Productivity Commission ideology could undermine climate targets
07 Aug 2008
The Productivity Commission's proposal to scrap support for a Renewable Energy Target could cripple the government's ability to achieve pollution reduction goals, a new report has found.
Commissioned by WWF and produced by Climate Risk, the report finds as well as a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, complimentary measures such as a RET are necessary to combat the threat of global warming.
"Industrial Constraints to Significant Emission Reductions by 2050" revealed such measures will be essential to avoid industrial constraints, such as major skills shortages, and ensure low emission industries are competitive and introduced on a broad scale.
"The Productivity Commission modelling is flawed," WWF-Australia CEO Greg Bourne said.
"It ignores real-world constraints such as industrial growth rates, skilled labour supply, plus
production equipment and material shortages. To overcome these constraints, low emission
industries need the maximum amount of time to develop.
"There must be support for a broad range of technologies now and an effective RET can do this.
"There are sufficient low emission energy sources and energy efficiency opportunities available to meet emission reduction of 60-80% by 2050, if development starts promptly and most importantly, concurrently.
"Delaying development of costly low emission industries could leave insufficient deployment time and render emission reduction targets unachievable. This is too big a risk to take."
Climate Risk director Dr Karl Mallon said: "The modelling shows without complimentary measures, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme risks failing to meet deeper emission targets.
"Supplementary analysis indicates the cost of complementary industry development will be about $1.6 billion per year at its peak. This is about 20% of the likely revenue raised by the scheme, allowing almost all industries to be competitive on their own by 2030.
"Investing more in industry development in the short term is an insurance policy for the likely event Australia will eventually need to achieve deeper reductions."
"The up-front costs far outweigh the environmental, social and economic costs of failing to meet reduction targets and keep rises in temperature under 2°C," Mr Bourne said.
For more information
Rachael Hoy, WWF-Australia Press Office,
02 8202 1242, 0407 204 594
Kellie Caught, WWF-Australia Climate Change Policy Manager,
07 3211 2684, 0406 383 277
Dr Karl Mallon, Climate Risk,
0412 257 521
Download report
A climate change report which reveals that the Productivity Commission's recent Emissions Trade Scheme (ETS) economic modelling is flawed.
The Commission's modelling ignores real-world industrial constraints to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These include mass labour, production equipment and material shortages across Australia.
The report details how Australia is facing critical climate change skills shortages to deliver sufficient reduction cuts, and also pushes the need for complimentary ETS measures such as a Renewable Energy Target (RET).
