Thursday 18 December 2014

Fact check: Do Australia, US 'compare favourably' on emissions targets?

Extract from ABC News

Updated about 6 hours agoThu 18 Dec 2014, 12:45pm

Photo: Greg Hunt is cherrypicking emissions reduction target figures. (AAP: Paul Miller)

With increasing focus on international climate change cooperation in the run-up to the 2015 United Nations Climate Conference in Paris, ministers in the Abbott Government have been saying that Australia is doing its share to tackle global warming.

Environment Minister Greg Hunt says Australia's emissions reduction efforts can be compared favourably to the United States.
"If you use the same basis as the United States – 2005 to 2020 – the US is minus 17, we're minus 12 per cent," Environment Minister Greg Hunt told the ABC's RN Breakfast.
"If you use the full Kyoto period of 1990 to 2020 the US is minus 5 per cent and Australia is almost exactly the same. So we're very comparable."
ABC Fact Check examines whether Australia's target really is on par with the US.

The claim: Environment Minister Greg Hunt says Australia's emissions reduction efforts can be compared favourably to the United States.
The verdict: Mr Hunt's figures are supported by research, but do not represent all factors or methods that experts say are needed to measure and compare nations' emissions targets.

Australia's abatement target

During the first Kyoto commitment period, known as CP1, from 2008 to 2012, Australia agreed to limit emissions to 108 per cent of its 1990 emission level.
For the second commitment period, 2013 to 2020, it pledged a minimum target of 5 per cent below 2000 levels or, if certain conditions are met, possibly 15 or at best, a maximum target of 25 per cent below 2000 levels.

Baseline contortions

A new global agreement on climate change is set to be finalised at the United Nations Climate Conference in Paris in 2015, with standardised targets that remove "baseline contortions" and are based on uniform assessment methodologies.
The Kyoto Protocol states that allowed emissions should be set as a percentage of 1990 greenhouse gas emissions. However, different countries express their targets against different base years.
Australia generally uses 2000 levels; 1990 is used by many of the European countries; while China, India and the United States use 2005.
"Depending on their circumstances, the perceived strength of different countries' targets will look different depending on the base year. Base years affect the weight given to past effort versus future effort. Earlier base years capture changes that have occurred in the past... Later base years give a better indication of the future level of effort necessary to achieve the target," the Climate Change Authority's February 2014 review states.

Australia bettered its 108 per cent CP1 target in part because of the slowdown in energy use and manufacturing as a result of the global financial crisis.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, countries receive a carryover amount if they exceed targets, which can be credited towards the second commitment period, or voluntarily cancelled.
Australia received the equivalent of a 4 per cent carryover for CP1. The Government has confirmed it will put that towards the 5 per cent target for CP2. In practice this means the Government only needs to implement policies to meet a 1 per cent emissions abatement target by 2020.
"If the carryover was used to help meet the existing... target, it would reduce costs (relative to meeting the 5 per cent target without carryover) but deliver no environmental benefit, nor any positive influence on international action," the Climate Change Authority said in its 2014 review published in February.
The authority recommended Australia implement a 15 per cent reduction target, and forfeit the 4 per cent carryover, making it an effective target of 19 per cent.
In a speech to the National Press Club in March 2014, authority chairman and former Reserve Bank governor Bernie Fraser said a target of 15 per cent (plus 4 per cent carryover) would put Australia "more in line with the reductions in emissions being targeted in the United States and several other countries that we like to compare ourselves with...
"These recommended reductions are broadly consistent with Australia staying within its fair share of this global [emissions reduction] budget," he said.

Climate Change Authority figures

In a June report the authority made the following comparison of the Australian and United States targets:

2020 Targets	Reductions against a 1990 base year	Reductions against a 2000 base year	Reductions against a 2005 base year
Australia: 5 per cent from 2000	-4	-5	-12
Australia: 19 per cent from 2000 (CCA recommended target)	-18	-19	-25
United States: 17 per cent from 2005	-5	-20	-17

Mr Hunt's numbers align with the columns for 1990 and 2005. He did not refer to the 2000 base year, which according to the CCA puts Australia's target in a less favourable light.

Pew Centre figures

In 2011, the Washington based Pew Centre - now known as the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions - released a brief, comparing emissions targets of 10 countries and the EU. The brief has been cited in Australian media reports in support of the Coalition's claim that the two countries are comparable.
The table provides two sets of figures reflecting Australia's minimum (5 per cent) and maximum (25 per cent) reductions from 2000 levels by 2020. It sets out those targets from 1990 and 2005 levels and compares them with the US target of a reduction of 17 per cent from 2005 levels.
The best case scenario (i.e. - 25 per cent), based on 1990 levels is a reduction of 5 per cent for Australia, compared to a US reduction of 4 per cent.
But based on 2005 levels, and using the minimum target which Australia is currently implementing (i.e. - 5 per cent), Australia will see a 15 per cent reduction against the US's 17 per cent reduction.

2020 Targets	Reductions against a 1990 base year	Reductions against a 2005 base year
Australia: 5 per cent from 2000	+20	-15
Australia: 25 per cent from 2000	-5	-33
United States: 17 per cent from 2005	-4	-17

Fact Check contacted the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, to obtain updated figures since 2011.
Senior Energy Fellow Doug Vine says that Australia's target now "appears to be less stringent than the US target for 2020 on a percentage basis, using the 2005 baseline year".
"In [the 2011 Pew report], we estimated Australia's reduction would be 15 per cent from the 2005 baseline year.
"Using a slightly different methodology today, we concur with the [Coalition's] assessment that it is around 11 to 12 per cent".
However he said using a 1990 baseline, "we estimated that US emissions would be 3 per cent below 1990 levels in 2020, and that Australia's emissions would be 12 per cent above 1990 levels."

