04/06/2019

Environment Leaders Reflect On Their Role In The 'Climate Election'

ABC NewsMichael Slezak

Many environmentalists believe the Stop Adani campaign was an own-goal for the green movement. (AAP: Rohan Thomson)
Like many Australians, green groups were surprised by the federal election result.
The Climate Council, Greenpeace, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society all invested significant resources in the weeks leading up to the May 18 poll.
Underlying much of their campaigning was the belief that the majority of voters wanted stronger climate action.
But the results did not seem to bear that out.
Did environmental groups fail to read public sentiment? And did they, in fact, help the Coalition to victory?

'Lecturing people in the community'
Former Greens leader Bob Brown led the now-infamous Stop Adani Convoy from Hobart, through Melbourne and Sydney, right into Central Queensland.
It was the epitome of what some describe as trying to "drive change from out of town".
One of Australia's leading social researchers, Rebecca Huntley, said the Stop Adani Convoy strategy was bound to fail.
"People from outside the area coming in — that just pisses people off," said Dr Huntley, who heads up Vox Populi Research.
"Lecturing people in the community, I don't think it's ever going to work."
Paul Williams is a senior lecturer in politics at Griffith University in Queensland and is one of the country's foremost experts on elections in that state.
He said the Stop Adani Convoy probably cost Labor at least "tens of thousands of votes" in Queensland, if not "hundreds of thousands".
"That doesn't mean the Queenslanders are in love with Adani — they're not," said Dr Williams.
"Adani became totemic — it was a totem for development and for blue-collar job creation."
Verity Morgan-Schmidt is opposed to Adani's Carmichael mine.

Explainer: What we know about
Adani's Carmichael coal mine
The chief of Farmers for Climate Action grew up farming in Western Australia and now spends her time campaigning and organising all around the country, including in rural Queensland.
But she agreed the convoy was counterproductive.
"I think the polls would reflect how successful that strategy was," she said. "It's very hard to drive change from out of town."
Many in the Coalition have also credited the Stop Adani Convoy for helping them win seats in Queensland.
Dr Brown remained confident the strategy was the right one.
Ms Morgan-Schmidt said the strength of any social movement "comes from within and from being part of that community".
"We need to really talk and connect with people where they are," she said.
Kelly O'Shanassy, chief of the Australian Conservation Foundation, agreed one lesson from the election was that environmental groups needed to do more local organising.
"I think that change — when you're talking about change in a specific community — needs to be done within that community," said Ms O'Shanassy.
The Climate Council's Amanda McKenzie said the Stop Adani Convoy was a mistake, and her movement needed to convince people that their community could benefit from the change they were calling for.
"We are advocating for substantive changes across the economy in all sectors. So you need to do a lot of work in bringing people along," she said.
Ms O'Shanassy said environmental groups needed to do more local organising. (Supplied: Australian Conservation Foundation)
Green movement criticising Labor policy
Throughout the campaign, Labor walked an uncomfortable line on Adani. It tried not to openly support its proposed coal mine but also insisted it would not stand in its way.
But on many other issues, the environmental movement did not entirely embrace Labor's plans either.
Less than two weeks from polling day, Labor announced a radical plan to establish a new Environmental Protection Authority and rewrite federal environment laws.
These were in addition to its detailed climate policies and targets the party had already released, as well as the country's first federal land-clearing laws.
The reaction was mixed, with Greenpeace the least enthusiastic.
"While Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten lock horns over their policies, both are failing to address the climate emergency with credible plans," said the environmental group's media release on May 4.
This division was further exacerbated when Labor announced plans to subsidise the expansion of the gas industry in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
The move dismayed most in the environmental movement and led to a spray of media releases and news stories about the greenhouse gas emissions that expansion would inevitably create.
Dr Williams said Labor was trying to have it both ways on some environmental issues, and that meant they lost votes in regional Queensland without picking up as many as they could have in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
Chief of Greenpeace Australia David Ritter said if Labor had strengthened its environmental policies, the environmental movement would have been fully behind the party — a sentiment more-or-less echoed by all the environmental groups the ABC spoke to.
"I think it was open for the Labor Party to be more ambitious," said Mr Ritter.
"That would have enabled even greater energy from the community to get behind their campaign."
Mr Ritter said that like everyone involved in campaigning, their strategy was informed by the available data — and they thought Labor would win.
In that context, he said they figured it was important to strongly criticise the Coalition's policy, "and similarly to seek to encourage the Labor Party to have a more ambitious climate policy".
A sign outside a pub in Clermont. (ABC News: Rachel McGhee)
'Letting the perfect get in the way of the good'
There are those who believe the environmental movement did little to help the ALP's chances.
The ABC has been told senior figures within the party are angry at what they see as campaigning against Labor.
Although Ms McKenzie said the primary responsibility for success or failure lay with the parties themselves, she did lay some blame with environmental groups for expecting a party to be "perfect".
According to her, part of the environmental movement was so focused on Adani that it did not swing behind Labor, even though it was accepted by the movement as the better choice.
"We do need to push Labor on Adani. But also, where there is effective climate policy — and Labor did bring a strong domestic climate change platform — the environment movement could have done more to communicate that to its base."
Ms McKenzie alluded to the history of the Australian climate wars, where relatively ambitious policies — like Kevin Rudd's first emissions trading scheme — were scuttled by the Greens because they were not considered ambitious.
"I think that's the big lesson for the environmental movement is, as we've learned before: letting the perfect get in the way of the good."

