"Australia's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for 2020 and beyond: what is fair and reasonable?" by Prof David Karoly

Past Event

Date
 22 July 2015, 3:30pm - 5:00pm

Location

This lecture is hosted by the Oxford Martin Safe Carbon Investment Initiative

Speaker: Professor David Karoly, Professor of Atmospheric Science, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne

Summary: Australia has had a number of different policy responses to national emission reductions under the UNFCCC, first under the Kyoto Protocol and now for reductions by 2020 and to 2030 and later. It is the only developed country to introduce a national emissions trading scheme through setting a price on greenhouse gas emissions in 2012, and then to remove that scheme and introduce new and completely different policies in 2014 under a new national government.

An independent statutory body, called the Climate Change Authority (CCA), was established by the Australian Parliament in 2011 to provide expert advice to the government on climate change policies and on emission reduction targets. It has released it recommendations for Australian emission reduction targets for 2025 and 2030 based on a national carbon budget.

This talk will review Australia's emission policies and trajectory since 1990 and discuss the CCA's recommended emission reductions relative to announced INDCs from other countries using several different metrics. The Australian government had announced that its INDC would be released in July but that announcement was recently delayed until August.

Venue: Dobson Room, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Oxford

About the Speaker

David Karoly is a Professor of Atmospheric Science in the School of Earth Sciences and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of Melbourne. He is an internationally recognised expert in climate change and climate variability, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

He was heavily involved in preparation of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2007, in several different roles. Professor Karoly is a member of the Climate Change Authority which provides advice to the Australian government on climate change policies. He is also a member of the Academy of Science's National Committee on Earth System Science and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.