The Government’s tenure has been characterised by
slashing climate science funding, cutting effective climate change
programs, rejecting advice from expert domestic and international
bodies, misleading claims from Federal Ministers, a lack of any
effective climate programs, and consistently covering up poor
performance.
Deep funding cuts and job losses at the CSIRO have
weakened Australia’s climate science capability. As a result, Australia
is unprepared to cope with the impacts of climate change.
Effective programs have been abolished or scaled back, for
instance, half a billion dollars was cut from the Australian Renewable
Energy Agency, while the Renewable Energy Target was slashed.
The Federal Government has covered up poor performance with misleading claims, dubious accounting and censorship.
Greenhouse gas emissions have risen for four years
running. Australia is unlikely to meet its 2030 emissions reduction
target according to the government’s own department. Regardless, senior
ministers continue to falsely claim that emissions are going down and
targets will be met.
In 2016, the Federal Government censored a UN report about
climate change and World Heritage sites, asking the authors to remove
any reference to Australian sites.
The Federal Government has consistently delayed releasing
information on Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, often publishing
data just before Christmas when it faces less scrutiny.
The government has used discredited accounting methods,
for instance including land-use emissions or Kyoto “carryover credits”,
which makes its record look better than reality.
The government’s lack of climate change action is the defining leadership failure of the past decade. We have not tackled climate change, the consequences are with us, and we must work very quickly to prevent catastrophic consequences.
Delaying action has not made the problem go away. It has
just shortened the time we have left to reduce emissions and made it
more challenging to do so. The Federal Government has squandered its
tenure and that will cost us dearly.
Australia has missed many opportunities to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions and transition our economy in the cheapest,
most gradual and effective ways possible.
Australians are on the frontline of worsening extreme
weather. Heatwaves have become hotter and last longer, droughts, intense
rainfall and dangerous bushfire conditions have become more severe and
now test the limits of our coping capacity. We must now address the
accelerating consequences of climate change and we are unprepared.
As Australians experience escalating consequences into the
future they will likely view this period of missed opportunities and
failed leadership with deep dismay.
Australia’s next government must adopt credible climate policy and a transparent and accurate approach to reporting and tracking Australia’s climate performance to ensure the public can appropriately evaluate its performance.
The Federal Government needs to urgently adopt credible
climate policy to help protect Australians from the rapidly escalating
risks of climate change.
The Climate Council has established a ‘Charter of
Integrity’ for the Federal Government to use as a benchmark to track and
monitor climate performance, specifically around issues of
accountability, transparency, timeliness and accuracy.
We must demand better of our political parties – and there is no excuse for the media either
A protester dressed as prime minister Scott Morrison in Cronulla on Friday.
Photograph: Joel Carrett/EPA
Just seven months ago
the United Nations told the world that we have 12 years to limit the
climate change catastrophe. It means that to keep global warming to 1.5C
above pre-industrial levels we need to cut carbon pollution by 45% by
2030 and down to zero by 2050. Twelve years. Actually scratch that – now
it is 11 years.
Now ask yourself how often that has been raised during this election campaign?
At the time a co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change working group on impacts of climate change said: “It’s a line in
the sand and what it says to our species is that this is the moment and
we must act now. This is the largest clarion bell from the science
community and I hope it mobilises people and dents the mood of
complacency.”
Oh bless.
At the start of the 2019 federal election campaign Scott Morrison put out a video where he was all dewy-eyed about the future, saying “the next 10 years are important to everybody at every stage of life”.
And yet not once – NOT ONCE – did he mention that the UN has given us 11 years to do something about a global catastrophe.
No, instead it’s all standard of living and nothingness statements
that would get shot down by any decent advertising firm in the first
meeting.
He did say one thing that is correct. He noted that “the decisions
you make in one term of government last for a decade or more”. And in no
area is this more true than with climate change. Every year we do less
than enough, the ability to limit damage becomes less and the cost of
doing so becomes larger.
I’ve written in the past how climate change has destroyed the minds
of conservatives. But it has also destroyed the media model that seemed
to work so well for holding politicians to account: the model of balance
and impartiality, where journalists who strive to be seen to take no
sides and have no bias.
Over the past 30 years the conservative side has become hostage to cranks and charlatans
It’s a model that only holds up so long as both sides are open to reality because it implicitly gives credibility to both sides.
But over the past 30 years the conservative side has become hostage
to cranks and charlatans. And as the conservatives lurched ever more
towards lunacy the media has for the most part followed.
It has
led us to a position where the Liberal party’s utterly pathetic climate
change policy is given credence. And where the big issue about the ALP’s
less-worse policy is the cost, not from the point of view that it could
be achieved with a more efficient price on carbon but that it costs
more than does the LNP’s nothing policy.
It is a position where editors give front-page space to modelling so
redolent with bias that you can practically smell the coal dust on its
pages.
It has meant those wishing to actually do something about climate
change have to not just argue their policy is better, but that the need
for the policy is there.
