09/04/2017

Australia Is Sleepwalking Into A Climate Security Nightmare

Huffington Post - Rob Sturrock

We are missing a singular opportunity to ready ourselves against domestic climate security threats.
Events such as Cyclone Debbie remind us of the destructive impact extreme weather has on our communities and livelihoods.  POOL New / Reuters
Australia is sleepwalking into a new and uniquely 21st century security challenge -- the far-reaching impacts of climate change. It is unlike any previous security challenge we've come across. We're living with this threat now, and will be for generations.
Recently, US filmmakers released an aptly titled documentary, 'The Age of Consequences', which was also aired on Four Corners in March. It serves as another reminder of how far behind Australia really is in dealing with this challenge. The film catalogues in high definition the many security ramifications of a changing climate, as told by former US military and senior policy experts from across the political spectrum. One can only hope that our local politicians digest its sober warnings.
The arguments in the film are not new. Over the past decade, the evidence has mounted that climate change is a direct threat to our peace, prosperity and health, as well as a phenomenon exacerbating geopolitical instability in our region. Australia's future is one of increasingly extreme weather and more natural disasters, both in terms of frequency and severity.
This is not a theoretical threat, it is affecting our communities today. Events such as Cyclone Debbie -- during which the army was deployed to offer assistance -- remind us of the destructive impact extreme weather has on our communities and livelihoods, with the present damage bill likely to run into the billions of dollars. Last year we also saw properties on Sydney's northern beaches unexpectedly get much closer to the shores of the Pacific.
An inground pool sits amongst the rocks after a severe storm at Collaroy on Sydney's northern beaches on June 6, 2016. AFP/Getty Images
Internationally, Australia resides in the region worst affected by climate change; a region that is already facing instability due to booming populations, resource insecurity and some of the highest levels of natural and humanitarian disasters. Seven out of 10 of the world's most vulnerable countries to climate change are in the Asia–Pacific, and Asia has approximately 90 percent of the world's risk of tropical cyclones.
Our region is already adjusting to a more fluid and contested geopolitical order. This task is compounded due to the increasingly scarce food, energy and water situation aggravated by climate change. Emerging superpowers will be jostling for resource security alongside developing nations with fragile economies and equally fragile governments. It doesn't take much imagination to understand how, for example, extended droughts in wheat-producing countries could lead to supply shortages, increases in grain prices, greater food insecurity, and ultimately intensified social and political unrest in volatile parts of the world. Indeed, this has already happened in North Africa and the Middle East.
These challenges are great but they are manageable so long as Australia acts decisively and urgently.
We can add to this complex security situation the risk that international climate governance may unravel, courtesy of a retreating United States and the self-serving 'America First' rhetoric of the Trump Presidency. A vacuum on climate leadership would be a disaster for the international community. At best China will fill this breach which would, in turn, offer a new leadership dynamic in the region to which we will need to adjust.
These challenges are great but they are manageable so long as Australia acts decisively and urgently. Instead of acting as the evidence has mounted, Australia has endured a costly, lost decade of action on climate security. It's been a period of torpor created by ideological gridlock and opportunistic denialism. Ten years of federal policies totaling little more than piecemeal and low-key responses to a great and profound challenge.
Our long national sleepwalk on climate security policy must end. We are missing a singular opportunity to ready ourselves against domestic climate security threats. We must also offer to the region a strong, positive role on climate adaptation and preparation. If we do not, we leave ourselves more insecure and vulnerable as a result.
Firstly, we need a plan of action -- a comprehensive climate security strategy from the Federal Government. A genuine bright spot in recent years was the acknowledgement of climate security concerns in the Defence White Paper 2016. However more sophisticated policy must build upon the White Paper's foundations. The US Department of Defense has done the hard work of producing detailed strategies and roadmaps over recent years. They empower the public service and armed services to plan and prepare for their coming security environment with confidence. In our Federal Government, a climate security strategy should be put together via an advisory council comprising the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Environment and Defence.
The next decade of climate security policies must be a vast improvement on the previous one.
Australia also has a constructive role to play in collaborating within our region on building climate resilience. Utilising the ADF, Australia can offer leadership that encourages cooperation on defence preparedness for climate-induced crises. This includes identifying likely humanitarian flashpoints in the region, such as population displacement in Bangladesh or extreme heat fatalities and power outages in India and Pakistan. Executing effective joint responses to humanitarian and natural disasters will be pivotal in coming years. Australia should be at the forefront of this preparatory work.
Finally, Australia should work closely with its neighbours to invest in their climate adaptation capacity, such as improving the resilience of communities particularly vulnerable to climate change. Australia has large reserves of soft power, and could better utilise these reserves by addressing climate change through well-financed aid and development programs. Australia improves its own security position by making the region more able to withstand incoming climate security threats.
For all our sakes, the next decade of climate security policies must be a vast improvement on the previous one. Otherwise the consequences of our inaction will be measured not just across years, but generations.

