Australian PM Commits to Cleaner Coal

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is often practical. In the following speech, which he gave today at the launch of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate's 'Partnership for Action 2006', he made a few good points including:

* More than any other developed nation, Australia's economy is dependent on fossil fuels,

* It makes sense to invest in technologies what will 'cleanup' this source of energy including by capturing carbon emissions, and

* Signing a piece of paper, i.e. Kyoto, won't stop global warming.

Here's the speech:

"Thank you very much Alexander, Ian Macfarlane, Geoff Garrett, the Chief Executive of CSIRO, your excellencies representing our five partner countries in AP6, ladies and gentlemen. The first and indeed probably the most important thing to say about AP6 is that together it represents approximately 50 per cent of global energy use, emissions, GDP and world population. So it’s not a bad practical foundation for a collaborative approach that will produce a lot of practical outcomes.

There is a lot of debate about climate change, you’d have to be sort of on another planet to pretend otherwise, and there will continue to be a lot of talk, and there’ll be a lot of rhetoric and there will be a lot of well-meaning injunctions to people to sign things and to negotiate things. But side by side with all of that meritorious endeavour, there needs to be practical applications of technology. And although there is debate about how you approach climate change, and that’s legitimate, and none of us should be mesmerised by any one particular theory, I don’t think there’s any doubt that in order to make progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions we need to make progress in cleaning up the use of fossil fuels.

And I think the other thing we ought to remember as Australians, if I may be permitted in the presence of our guests to sound a little inward looking for a moment, I think we ought to bear in mind that two interrelated factors, the one I’ve just mentioned, and that is to make progress we have to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use. And the other thing to bear in mind is that there’s probably no developed country in the world that depends more on fossil fuel use for its wealth generation and its power generation than does Australia. And we have to be very careful, we Australians, as we move forward, that we don’t end up imposing a disproportionate share of the burden of adjustment on our own country.

Now that is a legitimate plea from the Prime Minister of Australia but it’s not in any way discordant with the goals and objectives of this Partnership because what makes me enthusiastic about this Partnership is that it’s about practical achievement, not talk. If we’d have sat down at the beginning in January and said we can’t do anything until we agree on a bit of paper, until we agree on some targets or some sanctions or some penalties, nothing would’ve happened. Instead of that we set about trying to build, through a series of task forces some action plans, and in a remarkably short period of time; and Alexander is absolutely right; it’s only taken nine months, and we now have and I’m launching today, Australian contributions of $60 million out of the $100 million we committed at the beginning of this exercise nine months ago, and that’s going to fund 42 projects covering all of the activities of the task groups. The two in the areas for which Australia is particularly responsible are magnificently displayed outside and both of them are immensely practical. What could be more practical in the climate, dare I say, of the current debate, what could be more practical than to find a way of capturing carbon emissions from existing power stations, separating them out and burying the carbon? What could be more practical than that? And that is exactly what $8 million out of the $60 million which is being contributed to this particular development of CSIRO, that magnificent Australian organisation, and it comes out of its flagship climate change program.

And the other $5 million is for the projects that are particularly relevant to Australia, which is, of course, going to help the Solar Systems projects. Solar Systems were the partner that we, along with the Victorian Government, funded last week in that major announcement made by the Minister and Treasurer and the Victorian Government. And the development we’re funding is an application of that technology which we hope will be exported and used enthusiastically in both China and South Korea.

Now this is the essence of what this Partnership is about. By all means let us continue the process of discussion, and I’ve made it clear that Australia will be part of future discussions which are designed to get total international agreement involving all of the major polluters, involving all the nations of the world and if we can do that you can then start talking about an effective world-wide emissions trading system. But that’s going to take a lot of time. But in the meantime we are getting on with the job of practical investment in technologies which are going to, in a sensible way, bring about a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. And that magnificent combustion capture technology, which is displayed outside, has the potential to capture between 85 and 95 per cent of the CO2 content of the emissions from a basic coal-based power station. And they can, of course, be retrofitted, it’s a prototype, and what the CSIRO will be doing, I understand, is going around applying this, plugging it into power stations, testing the consequences and that will lay the foundation, the research coming out of that, will lay the foundations for the custom building of these capture technologies for the needs of individual power stations.

Now that is my necessarily inadequate technological understanding, I do not claim to be a scientist on this matter, on these matters, but I’m furiously learning and trying very, very hard to understand some of these concepts. But it’s a very commonsense concept that we should focus on practical responses. And one of the practical responses is to make it possible for us to go on using fossil fuel in a way that generates fewer CO2 emissions. There could be no argument about that. There’s no debate about that. That makes commonsense that we do it. But in the process we have to as a nation, and as a world, understand there is a cost involved in this process. And, you know, a little bit of this debate over the past few weeks has given the impression that all you’ve got to do is put a signature on a bit of paper, and hey presto, the world stops getting warm. It’s not quite as simple as that, I wish it were, it’s not, and we have to find practical ways of addressing these issues. And one of these practical ways is the sort of technology that’s been demonstrated out there. But internationally, what is magnificent about the Partnership is that it brings together the commitment of half of the world’s population, half of the world’s GDP, the countries that contribute 50 per cent of the emissions and 50 per cent of the world’s global energy use. Now we’ve actually agreed in nine months on a practical plan of action. Now that beats all the debate. And I’m not objecting the debate and I’m all in favour of debate, it’s the stuff of international engagement and the stuff of democracy. But while that debate goes on, isn’t it incredibly sensible and important that we invest in technology because there can be no argument.

And may I remind you that when the Government released its White Paper on energy more than two years ago, we pointed Australia down this path. We said the future lay in developing better technology to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions coming out of the use of fossil fuel. And that was more than two years ago. There’s nothing that’s, sort of, suddenly come in the last 24 hours on that and of course last week the Minister, with the Treasurer, made a major announcement and earlier this week he made some major announcements in his native state of Queensland.

So there is a lot happening on this front but I particularly welcome again the representatives of our friends in the Partnership and I’ll be meeting the heads of all of their governments, with the exception of India, at the APEC Meeting in Vietnam later this month and I’m quite sure that the issue of climate change will come up at that meeting. But the Partnership is a vivid reminder of the value of practical responses to practical challenges and it’s in that spirit and with that enthusiasm I launch it. I know that Australia’s contribution of $100 million towards projects under the Partnership is the first, and I know that that contribution will be followed very rapidly by contributions from other countries that are part of the Partnership, so that together we can fund these very exciting projects that I’m announcing today. Thank you very much."

A colleague has suggested to me that this 'carbon capture' technology will make coal about twice as expensive as nuclear energy. Is he correct? How practical is 'carbon capture' really, and how expensive is it likely to be?