is a privilege for me to follow the Premier. I’d like to pay my respects to the people of the Wurundjeri, of the Koori nation, and I thank Joy for her Welcome to Country. It’s also a privilege to actually follow him in terms of what has been an outstanding foundation that has been laid for our consideration today, in terms of the public policy, the issues that the Victorian Government has been the leader of in relation to national debates, being mindful of our international obligations and our international competitiveness, being mindful about the impacts upon our citizens in terms of dealing with adaptation, in dealing with equity considerations about climate change. A very well-founded foundation. And in fact, the Premier outlined a foundation through the prism of a climate of opportunity, which is the paper that you have before you, and the people of Victoria will be considering online now, and hopefully in a few months time, the segue that I’d like to create is that I’d like to see this summit as a summit of optimism. And indeed, I actually think that that’s the framework that most people, if not all people within the heart of the Victorian Parliamentary Institution, have brought together at today’s summit. And I say that because in fact, I am pretty clear, in terms of being optimistic about these issues, that there are some people in this room that I’ve actually had discussions almost 20 years ago about climate change – almost 20 years ago. And those individuals know who they are. They also know that these conversations took place in coffee shops; they were fairly secluded; but they weren’t café latte conversations, because these people did not believe in caffeine. What a transition it has been, today, that in fact this is a global conversation. So whether, in fact, you are in a corporate headquarters, or whether in fact you are in a coffee shop, whether in a neighbourhood house, whether in fact in your own house, you are actually considering the consequences of global warming, climate change and how we as a global community rise up to those challenges.
I am very pleased to say in this heart of this parliamentary democracy, we have great hearts and minds in the people of Victoria who are engaged in these issues. We have great intellectual capacity. We have great commercial capacity. We have actually great skills in not only mobilising our technology, our work practices, our daily life, the way in which we live our lives, to respond to global warming, climate change in a very positive framework. That’s the nature of people that we actually have here today. You are actually here today because you are very wise people. In fact, all members of the Victorian community would hope that this chamber would be full of wise people all the time. And part of our challenge is to respond to their expectations. Well, today is a very, very clear chance for you to demonstrate your wisdom, your thoughtfulness, your expertise that will be brought to bear to make sure that Victoria is delivering exactly what the Premier has outlined as what is the expectations of our government, is to try to make sure that we lead global considerations and an advocacy role in terms of the global community in which we live, that we have the very practical applications of what that might mean for our citizens, for our businesses, for our economy and our community going forward, and ultimately, paying the respect and the regard to our environment that in fact is the crucible by which our considerations will take place.
It’s certainly from my vantage point I’m extremely optimistic about the people, the with and wherewithall that we actually have in Victoria. The people have actually come together and being represented here at the Summit. But you’re not alone. There are people online around Victoria who are considering it now. There will be people in communities who will be engaging in these issues going forward in the months to come. Because this is the year. This is the year that we actually respond as a state, as a nation, as an international community too, what the Premier has described as the challenge of our generation. This is the year we will be establishing the architecture of a national emissions trading scheme, which will be the centrepiece of the way in which our economy responds to this challenge.
Within that context, Victoria wants to make sure that we have a rigorous, coherent, thoughtful national emissions trading scheme that not only places the transformation within our community, within our domestic economy to be well placed to respond to these challenges, but we are very mindful of how economy integrates with the international economy. How that we make sure that our businesses are internationally competitive, in fact where we might get competitive advantage.
The Premier has outlined that in fact we in Victoria believe that there are vast arrays of technological research based innovations where Victoria can have the potential to be at the leading edge of sharing our technological solutions, our innovation, our ability to adapt with the rest of the world, rather than necessarily being passive and being technology takers. That is actually something that we will tease out in the various break out groups today in a variety of contexts.
It’s very important that we actually consider how our climate change bill, which is in fact a part of the government’s intention to move forward. Whatever commitments we make in terms of legislation, regulation, market incentives within the state of Victoria, how we address what might be the market failures that come out of a national emissions trading scheme, how we deal with equity considerations. We have to see how our framework, our statutes, our programs make sure that Victoria is the leading edge of these national reforms. That is our collective challenge. Those are the range of issues that we actually were hoping that you will draw on your expertise, your skills, your passions in today’s consideration.
But these are not considerations that will just be expressed today and not followed through. Our collective challenge, and certainly the challenge that the Premier, my ministerial colleagues and I are going to respond to, is with the integration, the collaboration, the collective framework within Victoria to take these ideas, to buff and polish them, to test them out and to tease them out with our community, with our major stakeholders in terms of the commercial realities of it, the industrial practicalities of it, in the year to come so that we will actually have a green paper, white paper process, new reforms, new programs, that will build on the very, very solid foundation that the Premier has outlined for us today.
