02/02/2019

'The Right Time': Climate-Change Action The Rallying Cry For Emerging Independents

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Zali Steggall, the barrister and former world champion skier who will challenge Tony Abbott for the prize seat of Warringah, says she could have just as easily run as a Liberal rather than an independent - in another era.
"I'm a sensible-centre policy person - a small 'l' Liberal," Steggall says on Friday morning after walking her dog, and as she prepares to transfer the last of her legal clients to other lawyers. "Had there been a better structure to the party, then yes, I would have been a classic moderate Liberal candidate."
Barrister and former Winter Olympian Zali Steggall will run against Tony Abbott in Warringah. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer 
While the declining female representation in the party was one factor in Steggall's decision to run alone, the Coalition's "lack of action on climate change and the handbrake on, going in another direction" meant putting her hand up was something she "had to do".
Much the same could be said about the other three "climate change independents" who have emerged in four long-held Liberal seats ahead of the federal election expected in May.
Kerryn Phelps, well-known for her advocacy on social issues and demand for climate action while president of the Australian Medical Association, snatched the eastern Sydney seat of Wentworth in last October's byelection triggered by the resignation of ousted prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Declaring his hand this week was Oliver Yates, the former Macquarie investment banker and chief of the federal government-owned Clean Energy Finance Corporation, who will take on Treasurer and former environment and energy minister Josh Frydenberg in the Liberal seat of Kooyong in inner-eastern Melbourne.
Oliver Yates is challenging Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in his Liberal heartland seat of Kooyong. Credit: Eddie Jim
And former Liberal MP Julia Banks, who joined the crossbench in November decrying the "reactionary and regressive right wing" of her party, on Thursday formally declared her intent to run in the neighbouring Victorian seat of Flinders against Greg Hunt, the former environment and now health minister.
"Climate change is not only real - it is happening," Banks said in a statement outlining her reasons for taking on her erstwhile colleague, adding effective action was "an urgent imperative".
The emergence of these four independents may not be the end of it. Former Liberal leader John Hewson says "people are fed up with a government not doing anything on climate change", and expects more challengers to emerge.
One Liberal source says a prime seat for similar candidates is Hughes, in southern Sydney, which is held by right-wing backbench Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who has regularly questioned climate science and led the charge to block climate action.
The seat of Hume, in central NSW, held by Angus Taylor - the current energy minister who has backed state support for new coal-fired power stations - is also ripe for a Liberal-leaning independent, the source says.
"I'd be delighted if other other independents stood up," Yates says. "We're fighting for the future after all."
Meanwhile, those being challenged and Prime Minister Scott Morrison himself defended the government's track record on climate change action. Australia remained committed to the Paris goals - which would cut carbon emissions 26 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030 - while Australia was in the midst of a record take-up of renewables, various ministers said.
Abbott declared Steggall to be "the carbon tax candidate" - a line the Olympian skier says is "an old argument" and that debate has "moved on", given the price of renewable energy such as solar and wind have fallen so far.
National emissions, though, have been rising for four years, with the increase coinciding roughly with the Abbott government's axing of the carbon price. Australia was the first and only nation to make such a reverse.
Then Environment Minister Greg Hunt congratulated by colleagues after the Abbott government succeed in scrapping the carbon price in 2014. Kelly O'Dwyer, Christopher Pyne, Peter Dutton and Mal Brough (back to the camera). Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Phelps says the tag of “climate change independents” is a "very relevant identifier" for the four challengers. "It is a strong motivator for each of us to stand for election and is high on each of our policy agendas," she says. "We all reflect the strongly held views of our electorates on this."
Surveys, such as the Lowy Institute's annual poll, have long found Australians overwhelmingly supported renewable energy, with a majority viewing climate change as a serious issue. That support may well be on the rise, particularly as weather extremes increase in intensity, frequency and duration - as scientists have been warning for decades.
This summer is on course to be the hottest for the country after December broke records for that month and January smashed all previous monthly records by a stunning one-degree margin. And a series of blistering heatwaves produced a whopping eight of the 10 warmest days ever registered in Australia in just a single month, the Bureau of Meteorology said.
Another big fish kill surfaced this week on the Darling River at Menindee, possibly larger than the previous one just a fortnight earlier that left up to one million fish dead. Credit: Graeme McCrabb
Add in the recent massive fish kills in the Darling River, the past week's bushfires in parts of Tasmania that may not have burnt for thousands of years, and months of images of drought in NSW and Queensland, and it's not unreasonable to think that concern about climate change is not about to subside.
"A decade ago, a lot of the climate impacts were theoretical," says Tim Flannery, the palaeontologist and science communicator who helped raise the issue's profile during his stint at Australian of the Year in 2017. "It's now very much a part of people's lived experience."
Flannery, who is now back at the Australian Museum, says he has helped Steggall with the "scientific phrases of the policy" on climate.
While the rise of the climate independents reflects "an ideological divide" that has split the Liberal party, there's more to that than just a rejection of ineffective climate action, Flannery says.
MPs from political parties typically "give up their right to autonomy", and often stay on out of self interest, he says. "The rise of the independents is a kind of rejection of that model ... There are no trade-offs for parties."
Hewson, who says he didn't resign from the Liberals but simply stopped paying membership fees, says he told his party when an MP that he was "an Australian first, Liberal Party member second".
To deny the science of climate change means "you forfeit the right to govern", whatever your political stripe, he says.
For now, coordination between the climate independents is informal. It's understood cooperation is "not programmed but logical".  Website designs are being shared, as well as the suppliers of T-shirts and other election materials.
Steggall downplays "conspiracy theories" that the four are in cahoots, saying that while they share many common issues, they have to focus on the electorates they are trying to win.
She's been encouraged in the outpouring of support in Warringah and beyond. "There's a lot of Liberal Party members who feel disenfranchised and repelled" by the current government and who have offered their help, she says. "It's just the right time".

