25/09/2019

David Attenborough Slams Australian PM On Climate Record

ABC triplej Hack

Sir David Attenborough has slammed Prime Minister Scott Morrison's support for new coal mines and lack of action on climate change, in his most damning assessment yet of Australia's environmental record.
In an interview with Hack, the world's most renowned natural historian said previous governments had been "saying all the right things" but this had suddenly changed.
"You are the keepers of an extraordinary section of the surface of this planet, including the Barrier Reef, and what you say, what you do, really, really matters."
"And then you suddenly say, 'No it doesn't matter ... it doesn't matter how much coal we burn ... we don't give a damn what it does to the rest of the world.'"


"It's their world": Sir David Attenborough praises young people protesting for climate change, and slams Scott Morrison for bringing a lump of coal into Parliament in 2017.

The veteran conservationist responded to Scott Morrison bringing a lump of coal into Question Time in February 2017, when he was Treasurer.
"I don't think it was a joke," he said.
"If you weren't opening a coal mine okay I would agree, it's a joke. But you are opening a coal mine."
He also commented on the recent federal election, which Mr Morrison won with a platform of support for new coal mines, including the proposed large Adani mine in Queensland, as well as a less ambitious emissions reduction target than Labor.Asked how politicians can carry the public with them on taking action on climate change, he said politicians had "to appeal to what people think is right."
"Do you think it's right that we go on destroying the natural world?" he said.
The Government’s own projections show Australia is not on track to meet its current Paris target.
A cardboard cutout of Sir David Attenborough with Extinction Rebellion flags in London.
Getty
The September 20 climate strike in Sydney.
Getty
But he also made an economic argument for action: "We have to convince bankers and big business that, in the end, the long-term future lies in having a healthy planet. And unless you do something about it ... you're going to lose your money."
And one for basic self-preservation: "The world is going to be running short of food, seriously short of food."
Tens of millions could be exposed to crop failure and famine in the next few decades due to climate change, according to the UN panel for assessing the science of climate change, the IPCC.

On the global climate strike and mass protest
Speaking to Hack ahead of last week's global climate strike, the 93-year-old threw his support behind young people taking to the streets in protest.
"Young people see things very clearly. And they are speaking very clearly to politicians," he said.
"They [people under 18] may not have the vote ... but it's their world that's coming along and they want to make it clear to the politicians that they know that."
Australian school students at the September 20 climate strikes. ABC News: Brendan Esposito
A cardboard cutout of Sir David Attenborough
with Extinction Rebellion flags in London.
Getty
Climate strikers in Sydney.
ABC News: Brendan Esposito
The BBC presenter, who regularly tops polls of Britain's favourite people, recently narrated a documentary on climate change titled The Facts.This, along with the Extinction Rebellion, which occupied parts of central London over two weeks in April, has been credited as the reason why the UK declared a climate emergency.
Sir David said he backed the strategy of non-violent direct action.
"If they just sit on the sidelines, and [debate] in a nice, reasonable way, you know, they'll say, 'oh kids'. But if they actually do something in the way that they have been doing in this era, then politicians have to sit up and take notice."
"And you can say, 'It gets you nowhere, just stopping the traffic'. But it gets you notice. People listen to what you say. And that you're important.
"And they are important. They are the people who are going to inherit the mess that we've made."

On the Great Barrier Reef
Sir David said his most vivid impression of climate change's human impact was returning to the Great Barrier Reef, where he had first dived in the 1950s.
"A bleached reef is a tragic sight," he said of his last dive there, 10 years ago.
"A desperately tragic sight, particularly if you've seen it before, and you know what it could have been like.
"You just see acre after acre of deathly white coral."
A diver checks out coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in February 2016. Supplied: The Ocean Agency / XL Catlin Seaview Survey
David Attenborough

On climate denialism: "The world is sick, we really have to do things about it. And there's no more time for argument."

On a sustainable diet: "Maybe everybody when they get into their 70s 80s or 90s loses their taste for meat. I've certainly lost mine."

On population: "All the evidence is that wherever women are educated and literate, and have the vote, and are able to determine what they do, and when they have children, and they have medical advice to help them, then the birth rate falls."

On plastic: "I can't help feeling we invented the stuff; surely, for heavens, we are clever enough to think of a way of disposing of it."

