Paris Agreement Paves Way For A Safer Climate

Australian Conservation Foundation

The climate change agreement in Paris creates a pathway towards a safer climate for all life on Earth.
The agreement includes:

• Commitment to limit global warming to well below 2°C, and pursue efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C
• a long term goal of zero net greenhouse pollution in the second half of the century
• establishment of a system to enable increased pollution cuts through five-year reviews of pollution reduction targets, with the first review in 2018
• establishment of a system to regularly increase financial contributions to help the world's poorest countries  cut pollution and cope with global warming impacts.

For the first time in history all countries have agreed to limit pollution and create a pathway towards a safer climate.  This agreement in Paris signals the end of the fossil fuel age and will turbo charge the clean energy revolution already underway.
These talks are not an end point, but they are a tipping point.  The world must now accelerate the switch from coal to renewables, protect carbon-storing forests, boost energy efficient transport and buildings and create the economies and jobs of the future.
This agreement is a big, positive step, but what's most important is what leaders do when they get home.
Our government talked innovation here in Paris, but at home it continues to subsidise inefficient, dirty coal companies and still plans to dismantle renewable energy agency ARENA and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
In Paris our government talked up renewables, but at home is approving new coal mines.
If Adani's Carmichael coal mine – recently approved by the Turnbull Government – goes ahead, the pollution resulting from that single project will almost entirely wipe out Australia's pollution reduction commitments here in Paris.
ACF urges Prime Minister Turnbull to bring the momentum and goodwill of Paris into Australia's 2016 election year by making genuine changes that will unshackle our country from dirty energy and pave the way for a truly innovative, renewable future.

Links

• Adani meeting shows mining magnates have too much influence
• Paris talks expose Australian climate hypocrisy
• PM talks the talk on climate, but action speaks louder than words
• Australia's neo-colonial sophistry holding back progress in Paris

The Paris Agreement And Implications For Australia Policy Brief

The Climate Institute

The Paris agreement, while not perfect, will continue to drive the momentum to modernise and clean up economies. Clean energy in the power sector - already outstripping fossil fuel investments - is now set to become the dominant source of electricity around the world.
Over the last decade or more, momentum has been building, with more and more governments take steps to limit pollution and build new clean industries, and an increasing number of investors start recognise and account for climate-induced financial risk. Paris marked this trend with many governments, businesses, investors and financial regulators taking additional steps to address climate change.

Five key elements of the historic Paris agreement:

1. Stronger than expected global warming goals not just to keep warming well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, but also to pursue efforts to keep warming to 1.5°C, half a degree above current warming.
2. A universal and durable agreement requiring actions from all countries, and spanning decades, unlike previous agreements which needed to be renegotiated regularly.
3. Bankable signals to investors that policies will continually ratchet up, with five yearly reviews, to achieve net zero emissions through time.
4. A pathway to proper transparency and accountability with work to do over the next four years.
5. Support for the vulnerable and poor nations to be scaled up after 2025 from a floor of US$100 billion. 

The Paris agreement marks a critical point for Australian climate policy.
The government has recognised the need to work towards net zero emissions where greenhouse gas emissions are balanced against natural and industrial processes of removing pollution from the air. The rest of the world is now accelerating down this path.
Crucially, the government joined the High Ambition Coalition, which championed the 1.5°C goal, but its targets and policies are more aligned to global warming of 3-4°C. Our 2030 targets would still leave us as the highest per capita polluter in the developed world – alongside just Saudi Arabia in the G20.
The government played a mostly constructive role in the negotiations. However, in order to maintain international credibility and take effective climate action, there are four immediate steps the Australian government should now take:

1. Improve initial post-2020 pollution reduction target and commit to net zero emissions before 2050;
2. Expand domestic policies and, in particular, have a plan to replace existing coal fired power plants;
3. Increase climate finance investment to assist vulnerable countries; and
4. Cancel our Kyoto carry over of surplus carbon credits.

Link

• Download PDF for The Climate Institute's full analysis

Climate Justice And An End To Fossil Fuels: The Paris Agreement Won’t Satisfy Activists

The Conversation - Rebecca Pearse

Climate activists demand a fair share outside the Paris conference. Jacky Naegelen/Reuters

A global climate agreement was adopted in Paris on Saturday evening, but it will leave activists demanding direct action on fossil fuels and energy market reform.
Before the Paris talks even began there were activists arguing that the negotiations would not deliver what they want. The Climate Justice Action network said that the COP21 will continue a 20 years of ineffective climate policy, demonstrated by a 65% rise in fossil fuel emissions since 1990.
Naomi Klein said she "refused to put our future in the hands of [negotiators] cloistered in the Bourget". Klein places more hope in bottom-up energy democracy.
Meanwhile, Saturday's protests were about saying campaigns for climate justice will continue.
Has activist pessimism about the agreement been justified?

