Even If Australia Raises A Climate Tax, It Won't Meet Paris Targets: IMF

SBS - Tom Stayner

Australia is in danger of failing to meet its commitments for the Paris agreement, even with a carbon tax to dramatically shift its dependence away from fossil fuels.

Bayswater coal-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley region. AAP

Even with the rollout of a steep climate tax Australia would fail to meet its Paris emission reduction commitments, the International Monetary Fund has warned.
The global body is urging ‘urgent policy action’ to guard against the threat posed by climate change but says this action would still see some countries fall short of emissions targets.
The Morrison government has continually defended its response to climate change, saying it is on track to meet its Kyoto and Paris commitments.
But IMF projections comparing the impact of placing a carbon tax ranging from US$25 per ton to US$50 and US$75 on nations around the world have cast doubt on this pledge.
“Whereas a US$25 a ton price would be more than enough for some countries (for example, China, India, and Russia) to meet their Paris Agreement pledges, in other cases (for example, Australia and Canada) even the US$75 a ton carbon tax falls short,” the IMF reported.

The International Monetary Fund has compared nations current Paris pledges and with carbon tax scenarios. International Monetary Fund

The Washington-based fund’s findings suggest that even with direct action to push Australia away from its reliance on coal the nation would fail to meet its commitments.
But Energy Minister Angus Taylor has refuted any idea Australia would adopt such a measure, saying it has already laid out its emissions reduction plan.
"The point of a carbon tax is to raise the price of energy so people consume less," he said.
"Labor’s carbon tax did exactly that, and that’s why we abolished it."
"Our $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package ... maps out to the last tonne how we will ... reduce emissions to 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030."
The International Monetary Fund is advocating for the carbon taxing measure on a global scale calling it the ‘most powerful and efficient’ means to shift nations away from their reliance on coal.
A carbon tax is designed to push countries towards alternative fuel sources by making fossil fuel generated power less economically appealing.
The IMF said ‘ambitious’ policy action is needed to limit global warming to 2°C or less – the level considered safe by scientists
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia is "balancing" its global responsibilities with "practical policies" to secure climate action without adverse economic impacts.
Meanwhile, Labor has been caught up in an internal debate over the way forward on emissions with some in the party calling for less ambitious action.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the Coalition was 'confident' it would 'meet' and 'beat' the nation's emissions targets.
“We are track on track to beat out 2020 target and we are confident that we will meet and beat our 2030 target,” he told reporters on Friday.
“You need to have a cost effective transition, and that’s why we’ve put in place a series of measures to do that.”
Australia’s Paris target is to reduce emissions to 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030.
Labor went to the federal election this year with a 45 per cent emissions reduction target, while the Liberals kept the 26-28 per cent goal.

Liddell power station in Muswellbrook, in the NSW Hunter Valley region. AAP

The International Monetary Fund explained that a climate tax could force the price of coal up by 263 per cent in Australia and see a 75 per cent increase in energy prices.
“The longer that policy action is delayed, the more emissions will accumulate in the atmosphere and the greater the cost of stabilising global temperatures,” the IMF said.
Mr Taylor cited the steep energy price hike linked with a carbon tax as a major concern of the government.
"The report ... states that under a US$75 carbon tax, retail electricity prices would increase by 70-90 per cent in Australia," he said.
"That is not something we are going to do to Australian households and small businesses."
The IMF said nations would need to design the policy response in an ‘equitable and socially and politically acceptable' manner that diverted revenues from the tax to support those vulnerable to ‘higher energy prices’.
A carbon tax implemented by the Labor government was repealed by the Coalition in 2014.
Since then Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have shown year on year increases.
Australia is responsible for around 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions and is ranked 15th among the world's biggest emitting nations.
While, on a per capita basis its emissions (16.2 metric tonnes) are ranked only second behind Saudi Arabia (16.3 metric tonnes), and well ahead of the United States (15 metric tonnes) and China (6.4 metric tonnes).