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Australia Swelters Through Hottest Month On Record, With January Mean Temperature Exceeding 30c

ABC

Some states also experienced their driest January on record. (ABC News: Andrew O'Connor)
Key points
  • There was less than 20 per cent of normal rainfall for large areas of Australia
  • Canberra Airport had a record run of four days above 40C
  • BOM senior climatologist Andrew Watkins said last month's heat was unprecedented
January 2019 was Australia's hottest month since records began in 1910, data to be released by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) today will show.
It followed the hottest December on record for Australia and there is no relief in sight for the months ahead.
January had the highest minimum, the highest maximum and the highest mean temperatures for Australia as a whole.
The mean temperature for January averaged across the country exceeded 30 degrees Celsius — the first time this had occurred in any month, the BOM said.
Rainfall was also below average for most areas but a monsoon trough brought some significant totals to northern Queensland late in the month.

Here is how the different states felt the heat
  • South Australia experienced its driest January since 2013.
    And Adelaide had one of the city's hottest Januarys on record, with maximum temperatures the highest for at least 10 years.
    For the first time since 1957, the BOM's Adelaide city site recorded zero rainfall for the month.
  • Western Australia had one of its hottest Januarys on record, but temperatures were cooler than average in parts of the west coast and south-west.
    Rainfall for the state was below average and the month was the driest since 2005.
    While most of WA was suffering in the heat, Perth recorded its coolest January in more than a decade and rainfall was about average.
The sun sets over Sydney in the midst of a heatwave. (ABC News: Mary Lloyd)