The Paris Agreement doesn't stack up
Klein argues that there is some "good language" in the agreemnt. The Paris text recognises the need to cap temperature rises at 1.5℃. However, the language doesn't match national pledges for action. These pledges are so weak that a dangerous 3 or 4 degrees warming is likely.
The agreement also notes "the importance for some of the concept of "climate justice", when taking action to address climate change." But the substance of agreement falls far short of what movements mean by the term.
One of the main issues activists have raised is the absence of reference to fossil fuels in the Paris Agreement. The agreement aims for "balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks" after 2050.
Reference to reducing fossil fuels, or even "decarbonisation" would have been better. The vague language of "balance" between (fossil fuel) "sources" and "sinks" opens up the possibility for loopholes, such as "forest carbon offsets" and technologies activists oppose such as "clean coal" and nuclear energy.
Loopholes are familiar terrain for Australian negotiators, who have secured the continuation of a 1997 land carbon accounting loophole to meet Australia's 2020 target. It is an accounting rule that will allow further emissions increases in energy and industrial sectors with no penalty.
Opaque carbon terminology typical in climate agreements turns the climate issue into an unhelpful abstraction. The concrete problems climate movements want addressed are about energy and inequalities, which are systemic and difficult to change.

Movements want 'system change'
Activist pessimism about the Paris Agreement reflects the fact climate movements want to change society and transform energy systems more rapidly and fundamentally than the UN system allows for. They do this by bringing people together, online and in public spaces, to put pressure on governments and corporations to change.
The climate movement is a contemporary version of what Immanuel Wallerstein called "anti-systemic movements". Anti-systemic movements want to transform societies, and in this case, humanity's relationship with 'nature'.
Movements calling for "climate justice", carry on traditions of the alter-globalisation movement, other forms of environmentalism, feminism, anti-colonial and socialist movements.
Climate justice movements are diverse, but there is a fundamental principle informing activist practice: climate change is a consequence of unequal, colonial, economic and social power relations.
Protests during the Paris negotiations illustrate the diverse strands of this anti-systemic agenda. The slogans were "Flood the system" and "Connect the dots". Flood the system is a reference to anti-capitalist protests during the peak of the financial crisis. Connecting the dots means recognising the links between climate change and systemic inequalities.
Activists consistently point out that the impacts of climate change are greatest for marginal social groups, and that historical responsibility for climate change is concentrated in a small number of corporate and government hands.
Their analysis was symbolised in protests in the past weeks. The People's Climate March and the People's Parliament protest were both represented by Pacific Islanders, indigenous people, and mining-affected community members. They targeted Parliament, as well as a bank and fossil fuel company and coal infrastructure.
Given that climate justice movements want systemic change, it's unsurprising that the Paris Agreement is not enough for activists. However, this is not to say that anti-systemic movements simplistically oppose all reform, or that movements don't create new policy agendas.

Movements want reform too
There are two strong messages from activists about energy policy.

• 1) There needs to be a limit placed on fossil fuels
  
• 2) There needs to be regulation and public investment to facilitate affordable renewable energies.
  

As time as gone on, the political focus on abstract carbon targets and carbon pricing has diminished. Climate organisations like 350.org have translated their focus on global carbon target of 350ppm (a technical term for concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) into connected local campaigns to keep fossil fuels in the ground.
There are new research organisations documenting the fossil fuel assets that need to be retrenched in order to stay within a 1.5-2-degree limit. This year's Australia Institute campaign for "no new coal mines" is concrete policy that would help keep fossil fuels in the ground.
Whether or not direct regulation of energy markets is politically feasible is an unanswered question. However, seeking change through complex and ineffective emissions policy like carbon trading has also been difficult for activists.

