Australia's Environmental Peril Revealed In Five Charts

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

As Australians prepare to vote in federal election, the country's environmental challenges are only increasing. Here are five key charts.

Hottest autumn ever. If you thought summer lasted longer than usual the records show that Australia just experienced its warmest autumn since records were kept.

Warmest times
It may not feel it this past week in most of Australia but any number of global heat records have been set this year. These include the past autumn being Australia's most abnormally hot season since the Bureau of Meteorology's national records began in 1910 as a monster El Nino event in the Pacific added a temperature spurt to the background warming from climate change. A look at the past three years - roughly since the last election - shows most of the country has never had a similarly warm period on record. Only a relatively small dot in northern Western Australia registered average temperatures, the bureau said. 

Nature's tolerance of higher temperatures clearly has its limits. The worst bleaching event on record has left 22 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef's corals dead, with the government agency overseeing the area predicting "there will probably be some further mortality".

Species under threat
Nature is under siege on other fronts. The number of nationally threatened species and ecological communities has risen more than one-quarter since 2000, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation, citing official data. There's been a near-quadrupling of threatened ecological communities to 78 just in the past 16 years, while the number of threatened fauna has risen more than half.

A worse fate has befallen the Bramble Cay melomys, which was the only mammal species endemic to the Great Barrier Reef. University of Queensland researchers blame the rodent-like animal's extinction on rising sea levels affecting its Torres Strait island home, making it the first known mammal extinction from human-induced climate change.

Emissions impossible?
The Turnbull government has made much of Australia being on track to "easily meet and beat" the country's goal of cutting 2000-level carbon emissions by 5-25 per cent by 2020. Less appreciated is the fact that by the end of the decade, annual emissions are headed for 577 million tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent - or about 6 per cent above 2000 levels.
As the Grattan Institute notes in its recent report, Australia is within reach of the lower end of the 2020 target thanks in large part to 128 MT in credits for beating its first target under the Kyoto Protocol in 2008-2012 during the Rudd-Gillard government. But because emissions are rising - from rising coal-fired power emissions and lately more land-clearing - the challenge of hitting 2030 targets will require a sharper cutback than from today's starting point.
Turnbull's 2030 target is an emissions cut of 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels, while Labor's election pledge is 45 per cent and the Greens' 63-82 per cent.

Crunch time
According to the Turnbull government, Australia's target will require 900 million tonnes of reduced carbon emissions between 2020 and 2030. Environment Minister Greg Hunt has said existing and planned policies can get there. However, the bulk of the emissions cuts are merely aspirational. The Emissions Reduction Fund has $816 million left in its coffers and no new funding.The Safeguard Mechanism has the architecture to become an  emissions trading scheme, but will a re-elected Turnbull have the clout to win over climate sceptics within his ranks to make it effective? Energy productivity plans are without funding or bureaucratic back-up. Hopes for technological gains are harder now the government has stripped $1.3 billion from Australian Renewable Energy Agency and wants the Clean Energy Finance Corp to also fund Great Barrier Reef projects and save South Australia's steel industry.

Can clean energy rise fast enough?
Carbon emissions from the electricity sector are Australia's biggest source - accounting for about one-third - and they have been rising since the Abbott government scrapped the carbon price in mid-2014. Falling costs of clean energy, though, should squeeze fossil fuels' share of the power sector from 85 per cent last year to 41 per cent by 2040, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates. Solar panel costs have dived 80 per cent since 2008 and each doubling of production cuts them another 26 per cent. Wind power costs have halved since 2009 and shrink by 19 per cent at each output doubling.

Kobad Bhavnagri, Bloomberg NEF's Australian head, says the electricity industry will need to be much closer to zero emissions by 2040 if Australia is to be within reach of carbon neutrality by a decade later: "It's much harder to do that for the rest of the economy so the power sector has to punch above its weight."

Links

• Antarctic ozone hole has finally started to heal, scientists report
• 'Sunburnt country has burnt solar industry'
• NSW to double existing solar farm capacity
• Parties dither on climate at their peril
• Australia set to cash in on low-cost renewable energy
• Major flooding events 'on the increase'

What Would a Global Warming Increase of 1.5 Degrees Be Like?

Yale Environment 360 - Fred Pearce

The Paris climate conference set the ambitious goal of finding ways to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than the previous threshold of 2 degrees. But what would be the difference between a 1.5 and 2 degree world? And how realistic is such a target?

