States Must Get Australia Back On Track, Amid Turnbull’s Climate Train Wreck

RenewEconomy - Leigh Ewbank

Source: Climate Council 2017 LARGE IMAGE

The slow train wreck of climate change policy is still unfolding in Australia. National emissions are rising on the Federal Coalition’s watch, and Australia will fail to meet the meagre emissions cuts it pledged to the Paris Agreement.
Regressive political forces at the national level have seen states and territories step up and lead on climate change. But they’ll have to make the most of existing initiatives and ramp up public investment to maintain the momentum.
States and territories have outshined the federal government in recent years. From the ACT adopting a renewable energy target of 100 percent by 2020 to South Australia’s enthusiasm for solar-thermal and battery storage (as well as this week’s impressive announcements). Even the NSW Liberal government has set a target of zero emissions by 2050.
Victoria is a part of this story too. A year ago today, the Andrews government strengthened the state’s climate change laws after winning the support of The Greens and crossbenchers.
The legislation brought the state’s climate change laws inline with the Paris Agreement. It enshrined a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and requires the government to set interim Emissions Reduction Targets every five years.
The Andrews government’s 2017 legacy also includes the country’s first legislated ban on fracking and onshore gasfields as well as a Victorian Renewable Energy Target of 40 by 2025.
With state elections on the horizon, those who are concerned about climate change want to know one thing: How will the states and territories lead on climate change in 2018?
Despite alarming melting of the polar icecaps, unprecedented bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, and parts of the country experiencing record heat, the Turnbull government’s attention is on political scandals rather than substantive policy issues.
The pace of progress on climate policy in South Australia and Tasmania will become clear after elections in March. Here in Victoria, the government has plenty of time to secure gains before the state heads to the polls in November.
In the coming months the Andrews government will, for the first time, set Emissions Reduction Targets for 2025 and 2030.
Victoria can help put Australia back on track but only with a commitment to science-based targets that are in line with the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5°Celsius. For Victoria to prepare its economy for the climate change challenge, it’s essential to do the heavy lift of cutting emissions now
In Australia’s most progressive state, a Labor government trumping Turnbull’s weak climate change targets will be popular with voters—especially environmentally conscious voters.
With global warming accelerating, progress on renewables and climate legislation must be followed by serious investment. This makes the budget the logical next step for climate change action.
There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution for climate change. Communities in rural and regional areas face qualitatively different impacts to those in urban and inner-city neighbourhoods. What unites them all is the need for government support.
The annual budget process is where governments reveal their priorities. Citizens look closely at budget allocations towards healthcare, education, and infrastructure.
When will we see governments make investing in climate change action a priority?
It will take a sizeable public investment to prepare our cities and towns for the impacts of climate change. A clear program of infrastructure investment is needed to cope with the impact of rising sea levels, increased bushfire risk, and extreme weather. And projects to rein in emissions need support too.
If preparing our communities and economy for the immediate impact and future challenges isn’t the preserve of government, then what is?
Climate change is not going away. If the Federal Coalition government won’t lead then it’ll be up to the states and territories to do the lifting.
The first government to commit to a ‘climate-focused’ budget would position itself as a national leader.

Links

• National Energy Guarantee leaves no guarantees
• National Energy Emissions Audit: February 2018 Electricity Update
• Cooking the books on climate change policy
• Australia's Climate Change Policies Won't Do Enough
• Cooking The Books On Climate Change Policy
• Experts Speak Out About Australia’s Emissions Projections And Climate Policy Review
• Climate Review: Turnbull Government Will Allow Companies To Purchase Foreign Carbon Credits
• At A Glance: Australia's Climate Change Policy Review
• Controversial Abbott-Era Climate Fund Will Survive Climate Review: Josh Frydenberg
• Josh Frydenberg To Seek NEG Nod By April, Final Design Settled By End Of 2018
• South Australia And ACT Outvoted On National Energy Guarantee
• A Shift To Clean Energy Will Come But Politics Remain Vile Until The Next Election
• Liberal Statesman Tells Malcolm Turnbull To Stand And Fight Tony Abbott On Climate
• The Current Energy Debate Is Farcical. What Does This Government Stand For? 

Electric Vehicles No 'Silver Bullet' For Climate Change: Environment Commissioner

Fairfax - Katie Burgess

Electric vehicles will not be a silver bullet as the ACT looks to cut transport emissions after 2020, the ACT's Environment and Sustainability Commissioner has warned.
Speaking as the ACT government responded to her report on the territory's implementation of climate change reforms, Dr Kate Auty said Canberrans needed to embrace a mix of emission-cutting measures to reduce the risks associated with a warming climate.