On his least favourite animal: "I don't hate many things but I do hate rats."
Since then, the reef has had at least two more severe coral bleaching events.
Sir David has previously said Australia will face some of the worst effects of climate change. He told Hack the country has been having "a really bad time".
But the present impact of climate change paled in comparison to his description of the refugee crisis predicted to occur as the planet warms.
"The drought areas of this world, and you have more than your fair share, are due to spread, simply because of the rise in temperature.
"The front line is southern Europe."
"We're talking about tens of thousands of people who suddenly won't have a bit of land in which they can grow their food.
"And, poor souls, they want somewhere to live, and raise their kids. Now are you going to turn them away?
"And if you are going to turn them away where are you going to put them?"

On facing his own death
At 93, Sir David is working on a new BBC documentary for 2020. Extinction: The Facts looks at what mass animal and plant extinctions mean for humanity.
He says he feels blessed to be able to keep working, and to have lasted long enough to see a rising environmental consciousness.
Asked whether he was afraid of dying, he said he simply hoped it won't be "tiresome for others".
"I hope it won't be painful," he said.
On life after death, the great educator of natural selection said he remains agnostic.
"I am quite sure that the mechanism by which this world has become populated with all these different species of animals and plants we understand pretty well now," he said.
"Whether you say that means that God doesn't exist is another question.
"It may be that there is an overall creative spirit that we don't know about. I have no idea. And whether it's a life after death, I have no idea."

Links
at No comments:

Climate Change To Hit Super Returns

AFR - Joanna Mather

The drag on economic growth associated with climate change will wipe 0.25 per cent a year from superannuation returns for the foreseeable future, according to the asset consultants at Frontier Advisors.
Frontier, whose core clients are industry funds, is convinced that even under the most optimistic scenarios, climate change will weigh on economic growth and therefore investment returns.
“We have lowered the likely returns we believe investors can expect, across all asset classes, by 0.25 per cent a year," principal consultant Philip Naylor said.
“The primary driver of this downward revision has been the long-term impact on the global economy of climate change.


"What we're saying to trustees is that if in the past you've been aiming for a 7 per cent return, for example, you should expect the same portfolio will only deliver at 6.75 per cent return."
Frontier provides investment advice and research to clients that collectively have $380 billion in funds under management.
One response from those funds to the lower assumed return might be to increase their exposure to riskier or illiquid assets to make up for the expected shortfall.
But they might also choose to accept the drop and convey that message to regulators and members.

Drought, storms
Assets can be directly damaged by flood, drought and severe storms, but portfolios can also be harmed indirectly, through weaker growth and lower returns.
Frontier's modelling takes into account the cost of damage associated with climate change – such as more frequent and destructive weather events – and the cost of mitigation, meaning the cost of trying to limit the magnitude of global warming and its related effects.
"We’re saying to our clients: you can lock in a loss of 25 basis points as best case," Mr Naylor said.
The modelling assumes that governments will implement already agreed measures to address climate change such as the Paris Agreement − the global pact to keep temperature increases this century below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Frontier modelled the net impact of climate change on investment returns across different policy paths to the end of the century.
Frontier, which is owned by AustralianSuper, Cbus, HESTA and First Super, will this week tell its clients about the cut in its assumed risk-free rate.
The risk-free rate is the likely return on a safe investment, typically a government bond, and is used to compare returns with riskier investment options.
Frontier conducts annual reviews of long-term investment themes but adjustments to its risk-free rate are infrequent.
The last revision occurred in 2015, when the rate was cut largely due to the likely effects of demographic change, including lower birth rates and ageing populations in some parts of the world.

Links
at No comments:

Pacific Leaders Urge The World Not To Accept The 'Living Nightmare' Of Climate Change

ABC News - Michael Walsh | Agencies

Pacific leaders warned climate change was creating a terrifying "new normal" for their citizens. (Supplied: Darren James)
Key points
  • World leaders are meeting in New York for a UN Climate Action Summit
  • Fiji's Frank Bainimarama said climate change was a "living nightmare" for island nations
  • Teen activist Greta Thunberg said world leaders had "stolen" her childhood
Pacific leaders have sought to remind the world what is at stake for the most vulnerable, amid warnings not enough is being done to stave off the most damaging impacts of climate change.
World leaders have gathered at the United Nations in New York for a Climate Action Summit, where countries have been urged to account for the sluggish progress being made on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
A new report from the World Meteorological Organisation released ahead of the conference warned the world was falling far behind in the race to avert a climate disaster.