The road from Copenhagen goes beyond Paris
The last major climate talks held in Copenhagen in 2009 saw public protests like those last week. There was a broad sense that it was the last chance for a global agreement that could avoid dangerous climate change.
When the Copenhagen Accord was deemed a flop, a sense of failure was keenly felt by climate movements. The numbers of people engaged in climate activism dropped considerably from 2010.
But activists did continue to mobilise. After Copenhagen the social and environmental effects of Australia's export mining boom in coal and gas were intensifying. New campaign organisations such as Lock the Gate and Land Water Future changed Australian climate politics. These groups are resisting fossil fuels, but climate mitigation is not the only, or central, motivation.
Food and water security, indigenous land rights, and farmer's property rights have become much more salient than ever before. These campaigns have led to temporary moratoriums on coal seam gas, numerous inquiries, new water protections, and a debate about whether land owners should be able to say no to fossil fuel companies.
Renewable energy campaigns have matured since 2009, with new citizens campaigns developing the case for community renewable energy projects and fair access to the electricity grid for Australia's 1.4 million rooftop solar owners. While these campaigns have struggled to get new policies, the resilience of the Renewable Energy Target is evidence that governments cannot risk losing voters who support renewables.
This week's climate negotiations were one moment in a long battle. Activists are moving "through" and "beyond" Paris and will continue campaigns against fossil fuel dependence and for a "just energy transition".
In doing so, movements will go on highlighting the failures of climate policy. They are changing what is politically feasible for Australian governments.

Links

• Climate activists take to social media for Paris summit, but who are they reaching?
• Explainer: which businesses are at COP21 and what do they want?
• The Paris Agreement won't stop coal, but future climate talks might
• The 'Climate Games' aren't just activist stunts – they're politics beyond the UN

Climate For Change: Paris Accord Delivers Hope For The Future

Sydney Morning Herald - Editorial

The deal provides the impetus and a mechanism for every nation to do far ore to tackle global warming - and they must do significantly more.

Unlike our 2020 emissions trading reduction target, Australia cannot leave the essential next steps under the Paris process to luck and trickery. Photo: Jessica Shapiro

Far better late than never, the climate for change among most individuals and the vast majority of nations has morphed into a historic agreement. Global warming can – and must – be limited for the benefit of future generations. The Paris accord creates the momentum and mechanism to do that. Eventually.
As US President Barack Obama said, "We won't live to see the full realisation of our achievements, but that's OK."  Indeed it is, providing nations such as ours use the Paris deal as justification to do more to tackle global warming.
The new architecture provides impetus to reach net neutral carbon emissions between 2050 and 2100. Nations must ramp up emissions targets every five years with the aim of limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and an intent to reach 1.5C. The total of current commitments beyond 2020 will still allow temperatures to rise by closer to 3C. So every nation must do significantly more.
Australia's emissions reduction target to 2020 will be reached in large part by good fortune and beyond that by questionable accounting. We cannot leave the essential next steps under the Paris process to luck and trickery. There are now clear rules on what does and does not constitute doing our bit.
Fortunately, the Turnbull government is showing signs of willingness to adapt to a new world view that accepts the science and commits every nation to doing the most it can – within political and economic imperatives. India, developing nations, the oil-rich and to some extent China remain half-hearted, despite having signed on to a deal with the West which gives poorer countries $100 billion by 2020 plus an indeterminate extra amount over time to help them cope with the adjustment and the damage from climate change. Australian taxpayers will have to front up more cash over the next few decades.
During the past two years Australia lost global leadership as the Abbott government ditched the carbon tax and chose to limit actions to the bare minimum under pressure from climate change denialists. The other excuse – that we won't act until others do – is now gone too.
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop rightly opened the door further to market mechanisms to reduce emissions. The ban on government support for wind farms has vanished. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, is open to doing whatever works best.
But he has much more to do on the Direct Action policy, which alone cannot hope to meet even our modest target of 26-28 per cent reductions in emissions by 2030 based on 2005 levels. A carbon price remains the best option, but politically will be difficult for Mr Turnbull.
As the Herald has argued, Direct Action in its safeguards mechanism and penalties contains the seeds of a baseline and credit emissions reduction system based on permit trading and using global markets. The government must examine  that change well before the review of the scheme in 2017 and the first five-year review of progress under the Paris accord.
Other Australian policies will also need to become more realistic. The Renewable Energy Target must increase gradually, while the essential bodies for encouraging investment in new, cheaper technology – such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – must be strengthened.
The economic cost of the Paris deal will be felt particularly keenly in Australia. Our reliance on the export of fossil fuels will need to be reduced over time. Our use of old-style coal-fired power plants for energy generation is not viable. Some technology improvements will keep coal viable for decades, but the demand from increasingly green overseas economies will diminish.
Proposed resources projects will have to take into account the Paris agreement when assessing any cost-benefit. Many will not proceed. Indeed every business in Australia will have to factor in fully that they will be required to source cleaner energy and produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions or they will lose markets and pay extra for services.
It is clear Australia needs to become more innovative and invest more heavily in green technologies to adapt to the post-Paris world. Our and others' contribution to the Bill Gates-led Green Energy Innovation Fund at the start of the Paris talks represented significant progress.
By contrast to the situation three months ago, we are far better placed to be pragmatic and entrepreneurial in finding stronger policies to play our part.  The next election will not be so much about knocking down climate change policies but about finding the ones that work most efficiently for the lowest cost in meeting increasingly difficult and costly targets.
The game has been changed forever, for the good of us and especially for generations to come.

