Ian Dunlop on Business Spectator: “Australia is belatedly waking up to the implications of the carbon budget, although the concept has been around for years. It simply says that if the increase in global temperature resulting from human carbon emissions is to be contained to a level which will prevent dangerous climate change, the world, henceforth, can only afford to emit a limited amount of greenhouse gases.” “According to the latest science, that limit will be exceeded if we burn more than 20 per cent of the world’s proven coal, oil and gas reserves. This is confirmed in recent reports from the International Energy Agency and Australia’s Climate Commission.
….Yet notwithstanding the 20 per cent limit on burning the world’s proven fossil-fuel reserves if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, by 2025, the Australian coal industry is planning to more than double coal exports, and the gas industry to quadruple gas exports, which will make us one of the top five global emitters, exports included.
The Chinese, Indians and other trade partners are in the process of rapidly abandoning a high carbon future. If our current expansion policies are implemented, it will leave Australia with a stack of stranded assets in mines, ports and railways within a decade, wasting funds which should be spent developing zero-carbon solutions.”
Future Today
