The 2012 report, focused on climate change, rebuts an argument mounted by emerging industrial giants China and India that developing nations are entitled to leeway on carbon emissions while lifting their people out of poverty.

“Asia-Pacific does not have the option to ‘grow now and clean up later’ in view of the already accumulated huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” UNDP regional director Ajay Chhibber is quoted as saying. “The world’s common future will be hugely affected by choices that are made in Asia and the Pacific on a low carbon growth path … The goal is clear; reduce poverty, increase prosperity but leave a smaller carbon footprint.”

Click here for the full article: UN tells Asia no delay on carbon

Speaking to Tony Jones in Lateline yesterday, she also tried to shift Jones from incorrectly calling it a ‘tax.’ Below is an excerpt, and the entire interview can be accessed on the ABC website here http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2012/s3499401.htm

TONY JONES: Let me take this opportunity to ask an obvious question. There’s been a lot of speculation about this. But it strikes me, or as far as I can make out, you were the chief proponent of a carbon tax at the time when Labor and the Greens were trying to strike their alliance deal. Was that a non-negotiable fact for you?

CHRISTINE MILNE: Yes, in terms of carbon pricing, but it’s not a carbon tax. We argued strongly for an emissions …

TONY JONES: Well they call it a carbon tax.

CHRISTINE MILNE: That’s what they call it, but it’s actually an emissions trading scheme that we’ve legislated. It will have a fixed price for three years and then go to flexible pricing after that.

”Well, we tried roll-back on the GST; it didn’t work. This is the mother of  all roll-back campaigns,” Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler, said in the Q&A programme on ABC.

Deutsche Bank has looked into the Coalition’s promise to repeal the carbon  tax, and says it might not happen until April 2014, nearly two years after the  legislation first takes effect in July.

”Each step in the constitutional process takes time, and in practice, it  could take 8-14 months for the repeal bills to pass, with risks of further delay  at each stage of that process,” writes a research analyst, Tim Jordan. ”On that timetable, the earliest a repeal bill could pass after an August  2013 election would be April 2014, 22 months after the carbon price comes into  force.”

Assuming the Coalition wins the next election but is not granted control of  the upper house, Labor and the Greens are unlikely to repeal the price on  carbon, leaving Abbott with the option of calling a double dissolution, or  fresh election affecting all seats of Parliament.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-tax-repeal-would-take-years-20120508-1yb1n.html#ixzz1uXME1vj5

National emissions rose by 0.6 per cent to 546 million tonnes over the year to December 2011, indicating that emissions growth has been subdued recently with emissions yet to return to the previous peak set in 2008. This means Australia is on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol target of limiting emissions to 108 per cent of 1990 levels, on average, over the period from 2008 to 2012.

Emissions from the electricity generation sector rose by 50 per cent from 1990 to 2011, the strongest growth of all sectors in Australia.

The full data can be accessed through the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, or by clicking here.

Emissions had fallen 5.3 per cent from 2005 to 2010, but as the US economy recovers from recession they are again on the up-swing.

The EPA said that the rise in emissions was “primarily due to an increase in economic output resulting in an increase in energy consumption across all sectors.” In what could be considered a chicken-and-egg dilemma in holding back rising temperatures, the agency said Americans burned more coal and gas in 2010 partly because an unusually warm summer raised demand for air conditioning.

The new body will raise accuracy of climate data, support better emissions monitoring to ensure a fair carbon market, and verify claims made about low-carbon products.

Jane Burson, head of the centre, told BBC News: “Data from ground based stations and satellites is fed into climate models, and they spit out conclusions on things like sea level rise and other climate impacts … So the better data we have, the better we can make the models.”

The European Commission will release preliminary emissions data for 2011 from firms operating under ETS on April 2.

“We expect (CO2) emissions to stagnate in 2011 at 1,918 million tonnes,” Emilie Alberola, head of research at CDC Climat, which is charged with finding economic tools to fight climate change, is cited as telling Reuters.

Emissions in 2010 stood at 1,916 million tonnes, up 2.5 percent on the previous year.

The ETS covers industrial sectors that emit the most carbon dioxide but the scheme is being questioned because carbon prices have hit record lows in the past few months, beset by Europe’s economic turmoil and uncertainty about a future global
climate pact, Reuters reports.

The world’s biggest carbon market is over supplied with hundreds of millions of permits because of low demand.

The survey also shows that most managers are against the tax, despite an overwhelming majority expressing a desire for action to reduce carbon emissions. The Institute warns that many small businesses are unprepared for the compliance issues when large companies covered by the tax start asking their suppliers to provide information about the carbon emissions generated by their products.

