Larissa Waters: Ban Donations From Mining Companies And Stop Ministers Working For Them

The Guardian - Larissa Waters

The fossil fuel industry’s influence on politics is disproportionate to the contribution the sector makes to employment, writes Senator Larissa Waters

‘Mining companies get cheap fuel for their trucks and generators, accelerated depreciation on their assets and a tax break to do production and exploration, along with direct cash handouts.’ Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

In Australian politics, there is a revolving door that swings round and round, fuelled by money and self-interest.
Into it go former politicians and their staffers and out pop even more highly paid mining company executives and fossil fuel lobbyists.
The list of former politicians and staffers who’ve scored cushy positions in the fossil fuel sector is depressingly long – I’ve listed just some of them that I’m aware of below.
The revolving door in part explains why there has never been a coal mine or gas project refused under our federal laws.
The massive political donations, made by this desperate industry trying to cling on through taxpayer subsidies, make up another reason for the tick-and-flick approach.
A very generous $3.7m was tipped into the pockets of the federal Liberal, National and Labor parties in the last three years – and much more when you include donations made at branch and state levels.Such large amounts of money buys influence, and buys favourable policy settings for this dying industry. For every dollar of their $3.7m contribution to the election warchests of the big parties, they get more than $2,000 back from the taxpayer purse.
They get cheap fuel for their trucks and generators, accelerated depreciation on their assets and a tax break to do production and exploration, along with direct cash handouts.
If you tally that up, you get about $14bn over four years. The Greens have put forward a costed proposal to remove those handouts and raise much needed revenue for health, education and clean energy.
Because why should taxpayers pay $14bn to companies that are cooking our planet, ruining our land and water, tearing apart communities and threatening locals’ health?
Why indeed, when there are clean energy alternatives that are more job rich, have a long term future in the transitioning global economy, and don’t wreck the place?

The Greens have legislation before the Senate to ban donations from fossil fuel companies.

The influence of these pervasive fossil fuel donations on our political system has left the job-rich clean energy industry to deal with the investment uncertainty created by a government ruled by climate dinosaurs.
And despite the change of prime minister and the talk of agility and innovation, the revenue-positive Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which supports cutting-edge, genuinely innovative technology, are both on the Turnbull government’s chopping block.
Now is the time to be increasing public investment in job-rich clean energy to take advantage of the global transition that is already happening, while Australia is missing out.
The revolving door between politicians and the mining lobby needs to be slammed shut and political donations from fossil fuel companies must come to an end.
The Greens have legislation before the Senate to ban donations from fossil fuel companies, as well as property developers and the tobacco, liquor and gambling industries in the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Donations Reform) Bill 2014.
It’s also our policy to tighten the rules, including by establishing a commissioner of lobbying, an independent body similar to the one in Canada, which would have audit and investigative power, and imposing a five-year ban on ex-ministers working as lobbyists.
Without the money and cushy jobs getting in the way, maybe the planet will have a chance.


Greens senator Larissa Waters attacks ‘corrupting influence’ of mining industry.

The revolving door

Former politicians:

• Former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister John Anderson became chairman of Eastern Star Gas, the company behind the Narrabri Gas Project (which is now owned by Santos) about two years after leaving politics.
• Former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Mark Vaile became a director and then chairman of Whitehaven coal.
• Former Labor resources minister Martin Ferguson became chairman of the APPEA Advisory Board – in October 2013 – just six months after he stopped being the minister. (The lobbying code of conduct requires an 18-month cooling-off period for ex-ministers).
• Craig Emerson, a former federal Labor trade minister went on to be a consultant for AGL Energy and Santos.
• Former foreign minister Alexander Downer was at one point a registered lobbyist with Bespoke Approach, which included the likes of Woodside Petroleum, Xstrata, Petrochina and Yancoal among its clients.
• Greg Combet, the federal Labor climate change minister, went on to be a consultant to AGL Energy and Santos.

Political staffers:

