Garnaut and Climate Change

SIR: Ray Evans’ article “The Chilling Costs of Climate Catastrophism” (June 2008) was quite disappointing. I am disturbed about his criticism of Ross Garnaut. Evans criticises Garnaut, as a policy adviser, for using the IPCC report as a source. How could Garnaut do anything else? Even Steven McIntyre, perhaps the best-known critic of the IPCC report, has said that if he was advising government, he would base his advice on the IPCC report.

Ray Evans should have picked up on two key aspects of Garnaut’s work. In one of Garnaut’s first statements he pointed out that the IPCC conclusions were not 100 per cent certain. The other key statement by Garnaut is the need for Australia to act on measures in concert with other countries, and not to act precipitately. The issue of uncertainty in the IPCC conclusions should be the focus for action. When you are faced with serious policy decisions based on uncertain data, putting resources into reducing uncertainty is well advised. After many years and billions of dollars the uncertainty levels of scientific climate predictions are still about the same.

Perhaps Ray Evans could turn his attention to Australia’s CSIRO. Why are CSIRO scientists sitting in air-conditioned offices playing with computer models, when they could be gathering data? The CSIRO’s climate model is just another one of many worldwide, whereas land use changes and their influence on clouds and climate could be well studied in Australia. The University of WA has done ground-breaking work in this area. What has the CSIRO done to reduce uncertainty in climate change forecasts? Rather than criticising Ross Garnaut, Ray Evans could focus on the need to reduce uncertainty and when there are many voices calling for unilateral action in Australia, Evans could back Garnaut’s deliberate approach to policy implementation.

Richard Hill,
Moorabbin, Vic.

SIR: As a strange and sad footnote to Ray Evans’ essay, the sixth H.W. Arndt Memorial Lecture at the ANU, on June 5, was delivered by Professor Ross Garnaut—“Measuring the Immeasurable: The Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation”.

The late Professor Arndt would of course accord Professor Garnaut, as a fellow economist and former colleague at the School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU, due regard and courtesy. But I think it likely that the great man, former editor and regular contributor to Quadrant, would be (to put it mildly) somewhat dismayed by Garnaut’s current views.

Tony Martyr,
Clermont, Qld.