The Age, page 14
Section: Business
COMMENT AND DEBATE: THE GREAT CARBON DEBATE
There are technological solutions to the problems created by technology, writes Kim Carr.
Nothing can shake my optimism about Australia's future - not even global warming. Nothing can diminish my faith in our ability to meet the technical challenges posed by climate change.
The real challenge is to achieve maximum reform at minimum cost while maintaining living standards. That's what the Government's emissions trading scheme will do.
We will also ensure that unavoidable costs are shared equitably. We can't expect industrial workers to carry the whole burden. We can't demand the same contribution from low-income earners and pensioners that we might ask from the better-off. Our commitment to tackling climate change is unwavering, but so is our commitment to social justice.
We can balance those commitments by taking a high-tech path to a low-carbon economy. That means attracting new investment. It means reinventing existing industries and developing new ones. It means investing in science, research and innovation.
That's the way to keep high-value export industries and high-skill, high-wage jobs in Australia. Letting industry migrate to locations where environmental controls are lax is bad for Australia and bad for the planet. It doesn't have to happen.
Professor Ross Garnaut argues that science and research can give us greenhouse-friendly technologies in the short term, reduced mitigation costs over time, and ultimately a lower carbon price.
He suggests that Australia should be spending at least $3 billion a year on researching, developing and commercialising low-emission technologies.
It is hard to calculate exactly how much of the $6.37 billion the Government has budgeted for science and innovation this year will be used for these purposes, but it is a lot.
Programs wholly or partly dedicated to climate change-related research and development include Climate Ready ($75 million), the Energy Innovation Fund ($150 million), the Renewable Energy Fund ($500million), the National Clean Coal Fund ($500 million) and Australia's Farming Future ($130 million).
The Green Car Innovation Fund ($500 million) does not come on stream until 2011, but, as we showed with the hybrid Camry, we are prepared to draw on it now if the right opportunities come along.
Three-quarters of Commonwealth spending on science and innovation supports R&D in industry, universities and public sector research agencies such as the CSIRO. A significant and growing share of this investment is going into low-emission technologies.
Last week I launched the CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship, which joins the Energy Transformed Flagship, the Light Metals Flagship, the materials science and engineering division and other CSIRO units dedicated to finding scientific solutions to climate change problems. In May I approved 208 collaborative R&D projects involving universities, industry and other organisations under the Australian Research Council's Linkage Program. About a third focused on environmental sustainability and a third on technologies with the potential to transform Australian industry.
And new ideas aren't just being worked out in the laboratory; they are also being worked out on the factory floor. Industry is changing both its products and the way it makes them. Recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics show energy consumption in manufacturing fell 0.7% in 2006-07 - a year in which the sector's industry value rose 4.5%, exports rose 13.7% and employment remained constant.
Making steel, aluminium and electricity will always be energy-intensive, but there are many ways to minimise the impact - through co-generation, carbon capture and storage, heat recovery and other techniques. In an Australian first, the CSIRO and its partners at Loy Yang in the Latrobe Valley last week captured carbon from the power station's flue gases.
This is a reminder that there are industrial solutions to the problems created by industry - technological solutions to the problems created by technology. That's why it is so important that we keep pushing back the frontier in fields like biotechnology and nanotechnology.
Biotechnology promises us drought-tolerant crops, better biofuels, trees that store more carbon and species that require less energy to grow. It could even give us cattle that produce less methane. Nanotechnology promises us cheaper solar panels, more efficient fossil fuels, better hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in electric vehicles that can recharge in 10 minutes.
The answers are out there, but if we want to find them we must get individuals, institutions and sectors working together. We must concentrate our efforts and resources and improve connections across the innovation system. That is an important aim of the innovation review chaired by Dr Terry Cutler, which reports later this month.
The greatest danger is uncertainty. As Garnaut says: "It is important to create a long-term, stable and consistent framework to promote investment in low-emissions technologies."
The Government has set out to provide that framework. The last thing we need is the kind of dithering and confusion we have seen from the Opposition in recent times. That's the real threat to investment and employment.
It is unfortunate that we have an Opposition paralysed by fear and pining for a return to outdated certainties. What matters is that the Government and the community are clear about where we are heading and why.
A report by the CSIRO to the Dusseldorp Skills Forum released last month concluded that we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilise energy use while still raising our standard of living - if we get the policies right.
We should never give up on the belief that our children can, and will, live better than we do. There is no reason why they can't have the way of life they want and a healthy planet to live on. The key is to give people the firm policies they need to make long-term investments in renewal and innovation. It is all about having faith in the future.