Election campaigns are often about costs – how much will your
healthcare or education policy cost? But we do not as a rule talk costs
to the economy, because such modelling is pretty nebulous and is reliant
on assumptions that can distort any picture for better or worse.
That does not render modelling irrelevant, but it means it is no fact check.
And with climate change any costings that do not count the costs of inaction are worthless.
It would be like doing a costing of investing in the polio vaccine in
the 1940s and not considering the cost of people continuing to die and
suffer from polio. Clearly the costs of inaction massively outweigh the
cost of acting.
The good news is we do have some research on the costs, because while
in Australia we allow political parties to indulge the equivalent of
arguing over which rat in a restaurant kitchen has the fewest number of
fleas, in the UK things are rather more mature.
This week in the UK the Committee on Climate Change released a report arguing the UK needs to reduce emissions emission to zero by 2050.
In what should be a siren for all journalists, they note that “the
costs of the low-carbon transition are critically dependent on the
quality as well as the stringency of public policy”.
Note the issue is quality of the policy, not whether or not there is some precise hit to GDP they can come up with.
And what is quality? Policy with “long-term clarity on the regulatory
landscape, prioritisation of the role of markets, and policy processes
that are transparent, predictable, and based on cost-benefit analysis”.
And for it to be successful “it will also need to be credible (actors
must believe the government means what it says), consistent across time
and governments, and across different policy sectors, and yet adaptive
to new circumstances”.
In other words: Tony Abbott and his ilk – your time is done.
The report also notes that “the very word ‘costs’ to describe
decarbonisation expenditures is somewhat misleading, because in a very
real sense such expenditures are also investments”. What’s more, it
suggests “the correct answer to the question ‘what will it cost?’” is
that it depends on “what is done now”.
Wait and it costs more; do
it poorly now and it costs more; accept that a policy to reduce
emissions by 26% including dodgy accounting as legitimate, and it will
cost more.
And if you really are worried about economic growth the report also
concludes that “there has been no appreciable difference in rates of
economic growth between those countries that have reduced emissions
substantially and those that have not”. But importantly, “yet the former
camp are arguably in a stronger position to benefit from a global
transition to a zero carbon economy in years to come”.
The report makes clear it is time to stop giving credence to cranks
and demand better of our political parties – and there is no excuse for
the media either.
We need at a minimum a 45% reduction by 2030 and to get to zero net
emission by 2050. So parties need to explain what they are going to do
to get there and argue why their way is best.
If a party is not even willing to come up with such a path then do not treat them with the respect that “balance” gives them.
"Right now, we are facing a man-made disaster of global scale. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Climate change."
This was a message recently delivered by renowned naturalist Sir David Attenborough. And he meant it for our politicians.
"Leaders
of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the
natural world upon which we depend is in your hands."
Globally
this message — and others like it — seem to have been heard by the
community. School students are striking. People are marching.
Authorities are issuing warnings and businesses are doing what they can
to adapt to changes already seen and predicted.
What policies need
to achieve is clear both in the science and international agreements:
net greenhouse gas emissions — mostly from burning coal and other fossil fuels — must be reduced to zero.
Against this backdrop, with climate at the top of many voters' minds, both major parties are spruiking their climate credentials ahead of this month's federal election.
Bill
Shorten is offering stronger targets and policies, while Scott Morrison
is proposing taking less action, on the grounds that this will be
cheaper.
The Greens are calling for much stronger action and other parties have a range of views.
With
the fundamental science of climate change settled, what does that
science tell us about the adequacy of those policies? And do they
compare to the demands of international agreements, and the action taken
by other countries?
Morrison's target
Australia's current
target for 2030, put in place by Tony Abbott, is to reduce our
emissions by at least 26 per cent below 2005 levels. According to the Government's Climate Change Authority, that target puts "Australia at or near the bottom of the group of countries we generally compare ourselves with".
Professor
Andy Pitman, head of the Climate Change Research Centre at the
University of NSW says the Coalition's target — if replicated by other
countries — isn't nearly enough to avoid two degrees of global warming.
He says the 26 per cent cut to emissions is "about a third" of what's needed.
Using
an accounting measure rejected by many comparable nations, the
Coalition plans to reduce that target to what is effectively about a 16
per cent cut — cashing in "carry-over credits" claimed by beating
earlier targets.
The Coalition hasn't indicated what further targets it may commit to for decades following 2030.
Defending the existing targets on Radio National Breakfast last week,
Energy Minister Angus Taylor said "a successful Paris Agreement" was
what mattered, and proposing stronger targets would be "going way beyond
what is required to meet our Paris obligations".
But a successful Paris Agreement means stopping global warming — not just meeting whatever targets we put forward in 2015.
Specifically, the Paris Agreement demands that Australia "pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C" and binds countries to stop global warming "well below 2C".
Our existing targets are not compatible with achieving that.
So if the Paris Agreement is the measure of success, those targets will need to be increased very rapidly. In fact, the Paris Agreement demands that the world aim for net zero emissions in the second half of the century — or sooner for rich countries like Australia.
