Report Per Capita As Well As Absolute Greenhouse Targets…
Not taking population growth into account is distorting the debate about greenhouse gas reduction targets says Rod Sims of corporate strategy advisory firm Port Jackson Partners Ltd.
Australia has a 1% population growth while Europe has a near zero growth rate reports theFin Review (20.11.08) and this distortion has major implications in assessing Australia’s relative contribution to greenhouse gas reduction and also to the chances that developing countries will sign on to a global scheme.
Reporting In Absolute Terms Not Enough – Per Capita Targets Needed
Not much has been said about per capita greenhouse targets by either the government or the media.
“Garnaut’s main recommendation was for the world to seek stabilisation of greenhouse gases at 550 million parts per million and for each country to have an emissions trajectory consistent with this and moving to equal per capita emissions between nations by 2050.”
The Reduction In Absolute Terms
To meet these objectives, Garnaut calculated that Australia’s absolute reduction over 2000 levels would need to be 10% by 2020, Europe’s 14%, and there would need to be a 15% reduction on average for all developed countries.
The Reduction In Per Capita Terms
In per capita terms, these same reductions would have Australia reduce its emissions by 30% by 2020, Europe by 17% and all developed countries by 22%.
Big Per Capita Cuts In Australia
Following Garnaut’s recommendations Australia would be making the largest cuts per person – we do have higher individual levels of emissions to start with, consuming large amounts of energy, food, building materials etc.
Concluding…
To get developing countries to sign up developed countries should be discussing a global agreement to an eventual equal per capita emission allocation by around 2050. The media should cease reporting greenhouse gas reduction targets in absolute terms without including per capita reduction targets as well.
Will mainstream media take up this approach?
2 Comments
I have been following your blog for a while and am inspired by a lot of what you say. However, I am not sure I agree with your thoughts on this one.
If we start talking reductions on a per capita basis, we also need a second strategy to limit the growth of humanity. Otherwise the targets are out of kilter. Currently there are close to 7 billion people on Earth. This is expected to grow to 9 billion (wikipedia cites close to 10 billion).
That means that the per capita emission would have to change every year, depending on how many people are on Earth.
Well, maybe that is not such a bad thing after all, makes it more digestible. If I knew my reduction target, I might be motivated to act even more quickly and make necessary changes.
Alexander
Hi Alexander, thank you for your response. I certainly write from an inexpert position. What interested me was the concept of broad reporting (both absolute and per capita targets) which seemed to me to give a picture that ‘compares apples with apples’ as there is clearly a difference between Australian and European lifestyles. Do you think it really follows from this approach that we need a strategy to limit the growth of humanity OR as you conclude, doesn’t it just make it easier to apply this new thinking to oneself and ‘be motivated to act even more quickly and make necessary changes’?