An island's race against time
The Carteret Islands were the first place in the world to require population relocations due to climate change, with predictions they would be submerged by 2015.
The last five years have been the hottest on record, the report said, with ice sheets melting and sea levels rising at an unprecedented rate.
Opening remarks from UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres set the tone early with another urgent warning.
"Nature is angry. And we fool ourselves if we think we can fool nature, because nature always strikes back and around the world, nature is striking back with fury," he said.
It was a theme later picked up by Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, whose country has borne the brunt of that fury in recent years.
Forty-four people were killed when Cyclone Winston struck Fiji in February 2016. (ABC News: Brant Cumming)
"The brutality of our changing climate has already driven vulnerable communities into a nightmare scenario, one in which the hellscape of storms like Cyclone Winston and Hurricane Dorian have become the new normal," he told the summit.
"Acceptance of this living nightmare is morally unthinkable, and denial is unconscionable."
Mr Bainimarama warned that even if temperature rises were restricted to the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit outlined in the Paris Agreement, many more innocent people would die without urgent adaptation measures.

'How dare you'
Before world leaders started to deliver their speeches, 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg gave an emotional appeal in which she chided the leaders with the repeated phrase, "How dare you."
Ms Thunberg's lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament more than a year ago sparked a global movement, culminating in Friday's global climate strikes
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine told the summit falling short of that 1.5 degrees target "would mean the greatest failure of humanity that we have ever seen."
Marshall Islands' President Hilda Heine called for better climate change adaptation for vulnerable countries. (AP: Jason DeCrow)
The average elevation in the Marshall Islands is barely 2 metres above sea level — the Pacific nation is even looking into raising the elevation of its more than 1,000 islands, in response to the threat posed by rising seas.
"Not enough is being done to adapt our world to the impacts that we have already locked in, let alone the worst that's yet to come," Dr Heine said.
"This summit must be the moment we choose survival over selfishness, communities over coal and planet over profits."

Trump's surprise appearance
Donald Trump did not speak at the summit, but briefly listened in to one of the speeches. (AP Photo: Evan Vucci)

Leaders were only permitted to speak at the event if they could offer up new climate action plans — even major emitters like the United States, Japan and Saudi Arabia did not take the podium.
However, this didn't stop US President Donald Trump from making a brief appearance, listening in to a speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, before making a silent exit.
Fiji, Marshall Islands, Palau and Tonga were all given speaking slots due to their commitment to global efforts.

Warming unprecedented in 2,000 years
Mr Bainimarama said Fiji was in the process of relocating vulnerable communities and had submitted its roadmap for reaching net zero emissions by 2050, among other measures.
"While Fiji did not cause the climate crisis, we are fully awake to its reality. Someone must act with clear purpose and resolve, someone must clear a path for others to follow," he said.
With climate impacts such as extreme weather, thawing permafrost and sea-level rise unfolding much faster than expected, scientists say the urgency of the crisis has intensified since the Paris agreement was struck.
However pledges made so far under the agreement are nowhere near enough to avert catastrophic warming, scientists say, and last year carbon emissions hit a record high.
The agreement will enter a crucial implementation phase next year, and Dr Heine said history would not forgive leaders who failed to step up to the challenge.
"This is the lens through which history will judge this summit and all of us," she said.
"The time has come for leaders to do just that — lead," she said.
Mr Bainimarama and Mr Morrison have previously locked horns over climate change action. (ABC News: Tamara Penniket)

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who did not attend the conference, has previously sparred with Pacific leaders over climate change: most recently at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu, where Mr Morrison's stance on the issue sparked a fairly public spat.
Mr Bainimarama told media at the time that Mr Morrison had brought up Australia's aid commitments to the Pacific after he was urged to endorse a statement calling for a ban on new coal mines and faster cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.
Mr Morrison refused, and the statement did not make it into the forum's final communique. Mr Bainimarama described Mr Morrison's behaviour was "very insulting, very condescending".
The summit comes days after millions of people around the world took to the streets to demand emergency action on climate change — including more than 100,000 in Australia, across all capital cities and 104 other places.

Links
at No comments: