Failure to model costs of climate change to coal, gas ‘beggars belief’
Australia’s 40-year economic outlook is forecasting dwindling demand for some of the nation’s most valuable exports including coal and natural gas after China, Japan and South Korea unveiled targets to achieve net-zero emissions.
But prominent think tank the Grattan Institute on Monday said it “beggars belief” that the Morrison government’s modelling failed to make projections about the scale of loss of export earnings or the impacts from global warming such as drought and natural disasters.
However, the Treasury’s 2021 Intergenerational Report on Monday warned the emissions-intensive commodities’ export earnings would fall as global efforts to combat climate change accelerated. It noted that countries had committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 including key trading partners Japan and South Korea, while China has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060.
“These commitments by other countries, if fully implemented, are likely to reduce demand for unabated fossil fuels over some decades,” it said.
Grattan Institute chief executive Danielle Wood criticised the landmark report for omitting more detailed projections of the magnitude of the losses, saying it “beggars belief that the federal government hasn’t made any attempt to think about it in a structured way”.
“It just makes no sense to run fiscal and economic scenarios out to 40 years without factoring in climate change,” Ms Wood said.
https://www.watoday.com.au/politics/federal/failure-to-model-costs-of-climate-change-to-coal-gas-beggars-belief-20210628-p584x3.htmlLight on detail josh, no pass mark.
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