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Adani Mine Railway Loan Would Breach Government's Policy, Says Legal Group

The Guardian - 

Complaint lodged over prospect of Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility partially funding 400km rail line
Environmental Justice Australia says government should not provide $1bn loan to build rail line from Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images
A $1bn federal loan to builders of a railway line between the proposed Adani coalmine and the coast would be a direct breach of government policy, a legal group has claimed.
Environmental Justice Australia has lodged a formal complaint with the Productivity Commission over the prospect of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility partially funding the 400km rail line.
It is believed two companies – an Adani-related entity and the rail company Aurizon – have made rival bids for $1bn in government loans.
But EJA said government funding of the line would be a clear breach of competitive neutrality principles and potentially against the criteria of the “developing the north” white paper.
Competitive neutrality principles require governments not to use their legislative or fiscal powers “to advantage their own businesses over the private sector”, according to government agreements.
“We submit that for the Adani and Aurizon proposals there is no ‘market failure’ and Naif support would encroach upon the domain of the private sector in breach of competitive neutrality principles,” said the complaint, filed on behalf of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
“We also submit that the Naif is non-transparent, ineffective, inefficient and has an inadequate governing framework.”
EJA based its complaint on a report by the Productivity Commission into the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation in 2012. It said said the commission found Efic should cease supporting onshore resource projects and related infrastructure because the private sector was already active in that market.
It also suggested the framework of Efic and Naif were similar, in that it had a “market gap” not “market failure” mandate.
The Naif’s mandate also dictates it must only fund projects which the board is satisfied would not otherwise receive financing.
An EJA lawyer, David Barnden, said the same finding should apply to the rail line. “Whether it’s Adani or Aurizon you’ve got a mature market where private sector is best placed to understand these risks,” he said.
“Our argument is this is a mature financing market, where there’s no market failure. The information is out there, the players know about the risk.”
EJA said there was a clear demarcation between what the government and private business should do in the “developing the north” white paper.
Naif’s mandatory criteria also includes the requirement that the funded project be of benefit to the public and “serve or have the capacity to serve multiple users”.
While Adani’s proposal for the rail line is believed to be for its sole use transporting coal between the Carmichael mine in the Galilee basin and the coastline for export, Aurizon’s has reportedly scoped for a multi-use line – albeit with Adani as the sole operator initially.
Barnden said this did not affect the group’s complaint, and suggested Aurizon would have difficulty justifying a proposal for a multi-user line because the Abbot Point terminal on the coast only had capacity for Carmichael.
“I think we’re reasonably confident that the commission will make findings which would lead to recommendations to the minister to not finance or not provide financial support to large private infrastructure projects in Australia.”
The minister for resources and northern Australia has been contacted for comment.

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Climate Change: Three Of Australia’s Big Four Banks Reviewing Exposure To Fossil Fuels

The Guardian - 

Commonwealth, NAB and ANZ are each analysing the financial position of business customers in sectors exposed to climate change
Of Australia's 'big four' banks – Commonwealth, NAB, ANZ and Westpac– only the latter is not currently reviewing its exposure to fossil fuels. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Three of Australia's big four banks are reviewing their exposure to fossil fuels, including their lending practices to households and farmers, in response to climate change.
The Commonwealth Bank is conducting a "detailed climate policy review" that will be released publicly pending board approval, and NAB has a working group reviewing the risks from global temperatures rising two degrees.
ANZ is conducting portfolio analysis to identify changes in the financial position of business customers in sectors "most exposed" to climate change. It is also working with the Bureau of Meteorology to understand variability in average annual rainfall over recent decades to understand how climate change is affecting Australia's traditional farming areas.
Executives from the three banks shared this information with the House of Representatives' standing committee on economics, as part of a review of the four major banks. The revelations, written in response to questions on notice from the committee, were published on the federal parliamentary website on Friday afternoon.
It comes two months after the banking regulator warned climate change posed a material risk to Australia's financial system, and urged companies to start adapting.
Geoff Summerhayes from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra), in a major speech to the Insurance Council of Australia's annual forum in February, warned it planned to start running stress tests of the financial system to see if it would survive various adverse climate shocks.
He pointed to the Paris Climate Agreement, ratified by Australia in November, as a significant policy moment for all governments, including Australia's.
Summerhayes said the Paris Agreement provided an "unmistakable signal" about the future direction of policy and adjustments that companies, markets and economies "will need to make".
The revelations from CBA and NAB come after ANZ's chief executive, Shayne Elliott, said last month he was examining the impact of sea level rise and other climate impacts on housing mortgage risk.
Adam Bandt, the Greens' climate and energy spokesman, has welcomed the revelations. He also questioned why Westpac has not ruled out funding Adani's giant Carmichael coalmine in Queensland given its competitors' concerns about climate change.
"Following ANZ's revelation that sea-level rises might make it tougher to grant a mortgage, CBA and NAB seem to be examining whether to follow suit," Bandt said. "The penny doesn't seem to have fully dropped, because banks like Westpac still think they can commit to a two degree target but leave the door open to expanding coal mines.
"Westpac's refusal to rule out funding Adani is especially concerning; as the bank seems to think it can have its climate cake and eat it too. But the days of dealing with climate change simply by putting a polar bear in your ad are long gone."
Last year, financial activists Market Forces said Australia's big four banks could act on their stated ambition to help achieve a 2C warming target simply by giving no new loans to coal projects.