An Indian woman surveys a dried lake bed following an intense heat wave in Bangalore.
Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

How ambitious is the world? The Paris climate conference last December astounded many by pledging not just to keep warming "well below two degrees Celsius," but also to "pursue efforts" to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. That raised a hugely important question: What's the difference between a two-degree world and a 1.5-degree world?  Given we are already at one degree above pre-industrial levels, halting at 1.5 would look to be at least twice as hard as the two-degree option. So would it be worth it? And is it even remotely achievable?
In Paris, delegates called on the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to report on the implications of a 1.5 target. They want the job done by 2018, in time to inform renewed talks on toughening emissions targets beyond those agreed upon in Paris.
But the truth is that scientists are only now getting out of the blocks to address what a 1.5-degree world would look like, because until recently it sounded like a political and technological impossibility. As a commentary published online in Nature Climate Change last week warned, there is "a paucity of scientific analysis" about the consequences of pursuing a 1.5-degree target.
To remedy this, the paper's researchers, led by Daniel Mitchell and others at Oxford University, called for a dedicated program of research to help inform what they described as "arguably one of the most momentous [decisions] to be made in the coming decade." And they are on the case, with their own dedicated website and a major conference planned at Oxford in the fall.
So what is at stake? There are two issues to address. First, what would be gained by going the extra mile for 1.5? And second, what would it take to deliver?
First, the gains. According to available research, says the Oxford group, the biggest boost will not be measured in average temperatures. On its own, the difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees is marginal. But it would have a much greater effect on the probability of extreme and destructive weather events like floods, droughts, storms, and heat waves.
We know extreme weather is happening more often. A study last year by Erich Fischer of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Zurich found that the risk of what was "once in a thousand days" hot weather has already increased fivefold. His modelling suggests that it will double again at 1.5 degrees and double once more as we go from 1.5 to 2 degrees. The probability of even more extreme events increases even faster.
The same will be true for droughts, says Carl-Friedrich Schleussner of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Last year, he reported that the extra half-degree would produce dramatic increases in the likely length of dry spells over wide areas of the globe, including the Mediterranean, Central America, the Amazon basin, and southern Africa, with resulting declines in river flows from a third to a half. Schleussner concluded that going from 1.5 to 2 degrees "marks the difference between events at the upper limit of present-day natural variability and a new climate regime, particularly in tropical regions."

Two degrees 'contains significant risks for societies everywhere; 1.5 looks much more scientifically justifiable.'

A few studies have tried to drill down to what the difference means for day-to-day lives. And the consequences for many will be stark. At two degrees, parts of southwest Asia, including well-populated regions of the Persian Gulf and Yemen, may become literally uninhabitable without permanent air conditioning.
Some researchers predict a massive decline in the viability of food crops critical for human survival. The extra half-degree could cut corn yields in parts of Africa by half, says Bruce Campbell of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture. Schleussner found that even in the prairies of the U.S., the risk of poor corn yields would double.
Two degrees, says Johan Rockström, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center, "contains significant risks for societies everywhere; 1.5 looks much more scientifically justifiable."
Ecosystems would feel the difference too. Take tropical coral reefs, which already regularly come under stress because of high ocean temperatures, suffering "bleaching" especially during El Nino events – as happened on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia this year. Most can now recover when the waters cool again, but today's exceptional temperature may soon become the new normal. "Virtually all tropical coral reefs are projected to be at risk of severe degradation due to temperature-induced bleaching from 2050 onwards," as warming slips past 1.5 degrees, reports Schleussner.
By some estimates, curbing warming at 1.5 degrees could be sufficient to prevent the formation of an ice-free Arctic in summer, to save the Amazon rainforest, and to prevent the Siberian tundra from melting and releasing planet-warming methane from its frozen depths. It could also save many coastal regions and islands from permanent inundation by rising sea levels, particularly in the longer run.
In 2100, the difference in sea level rise between 1.5 and 2 degrees would be relatively small: 40 centimeters versus 50 centimeters. But centuries later, as the impact of warmer air temperatures on the long-term stability of the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica takes hold, it would be far greater. Michiel Schaeffer of Climate Analytics, a Berlin-based think tank, calculates that by 2300, two degrees would deliver sea level rise of 2.7 meters, while 1.5 degrees would limit the rise to 1.5 meters.

