Fairfax - Ian Dunlop*
Rarely have politicians demonstrated better their ignorance of the
risks and opportunities confronting Australia than with Barnaby Joyce,
Matt Canavan and other ministers' recent utterances on Adani and Galilee
Basin coal, along with their petulant foot-stamping over Westpac's
decision to restrict funding to new coal projects. Likewise, Bill
Shorten sees no problem in supporting Adani.
The media are no
better; discussion instantly defaults to important but secondary issues,
such as Adani's concessional government loan, the project's importance
to the economy, creating jobs for north Queenslanders and so on.
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| The Adani mine by itself will push global temperatures above the threshold increase of 2 degrees. Photo: Robert Rough |
Nowhere in the debate is the critical issue even raised: the
existential risk of climate change, which such development now implies.
Existential means a risk posing large negative consequences to humanity
that can never be undone. One where an adverse outcome would either
annihilate life, or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.
This is the risk to which we are now exposed unless we rapidly reduce global carbon emissions.
In Paris in December 2015, the world, Australia included, agreed to
hold global average temperature to "well below 2 degrees above
pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5
degrees", albeit the emission reduction commitments Australia tabled
were laughable in comparison with our peers and with the size of the
challenge.
Dangerous climate change, which the Paris agreement and
its forerunners seek to avoid, is happening at the 1.2-degree increase
already experienced as extreme weather events, and their economic costs,
escalate. A 1.6-degree increase is already locked in as the full effect
of our historic emissions unfolds.
Our current path commits us to a 4 to 5-degree temperature increase.
This would create a totally disorganised world with a substantial
reduction in population, possibly to less than one billion people from
7.5 billion today.
The voluntary emission reduction commitments
made in Paris, if implemented, would still result in a 3-degree
increase, accelerating social chaos in many parts of the world with
rising levels of deprivation, displacement and conflict.
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| Adani Group founder Gautam Adani with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. |
It is already impossible to stay below the 1.5-degree Paris
aspiration. To have a realistic chance of staying below even 2 degrees
means that no new fossil-fuel projects can be built globally – coal, oil
or gas – and that existing operations, particularly coal, must be
rapidly replaced with low-carbon alternatives. Further, carbon-capture
technologies that do not currently exist must be rapidly deployed at
scale.
Climate change has moved out of the twilight period of much
talk and limited action. It is now turning nasty. Some regions, often
the poorest, have already seen major disasters, as has Australia. How
long will it take, and how much economic damage must we suffer,
particularly in Queensland, before our leaders accept that events like
Cyclone Debbie and the collapse of much of the Great Barrier Reef are
being intensified by man-made climate change? Of that there is no doubt,
nor has there been for decades. The uncertainties, regularly thrown up
as reasons for inaction, relate not to the basic science but to the
speed and extent of climate impact, both of which have been badly
underestimated.
The most dangerous aspect is that the impact of
fossil-fuel investments made today do not manifest themselves for
decades to come. If we wait for catastrophe to happen, as we are doing,
it will be too late to act. Time is the most important commodity; to
avoid catastrophic outcomes requires emergency action to force the pace
of change. Australia, along with the Asian regions to our north, is now
considered to be "disaster alley"; we are already experiencing the most
extreme impacts globally.
In these circumstances, opening up a
major new coal province is nothing less than a crime against humanity.
The Adani mine by itself will push temperatures above 2 degrees; the
rest of the Galilee Basin development would ensure global temperatures
went way above 3 degrees. None of the supporting political arguments,
such as poverty alleviation, the inevitability of continued coal use,
the superior quality of our coal, or the benefits of opening up northern
Australia, have the slightest shred of credibility. Such
irresponsibility is only possible if you do not accept that man-made
climate change is happening, which is the real position of both
goverment and opposition.
Nowhere in the debate is the critical issue even raised: the existential risk of climate change.
Likewise with business. At the recent Santos annual general meeting,
chairman Peter Coates asserted that a 4-degree world was "sensible" to
assume for planning purposes, thereby totally abrogating in one word his
responsibility as a director to understand and act on the risks of
climate change. Westpac's new climate policy is a step forward, but
fails to accept that no new coal projects should be financed,
high-quality coal or not. The noose is tightening around the necks of
company directors. Personal liability for ignoring climate risk is now
real.
Yet politicians assume they can act with impunity. As
rumours of Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris agreement intensify,
right on cue Zed Seselja and Craig Kelly insist we should do likewise,
without having the slightest idea of the implications.
The first
priority of government, we are told, is to ensure the security of the
citizens. Having got elected, this seems to be the last item on the
politician's agenda, as climate change is treated as just another issue
to be compromised and pork-barrelled, rather than an existential threat.
We deserve better leaders. If the incumbency is not prepared to act, the community need to take matters into their own hands.
*Ian
Dunlop was an international oil, gas and coal industry executive,
chairman of the Australian Coal Association and chief executive of the
Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is a member of the Club of
Rome.
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