This is the year where we as a state, we as a nation can step up. I thank you for stepping up today, to being part of that important conversation. I have great confidence in what you will bring to the Summit. I thank you on behalf of my team, who work each and every second of every day on this issue, for what you will bring. We will do our best to respond to the intellectual grunt, the scientific capacity, the compassion and the commitment that people have brought to this Summit. We’ll follow through. Thank you.
George Negus:
Thanks very much Gavin. I didn’t realise this was a room full of intellectual grunters. Another new term that‘s going to emerge today. We’re getting very close to getting into the real thing, the discussion of the paper. So let’s go back to the Premier now so he can outline as he sees it what some of the important details of the Summit paper of Climate of Opportunity really area. And then we’ll get into it and that’s when you get your chance to say your piece.
Premier John Brumby:
Thanks George. I’ll be very brief. This is the paper which you’ve all got. And we’ve put a bit of work into this. I think it’s a very good paper. But this will provide the basis of many of the discussions which we’re having today.
Just a couple of things that I’d point to. If you go to pages 16 and 17 of the paper, that’s the bit on the wedges, the work that was done by Nous Group and Sinclair Knight Merz. It just shows that you look through those areas, that these changes in these areas are doable and they are achievable. In fact if you flick back a page to page 15, it’s just got examples there of the wedges across different sectors. So in energy, what do you need to examine and potentially to put in place in energy to reduce emissions by the size required by 2050? So there’s a whole lot of things there, carbon capture storage, coal drying, co-generation, renewable energy, new gas, waste to energy, retro-fitting lighting and so on. And it goes through all of that. Equipment efficiency, which is so important, so important in industry. Industrial energy efficiency. Things like metal productions.
Then it goes through transport, travel demand management, improved fuel efficiencies, increased vehicle occupancy, new technologies. It looks at agriculture. It looks at land use. It looks at waste, avoiding land fill. And of course industry, things like cement extenders. I just mentioned that because I think when you look at all of those wedges a lot of people approach this debate - I don’t think there would be too many in this room today - but a lot of people approach of this debate and think these days can’t be done. The reality is there are lots of ways in which we can make significant progress and that’s what this shows and that’s what the paper is all about. At the same time, in a sense we can have our cake and eat it too, we can improve our environment, as I said live and work better, and at the same time ensure that our economy remains strong.
So the discussions papers today, nothing is set in stone, and some of our policies are out there as you know, VRET, VEET, those things, they are there. They’re already announced. The discussion paper sets out ten broad policy directions. But what we want to hear today is your views. Are there major policy gaps in our approach? So that’s the key thing.
As Gavin said, we’ve got a fantastic group of people here today. If you think of what’s driven Victoria over decades, over generations, great people, great ideas. Turning good ideas into positive outcomes. Being able to work together. That’s what Victoria has always been great at. So are there major policy gaps in our approach? What more can we do to drive innovation and capitalise on opportunities? What about households, because there are going to be big issues for households going forward. So how do we prepare households for some of the challenges going forward?
And of course businesses. We’ve got VECCI and the AIG and the Property Council here today. I’m very proud of our strong economy. I want to keep it strong into the future. We all do. So how do we make sure that business works hand in hand with us to achieve this going forward?
Of course to the extent that we’ve examined these costs of climate change, how do we make sure, as Professor Ross Garnaut says, that the costs of climate change, of tackling climate change, are distributed fairly across the economy and fairly across the community. So they are the issues that we want to examine today and the working groups will do that. We’re also inviting public submissions and we will consider all submissions as part of the process we’re going through.
So the Summit paper today, it’s really a three page process. It’s the first step in what will be a in a sense a green paper/white paper on climate change which will end up developing our climate change policy through to 2020. Some of you might say, “Well gee, do it quicker than that.” We’ve got the big debate later this year about national emissions trading. It will be the single most important policy instrument, getting the market to work to find abatement most efficiently. So we need to work in parallel with that. So this is stage one. Stage two is green paper. Stage three is the white paper, and the white paper will be released in 2009.
So can I again thank you and look forward to your contribution on the floor here today and through all of the working groups.
George Negus:
Thanks John. Before we go on, those of us who are watching live on the web via the webcast will now be leaving us. So on behalf of the Summit, I’d like to thank those people for joining us, even though they’re out there in the ether somewhere, we can’t see what they look like, for the commencement of the Summit. I hope all of those people online will take the opportunity to have a look at the Summit discussion paper that John’s just been referring to. It’s available on the Summit site. And please participate on the online climate change forum, which is running from 10.50 to 12.30 this morning here. So thanks again to those people, those onliners as it were, for being so much a part of the day.
As the Premier pointed out, the paper has got ten broad policy directions that the government’s taking in order to open discussion on these objectives. It strikes me that probably the most important, one of the many important things John said then was that this is the first stage in the three stage affair. This is the Summit, then there’s the green paper, then there’s the white paper. So nobody is suggesting that anything that happens today is if you like set in stone. And that paper is intended to allow ideas to arise out of this Summit. So it’s admirable as the outside facilitator to see that you’re not claiming any miracle silver bullet from today’s events.
But there are two, as John indicated, two very broad questions to guide your discussions. Have all the strategic directions been canvassed where the whole issue of climate change in Victoria is concerned? Do you believe that the paper has actually done what it set out to do? And how can people move forward, how can Victoria move forward as a state in addressing the strategic directions? If we could keep the discussion within those boundaries, because I know that each of you are here for a different reason, with a different proverbial axe to grind, all of those axes being incredibly important.
But to get us going, just to sort of get our juices moving, Tim Piper. Tim of course, for those of you who don’t know us from the Australian Industry Group, could you give us a couple of minutes of your thoughts.
Tim Piper:
Thanks George. And to the Premier, congratulations and the Minister, congratulations on convening this. I must say that looking up here and looking around the people, it’s a privilege to be here. But when I’ve been sitting up there George I’ve never really been envious of the people sitting over this side of the table. So it is interesting to be down here just for a change.
We do welcome the opportunity to be here and to make comments. The Australian Industry Group, which I represent, and we represent many manufacturers and other areas of industry around Australia. We represent many companies who will be a part of the Federal Government’s emission trading scheme, together with many who will be not required to be part of the scheme.
We’ve entered into a sustainability covenant with the EPA and obviously with the Government over the years and that’s been very successful for us and for many of our companies. We have supported the introduction of a trading scheme. But a fundamental issue for us and in industry in Australia is the impact on international competitiveness of imposing costs on Australia that are not faced by our competitors in other countries. And this applies both to import competing businesses and to exporting businesses.
Just addressing international competitive issues will require a commitment we believe to least cost abatement which really is critical in Australia. There must be regulatory arrangements that support that least cost abatement. There must be appropriate compensation for those trade exposed businesses.
It is critical that we meet the environmental objectives and that we do so without imposing unnecessary costs. Regulatory arrangements should we market based and this is the reason that we support an ETS. The ETS would leave it to the market to sift through the alternative emissions reductions and select the lowest cost ones. As much as possible we should be overlaying the ETS with as few additional policy instruments as we possibly can.
As you would expect the AI Group believes that any net additions to government revenues generated by ETS or other policies should be put to reducing existing taxes, particularly those that are borne by industry. We’ve suggested already to the Federal Government there should be a reduction in the company tax to 25% to assist those companies that are going to be dealing with ETSs.
All state governments can and will have an impact in the area of complimentary measures to the Federal legislation. The Summit paper that’s been provided to us all has a primary focus on opportunities for Victoria which is absolutely appropriate. However our concern also is that the paper doesn’t fully acknowledge the extent that industry, manufacturing and in particular emissions intensive industries will be impacted and also how much this underpins the current state economy. And indeed the additional risks that an ETS may place on our economy. I noticed this morning the NSW Government has put out a comment in relation to this.
Manufacturing in Australia employs about a million people and over 300,000 here in Victoria. 90% of them are full time employees. The truth of the matter is that nearly as many people are employed in manufacturing today as there were a decade ago. Many of them are in emission intensive businesses.
We conducted a survey last year on environment sustainability in conjunction with Sustainability Victoria. Businesses regarded the highest risk from climate change to be the loss of confidence through higher prices. But 56%, and this is really important for today, 56% saw opportunities from climate change. However almost half remain undecided about what the impact might be on their business. Only one in ten felt they were informed about managing the risks of climate change. But the vast majority, the vast majority, believed that they had a responsibility to reduce emissions even where there was a cost to their businesses. But really only 14% understood ETSs, that’s the trading scheme, and 40% said they had a poor or very poor knowledge of what ETS was about.
