Australia’s top climate scientists have written to the Prime Minister and coal industry CEOs, urging them to take responsibility for their role in climate change and to shut down coal-fired power stations – the major source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. Elaine McKewon reports.

Scientists say the tragic 2009 bushfires in Victoria signal the rapid progression of climate change in Australia. (Image courtesy of AAP and Andrew Browbill)

Australia’s leading climate scientists are joining forces to challenge the Prime Minister and coal industry CEOs to ‘do what it takes’ to avoid dangerous climate change and its devastating consequences.

Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne and six other climate scientists from universities around Australia have sent a letter to the CEOs of major coal companies including Rio Tinto and Alcoa, telling them to take responsibility for their role in climate change and to shut down their coal-fired power stations – the major source of greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.

“As you will be aware, the burning of coal is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Australia, with more than 80% of Australia’s electricity coming from coal-fired power stations,” the letter said. “The unfortunate reality is that genuine action on climate change will require that existing coal-fired power stations cease to operate in the near future.”

“Evidence is mounting that climate change is occurring faster than previously predicted and we are perilously close to a number of tipping points … We cannot emphasise enough just how serious the situation has become.”

Prof Karoly said the letter makes clear that coal-fired power stations could be held liable for pumping carbon emissions into the atmosphere, given that these emissions are the main cause of climate change and its current and future impacts.

“We pointed out that the climate science is clearly demonstrating the urgent need for substantial emissions reductions even higher than required under the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme,” he said.

According to Prof Karoly, carbon capture and storage technologies are unlikely to reduce emissions quickly and deeply enough to avoid dangerous climate change, so it makes more sense to invest in renewable energies.

“The costs associated with carbon capture and storage will likely make renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind power commercially competitive with carbon capture and storage. Therefore we should be looking at massive investments in renewable energies rather than, or as well as, carbon capture and storage.”

“We need an urgent plan to transition from existing coal-fired power stations to zero emissions energy sources as quickly as possible,” he said.

The letter’s signatories include the immediate past Director of the World Climate Research Programme and three authors of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – including Prof Karoly, one of the IPCC Report’s lead authors.

Dr Andrew Glikson of the Australian National University agreed that there is an urgent need to make sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

“Climate change is moving much faster than predicted and the reality is that even the more worrying projections are being exceeded by developments in nature,” he said. “So you’re looking at accelerating trends and possible tipping points.”

Dr Glikson said carbon dioxide (CO2) levels now stand at 387 parts per million (ppm). Carbon dioxide is currently accumulating in the atmosphere at the rate of 2 ppm per year.

“It’s not just what industry is emitting. Higher temperatures are resulting in feedbacks from warming oceans, drying biosphere and interaction between ice and water,” he said. “Recently published research suggests that what we were earlier concerned would happen around 2050 could now happen about 2020.”

He believes the Rudd government’s plan to delay introduction of its CPRS by one year due to the global financial crisis indicates politicians’ detachment from the science. “They do not appear to realise that time is of the essence,” Dr Glikson said.

“A lot of the people who are making the decisions are economists and lawyers and they think in terms of human compromise, of agreements between parties, nations and so on,” he said. “You can’t argue with the atmosphere. You can’t argue with the laws of physics and chemistry, yet that’s what they are trying to do. They are not listening to the reality of the science.”

Dr Glikson recently led a group of ten top earth and climate scientists around Australia to send a letter to the Prime Minister, warning him that fast and deep reductions in carbon emissions are needed to avoid crossing tipping points.

The letter cited the recent bushfires in Victoria, droughts in southern Australia, and floods in northern New South Wales and Queensland as extreme weather events exacerbated by the rapid progression of global climate change.

The scientists urged Mr Rudd to make Australia a global leader in climate mitigation technology with a multi-pronged strategy that includes reductions in carbon emissions, fast-tracking of alternative energy sources, construction of long-range water conduits and irrigation networks, and investment in CO2 filtering technology and atmospheric CO2 sequestration strategies such as re-forestation.

Direct appeals to the Prime Minister and coal industry CEOs signal a growing sense of frustration among climate scientists that government and industry are moving too slowly to avoid dangerous climate change. There is an increasing tendency to join forces to strengthen their warnings.

Scientists are battling a perfect storm of paralysis: fossil fuel industry defiance, federal political gridlock and public confusion and fear about climate change. Scientists who want to speak out also find themselves hamstrung by their employers.

“It’s not easy for any scientist whether CSIRO, government or university to go outside the box – it’s not always welcome,” said Dr Glikson. “People have jobs, bread to put on the table, and organisational bureaucracies are not always amenable to whistleblowers, so to speak.”

Last month, one group of CSIRO scientists put their careers on the line to testify as private citizens before the Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy.

Prof Karoly testified at the same hearing and was stunned to hear one committee member, Senator Ron Boswell of Queensland, suggest that scientists who warn that Australia needs to make urgent, substantial cuts to CO2 emissions are living “in a Pollyanna world”.

“Actually, I wouldn’t describe Senator Boswell’s attitude as detached from the science – he was fully engaged and adversarial,” said Prof Karoly. “He was absolutely certain that we were wrong and didn’t appreciate the true science.”

The challenge of getting politicians and the public to accept the urgency of climate change is made more difficult by the mainstream print media’s tendency to give a greater voice to climate change denialists, said Dr Glikson.

“The conservative print media, while full of articles by denialists, is almost impervious to articles, letters and responses by climate scientists.”

According to Dr. Glikson, denialists tend to overlook peer-reviewed research, question climate science as a discipline and respond aggressively when their claims are challenged in online forums and blogs. Scientists who refute their claims are often subjected to a barrage of personal abuse, attacks on their integrity and defamatory comments.

This serves to make scientists think twice before speaking out, Dr Glikson said.

“Since the denialists’ weak point is their lack of experience with climate science, they try instead to discredit the scientists,” he said. “The public is confused and scared. People want good news – they don’t want to live in fear. So denialists have a huge market for their untruths.”

He said it’s unfortunate that not enough scientists are prepared to take a public stand.

“Yet many scientists feel it is their ethical duty to talk about the implications of climate change. You have to answer to your own conscience.”