• Bill Shorten’s current chief of staff, former Queensland Labor state secretary Cameron Milner, has also worked with Adani. He was director of Milner Strategic Services & Next Level Holdings, which is co-owned by former Liberal staffer David Moore and was reportedly providing advice to Adani on the controversial Adani Carmichael coal project.
• Ben Myers worked for Queensland Gas Company, and went on be Queensland LNP premier Campbell Newman’s chief of staff.
• Mitch Grayson worked as a staffer for Queensland LNP premier Campbell Newman in 2012 and, by early 2013, had joined Santos. Later, he re-joined Premier Newman’s office.
• Stephen Galilee, who worked as chief of staff to Ian Macfarlane as Liberal federal resources minister for three years, and chief of staff to Mike Baird as NSW treasurer and shadow treasurer, went on to be CEO of the NSW Minerals Council.
• Geoff Walsh, former adviser to Labor prime ministers Paul Keating and Bob Hawke, and a former national secretary of the Labor party, was made director of public affairs at BHP in 2007.
• Claire Wilkinson, spent a year as a senior media adviser for Labor resources minister Martin Ferguson before getting a job as a senior external affairs adviser for Royal Dutch Shell. She is now at Total E&P.
• Brad Williams, who spent four years as Mark Vaile’s chief of staff, went on to become the manager for government affairs at Inpex – an oil and gas company that has approval for a $34bn LNG project near Darwin. He is now working in government relations at another mining company, South32.
• Shaughn Morgan worked as adviser to Jeff Shaw, NSW Labor’s attorney general, before becoming the manager of government and external relations at AGL.
• Lisa Harrington was a senior adviser to Mike Baird before becoming the head of government relations at AGL Energy.
• Sarah Macnamara worked at AGL before becoming chief of staff to federal Liberal resources minister Ian Macfarlane, and was resource policy adviser to Liberal PM Tony Abbott.
• Robert Underdown was senior adviser to Liberal resources minister Ian Macfarlane before becoming the manager of the government and public policy group at Santos.
• Caroline Hutcherson was senior media adviser to the then Liberal NSW resources minister Chris Hartcher before working as a senior adviser to Santos, and going on to work as a senior adviser to NSW Liberal premier Mike Baird.
• Alexandra Gibson was an adviser to Christopher Pyne, before becoming a policy adviser to APPEA, the oil and gas lobby group.
• Paul Fennelly was the director of the Queensland Department of State Development, Trade and Innovation before becoming the CEO of APPEA.
• Chris Ward was an adviser to the Queensland treasurer and to the consumer affairs minister in the federal Labor government under Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, before taking a job as media manager at APPEA.
• Charles Perrottet was senior media adviser to the then Liberal NSW resources minister Chris Hartcher, then an executive of the NSW Liberal party before becoming a government affairs analyst at BP Australia.
• Andrew Humpherson was chief of staff to the then Liberal NSW resources minister Chris Hartcher before working as a consultant to the NSW Minerals Council.
• Emma Browning was a media adviser for the then Liberal NSW resources minister Chris Hartcher before becoming director of government relations at the NSW Minerals Council.
• Brad Emery was a media adviser to federal Liberal minister Peter Dutton before working as director of media and public affairs at the NSW Minerals Council.
• Chris Rath was media and public affairs manager at the NSW Minerals Council before working as an adviser to NSW Liberal resources minister Anthony Roberts.
• Lindsay Hermes was media and communications manager at the NSW Minerals Council before working as an adviser to federal Liberal resources minister Ian Macfarlane.

The Burning Issue In Climate Change

The Irish Times - Sylvia Thompson

Encouraging people to withdraw their investments from fossil-fuel industries is the next important step for climate justice, according to environmental NGOs

Fossil-fuel divestment: the Green Party launches its Keep It in the Ground campaign at the Cliffs of Moher, in Co Clare. Photograph: Hanne T Fiske/htfiske.com

