Lethal Heating: 09/02/18

02/09/2018

This Government Is Not Even Pretending To Act On Climate Change Any More

The Guardian - Greg Jericho*

We have gone from at least trying to look like aiming to reduce emissions to apparently deciding to do nothing

Prime Minister Scott Morrison (right) and energy minister Angus Taylor at Government House in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

With the appointment of Angus Taylor as minister for energy, Scott Morrison has clearly signalled that he has no care about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. So utterly bereft of reason on the issue and so completely consumed by climate change denial the government is now at the point where even the pretence of doing something to reduce emissions is viewed with distrust.
Perhaps somewhat surprisingly I have a degree of sympathy for members of the public who are climate change deniers. I have this sympathy because I was once one of them.
I don’t mean I was a climate change denier in the sense of believing it all was some gigantic hoax perpetrated by the deep state and the UN. I mean denying in the sense of doing my level best to deny it was happening.
Because it scared the bejeezus out of me.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was finishing high school and studying at university I was of course well aware of climate change. As a politically engaged, super-serious youth who listened to Midnight Oil and U2 and read every newspaper and news magazine I could afford, I was across all the news about the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions.
And it didn’t sound good.
So subconsciously I wanted to ignore it. I would read articles spelling out the dire future ahead and would spend the rest of the day in a depressed funk, because the problem with facing up to the reality of climate change is to face up to the fact that your life thus far has played a role. Your preference for driving a car, the aerosol sprays you used, the food you consumed, or heck, the generation of the electricity you depend upon had all contributed to producing greenhouse gases.

It is real, it is happening, it is getting worse and we need to act

It brought with it a level of guilt my 18-year-old self could do without, and even worse, a fear of having to change my lifestyle that I didn’t want to face.
And so I would hold on to anything that would suggest it was not so bad. I would cling to those who suggested that each individual couldn’t really make much of a difference (so I can keep those lights switched on). I would inwardly cheer when a friend would (wrongly) suggest he’d read that it was all due to natural factors and things would balance out; or when another would (wrongly) say he’d heard that ironically the hole in the ozone layer apparently cancelled out the impact of global warming, or yet another who would (also wrongly) assert that the changes would in reality be so small that we wouldn’t notice it.
And if all else failed I just sighed and thought, well, the impact was likely to happen only by around 2050 or so, and in 1990 to an 18-year-old that meant there was ample time and opportunity for something to get done. Surely a fix would occur – we always end up finding a fix.
And yet ... and yet. I knew I was burying my head in the sand. I was not so much denying the science as wanting to deny reality. The more I read the less able I was to do so. But even now I still get a faint glimmer of hope when I read some dumb article suggesting some research has found evidence that it’s all fine.
Because I don’t want climate change to be a real thing. I would love it to all be a hoax.
But it is not.
And so I understand why people choose to believe those who say climate change is not the issue, that the issue is power prices and thus we need to fire up the coal furnaces.
Denial is a very easy way out of guilt that your lifestyle is leaving your children and grandchildren an awful legacy. Denial is a good way to throw away concerns that you might have to actually wear a cost – either through lifestyle changes or monetary loss.
It is a scary thing to hear talk of the impacts of climate change and the suggestions that it might be too late to do anything. It is so much easier to live in denial, especially when you have charlatans in the media and politics who have seen this fear and have sought to profit from it.
So I have some sympathy for those who feel overwhelmed by it all.
But I have none for those in the media and politics who seek to profit from this fear.
There is no excuse for those trying to lull people into believing it is all a great scam, that there is nothing to worry about, or no need for concern, or that little can or should be done.
According to NASA, of the 1,663 months since January 1880, the top 100 for temperature anomaly have all occurred since 1990, and every month since December 2014 is in the top 100.
2018 is on track to be the third-hottest year behind 2016 and 2017; fourth is 2015.
It is real, it is happening, it is getting worse and we need to act.
And yet this week Taylor gave a speech that made zero mention of wind power – the main renewable energy in Australia – and in which he declared he wasn’t sceptical of climate change, just of subsidies for renewable energy, the Gillard government’s emissions trading scheme and of “excessive renewable energy targets.” This is despite that fact that renewable energy not only reduces our emissions, it also provides cheaper electricity.
It’s a bit like the health minister saying she is not an anti-vaxxer, she is just sceptical of the merits of the National Immunisation Program.
But don’t worry, it’s unlikely the Morrison government will withdraw from the Paris agreement, because, why bother? It just won’t do anything to actually ensure our emissions targets are achieved. Rather than risk offending those lunatics in his party who would rather destroy a prime ministership than have a policy with even a slight reference to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Morrison appears to have decided to do nothing.
The costs of responding to climate change increase, the longer it is put off by those whose wilful ignorance sees them continue to proffer policy based on the premise that climate change is fake.
We have gone from a government under Malcolm Turnbull that at least tried to look like it was aiming to reduce emissions (even if it wasn’t) to one under Scott Morrison that is making no pretence about the fact it is beholden to the charlatans in the party who want to scam votes by lying about the facts of climate change.
And a political party that refuses to act on climate change is not fit to govern.