The
Coalition targets are a long way from what the science demands and will
require a rapid ratchet to catch up with commitments made in the Paris
Agreement.
Shorten's target
The Labor Party has ruled out the use of carry-over credits and said it will strengthen Australia's 2030 target to 45 per cent. Speaking to the ABC's 7.30 program, Mr Shorten said of the target: "I didn't pluck that out of nowhere. That was the Paris agreement. That's what the scientists tell us."
Director
of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy at ANU Professor Frank
Jotzo says Labor's target "will be seen as a strong target for
Australia". According to earlier analysis
by the Climate Change Authority, it would place us below what the UK is
doing, but above what the US and EU are currently pledging.
But
Professor Pitman says it still won't mean Australia does its fair share
to stop global warming at below 2C, so it would need significant
ratcheting to comply with the aims of the Paris Agreement.
"There
is a fundamental misunderstanding I think across western governments on
how deep the emission cuts need to be to achieve the 2 degree limit on
warming," says Professor Pitman.
That view is backed by the Climate Change Authority, which has recommended a range of targets for Australia: somewhere between 45 per cent and 63 per cent. By that recommendation, Labor's target just scrapes in at the bottom end.
Labor
has also said it will aim to reduce net carbon emissions to zero by
2050. The same target has been discussed by the EU and has just been recommended to the UK by its official climate adviser.
"If implemented globally that would be a good and strong target," Professor Pitman says.
Dr
Bill Hare from Climate Analytics says Labor's 2030 target of 45 per
cent isn't consistent with the Paris Agreement, but assuming the 2050
target of a 100 per cent cut in emissions is accounted for rigorously,
that would be consistent.
Shorten and Morrison clash over electric cars in leaders' debate
(ABC News) Can the policies cut all emissions?
Another
important measure is whether the policies offered are scalable to help
Australia eliminate greenhouse gas emissions entirely in the next few
decades.
The centrepiece of the Coalition's policy is Tony Abbott's Emissions Reduction Fund — now called the Climate Solutions Fund.
Fundamentally, it uses taxpayer money to pay polluters to pollute less.
Professor Jotzo says the policy will not scale-up in a cost-effective way.
"The
emissions fund will reduce Australia's emissions piece-by-piece,
project-by-project but ... it is not a mechanism that will allow
comprehensive action."
Without an overarching policy to
systematically drive down emissions in any sector, the Coalition also
announced a range of policies subsidising specific projects such as Snowy Hydro 2.0,
more pumped hydropower in Tasmania ("Battery of the Nation") and an
undersea cable to help transport that hydropower to the mainland.
But
Professor Pitman says that's not enough: "There's nothing wrong with
any of those policies. The question is whether the scaling of those
policies is sufficient to cut Australia's emissions proportionately ...
to avoid 2 degrees."
And the Coalition has not proposed any
systematic way of reducing emissions from the electricity sector — the
biggest contributor to emissions, and the sector considered the easiest
and cheapest to clean up.
Mr Shorten has proposed expanding the
Coalition's existing cap-and-trade system (the "safeguard mechanism") to
cover more large businesses, and instituting something like the
Coalition's abandoned National Energy Guarantee, to drive down emissions from both industry and the electricity sector.
A range of Labor policies cover other areas — including an electric vehicle policy, a renewable energy target and controls on land clearing.
Given
a simple economy-wide carbon price has become a political no-go zone,
Labor has tackled each sector of the economy separately.
Professor
Jotzo says the details on some of the policies are lacking, but
together they could "deliver emissions reductions across the economy,
which is ultimately what is needed".
And what of the Greens?
Perhaps
unsurprisingly, the Greens have called for much stronger action —
phasing out coal exports by 2030, reaching net zero emissions by 2040,
and a new public authority called Renew Australia, which would oversee
the transition to a zero-carbon economy.
In a minority government, these ambitions could influence final policy outcomes.
Dr
Hare says some aspects of the Labor and Greens policies are not
entirely consistent with the Paris Agreement, but they could be adjusted
to be.
"Structurally, both
the ALP and Greens policies are capable of being ratcheted up," he says.
"The Coalition doesn't have policies that could be ratcheted up."
Australia is small — do we matter?
Australia
produces just 1.3 per cent of global emissions — but that is no small
amount. We have one of the highest emissions per capita, and similar
total emissions to the UK.
Professor Pitman concedes that if
Australia eliminated its emissions completely, and every other country
did nothing, it would have virtually no impact on global warming.
But
that's not the point, he says. "If we're not cutting emissions we have
no leverage, no influence, no moral right to ask other countries to do
the same."
Professor Jotzo says this is the approach Australia takes to a range of other issues.
"We
do our bit — which is often not a very large bit — on every significant
issue of international cooperation: We send troops to where there's
peacekeeping action to be supported. We support the global effort in
aid. We support the global effort in developing new medicines."
Professor Pitman says Australia has a "vested interest" in taking a lead on climate action.
"We
are vulnerable to heat. We're vulnerable to flood. Our ecosystems seem
to be quite vulnerable like the Barrier Reef and so forth."