We are supportive of the government’s ten directions that are in the Summit paper. Many really are right on the mark and have the potential to capture opportunities and challenges that are facing the state. There is no doubt this Summit also needs to consider carefully though the transitional impacts on business which are vital to our economy. Victoria’s industries, such as aluminium smelting, cement production, chemicals, food processing, have a high reliance on electricity and gas. The document shows that about 31% of all emissions are used directly or indirectly by manufacturing. So not only are companies vulnerable that import but certainly those that export as well.
Whilst we all relate to the impact on bigger companies which can easily show that they are going to be trade exposed, and assistance should be given obviously to them. There will be many smaller organisations feeling the effects of increased prices, such as our butter and cheese makers, our food processors. They’ll all be subject to things like higher transport costs.
So George, thank you for giving me the opportunity. We recognise that there are huge opportunities here for industry and that absolutely is vital. Similarly though, we must ensure the maintenance of our current economic capacity and that’s also essential as part of this discussion.
George Negus:
Before you sit down Tim, you said that as far as those ten strategy directions are concerned, the Government was on the mark. Do you see anywhere you didn’t think they were on the mark?
Tim Piper
Well one of the areas of concern George was recognising just the full impact that’s going to be on businesses around Australia, not just in Victoria. I think that there’s a low hanging fruit. I think that’s the important part of this that we can see. State government can have a big impact on delivering improvements for businesses. Our survey showed that there was significant areas that business just didn’t understand about environment change, didn’t understand how it was going to be affecting them. I’m not talking about the big guys. I’m talking about so many smaller companies who need assistance. And this is an area where the State Government can deal quickly and provide some assistance, and low hanging fruit is what it’s all about initially I would have thought.
George Negus:
Thanks Tim, thank you. Is there someone who’d like to react to what Tim is saying or make a point of their own, out of that? The burning issue that you would like to raise at this point. Please raise your hand, identify yourself and your organisation and away we go. Yes, thank you.
Graham Mitchell, Foursight Associates:
I’d like to pick up on the issue which you George mentioned and the Premier certainly reinforced that comes out of this paper, the Climate of Opportunity, and that’s this, there’s no one silver or magic bullet. There’s a series of activities. But I think we all know in our heart of hearts that there are some big ticket items. The Premier mentioned how there’s big opportunities for Victoria. Well of course some of our detractors elsewhere might say, “Well you’ve got big opportunities because you have got some sort of history there in Victoria about some of the industries,” I think it was called emission intensive industries. I think we do have to acknowledge that we have got some particular issues and opportunities for...
George Negus:
Any particular colour in mind?
Graham Mitchell:
Brown is the one. And I think we don’t shy away from that. And of course we hear time and time again, “That’s an opportunity.” It’s not the millstone around our neck. But there are some issues there of course which we don’t shy away from. We admit them and we go from there.
As I say, there is no one magic bullet. But what I like about this paper is that it starts to quantitate what the effects of a particular activity should be. And I think that’s what the people of Victoria demand and require. Well if I did this, what is the impact? I encourage that, what is the likely to be, the quantitation of the impact? And I think with those wedges I start to see the elements of, “If we did this, this is the magnitude of the consequence” As a scientist we love data. We love quantitation. We need to know input activity here, what is the likely consequence? Is it tokenism or is meaningful. I’d just like to commend the authors of this wedges approach of the start of the quantitation. Thank you.
George Negus:
Thank you. I’m looking forward to the wedges section myself because I have to acknowledge a high degree of total ignorance. I thought wedges were entirely different things. But we are re-writing the language apart from anything else. Alan Pears, if you would. Alan’s from the RMIT of course.
Alan Pears:
Thanks very much George. Thanks very much for the opportunity to attend what I think is a pretty exciting day.
I wanted to turn to the challenges right at the start of the paper. I think it is very important for us to define the challenges well. I’d like to suggest for example instead of just driving significant greenhouse emission reductions, adding the words ‘consistent with climate change science and global equity’ as an element of that, because we really do have to focus on outcomes in this process.
Another aspect in addition to what I think are a really good statement of challenges is maybe to think in terms of how we can influence other jurisdictions. I’m conscious that Victoria has got a close relationship for example with India over the Commonwealth Games. There are great opportunities for Victorians and Australians to help other countries engage in really positive ways and share the lessons from the experiences.
George Negus:
Thanks Alan. Don’t forget when you’re on your feet to tell us who you are and your organisation, so everybody knows where you’re coming from, at least at the outset. Cath Smith is with us. If we could hear from you Cath, obviously you’re from the Victorian Council of Social Services, the human impact I imagine that, you tell us.
