18/12/2019

(AU) 'Hugely Disappointed' Emergency Chiefs To Hold Bushfire Summit With Or Without PM

The Guardian - 

'Hugely disappointed' emergency chiefs to hold bushfire summit with or without PM
Former fire chiefs have expressed ‘huge disappointment’ with a lack of leadership during the bushfire crisis. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images
Former emergency leaders who have been pushing the Morrison government to take action on the climate say they will “go it alone” and convene their own summit on the bushfire crisis.
The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action say they will hold the summit after the current bushfire season because of their “huge disappointment in the lack of national leadership during a bushfire crisis”.
It comes as fires raged across New South Wales and Western Australia on Monday and as Australia was named as one of a handful of countries responsible for thwarting a global deal on the rulebook of the Paris climate agreement.
A week ago, former fire chiefs Greg Mullins, from NSW, and Lee Johnson, from Queensland, called for a national summit on how the country should prepare for and resource bushfire emergencies in a changed climate.
Both men are part of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, a group of former fire and emergency chiefs who had warned the government that Australia faced a disastrous fire season.
The group’s ranks have expanded from 23 to 29 members since it first warned the government earlier this year that Australia was unprepared for the escalating climate threat.
But Mullins said those “many factors are all related to climate change”.
“What we feel is that there’s just still this denial of the problem and where we have denial of the problem, there’s not going to be any action,” he said.
“So we’ll go it alone. We’ll arrange a national summit that will look at building standards, fuel management practices, response capability and national coordination arrangements.
“We’ll invite the prime minister and we hope that he comes too.”
The Emergency Leaders for Climate Action said Australia had “embarrassed” itself through its performance at the United Nations climate conference in Madrid at a time when people around the world were watching reports about the country burning.
Mike Brown, a former chief officer for the Tasmanian Fire Service, said the outlook for the next three months was for drier and hotter than average conditions for much of the country.
“That doesn’t stand well for how things develop into the summer,” he said.
Brown said the eastern half of Tasmania, including all of the east coast and the Derwent Valley, was particularly dry. It follows the summer of 2018-19, when huge fires hit world heritage forest.
“I’m a big fan of fuel reduction but the weather window in which to do fuel reduction is becoming narrower due to hotter and windier weather due to climate change,” Brown said.
“You also can’t do fuel reduction in wet forest types. We think that due to the changing climate there needs to be a fresh approach to manage fires and just how people in communities are going to be managed into the future when we’re facing increased fire weather.”
The proposed summit would include fire service workers, Indigenous landowners, the military, the insurance industry and local governments. Mullins said it would occur in late March, but the timing was subject to change if the bushfire season ran for longer than usual.

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(AU) Climate Talks At COP25 A 'Disappointment' As Australia Gets Special Mention

ABC News - Michael Slezak

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke at the COP25 summit in Madrid last week. (AP: Paul White)
Disappointment.
That is the word many are using at the close of the latest United Nations climate talks in Madrid.
And many of those people are pointing to Australia — among a handful of countries — as part of the problem.
While the world agreed in Paris four years ago to stop global warming at well below 2 degrees Celsius, and to try to stop it at 1.5C, the details of how countries will be held to account are still being worked out.
Enter COP25, the second meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement (and the 25th UN Climate Change Conference).
Up for discussion this time were a host of technical matters related to carbon markets, as well as details on how poorer countries would be compensated for climate-related damage, and wording for how countries would ratchet up their ambition next year.
Despite the conference being extended for two days past its planned ending, the conclusion was beset by watered-down compromise on some issues, while others were kicked down the road with no decision being made.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg, who spoke earlier at the conference about "loopholes" in climate negotiations, tweeted that the event appeared to be "falling apart".
"The science is clear, but the science is being ignored," she said.
The COP25 talks were labelled as a "lost opportunity". (Reuters)
Australia received special attention at the event for its position demanding it be allowed to use so-called "carryover credits" to meet its emissions reduction targets; getting it off the hook for having to reduce actual emissions.

Carry-over credits kicked on
Australia has promised to reduce its emissions to 26 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, and it plans to get 90 per cent of the way there by using "carry-over credits" from a different climate treaty: the Kyoto Protocol.
Emissions Reductions Minister Angus Taylor represented Australia at the conference. (ABC News: Toby Hunt)
Australia claims it gained those credits by beating targets set in the Kyoto Protocol — targets in which Australia was, for some time, allowed to actually increase emissions.
It says only about 10 per cent of its Paris target needs to be achieved using actual emissions reductions between 2020 and 2030.
At the conference, Australia appeared to be isolated in its demand, with no other countries pushing for a measure widely described as a "loophole".
Costa Rica's Environment Minister, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, fingered Australia, along with Brazil and the US, for blocking progress.
"Some of the positions are totally unacceptable because they are inconsistent with the commitment and the spirit that we were able to agree upon [in Paris in 2015]," he said.

What happened?
According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the talks were a lost opportunity.
The decision on carry-over credits was part of what's been called the "rulebook for Paris".
As a result of disagreement on key clauses, its finalisation has been kicked down the road for next year's COP26 in the UK.
The push by developing countries for stronger wording on increasing finance for compensation over damage caused by climate change was rebuffed, as were calls for updated targets at next year's conference to be "ambitious".
While Australia contributed to the stalemate by pushing for carry-over credits to be allowed, Brazil and the US also played a significant role in things coming to a halt.
Brazil was pushing for a way of accounting for emissions reductions that many countries saw as double-counting, and the US took a hardline approach to compensation for developing countries.


