illustration by Alex Mankiewicz

There’s a new emissions plan in the wind for Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong to take to Copenhagen.

A water-tight commitment to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by 2020 – much better than the pitiful 5 per cent – which will appeal to the Tony Abbott-led conservative (and sceptical) Coalition, as well as a deal to get the Greens on board.

This is does not involve magic – we keep being reminded that there is no silver bullet – or extreme engineering, science or technology.

It is a simple and easy to understand formula – 5 times 5 equals 25 – to deal with emissions from five main sectors of the economy which account for a more or less proportionate amount of the nation’s emissions. Some of the actions contributing to this plan are already occurring, but for some reason Government has not looked at – or told it – quite like this.
Through this approach, each sector is able to bring to the table a 5 per cent emissions reduction towards the total, to provide an overall 25 per cent achievement.

It is easy to mix metaphors here, but let’s think of this as constructing a five winged plane which will fly!

It looks something like a modern version of a Tiger Moth bi-plane, with two wings each side and bracketed, along with a wing in the tail to stabilise things. Each wing has a crucial role to play and all together they make it air worthy.

Here are the wings, what they are made up of and here’s how each one will make our emissions transporter fly. If it is too difficult to relate to the aircraft wings analogy, think of it as a big pie with five generous slices.

1) Industry emissions reductions
This includes industrial production, manufacturing, mining and energy production. Let’s say this accounts for 20 per cent of our total emissions now (it is close to that depending on what you include or exclude).

These are the big emitters, or polluters, if you like. And they are the major industries that are targeted by the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Many observers realise that with all the concessions and allowances already proposed for up to 1000 major corporations, it is unlikely to achieve a significant reduction in emissions.

But with the stick and carrot approach, along with putting a price on carbon through an emissions trading scheme, it is very realistic to expect that this major economic sector could achieve the 5 per cent reduction in emissions required (based on 2000 levels) by 2020.

Is this really possible? As various industry groups are on their own already taking steps to reduce emissions, it is an achieveable target.

The cement industry – one of the world’s biggest emitters – has already said it could reduce its emissions by 3 per cent by 2010. What more could it do by 2020?

BHP has stated in its latest sustainability report that its target is for a 6 per cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions per unit of production across the board.

2) Buildings and energy efficiency
Existing buildings account for around 20 per cent of the nation’s emissions, primarily through use of energy, energy waste and inefficiencies. New buildings, which can achieve a high 6 star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia, are designed to use less energy and thereby reduce emissions.

The big challenge is to deal with existing buildings – offices, homes, shops and factories – and this involves taking steps to reduce the energy used in every area.

In some cases, this will involve major retrofitting, but for many, particularly in the home, this can be achieved by better management of the electricity we use, smart metering, cutting wastage, as well as taking advantage of the Government insulation package. It might also mean lower settings for air conditioning and heating units.

Power management systems are readily available for businesses. A power management study for one Australian University, for example, found that by having an automatic cut off after hours for its 30,000 computers it could reduce electricity use by 52 per cent and save $1.74 million a year.

Dealing with standby power used on household appliances could save 10 per cent on an average household’s energy use.

There’s a new product coming onto the Australian market (from South Korea) which guarantees to reduce electricity use by 5 per cent by cutting power wastage. It has been known to provide energy savings of up to 20 per cent.

So gaining a 5 per cent reduction overall through energy efficiency measures alone would not be difficult to achieve, particularly if Government promoted the right sort of incentives and interest free Green loans.

3) Switching energy production to renewables
Australia already has in place a renewable energy target to get 20 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. There is already considerable investment going into solar, wind, wave, geothermal, as well as to enhance what we’re already getting from hydro sources.

Even though the Government has not set out a detailed renewable energy strategy, even  a breakdown of the ideal mix of renewables, or provided much in the way of incentives, it is happening all the same. There is even evidence that Wilson Tuckey has been advocating the use of tidal power in Western Australia!

There are large scale projects in the wind (and from the sun) as well as a groundswell of desire by the population at large to fit solar panels to the roofs of their homes. Think of how much more could be done to utilise all the wasted roof space on our airport terminals, factories and shopping centres.

In California, energy supply companies are paying to rent all available roof spaces so they can fit thousands of solar photo voltaic panels to generate power for the grid.

For homeowners and businesses, it would really help them make the switch to solar energy if all state governments would provide a gross feed in tariff to give a realistic return for producing additional energy for the grid. In Germany this applies to all and works very well. In New South Wales and ACT, this is now applicable to householders only.

We shouldn’t belittle the genuine efforts of people to clean up their energy act, particularly through paying extra for Green Power or buying into voluntary offsets to reduce their carbon footprints. Government recognition for this is proposed in the CPRS legislation, but it would be wise for authorities (as well as energy providers) to act sooner to acknowledge and reward the worthy citizens.

There are many other ways to reduce our dependence on coal fired power, including a switch to natural gas (which we also have plenty of and it emits far less CO2) and by incorporating effective ceramic fuel cells in our homes and businesses.

So achieving a 5 per cent reduction in emissions from energy by switching to renewable sources should be very easy to achieve. If the country does better than that by 2020 that’s a bonus.

4) Land use, farming and forestry
Even without incorporating agriculture in an emissions trading scheme, by encouraging (and rewarding) farmers to be more productive in their use of land and utilise “carbon farming” can achieve a significant reduction in emissions from this sector. Agriculture is a big emitter, so this needs to be approached in a positive, constructive way.