Cath Smith, Victorian Council of Social Services:
Yes thank you very much. VCOSS is very happy to be invited today and really appreciate these efforts. And certainly, because I used to work in the environment movement, I can’t imagine a time from twenty years ago when this kind of discussion could have happened in this kind of environment. So congratulations on that. I don’t think I was the person that had the coffee with, I’ve always drunk caffeine.
I guess the sort of key areas that I feel are really worthy of attention are the areas in terms of abatement, thinking about the mitigation, obviously we’re thinking about particular places and population groups around the state that are going to be particularly affected by this change. How do we work with those groups? In terms of the impact of rising prices, it’s been raised in the report, I think there’s – and Tony Nicholson from the Brotherhood may well be speaking further about that. The sorts of cost of living increases which we’re going to be looking at in terms of quite large parts of our community. We really need to be thinking about how do we mitigate some of those impacts in terms of cost pressures. And I think we need to find the balance in terms of direct compensation versus if you like systemic and regulatory measures.
So there’s one issue which is have you got enough money to pay your rent once you’ve paid your utility bills. The other one is how can we as a broader community assist to subsidise and support some systemic change around things like thermal efficiency standards and other measures that are going to be able to assist people to pay their way.
The other side I suppose is how do we support the wide range of groups that are dealing with the regional change, the community change. And that’s not just about, while the black balloon campaign has been very powerful, there’s a whole lot of work that needs to occur at the, if you like, at the community level, working through community organisations, local government and a range of other local businesses to really engage people at the community level. And that goes well beyond a broad policy discussion. That’s about how do we actually work in communities to strengthen their resilience for the changes ahead.
George Negus:
Thanks Cath. Is the black balloon campaign strictly Victorian John? It’s spread to other states?
Premier John Brumby:
It’s going to America.
George Negus:
Really. Sounds like a great idea to me, at least as good as a fridge magnet.
Premier John Brumby:
It gets the story across. It gets the message across.
George Negus:
In all of these issues, when we first started discussing environment preservation it was always somebody else’s job to do the dirty work as it were until the kids started telling us to stop using coloured toilet paper. That’s a very good point that Cath makes, because it is such an inclusive issue. It has to work its way down from the top at least or work its way up from the bottom, who knows. Thank you very much Cath. Ian McPhail is with us. Ian’s the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability. Ian?
Ian McPhail, Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability:
Thank you very much George. I certainly commend the Premier and the Minister for the introduction today and also for the very excellent paper. I also commend the impetus that brought together this meeting, and I think we’re going to have a really good day.
Talking about black balloons, I did hear recently that for teenage boys it’s probably worthwhile talking about Holden utes. How many Holden utes you’re sending up in the sky. It might be just a little more expressive. So John Thwaites, if you could add that to your original idea, I think it could be helpful. So how many Holden utes are we going to save?
But look I just wanted to reinforce a point that has already been started this morning. And that is that this has to be a science driven debate. In other words, we either accept the science and if we accept the science, then the reductions are going to have to be made. Already in the debate in Australia we are now talking about exceptions, who should be left out, who should be compensated, who should be allowed to freely continue to emit, while others would have to bear the costs of carrying out abatement? I think it’s very important we’re doing this because the science says that we have a significant and potentially traumatic change ahead of us.
There’s also another fallacy that I also hear frequently and that is that people talk about making some changes and then believing everything will be the same at some time in the future. We’re talking about a physical context which will bring about major change if we don’t begin to change ourselves. So the very industries and activities that we might be trying to protect now may in fact not be able to operate at some time in the future because of the changed physical circumstances. And I think we have to get that firmly in our head.
The transition is important and governments and Premiers are going to go grey in the hair working out all of the transitional arrangements that are going to be required to get us through this period. But the changes are going to have to be made.
And last, it doesn’t have to be a cost. It’s only a cost if an industry or an activity does nothing. If an industry or an activity does nothing and therefore has to buy permits to continue to pollute, it will be a cost. It won’t be a cost if they take the opportunity under the trading scheme and under the other schemes to bring about efficiencies and alterations and new technologies in their businesses, and therefore the costs will be significantly reduced as well as the efficiencies.
If I can have a last last, there is a whole world of building technology and the like which we haven’t really explored and which has very low costs involved in its introduction.
I’m sorry to have spoken so long. But I think that having lived my life in the galleries like most public servants, it’s a great opportunity to stand up and tell the politicians what they should have been told.
George Negus:
Thank you Ian. By the way, Gavin Jennings is actually twenty eight years old and had brown hair a year ago, to make your point.