Links

• Malcolm Turnbull Blasts Liberal Party For Being 'Incapable' Of Climate Change Action
• The Week Australia Failed On Climate Change
• We Fact Checked Scott Morrison's Speech To The United Nations. Here's What We Found
• Australian Government Seen Globally As Climate 'Denialist', UN Summit Observers Say
• David Attenborough Slams Australian PM On Climate Record
• 'Sensible settlement' or 'strong action': Labor divided on carbon emissions
• Climate change is accelerating, according to a new UN report
• Scott Morrison targets climate critics in UN speech
• From Greta Thunberg to Julia Gillard: Here's who Australian girls say are their role models
• Peter Dutton says climate activists are 'thumbing their nose' at Australia

There Are Three Types Of Climate Change Denier, And Most Of Us Are At Least One

The Conversation - Iain Walker | Zoe Leviston

Greta Thunberg’s fiery oration has prompted outrage, but even if you agree with her you might still be ignoring her message. EPA/Justin Lane

Last week, amid the cacophony of reactions to Greta Thunberg’s appearance before the United Nations Climate Action Summit, a group of self-proclaimed “prominent scientists” sent a registered letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The letter, headed “There is no climate emergency”, urged Guterres to follow:

…a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.

The group, supported by 75 Australian business and industry figures, along with others around the world, obviously rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. But this missive displays remarkably different tactics to those previously used to stymie climate action.
The language of climate change denial and inaction has transformed. Outright science denial has been replaced by efforts to reframe climate change as natural, and climate action as unwarranted.
However, this is just another way of rejecting the facts, and their implications for us. Denial can take many forms.

Shades of denial
The twin phenomena of denial and inaction are related to one another, at least in the context of climate change. They are also complex, both in the general sense of “complicated and intricate”, and in the technical psychological sense of “a group of repressed feelings and anxieties which together result in abnormal behaviour”.
In his book States of Denial, the late psychoanalytic sociologist Stanley Cohen described three forms of denial. Although his framework was developed from analysing genocide and other atrocities, it applies just as well to our individual and collective inaction in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence of human-induced climate change.
The first form of denial is literal denial. It is the simple, conscious, outright rejection that something happened or is happening – that is, lying. One Nation senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts, among others, have at one time or another maintained this position – outright denial that climate change is happening (though Senator Hanson now might accept climate change but denies any human contribution to it).
Interestingly, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull yesterday blamed “climate change deniers” in his own government for blocking any attempt to deal with climate change, resulting paradoxically in higher energy prices today.
It is tempting to attribute outright denial to individual malice or stupidity, and that may occasionally be the case. More worrying and more insidious, though, is the social organisation of literal denial of climate change. There is plenty of evidence of clandestine, orchestrated lying by vested interests in industry. If anyone is looking for a conspiracy in climate change, this is it - not a collusion of thousands of scientists and major science organisations.
The second form of denial is interpretive denial. Here, people do not contest the facts, but interpret them in ways that distort their meaning or importance. For example, one might say climate change is just a natural fluctuation or greenhouse gas accumulation is a consequence, not a cause, of rising temperatures. This is what we saw in last week’s letter to the UN.

The most insidious form of denial
The third and most insidious form is implicatory denial. The facts of climate change are not denied, nor are they interpreted to be something else. What is denied or minimised are the psychological, political, and moral implications of the facts for us. We fail to accept responsibility for responding; we fail to act when the information says we should.
Of course, some are unable to respond, financially or otherwise, but for many, implicatory denial is a kind of dissociation. Ignoring the moral imperative to act is as damning a form of denial as any other, and arguably is much worse.
The treatment of Thunberg, and the vigour with which people push away reminders of that which they would rather not deal with, illustrate implicatory denial. We are almost all guilty, to some extent, of engaging in implicatory denial. In the case of climate change, implicatory denial allows us to use a reusable coffee cup, recycle our plastic or sometimes catch a bus, and thus to pretend to ourselves that we are doing our bit.
Almost none of us individually, or we as a nation, has acted as we ought on the science of climate change. But that does not mean we can’t change how we act in the future. Indeed, there are some recent indications that, as with literal denial, implicatory denial is becoming an increasingly untenable psychological position.
While it is tempting, and even cathartic, to mock the shrill responses to Thunberg from literal and interpretive deniers, we would do well to ponder our own inherent biases and irrational responses to climate change.
For instance, we tend to think we are doing more for the planet than those around us (and we can’t all be right). We also tend to think literal deniers are much more common in our society than they in fact are.
These are just two examples of common strategies we use to deny our own responsibility and culpability. They make us feel better about what little we actually do, or congratulate us for accepting the science. But they are ultimately self-defeating delusions. Instead of congratulating ourselves on agreeing with the basic scientific facts of climate change, we need to push ourselves to action.