  • New South Wales recorded its hottest January on record for mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures.
    The north-east of the state also experienced one of its driest Januarys on record.
    Sydney had one of its warmest Januarys on record, with average rainfall.
  • Victoria also set a new record for January heat.
    Its rainfall was below average, with most of the state receiving less than 20 per cent of the month's average.
    Melbourne was exceptionally warm, with some sites recording their highest ever January temperatures.
    The city also had one of the 10 driest Januarys on record.
  • The ACT also had its hottest January ever.
    The BOM's Canberra airport site had a record run of four days above 40C.
  • The Northern Territory recorded its hottest January and the delayed onset of the monsoon contributed to the Territory receiving less than half its average January rainfall.
    Darwin had one of its warmest Januarys on record while rainfall was also below average.
  • Queensland similarly had its hottest January and a monsoon low brought heavy rainfall to parts of the state.
    Brisbane was very warm, while rainfall was very low at about 20 per cent of the January average.
  • Tasmania had its hottest and driest January on record, as did Hobart.
Why so hot?
What El Nino and La Nina actually mean
for Australian and world weather
The predicted El Nino did not eventuate this summer but even without the climate driver we usually associate with hot conditions the temperatures soared.
BOM senior climatologist Andrew Watkins said there were a few factors at play in the unprecedented heat.
"We saw heatwave conditions affect large parts of the country through most of the month, with records broken for both duration and also individual daily extremes," Dr Watkins said
"The main contributor to this heat was a persistent high-pressure system in the Tasman sea which was blocking any cold fronts and cooler air from impacting the south of the country.
"The warming trend, which has seen Australian temperatures increase by more than one degree in the last 100 years, also contributed to the unusually warm conditions."


What have the impacts been?
The stand-out events this month were the record-breaking heatwaves over the south-east of Australia. Andrew Gissing, of catastrophe modelling provider Risk Frontiers, said there were anecdotal reports of businesses suffering from blackouts leading to financial loss.
He said there were also reports of agricultural production being affected.
Be prepared for the heat
Heatwaves kill far more people than other natural disasters. ABC Emergency has a checklist of things you can do to be ready.
"Things like on really hot days milk production goes down because the cows suffer from heat stress as well," he said.
"We are seeing reports from the viticulture industry too about grapes being sunburned and shrivelling."
Then there are the human impacts.
So far it has been too soon to say how the heatwaves have affected people's health.
But Mr Gissing's research has shown that historically heatwaves are Australia's biggest killer in terms of natural hazards.
"In fact they are bigger than the sum total of all other fatalities from natural hazards put together," he said.
It is the elderly, those with chronic health conditions and the very young who are most at risk.

Is there an end in sight?
Both days and nights are highly likely to be above average over the next few months. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology )
No, there is not.
The outlook for the next three months suggests temperatures are very likely to be warmer than average for the majority of Australia.
The country will likely be drier than average, particularly in the west, and low to near-median stream flows are expected.


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The Economics Of Climate Change

Independent Australia - David Shearman

While the rich get richer, not only do the poor get poorer but the environment continues to suffer.
Economies prosper at the expense of our planet (Image via Pixabay - edited)
David Shearman
Dr David Shearman AM FRACP is Hon Advisor to Doctors for the Environment Australia, a member of SPA, a Patron of ERA and Emeritus Professor of Medicine at Adelaide University.
NEWS BULLETINS throughout the day are smattered with the progress of the ASX, NASDAQ and the value of the dollar.
Every night on ABC News, the hushed voice of cleric-like economist Alan Kohler issues the day’s mini-sermon on the financial future of humanity.
In New Year sales, a rampaging tsunami of shoppers consumes all before them, excellent news for business, current economic thinking and for the Government’s “Jobs and Growth” mantra, let alone their own employment.
Government leaders proudly announce huge sales and even if they understand that perpetual growth is impossible on a finite planet, its demise is unlikely on their watch.
To many of us, the stock market and the economy is like baking a cake — it rises or falls and discussions focus incessantly on the ingredients; the current bakers are the neoliberalists who maneuver for an increasing slice for themselves whether the cake rises or falls.
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The creed of neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is the creed of current mainstream economists of national and global financial institutions. It partners with governments to deliver their mutual needs.
In the words of fifteen-year-old Greta Thunberg, who spoke at climate conference COP24:
“Our civilisation is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue making enormous sums of money.”