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Climate Threatens Australia's Security In Unexpected Ways

Fairfax - Sherri Goodman*

When President Donald Trump became the commander-in-chief of the US Armed Forces, he accepted the responsibility to protect my country against enemies, foreign and domestic. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shares the same responsibility to protect Australians.
Do these leaders understand that a key component of national security and global stability is climate change and the instability it is already causing around the world? The intersection of these two issues is already striking the world in unexpected ways, as climate change interacts with other pre-existing problems to become an accelerant to instability. The consequences include overwhelming humanitarian crises, forced migrations like those we are witnessing around the Mediterranean, and a breakdown in the human systems that make our societies work.

Trump rolls back Obama-era climate regulations
U.S. President Trump said on Tuesday that he's putting an 'end to the war on coal' with an executive order that will undo a slew of Obama-era climate change policies.

Indeed, Trump's Defence Secretary, Marine Corps General Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, said recently: "Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today. It is appropriate for the combatant commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning."
Take Syria. From 2006 to 2010, 60 per cent of Syria had its worst long-term drought and crop failures since civilisation began. About 800,000 people in rural areas had lost their livelihood by 2009. Two to three million people were driven into extreme poverty, and 1.5 million migrated to Syrian cities, which had already received a similar number of Iraqi war refugees.
The cities grew rapidly, as did food and housing prices. The resulting social breakdown, state failure and the rise of Islamic State was a reaction to a regime unable to adequately respond, while the global and regional climatic changes were major underlying causes making a bad problem much worse. Had we factored long-term drought and crop failure into strategic planning for the region in 2011, we might have made earlier decisions about measures needed to avert the current political and refugee crisis.
Extreme weather and climate change also played their part in the Arab Spring. Per capita, the world's top-nine wheat importers are in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2010, a heatwave and wildfires in Ukraine and Russia, and a "once-in-a-century" winter drought in China, resulted in wheat shortages and a global wheat price spike, with bread prices rocketing across the Middle East. Food riots resulted in countries such as Egypt, where basic food costs are one-third of the household budget, and became a trigger for the Arab Spring.
The issue of accelerating climate change should be considered as part of the Australia's current debate over energy security. As the world's driest continent and an important force in Asian security, Australia could be a leader on sustainable growth approaches, to address not only energy and climate security but also critical issues facing the country, such as declining agricultural productivity and water availability.
The national-security dimension of climate change is the subject of intense focus by the American military and security community, where I have worked on the issue for more than two decades. I understand the same is happening occurring in Australia.
A girl carries a toddler in Bangladesh. A one-metre rise in sea level would submerge one-fifth of the country, displacing 30 million people. Photo: Allison Joyce
The internal cohesion of many nations is already under great stress, including in the United States, as a result of both a dramatic rise in migration, and changes in weather patterns and water availability. The flooding of coastal communities around the world from low-lying Pacific Islands to the US, South Asia and China has the potential to challenge regional and even national identities.
Throughout Asia, climate change will increase regional instability. A one-metre sea-level rise would flood 20 per cent of the area of Bangladesh and displace 30 million people. India has surrounded Bangladesh with a double-security "climate refugee" fence patrolled by 80,000 troops, in anticipation of a potential migration crisis. The Mekong Delta is very vulnerable to inundation, and Pakistan faces a growing water crisis. More than one billion people rely on snow-melt water from the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, which will decrease.
The economic and social implications will be profound, with a major effect on Australia's export-dominated economy. As the US National Intelligence Council said in a recent report, the effects of climate change are already under way and are "likely to pose wide-ranging national security challenges for the United States and other countries over the next 20 years".
Now is the time to lower Australia's national security risks by taking a leadership role in coordinated, wide-scale and well-executed actions to limit heat-trapping gases, and in preparing for the projected effects of climate change. This response should include multifaceted cooperation with other nations, as well as between Australian institutions, to build resilience.
To forestall the worst outcomes, we must recognise climate change as a threat multiplier to human society that demands a whole-of-society approach, that will enable Australia to be on the leading edge of innovation and competitiveness in the advanced energy economy that is rapidly evolving in China and other Asian economies.

*Sherri Goodman is a former US deputy undersecretary of defence, and founder of the CNA Military Advisory Board.

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