ABARE Climate Change Research Project M84

8 August 1995

DFAT/ABARE CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH PROJECT

There is no basis to the claim in the Sydney Morning Herald of 7 August and repeated in ABC reports that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade/Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics study being undertaken into climate change is part of a strategy for "secretly developing a major diplomatic offensive that will undermine efforts to protect the world's climate".

In September 1994 DFAT and ABARE agreed to undertake jointly an economic research project assessing the trade, economic and environmental implications of possible measures to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Econometric work using the ABARE MEGABARE model is an important element of this project. The study was commissioned against the background of concern to encourage a global response to climate change which will deliver meaningful greenhouse gas emission reductions in a manner that is sustainable.

The details of this research were publicly distributed. Also a comprehensive consultative process, involving several government departments, industry representatives and environmental Non Government Organisations, was established to allow these groups an opportunity to express their views on the constancy. The study has been assisted by this consultative process but there has been no financial contributions made to the work apart from those by DFAT and ABARE.

Work on the project is continuing and it is anticipated that the study will be published next month.

The study represents a legitimate and essential piece of research into the key trade and economic aspects of climate change that need to be fully analysed and considered in the development of final negotiating positions. Trade and economic implications are, of course, one of the many important considerations addressed by the Government in this key policy area.

The outcome of the Berlin Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in April recognised that the assessment and analysis of policies and measures for achieving global reductions in greenhouse emissions are essential if the environmental objectives of the convention are to be achieved in a cost effective and equitable way, thereby ensuring the longer term viability of the FCCC itself.

The project is designed to assist Australia, and possibly other countries, to define parameters for negotiations on sensitive issues like joint implementation and to examine ways in which future commitments to limit emissions may be developed to promote the equitable sharing of burdens and to minimise the overall costs to the global economy without compromising environmental imperatives.

MELBOURNE