Australia should be party to an ''ambitious'' global agreement to produce a 90 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Federal Government's chief climate change adviser says.
Professor Ross Garnaut has recommended that a national emissions trading scheme be operating by 2010, administered by an independent carbon bank to ensure long-term stability. He warned inaction on the issue could prove dire.
''If we fail ... the failure of our generation will haunt humanity until the end of time,'' the ANU economist said after issuing the final report of his national Climate Change Review yesterday.
In a letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he said, ''We say in the Australian bush 'an old dog for a hard road'. It has been a hard road. Climate change is a diabolical policy problem ... The saving grace is that this is an issue on which a high proportion of Australians are deeply interested and are prepared to commit time to understand its complexity.''
Professor Garnaut said Australia should play a willing part in a global agreement to cut its greenhouse emissions by 25 per cent from 2000 levels by 2020 and effect a reduction of 90 per cent by 2050.
The Rudd Government previously committed itself to a 60 per cent emissions cut by 2050 and repeatedly stated this figure is not negotiable.
The Government would not announce its mid-range emissions reduction target until the end of this year, federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said yesterday.
''We have a very substantial mid-century target of 60 per cent, and that's why we're putting in a carbon pollution reduction scheme because it is extremely important that this country, along with the rest of the world, address climate change.''
Senator Wong said the Government welcomed Professor Garnaut's comments on the importance of clean coal. ''Because Australia has great interest in finding a low emissions solution on coal, this is technology that Australia can and must develop in conjunction with the rest of the world,'' she said. Scientists and environment groups have welcomed the final Garnaut report as a landmark achievement.
The director of the University of Adelaide's Climate Change Research Institute, Barry Brook, said the report's 2050 reduction target ''is certainly one the Government ought to openly address.
''We could reach such ambitious emissions reductions targets easily, because we've developed an entirely new and renewable energy infrastructure which delivers huge benefits to Australia and allows us to export this knowledge and huge amounts of clean energy to a worldwide market.
''Or we could continue to look backwards, to a Victorian-era style of coal-based energy investment, which leaves us far behind these lofty ambitions and takes the planet to climate purgatory.''
Environment Business Australia chief executive Fiona Wain said Australia could not afford to ''tinker at the edges''. ''In spite of current turmoil on world markets, investment in energy projects will continue to occur. What is vital is that this money flow to low-carbon energy infrastructure. The success, or otherwise, of this will be determined by the policy signals and levers that government brings to bear over the next five years.''
The executive director of the Transport and Tourism Forum, Olivia Wirth, said climate change threatened Australia's beaches, national parks, wine-producing regions and ski fields, all vital to the success of an $85 billion-a-year national tourism industry.
''Australia must be a strong advocate for a workable global agreement that sets binding targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions. All major polluters have to be included in a post-Kyoto agreement for it to be effective.''