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Thursday 25 October 2007 (Updated 26 October 11am AEST)

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Time to ditch Kyoto? – experts respond

The effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol has again come under fire in a commentary in the journal Nature today. Below several Australian experts give their view on Kyoto and whether it has outlived its usefulness. AusSMC will run an ongoing commentary from experts on Kyoto and related issues in the lead up to the UNFCCC meeting in Bali in December. More information will be posted soon.

The views expressed below are the personal opinions of the experts named here. They do not represent the views of the AusSMC or any other organisation unless specifically stated.

Feel free to use these comments in your stories. If you would like a copy of the paper or wish to speak to one of these experts, don’t hesitate to contact us on 08 8207 7415 or email us.

Mr Barney Foran is visiting fellow at the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University. He led the Resource Futures Programme at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems and has a background in agriculture, ecology and physical economics.

Kyoto's stunning successes are two. The world now has an organised venue to talk about greenhouse and agreed protocols on how to measure and report on emissions, country by country. The Prins and Rayner call to focus mitigation specifically on the top 20 countries is justified, to reduce transaction costs and move fluently to real action. Most immediately, greenhouse emissions should be attributed to the country of final consumption, rather than the country of original production. The ever growing greenhouse challenge caused by consumption over the century just past can then be sheeted home to the EU-15, USA and Japan with China catching up fast.

The developed world is affluent enough to adjust their lifestyles and afford the large structural changes required in their own energy systems before passing those technology fixes onto the developing world. In the end, the problem is a physical one and must be solved physically. Thus capping systems at whatever social and economic cost, promises the only route to success. The uneasy question remains of how does global economic growth and integration continue, when every monetary unit relies on energy processing and greenhouse emissions? Thermodynamically it is probably impossible. It may take Kyoto-type meetings another two decades to work that one out.

Snow Barlow is Professor of Horticulture and Viticulture and Head of the School of Agriculture and Food Systems at the University of Melbourne

"Prins and Rayner have given us a timely and eloquent wake-up call for the need for fresh thinking in addressing the urgent need to avoid dangerous climate change. The UNFCCC has provided an excellent framework for international action on greenhouse issues, but as one who had a role in the negotiation of Kyoto Protocol and has some emotional attachment to it, I have begun to have grave doubts about its capacity to deliver emission reductions of the scale required to avoid dangerous climate change. The research report earlier in the week detailing an increase in the rate of carbon dioxide accumulation from 1.3%/yr to 3.3%/yr as a result of increasing emissions, increasing intensity of emissions in global economic growth and most worrying of all, a decreasing absorptive capacity of the terrestrial and oceanic sinks starkly outlines the urgency for action. The Kyoto Protocol was intended to stabilise global emissions at 1990 levels, but we are already 30% above the 1990 levels before the first 2008-2012 commitment period and can reasonably expect to be 40-50% above it in 2012 with the world’s 2 largest emitters either with no legal or moral commitment!

If not Kyoto, then what? What do we need in any new agreement? Any new agreement needs to include all major players. It needs to accommodate adaptation as well as mitigation because these are linked not only biophysically, but also socially. It needs to find mechanism global emission goal. In my view, the existing Kyoto Protocol with its top down, government approach does not seem capable of meeting these requirements. I think it is time to consider alternative approaches because a new suit will not address these issues and further delay action until 2013. and has already delayed significant action for a decade. While not an economist, I do see value in the co-ordinated individual national approach, where we seek to manage global atmospheric carbon in much the same way that we manage the global economy. Such an approach could incorporate global business who are already factoring in the cost of carbon.

Obviously Kyoto must continue until a new approach can be developed. We urgently need an informed debate of more inclusive and co-ordinated approaches to a global goal."

Professor Warwick J McKibbin is Executive Director of the Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis (CAMA), ANU College of Business & Economics, Australian National University. He is also a Professorial Fellow at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia, a Non Resident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC and a Board Member of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

"The authors are spot on in their critique of the Kyoto Protocol. As we argued in our 2002 book published by the Brookings Institution on "Climate Policy After Kyoto: A Blueprint for Realistic Approach" the Kyoto Protocol is fatally flawed because it ignores the enormous uncertainties surrounding climate change. The Kyoto Protocol will not reduce emissions for the reasons outlined in that article and our book. It has generated a lobby group who have prevented other more credible approaches from being implemented. Remember that the Kyoto Protocol was never a plan it was a political compromise hammered out by exhausted negotiators. On the eve of the first commitment period from 2008 to 2012 we see that most Kyoto countries are nowhere near reaching their Kyoto targets. We have seen clearly that a promise to only ratify the Kyoto Protocol is not a serious climate policy. The post 2012 period will require an agreement fundamentally different to the Kyoto strategy of targets and timetables negotiated from the top down. What is required is a coordinated system of national policies (particularly involving the G8 plus 5 main developing countries) designed so that all participants have the incentive to be involved because it is in their national self interest. It is a shame that the Kyoto approach has delayed effective world action on climate change policy for at least a decade."

Professor Barry Brook is Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

“There are few more vexed issues in climate change policy than the merits and flaws of the Kyoto protocol. The paper by Prins & Rayer points these out eloquently, and I do not disagree with their arguments. But the danger in abandoning the Kyoto process is two-fold. First, it means we effectively step back from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which stipulates explicitly that we need to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system). Second, if not Kyoto, then what? The prospect of building an entirely new international agreement is, frankly, daunting, and raises the terrifying spectre of yet another decade of delay, diplomatic wrangling and nationalistic plea bargains for ‘special cases’ such as Australia. All whilst the climate system races beyond catastrophic tipping points.

So I think the Bali accord has to be Kyoto in a new business suit – the same bloke, but playing more seriously in a game of far higher stakes. The analogy of the world needing to put energy R&D on a ‘wartime footing’ is an apt one. As Churchill said: 'It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required'.”

Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Professor Lowe is a well known commentator on energy and environmental policy.

"The Kyoto protocol was intended to be the first step in a three-stage process to put the Framework Convention on Climate Change into practice. As the first step, it aimed to stabilise the greenhouse gas emissions from the OECD countries at the 1996 level for the 2008-2012 period. This was a radical departure from the previously-assumed inevitable exponential growth. The second step was intended to be genuine reductions in the OECD nations, followed by an inclusive global agreement.

The Kyoto agreement has not been fully implemented, partly because the USA and Australia have failed to ratify it and partly because some other nations have failed to honour their commitments. The Bali conference in December must incorporate these failings into its forward plan to achieve GENUINE reductions by the OECD nations post-2012, with new targets that reward those who have acted responsibly in implementing Kyoto and impose heavier burdens on those who have been irresponsible. The overall framework must be a 'contract and converge' approach with the aim of equitable global emission targets by the middle of the century.”

William Kininmonth is a meteorologist and an outspoken critic of global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. He was head of the National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology from 1986 to 1998.

"Kyoto epitomises a flawed theory of dangerous global warming that has more relevance to mysticism than to science. Each of the IPCC reports has clearly pointed out that carbon dioxide will have little additional impact as its concentration increases. A doubling of concentration from the current 400 ppm to 800 ppm, as predicted by the end of the century, will increase the carbon dioxide component of the greenhouse effect only by about 10 percent.

Surface warming is strongly constrained by evaporation. Seventy percent of the Earth's surface is ocean and the warmest temperatures are about 30C. The increased evaporative energy loss from heating the ocean surface one degree is far greater than the increased radiation forcing generated by doubling carbon dioxide concentration. Dangerous global warming due to enhanced carbon dioxide defies the basic laws of physics. Recently published papers in the scientific literature have identified that the computer models used in the latest IPCC report seriously underspecify the rate of increase of evaporation with temperature. At only one-third of the observed rate, on average, it is not surprising that many of the current computer models grossly exaggerate the potential threat posed by human activities. The faith in computer model projections, the basis of global warming hysteria, is seriously misplaced and it is time to ditch the Kyoto Protocol"

Professor Stephen Lincoln is from the School of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Adelaide.

“At its inception it was understood that the Kyoto Protocol was an interim measure applying until 2012 which mandated greenhouse gas emissions for those developed nations which ratified it. It was recognised that it would need to be replaced by a more comprehensive protocol which included commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions from developing nations such as China and India. Although the Kyoto emission targets have yet to be met, there is little doubt that it has at least in part accelerated the race to alternative energy generation in both developed and developing nations. Australia should be very supportive of Kyoto. We produce 1.5% of global carbon dioxide emissions such that 98.5% of the resulting climate change we experience is produced by other nations. Our climate is at the mercy of these nations. Had we signed the Kyoto Protocol we might have had more impact on climate negotiations and the major greenhouse gas emitters. Kyoto provides a less than perfect path to a broader and more inclusive approach to mitigating climate change. This has become even more urgent as it is now apparent that atmospheric carbon dioxide is growing at 3% annually. Any weakening of the Kyoto Protocol before its successor is negotiated would sent the wrong message and might cause the world at large to think that the urgency of tackling climate change has lessened.”

Professor Jim Falk, Director, Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society (ACSIS) at the University of Melbourne. Professor Falk has a PhD in theoretical physics and has researched and written extensively on energy technology and policy issues over the last 30 years.

“The article by Prins and Rayner raises interesting points, although none of them are new. It makes a strong case for the inadequacies of what has been done in relation to what needs to be done to confront the challenge posed by global warming. But it is unpersuasive on two points. The first is that the various approaches that it advocates will work adequately in time. And the second is that these approaches are in fact so opposed to the approaches established under the Kyoto Protocol, that it is not possible to move forward on both fronts.

In my view, we would be foolish to throw away the very important momentum built up internationally under Kyoto in recognising and beginning to deal with global warming. These initiatives can be innovatively extended, and the discussion is already well under way on how best to do that. But we would also be foolish to fail to innovate along the lines suggested by Prins and Rayner. Let’s get on with both, and quickly.”

Dr Ben McNeil is Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales' Climate Change Research Centre

"Just because many countries will not meet their Kyoto targets doesn't mean Kyoto is a failure. Establishing a carbon emissions market, increasing public R&D into clean technologies, focussing on large emitters and adaptation funds are all consistent solutions within the over-arching Kyoto Protocol framework. It is the national governments who are the failure, as the 'buckshot' of solutions suggested by the authors could have all been implemented by national governments as part of their goals towards meeting Kyoto targets.

Also, a future carbon price can only be established if governments set an adequate medium to long term cap (that is, Kyoto-style emissions targets). Setting voluntary aspirational goals for emissions would be a complete failure, since there would be no inherent value for avoiding carbon within the global market. Arguing against Kyoto-style emission targets means you are actually arguing against carbon emission trading schemes or carbon markets, which is the front-line mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Kyoto is not just about greenhouse emissions reduction targets. Kyoto provides commitment and accountability along with the basis to which carbon market mechanisms can be applied in the quest to slow global warming. As part of the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development mechanism for example, allows developed countries to invest clean development projects in developing countries. With over 500 projects in the works, it is estimated to reduce carbon emissions by nearly 2 billion tonnes by 2012. This is not a failure and these clean development mechanisms should be enhanced in the next phase of UNFCC talks in Bali.

There is an evolution of what solutions are good and what are bad, and no policy has ever been perfect the first time - which is why the next round of UNFCC talks in Bali will be so important given the time constraints. Policies can always be made better and reforming Kyoto will be much more effective than abolishing it."