*Greg Jericho is a Guardian Australia columnist

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Climate Change Is Real. We Must Not Offer Credibility To Those Who Deny It

The Guardian - Letters

If ‘balance’ means giving voice to those who deny the reality of human-triggered climate change, we will not take part in the debate, say Jonathan Porritt, Caroline Lucas, Clive Lewis and 57 other writers, politicians and academics

A dry cornfield in Ahlen, Germany, where harvests have suffered as a result of this year’s extreme drought. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

We are no longer willing to lend our credibility to debates over whether or not climate change is real. It is real. We need to act now or the consequences will be catastrophic. In the interests of “balance”, the media often feels the need to include those who outright deny the reality of human-triggered climate change.
Balance implies equal weight. But this then creates a false equivalence between an overwhelming scientific consensus and a lobby, heavily funded by vested interests, that exists simply to sow doubt to serve those interests. Yes, of course scientific consensus should be open to challenge – but with better science, not with spin and nonsense. We urgently need to move the debate on to how we address the causes and effects of dangerous climate change – because that’s where common sense demands our attention and efforts should be.
Fringe voices will protest about “free speech”. No one should prevent them from expressing their views, whether held cynically or misguidedly. However, no one is obliged to provide them with a platform, much less to appear alongside them to give the misleading impression that there is something substantive to debate. When there is an article on smoking, newspapers and broadcasters no longer include lobbyists claiming there are no links to cancer. When there’s a round-the-world yacht race we don’t hear flat-earthers given airtime: “This is madness; they’ll sail off the edge!”
There’s a workable model for covering fringe views – which is to treat them as such. They don’t need to be ridiculed, just expected to challenge the evidence with better evidence, and otherwise ignored. As campaigners and thinkers who are led by science and the precautionary principle, and who wish to debate the real and vital issues arising from human-triggered climate change, we will not assist in creating the impression that climate denial should be taken seriously by lending credence to its proponents, by entertaining ideas that lack any basis in fact. Therefore we will no longer debate those who deny that human-caused climate change is real. There are plenty of vital debates to be had around climate chaos and what to do about it; this is simply no longer one of them. We urge broadcasters to move on, as we are doing.

Jonathon Porritt Chair 2000-11 Sustainable Development Commission	John Sauven Executive director Greenpeace
Prof Richard Murphy Director Tax Research UK	Jeremy Leggett Founder Solar Century
Prof Andrea Sella Michael Faraday prize winner	Prof Robert Ayres Author
Dr Rupert Read Chair Green House thinktank	Dr Doug Parr Chief scientist Greenpeace
Chris Rose Former programme director Greenpeace	Mayer Hillman Senior fellow Policy Studies Institute
Ed Gillespie Co-founder Futerra	Prof Hugh Montgomery Co-founder UK Climate and Health Council
Mark Lynas Author	Dr James Garvey Author
Oliver Tickell Author	Chris Goodall Author
Prof Clive Spash Author	Prof Mark Maslin Author
Prof Anthony Ryan Director Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures	David Wasdell Director Apollo-Gaia Project
Dr Sian Foch-Gatrell Green Ocean Project	Dr Erik Buitenhuis Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Prof Paul Ekins UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources	Carne Ross Former UK and UN diplomat
Dr Nick Brooks Climatic Research Unit UEA	Dr Simon Boxley Centre for Climate Change Education University of Winchester
Prof Jem Bendell Sustainability Leadership Institute University of Cumbria	Cllr Jonathan Bartley Co-Leader Green party
Dr Ian Gibson Former chair House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee	Peter Tatchell
	Caroline Lucas MP
	Clive Lewis MP
Neal Lawson Director Compass	Ben Chacko Editor Morning Star
Deepak Rughani Co-director Biofuelwatch	Prof Molly Scott Cato MEP
Deepak Rughani Co-director Biofuelwatch	Bea Campbell
Patrick Barkham Author	George Monbiot Author
Prof Gary Francione	Prof Sarah Churchwell
Dr Christine Cornea	Dr Richard House
Dr Abby Innes	Dr Pierre Bocquillon
Prof Del Loewenthal	Prof Andrew Samuels
Dr Jo Veltman	Prof Peter Belton
Dr Andrew Boswell	Dr Katherine Kite
Mark Crutchley	Karen Whiterod
Anne Dismorr	Jonathan Kent

'Is This A Red Line For Us?' $15b European Trade Deal Doomed If Australia Dodges Paris Pledge

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham

The Coalition's internal climate war risks damaging the economy after Europe declared it would reject a $15 billion trade deal with Australia unless the Morrison government keeps its pledge to cut pollution under the Paris accord.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison this week reset his government’s course on energy policy, declaring a focus on lowering electricity bills and increasing reliability, while relegating efforts to cut dangerous greenhouse gas emissions.