Neoliberalist economists rule society and remind one of the unsinkable Titanic sailing to its doom while the orchestra played Nearer my God to Thee as the ship sank.
The upper social crust, bankers, industrialists who resided on the upper decks were soon seated in lifeboats whilst the working poor on the lower decks went to their watery grave.
The cause was the disregard for the safety of passengers by economic priorities of the company management and by the national imperative to sail when a known coal fire was burning in a bunker.

Community action on climate change
Today’s iceberg threatening the ship of humanity is climate change.
 “Jobs and growth” is a significant cause of the problem of rising emissions and loss of the pillars of life, water, productive land, biodiversity and clean air. Coal is still burning in the bunker of the neoliberal economy.
In Australia, while governments fail on climate change, the community addresses the problem without the economists.
Doctors for the Environment Australia identify the profound health impacts of climate change; an alliance of over 50 environmental groups recognises that secure environmental laws are necessary for our future and Farmers for Climate Action recognise poor outlooks for productive land and their mental health.
Where are the economists who work for all humanity?
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Current economics a “triumph of ideology over science”
This statement by Joseph Stiglitz summarises his current economic view.
Yet for decades, some individual economists have recognised the dangers of consumerism which is now a huge factor in generating greenhouse emissions.
In 1955, Victor Lebow, a Marketing Consultant, wrote:
‘Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, we need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing pace.’
Internationally, there are voices for reform (Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform, or COMER) and in Australia the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Economic Reform Australia (ERA) and Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).
However, their economists who understand a sustainable economy remain outside the mainstream of governance and power.
The climate change risks to the economy are well recognised.
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The 2018 report of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate said:
‘Disasters triggered by weather and climate-related hazards were responsible for thousands of deaths and US$320 billion in losses in 2017. We need a new class of economic models that can capture… preservation of essential natural capital and the full health benefits of cleaner air and a safer climate. Bold action could yield a direct economic gain of US$26 trillion through to 2030 compared with business-as-usual.’
Economic revolution now!
The Commission called for economies to adopt full cost accounting to include the costs of harmful consequences of a product to the environment and health.
Australian economists could commence accounting reform with proposals for coal and gas, which are expensive if the prodigious costs of ill health and death from emissions and pollution are included. This solution is prevented by current government ideology, subservience to the fossil fuel industry and the income it provides to government coffers.
The current economic ship is sailing to calamity, which perhaps motivates one well-known wealthy entrepreneur to have his rocket ready to soar into space once fire consumes the Earth.
The passenger list of powerful growth proponents might be Trump and his mate Putin and many of the owners of the world economy. Oh, and bankers with cashed bonuses, guilty of having been found out, will now travel economy class.
For them, there are infinite blue-green living planets to invade and exploit with Jobs and Growth.
Meanwhile, on Earth, population expert Paul Ehrlich pleads “Help is wanted from the economists” and Josh Frydenberg tells us knowingly that “the invisible hand of capitalism delivers far more than the dead hand of socialism”. Wow, what expertise we have!
Those who understand the word “sustainability” need to seize the economic ship.
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Australia Is Counting On Cooking The Books To Meet Its Climate Targets

The Conversation - 

The solar boom continues, but not necessarily because of government policy settings. AAP Image/UNSW
A new OECD report has warned that Australia risks falling short of its 2030 emissions target unless it implements “a major effort to move to a low-carbon model”.
This view is consistent both with official government projections released late last year, and independent analysis of Australia’s emissions trajectory. Yet the government still insists we are on track, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison claiming as recently as November that the 2030 target will be reached “in a canter”.
What’s really going on? Does the government have any data or modelling to serve as a basis for Morrison’s confidence? And if so, why doesn’t it tell us?
The government’s emission projections report actually presents three scenarios: the “baseline” projection, which forecasts that emissions will rise by 3% by 2030, plus two other scenarios in which economic growth (and thus demand for fossil fuel consumption) is higher or lower than the baseline.

