15/11/2019

(AU) Former Australian Fire Chiefs Say Coalition Ignored Their Advice Because Of Climate Change Politics

The Guardian - 

Former heads of state fire services say government ‘fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change’
A coalition of former Australian state fire and emergency chiefs says the government ‘doesn’t like talking about climate change’ and politics was why it was ignoring their advice. Photograph: Darren Pateman/AAP
A coalition of former fire chiefs have said the government “fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change” and that politics is the reason the government was ignoring their advice.
Former heads of the New South Wales, Queensland, Victorian and Tasmanian fire services met in Sydney on Thursday after fires that killed four people tore through the the Australian east coast this week.
They said the climate crisis was making bushfires deadlier and bushfire season longer, and the federal government needed to act immediately.
“Just a 1C temperature rise has meant the extremes are far more extreme, and it is placing lives at risk, including firefighters,” said Greg Mullins, the former chief of NSW Fire and Rescue. “Climate change has supercharged the bushfire problem.”
“Bushfires are a symptom of climate change,” said Neil Bibby, the former chief executive of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority.
“Firefighters are the immune system that gets rid of that symptom. But [the problem is] still there.”
Mullins said he and 23 other fire and emergency chiefs had been trying to have a meeting with the prime minister, Scott Morrison, since April because they “knew that a bushfire crisis was coming”.
Instead, he said current fire chiefs had been locked out of discussions and were “not allowed” to mention climate change.
Former emergency services chiefs – Bob Conroy, Lee Johnson, Mike Brown, Neil Bibby and Greg Mullins – say the government “fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change”. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
“This government fundamentally doesn’t like talking about climate change,” Mullins said. “We would like the doors to be open to the current chiefs, and allow them to utter the words ‘climate change’. They are not allowed to at the moment.
“The Grenfell fire in London, people talked about the cause from day one. Train crashes they talk from day one. And it is OK to say it is an arsonist’s fault, or pretend that the greenies are stopping hazard reduction burning, which is simply not true.
“But you are not allowed to talk about climate change. Well, we are, because we know what is happening.”
Bibby, who was in charge during Victoria’s Black Saturday, said politics was the reason the government was ignoring the former fire chiefs’ advice.
Other interstate fire chiefs were outspoken about the effect global heating has on bushfires.
Lee Johnson, the former commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, wanted immediate action.
“I’m here for my children and grandchildren,” he said. “In Queensland in the last couple of weeks we have seen unprecedented fires … The fires are impacting on areas that haven’t known fires for millennia.
Mullins said the bushfire emergency was underlaid by a climate emergency.
“On the 6th of September, southeast Queensland and NSW experienced record fire weather, never before experienced in September. On the 8th of November, again we had record-breaking fire weather in NSW.
“And on the 12th of November, for the first time ever, Sydney experienced catastrophic fire danger. Fires are literally off the scale on this warming planet.”
The link between climate change and bushfire risk became a political flashpoint this week.
On Monday the Nationals leader and deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said it galled him when “inner-city lefties” raised climate change in relation to bushfires.
“We’ve had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance – they need help, they need shelter,” he told ABC Radio.
“They don’t need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time, when they’re trying to save their homes, when in fact they’re going out in many cases saving other peoples’ homes and leaving their own homes at risk.”
The NSW Nationals leader, John Barilaro, said it was “a disgrace” for anyone to talk about climate change during the bushfires.
But on Wednesday the Liberal MP and NSW environment minister, Matt Kean, said climate change “is a real issue” and “requires a decisive response”. He said science was clear that “our changing climate is seeing more extreme weather events”.
In an escalating political debate, Greens senator Jordon Steele-John branded major party politicians “arsonists” for supporting the coal industry.
“You are no better than a bunch of arsonists – borderline arsonists – and you should be ashamed,” he told the Senate.
The former fire chiefs had two requests for the government: more resources for firefighters; take on “the fundamental problem” of climate change.
Mullins said he was told the energy minister, Angus Taylor, would speak to him and the water minister, David Littleproud, has set a meeting.
“None of us can understand why climate change in Australia is so political,” he said. “In the UK, the conservatives, Margaret Thatcher, said years ago this is a major problem.”

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(AU) Australia Bushfires Renew Anger Over Climate Change

Agence France-Presse

The bushfire season has started earlier than usual, raising fears of a terrible summer ahead. AFP / PETER PARKS

Unprecedented bushfires in eastern Australia have turbocharged demands the country's conservative government do more to tackle climate change, and have rekindled an ideological fight over the science behind the blazes.
The huge fires have touched communities up and down the east coast, killing four people and affecting millions of Australians -- threatening homes and blanketing major cities in hazardous smoke.
For many, the scale and intensity of the conflagrations, weeks before the Australian summer, have brought the dangers of climate change home.
"The whole east coast is on fire," said Julie Jones, who almost lost her house in the Blue Mountains. "I think it's climate change."
A group of ex-fire chiefs on Thursday warned climate change is "supercharging" the bushfire problem and they challenged Prime Minister Scott Morrison over his failure to confront the issue.
"I am fundamentally concerned about the impact and the damage coming from climate change," former fire chief Lee Johnson said.
"The word 'unprecedented' has been used a lot, but it's correct."
For days Morrison has refused to address the link between climate and bushfires, arguing the focus should be on victims -- despite being heckled about climate change while touring fire-ravaged areas.
AFP / Laurence CHU

