Australia: Good Start, but Only the Beginning of Decarbonising the Economy

By Jo Chandler
Turning around emissions growth this decade and then cutting greenhouse pollution by 80 per cent by 2050 - the target announced by the Gillard government yesterday - would put Australia on the trajectory the world needs to take to avoid the catastrophic consequences of four degrees warming this century, leading climate scientists said yesterday.

But they warned that the next few years would be critical and that the planet's systems were poised on the brink of a man-made climate shock equivalent to the most devastating shifts nature had ever delivered on human civilization.

''As a scientific community we have said we have to look at the end game, which is to decarbonise economies - especially industrialized ones - by mid-century,'' ANU Climate Change Institute executive director Will Steffen, said. Advertisement: Story continues below

''That allows some space for the developing world to bring its people out of poverty. So the 80 per cent target by 2050 is sending a strong signal in that direction,'' Professor Steffen said.

He was hopeful the momentum of such a target and the new technologies and confidence it would nurture would ultimately enable even bigger cuts. ''The first change is to just slow the growth of emissions,'' he said. ''The long-term aspiration target is great and very consistent with what the science is saying we have to do. But to have a chance of reaching that, we actually have to bend the curve this decade.''

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Cities, States Start to Adopt Climate Change Survival Strategies

As it becomes ever more clear that Congress has retreatedfrom climate change legislation faster than a Greenland glacier, cities andstates are starting to focus on adapting to the inevitable.

A report released this week by the California Adaptation Advisory Panel laid out themyriad threats climate change poses to the Golden State -- as well as strategies toanticipate and prepare for rising sea levels, along with more wildfires, heat waves, andwater shortages.

"Failure to anticipate and plan for climate variability andthe prospect of extreme weather and related events in land development patternsand in natural resource management could have serious impacts far beyond whathas already been experienced," the report states.

In short, California needs to deploy monitoring technologyalong its 1,100-mile coastline and overhaul its approach to land usedecision-making.

Eight cities and counties across the United States,meanwhile, have joined what is being called the nation's first climate adaptationeffort. The participants are Boston, Cambridge, Mass.,  Flagstaff, Ariz., Tucson, Ariz., GrandRapids, Mich., Lee County, Fla., Miami-Dade County, Fla., and the San FranciscoBay Conservation and Development Commission.

Created by the ICLEI-LocalGovernments for Sustainability, a Washington nonprofit, the ClimateResilient Communities program gives the cities and counties planning and database tools to prepare for rising temperatures and sea levels.

"Local governments have a responsibility to protect people,property, and natural resources, and these leading communities wisely recognizethat climate change is happening now, and that they must begin planning forimpacts that will only become more severe in the coming decades," MartinChávez, ICLEI USA's executive director and a former mayor of Albuquerque, saidin a statement.

The idea is to create a standardized municipal planningprocess to prepare for climate change.

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