Life used to be so much simpler when emissions were all about cars
There's an argument that says Australia should be responsible for the emissions created in countries to which it exports its coal. One analogy invoked to support this notion is that if a company makes guns and then sells them to a person whom the company knows is going to kill someone, then shouldn't that company be responsible for the death enabled by its products? Whether or not this is a valid argument depends on a lot of things but subjective, rather than objective reasoning and beliefs, usually informs opinion on the matter. If such an approach is adopted then the actions of all companies and countries should be, in some degree, the responsibility of those judged as enablers of such actions.
What does the foregoing have to do with cars and transport in general? Well, by the logic outlined above, the inevitable conclusion must be that all pollution enablers should be responsible for the emissions their products create around the globe. That means car companies must be held responsible for the emissions created by their vehicles in the countries to which they’re exported. We’re sure that BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, VW, Peugeot, Citroen, Toyota, Nissan, GM, Ford and the others wouldn’t be so keen on the idea. Also, emissions created by any plant or machinery that facilitates the burning or production of fossil fuels should be counted in the country that manufactured such plant or machinery. If not, the process is subjectively biased and therefore corrupt.
So, emissions from burning coal for the Kraftwerk Union alternator at Loy Yang A should be attributed to Germany. Similarly, Japan should be held accountable for the coal used to spin the Hitachi generators at Loy Yang B. And what about the giant dredgers that continuously dig the coal out of the ground? More broadly, who built all the extraction, processing and refinery infrastructure for oil and gas production around the world? As with the gun analogy, the companies that supplied all this infrastructure knew what it would be used for, so they should be responsible for emissions from it. Clearly, this is all sounding a bit ridiculous but don’t blame us, we didn’t start it.
Australia has been painted as one of the world’s worst emitters of CO2. The view has been propagated widely and readily accepted in many parts of the world. And it’s more than just name calling. As most readers might know, the EU is stalling on a free-trade agreement with Australia because it says we’re not doing enough to reach acceptable CO2 reductions. While we’re absolutely sure that the EU is genuine in its concern over climate change, we’re just as sure that the last-minute stalling of the trade agreement would be generating paroxysms of delight within the CCP. Neither will it hurt EU solicitations for Chinese investment dollars and the recent in-principle agreement for easier operation of EU companies within China. We’re just saying. It’s certainly a different world from the one in which emissions meant a four-gas analyser up the tailpipe.
Criticisms of Australia’s CO2 emissions targets and practices are both right and wrong. Emissions can be represented in absolute terms or on a per capita basis. Per capita assessments indicate that Australia could do better. Unfortunately, per capita methodology has come to be the main way entities external to Australia, and also within Australia, assess and express our performance. But this is not the whole story.
Extreme bushfires, catastrophic floods, more powerful storms are all said to be linked to CO2-induced climate change. Good enough. But such events don’t have much to do with climate change due to CO2 emissions from Australia. If it’s taken that such disasters are caused by CO2-induced climate change, then it must obviously be from climate change due to worldwide CO2 emissions, from all countries.
According to some estimates, Australia’s CO2 emissions in absolute terms account for just 1.3 percent of global CO2 emissions. So, conflating Australia’s per capita CO2 emissions profile with increased natural disasters isn’t an appropriate use of that methodology. In attributing blame for such events on increased atmospheric CO2 the focus should be on the major total emitters. China is at the top of this list – followed by the US, EU, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and then Australia in seventeenth place, according to 2017 figures.
The tiny multi-island nation of Palau is an interesting example of the discrepancies that can exist between per capita and absolute energy accounting. Palau is considered to contribute zero percent of world CO2 emissions. According to absolute accounting methods, it sits in 192nd place among the world’s CO2 emitting nations. However, when per capita accounting is applied to this nation of just 17,907 people, Palau occupies the top spot on the list of international CO2 emitters.
As we mentioned initially, there is pressure from some quarters to include emissions from Australia’s coal exports in the equation. Suggestions are that Australia’s responsibility for absolute global emissions would be about four percent, rather than the 1.3 percent mentioned if this approach was adopted. This would bump Australia up to about sixth place on the absolute emissions list. However, the EU (9.57 percent), US (13.77 percent) and China (29.34 percent) would still be well ahead of us in terms of responsibility for climate change and its global consequences. Also, it’s not like attributing emissions to energy exporters is a new idea. It has been considered by the authors of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Accord and rejected by both.
Don’t get us wrong. None of this is to say that Australia shouldn’t be doing better at setting targets for CO2 reductions and implementing plans and actions for reaching them. Every country should be doing the best it can. Indeed, Australia should be trying to live down its actions at the 1997 Kyoto Protocol meeting in Japan. For those who don’t remember, allow us to recount.
