Australia failing Kyoto targets

[albert5268]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21629269-2,00.html

oh dear, looks like we are gonna broil...

whats peoples stance on global warming? you hear so many different things about it its hard to know what to believe.

[minux]

Theres too many views, the hippy scientists are saying its global warming, the rest are saying the earth is just following a pattern it has followed for millions of years. I tend to stick to the latter. Seems like its heading for a natural cull of the human population.

[albert5268]

either way whatever we do we're gonna be interfering with nature

[NVE_069]

Yeh its happend long b4 we were here and i think it will happen again oneday probably not my life time but it will happen. We are already interfering with nature anyhow. Its the cycle of the earth so be it lol.

[mulligan-can]

-sigh- Australia can't comply without totalling our economy We already import more then we export and the government seems intent on making us more and more reliant on external everything. If we seriously went about cutting emmissions our industries would suffer greatly. We'd also have no real alternative to nuclear power as at present we use dirty filthy coal for most of it (oh and we have some pretty massive uranium deposits so nuclear fuel may end up cheaper then coal :S).

Basically we cannot win either way in Australia. So bugger Kyoto (I swear we didn't even sign it so who cares?).

[pow3rslave]

i just wonder why we signed it if we won't ratify it

[albert5268]

we didn't sign it.... the gov just said we were on target and now it seems we aren't

[Reaper]

There is no easy answer to this question. I have no doubt that society is contributing to the greenhouse effect but as to how much that is still debatable. The world has been gradually changing temperature for it's entire existence and to know for sure what amount is natural and what is caused by humans is impossible to say. Reducing carbon emissions in principal is a good thing though - even if we are 100% wrong and are not contributing to global warming at all. This is provided that any alternative technologies we use are not worse!

Next we need to consider Australia's contribution. My understanding is that Aus contributes less than 1% of the total carbon emissions in the world. (I could stand corrected on the exact number however it is very low). From an economic viewpoint, a large contributor to emissions are manufacturing, power generation and transport industries.

Manufacturing in Australia is already stressed. For Australia to lead the way and "clean up" manufacturing whilst non-kyoto countries like China and USA simply replace our manufacturing achieves nothing beyond putting our people out of work (our "green" manufacturing job disappears and goes OS to a "dirty" country and we are back at square 1 environmentally).

Transport and power generation are areas that could be cleaned up as neither of these industries can easily be shipped overseas. Australian society needs to decide weather they are willing to pay the extra costs of the "green" solution.

Lets consider energy generation. What options are there? Solar, Nuclear, Hydro, wind, gas, coal etc etc etc. In reality only Nuclear, Hydro and Gas/Coal are suitable for base load requirements. My personal pick would be Nuclear but that is an entirely different thread.

That leaves transport. Over time it will more or less solve itself. For petrol engines, governments around the world can play a large part in supporting the development of hybrid and alternative fuel source technologies. The biggest step when a viable replacement for the diesel engine is found/developed. I have no idea what is on the horizon in that respect.

Reaper

[Ripcell]

we dont have to worry about a thing untill we sort out bloody china and japan first

[pow3rslave]

we didn't sign it....

uh, yeah. we did

Note: Signing is optional, indicating intention to ratify

[vtdemon]

I'm not a hippy scientist and I believe it's global warming. I think if it was a natural cycle it would be a lot more gradual, not sea levels rising subsantially in a year or world average temps going up a degree in a couple of years.(Don't know facts or have actual figures these are examples)

We as a race have contributed a lot to the current condition of the planet, I think it's obvious we have had more than a bit to do with it.

Just my beliefs.

[Grennan]

Well, Im probally going to get flammed for this. But Im working on the theory that im going to be dead by the time all this global warming crap takes effect. So i really dont care.

Its overrated in my opinion. I love it how you turn the news on and everything is global warmings fault... Droughts, Tsunamis etc etc. Next Global Warming will be causing Cancer.

[schmo]

Carbon emissions were disproved ages ago for great affects into global warming. This however doesn't mean that they don't indirectly cause damage to the enviornment namely forests and agriculture.

As for the cyclical process of the earth there's three processes which overlap - one that deals with decades, one that deals with centuries, and one that deals with well.... a far larger time gap (millions - ie ice age etc). If you follow computer modelling the earth at this time should infact actually be hotter with higher levels of water as we are ALMOST in the peak of all three of the cyclical patters. This should reside in the next 20 years or so which will reduce temperatures (note the irony that we are worried about too much water in the sea and not enough on land? hmm... desalinisation might be an idea hey?)

As for reducing carbon emissions there is really no need to at this time as we only contribute roughly 9% of the TOTAL global emissions - the remaining 91% is contributed by nature itself. The earth will gradually become in equilibrium with this and the effects of the so called 'global warming' - the destruction of the ozone/stratosphere will balance itself out gradually (probably 100ish years). Having said all that in roughly 20 years scientists should be able to manufacture parts of the ozone anyway to replace what is destroyed and nuclear power (possibly nuclear fission (completely clean)) will become available.

Most of the scientists not on the government paycheque are highly sceptical about the findings and no real evidence to this stage has been presented. Listening to these scientists who are paid in excess of a million dollars a year will set us back many many years.

Edit: Unless we've signed the kyoto protocol within the last week we have not signed it. They are merely comparing where we stand against the protocol - we haven't actually signed it due to howard not really giving a toss....

[Morton]

Meh, global warming or not, ocean levels were once 15m higher than they are today. I doubt that reducing our emissions are going to stop this happening again in a few million years.

[albert5268]

uh, yeah. we did

Signed but not intending to ratify

• Australia
• United States

[Reaper]

Edit: Unless we've signed the kyoto protocol within the last week we have not signed it. They are merely comparing where we stand against the protocol - we haven't actually signed it due to howard not really giving a toss....

Wikipedia aside, I'm still pretty certain that Aus has not signed the protocol. My personal theory is that John Howard's stand is purely political and is setting up the Labor party for a fall. To sign (and ratify) that will undoubtedly cost jobs in Australian manufacturing whilst having no change to overall world wide carbon emissions. It will come down to voting for Australian jobs or not.

Reaper

[albert5268]

I was not aware we had signed until just now, guess my geography teacher was wrong!

This is from a government site so I'm guessing it should be right;

Australia signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. By signing the Protocol, countries agree to continue with the treaty-making process, but do not consent to be bound by the Protocol. The rules for implementing the Protocol were developed following COP 3, with negotiation concluded at COP 7 in Marrakesh, November 2001. After entry into force on 16 February 2005, the Protocol will be legally binding for countries that have ratified it (referred to as ‘Parties to the Kyoto Protocol’).

http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/international/kyoto/
--
So i guess signing the protocol didn't mean anything for us.