09/08/2017

Another Attack On The Bureau, But Top Politicians Have Stopped Listening To Climate Change Denial

The Conversation - 

Thredbo, scene of the latest attack on the Bureau of Meteorology’s methods. AAP Image/Alison Godfrey
Has the Australian climate change debate changed? You could be forgiven for thinking the answer is no.
Just this week The Australian has run a series of articles attacking the Bureau of Meteorology’s weather observations. Meanwhile, the federal and Queensland governments continue to promote Adani’s planned coal mine, despite considerable environmental and economic obstacles. And Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions are rising again.
So far, so familiar. But something has changed.
Those at the top of Australian politics are no longer debating the existence of climate change and its causes. Instead, four years after the Coalition was first elected, the big political issues are rising power prices and the electricity market. What’s happening?
A few years ago, rejection of climate science was part of the Australian political mainstream. In 2013, the then prime minister Tony Abbott repeated a common but flawed climate change denial argument:
Australia has had fires and floods since the beginning of time. We’ve had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we’ve recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic [sic] global warming.
Abbott’s statement dodges a key issue. While fires and floods have always occurred, climate change can still alter their frequency and severity. In 2013, government politicians and advisers, such as Dennis Jensen and Maurice Newman, weren’t shy about rejecting climate science either.
The atmosphere is different in 2017, and I’m not just talking about CO₂ levels. Tony Abbott is no longer prime minister, Dennis Jensen lost preselection and his seat, and Maurice Newman is no longer the prime minister’s business advisor.
Which Australian politician most vocally rejects climate science now? It isn’t the prime minister or members of the Coalition, but One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. In Australia, open rejection of human-induced climate change has moved to the political fringe.
Roberts has declared climate change to be a “fraud” and a “scam”, and talked about climate records being “manipulated by NASA”. He is very much a conspiracy theorist on climate, as he is on other topics including banks, John F. Kennedy, and citizenship. His approach to evidence is frequently at odds with mainstream thought.

ABC Q&A
We've had a pause in warming & NASA corrupted data, says Malcolm Roberts. Professor Brian Cox examines the graphs.

This conspiratorial approach to climate change is turning up elsewhere too. I was startled by the author list of the Institute of Public Affairs’ new climate change book. Tony Heller (better known in climate circles by the pseudonym Steven Goddard) doesn’t just believe climate change is a “fraud” and a “scam”, but has also promoted conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook school massacre. This is a country mile from sober science and policy analysis.
So where is the Australian political mainstream? It’s not denying recent climate change and its causes, but instead is now debating the policy responses. This is exemplified by political arguments about the electricity market, power prices, and the Finkel Review.
While this is progress, it’s not without serious problems. The debate may have rightly moved on to policy rather than science, but arguments for “clean coal” power are at odds with coal’s high CO₂ emissions and the failure thus far of carbon capture. Even power companies show little interest in new coal-fired power plants to replace those that have closed.
The closure of the Hazelwood power station was politically controversial. Jeremy Buckingham/flickr
History repeating?
Have those who rejected global warming and its causes changed their tune? In general, no. They still imagine that scientists are up to no good. The Australian’s latest attacks on the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) illustrate this, especially as they are markedly similar to accusations made in the same newspaper three years ago.
This week, the newspaper’s environment editor Graham Lloyd wrote that the BoM was “caught tampering” with temperature logs, on the basis of measurements of cold temperatures on two July nights at Goulburn and Thredbo. For these nights, discrepant temperatures were in public BoM databases due to automated weather stations that stopped reporting data. The data points were flagged for BoM staff to verify, but in the meantime an amateur meteorologist contacted Lloyd and the Institute of Public Affairs’ Jennifer Marohasy.
In 2014, Lloyd cast doubt on the BoM’s climate record by attacking the process of “homogenisation,” with a particular emphasis on data from weather stations in Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke. Homogenisation is used to produce a continuous temperature record from measurements that may suffer from artificial discontinuities, such as in the case of weather stations that have been upgraded or moved from, say, a post office to an airport.
The Tuggeranong Automatic Weather Station. Bidgee/Wikimedia Commons
Lloyd’s articles from this week and 2014 are beat-ups, for similar reasons. The BoM’s ACORN-SAT long-term temperature record is compiled using daily measurements from 112 weather stations. Even Lloyd acknowledges that those 112 stations don’t include Goulburn and Thredbo. While Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke do contribute to ACORN-SAT, homogenisation of their data (and that of other weather stations) does little to change the warming trend measured across Australia. Australia has warmed over the past century, and The Australian’s campaigns won’t change that.
In 2014, the government responded to The Australian’s campaign by commissioning the Technical Advisory Forum, which has since reviewed ACORN-SAT and found it to be a “well-maintained dataset”. Prime Minister Abbott also considered a taskforce to investigate BoM, but was dissuaded by the then environment minister Greg Hunt.
How will Malcolm Turnbull’s government respond to The Australian’s retread of basically the same campaign? Perhaps that will be the acid test for whether the climate debate really has changed.