Factors influencing comparability

Both the Climate Change Authority and The Climate Institute caution that relying on absolute emissions figures alone does not give a full and accurate comparison.
Mr Hunt's statement reflects data published by the CCA, that shows changes in absolute volumes of emissions, with a country's emissions level calculated using certain accounting frameworks and protocols.
Discrepancies in figures can arise because of different frameworks adopted by different countries.

Capacity to reduce emissions

Deputy chief executive of The Climate Institute, Erwin Jackson, told Fact Check that a range of indicators and normative judgements are needed if making a full comparison of national actions.

Nations and interest groups tend to choose the indicators that suit their best interests, are based on indicators that aren't observable in the real world, or are not easily replicable by third parties, or are based on highly contestable assumptions.

Erwin Jackson

He points to a variety of considerations, including how easily a country can or should be able to reduce emissions. This requires measures such as income per capita and the UN's Human Development Index to measure Australia's economic and social capacity compared to other countries.
"The second central risk in comparing countries is that nations and interest groups tend to choose the indicators that suit their best interests, are based on indicators that aren't observable in the real world, or are not easily replicable by third parties, or are based on highly contestable assumptions," Mr Jackson says.

Broader metrics to be considered

The CCA also makes clear that broader metrics than absolute emissions figures must be considered if a fuller picture of target comparability is wanted.
It compares 14 countries using four different methods to evaluate the various 2020 targets.

Australia's 5 per cent target is weaker than that of many comparable countries.

Climate Change Authority

Using the different methodologies, the CCA report ranks Australia's targets as the least ambitious, significantly less ambitious, and not as strong as global peers.
"Australia's 5 per cent target is weaker than that of many comparable countries," the CCA report states.
Recognising that different base years will have an impact on the absolute numbers, the report makes its comparison by translating the targets of all 14 countries to a 2005 base year, in order to compare whether a country's target indicates stronger or weaker ambition.
It says rankings against Australia's 5 per cent target can be established broadly as follows:

Changes in absolute emissions - Australia ranks 9^th worst, only better than South Africa, Korea, Japan, China and India;
Emissions intensity - Australia ranks worse than every country except China, Indonesia, India and South Africa;
Changes relative to continuing with "business as usual" - Australia ranks 5^th when compared with the EU and China's minimum targets and third if the EU and China meet their maximum targets (noting only nine of the 14 countries have produced the necessary relevant data); and
Per person reduction - Australia ranks worst.

On each measure, the United States target is more ambitious than Australia's.
The authority says even the four measures are insufficient for an appropriate comparison.
"The four measures... provide guidance on the relative ambition of countries' targets; however, these are neither comprehensive nor conclusive, either singularly or together," the report says. "Many factors influence how ambitious a target is, including the level of development, population growth, access to technology, and industrial base and natural resource endowments."
The report says its four-measure analysis "cannot capture the full international context over time and should therefore be used as a starting point for considering comparability rather than as a definitive formula."

Deforestation

Deforestation is one of the largest contributors to rising global greenhouse gas emissions, representing 11 per cent of all emissions. Australia continued deforestation practices for longer than many other developed countries. Accordingly, when Australia reduced its deforestation, it made a significant impact on cutting overall national emissions levels.
Writing in The Conversation, Melbourne University's Malte Meinshausen and Anita Talberg say the reduction in Australia's deforestation emissions has given Australia a benefit other developed countries don't have, because their large deforestation activities stopped "long ago".
"While Australia compares future climate targets against past emissions that include those deforestation emissions, other countries – such as the US – do not," they say.
"Because emissions from deforestation have declined Australia was able to substantially increase emissions in fossil fuels, industry, waste and agriculture, and still meet the 5 per cent target... High deforestation emissions in the past are little reason to provide lenient rules for future emissions."

Australia's energy sector emissions grew rapidly between 1990 and 2005. Total emissions growth was moderated, and kept more or less within our Kyoto Protocol target, by a one-off reduction in land clearing.

Professor Ross Garnaut

If deforestation and forestry components were excluded from emissions calculations, they estimate Australia's 2020 target will result in emissions that are 30 per cent higher than in 1990, compared to America which is 4 per cent smaller than the US's 1990 emissions.
In a review of their article in The Conversation, the director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at the Australian National University, Frank Jotzo, wrote that a comparison between Australia and the US using a 1990 base year and including all emissions sources "distorts the picture, as in 1990 deforestation was still a large source of emissions in Australia".
The Melbourne University conclusion is supported by analysis from Professor Ross Garnaut in his 2008 climate change report, updated in 2011.
"Australia's per capita emissions are the highest in the OECD and among the highest in the world," he said.
"Australia's energy sector emissions grew rapidly between 1990 and 2005. Total emissions growth was moderated, and kept more or less within our Kyoto Protocol target, by a one-off reduction in land clearing."

The verdict

Mr Hunt's figures are supported by those in the CCA Review which compare Australia and America's absolute emissions targets over various time frames. The Pew Centre has produced figures that show some similarities with the CCA in terms of absolute emissions reductions.
However the CCA and The Climate Institute caution against using the single measure of absolute emissions in isolation. The CCA uses this and three other measures to compare nations.
On all four CCA measures, Australia's 2020 target is less ambitious than the US. However, the CCA says even this does not capture all relevant factors.
Carryover credits from the previous Kyoto Protocol reduce Australia's actual abatement target from 5 per cent to 1 per cent below 2000 levels. Experts say that when this is combined with the impact of lower carbon emissions from deforestation, the work Australia must do to achieve its abatement target is less onerous than America.
Mr Hunt is cherrypicking.

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