COP25 President Caroline Schmidt laments failure to reach final agreement on carbon markets. (ABC News)

What's next?
The last UN climate change conference before the Paris Agreement takes effect is set to be in Glasgow in November 2020.
At that conference, countries are required to either update or "communicate" their climate reduction targets.
Central to the Paris Agreement is a "ratchet" mechanism, where countries are expected to lift their ambition over time.
Current targets are not enough to stop global warming at 1.5C or even 2C, instead taking the world to 3C of warming or more.
Inside and outside the conference room, many commentators have pointed to a polarisation in the debate around climate action.

 Pacific pivot undermined
Australia's return to its Pacific neighbours after years of neglect could risk being undermined by the Government's intransigence on the region's main threat: climate change.
While some world leaders advocate a conservative approach, there is also an increasing push for urgent action from some members of the public.
Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at Union of Concerned Scientists, said she had been attending since 1991 but had "never" seen anything like the almost "total disconnect" at COP25.
"[That is] between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action."
"Led by the youth, growing numbers of people around the world are demanding that their leaders take bold, ambitious actions to tackle the climate crisis... But most of the world's biggest emitting countries are missing in action and resisting calls to raise their ambition.
Richie Merzian was a climate negotiator for Australia for almost a decade, and is now at the progressive think tank The Australia Institute.
Before heading back from Madrid, he said: "Despite clear and dire warnings from scientists, record levels of protests and unprecedented climate impacts, the conference fell victim to the base positions of a handful of major polluting countries, Australia included."
Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor was contacted for comment.

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Major States Snub Calls For Climate Action As U.N. Summit Wraps Up

Reuters - Matthew Green | Valerie Volcovici | Jake Spring

The COP25 talks were labelled as a "lost opportunity". (Reuters)
Key points
  • COP25 talks seen as test of global will to cut emissions
  • Final draft eschews pledges for faster action
  • Brazil, China, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United States among those dragging heels - delegates
MADRID - A handful of major states resisted pressure on Sunday to ramp up efforts to combat global warming as a U.N. climate summit ground to a close, angering smaller countries and a growing protest movement that is pushing for emergency action.The COP25 talks in Madrid were viewed as a test of governments’ collective will to heed the advice of science to cut greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly, in order to prevent rising global temperatures from hitting irreversible tipping points.
But the conference, in its concluding draft, endorsed only a declaration on the “urgent need” to close the gap between existing emissions pledges and the temperature goals of the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement - an outcome U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called disappointing.
Many developing countries and campaigners had wanted to see much more explicit language spelling out the importance of countries submitting bolder pledges on emissions as the Paris process enters a crucial implementation phase next year.
Brazil, China, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United States had led resistance to bolder action, delegates said.
“These talks reflect how disconnected country leaders are from the urgency of the science and the demands of their citizens in the streets,” said Helen Mountford, Vice President for Climate and Economics, at the World Resources Institute think-tank. “They need to wake up in 2020.”
The lack of a strong outcome to reinforce the Paris accord raises the stakes for the next big climate summit, in Glasgow in November next year. As hosts, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government faces the task of persuading countries to submit more ambitious plans to cut carbon emissions.
The Madrid summit had been due to end at the two-week mark on Friday but ran on for two extra days - a long delay even by the standards of often torturous climate summits.
After final decisions were made, Chile’s environment minister Carolina Schmidt - who served as president of the talks - said she was “of mixed emotions”.
The country had earlier triggered outrage after drafting a version of the text that campaigners complained was so weak it betrayed the spirit of the Paris Agreement.

‘A crime against humanity’?
The process set out in the Paris deal hinges on countries ratcheting up emissions cuts next year.
The final draft did acknowledge the “significant gap” between existing pledges and the temperature goals adopted in 2015.
Nevertheless, it was still seen as a weak response to the sense of urgency felt by communities around the world afflicted by floods, droughts, wildfires and cyclones that scientists say have become more intense as the Earth rapidly warms.
Guterres, who opened the talks on Dec 2., said he was “disappointed”.
“The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis,” he said in a statement. “We must not give up and I will not give up.”
Delegates drew some consolation from an agreement reached in Brussels last week by the European Union’s 28 member states, bar Poland, to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, under a “Green Deal” to wean the continent off fossil fuels.
“It seems that EU now needs to be the leader and we want to be and we are going to be and that is what we are doing,” said Krista Mikkonen, Finland’s environment minister and the EU’s representative at the talks.
The negotiations became mired in disputes over the rules that should govern international carbon trading, favoured by wealthier countries to reduce the cost of cutting emissions. Brazil and Australia were among the main holdouts, delegates said, and the summit deferred big decisions on carbon markets.
“As many others have expressed, we are disappointed that we once again failed to find agreement,” said Felipe De Leon, a climate official speaking on behalf of Costa Rica.
Smaller nations had also hoped to win guarantees of financial aid to cope with climate change. The Pacific island of Tuvalu accused the United States, which began withdrawing from the Paris process last month, of blocking progress.
“There are millions of people all around the world who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change,” Ian Fry, Tuvalu’s representative, told delegates. “Denying this fact could be interpreted by some to be a crime against humanity.”

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