A rise in emissions in China is no excuse for Australia to remain the laggard on climate change. The fact is, if China's emissions per capita were anywhere near Australia's, it would be game over, writes Mike Steketee.

The extraordinary defensiveness the Abbott Government is displaying on climate change looks increasingly like a case of protesting too much.

The agreement between the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the US, in which they promised further steps to reduce their carbon emissions was dismissed by Tony Abbott as so much idle talk in comparison to the real action Australia was taking:

... we are going to meet our 5 per cent reduction target within six years ... We are not talking about what might hypothetically happen 15, 20, 25, 30 years down the track.

The reality is that Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping already have taken stronger action than Australia to curb emissions by 2020 - in China's case through measures to slow the rapid growth in emissions that has accompanied its phenomenal economic development. In addition, both nations now have made commitments to further steps after 2020 - something that Abbott so far has refused to do.

Then there was Obama's supposedly calculated attack on the Abbott Government - on Australian home soil to boot. By now they have probably stopped scratching their heads in Washington over this one and written it off as those Aussies being mighty precious.

This, in all its starkness, is the language that Obama used in his speech to students in Brisbane and that the government found so offensive:

Here in Australia [climate change] means longer droughts, more wildfires. The incredible natural glory of the Great Barrier Reef is threatened. Worldwide, this past summer was the hottest on record. No nation is immune and every nation has a responsibility to do its part.

He added that both the US and Australia produced a lot of carbon and historically they had not been the most energy efficient of nations, "which means we've got to step up". He said that he wanted to come back and see the Great Barrier Reef and he wanted his daughters and grandchildren to do the same.

Is the Abbott Government seriously saying it disagrees with any of this? If global warming doesn't mean longer droughts, more bushfires and coral bleaching, amongst other things, then there is no reason for the Government to spend $2.5 billion of taxpayers' money to buy emissions reductions.

The truth is that the Government's claim that Australia has done better than many countries in tackling climate change has come under challenge on numerous fronts. One example is the detailed annual study by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. Its latest report shows Australian carbon dioxide emissions rising by 59 per cent between 1990 and 2012 - more than for any of the other 12 developed countries listed and more than twice the increase for the second and third place getters, Spain and Canada.

At the other end of the scale, emissions fell by 27 per cent in the Russian Federation, 21 per cent in Germany and 17 per cent in the UK. Part, but only part, of the explanation is that Russia and the UK in particular have gone through serious economic downturns.

Australia did not and, as well, its population grew by 35 per cent over that period - faster than any of the other countries. In per capita terms, the increase in Australian emissions was 17 per cent but that still was the highest of the developed countries and almost twice the per capita increase of the second highest, Japan. Most other countries showed a fall in per capita terms, including the US with a 17 per cent drop. And the actual level of Australia's emissions - 18.8 tonnes of CO2 per person - also was the highest, amongst both the developed and developing countries listed.

While the figures in different studies vary a little according to different data sources, the main reason for the stark contrast with the government's claims is that the European analysis excludes the effect of deforestation. It is the reduction in tree clearing that has put Australia on track to meet its Kyoto target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions below 2000 levels by 2020, despite substantial increases in emissions in other areas.

The Howard government negotiated a specific clause that allowed emissions from deforestation to be included. It was not a significant factor in other developed countries, which largely stopped cutting down forests many years ago.

Arguably, an emissions reduction is an emissions reduction is an emissions reduction, however it is achieved. But halting deforestation is a one-off contribution, while the benefits of cutting emissions from, say, vehicles or power stations, are permanent or long lasting.

Two Australian-based academics have tackled the claims by the government that we are achieving similar emissions reductions to the US. They conclude that, when deforestation is taken out of the calculations, Australia would need to increase its 5 per cent target for emissions cuts to at least 21 per cent to match US efforts:

An apples-with-apples comparison shows that Australia lags far behind the United States in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its energy, transport and industrial sectors.

It is true that a major contribution to emissions reductions in the US has been the shift from coal to gas through the use of hydraulic fracking technology. But the US also is far ahead of Australia in areas such as reducing emissions from cars and trucks.

The European study highlights just how much larger China looms in the global emissions story. While Australian CO2 emissions grew by 59 per cent between 1990 and 2012, those in China increased by 293 per cent. In 2012, they were at a level - 9.9 billion tonnes - approaching double those of the US and three times those of Europe. Per capita emissions in China grew from 2.1 tonnes in 1990 to 7.1 tonnes in 2012.

These are scary figures that have overwhelmed the efforts of other countries to curb emissions. The significant development is that China itself has recognised that this path is unsustainable. It is shifting the pattern of economic growth from energy and emissions intensive industrial development to consumption of goods and services. If this is a logical next step in China's economic development, it also has been hastened by the air pollution that has blanketed major cities in recent years. It helped prompt it to promise in its agreement with the US that its carbon emissions would peak by 2030.

While acknowledging that China has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, Environment Minister Greg Hunt points to a rise in Chinese emissions unmatched in human history and 640 times faster than Australia's to fend off criticisms of Australia's record. He adds that China will add billions more tonnes of emissions to the atmosphere before 2030.

Well, yes, but that is not an excuse for Australia to remain the laggard on climate change. We are hardly in a position to argue that China should stop its economic development - not when we depend so heavily on China for our own growth and when our emissions per head are more than two and a half times higher than China's.

As Obama put it in his Brisbane speech last week, "If China, as it develops, adopts the same per capita carbon emissions as advanced economies like the United States or Australia, this planet doesn't stand a chance."

China's emissions per head are now just a little below Europe's figure of 7.4 tonnes, according to the European study. That puts meat on the bones of the argument that the fairest way to share the burden of controlling carbon emissions is to converge on a world per capita target that is sustainable in the long run.

That would require Australia to bring its emissions down by a large amount. It may seem tough on a nation such as ours that is rich in fossil fuels. But in the long run the decision will be taken out of our hands as China and other nations reduce their dependence on coal.

Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist. He was formerly a columnist and national affairs editor for The Australian. View his full profile here.