theangle.org

Chinese Coal Plant. Credit: Tobixen

By Rich Bowden:

Australia and China should co-operate at Copenhagen to produce a binding agreement on climate change, a conference held in Tianjin, China has heard.

Delegates attending the talks co-hosted by Australia’s Flinders University and China’s Nankai University, heard that the global financial crisis which had gripped Asia, along with expected consequences of climate change, had the potential to increase instability in the region and had made pushing towards a binding decision on emissions at the key climate conference in Copenhagen in December, all the more necessary.

Dr Maryanne Kelton, from Flinders School of International Studies, told the conference earlier this week that “the intersection of the financial crisis with the need to limit anthropogenic carbon emissions complicates government capacity to act,” according to a Flinders news release.

“As has been plainly evident in the debate within Australia, the Labor government’s intent to construct an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) has been circumscribed by concerns that such a scheme will adversely affect industrial output and employment. Though the desirability of an ETS as the first best option for addressing emissions is moot, the need to create a national and eventually international reduction scheme is more widely supported,” Dr Kelton said.

“That the East Asian region will be vulnerable to rising sea levels, storm surges and flooding, coupled with increased pressures on productive food landholdings increases the pressures on both Australia and China to pragmatically reduce emissions and partner with regional states to limit environmental change. Multilaterally it becomes incumbent on Australia and China to locate workable solutions and with this in mind to drive the Copenhagen meeting in December to agreed solutions,” she said.

GFC and Instability

Dr Kelton said the Global Financial Crisis, though not as severe as the Asian economic meltdown twelve years ago, still had the potential to combine with changes brought about by global warming to create instability in the region.

“Remarkably upbeat as some analysts are, the effects of the Global Financial Crisis will continue to reverberate throughout the region. Though its effects have not been as acute as the crisis of 1997-98 where the Suharto government fell in Indonesia, the crisis will nevertheless produce a deterioration in the quality of life for millions of people in the region,” Dr Kelton said.

“The shorter term problem of unmet expectations can be a powerful force in creating social and political unrest or in exacerbating existing fractures in fragile societies. Over the longer term, this disaffection, compounded by the cessation of educational opportunities, can create forces antithetical to stability in the region,” she said.

Dr Kelton and a number of her colleagues from Flinders University joined counterparts from Nankai University in addressing the Global Financial Crisis conference earlier this week in Tianjin.

Flinders Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Barber said the conference strengthens Flinders’ relationship with Chinese universities such as Nankai and was important for the future.

“This conference builds on a long term relationship that Flinders has with Nankai, one of China’s leading universities, and takes that relationship to a new level with a joint engagement on research,” Professor Barber said.

“Australia’s international education has been driven primarily by bringing students to Australia and secondly, by running courses offshore. We need to expand our intellectual engagement and joint research activities with our Chinese counterparts, such as this conference that Flinders is co-hosting with Nankai University, are a critical part of an expanded relationship,” he said.

By Rich Bowden: Interested in writing on this or another category for theangle.org? Contact us via our online form.