Historical and projected changes in global temperatures from 1850 through 2100 if greenhouse gases continue to rise unchecked through the end of the century. Jay Alder/USGS

It looks like 1.5 degrees matters a great deal. So how hard would it be to keep warming to that level? After all, last year was one degree above pre-industrial levels. And at various times in the past six months, global average temperatures have sometimes gone above 1.5 degrees.
Most researchers agree that, short of some global economic meltdown, even decade-long averaged temperatures are destined to go above 1.5 degrees of warming by mid-century. So delivering the target by the end of the century will require drawing down temperatures by using technologies and energy systems that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a large scale.
For some, this would be nonsensical geoengineering. Kevin Anderson, a climate scientist at the University of Manchester in the U.K., writing in Nature after the Paris conference, declared "the world has just gambled its future on the appearance, in a puff of smoke, of a carbon-sucking fairy godmother."
But it could be done. The calculations are inexact. Nobody, even now, knows quite how sensitive global temperatures are to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But here is the task, as outlined by Joeri Rogelj, of the Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), in an article in Nature Climate Change in March.

The IPCC has estimated that to stop at 1.5 degrees will mean holding concentrations of atmospheric CO2 to around 430 ppm.

The planet's primary thermostat is the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Pre-industrial levels were 280 parts per million. We just hit 400 ppm with warming at one degree and some more in the pipeline, due to time lags. The IPCC, in its most recent report, estimated that to stop at 1.5 degrees will mean holding concentrations to around 430 ppm.
Because much of our CO2 emissions stay in the atmosphere for centuries, that means bringing annual emissions to zero. Impossible? Maybe, but the good news is that greenhouse gas emissions actually fell in 2015 despite rising global economic activity, thanks to the growing use of renewable energy. If we could build on that and bring emissions to zero by 2050, then we might limit emissions from here on out to 800 billion tons.
If we could somehow find ways to extract 500 billion tons from the atmosphere, Rogelj concluded, we would likely be able to have our wish of CO2 concentrations of 430 ppm and warming capped at 1.5 degrees. The fairy godmother would have delivered.
But how? While there are chemical processes for removing CO2 out of the air, they remain very expensive. More likely are biological methods — using plants to soak up CO2 and then preventing that CO2 from getting back into the atmosphere when the plants die or are burned.
The trick that puts a glint in the eye of some technologists and climate scientists is known by the acronym BECCS, which stands for "biomass energy, carbon capture, and storage." The idea is to convert the world's power stations to burning biomass, such as trees or marine algae. The industrialized production of this biomass on such a scale would accelerate the natural drawdown of CO2 by plants during photosynthesis. If the CO2 created by burning the biomass could then be captured from the stacks and buried in geological strata — the prototype technology known as carbon capture and storage — then the net effect would be a permanent extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere.
It would be the reverse of the current fossil-fuel energy system. And the more energy generated, the more CO2 would be drawn out of the air.
There are huge questions about such a strategy. Wouldn't such a vast new industry have its own absurdly high-energy requirements, putting us back at square one?

Some analysts argue there is little chance of hitting even two degrees, let alone anything tougher.

Is there the land available to cultivate all that biomass? Would we end up chopping down forests to make room for growing the biomass, creating a massive new source of emissions? While there are back-of-the-envelope calculations, nobody has yet satisfactorily answered these questions.
Other geo-engineering options that have been proposed include fertilizing the oceans so that more algae can grow, sucking up CO2 as they do, or a terrestrial equivalent – burying charred biomass known as biochar into soils, where it could provide a kind of deep fertilizer that would turn soils into carbon-suckers over many centuries. But says IIASA's Florian Kraxner, "Of all the ways of achieving negative emissions, BECCS seems to be the most promising."
Is this all scientific pie in the sky? Some analysts argue that, whatever was said in Paris, there is little chance of hitting even two degrees, let alone anything tougher. David Victor, of the University of California at San Diego, for instance, wrote in Yale Environment 360 at the conclusion of the Paris agreement that "the world has dithered for too long and must now brace for the consequences. Even a realistic crash program to cut emissions will blow through 2 degrees; 1.5 degrees is ridiculous."
Others say that even trying to paint a picture of what a 1.5-degree world would look like is a fool's errand. Mike Hulme of King's College London in England wrote recently that it could result in bad science, because predictions about future local climate come with such wide error bars. He wondered whether, even at the request of the Paris conference, science should be "corralled into servicing a tightly determined political agenda."
But the Oxford team is not having such defeatism. "It is our job as scientists, first and foremost, to inform. Whether or not the information we provide makes a difference is ultimately up to others," they say in their new paper. Moreover, they point out, "if additional research is not undertaken as a matter of urgency, there is a danger… that the 2018 special report will present all the negative economic constraints of achieving 1.5 degree C" without reporting on the potential positive impacts of reduced extreme weather activity that such a scenario could bring.
Ultimately, this is a highly political issue about who should be in charge of setting targets:
those most vulnerable nations, who led the call in Paris for a 1.5-degree target, or those less vulnerable nations in the rich world, who were ready to stick with two degrees? Them or us?
As Petra Tschakert of Penn State University put it in a paper last year, "danger, risk, and harm would be utterly unacceptable in a 2°C warmer world, largely for 'them'—the mollusks, and coral reefs, and the poor and marginalized populations, not only in poor countries—even if this danger has not quite hit home yet for 'us'."

