The Rudd Government's climate change policy has already been overtaken by new science and will impose a "death sentence" on Australia unless urgently updated, say the authors of a new report.
Former Victorian government adviser Phillip Sutton and David Spratt, founder of climate change group CarbonEquity, say the Government's policy lacks scientific depth and has been cobbled together from reports now surpassed by new data on the rate and scale of global warming.
In a hard-hitting report for Friends of the Earth Australia, they claim the Government's commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions by 60 per cent by 2050 locks Australia into supporting a dangerous 3 degree rise in global temperature and is based on a United Nations report 12 years out of date.
The Melbourne-based policy analysts also cast doubt on the scope and relevance of the climate change review being conducted for the Federal Government by Australian National University economist Professor Ross Garnaut.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said the review's findings will guide future policies on climate, but Mr Spratt claims its terms of reference pre-date the groundbreaking climate change report by British economist Sir Nicholas Stern.
"The Rudd Government urgently needs to review and update its terms of reference if the inquiry is to remain relevant, otherwise it's like batting information back and forth like a tennis match, so the Government can keep avoiding responsibility," he said.
The report, Climate Code Red: The Case for a Sustainable Emergency, accuses the Rudd Government of adopting a timid "culture of compromise" and low expectations in mapping a national response to climate change.
"We contend that current proposals to establish caps of 2 degrees or 3 degrees as reasonable for avoiding climate change are not being informed by the likely impacts and expert elicitations, but have been shaped by the world of diplomacy, political tradeoffs and compromises driven by narrow, short-term and national aspirations," the report says.
It urges the Rudd Government to treat global warming as a national emergency requiring lower temperature targets, tougher emission reduction targets and innovative energy strategies. The authors say the greatest reduction in Australia's greenhouse emissions, and the most economically efficient, can be made by comprehensive energy efficiency programs and technologies that reduce per capita electricity consumption.
"The scandal is that sometimes the most energy-efficient domestic technologies and appliances aren't even on the market, or businesses and consumers are not aware of the choice."
The report is endorsed by Ian Dunlop, former chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt, Australian Greens climate change spokeswoman Senator Christine Milne and United States policy expert Professor Dennis Meadows.
Federal climate change minister Penny Wong is attending a climate change conference in Hawaii and was unavailable for comment.
Mr Dunlop said the report offered a balanced analysis of the challenges of climate change, "unadorned by political spin" and proposed a realistic framework to tackle the emergency.
"The stark fact is that we face a global sustainability emergency. But it is impossible to design realistic solutions unless we first understand and accept the size of the problem. We know those solutions, but what is lacking is the political will, firstly to honestly articulate the problem and secondly to implement those solutions," he said.
Senator Milne said global warming was now accelerating faster than scientists had predicted, "leaving policy so far behind it is outdated as it is released." She said the Greens pre-election climate change policies, previously viewed as ambitious, were now conservative in the light of new findings.
"Where then does that leave our new Federal Government, elected on a platform of climate action far weaker than the Greens?"
Senator Milne said although the Spratt and Sutton report called for policy makers to set aside politics, she feared "none of the people now charged with setting Australia's emissions target ... have grasped that this is a state of emergency ..."