Paris Climate Change Deal First Step On Long Road

Australian Financial Review - Editorial

United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres with French Foreign Minister and COP21 president Laurent Fabius as he uses a hammer to mark the adoption of the agreement at Paris. Francois Mori

The United Nations climate change conference that concluded in Paris at the weekend marks a welcome contrast from the debacle of the 2009 Copenhagen summit in that the 195 countries involved could agree on a broad framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. That is a massive relief given the need for the world's nations to collectively guard against potentially catastrophic global warming.  
The Copenhagen failure proved to be a fatal setback for the Rudd government, which did not anticipate the hostile position of the Chinese government six years ago. With China being more co-operative, the Turnbull government has emerged with credit from Paris.
Australia successively pushed for regular reviews of voluntary targets with the final agreement requiring "stocktaking" meetings that would require all countries to report on their progress within a common reporting system.
While that amounts to a big first step towards a global effort to limit emissions, it replaces the one-size-fits-all approach that delivered the Copenhagen debacle. In its place, individual countries will be permitted to nominate their own targets, so-called "nationally determined contributions".  And only some sections of the final agreement are legally binding.
The all-important emissions targets remain voluntary to avoid the deal being classified as an international treaty which would then have to be ratified by the US Senate.
This means that much still depends the naming and shaming power of the treaty and just how far individual countries are prepared to go, particularly when times are tough. Australia can claim some credit for its target settled on when Tony Abbott was prime minister: to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
While these have been criticised, Mr Turnbull and Environment Minister Greg Hunt can claim that, in per capita terms, this pledge is second in terms of ambition only to Brazil among G20 nations.
Whether the many pledges made at the Paris meeting, assuming they are adhered to, are enough to keep the earth warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels (1 degree from now) or the more aspirational 1.5 degrees, remains to be seen.

Policy jumble
Although this newspaper has always said that scientific advice should be heeded in this area, if only as a precaution against worst-case scenarios, climate science is not exact enough to precisely link carbon dioxide concentrations with specific atmospheric temperatures.
After bungling climate change policy so badly under both the Rudd and Gillard governments, Labor would be wise to pull back from its calls for Australia to commit to even deeper cuts to carbon emissions.
Similarly, Malcolm Turnbull should work on reducing the costs of Australia's haphazard jumble of climate change policies before getting out ahead of the rest of the world again.
As we report elsewhere today, the mandated growth of renewable energy, for instance, is injecting considerable volatility and cost into Australia's electricity networks.
The lesson of the past decade or more of climate change politics is that Australian governments need to recognise that global frameworks struggle to recognise the particular structure of the Australian economy.
As an efficient producer and exporter of fossil fuels, Australia would probably retain a significant fossil fuel industry under any relatively low cost reduction in global emissions, such as through a global carbon price.
Global emissions may actually have fallen slightly this year due to a slowdown in economic growth, and hence coal consumption in China, which accounts for 28 per cent of global emissions.
Yet China also has 100 gigawatts of coal-fired generation capacity under construction or approved and intends to curtail emissions through measures such as coal washing plants, retrofitting coal-fired power plants and coal chemical operations and by controlling residential use.
With hundreds of millions of people yet to be connected electricity, India inevitably will increase its coal-fired generation, which will include the use of Australian coal. Australia should seek to aid such noble economic development while minimising the overall risk to humankind.

Heat Turned Up On Malcolm Turnbull's Domestic Climate Policies As World Pledges To Act

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham


Julie Bishop addresses Paris climate agreement
Addressing all signatories of the accord, Julie Bishop said nations must now "return home to implement the new global agreement". Vision courtesy ABC News 24.