Links

• After Paris, A Move to Rein In Emissions by Ships and Planes
• Abrupt Sea Level Rise Looms As Increasingly Realistic Threat
• How Nations Are Chipping Away at Their Protected Lands
• Can We Reduce CO2 Emissions And Grow the Global Economy?
• New Green Challenge: How to Grow More Food on Less Land
• How Forest Loss Is Leading To a Rise in Human Disease
• El Niño and Climate Change: Wild Weather May Get Wilder
• How 'Natural Geoengineering' Can Help Slow Global Warming
• Why Paris Worked: A Different Approach to Climate Diplomacy
• Can We Reduce CO2 Emissions And Grow the Global Economy?
• U.S. Solar Energy Market Experiencing an Unprecedented Boom
• 2015 Deadliest Year for Environmentalists on Record, Finds Report
• Some Coral Reef "Bright Spots" Remain, Despite Devastating Bleaching
• Researchers Find a Way to TurnCO2 Into Rock at Iceland Power Plant

The Potential Implications Of The Federal Election For Clean Energy

Renew Economy - Tristan Edis*

There are three ways you can evaluate how the plight of the various major parties in this forthcoming election – Greens, Labor, Liberal or the Nick Xenophon Team – could impact on the clean energy sector:

1. The simple way – look at their emission reduction and energy policies purely on face value and in isolation from history and other statements and policies the parties might have committed to.
2. The complicated way – Evaluate the policies not just on what they offer but also on their credibility.
3. The extra complicated approach – Evaluate how the election result might influence the policy direction of all the various parties and whether it will lead to a supportive investment environment for clean energy that will be durable over multiple election cycles.

If you like things simple and don't have the time or interest in reading war gaming scenarios of political contests then you could just read Section 1 below.
If you are wary and mistrustful of politicians (probably everyone) but also have a bit of time up your sleave, then go ahead and read Section 2 looking at the credibility of each party's clean energy promises.
And if you're a politics junkie with a deep interest in how politics could impact the clean energy sector then section 3 may be of interest.

1. The simple approach – evaluate the parties on the face value of their headline policies
If we evaluate the parties on the basis of number 1 then it's unambiguous that the Greens offer the best outcome for renewable energy and energy efficiency. On a headline basis they have a target for 90% renewable energy by 2030 and also a 60% to 80% reduction in Australia's overall emissions relative to year 2000 levels.
If such a target were to be achieved, irrespective of the policies employed, it would deliver a boom to businesses involved in renewable energy and energy efficiency. The Greens have also proposed a series of policies that could help expand the market for solar by supporting its installation on rental properties.
The Nick Xenophon Team's high level commitment to targets would also seem to usher in a boom, although not quite to the same scale as the Greens. Their policy platform indicates a commitment to reducing Australia's emissions by 40%-60% by 2030 and an increase in renewable energy's share of electricity demand to 50%.
Labor matches Xenophon with a 50% renewable energy target but its emissions reduction target is less ambitious, aiming for a 40% reduction on 2000 levels (45% on 2005 levels).
While the Coalition trails them all with no commitment to expand the level of renewable energy beyond the existing target for 2020 (which delivers something close to 23% market share of electricity) and an overall emission reduction target of about 19% to 21% below 2000 levels.