He has reaffirmed his government’s commitment to the Paris accord despite persistent calls by conservative Coalition MPs, led by Tony Abbott, to quit the agreement.
However there is deep uncertainty over how Australia will meet the Paris goal of reducing Australia’s carbon emissions by 26 per cent by 2030 given the government does not have a national strategy to meet the target.
The policy ructions did not go unnoticed at a meeting of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade in Brussels, where the EU’s chief negotiator on the deal, Helena König, faced angry questions from the floor over Australia’s commitment to climate action.
Australia and the EU will in November enter a second round of negotiations over the deal that would end restrictions on Australian exports and collectively add $15 billion to both economies.
In a video of this week's proceedings, Ms König told the committee that “it’s the [European] Commission’s position ... that we are talking about respect and full implementation of the Paris agreement [as part of the trade deal]”.
“No doubt we will see what comes out in the text [of the deal agreement] but that I expect to be the minimum in the text, for sure.”
Her assertion is a clear signal that any failure by Australia to meet its international climate obligations would have serious economic consequences.

Energy Minister Angus Taylor says he is not "skeptical about climate science ... but I am and have been for many years deeply skeptical of the economics of so many of the emissions reduction programs dreamed up by politicians.

Ms König fired off the warning after a question by Klaus Buchner, a German Greens member of the Parliament who said “the intention of the new Australian regime to withdraw from the Paris Agreement unsettles not only Australians”.
“Australia is by far the biggest exporter of coal in the world ... what will the commission do when Australia does indeed withdraw from the Paris agreement? Is this a red line for us in these discussions or do we just accept it?
“I believe as the largest trading block in the world we have a responsibility to go beyond pure profits.”
Australia’s ambassador to the EU, Justin Brown, hosed down suggestions the Morrison government would exit the Paris deal.
“Australia is a country that stands by its international commitments. We’ve made commitments in the Paris agreement context. We are committed to those as we are committed to global action to address this global challenge,” he said at the meeting.
Committee chair Bernd Lange pointed to a resolution adopted by the European Parliament in July to never conclude a trade agreement "without a reference to the Paris climate agreement and the implementation [of emissions reduction].”
The EU bloc is Australia's second largest trading partner, third largest export destination and second largest services market. The EU was also Australia's largest source of foreign investment in 2017.
The government says a free trade deal would benefit Australian consumers and businesses through better access to goods and services at lower prices, while enabling Australian producers to tap a market of half a billion people and a GDP of US$17.3 trillion.
Mr Morrison, who is in Jakarta for trade talks, declined to comment on the European Parliament's position.
Environment Minister Melissa Price said Australia "stands by the international commitments it makes" and has a strong track record of meeting emissions reduction targets.
"Australia is on track to beat our 2020 Kyoto target by 294 million tonnes and we are confident Australia will also meet its 2030 target," she said.
The Paris climate accord is deeply unpopular with conservative MPs, including Nationals MPs whose electorates would benefit from an EU trade deal. Keith Pitt resigned as an assistant minister last week in protest at the Paris treaty.
"I will always put reducing power prices before Paris," he said.
A 2017 report by the United Nations environment program that found Australia’s emissions were set to far exceed its Paris pledge and government data released in January showed Australia's annual emissions had risen for the fourth year running.
Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman Mark Butler said the government had no emissions reduction plan and would fail to meet its Paris goal.
“The Prime Minister might think he can get away with [failing to cut emissions] domestically, but it is clear it will not be accepted by our international trading partners, who rightly have an expectation the Australian government will act to deliver on our international obligations,” he said.
European Australian Business Council chief executive Jason Collins, whose organisation has lobbied for the trade deal, said Europe’s commitment to the Paris agreement was "fundamental".
"The fact that Australia and Europe share similar values and have made joint commitments to trade liberalisation, combating terror, and addressing climate change, among other things, has been the starting point for launching these negotiations," he said.
Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy said the European Union's stance on the trade deal showed the Coalition's climate policy division "has real-world consequences for our country”.

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