Reducing emissions through the Magic of Imagination
Here’s a slightly problematic misunderstanding that seems to have materialised: Australia’s new emissions reductions minister seems convinced he only needs to reduce emissions in the minds of humans, rather than actually reducing emissions IRL.
With that comical misapprehension in mind, this interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National program makes a lot of sense. Let’s quickly step through it.
Australia’s most recent emissions update wasn’t delayed due to the recent federal election
The host, Fran Kelly, brings up the fact that the report was, for some reason, published five days late. Angus’ response was:
“You have the data. It’s out. I was sworn in last Wednesday, a week ago. As you would expect, there’s a lot to work through when you’ve got an expanded portfolio and you’ve just been sworn in so we’ve done that. You’ve got the data”
Curiously, though, the report was pretty obviously ready to go right on its due date, on the 31st of May — the page was there, but ‘unpublished’, and the PDF and Excel files were created and finalised just prior to the deadline.
Taylor also doesn’t address why he first gave the data to the Australian newspaper’s Graham Lloyd, prior to publishing it publicly on the Department website.
The atmosphere doesn’t care about emissions per capita
“We have the lowest level of emissions per capita and an emissions intensity basis for 29 years, down 40 and 60% respectively”
I’ve addressed this before, but it’s worth revisiting, because it keeps coming up. Taylor repeatedly cites Australia’s emissions on a per-person basis, as evidence that they’re going down.
But it doesn’t matter — our emissions targets are based on absolute figures, because the atmosphere doesn’t care about how many people created the emissions. Also — since the coalition came to power in 2013, the rate at which the per-person figures are going down has significantly slowed. So the news isn’t really all that great.
If you exclude rising emissions, they’re falling
“If you look at the emissions, they come in two parts. One is without the LNG exports, that have been growing rapidly, and those emissions have been coming down consistently, year on year, since 2013. So if you exclude LNG exports, a significant reduction in emissions”
Sorry, what? The emissions data don’t ‘come in two parts’ — they’re broken down into eight categories:
The extraction and export of the stuff called LNG — liquefied natural gas — has an emissions footprint both for getting it out of the ground, and also for burning it once it’s out.
It’s the first part — extracting it — that is counted in Australia’s emissions data (I know, it’s confusing — thank you to Tim Baxter and Michael Mazengarb for helping me wrap my head around this).
Emissions from LNG extraction sit under the ‘stationary energy excluding electricity’ category (sub-category “ energy industries excluding electricity”), and the ‘fugitive emissions’ category (sub-category “crude oil and natural gas”).
If we make a point of excluding the categories that are impacted by the rapidly expanding LNG extraction industry, it turns out that it looks like our emissions are falling. This, folks, is the magic of Imaginative Emissions:
Honestly, all of you telling me that emissions reductions is hard haven’t tried imagineering instead of engineering. This amazing technique also works for the transport sector:
Look, if we’re going all in, lets just use our Imagination Powers to exclude literally every category of Australian emissions that isn’t decreasing:
I mean, honestly, if we’re limited purely to our imaginations, why not go all the way? I present to you Australia’s emissions data:
Giving fossil fuels to another country so they can burn it doesn’t reduce emissions
Taylor followed up this argument (that emissions are only up in Australia due to the evil influence of LNG extraction) with an incredible flex — by pointing out that LNG extraction is leading to emissions reductions, and is therefore now good:
“Now, LNG exports are important because they’re actually being sold up into Asia, to replace coal. That’s resulting in significant reductions in global emissions. So Australia’s contribution to global emissions through what’s going on here is very very important. We’re reducing those emissions in a substantial way. In fact, the reduction in global emissions as a result of our exports leads to a reduction as much as a 148 million tonnes, which is a very significant part of our total emissions”
This line of argument also featured as the headline message of the press release published by the Australian’s Graham Lloyd.
The logic of this claims is wild: by sending gas overseas, we’re helping the poor brown people in Asia avoid coal, and therefore we should bank that as emissions reductions.
It’s ludicrous for a range of reasons. This Guardian article outlines that even if we assume the gas is displacing coal, methane emissions from production are massively under-counted, and they’d wipe out any savings. Richie Merzan also points out there’s no guarantee the gas is displacing coal — Japan, for instance, is replacing nuclear with gas, and therefore increasing emissions.
The host of the interview makes a very, very good point too:
Host — “If this is a substantial global contribution to be proud of, that’s your words, why then is our government supporting new thermal coal exports, like the Adani mine, in the Galilee basin? If we’re proud of our LNG exports because they replace coal, isn’t the corollary of that we should be embarrassed by our coal exports?”
Taylor — “No, absolutely not, because the LNG industry is a major industry that’s creating jobs and creating investment”
In fact, the export of coal from Australia is defended on precisely the same grounds — that our beautiful, clean Australian coal is displacing the dirty, unclean coal used by the poor Indians and Asians.
The problem, of course, is that the coal that Australia exports, and which is burned overseas, has a massive contribution to global emissions — and even if we were to bank all the ‘reductions’ from LNG displacing coal, the actual coal we export would easily cancel that out:
Using a rough calculation, for every megatonne of emissions “saved” (I know) from the export of gas, we’re contributing another ~6.6 megatonnes of co2e into the Earth’s atmosphere.
And really, in 2018, the stuff we dug out from underneath Australia’s skin and sent to other masses of land will emit double the entire emissions of Australia:
Again, if you’re limited only by your imagination, digging fossil fuels out of the ground and selling it to people who will definitely burn it counts as emissions reductions. For those grounded in reality, it’s a different story.
Australia’s plan to meet the Paris targets is not good
“We have laid out to the last tonne how we’ll achieve our [28% emissions reduction target]. We put that out before the election campaign, right to the last tonne. 328 million tonnes of abatement we need to achieve our Paris obligations. 11 years ahead of time, we’ve laid out a very clear plan each initiative necessary to achieve those reductions”
Taylor’s pressed, during the interview, on Australia’s obligations to the Paris climate agreement — and the increasing improbability that we’ll hit those targets. In fact, he says ‘down the last tonne’ 7 times, at 03:10, 03:15, 03:35, 03:50, 03:51, 05:00 and 05:41 during the interview.
As you might expect, the plan is not down to the last tonne. Taylor cites, in the interview, an example — 100 million tonnes from ‘technology improvement’:
When I say this is emissions reductions using the power of imagination, this is a near-perfect example.
‘Technology improvements’ is not expanded upon or clarified anywhere, despite comprising a full 30% of the required emissions reductions. What the hell does it mean? Which technologies? How will they reduce emissions? Will they happen by themselves, or do they require government funding? Is it literally any new technology? Are we talking about a world-spanning superconducting supergrid? Microbes that we ingest that photosynthesise sunlight? It doesn’t matter — it’s entirely up to you.
On top of that, 10 million tonnes of abatement come from an unwritten ‘Electric vehicle strategy’ — the same technology Taylor and the LNP spent weeks criticising prior to the election:
“This is all laid out. It’s exactly what we need to achieve our Paris commitments”, he says. In reality, it’s more like the ???, profit meme, in which a plan’s ludicrously oversized gaps are plastered over with question mark.
Ultimately, the Australian’s government’s climate plan relies mostly on the magic of imagination to reach its goal. If you are bound only by the confines of your mental imaging faculties, then our emissions data, the impact of our exports both domestically and overseas, and the likelihood of us reaching our emissions targets can be whatever the hell you would like them to be.