Environment Business Australia has put together a coalition of carbon farming organisations. Soil carbon and biochar are not pies in the sky but practical means of retaining (or restoring) carbon dioxide in the soil and thereby improving its productivity. Malcolm Turnbull latched onto this some time ago. Professor Tim Flannery sings its praises. Some ingenious work by Tony Lovell and Ken Bellamy in Queensland shows that it works effectively.

By combining effective land use – less land clearing – with carbon farming and undertaking more tree-planting will easily achieve a 5 per cent reduction in emissions from this sector.

Forestry is a big sub-sector which could make an even bigger contribution to emissions reductions on its own, particularly when you see the size of investments by the likes of Origin Energy and BP in tree planting through the Western Australian business of Carbon Conscious.

Retaining as much as possible of the country’s old growth forests and rainforests will continue to provide a major carbon sink. Just as we’re conscious of plans to invest in “avoided deforestation” in places like the Amazon and Indonesia, we need to ensure we protect and retain our own trees as a means to keep our emissions in check.

Remember too, that it was through a major cut back  in land clearing in Queensland a few years back which gave Australia a distinct advantage, enabling it to meet it Kyoto commitments (even before it ratified the international agreement).

5) Transportation comes clean
Private and public transport could easily account for 20 per cent of a nation’s emissions of green-house gases. So a switch to cleaner and more energy efficient transport – natural gas powered buses, electric or hybrid cars, taking more freight by rail than road – could all go towards achieving a 5 per cent reduction in this important sector’s contribution.

Getting more of the population to use public transport, walk or ride bicycles would all help, particularly if our cities become less congested and polluted by cars. Instead of giving disproportionate tax incentives (and subsidised parking) for people to buy and drive cars to work, Government (and employers) should be finding ways to incentivise those of us who take public transport or use our own energy to move about.

We often hear talk about achieving emissions reduction through some means or other which results in “taking so many cars off the road”. If we look at the transportation sector constructively, this can be done by taking more of the polluting or petrol powered vehicles off the road and replacing them with hybrid, electric, biodiesel or ethanol machines.

Electric vehicle infrastructure is one very obvious way to go and other countries – notably France, Denmark and Israel – have taken giants steps in this direction.

Australia has made a move with its Green Car Fund and has already got Better Place (the innovative electric vehicle infrastructure company) looking at what’s required to help Canberra go electric on the road.

Even though most of our electricity comes from coal fired power stations, electric cars are much more efficient (less polluting) users of energy. Also there is no reason why we cannot exploit to a greater extent renewable energy for the transport sector.
At a recent Electric Vehicle conference in Brisbane, delegates were told that one standard wind turbine can produce sufficient electricity to charge and power 1200 electric cars.

Shipping and air transport is also coming in for a lot of energy efficient/renewable energy attention. Jet bio fuels are being developed – and there is even an opportunity for Australia to get in on the ground-floor for this development, using plants and algae. MBD has trial plants around the country for biosequestration, using CO2 to feed algae to produce clean fuel and feedstock.

It is all really too simple. But unfortunately Government has not effectively communicated these or similar solutions to show how it is possible to attain an overall 25 per cent reduction in the nation’s emissions.

By pre-occupying itself with an emissions trading scheme – the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme – and failing to get it passed into law, the Government has also failed to address all these others measures which have the chance to contribute significantly to reduce Australia’s emissions.

But it is not too late. If it is smart, our Copenhagen-bound team can get in a huddle and bundle all the emissions producing sectors together and come up with a plan that shows it is feasible – even achieveable – to commit to a target of reducing our emissions of greenhouse gases  by 25 per cent (on 2000 levels) by 2020.

It is possible to get that mathematical and mythical five winged clean energy plane to fly.

Ken Hickson is the author of “The ABC of Carbon: Issues and opportunities in the global climate change environment”, published this year by his own consulting/publishing business ABC Carbon . He also produces a weekly e-newsletter abc carbon express. Trained as a journalist and with many years as a corporate communication consultant, he is currently in the process of setting up a new non-governmental organisation (NGO) called Green Earth Communicators Organisation (GECO). He is also a Governor of WWF Australia.

The report, Fuel for thought: the future of transport fuels: challenges and opportunities, looks at the need to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s transport sector and how Australia can best deal with the reality of peak oil.

“This report puts policy makers on notice about government’s clear role to prepare Australia for the twin realities of climate change and increasingly scarce and expensive oil,” said ACF’s Sustainable Australia program manager Monica Richter.

“Australia’s economy has been shaped by cheap and abundant oil,” Ms Richter said.

“Transport is responsible for about 14 per cent of our total greenhouse emissions. When considering the design of Australia’s emissions trading scheme, the Government cannot just ignore emissions from transport.”

The report recognises the pain caused by soaring fuel prices and supports government investment in public transport. However, it also sees a future where fully electric vehicles are the norm.

“The CSIRO modelling predicts plug-in electric vehicles could account for about two-thirds of the kilometres travelled in Australia by 2050, so there is an urgent need for governments to help manufacturers re-tool to build cleaner cars here in Australia,” Ms Richter said.

“Decarbonising our society is a big challenge, but the sooner we start the easier it will be and the less it will cost us.”