Were you saying really, what struck me you were saying was that there will be some part of the mentality, certainly the public mentality, that if governments and science get on top of this problem we’ll go back to living the life we led before the problem arose. Wrong. We’ve got to find a new paradigm for normality, is that what you’re saying? Life aint going to be...Maybe George Bush what he said about after September 11th, the world will never be the same again. Sorry George, that was always going to be the case. But that’s what we’re talking about isn’t it. Thank you. Somebody from the body.
Robyn McLeod, KPMG:
First of all congratulations on the Summit Premier, and for the invitation to be here. The first direction that you talk about talks about the opportunities that will come to our state through new technologies, particularly linked to low carbon. I’d like to add to that that I think there are enormous opportunities that are going to come from adaptation to climate change.
The most significant impact of climate change that we are starting to see in Australia ahead of probably the rest of the world is in water resource management, whether it be reductions in rainfall or in fact storm events in parts of our country. I think the opportunities that come from looking at water resource management for our economy, particularly around things like irrigation modernisation, desalinisation and particularly the opportunities to find low energy forms of desal. technology and particularly the maintenance and operations of new desal. plants around our country, recycling opportunities, demand management opportunities and particularly some of the market mechanisms and the market instruments we’ll be able to find to develop water trading and water industry technologies in our country, are a significant opportunity for our economy that comes from adaptation. I hate to think that through climate change we are going to need to find such economic development growths. But certainly the water industry is an area of significant opportunity for our country to be world leaders.
George Negus:
Thank you, thanks Robyn. As somebody said very crudely in a similar situation to this one that I was in recently, that maybe the problem will be solved when the business community works out ways to make a buck out of solving it, which is a layman’s way of putting it. But this is what the word opportunity is getting at in this whole discussion. We could say that about a lot of things in life, but certainly about hits one because almost twelve months ago even we were talking about how it was an insoluble problem. Now we’re talking about money making solutions. We’ve come a long way in a short time.
Speaking of which, Tony Arnel is the Victorian Building Commissioner. And I’m sure we’re already talking about the impact upon the sort of houses we live in and the sort of buildings we work in.
Tony Arnel, Victorian Building Commissioner:
Thanks very much George. I’ve just been encouraged by the Premier to say something about the building sector, so I suppose I should do that. As it’s been pointed out this morning, urgency is the name of the game in many respects. Some of you will have read the recent McKenzie work and that is the greenhouse gas abatement curve, opportunities for Australia. That does in fact build on the international work that was published about twelve months ago. What that showed though was that essentially the building sector, as many of you are aware, is uniquely placed to deliver on what we can say is least cost greenhouse gas abatement opportunities here in Australia.
I think even more importantly as I say when we talk about where the opportunities are, the building sector can respond quickly. On the demand side when we look at where the opportunities are, it is very evident when you do the analysis that the building sector is, as I say,....What I’m talking about here is not only new buildings but importantly existing buildings as well. And things, when you look at the McKenzie work, things as simple as insulation, hot water, lighting, things as simple as window glazing, the way we design our buildings, are all very well placed to deliver short term, least cost greenhouse gas reductions. I think it’s a very important aspect of the conversation today that the building sector can respond in a very timely and important way.
George Negus:
Thank you very much Tony.
Cr Janet Rice, City of Maribyrnong, Victorian Local Governance Association and Metropolitan Transport Forum:
It is a great pleasure to be here down at the Chamber here today and talking with Ministers as I was, I did have conversations with over twenty years ago, having been speaking about climate change for over two decades. I’d like to reiterate the point of the need for the science to drive what our targets are. I think it’s a great start. I think the Summit paper is a great start and I think the Victorian Government’s target of a 60% reduction by 2050 is a great start.
But if we look at what the science is telling us, we need to be doing more than that. Certainly from our City of Maribyrnong’s perspective, when we looked at it and decided what did we need to be doing to be tackling climate change, we pretty quickly came to the conclusion that we needed to be aiming to be carbon neutral. We need to be looking at 80 or 90% reductions in carbon emissions. So I think that’s the sort of context that we need to be setting what we’re doing today.
I think in many ways it’s not going to influence so much exactly what we’re doing because if we start taking actions to be heading for a 60% cut it’s setting us well on the track to be getting that 80 or 90% cut that the science mean requires us as a developed nation with high greenhouse gas emissions compared with the rest of the world. That’s the sort of levels of cuts in emissions we are going to have to be looking at in Victoria to be playing our part in reducing global emissions.
George Negus:
Have you got anything in particular to say about, in you putting on your transport hat?
