If Australia wants to cut its production of greenhouse gas there are two measures open to a government with a bit of guts. We can go nuclear, and call a halt to immigration.
Australia produces 850kg of carbon dioxide for each megawatt hour of electricity generated, the highest by far of any country in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 98 per cent higher and 74 per cent higher than the world average, for the simple reason that we use coal, against a world trend towards nuclear power.
Almost half of Australia's power is generated in coal-fired plants, against less than 25 per cent in the rest of the OECD, which draws 8 per cent of its power from nuclear plants.
Furthermore, our production of CO2 is on an upward trend, while in the rest of the world it is down. Why? Because our rate of population growth is three times greater than the global rate of growth. Ross Garnaut gives us that evidence, but skirts the implications, preferring to plump for taxation through an emissions trading scheme.
As opposition leader, Kevin Rudd asked Garnaut in April last year to review the implications of climate change. Garnaut was formally commissioned by the premiers and chief ministers of the eight state and territory governments, all of them Labor. Rudd made it nine after the election last year. It was an electoral ploy. Labor was arguing that the Coalition government wasn't doing anything. Here was Labor in office in every other jurisdiction, examining the impact of climate change on the Australian economy, and last week, coming up with recommendations for medium and long-term policies to deal with that impact. Every policy that is except the one that John Howard was proposing when the Coalition went out of office, switching to nuclear generation.
It is clear from the facts and figures Garnaut has assembled, although not from any stated conclusion, that if we are serious about reducing Australia's contribution to atmospheric CO2, we must switch to nuclear power production as rapidly as we can. Do that, and we should be able to postpone carbon taxes until the rest of the world is ready to give it a go. Perhaps we might not need to go to an emissions trading scheme at all, and thus avoid endangering our industries and jobs.
The report is 535 pages long, packed with alarmist conclusions and warnings. Garnaut has not allowed the elephant in the room to intrude except just this once, on pages 204 and 205. Otherwise, he has done what he was meant to do: conclude that something must be done, that Australia must be first, setting the example for China and India, and fiddling away with rebates to somehow avoid ruining Australian industry. How ludicrous. Imagine the world's biggest nations fretting because Australia is doing more than they are, especially when we generate more greenhouse gas to produce electricity than just about every other country in the world.
Furthermore, is there even such a thing as climate change? Garnaut says we have to accept that mainstream science is right, and from this it flows that effective international action is necessary. We delude ourselves if we think that scientific uncertainties are cause for delay, he says. That's called the Act of Faith. Garnaut is a believer, and a proselytiser. He believes we have to be first. It is important to see any period in which an Australian mitigation is in place before an effective global arrangement as short, transitional, and contributing to the achievement of a sound global agreement.
Garnaut wants us to take measures that will have an impact on the Australian economy ahead of the rest of the world, and so set an example.
The starting point for carbon emissions trading is the limit set by the Kyoto Protocol, which the previous government declined to sign, along with the United States. Garnaut proposes a limit on the right to emit greenhouse gases, reducing over time to a level preventing any net accumulation in the atmosphere.
Permits to emit greenhouse gases are to be auctioned, and the revenue used for subsidising trade-exposed emissions-intensive firms, for paying households, for research and development of low-emission technologies and for purchasing international permits.
He concedes that the Government might wish the payments to households to favour low-income households.
Nobody could deny that Garnaut has not delved into the detail. He does not attempt to forecast how long it might be before the rest of the world comes on board.
We could instead end immigration, which brings in people from countries with low living standards to one where their contribution to atmospheric gases must be greater. This would be immediately effective.
Nuclear power generation does not generate greenhouses gases. This is what France and Japan are doing. Press ahead with all speed with the Howard government's proposals to build 15 nuclear power stations as a starter.
Encourage the use of solar hot-water systems for domestic use, as the NSW Government has done. Malcolm Fraser had a solar water heater installed at The Lodge. John Howard had solar hot water installed at Kirribilli House. Solar hot water systems work very well.
Reverse the decision to remove the subsidies for people who want to put cells on their roofs to generate electricity. It is wildly uneconomic, but those who want to make that gesture should not be deterred by the Rudd Government.
Stop muddling up dry rivers with greenhouse gases. There is no water in the rivers because we have increased the population five- or sixfold in my lifetime, way beyond the capacity of the world's driest continent.
Those are my conclusions from Garnaut's evidence. They won't ruin anybody. Furthermore, they will still work to the nation's benefit even if the greenhouse effect turns out not to exist, or not to exist in a significant manner.
The air will be cleaner and electric cars, charged overnight in the garage, will make sense. Our cities will cease becoming more and more miserable every year. Hot water will be free.
But first we must put an end to a situation where we have allowed a lunatic fringe to bluff us out of action that will work.
We must face the fact that the days of mass immigration are over, and we must face the facts about power generation. Coal pollutes the air. Uranium does not.
David Barnett is a Canberra writer.