2. The complicated approach – are their promises credible?
But, of course, these are headline figures, and it's wise to also think about such commitments are credible.
Are they actually capable of implementing these targets? Can we believe they'll actually follow through on their commitments if given the opportunity or can they even create such an opportunity?
And if they do manage to follow through on their commitments, can we rely on them to remain in place over an extended period and not be unwound or undermined at a later period, perhaps when someone else wins government?
Asking such questions tends to mark everyone down.
The Greens Party's main problem is that they are unable to persuade a large enough proportion of the electorate to elect them in numbers that they can form Government. Xenophon has exactly the same problem. They can have all the ambition in the world, but for their goals to become a reality they have to persuade either Labor or the Liberal-National party (LNP) to implement them.
Realistically, it seems unlikely the Greens could get either side close to agreeing to 90% renewables or a 60% to 80% reductions.  The issue then becomes whether the Greens or Xenophon can at least use their numbers in the Senate (and possibly the House of Representatives in the event of neither Labor or the LNP holding a majority) to at the very least ensure the main parties honour their own commitments or upgrade them somewhat.
But there's also a risk that the Greens or Xenophon are too obstinate and in demanding a better deal for clean energy they reject policies that could have at least been an improvement on what is currently in place.
It is difficult at this stage to know how this might pan out.

The Greens

Nonetheless, it seems hard to believe that the Greens would reject say a Labor commitment to increase renewable energy to 50% share because they think 90% is required.  But it is conceivable that the Greens might hold up another Labor initiative until Labor also followed through on implementing policies to deliver 50% renewables. This means the Greens could be handy as an insurance policy in at least ensuring they keep Labor honest on its commitments.
But they may find it more difficult to compromise with a Liberal-National Government in order to achieve incremental gains for clean energy.  Even if the Liberal National party are offering improvements on the status quo, the Greens have been wary of co-operating on measures that might be seen as "locking-in failure" as they put it. This was the case when the Greens rejected the original Rudd Government legislation for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).

The Nick Xenophon Team

Nick Xenophon is a quite different proposition. Xenophon has a range of other priorities outside of clean energy that he is passionate about and likely to favour in negotiations over other legislation. These include restrictions on gambling, reducing upstream water use in the Murray-Darling basin and support for South Australian manufacturing.
Xenophon has also illustrated a willingness to consider assisting the Liberal-National party in undermining some emission reduction initiatives where he felt this would be popular. For example he supported the Coalition's repeal of the carbon price without replacing it with something remotely equivalent in effectiveness (although was absent from the actual Senate vote).
In addition he has been keen to talk about co-operating with the Coalition on changes to the Renewable Energy Target aimed at disadvantaging wind power, which create risks for reducing the effectiveness of the scheme as a whole.  Furthermore, the major lack of underlying policy detail about how the Xenophon Team would wish to deliver on renewable energy and emission reduction targets is suggestive of a party that isn't all that strongly committed to these targets.
Where Xenophon could be helpful is negotiating with a Coalition Government to deliver incremental gains for clean energy, which the Greens and Labor refuse to consider.  Xenophon's decision to pass the Emission Reduction Fund (ERF) legislation in return for introduction of regulations that form the framework for a future pseudo ETS (the safeguard mechanism) is an example of him playing such a role.
While Xenophon supported the repeal of the carbon price and the introduction of the Emission Reduction Fund, he has also made it clear that he believes the budget-funded ERF is an inadequate response to reducing emissions.
He has said he thinks it ultimately needs to be replaced by an emissions trading scheme known as 'baseline and credit' which would involve tightening the emission caps applied under the government's Safeguard Mechanism. This has the potential, if designed appropriately, to push out coal and replace it with renewable energy.

Labor

In terms of Labor their policy platform is actually incredibly ambitious relative to where we find ourselves at present.
Achieving 50% renewable energy by 2030 would lead to a large and sustained increase in the level of renewable energy installation activity.  The 40% emission reduction target likewise is very ambitious relative to what Australia has achieved to date.  But it's ultimate benefit to Australian clean energy businesses is hard to judge because Labor has said they would allow the use of international carbon credits in seeking to achieve such a target.
There is a very large and very cheap pool of these credits available.  Given their low price they would act to deter significant emission reductions activity occurring domestically for several years if their use was unconstrained.  Although supplementing this emission reduction target is also a commitment to double Australia's energy productivity which requires a substantial uplift in energy efficiency activity.
Overall, Labor's platform, if followed through would provide a dramatic stimulus to the clean energy sector. Yet there is a lack of detail about how Labor would seek to drive the doubling in energy productivity. Labor has also been vague about how it would underpin 50% renewable energy stating that this would not necessarily entail an expansion of the targets within the existing Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme.
Also, some Labor MPs have suggested the target is "aspirational" – not a good sign at all. These two aspects of their platform raise red flags. Without policy mechanisms locked down, there is room for delays and lobbying by opponents that can lead to policies that politicians can claim to honour election commitment but are ultimately unable to deliver on targets.

