Failure on climate change will 'haunt humanity': Australian expert

Yahoo News 30 Sep 08;

Failure to curb global warming would "haunt humanity" forever, Australia's top climate adviser said Tuesday as he urged the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60 percent by 2050.

Ross Garnaut, presenting his long-awaited report on climate change, said Australia was more vulnerable to rising temperatures than any other developed country because of its hot, dry climate and faced environmental destruction and a major decline in farming in nothing was done.

"If we fail, on a balance of probabilities, the failure of our generation will haunt humanity until the end of time," Garnaut told reporters in Canberra.

The economist and former diplomat said there would be no solution to the problem of man-made global warming, caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases created by burning fossil fuels, unless it was a global solution.

He said under the best case scenario, an international agreement bringing in developing countries such as China and India would cap global greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a concentration of 450 parts per million (ppm).

"Its (Australia's) fair share of a 450 ppm agreement would be to reduce emissions by 25 percent from 2000 levels by 2020 and by 90 percent by 2050," the professor said.

Garnaut said Australia should aim for this ambitious target but acknowledged that forging such an agreement would be difficult.

A global pact on keeping carbon pollution to 550 ppm had a "reasonable chance" of succeeding and "Australia should offer to play its full part in such an agreement", he said.

Under such an deal, Australia's contribution would be to reduce emissions by 10 percent from 2000 levels by 2020 and by 80 percent by 2050.

Garnaut said Australia should cut its emissions regardless of an international agreement.

"In the absence of a comprehensive global agreement that adds up and in the context of another limited, Kyoto-style agreement, the report recommends that Australia's first step between 2013-2020 should be along the linear path to a 60 percent cut in emissions by 2050," he said.

"This would be a five percent reduction by 2020."