Below is a collection of comments from Australian scientists on the progress and expected outcomes of the Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft, released on the 4 July 2008.

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“This draft does not appear to go a long way beyond the interim report released earlier this year so we are really going to have to wait till we have the supplementary draft in August as there looks to be a lot of economically modelling which has yet to emerge.

The report accepts the realities of climate change and recognises there are some scientific uncertainties but it also notes that the cost of inaction now is to increase risk in the future. It is important to emphasise that an effort must be made to reduce these uncertainties and improve our understanding of climate change. Our mitigation and adaptation methodology will have to evolve in accordance with the new science.

The key point is the recognition that the massive global effort in research, development and commercialisation of low emissions technologies is definitely important. Professor Garnaut suggests this could be up to $100 billion a year in global activity and that Australian should be able to contribute $3 billion per year to this.  I think that is a realistic assessment. The government’s recent budget commitment was a long way of the mark. The suggestion of $3 billion is far more realistic and one that we strongly endorse.”

Professor Kurt Lambeck is President of the Australian Academy of Science.

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There is no doubt that the review has shifted the terms of the debate substantially. The issue now is not whether to set an emissions target or not but whether we have time to make the drastic cuts in emissions necessary to avoid severe climate damage”

Professor John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow in the school of economics at the University of Queensland.

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“The Garnaut Draft Review is an extensive document and very much a work in progress. But the key fundamentals are already there. It rightly points out that the scientific evidence for climate change, on which hard economic decisions must ultimately hinge, is already flashing some extremely worrying warning signals: carbon emissions and the impacts of climate change are tracking at or above the top end of predictions made a decade ago, tipping elements such as the Arctic sea ice and polewards expansion of the tropical weather systems are being crossed decades ahead of schedule, and because of amplifying carbon-cycle feedbacks, were are now close to the time at which this ‘diabolical problem’ runs away from us, and which point neither mitigation nor adaptation will be sufficient for us to cope. Our great natural assets – the Great Barrier Reef, the wetlands of Kakadu, the enormously productive agricultural basin of the Murray-Darling system – will be severely degraded or all but eliminated within the lifetimes of current generations. As Garnaut said, we should have moved on this issue years or decades earlier, when potential impacts were already reasonable well understood and yet greater uncertainty about the extent of the problem existed, compared to today.

By explicitly recognising these harsh realities, the Garnaut Report positions the economic and social arguments within the right frame of reference – one in which urgent action is required, and where forward-looking domestic action from the developed world, especially nations that are exquisitely sensitive to climate change impacts, must be the trigger for international multilateral agreements – which are ultimately the only way to solve the problem, and at the same time spawn the energy revolution of the new century – renewables, not fossil carbon.

Unlike the most up-to-date climate modelling, which has recently been detailed by the IPCC, the full economic modelling of impacts will await a supplementary draft report in August. However, some clear points have already been made in this report:

• Scenarios that project a business-as-usual pathway towards a 700% increase in the size of the Australian economy, and a greater per capita wealth of the average Indian compared to Australians by 2100, are pure fantasy – there are not only insufficient fossil fuels available to meet the needs of this model scenario, but the multitude of damaging impacts that would be caused by the resulting catastrophic climate changes mean that societal collapse, rather than unconstrained growth, would be the order of the century, for the world economy in general and for Australia specifically.
• Scenarios which explicitly attempt to build in the costs of climate change impacts show major disruptions to our economic, environmental and social well being, amounting to, conservatively, hundreds of billions of dollars of additional economic burden each and every year. And these stated costs are an absolute minimum: rather than try to put a dollar value on the lives of future generations, or the irreplaceable loss of millions of species and natural treasures, or on the staggering potential costs of crossing run-away tipping points such as the collapse of the polar ice sheets, these are quite deliberately left out the Garnaut Report economic modelling. After all there is a price that goes well beyond what humanity is willing to pay, or indeed able to pay, to impacts that are impossible to pay for, or to build into economically rationalist thinking.”

Professor Barry Brook is the Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change and Sustainability at the University of Adelaide.

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Permit auctions will raise enough money to replace all coal power stations
“Full auctioning of emission permits under the ETS will raise huge amounts of revenue. This revenue is by far the biggest opportunity to transform our economy if the funds are used directly to cut emissions. Over ten years this could add up to $100 billion. It’s enough money to replace all coal power stations with clean energy within ten years. The total capital value of coal power stations in Australia is not more than $50 billion.

Global warming is a massive and urgent problem. We can use this revenue to achieve a rapid switch to a low carbon economy and become a global leader in clean energy solutions.

Use permit revenue to fund measured carbon abatement projects not handouts
Assistance to affected sectors, like low income households and trade exposed sectors, should not be via handouts but instead focus on measured energy efficiency programs that save greenhouse emissions and money. It would be a great shame if the ETS permit revenue was used for financial handouts rather than actually cutting emissions. Used to fund measured abatement projects the permit revenue can help achieve the rapid emission cuts necessary to avoid dangerous climate change.”

Joel Fleming is an environmental scientist and Founding Chairman of Climate Friendly Pty Ltd.

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"The draft Garnaut report is a cautious but important step toward a response to climate change. Garnaut correctly observes that the rate of climate change is accelerating and we now risk catastrophic damage to the Great Barrier Reef, other outstanding natural areas and our food-producing capacity. The science was already clear twenty years ago. Further delay would be unconscionable.

As Garnaut says, our effort will help to keep alive "the possibility of an effective global agreement". The likely costs of emissions trading or moving to a basket of renewable energy supply technologies are far less than the certain costs of inaction. A range of conservation measures could reduce emissions by 35 per cent or more at no cost, in many cases with financial benefits.

While the targets and details of the trading scheme await modelling still under way, we know that electricity typically represents only about 2 per cent of household expenditure and transport about 5 per cent. Including the costs of releasing carbon dioxide might impose about $20 a week on an average household if there are no efficiency improvements. I can't imagine many people being prepared to look their grandchildren in the eye and say we allowed the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu, the wet tropics and the Murray-Darling Basin to be destroyed, just to save $20 a week or less. The Rudd government should move swiftly to implement the Garnaut report, to strengthen the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, to give us world's best practice efficiency standards for appliances and to invest massively in public transport through Infrastructure Australia."

Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

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“If emissions trading is going to be successful in Australia, one of the things we have to do is increase our capacity to achieve energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

This means improving the level of education and training in the workforce and providing courses for people that want to learn about the regulations and meeting those targets.

Over the last 10 years Murdoch University has been involved in training people in greenhouse science and greenhouse accounting, more recently we’ve offered a postgraduate diploma in Energy and Environment at Murdoch, which examines climate science and greenhouse accounting – and this will cater to the many people involved in reporting greenhouse emissions, cutting emissions and finding alternative sources of supply.

The market is really demanding more people trained in this area, and we’re responding to this as the demand escalates with the emissions trading demands.

Murdoch has a long-established track record in the field and probably what’s regarded as the best, most comprehensive and relevant set of courseware on this subject.

We’ve already trained hundreds of professors and people working in the field of energy efficiency and green house accounting, and we’re continuing to step up our efforts in response to the national need.”

Philip Jennings is Professor of Energy Studies at Murdoch University.

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For copies of the report please visit the Garnaut Review website.

Comments collected by the Australian Science Media Centre and Murdoch University.