Liberal-National Coalition

The Liberal National coalition are characterised by a similar problem as Labor, although with significantly weaker targets.  While they have no renewable energy target and their emission reduction target is far less ambitious than the other parties it should still require some significant changes in our use and supply of energy.  To achieve the 19-21% emission reduction one would expect both a major substitution of coal with renewables beyond the existing 2020 RET scheme target, and also a significant uplift in energy efficiency policy efforts.
However, the problem at this stage is the Coalition have so far refused to detail a credible policy pathway for achieving the 2030 target.
Most of the funding for their Emission Reduction Fund has now been committed and the additional funding that was announced when the 2030 target was unveiled at $100m per annum would not make meaningful inroads into Australia's expected emissions given the track record of past ERF auctions.
The regulations surrounding the safeguard mechanism – which places a cap on large emitter's emissions – are set at levels too weak to drive noticeable reductions in emissions and also contain a series of glaring loopholes.
Lastly, their Energy Productivity Plan will make little difference to Australia's emissions unless the government removes one of its so called anti-red tape measures which has frozen efforts to introduce more advanced regulatory standards on the energy efficiency of appliances and equipment. In addition, the Energy Productivity Plan does not involve any initiative to expand the existing NSW and Victorian energy efficiency target schemes to a national level.
To have faith that the Liberal-National Party will deliver on their targets requires one to believe they will make a substantial change in policy direction. This to a large extent depends on the degree to which you believe Malcolm Turnbull will take his Government in a different direction to that led by Tony Abbott.

3. The extra complicated approach – Thinking beyond this election and onto the next
If you were to assume that the only thing that matters is what happens in the next 3 year term of government then Labor being elected to government, with the Greens holding the balance of power in the Senate, would appear to hold the best prospects for the Clean Energy Sector.
Even if Labor were to go a little weak in the knees about following through on their commitments, the Greens would presumably wield their numbers in the Senate to ensure Labor followed through.
However, it's also worth thinking about how a Labor victory might affect the Liberal-National Coalition, because it's not just what happens in the next 3 years, but also what happens beyond it.
A loss by the Liberal-National Party after just one term of government could conceivably take them in two very different directions. One way could be incredibly favourable to clean energy and another that would be incredibly damaging, effectively undermining any policy progress delivered by a Labor government.
Under one scenario an election loss for the Coalition might be taken as a lesson that under Tony Abbott they lurched too far to the right of the political spectrum and need to adopt a more moderate approach, closer to that of Labor.
While they may have lost the election, the odds are it would be only very narrow, and a vast improvement over where polling suggested they'd be while Abbott was leader. In essence the loss is seen not as a failure of Turnbull, but instead a case of making a change in direction from Abbott that was too little, too late.
This could herald a more supportive attitude towards renewable energy and a greater acceptance of regulatory measures to reduce emissions. This would of course be great news for the clean energy sector, restoring a degree of bipartisanship to the area, reducing regulatory uncertainty and enhancing investment confidence.
But it is also conceivable that things could move in the opposite direction.  While Turnbull may have achieved a remarkable turnaround in the polls, conservative sections in the party may see the election loss as affirmation that a switch to Turnbull was the wrong decision.
History also suggests that if Turnbull were to lose this election then he would lose the leadership of the party.  This would likely mean a new leader closer in outlook to the conservative segment of the Liberal National Party.

Given Abbott's negative scare campaign on the carbon price while in opposition was incredibly effective, the new leadership may be very tempted to recycle this approach in opposing Labor's emission reduction policies as an "electricity tax".  This could land the clean energy sector back where it was in 2012.  While there might be a range of supportive policies legislated, the extent to which they could support clean energy investment would be undermined because they might be repealed in the next term of government.
The potential for this horror scenario to play out after a Labor victory, and the fact that Malcolm Turnbull is known to be incredibly passionate about addressing climate change, means that assessing the implications of this election are not straightforward.  Indeed one needs to also consider the possibility that the Greens' and Xenophon's hold on the balance of power in the Senate could empower Turnbull to overcome resistance within his own party.
Turnbull and his allies will undoubtedly face resistance from conservative elements within his own party to enacting more meaningful emission reduction policies.  But if they are clever they may be able to use Xenophon and the Greens as an excuse to enact these policies in order to get assistance passing other non-climate related legislation.
Over time this might move the Liberal-National Party more towards the centre as they find themselves defending emission reduction policies they previously would have opposed in opposition. This then makes it easier for Labor to maintain their own reasonably ambitious targets and solidifies the long-term investment environment for clean energy.
So there you go, it's about as clear as mud. The election could go either way and be potentially wonderful or horrible for the clean energy sector.
Still, compared to where we were in the 2013 election the prospects for clean energy on balance look vastly better than 3 years earlier. That is surely a good thing.

