Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change – Discussion Paper

We note that the Discussion Paper is a very comprehensive and balanced document which provides a forum for debate and policy formulation on the issue of climate change.

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) is convinced that the implications of climate change (both natural variability and human induced change) for Australia cannot be ignored. The Academy accepts the broad thrust of the consensus of expert opinion on the science of climate change prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) but believes considerable care is needed to avoid overstatement of both the level of confidence and the uncertainties in the science. It supports the IPCC’s peer assessment process and encourages the expert science community to continue to refine and, as necessary, adjust their assessment of the state of knowledge, particularly on observed, and possible future, climate change at the national and regional scale in the light of progress in the monitoring and modeling of climate processes.

While the Academy has, so far, adopted a ‘no regrets’ approach to climate change mitigation and emphasized the importance of careful planning for adaptation to unmitigated climate change, it fully recognizes the concept international strategies for greenhouse gas emission reduction as a global public good. While having taken no stance on Australian ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Academy strongly supports the stimulus for development of low greenhouse gas emission technologies and enhanced carbon dioxide sequestration that commitment to the targets of the Kyoto Protocol provides. It supports a strong Australian commitment to the development of low or zero greenhouse gas emission technologies for the longer term.

The Academy has taken a strong interest in the scientific, technological and engineering aspects of the climate change issue since the potential implications of greenhouse warming became the subject of intense national and international debate in the 1980’s. Several of its Fellows have been deeply involved in the international assessment of information relevant to the climate change debate through their participation in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations System body set up in 1988 to provide all countries with the opportunity to take part in the international scientific assessment of the climate change issue. The Academy carried out a major study of current understanding and uncertainties in the climate change debate in 1995 and reviewed and reassessed its conclusions in 2002. It also convened a major national symposium on the policy response to the greenhouse issue in 1995 and collaborated closely with Australia’s three other learned Academies, through the National Academies Forum (NAF), in organising a National Conference on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in December 2002. The Academy, along with a number of its individual Fellows, continues to play a leading role in progressing the national understanding of the science, impacts and policy implications of enhanced greenhouse warming and climate change.