A watershed climate pact in Paris has stepped up pressure on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to act at home to curb emissions and phase out fossil fuels, as the federal government warns it will not risk the economy to meet the new global commitment.
Labor says the Paris agreement struck over the weekend, under which all nations will aim to keep global warming below 2 degrees or lower compared with pre-industrial levels, shows Australia's domestic policies are "out of step with the rest of the world" and inconsistent with the new global accord.
The Greens and environment groups say the agreement shows the coal era is over and renewable power – set for an investment boost following the Paris talks – is now undeniably central to the world's energy future.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The Paris agreement, which will take effect in 2020, will require all countries, including poorer ones, to tackle climate change.
Countries will seek to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century and review their targets every five years. They will also be required to adopt a consistent approach to reporting on both national emissions and progress towards meeting their targets.
Developed nations will allocate at least $US100 billion ($1.39 billion) a year in public and private funding to help poorer nations cope with climate change and this commitment will be reviewed in 2025.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop says the Paris agreement is "an historic step in the global response to climate change". Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop said the agreement was "an historic step in the global response to climate change" and Australia worked constructively with other nations to secure a bold, enduring outcome that, for the first time, requires all countries to reduce emissions.
However she reportedly said it would be difficult for Australia to ramp up its climate efforts and "we have to get that balance right between environmental and economic outcomes".
Mr Turnbull's own personal views on the need for strong climate action have been curtailed by his party's conservative wing, upon whose support he relied to take the leadership.
NSW Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, who has been skeptical of the need for climate action, wrote on Facebook of the Paris deal: "THEY'VE DONE IT!! Hallelujah. The world is saved ... The polar bears can sleep soundly tonight."
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Brendan Pearson, whose organisation represents the mining industry, said the Paris agreement would support low-emissions coal technologies.
The deal would aid the development of carbon capture and storage and support the "rapid growth of new generation nuclear power in East and South Asia, providing strong demand for Australian uranium exports", he said.
Labor's environment spokesman Mark Butler on Sunday said the global pact showed Mr Turnbull's policies, including pollution reduction targets and an intention to abolish several climate-related agencies, were "massively out of step with the rest of the world and completely inconsistent with the agreement that was struck overnight".
"There is now a clear choice for Malcolm Turnbull. He either sets Australia up to get with the rest of the world and harness the enormous jobs and investment opportunities that come with this agreement, or he keeps Australia shackled to the reactionary legacy of Tony Abbott and his right wing views about climate change and renewable energy. He can't have it both ways," Mr Butler said.
Greens environment spokeswoman Larissa Waters said Australia refused to sign up to an agreement in Paris to phase-out fossil fuel subsidies, despite being the world's largest per capita polluter.
Australia had great potential in wind, tidal, geothermal and other clean energy options and "the age of coal is over".
"We need to get off fossil fuels and support those workers to transition into clean energy production and into other high-tech sustainable employment," Senator Waters said.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said the Paris deal left Australia "conflicted". The nation's target emissions cuts for 2030 – 26-28 per cent, based on 2005 levels – are inadequate and would still leave it the highest per capita polluter in the G20, alongside Saudi Arabia, he said.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance's Australian chief Kobad Bhavnagri​ said the Paris deal meant Australia would likely have to significantly strengthen its 2030 emissions reduction commitment every five years.
Global coal use would have to be curbed if the ambitions were to be met, reducing demand for Australia's exports, he said.
"Deeper cuts in emissions imply that Australia will also need to hasten the deployment of renewable energy, make more concrete steps to reduce usage of fossil fuels, especially coal, and develop more robust, scalable and non-government funded carbon policy if the emissions reductions are to be achieved domestically."
Mr Bhavnagri said this could be achieved through the renewable energy target, policy aimed at retiring coal-fired generators, more carbon regulations or a carbon price.
Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton, whose industry suffered a crisis of confidence under the Abbott government, said the global deal accelerated existing moves "towards a zero-carbon energy sector".
"It is no longer a question of whether or not this will happen. The question is now about what we need to do to prepare for the changes that have already begun," he said.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox​ said the global deal gives Australia flexibility to "design policies that match our circumstances" and cut costs via the use of international carbon markets in tackling climate change.
The agreement helped address "industry's number one concern with climate policy: the risk that uneven international action disadvantages trade exposed businesses, their employees and the broader economy," he said.
"Addressing the competitiveness challenge will remain central to the task of designing Australia's long-term climate and energy policies. If the nations of the world deliver their Paris pledges, that concern will be easier to allay."
Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott​ said Australia's commitment to domestic action "will be a challenge to achieve". She welcomed the provision for "international linkage and the capacity for market mechanisms, which will be important to achieve emissions reduction at least cost to economies".