Cr Janet Rice, City of Maribyrnong, Victorian Local Governance Association and Metropolitan Transport Forum:
Well my transport hat I think, the focus on low emission vehicles is very important. But it’s not going to do it. It’s not going to deliver the greenhouse gas emissions that we need to have, that we need to have the getting people out of their private cars onto public transport. We need to be getting as much freight as possible off our roads and onto rail and to be having a real focus on that to be reducing those transport emissions, to be getting the sorts of cuts that we need to have.
George Negus:
The Premier and I were both at the Urban Development Conference a couple of weeks ago and I heard this new phrase, of transit oriented development. And maybe we shouldn’t be a nation of suburbs the way we have been for so long. In fact the first paragraph of the Urban Development Institute of Australia says we are a nation of suburbs. Well maybe we should scrub that out and start going up rather than out. But what would I know?
The transport thing is a huge aspect of this problem obviously. If people haven’t got to use vehicles, maybe there won’t be as much problem from vehicles. There’s a sermon on behalf of public transport but we all do that.
Simon Ramsay is with us. Simon, from the Victorian Farmers Federation, because as the Premier mentioned, there’s a huge agricultural aspect to all this, for such an agriculturally oriented state.
Simon Ramsay, Victorian Farmers Federation:
Thanks George and thank you Premier for the invitation. I’m glad to see you acknowledged agriculture as being one of the key industries that will be impacted by climate change I also note in the paper. Can I just first say George agriculture does manage 66% of the land mass here in Australia. So we do have opportunities to provide offset. And I’d just like to refer back to the page shortly in relation to some of the comments about offsets.
But just on a generic basis, we certainly see symptoms of long term climate change that should not be confused with short term variability, and that’s been a reality for Victorian farmers. Agricultural communities have proven to be resilient to adverse weather conditions and have adapted to productions systems to manage the risk of Australian variable climate.
However agriculture production itself is very susceptible to adverse climatic variability and that’s acknowledged in the paper. Then there is a limit to the capacity of individual farmers to adapt to changing climate.
Victorian farmers have made significant steps to prepare their businesses for future involving less rainfall events and less water availability than have been utilised in the past. We also believe a whole of government approach is warranted in managing this risk. However, the VFF can see the emerging risk of the effective utilisation of resources target to addressing climate change issues.
Now I know that’s a bit of a statement, but what I want to perhaps identify one is the ETSs. We have some concerns in agriculture being a covered sector at this stage given that we can’t measure the emittents. Unfortunately in this country we have five sheep per person, I think second only to New Zealand. And the sheep industry is acknowledged as possibly being one of the largest emitters in the livestock industry in this country. So before we enter an ETS we’ll have some reservations about the appropriate science and measurement so we can actually provide a balance between offsetting sequestration and emittance.
The other issue I’d perhaps draw to your attention if I can, if the Premier will allow me, the section on Victorian regions in the paper on page 19. And it’s good to see that you’ve actually rural and regional communities being most likely to be hit harder by climate change than urban areas. But I’d like to draw your attention to the fourth paragraph down. “Although traditional agricultural practices may suffer in some areas, there are already massive opportunities to be harnessed through alternative land management practices such as growing trees.” The question I perhaps pose to this Summit is that it shouldn’t be the only solution. We’re not providing or removing food production to provide trees to offset for industry’s carbon footprints. We are greatly concerned that any system that actually removes the ability of changing land use from food production to offsetting carbon footprints. So I’d perhaps raise that as some discussion during the day.
George Negus:
Thank you. I’m sure Ross Garnaut could tell us about it. But the difficulty, so many difficulties to be resolved. But the bio-fuel industry, nicking land for food production, is going to become an increasingly large or global issue I would have thought. It’s all very well for us to get rid of crops to grow bio-fuel crops as such. But where does that lead us? So the balance has got to be struck. Is that what you seem to be suggesting? Thank you.
Eric Bottomley, CERES:
I note that we have a very comfortable discussion going on about like the technocratic approaches to climate change, and there will be a lot of consensus on that and I agree with it too. But when we look at the writings of people like Hawkins and Lovins on factor ten, factor four systems, we find that even technology people say there are three broad groups of things we have to tackle. And these three groups of things are, one: making full use of the ingenuity and innovations, scientific knowledge and so on that we seem to be focused on today. But there are two other things that these technologies point out that we should be looking at. One is population, that if we just ignore population growth it makes it rather more difficult to solve these other issues.
