Australia told to further cut greenhouse gas emissions

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-05 15:47

CANBERRA, Australia -- A government pledge to slash Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by midcentury would not stop dangerous global warming and should be extended to an 80 percent target, a report recommended Friday.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was elected to power last year on a promise to aim for 60 percent cuts in emissions by 2050 -- a more ambitious goal than the 50 percent agreed on by leaders at the Group of Eight industrial countries in July.

But Ross Garnaut, an economist commissioned by the government to investigate how Australia should respond to climate change, released a report Friday recommending the 80 percent target for 2050 and a 10 percent interim target by 2020.

Such cuts are needed if Australia were to carry its fair share of the burden of holding the global carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 550 parts per million, he said.

Canada should cut emissions by the same proportion, the United States by 81 percent, Japan by 75 percent and the European Union by 69 percent, the report said.

In the interest of equalizing the world's greenhouse gas emissions on a per capita basis, the report said China's level needs only to fall by 4 percent, while India's could grow 230 percent.

The 550 ppm level of atmospheric pollution still posed "large risks to the Australian economy," but developing countries would not agree to a safer target of 450 ppm, he said.

"Australia should now indicate its willingness to play its proportionate part in future, and if possible early movement toward a more ambitious global goal than 550 ppm," Garnaut said in the report.

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