*Tristan Edis is Director – Analysis & Advisory with Green Energy Markets. Green Energy Markets assists clients make informed investment, trading and policy decisions in the areas of clean energy and carbon abatement.

Links

• How to vote for renewable energy in Saturday's election
• Mercedes Benz to take on Tesla in home battery storage in Australia
• WA utility to lead big switch to local generation, because it's cheaper
• Abbott, Trump, Brexit: What happens when the dog actually catches the car
• Hazelwood's super-profits highlight tangled web of energy policy

Election 2016: How Well Are The Major Parties Meeting The Needs Of Rural And Regional Australia?

The Conversation - Stewart Lockie

A lack of differences in major policy areas such as agriculture and trade means local project funding – for roads, boat ramps and the like – reinforces the adage 'all politics is local'. AAP/Alan Porritt

How far do policies announced during the 2016 federal election campaign go towards addressing key policy issues for non-metropolitan Australia?
Much of what we've heard has been packaged up in funding announcements. Most of these are followed by accusations of overspending, pork-barrelling and/or incompetence.
Still, there is a compelling simplicity to funding announcements. Dollar values take the complexity out of policy communication. Numbers in the millions say, "we're serious about this". Numbers in the billions say, "we're really serious".
Contrast this with more considered approaches to policy development. In recent years, federal governments have released white papers on agricultural competitiveness, Northern Australia, energy and the food industry. None of the major parties have promised to review or change the policy directions set out in these documents. Neither have they promised to initiate new white paper processes in other policy domains important to rural and regional Australia.
The obvious conclusion is that non-metropolitan Australia can expect little substantial policy reform regardless of who wins the election. True, planned changes may not have been announced. But there has been little to suggest over the last decade or more that the major parties have substantially different views on key areas like agriculture and trade.
What significant policy movement we did see following the last election had been clearly signalled during the 2013 campaign. We all knew the incoming Coalition government would be investing in Northern Australia, paying farmers to store carbon in soils, establishing the Green Army and rationalising Indigenous programs into one agency.
Many will be surprised at how little debate we've seen during the 2016 campaign about these initiatives.

Infrastructure
Despite (or because of) the potential for major infrastructure projects to create local opportunities there have been myriad like-for-like announcements.
All major parties are promising to fund road upgrades and to contribute A$100 million towards a new football stadium in Townsville. All support extension of the Mobile Black Spot Program. None have proposed unwinding existing initiatives such as the $5 billion Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility or $2 billion National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility.
North Queenslanders will be happy about the stadium funding, just as other communities will be pleased to receive support for local projects. Lack of detail on energy and information and telecommunications (ICT) infrastructure, however, will be a disappointment.
Modern ICT offers substantial opportunity to improve the competitiveness of rural industries as well as to reduce social isolation. Rural people are acutely aware of this. They want more than finger pointing over who is responsible for problems in delivering the National Broadband Network.

Unemployment
All major parties propose policies to promote national employment growth – for example, using trade agreements to expand exports and economic growth. However, place-specific strategies are also needed to deal with rural and regional unemployment due to variation in the composition and dynamics of non-metro labour markets.
Place-specific employment strategies have certainly not been absent from the campaign. They do, however, lack coherence.
In Cairns, for example, the Coalition has promised $20 million for businesses willing to employ local workers and $10 million for an Innovation Centre linking students, researchers and entrepreneurs. Cairns is my town and I'll be happy to see projects like this go ahead.
Other electorates provide similar examples of nationally small, but locally significant, commitments to tackle unemployment. The question will be whether we can learn enough from these to generate more widespread impact.