Range of scenarios for Australian emissions. Vertical axis represents greenhouse emissions measured in millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Australian Emissions Projection Report, Figure 15
As the graph shows, all three of these scenarios would see Australia miss its 26-28% emissions reduction target by a wide margin. So why claim that our emissions are on track? The answer, as is so often the case with emissions targets, lies in the fine print.
The government is indeed poised to deliver on the “letter of the law” of its Paris commitment if two things play out. First, if it claims credit from overdelivering on Australia’s 2010 and 2020 commitments. And second, if the “low demand” scenario is the one that eventuates.
To reach our Paris target, the government estimates that we will need to reduce emissions by the equivalent of 697 million tonnes of carbon dioxide before 2030. It also calculates that the overdelivery on previous climate targets already represents a saving of 367Mt, and that low economic demand would save a further 571Mt. That adds up to 938Mt of emissions reductions, outperforming the target by 35% – a canter that would barely work up a sweat.

How would this scenario actually eventuate?
Let’s leave aside the technical question of whether it’s legitimate to count past performance towards future emissions targets, and focus for now on how the low-demand economic scenario might become reality.
The government’s report contains no discussion on the basis of the “low demand” scenario. But history suggests the annual baseline estimates of 2030 emissions have overestimated future emissions, with revisions downwards over time. For example, the 2018 projection for 2030 emissions is 28% lower than the 2012 projection for the same date (see figure 2 here).
In the real world, meanwhile, change is evident. Households and businesses are installing solar panels, not least to guard against high power bills. Businesses are signing power purchase agreements with renewable energy suppliers for much the same reason. State and local governments are pursuing increasingly ambitious clean energy and climate policies. Some energy-intensive industries may be driven offshore by our high gas prices.
New technology such as electric vehicles, ongoing improvement in energy efficiency, and emerging business models that break the power of big energy companies are transforming our economy. Investment in low-emission public transport infrastructure means its share of travel will increase. Farmers are cutting methane emissions by installing biogas production equipment.
Other studies also support the idea that Australia may indeed outperform its baseline emission scenario. ANU researchers recently predicted that “emissions in the electricity sector will decline by more than 26% in 2020-21, and will meet Australia’s entire Paris target of 26% reduction across all sectors of the economy (not just "electricity’s fair share”) in 2024-25".
The government’s baseline electricity scenario uses the Australian Electricity Market Operator’s “neutral” scenario. But AEMO’s “weak” scenario would see 2030 demand in the National Electricity Market 18% lower than the neutral scenario (see figure 13 here).
Of course, many of these changes are happening in spite of the government’s policy settings, rather than because of them. Still, a win’s a win!

Emissions in context
But is hitting the target in purely technical terms really a win? In truth, it would fall far short of what is really necessary and responsible.
This is partly because of the plan to use prior credit for previous emissions targets to help get us across the line for 2030. This may be allowed under the international rules. But we would be leveraging extremely weak earlier commitments.
For example, Australia’s 2010 Kyoto Protocol target of an 8% increase in emissions was laughably weak in comparison with the developed world average target of a 5% cut. Our 2020 5% reduction target is also well below the aspirations of most other countries. What’s more, several major nations have declared that they will exclude past “overachievements” from their 2020 commitments.
The government has obfuscated the issue further by deliberately conflating our electricity emission reductions target, which will be easily met, with our overall economy-wide target, which presents a much tougher challenge.
There’s more. Australia’s Paris pledge to reduce emissions from 2005 levels by 26-28% between 2021 and 2030 is inconsistent with our global responsibilities and with climate science. The target was agreed to by the then prime minister Tony Abbott in 2015 as the minimum needed to look credible. But as the Climate Change Authority pointed out, a 2030 target of 40-60% below 2000 levels is more scientifically responsible.
What is Australia’s “fair share” of the heavy lifting needed to stay below 2℃ of global warming, as agreed in Paris? If all humans were entitled to release the same greenhouse emissions by 2050, the average would be around 2 tonnes of CO₂ per person in 2050. In 2018, the average Australian was responsible for 21.5 tonnes.
There is plenty of heavy lifting still to do, and no point in pretending otherwise. The government must publish its data and modelling in full if its canter claims are to have any credibility.

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