Morrison has made no secret of his support for the country's lucrative mining industry, which accounts for more than 70 percent of exports and was worth a record Aus$264 billion ($180 billion) in the last financial year.
He once carried a lump of coal onto the floor of the Australian parliament and recently proposed banning environmental boycotts of businesses.
His government insists Australia will meet its Paris climate agreement target of reducing emissions by 26-28 percent on 2005 levels by 2030.
But the approval of vast coal mines like the controversial Adani project -- which will ship most of its product overseas to be burned -- make global targets of keeping warming below 1.5 Celsius more difficult.
- 'Woke greenies' -
Until now that has been good politics for the Liberal leader. His party unexpectedly won re-election in May, in part by framing the climate debate as a choice between jobs and higher energy costs in places like coal-rich Queensland.
Morrison's allies have also deployed the issue as a potent wedge issue to divide the electorate.
AFP / Jonathan WALTER
When the Australian Greens attacked the government response to the bushfires this week, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack went on the offensive.
"We don't need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital cities greenies at this time, when (people) are trying to save their homes," he said.
But the scale of the bushfire crisis has made it more difficult for Morrison to dismiss his political foes as out-of-touch lefty city slickers.
And after several exhausting days of spearheading crisis response, commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said Wednesday the New South Wales Rural Fire Service acknowledged the new reality.
"We are mindful that the science is suggesting that fire seasons are starting earlier, and extending longer," he said.
Politicians who refuse to discuss climate change have been heckled as they tour areas destroyed by fire. AFP / WILLIAM WEST
The government's own Bureau of Meteorology has acknowledged human-caused climate change is "influencing the frequency and severity of dangerous bushfire conditions".
Scientists say the link between climate change and bush fires is complex, but undeniable.
Wind movements around Antarctica and sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean can also help determine fire-friendly conditions in Australia.
But warming provides key ingredients for fires to thrive: high temperatures, low humidity, strong winds and drought.
"Bushfires are not directly attributable to climate change," said Janet Stanley of the University of Melbourne. "However, the fast-warming climate is making bushfires more frequent and intense."
"The mountain of irrefutable evidence linking global warming to bushfires makes the federal government's failure to act -- or even talk about the problem -- extremely hard to explain," she said.
Away from the political bickering, a growing number of Australians appear to agree.
A 2019 survey by think tank The Australia Institute found 81 percent of people are concerned climate change will cause more droughts and flooding, while 64 percent want the government to set a target of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Claire Pontin, a deputy mayor in badly-hit northern New South Wales, told the ABC it was "always" the right time to discuss climate change.
"It's not going to go away if we bury our heads in the sand."

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(AU) Australia's Climate Response Among The Worst In The G20, Report Finds

The Guardian - 

Brown to Green report highlights Australia’s poor response on deforestation, transport, energy supply and carbon pricing
Scott Morrison with his lump of coal during a parliamentary debate in 2017. A comparison of G20 countries has found Australia’s response to the climate crisis has been among the worst. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP 
Australia’s response to climate change is one of the worst in the G20 with a lack of policy, reliance on fossil fuels and rising emissions leaving the country exposed “economically, politically and environmentally”, according to a new international report.
Australia’s progress to meeting its already “unambitious” Paris climate targets was third worst, fossil fuel energy was on the rise and policies to tackle high transport emissions and deforestation were also among the worst across the G20 countries.
The Brown to Green report, now in its fifth year, takes stock of the performance of G20 countries on climate change adaptation and mitigation across key sectors, and in the finance sector.
The chief executive of Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, an Australian co-author of the report, told Guardian Australia: “Australia is behind [on] climate action in nearly every dimension. Australia’s emissions are increasing and there’s virtually no policy in place to reduce them.”
Some 14 non-governmental groups, thinktanks and research institutes compile the report, funded by the World Bank, the US-based ClimateWorks Foundation and Germany’s environment ministry.
Across the G20, the report said, limiting global heating to 1.5C would cut negative impacts by 70%, compared with allowing global temperatures to rise by 3C. Currently, extreme weather events were costing G20 countries about US$142bn annually.
While the report doesn’t provide an overall ranking, Australia appears consistently among the worst performers in the report’s analysis.
India and Australia were the only two G20 countries that had not introduced, or were not considering, policies to price greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.
Only South Korea and Canada were further away than Australia from meeting the pledges that formed their Paris climate commitments.
On deforestation, the report said Australia was the only developed country that was a “deforestation hotspot”, but had no policies to tackle it.
Australia was ranked third worst for transport emissions per capita, and the report found “Australia, in particular, lacking significant policy” in the transport sector. Per capita emissions from aviation were 53 times higher than India’s.
Australia, along with Russia, had no policies to move away from petrol-powered cars, no policies to decarbonise the heavy-duty vehicle sector and no policies to shift people onto public transport, the report said.
Australia, along with the US and Saudi Arabia, had high emissions from the building sector. Australia had no building codes covering renovation of older buildings.
All this lack of action, Hare said, was leaving Australia and its people exposed on climate change “economically, politically and environmentally”.
Hare told Guardian Australia: “The leadership of the country is effectively telling lies about their performance, and contradicting their own government’s information.
“The country is led by politicians who in one way or another deny either the science or are de facto denying it, and actively and wilfully opposing or obstructing climate policies.”
Referring to the current Liberal-led Coalition government, Hare said this was the same political party that had repealed climate legislation, such as the carbon pricing mechanism, and “since then has done all it can to undermine any level of action”.
He said the country’s position was in contrast with its opportunities in renewable energy, which it had not exploited as fully as it could.
“Australia has one of the best solar energy potential and wind potential in general of any of the G20 countries,” he said.
“Australia is not transforming its energy system and is focused on building coal and gas, and has not paid any attention to the need to transition to a zero-carbon economy.”


Young Australians talk climate change
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