Trusting politicians to deliver
But the environmental movement does not accept its actions were a major reason for Labor's loss.
Most people the ABC spoke to pointed to the money spent by coal miner Clive Palmer, utter distrust of mainstream politics and what they described as scare campaigns run by the Coalition.
Wilderness Society campaign director Lyndon Schneiders said trust was a big problem for parties promising anything ambitious, and that would always be an issue when it came to tackling climate change.
Dr Huntley agreed this was a problem for any party proposing something with an upfront cost, and environmental policy was a classic example of that.
"They don't necessarily think that our politicians are very good at thinking long term," she said.
Even if they did think long term, voters did not trust politicians to deliver, Dr Huntley said.
"You're going to get me to pay for this thing now, that you say you're going to do in the future? But you're so bad at even keeping the promises today!"
Mr Ritter said the environmental movement would have gotten fully behind Labor if they had better policies. (Supplied: Greenpeace)
But Dr Huntley and Dr Williams believe the election was not won or lost on the environment, as other immediate issues like tax reform appeared to be more important in people's minds.
Incoming Environment Minister Sussan Ley said she acknowledged Australians held strong views on caring for the environment, both locally and globally.
"I look forward to listening to the variety of perspectives and ideas that will be put forward, as well as implementing our Government's strong range of policy initiatives in this portfolio," she said.
The new Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, said the Government had a clear mandate for its climate policies.
"Our national target is achievable, balanced and responsible, and is part of coordinated global action to deliver a healthy environment for future generations, without wrecking our economy."

Some environmentalists still think they got it right
Some in the environmental movement are already working on local organisation and how to embrace policies they find less than perfect.
Despite this, there are some who would not change how they approached the pre-election campaigning.
According to Mr Schneiders, it just was not the right time for change — no matter what the opinion polls seemed to suggest before the election.
For him, the answer is to keep on the same track.
"People get too wrapped up in the tactics of this game, you know? And they play the politics too hard," he said.
"There is a problem and it needs a solution. But all we can do is articulate the problem and provide the solution. If we do that long enough, the community … will respond."
Ms McKenzie recalled her first major sense of defeat — the collapse of talks at the UN's conference on climate change in Copenhagen in 2009.
"After Copenhagen, basically everyone, all activists across the world, gave up and went on holiday."
She said that left a vacuum for those fighting to stall action on climate change to fill.
So Ms McKenzie said she was focusing on what she saw as a positive.
"I think there is a sense that climate change is a bigger issue than it was before.
"I think that the core message of hope from the election is that climate change was a central issue. It hasn't been a central issue to the election since 2007."

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Explaining Adani: Why Would A Billionaire Persist With A Mine That Will Probably Lose Money?

The Conversation

The road to Adani. There are more hurdles to overcome, and Gautam Adani might have to put up his own money. AAP
By mid-June, if everything goes as expected, Adani Australia will receive the final environmental approvals for its proposed Carmichael coal mine and rail line development.
Newspaper reports based on briefings from Adani suggest that, once the approvals are in place, the company could begin digging “within days”.
On Friday the Queensland government approved Adani’s plan to protect a rare bird, apparently leaving it with just final regulatory hurdle: approval for its plan to manage groundwater.
Its billboards in Brisbane read: “We can start tomorrow if we get the nod today”.
But several big obstacles remain. Even after governments are out of the way, it will have to deal with markets and companies that aren’t keen on the project.