Under the protocol, nations agreed to cut their emissions in relation to their 1990 levels. Australia cut a deal that allowed us to increase emissions but by no more than eight percent of 1990 levels. However, there had been a great deal of land clearing in Queensland between 1990 and 1997 – leading to increased CO2 emissions. Australia managed to get those emissions added to the 1990 figures used as a baseline. Because the logging had stopped by the nominated reporting period, the figures fell. Then, after the special conditions Australia insisted on, the Howard government refused to ratify the agreement at the last minute. This annoyed everyone except the US, which had also refused to ratify the agreement. Especially galling was the fact that as Australia had been able to increase its starting point at Kyoto, it was able to gain credits. Other countries did too, however they rescinded them. Not Australia. We hung on to them and planned to use them to meet our reduction targets under the Paris Agreement. It was only in December 2020 that the Morrison government dropped that plan. International memories are long, and these events foster the opinion that Australia doesn’t do enough.
So, what’s the Paris Accord and how does is effect emissions these days? The 2015 Paris Agreement is an international treaty to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius. It seeks to ensure that GHG emissions in the near future become peak figures for the planet and mark the beginning of a global reduction in GHG emissions, leading to carbon neutrality by 2050. Achieving such neutrality will require economic and social transformation and signatories are required to report their action plans for doing so. The Treaty operates on five-year cycles of increasingly stringent measures to drive all signatories to the goal of mid-century neutrality. So, how are emissions determined under the Agreement?
GHG accounting methods generally use either production-based, or consumption-based approaches. It’s important to note that these can produce conflicting results, so the method chosen is important. The production-based approach considers emissions outputs only from within the countries in which they occur. Consumption-based accounting considers emissions from the entire production chain for imported goods, and then assigns responsibility to the importing country. As would be expected, each approach has vociferous proponents but, on balance, each also has genuine advantages and disadvantages. Australia uses production-based accounting, which assigns responsibility for emissions from production to the country in which they occur.
Carbon accounting is becoming increasingly fine-grained with sub-national regions like cities or states, and large companies called upon to account for their GHG emissions under three sub-protocols (to the global Greenhouse Gas Protocol) known as Scopes 1, 2 and 3. These scopes will be referenced with increasing frequency in future discussions relating to CO2 and other GHGs.
Scope 1 covers emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in-plant within the reporting region or company and also includes vehicles owned and used by an entity for the production and delivery of goods. Basically, Scope 1 covers on-site and in-region emissions. These are also called direct emissions.
Scope 2 covers on-site activities that don’t create emissions on-site but which do create emissions off-site. The use of electricity is the most common element in Scope 2. While it doesn’t create any emissions on-site, it certainly does at the power station. Interestingly, a green-minded reporting entity that adopts electric cars would have to report the emissions related to the charging of such vehicles. Scope 2 emissions are known as indirect emissions.
Scope 3 emissions are all other off-site emissions that relate to on-site activities and can be the largest source of emissions. Scope 3 elements are divided into Upstream and Downstream groups. Upstream elements would include emissions related to the raw materials for products, un-recycled waste from production and the delivery of such materials. Downstream elements are those from distribution of products and from post-use disposal. Scope 3 emissions are also classified as indirect emissions. These are obviously over simplified descriptions.
Another important measure often mentioned in the struggle against anthropogenic climate change is known as Cap and Trade. It’s been in the dialogue for a long time but while people know the term, the understanding of it is not so widespread. Under it, the amount of carbon that regions or companies can emit is specified, or capped, and then credits are issued to that amount. If a company, for instance, manages to reduce its emissions it will have surplus credits. These can be sold to other companies that have exceeded their limit. That’s the trade part. This rewards companies that invest in more efficient processes and practices. Conversely, companies that do exceed their allowance are still permitted to operate but it costs them more to do so. This provides an incentive for such companies to improve their emissions. It’s a market solution.
Carbon offsets are also a market-based solution. They generally consist of environmental projects around the world. One might be a project to plant trees, another might consist of installing a new solar array. Under the offsets arrangement, a company with high carbon emissions can purchase carbon offsets to mitigate the effects of its emissions. Even individuals can purchase offsets to assuage guilt from plane trips or intense car usage. Sounds good but there are critics. The main objection is that they allow companies to continue polluting.
Climate change, and the methods employed to mitigate it, is complex. The sheer number of reports, organisations, panels, trading schemes, technologies, moral dilemmas, economic consequences, lifestyle limitations and social development issues is vast. Some of the things we mention here can be nothing more than good jumping-off points for further investigation for those interested.