The idea of ethical investment has been around for several decades. High-profile campaigns saw charities withdraw their investments from the armaments and tobacco industries, for example, and from South Africa under the apartheid regime.
Ethical investment has had a new target in the past few years, as environmental campaigners have encouraged charities, universities and other public-interest organisations to exclude fossil-fuel industries from their investment portfolios. They see fossil-fuel investments as adding to the risk of dangerous climate change and, therefore, as unethical.
Scientific evidence clearly points to the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – as a major contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions, which warm the global atmosphere.
In Paris last December, at the United Nations' COP21 conference on climate change, politicians from more than 185 countries agreed to reduce their emissions to keep the rise in global temperature below two degrees.
The problem, according to environmental campaigners, is that, much like the tobacco industry, the fossil-fuel industry is not about to stop selling coal, oil and gas, nor to stop exploring new territories to extract fossil fuels from in the future.
Last month Trócaire, Maynooth University and St Patrick's College Maynooth organised a workshop, Investing Ethically for People and Planet: Ending Irish Investments in Fossil Fuels.
"We all have a role to play personally and professionally. As consumers we aren't articulate enough about what funds our pensions are invested in," says Joanne McGarry of Trócaire. "There was great momentum last year, with new climate legislation" – the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act – "the global agreement on climate change in Paris and thousands of people marching for action on climate change. A campaign to divest from fossil fuels is a natural extension of our climate-justice campaign."
Eamonn Meehan, Trócaire's executive director, says: "The challenges are the complexity of the financial instruments, the availability of viable alternative investments and moving on from the current financial orthodoxy. Yet there is no doubt that a change is coming. Climate change is the greatest injustice of our time."
The divestment campaign has strong international backers, including the former archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, the former Irish president Mary Robinson and Bill McKibben, founder of the 350.org climate movement, which launched its fossil-fuel divestment campaign in 2012.
Robinson has said: "By avoiding investment in high-carbon assets that become obsolete, and by prioritising sustainable alternatives, we build capacity and resilience, particularly for more vulnerable people, while lowering emissions."
Some African countries are moving directly to renewable-energy technology for electrification, skipping the use of fossil fuels.
But it's easier to convince environmentalists than financial markets. The keynote speaker in Maynooth was Mark Campanale of Carbon Tracker, a think tank that analyses the effect of climate change on capital markets and investment in fossil fuels, "mapping risk, opportunity and the route to a low-carbon future".
"The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has said that climate change is the biggest issue of our time. Pension-fund managers need to ask what the world will look like if we continue to burn fossil fuels," Campanale says. "They also need to ask themselves who are the most important members of their funds: the younger ones who have recently joined or the older ones who are about to cash in their funds."
Carbon Tracker has examined the economic impact on fossil-fuel industries of countries keeping within their carbon budgets. "From our research, fossil-fuel industries are overstating their energy demands and underestimating the role of renewable energies, which are becoming cheaper," Campanale says.
"There is a clash of wills between what's best for the planet and society and for the fossil-fuel industry and financial sector. We've got to contract the fossil-fuel sector and cancel and stop new fossil-fuel projects so we can decarbonise our economy."
According to Campanale, fossil-fuel divestment is gaining momentum. "As of December 2015, 500 institutions had divested $3.4 trillion from fossil-fuel industries. Of these, 28 per cent are foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; 23 per cent are faith-based groups, including the World Council of Churches; 15 per cent are pension funds, including Norway's state pension fund; and 10 per cent are educational institutions, including many top universities."
Ian Halstead, a consultant at L&P Investment Services, also spoke at the workshop. "Most asset managers realise the fossil-fuel industry can't expand within the climate-change targets. What they are concerned about is what will happen to the fossil-fuel sector during the transition."
Halstead says there is a growing interest in dual-mandate investments, which is to say those with a social, environmental or developing-world return as well as a financial one. "You can now ask your pension-fund managers about your options, and it will be the scale of the investment that will make a real difference."
Environmental NGOs will lobby the new Irish government to divest from fossil-fuel industries in the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (formerly the National Pensions Reserve Fund), which is controlled by the National Treasury Management Agency.
The NGOs also plan to ask banks to offer their customers investment options that exclude fossil-fuel industries. "We need to create demand that will give us the necessary scale," says McGarry. "The global divestment movement has already moved $3.4 trillion out of the fossil-fuel industry. We can capitalise on that movement here in Ireland."

At the coalface: the jargon explained
Unburnable carbon: This refers to fossil-fuel energy that we cannot burn if the world is to adhere to carbon budgets. The International Energy Agency says that no more than a third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be used by 2050 if we are to keep global warming below two degrees.
Carbon budgets: These are nationally devised records of how to reduce carbon emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for our carbon budgets by recording emissions by industry, transportation, agriculture and buildings, and devising mitigation plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
  Carbon bubble: This refers to the combined proven reserves of oil, gas and coal currently on the books of fossil-fuel companies. If consumed, these will produce far more than the accepted levels of carbon dioxide, causing the bubble to burst. Stranded assets: This concept refers to the coal, oil and gas reserves that might lose their value if carbon budgets are stringently upheld. Stranded assets can also refer to assets whose value reduces because of regulatory changes – or, indeed, because of their destruction by flooding or drought. 

Link

• Just a minute: a draft environment questionnaire for canvassers at your doorstep

IMF's Lagarde Eyes Subsidies, Simple Things To Tackle Climate Change

Reuters - Svea Herbst-Bayliss

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the IMF attends a session during the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in this January 23, 2016 file photo. (Reuters)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 4 (Reuters) - Turning the tide on global warming should be tackled by big and small steps that range from cutting subsidies to riding bicycles, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said on Friday.
"Removing fossil fuel subsidies would go a long way to cutting consumption," Lagarde said in answer to a question at Massachusetts Institute of Technology about how climate change can be addressed.
She had delivered a speech on how to promote growth in the face of an aging population and said that "game changers" including competition among insurers and raising the retirement age could go a long way to helping.
Speaking months after the end of the hottest year on record, Lagarde said "If subsidies were removed and carbon prices set properly now and taxed that would go a long way in addressing the climate change issues the world is facing."
She also encouraged individuals to do their part by simple things such as opting to ride a bicycle instead of driving cars, drawing applause from the audience of students, faculty and local residents.
In December, nations agreed to a landmark global climate accord for transforming the world's fossil fuel-driven economy within decades.
Lagarde said that the IMF, which has not historically focused on the issue of climate change, is now becoming more engaged by producing research papers on the right price of energy and how to remove subsidies. She called the steps the "beginnings of our contributions."

Links

• Actions urged on 'breaking point' climate change
• Why the world is ready to act on climate change
• Climate action plans of poorest nations to cost $1 trillion
• Tackling climate change while fighting hunger