Author: Ross Garnaut

One year has passed since I released the final draft of the Climate Change Review. In the lead-up to Copenhagen, this is a timely opportunity to reflect on developments in the consideration of this diabolical policy problem and where it is all going now.

It’s relevant that my final report was presented to the Australian Prime Minister on the morning of the biggest ever points fall on the New York Stock Exchange. The discussion of the review has been against the back drop of the Great Crash of 2008 and the recession which followed.

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Author: Ross Garnaut

Australia and China share a great vulnerability to climate change. Australia is already hot and dry, and agriculture is conducted with precipitation levels.

With unmitigated climate change, Australia would dry and warm further, endangering agriculture and other human activity. China would likely see decreased flows in the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. Rising sea levels associated with climate change would also place China’s vital coastal provinces at serious risk.

Yet against this backdrop, there is considerable room for strategic initiative to be taken. For the full address, please see the videos below.

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Author: Ross Garnaut

In the course of the work on climate change, members of the Garnaut climate change review team would sometimes ask how we would judge whether our efforts had been successful. Would the main indicator be the extent to which the Australian Government accepted the recommendations of our final report?

‘No,’ I would respond.

‘Policy decisions will reflect a range of pressures and constraints which we are not in a position now to assess and about which the Government is elected to form judgments. We will have done our job if the Australian community and Australian governments understand the implications of decisions that are taken.’

Whatever pressures and constraints shaped the Government’s white paper this week, it has implications for the environment and the economy. Should its policy proposals become law, they will be historic.

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Author: Ross Garnaut

China is in a better position to sustain growth through large-scale fiscal expansion during the current crisis than it was at an equivalent stage of the Asian financial crisis. Its current account surplus and foreign exchange reserves are incomparably larger. And the successful Keynesian response of the Asian financial crisis gives all participants in the process confidence that it can be done again. Extensive discussion of the need to expand expenditure on rural development over the past three years has established a foundation for fiscal expansion without wasting resources.

But China will need all these advantages if it is to maintain strong growth through the current crisis. Read the rest of this entry »