Links

• Climate explained: why some people still think climate change isn't real
• Misogyny, male rage and the words men use to describe Greta Thunberg
• Extinction Rebellion protesters might be annoying. But they have a point
• 'CO2 is plant food': Australian group signs international declaration denying climate science
• States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering
• Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
• Your opinion on climate change might not be as common as you think
• CLIMATE CHANGE EMPOWERMENT: Psychological strategies to tackle climate change - THE HANDBOOK (pdf)

One Thing You Can Do: Talk To Your Children About Climate Change

New York Times - Jillian Mock

Tyler Varsell

Last month, young people around the world skipped school to join global climate strikes.
Children of all ages marched, chanted and carried signs with slogans like, “You’ll die of old age, I’ll die of climate change.”
Dark messages like that highlighted the worry many young people feel about climate change.
Climate change and related natural disasters can take a toll on mental health, according to a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association.
That can include depression and anxiety.
Children may be one of the hardest-hit groups.
According to a poll by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than seven in 10 teenagers and young adults in the United States say climate change will cause harm to their generation.
That includes young people who identify as Democratics and Republicans.In order to lighten that anxiety, experts say, parents should talk to their children.
To address these fears, find a calm moment to ask your child what they’ve seen or heard about climate change and how that makes them feel, said Dr. Lise Van Susteren, a psychiatrist in Washington and a founder of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance.
She said parents should gently correct irrational fears but not downplay anxieties just to make children feel better. That could just make the child feel she can’t trust adults to be honest with them on this topic.
“Talk about the problem, then pivot to the solution,” Dr. Van Susteren said.
Once you’ve discussed your child’s climate fears, talk about people and organizations that are already working on large-scale climate solutions, said Maria Ojala, a psychologist at Orebro University in Sweden who studies young people and climate change.
If possible, talk about solutions in a personal context. Highlight steps you’ve already taken as a family or as individuals to reduce your carbon footprints and brainstorm new ideas together.
Taking action can be an empowering antidote to fear, Dr. Van Susteren said. Encourage your child to take action with her peers as well, like joining a group at school or volunteering with a local organization.
Collective action has mental health benefits, according to Dr. Ojala.
“We are social beings and it’s very good for our well-being to work together with others and be part of a group,” she said.
You probably won’t get rid of your child’s fears altogether, and that’s O.K., Dr. Ojala said. The goal is to help your child cope with her fears in a constructive way to avoid hopelessness.
Finally, think about your own personal choices and lead by example, Dr. Van Susteren said. Your children are probably watching.

Links

• Mental Health And Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, And Guidance (pdf)
• Most American teens are frightened by climate change, poll finds, and about 1 in 4 are taking action
• Climate Psychiatry Alliance
• Has Your Doctor Talked To You About Climate Change?
• Climate Change Fuels the Rise of "Eco-Anxiety"
• Prescription for action from the Climate Psychiatry Alliance
• The effect of seasonal changes and climatic factors on suicide attempts of young people
• Blueprint for a Climate Emergency Movement: Embracing Climate Truth and Escalating to Win
• Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health
• A scalable climate health justice assessment model
• Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change
• Climate and Conflict
• Deaths of psychiatric patients during heat waves
• The effect of heat waves on mental health in a temperate Australian city