Obstacles aplenty
First up, there’s the problem of access to Aurizon’s rail line. Adani originally planned to build its own 388km railway from the Galilee Basin to its coal terminal at Abbot Point.
However, in the scaled-down version of the project announced last year, Adani plans to build only 200km of track, before connecting to the existing Goonyella line owned by the rail freight company Aurizon.
That requires an agreement of access pricing and conditions. Aurizon is legally obliged to negotiate with Adani, but has shown itself to be in no hurry to reach a deal.
Then there’s insurance. Faced with rejection by every major bank in the world, Adani announced it would fund the project from its own resources. But now insurers, including nearly all the big European firms and Australia’s own QBE, are saying the same sort of thing as the financiers.
Without insurance the project can’t proceed, and the pool of potential insurers is shrinking all the time.

Not particularly financial



Adani Group founder Gautam Adani. Wikimedia, CC BY
But the most fundamental problem may lie within the Adani group itself. The A$2 billion required from the project will ultimately come, in large measure, from chairman Gautam Adani’s own pocket.
With an estimated wealth of A$7 billion, he can certainly afford to pay if he chooses to. But it would represent a huge bet on the long-term future of coal-fired electricity, at very bad odds.
In my analysis of the original Carmichael mine proposal in 2017 I concluded that the profit from operating the coal mine would be around A$15 per tonne.
A recent analysis of the revised project by David Fickling for Bloomberg yielded a marginally more favorable estimate of US$16 per tonne, or US$160 million a year for the initial output of 10 million tonnes a year.
That’s an 8% rate of return on $US2 billion, before considering overheads and depreciation.

It’d need a long life…
Such an investment could only be profitable on the basis of a mine with a long life and substantial potential for future expansion. How likely is that? When the start of construction was re-announced last November, it was suggested the coal might be shipped by 2021. With six months’ delay, and the insurance problem noted already, 2022 seems like the earliest possible date.
But by that time, the current construction pipeline for coal-fired plants in India will have been worked through, and very few new ones will be being commissioned. A mere 8 gigawatts of new coal-fired power was commissioned in 2017-18, partly offset by 3.6GW of coal-fired power stations that closed down.
The Indian government has stated that no new coal plants will be needed after 2022, or 2027 at the latest.

…which it might not get
In these circumstances, newly opened coal mines will be able to sell coal only if they can displace existing suppliers. This suggests prices will have to fall to a level sufficient to ensure further closures of existing mines. Such a fall would erode or eliminate Adani’s already thin margins.
By 2030, with the project still in its relatively early stages, most developed countries will have stopped using coal-fired power. The others will be moving fast in that direction. So far under President Trump, the United States has closed 50 coal-fired power stations, and will almost certainly never build another.
The only glimmer of hope for coal has been in less developed countries in Asia. But over the course of this year, even these hopes have dimmed. Major banks in Japan and Singapore have withdrawn from funding new coal projects, following the lead of the global banks based in Europe and the US.
That leaves South Korea and China as potential sources of funding. Korea is already phasing out coal-fired power domestically and its banks are being pressured to divest globally. The option of relying solely on China is problematic to say the least.
To sum up, unless current trends change dramatically, the economic life of the Carmichael mine is unlikely to be more than a decade – nowhere near enough to recover a A$2 billion investment.

Explaining Adani
So what could be going on? Perhaps Gautam Adani is willing to lose a large share of his wealth simply to show he can’t be pushed around. Alternatively, as on numerous previous occasions, his promises of an imminent start to work may prove to be baseless.
The third, and most worrying, possibility is that the political pressure to deliver the promised Adani jobs will lead to a large infusion of public money, all of which will be lost.
The A$900 million Adani sought from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility in 2017 would be enough to keep the project going for a couple of years, without the need for Mr Adani to risk his own money. It now appears that a similar sum might be sought from the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation.
All this is speculation. Assuming the approvals come through by the Queensland premier’s self-imposed deadline of June 13, we will find out soon enough whether something happens, or whether something else will stay in the way.