Speaking on Sky News’s Australian Agenda program today, Abbott said that the Labor Party’s poor showing in the weekend’s Queensland election is linked to the carbon tax. Critics have said this is untrue and pointed to the torrid campaign that has been fought on state issues. Labor strategists have also insisted that exit polling gave no indication that the tax played a role.

Abbott said on Sky: “A Labor government which is decisively rejected by the public over the carbon tax is not going to persist with an electorally suicidal policy. Having said that, if I’m wrong, if an incoming Coalition government can’t get its carbon tax repeal legislation through the Senate, well, we will not hesitate to go to a double dissolution.”

Tim Jordan, a carbon analyst at Deutsche Bank, told the newspaper that the surplus would be  worth up to $830 million if Australia chose to sell the carbon as credits to  other countries. But it could more prudently be banked and used to meet the 2020  target if the carbon tax doesn’t push down the nation’s emissions as much as the  government hopes in the first three years, he has said.

While stressing that Australia got away with a ”pretty unambitious target”  under the Kyoto negotiations, Jordan reportedly told the Sydney Morning Herald that the good news was that the nation  had begun to decouple its economic growth from its greenhouse emissions  growth.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/carbon-surplus-boost-for-2020-greenhouse-target-20120320-1vgmr.html#ixzz1qHa2DJlw

The global economy in 2050 will be four times larger than today and the world will use around 80 percent more energy. Fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas will make up 85 percent of energy sources. Renewables, including biofuels, are forecast to make up 10 percent and nuclear the rest.

“Unless the global energy mix changes, fossil fuels will supply about 85 percent of energy demand in 2050, implying a 50 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions and worsening urban air pollution,” the OECD said in its environment outlook to 2050.

The report also focuses on the cost of delayed action on climate change. Lack of action on climate could result in up to a 14 percent loss in world per capita consumption by 2050, according to some estimates.  Costs to health and depletion of natural resources, especially water, will also be high.

The report points to the need for international climate action, global carbon markets and a transformation in the global energy sector.

The report, launched today, predicts a long range temperature rise of between one and five degrees Celsius, which will mean floods, droughts and extreme cyclones.

The report notes that the warming trends observed around Australia are consistent with global-scale warming that has been measured during recent decades, despite 2010 and 2011 being the coolest years recorded in Australia since 2001. Global-average surface temperatures were the warmest on record in 2010 (slightly higher than 2005 and 1998). 2011 was the world’s 11th warmest year and the warmest year on record during a La Niña event. The world’s 13th warmest years on record have all occurred in the past 15 years.

There has been a general trend towards increased spring and summer monsoonal rainfall across Australia’s north during recent decades, and decreased late autumn and winter rainfall across southern Australia. The summary shows that the very strong La Niña event in 2010 followed by another in 2011 brought the highest two-year Australian-average rainfall total on record.

State of the Climate 2012 also highlights the increase in global sea level and notes sea-level rise around Australia since 1993 is greater than, or equal to, the global average. Our observations show that sea-surface temperatures around Australia have increased faster than the global average. The concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new high in 2011. Annual growth in global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions between 2009 and 2010 was 5.9 per cent, reversing a small decline of 1.2 per cent recorded between 2008 and 2009 during the global financial crisis.

The full report can be accessed here.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday, Combet said: “The need to reduce the carbon intensity of our industries is one reason why I have long been an advocate for carbon pricing – well before I entered Parliament. It is an essential economic reform that is in the long-term interest of working people and our country.”

A price on carbon is “a foundation of long-term competitiveness,” said Combet, adding that “significant swathes” of heavy industry is still relying on old machinery, requiring upgrades.

“Pockets of our modern economy have been starved of capital investment, leaving us with ageing technologies and inefficient energy supply and consumption,” he said. ”The Clean Energy Future package will contribute towards modernising these parts of our industrial base … It will drive investment in cleaner energy, low emissions technologies and energy efficiency.”

At 120 Rand per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent, or about AU$14.50, the tax wouldn’t have much of an impact at first, given that nearly two-thirds of emissions will be tax-exempt until 2020 to lessen the impact on industry. The South African Treasury proposed on Wednesday a 60 percent tax-free threshold on annual emissions for all sectors, including electricity, petroleum, iron, steel and aluminium.

All but electricity, where state-owned power utility Eskom dominates, would be able to claim additional relief of at least 10 percent.

The draft policy will be published later this year.

South Africa is the continent’s largest economy and largest polluter. It is one of the 20 biggest emitters of greenhouse gases worldwide, namely due to emissions from coal-fired power plants.