You can't miss the ACT's new electric and hybrid buses.  Photo: Rohan Thomson

Transport will account for 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions once the ACT converts to 100 per cent renewable energy in 2020, with passenger vehicles contributing about 75 per cent.
Dr Auty said Canberrans needed to "move away from thinking there's a silver bullet like electric vehicles" and embrace other methods of transport like ride sharing, public transport or cycling.

The ACT's environment commissioner Kate Auty. Photo: NeCTAR.

"Electric vehicles are like everything else - one answer to a complex challenge we've been set by our own conduct in respect to greenhouse gas emissions and I'd urge people to think about all the other parts of the transport conundrum and make sure we're doing whatever we can," Dr Auty said.

Climate Change Shane Rattenbury said the ACT's upcoming 2045 Zero Net Emissions strategy would tie into other policy work on future transport planning to encourage people to move away from using private vehicles.
The government adopted 16 of Dr Auty's 17 recommendations about how it could improve on its climate change reforms, including better communicating how to make changes on an individual level.
"Everybody has a part to play, we can't make this somebody else's problem," Mr Rattenbury said.

ACT minister for climate change and sustainability Shane Rattenbury. Photo: Sitthixay Ditthavong 

"Our role as government is to make it easy for people to change their behaviour and to be aware of what they need to do.
"We've got a huge amount of work to do in that space to improve walking and cycling infrastructure, improve public transport and to transition to a electrified vehicle fleet, all of these are challenges ahead of us and that's the next horizon to get stuck into."
Overall Dr Auty said the ACT was doing "more than our share of heavy lifting" when it came to tackling climate change.
She said every action towards cutting emissions made a difference, no matter the size jurisdiction.
"Every time a sub-national government steps away from its responsibilities and says it's small beer, and I don't think I need to do it, we are saying we're happy to live with a 2- and a 4-degree future and if we're saying that it means we're giving up," Dr Auty said.

Links

• ACT government urged to set targets for electric cars to combat emissions
• ACT’s Climate Strategy to a Net Zero Emissions Territory
• ACT’s Climate Strategy To A Net Zero Emissions Territory Discussion Paper (pdf)
• ACT greenhouse gas emissions
• ACT could pay 'social cost' for carbon if it misses emission targets 

Radical Change Urged Over 20 Years To Attain Climate Goals: Institute

Reuters - Alister Doyle

OSLO - The world will need sweeping changes over the next 20 years ranging from energy use to food production to achieve climate goals set by almost 200 nations, the new heads of a top environmental think-tank said on Friday.

FILE PHOTO: A man walks over a bridge as smoke rises from chimneys of a thermal power plant in Shanghai February 23, 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Both said “revolutions” were needed to tackle climate change, such as capturing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that burn fossil fuels or by reforming agriculture, where meat production and fertilisers are big sources of greenhouse gases.
Developed nations should set an example, such as Germany where Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure to end the use of coal in power generation.
“When Germany is not in a position to phase out coal can we expect that Poland or Indonesia or Vietnam or Turkey ... can phase out coal?” Ottmar Edenhofer, new co-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told Reuters.
Edenhofer, formerly the institute’s chief economist, and new co-director Johan Rockstrom, a Swedish scientist, said governments were far from achieving the core goal in the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting a rise in global average temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.
“We have just literally 20 years to either succeed or fail” in the goals of getting the planet on a more sustainable path, Rockstrom said in a joint telephone interview.
The University of Pennsylvania rated the Potsdam Institute as the world’s top environment policy think-tank this month.
The institute plans to exploit more data to try to grasp under-appreciated long-term harm from natural disasters linked to climate change such as floods, droughts or storms.
Poor families in developing nations often focus, for instance, on rebuilding their homes after a natural disaster but sometimes stopped sending their children to school even after reconstruction, Edenhofer said.
The institute could use more satellite data, for instance the amount of light emitted at night by villages in developing nations, as a gauge of local poverty and vulnerability, he said. The poorest have the least access to electricity.
Rockstrom and Edenhofer were named by the institute on Friday to succeed Hans Joachim Schellnhuber in October.

Links

• Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
• Social and Natural science together: New Co-Directors to lead the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
• Sea-level legacy: 20cm more rise by 2300 for each 5-year delay in peaking emissions
• The Paris Agreement