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Time To Flick Climate Emergency Switch: A Plea To Our New Parliament

Sydney Morning Herald - Ian Dunlop*

A year ago, there was little discussion of climate change as an existential threat, or the corresponding need for emergency action.
Today, in the face of rapidly accelerating climate impacts, “existential threat” and “climate emergency” are common currency globally, existential meaning the potential to destroy humanity as we know it.
Organisations representing 66 million people in 13 countries have adopted formal climate emergency resolutions.
A coal reckoning? Yallourn Power Station in the Latrobe Valley, Victoria. Credit: AAP
But Australia still has its head in the sand. We are among the most exposed to this threat, yet we return a government that has been incapable of delivering any credible climate or energy policy.As international climate impact specialist Stefan Ramstorf tweeted: "A country so vulnerable to drought and wildfire, to floods and tropical storms and sheer heat, voting for coal: that’s turkeys voting for Christmas."
In the new Morrison ministry, climate does not rate a mention, but henceforth it will dominate our lives. Industry continues to demand policy clarity, built around the fourth-rate compromise of the so-called National Energy Guarantee.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor is not even prepared to contemplate even that. Resources Minister Matt Canavan demands new coal-fired power and coal mines in the Galilee Basin. And the ALP shows every sign of walking away from its more ambitious, but still inadequate, climate policy.
Yet the newly elected members of this Parliament will, in time, be held accountable for their actions on climate – or their failure to act. As it stands, they will fail catastrophically in their duty of care to citizens, even as the Prime Minister commits his ministry to act in the interests of all Australians. Here, for the benefit of MPs, is a summary of the emergency that confronts them:
  • The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is far from adequate.
    Its emission-reduction commitments, if implemented, would lead to a temperature increase of 3.5C by 2100 – described by global security experts at the US Centre for Strategic and International Studies as “outright social chaos”.
    We are currently on track for a 4.5C increase, a world “incompatible with any organised society”, according to a Royal Society paper, resulting in a substantial reduction in global population before 2100.
  • Dangerous climate change is already occurring at the 1C rise experienced so far.
    The 2C upper Paris limit is the boundary of extremely dangerous climate change.
  • To stay below 2C, global emissions must peak now and be rapidly reduced.
    The lower 1.5C Paris target requires even more rapid reduction. Instead, emissions are rising in line with worst-case scenarios.
  • The planet has only a 50 to 66 per cent chance of meeting these targets, the International Panel on Climate Change analysis assumes.
    Not good odds for the future of humanity.To have a sensible 90 per cent chance, there is no carbon budget left today to stay below 2C, let alone 1.5C. Thus all fossil fuel consumption should stop immediately. Obviously that is not going to happen, but new investment must stop now, and the existing industry should be wound down.
  • Emissions from continued fossil fuel investment lock in irreversible outcomes.
    By the time their impact becomes clear, it will be too late to take avoiding action.
  • Atmospheric aerosols produced by burning coal and oil are cooling the planet by about 0.5C.
    As aerosol concentrations reduce with the phase-out of fossil fuels, a commensurate one-off increase in temperature is likely, compounding the problem of staying below warming limits.
Proposed solutions to meet the emission targets rely heavily on carbon removal from the atmosphere using technology that does not exist today at sufficient scale. This creates a false and dangerous sense of security.
Three decades of dangerous delays mean it is now impossible to limit temperature increases to 1.5C, and probably to 2C, unless global leaders commit to emergency action. Australia is not exempt.
But there has been minimal discussion of what emergency action actually means.
Nation states will soon come to realise that it means action akin to wartime.  Business as usual must be suspended – politically, socially and corporately. It requires an all-encompassing commitment to reduce emissions and address the threat.
It will require a new modus operandi that dispenses with conventional right and left politics. The best leaders – not necessarily politicians – will need to be convened in a governance structure that  may resemble a government of national unity, supported by the best scientific, technical, economic, financial and social expertise.
This is way beyond anything yet contemplated in international negotiations, or in national policies,  but it is the inevitable outcome of the evolving climate threat.
The Parliament we have just elected needs to understand the emergency, and to address it. And yet it cannot even agree on the beginnings of an energy policy.

*Ian Dunlop is a former oil, gas and coal industry executive. He was chairman of the Australian Coal Association and CEO of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is co-author of the report What Lies Beneath: the understatement of existential climate risk, published by the Breakthrough Centre for Climate Restoration, and a member of the Club of Rome’s Climate Emergency Plan.

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