News | Climate Change

http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/china-powers-ahead-to-cut-emissions/story-fn6ck2gb-1225988948304

WE have had a terrible reminder of just how disastrous weather events can be.

I watched the events of last week from China, where I was attending an investment conference.
While the two might appear to be quite disconnected events, in fact I sat through four days of presentations where climate change, energy-efficiency targets and reduced carbon emissions were mentioned in every single session.
What science is telling us is the frequency and severity of extreme climate events will increase as the planet warms.
China is now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and it is seriously worried. Worried about its climate, pollution, water supplies and also it's international reputation.
Without waiting for the rest of the world, it has voluntarily adopted a target to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced per unit of GDP by 2020, by 40 to 45 per cent from 2005 levels, but it is a demanding target and will require some very major changes in energy use in China. It is also likely to have profound impacts for Australia.
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Over the past five years China has already reduced its emissions per unit of GDP by around 15 per cent, but the easy gains from closing down terribly inefficient old power stations and the like have already been had.
The new five-year plan has not yet been finalised but is expected to seek a targeted further 15 to 20 per cent improvement in carbon efficiency. The problem is that China, like us, it is very much a coal dependent economy.
Despite having the world's fastest growing wind, hydro and nuclear programs, none of these can be expected to significantly help China meet its target.
Rather, the most likely solution to China's carbon problem is lying in deep coal beds in central Queensland and off WA's North-West Shelf natural gas.
Per unit of electricity generated, gas produces roughly half the carbon dioxide of coal.
That said, the magnitude of China's challenge is, if it was to meet its target by switching to gas, there is not enough readily available to do it.
The good news for Australia and for Queensland is, while we dominate China's coking coal imports, we only export a relatively small amount of thermal coal to China, but when it comes to gas, we have projects in spades ready to go.
Last week's go-ahead from Santos, following on from BG's Curtis project, is probably just a taste of things to come. From what I heard in Beijing, the Shell/PetroChina project cannot be far behind.
Already Gladstone is on its way to becoming an energy superpower, primarily driven by a world becoming concerned about climate risk.