 | The Bullroarer - Tuesday 30th September 2008 | The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | Queensland Blazing a Trail Towards Oil Resilience |  |
27 comments on Letter to Garnaut: Implications of Oil Production Decline
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27 comments on Letter to Garnaut: Implications of Oil Production Decline
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GAIA Host Collective
Stuart,
This letter makes a good case for Australia to start reducing the impact of peak oil, but I think it is to the Australian Government not Professor Garnaut that this letter needs to be directed.
The Garnaut Report made a good case that Australia's very higher per capita CO2e is due to our use of coal for 78% of our stationary energy consumption. Agriculture is the other big greenhouse gas emitting activity.
As you pointed out, raising CO2e permit costs to even $100 per tonne CO2, would only have a minor effect on the cost of petroleum based fuels, but would have a drastic effect on the use of coal for electricity production.
It would be useful to list some possible proposals that would reduce reliance on petroleum based fuels and assist in reducing CO2e.
Three possible measures that the government could accelerate would be 1)the conversion of trains trucks and passenger vehicles from diesel and petrol to CNG 2) much higher fuel efficiency standards for all new vehicles ( I don't think we have any)3) replace NG and electric hot water heating by solar assist.
There may be other areas that will have a big impact on both reducing oil dependence and reducing CO2e.
Hi Neil,
We (ASPO) have sent plenty of letters and submissions to the Federal Government, believe me! The main purpose of this letter was to alert Professor Garnaut to the flawed analysis in his draft report. Garnaut's BAU energy and emissions projections, and the resulting economic analysis, is based on data in the IEA's WEO 2007. There is a real risk that it will be discredited with the release of WEO 2008 in November, which will include the results of their oil & gas production review. The proposed ETS will likely be overtaken by real world events, i.e. the socio-economic impact of peak oil. Both problems (climate change and peak oil) need to be considered together in order to formulate a coherent response.
I would encourage everyone reading this to send it to both the Minister for Climate Change and their local MP to highlight the problem of looking at climate change in isolation.
Regards,
Stuart
Hi Stuart,
Great article.
When you say (in your comment above) "I would encourage everyone reading this to send it to both the Minister for Climate Change and their local MP to highlight the problem of looking at climate change in isolation."
Do you mean just copy past and email off????
Cheers,
Matt
Matt,
In my experience emails to politicians are usually ignored, particularly if you just copy and paste other stuff without telling them what you want. What I suggest is:
1. Write a letter to your local MP and include a copy of our original letter above (http://www.aspo-australia.org.au/References/Bruce/Letter-Garnaut-Sep-200...). You can email if you like but letters are usually more successful.
2. Explain to your MP that you applaud the Rudd Government's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, but that you believe merely establishing an ETS and leaving the "invisible hand of the market" to reduce emissions is completely inadequate. Tell him/her that you believe the situation requires urgent intervention.
3. Make some specific proposals for government expenditure in your area, e.g. public transport infrastructure or direct investment in renewable energy infrastructure. You could also suggest that existing fossil fuel subsidies totalling approximately $10 billion per annum be phased out and replaced with equivalent subsidies for renewable energy.
4. Explain that climate mitigation policies that ignore the socio-economic impact of peak oil will be ineffective. Explain that peak oil is even more urgent than climate change. If we don't get cracking with urgent peak oil mitigation we won't be able to afford to build the renewable energy and transport infrastructure we need, i.e. we will be stuck with what we've got.
5. Tell him/her that peak oil mitigation requires urgent action. Tinkering around the edges of the problem, i.e. subsidising Toyota to build hybrid cars is totally inadequate.
6. Include a copy of the Queensland Government's "Towards Oil Resilience" paper - http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/environmental_management/sustainability/oil_vu.... Tell him/her that the Federal Government needs to take its head out of the sand and follow Queensland's lead. All the better if you're a Queenslander.
7. Ask for an appointment to meet him/her face to face in order to explain peak oil and the resulting problems.
8. Send the same to the Ministers for Climate Change (Penny Wong), Energy (Martin Ferguson), Transport & Infrastructure (Anthony Albanese) and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Do not spam their email inboxes. Send them polite but insistent letters and or emails which explain the problem and ask for replies.
If you're really keen you can arrange a film night featuring Australia Pumping Empty - http://www.aquilaproductions.com.au/. Invite your local Federal & state MPs, local government Councillors and community groups. Don't wait for other people to do it for you, it will never happen. Rest assured that nothing will happen until real leaders "ave a go" and do this sort of thing on their own initiative.
Let me know how you go. TOD could be a good forum for posting emails and replies to/from politicians.
Cheers,
Stuart
Stuart,
Thanks for crafting such a high quality posting, and providing helpful instructions on how we should make best use of your hard work. Your letter does a great job of pushing peak oil back onto the discussion agenda. Back in April Ian Dunlop, myself and others built our various Garnaut submissions around peak oil messages, but none of us seems to have succeeded in influencing the outputs of the Garnaut enquiry as far as I can see. Taking a second shot at the target seems a very good idea.
Cheers, Mark
If I could make a suggestion, simplify your case down to the barest essentials (oil supply forecast is wrong, thus any climate change policy coming from it is wrong as well). Wait till the report is due to hit the press and then send out a press release with the simple message and links to a nice simple pretty graph just before the report release (eg night before).
Journalists are always looking for the story and you have a good chance of getting coverage from someone or other. Remember, essentially write the story for them, in the style journalists tend to use.
You would be amazed how well that works.
Oh, and the report will be reviewed by politicians, find the name of one who is contrarian and feed them questions that will make them look on the ball.