by Edwards Christian
SYDNEY, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- As global climate pacts continue to evaporate, Australia's top public intellectuals and renewable energy experts are this week lauding China's leadership towards "a world of decarbonized energy", raising concerns the resource-rich nation has failed to seize the subsequent opportunities presented by China's viable energy alternative.
Economic and environmental frustration is spilling over here in the wake of Australian research published in Monday's issue of the science journal Nature, detailing the ways in which China has broken the fossil fuel conundrum by building "manufacturing industries, enhancing energy security and contributing to reducing carbon emissions".
Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, Ross Garnaut, a former Australian Ambassador to China, said Australia was being left behind on the economic and ethical opportunities of China's world- leading renewable policies. "The Australian political and business elite have missed this turning point in Chinese development and therefore this opportunity," Garnaut said.
CHINA MORE GREEN THAN JUST BLACK AND WHITE
While the crux of western discussion of China's environment has been to describe China as an energy-hungry juggernaut, intent on sucking the marrow out of traditional carbon-based fuels, the reality is far less black and white, and, in fact, a lot more green.
China's 20 years of rapid economic and social development that has so astonished the world came at a high-cost in terms of global emissions, Garnaut, one of Australia's most respected public intellectuals, said.
"And then China took the world by surprise again," he added. "The pattern of Chinese economic growth changed, towards less energy-intensive activity and less emissions-intensive energy," Garnaut explained.
While Australia's own national programs to combat climate change evaporated like so much of the rhetoric that marked equally ineffectual global pacts like the Kyoto protocol, Garnaut said China, rather than follow suit, galvanized its economic programs into a sustainability scenario that left the developed world in its wake.
"The effects of the structural changes... have again transformed expectations of what is possible in global climate change mitigation, this time in a positive direction," Garnaut said.
AN OPPORTUNITY LOST
Garnaut's lamentation for Australia's once bold approach to combating climate change makes the subsequent economic blowback a harsh reality.
Australian coal exporters are scratching their heads at another expression of Beijing's determination to deliver on its climate promises, this week slamming the brakes on imported coal with more than 16 percent ash and three percent sulfur from 2015.
The Chinese Government's latest step forward in utilizing alternative energy is exposing both Australia's environmental double standards and its mining industry to billions of dollars in lost exports.
According to Garnaut, Australia's decision makers, giddy with the riches of a decade-long, China-driven mining boom, have simply failed to read the signs of China's commitment to renewable energies.
"It's an elementary failure of observation, analysis and empathy," said Garnaut.
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