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CBA Hit With 'Lawfare' From Shareholders, Green Group Over Climate Change

AFR - Andrew Tillett

Protestor's closed a number of Commonwealth Bank branches down in Newcastle in July to protest the banks investment in coal. Supplied
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia's woes are continuing, with a green activist group launching legal action on Tuesday on behalf of two mum and dad shareholders accusing the bank of failing to adequately disclose "climate change risk" in its annual report.
Lawyers representing Environmental Justice Australia filed proceedings in the Federal Court, with the group claiming it was the first case in the world to test how companies should acknowledge the impact of global warming on their operations.
Melbourne art curator Guy Abrahams and medical practitioner Kim Abrahams allege that by inadequately disclosing the risk climate change posed to its business in its 2016 annual report, the bank breached the Corporations Act by failing to give a true and fair value of its financial position and performance.
They also allege the 2016 report did not inform investors of climate change risks.
They are seeking an injunction to prevent the CBA making the same omissions in future annual reporters.
"We bought Commonwealth Bank shares more than 20 years ago as an investment in our children's future," said Mr Abrahams, who also runs a not-for-profit arts group that agitates for action on mitigating climate change.
"We are deeply concerned about the serious risks climate change poses to the environment and society. The bank should tell investors about the risks climate change will have on its business."

Growing concern
EJA has seized on comments by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority board member Geoff Summerhayes, who told an Insurance Council of Australia forum earlier this year that climate risk was becoming an "important and explicit part" of regulators' thinking.
"If entities' internal risk management processes are not starting to include climate risk as something that has to be considered – even if risks are ultimately judged to be minimal or manageable – that seems a pretty reasonable indicator there might be something wrong with the process," he said.
"Similarly, if you're an investor and you're not already asking questions about how the companies you invest in approach these issues – perhaps you should be."
And prominent Sydney barrister Noel Hutley SC prepared a legal opinion late last year warning it was only a matter of time before litigation was launched against a company director who had failed to take steps to address climate risk.
"We believe the matter is of significant public interest. It should set an important precedent that will guide other companies on disclosing climate change risks," Environmental Justice Australia lawyer David Barnden said in February.
The plaintiffs want the case to also put the spotlight on CBA's failure to rule out bankrolling Adani's proposed Carmichael coal mine, which has seen it become a target of left-wing anti-coal activists.

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Climate Change Risk Disclosure Case Against The Commonwealth Bank Before The Federal Court

Environmental Justice Australia

Melbourne art curator Guy Abrahams and medical practitioner Kim Abrahams allege that by inadequately disclosing the risk climate change posed to its business in its 2016 annual report the Commonwealth Bank breached the Corporations Act.
Environmental Justice Australia has filed proceedings against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on behalf of shareholders for failing to adequately disclose climate change risk in the bank’s 2016 annual report.
The claim was lodged in the Federal Court of Australia on behalf of longstanding CBA shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams.
The proceeding is the first legal action by shareholders against a bank anywhere in the world that will test how public companies should disclose information about climate change risks in their annual reports.
The claim alleges that climate change risks pose material or major risks to the bank and by not disclosing the risks climate change poses to its business, CBA failed to give a true and fair view of its financial position and performance, in contravention of s 297 of the Corporations Act.
The claim also alleges that the directors’ report in the 2016 annual report inadequately disclosed climate change risks that investors reasonably required to make an informed assessment of the bank’s operations, financial position, business strategies and prospects for future financial years, as required by s 299A of the Corporations Act.
Abrahams v Commonwealth Bank of Australia also raises concerns about the risks, including reputational risks, of the Commonwealth Bank providing financial assistance or funding to Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine project.
The Concise Statement lodged in the Federal Court says Adani’s Carmichael project and whether it was being or would be funded by CBA is a matter of substantial controversy and concern. As such, CBA knew or ought to have known that the provision of any form of financial assistance for funding for Carmichael posed, and continues to pose, material or major risks to the bank.
The shareholders say those risks should have been disclosed in the 2016 annual report.
The shareholders seek a declaration that CBA, in failing to adequately disclose climate change risks in its 2016 annual report, contravened sections 297 and 299A of the Corporations Act.
The claim also seeks an injunction to stop the bank making the same omissions in future annual reports.
Guy and Kim Abrahams are represented by barristers Ron Merkel QC, Emrys Nekvapil and Sarah Zeleznikow.

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