Climate science at the CSIRO is bouncing back one year after executives modelled its demise, securing new revenue streams in the Pacific and China, and looking to hire new staff.
On February 4 last year, chief executive Larry Marshall shocked staff in the country's premier research body by stating that because the question of whether the climate was changing "has been answered", it was time to deploy resources elsewhere.
The world is moving closer to catastrophic peril, scientists say
Scientists have moved the hands of their metaphorical 'Doomsday' clock closer to midnight, warning of the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climate change.
At the time as many as 110 of the 140 staff in the Oceans &
Atmosphere unit were considered for the axe as part of broader cuts of
350.Scientists have moved the hands of their metaphorical 'Doomsday' clock closer to midnight, warning of the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climate change.
Amid a realisation that other agencies – from NASA to the Australian Antarctic Division – depended on CSIRO colleagues and couldn't be easily cut, and a public uproar at home and abroad, the number of redundancies was whittled back.
The number of climate science cuts eventually shrank to 29 and "the net headcount has increased over the past six months", a CSIRO spokesman told Fairfax Media.
Some of the fresh jobs will come at the Climate Science Centre, a new body backed with long-term funding by the Turnbull government. Helen Cleugh, an atmospheric researcher, will take over as its first director on February 13.
The O&A unit is also expected to beat its revenue targets this year, despite the disruption. These include CSIRO winning a contract from the multi-billion dollar Green Climate Fund for a project in Vanuatu.
CSIRO in December also signed a deal with the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science to establish the Centre for Southern Hemisphere Ocean Research.
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| Warming world: Proposed CSIRO climate cuts drew international rebukes. Photo: NASA |
"We are coming out of a horrible time," a senior scientist said, request anonymity. "With a lot more requirement, morale is starting to recover."
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| Locked in: Long-run funding has now been set aside by CSIRO chief Larry Marshall. Photo: Josh Robenstone |
Management ranks, though, remain unstable. Alex Wonhas, the head of the energy and environment who managed to salvage many of the proposed jobs, left CSIRO to join global engineering firm Aurecon last month.
"I plan to continue to follow my passion of growing the sustainability and prosperity of our nation," Dr Wonhas told staff in a farewell email.
The search also continues for a new head of O&A after recruitment efforts failed to find a replacement for Ken Lee. Dr Lee, a Canadian oil spill expert, was revealed in private emails released to a Senate inquiry to have sought even deeper cuts - "let's overshoot first" - than were being asked for.
His email was in response to one from Andreas Schiller, then O&A's deputy director of oceans and atmosphere, who suggested CSIRO make a "clean cut" to get rid of "public good/government-funded climate research". Dr Schiller remains acting head of the division.
A spokesman for new industry minister, Arthur Sinodinos, said the cuts were "operational decisions of the organisation", and he supports arrangements now in place.
"The Minister is fully supportive of the science of climate change, and always has been," the spokesman said.
Lifeline
Kim Carr, Labor's industry spokesman, said CSIRO had "subjected to unnecessary upheaval and anxiety" over the past year after it was already reeling from $115 million slashed from funding in the first Abbott government budget.
"Although climate research was thrown a lifeline after global protest, other CSIRO staff were not so lucky," Senator Carr said. "Researchers in the Manufacturing division, Land & Water division and the newly created Data61 have all lost their jobs."
President Donald Trump is set to unleash a much broader assault on science in the US and Australia should ramp up spending to offer "professional refuge to the best climate scientists", a spokesman for Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson.
"It is critical that the world keeps investing in climate science so we don't face the future blindfolded," he said. "It is in Australia's and the international community's interest to offer US climate scientists jobs elsewhere - let us lead by example and send a strong message."
Links
- The face of the CSIRO climate cuts finds a new home
- Hunt orders CSIRO climate science U-turn
- Sydney sweats through summer without peer as NSW records melt
- Severe thunderstorms hit Sydney, flash flooding and damaging wind likely
- Sydney heat could break century-old record, before cool change hits
- The town that won't cool down
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