Both sides of politics will fund a new stadium for Townsville, promising it will create jobs as well as boost tourism and small business. AAP/Mick Tsikas

Townsville is particularly interesting in this regard because there is an overarching conceptual framework that, if successful, could be replicated elsewhere. Following the lead of British cities, the Coalition has promised a "City Deal" for Townsville. This is intended to integrate long-term infrastructure investment across all tiers of government to boost productivity and employment growth.
Implementing City Deals (or something like them) will require bipartisan support and meaningful negotiation with local stakeholders. Such a process will stand as a direct challenge to ad hoc, announcement-driven campaigning in future elections.

Diversification and new economy jobs
Innovation and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) are very much terms in vogue. Labor and the Coalition alike are spruiking their role in the development of the rural R&D system and launching a host of additional innovation programs. Agriculture and mining will both rely heavily on research and innovation in ICT, robotics and (for agriculture) genetics to maintain their competitive edge.
This will mean that, regardless of whether or not they are profitable, agriculture and mining will also employ fewer and fewer people.
So what is the plan then to boost innovation and research in ways that diversify rural and regional economies? Is it enough to ensure that at least some of the national expenditure on research and higher education lands in the regions?
Labor is promising to create a network of 20 regional innovation hubs. While it is difficult to imagine that expenditure of up to $500,000 per hub over three years will itself be transformative, at least it demonstrates awareness of the need for regional specificity.
Similar conclusions can be drawn about the Coalition's Industry Growth Centres and promise of an innovation centre in far-north Queensland.
Both parties' regional innovation commitments have merit, but greater and longer-term investment will be required, I suspect, to achieve any kind of scale outside established industries. City Deals (or let's call them Regional Deals) that are as focused on knowledge and innovation infrastructure as they are on transport, energy and communication infrastructure might provide a useful framework.

Indigenous participation
A Senate inquiry into the federal government's Indigenous Advancement Strategy identified multiple failures. The National Congress of Australia's First Peoples released a statement calling for urgent and far-reaching reform of Indigenous affairs.
Yet we have heard nothing of substance from either the Coalition or Labor about their plans for Indigenous affairs.

Health, education and social services
Through this campaign we have heard many claims about how much money has been removed from the human services and health portfolios, or been misspent, by previous governments.
We have heard claims about secret plans to privatise services like Medicare. But we have heard little of substance about rural health, education or social services.

Climate change
The bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef ensured climate change figured somewhere in this election. The Greens aside, though, no-one has campaigned hard on climate change. Nor have they released new policies.
Despite all the claims and counterclaims about climate policy, both Labor and the Coalition have proven keen to talk up their support for carbon farming and revegetation.
It's easy to see why the major political parties want to talk up carbon farming – it offers landholders a potential source of income while sidestepping politically messy arguments about the reality of climate change.
At some point, though, these arguments need to be had.

Natural resource management
Discussion about natural resource management through this campaign has been almost exclusively focused on how much money (those funding announcements again) will be spent to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Improving water quality by improving land management in the reef catchments is an important thing to do, but lack of detail on how money will be spent makes it difficult to compare the real value of electoral promises.
We know even less about the implications of these promises for land and water management outside reef catchments. Will the politics of the Greater Barrier Reef revive our national commitment to sustainable resource management? Or will money be siphoned from other resource management programs to pay for the reef's protection?

Agriculture
Agriculture arguably receives more policy attention than any other predominantly non-metropolitan industry.
White papers, policy reviews and industry plans emerge with remarkable regularity.
Again, though, these do not reveal major policy differences between the major parties. Trade agreements, biosecurity, export support, agribusiness development, foreign investment and so on are shared priorities.

To the election …
Lack of policy differentiation on national issues will not necessarily be mirrored on an electorate-by-electorate basis. The importance of local projects – a road upgrade here, a boat ramp there – cannot be dismissed. Any local member capable (or seen to be capable) of getting things done will increase trust in themselves and their parties.
As the major parties blame their opponents for everything that is wrong with the world one moment and then echo each other's policies the next, trust will be an important factor.
The wild card in all this is the independents. Katter's Australian Party and the Glenn Lazarus Team are campaigning to restrict foreign investment in land. In the event of a hung parliament the major parties will need to start negotiating.
Who knows what they'll be willing to trade off?

Links

• NBN benefits regional centres, but rural Australia is still left wanting
• Election 2016: the issues in non-metropolitan Australia
• PolicyCheck: What are the parties really offering to save the Great Barrier Reef?
• State of the states: 19 reasons why Turnbull and Shorten keep flying to Queensland