So I can’t imagine that we’ll have a climate age economy and society without at some stage grappling with the idea of an ecologically sustainable population for Melbourne and for Victoria. This is a discussion that’s always omitted. So the population number.
And then secondly, the restoration of words like frugality and simple living. We’re not just on about science I don’t think in finding solutions to this issue. We’re on about morality as well. And we go to a sort of Gandhian phrase like, “The rich have to learn to live simply so the poor may simply live.” So it’s a major challenge of equity, global equity and local equity that we have to face up to as well.
So I think for me, those three things would go together. The discussion that we’re having so far about scientific improvement, technological innovation and so on, absolutely vital. But as well as that, what would be an ecologically sustainable population. And how can we learn to live a little more simply and restore frugality.
George Negus:
And change in ideology apart from anything else. Good point. The bell’s going to ring and shoo us out of here in a moment, but John Thwaites is with us. You can take the boy out of politics but you can’t take the politics out the boy as it were. John in his role from the Climate Group:
John Thwaites, The Climate Group:
Thanks George. I never thought I’d be back on this side of the House. The Premier indicated the need to take account of equity issues when we act on climate change and we certainly need to do that. Most of the research that’s been done in the case that those who are going to be hit hardest by climate change and the action that we take on climate change will be low income households. A higher portion of their weekly expenditure goes on carbon related matters, that’s fuel, electricity and some of the food and other items. They have less discretion to be able to buy the insulation and the other things that are going to help meet the demands of a carbon constrained society.
I think it’s very positive that this Summit though is putting terms of opportunities. So what I would say is we need to be concentrating on providing the opportunity for low income households to better prepare themselves for climate change. And that means not simply seeking to compensate households, although that is probably appropriate, partly from the proceeds of auctioning of permits for emissions trading, but to help households to become more energy efficient now. That will mean a massive ramping up of programs around energy efficiency, especially working with low income households who often have very inefficient fridges, no insulation, poor housing stock.
The other point I’d make today is that there will, as the Premier said, be huge focus on emissions trading this year and the emissions trading scheme. But there will need to be an acknowledgement that emissions trading by itself will not achieve a number of the things in this paper. Just a few of those: carbon capture and storage. I think it’s very unlikely that emissions trading will in the next ten to fifteen years provide anything like the carbon price that will be required for carbon capture and storage. Second, energy efficiency, where energy efficiency is absolutely vital but will not be sufficiently incentivised through emissions trading.
Third is research, where research is fundamental to everything that we do in this area. And that will require substantial funds. And finally buildings, as Tony Arnel said, which produce about 25% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. We will need to get that down. That can be done at very low cost but it won’t happen through emissions trading.
George Negus:
Thanks John. Just before we go, and as you can see that time is going to disappear when we’re having so much productive fun. But what we’re already discovering that other than today the time for talk is over. People are talking about the practical application of everybody’s acceptance of the problem which is a breakthrough in this sort of situation.
We’re going into the coffee break in a moment and I need to tell you what will happen from that point on if you haven’t already worked it out. When you move into Queen’s Hall for morning tea, it’s important that you all remember what break out group you are in for the next session. When the Parliament bell rings at the end of morning tea you need to move to the board in Queen’s Hall with details of your break out group so that you can be escorted to the correct room or area where your group will be meeting.
Each of your break outs is being hosted by a Minister and a discussion leader. And many of you I’m sure will have had a chance to read the paper, we hope you have, and will raise some very interesting questions for these people to answer. The Premier is going to be moving around, he’s with us all day, he’s going to be moving around each of the break outs.
At 12.30 when you finish that break out session after the morning tea break, we’ll be moving back into Queen’s Hall for lunch and to hear Ross Garnaut tell us how he sees Victoria fitting in onto the world stage on this whole issue. I think it’s probably worth reminding ourselves that as admirable as the Victorian initiative, an initiative like this is, the problem let alone the solution doesn’t stop at the Murray as I suggested, or anywhere. This is much bigger than that. But I think you’ve set the pace. I don’t know, whether I’m right or not John, that the other states haven’t done something like this yet.
Premier John Brumby:
I don’t think they’ve done a Summit like this.
George Negus:
So I hope the copycat thing doesn’t stop them from doing it. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. But I imagine the 2020 thing will hopefully pull all that together if COAG doesn’t. We do live in different times. It helps to have governments of the same party in power all over the country I guess. But he did say that the buck stopped with him didn’t he at one stage. We’ll have to straighten him out on that score I suppose. Enjoy your morning tea and then the breakout sessions. You can see how few people have got to speak so far. But shoot your mouth off in the breakout sessions.
