07/01/2020

(AU) Bushfire Preparations Stymied By Climate Change Deniers In Government, Says Small Business Lobby

ABC News - Michael Janda

COSBOA says it is not only the small businesses destroyed or damaged by fire that are suffering. (Supplied: Lorena Granados)
Key points
  • Small business lobby COSBOA warned many businesses "will close and not reopen" as a result of the fires and loss of summer trade
  • COSBOA chief executive Peter Strong said climate change deniers in the Federal Government should "shut-up" and "go and sit at the backbench where they belong"
  • The lobby is urging governments to assist fire-affected regions to put on events once the fires are over to lure visitors back to those areas
A key small business lobby group has urged any climate change sceptics on the Coalition frontbench to quit their ministries, arguing they stymied preparations for this bushfire season.
The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) said its members who have been affected by the fires, either directly or indirectly, are generally disappointed with the Federal Government's handling of the crisis.
"What I'm hearing from my members is the fact that there should have been better preparation for what was predicted by many to be very bad bushfires, worse than normal," said COSBOA's chief executive Peter Strong.
"The preparation at the state level, I think, was very good. But at the federal level, there are people within Government who firmly believe there is no such thing as climate change or that human beings don't have an impact upon it, and they are adamant that no extra work or extra effort should ever happen because they don't believe in climate change.
"That's where the disappointment is within my membership, and we want to hear from those climate change deniers in the Government ranks that they will now shut up, they will go and sit at the backbench where they belong and they will not interfere in developing processes to respond to this situation."
Morrison's fires response has put
his political judgement in question
Within the Government, there is widespread acknowledgement that Scott Morrison's Midas touch has gone missing, writes David Speers.
The Federal Government has faced heavy criticism around its handling of the bushfire crisis, including accusations that ads authorised by the Liberal Party were politicising the disaster and that the acquisition of extra aerial firefighting resources was too slow.
However, the Government said its call-up of 3,000 Defence reservists to assist with relief efforts is an unprecedented response to a natural disaster in Australia.
"I can understand why people are angry, absolutely. But when I look at our response as a Federal Government, we've got the ADF [Australian Defence Force] reservists out the door, we've actually deployed defence assets in a way they never have been," Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie told the ABC's RN Breakfast program.

'Businesses will close and not reopen'
Mr Strong told RN Breakfast that the scale and timing of the fires meant thousands of businesses were losing a large part of their annual income.
"In a lot of cases, they might get 80 per cent of their incomes come from this time of year, as you go through December, January, February," he said.
"It's when they make the money they need to stay open for the rest of the year."
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ABC Radio National Breakfast
7m 34secs

He said the summer revenue shortfall meant many will go out of business, especially in tourist areas around national parks where blackened forests may not recover for several years.
"There will certainly be businesses that will close and not reopen," he predicted.
"If you go to the bushfire affected areas, where people won't be visiting for a long, long time, they just won't be able to open because there won't be any passing trade.
"It will have a huge impact, and the impact on the businesses means an impact on the whole community as jobs are lost."
Parliament House was shrouded by a heavy haze as Canberra was blanketed in bushfire smoke. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
Mr Strong said it is not just businesses in towns directly ravaged by the fires that are suffering.
"We have areas that have been smoke affected as well — Canberra's been very heavily smoke affected — and so a lot of businesses there are not trading the way they used to because people aren't
Can Morrison live down his
George W Bush moment?
Scott Morrison has had some perplexing failures of political and policy judgement in recent weeks, writes Laura Tingle.
going out, or people are going to the shopping malls so they businesses outside shopping malls are being affected," he said.
Mr Strong said governments at all levels could assist by funding events that would encourage tourists back to affected areas after the fires have passed.
"There's all sorts of things that could be done — putting on fetes and festivals, putting on music festivals, you've still got your beaches, the beaches are still going to be pristine, there's still reasons for people to visit, but now it's up to government, local government, and businesses themselves to send a message out, 'Here's some reasons why you should visit'."

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(NYT) As Fires Rage, Australia Sees Its Leader as Missing in Action

New York Times - Livia Albeck-Ripka | Jamie Tarabay | Isabella Kwai

The country is venting frustration with Prime Minister Scott Morrison over what many view as a nonchalant response to the disastrous blazes and his unwavering dismissal of climate change.
Credit Pool photo by James Ross
HASTINGS, Australia — The posters have popped up on streets around Australia, showing the prime minister looking very tropical: floral wreath on his head, ocean-blue shirt open at the collar.
“MISSING,” they blared. “Your country is on fire.”
The immediate reference was clear. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has been widely castigated for taking a vacation to Hawaii last month, and trying to keep it quiet, while Australia was in the early clutches of one of its most devastating fire seasons ever.
But the message went well beyond one island getaway. Angry and frightened, Australians have been venting their frustration with Mr. Morrison over what they see as his nonchalant and ineffectual response to the disastrous blazes and his unwavering dismissal of the force that has made them so intense: climate change.
With thousands fleeing eastern towns this weekend as fires swept from the hills to the coast, the inescapable realities of a warming world were colliding with the calculated politics of inaction.
Mr. Morrison has minimized the connection between climate change and Australia’s extreme environmental conditions, even as the country just completed its hottest and driest year on record. He has derided calls to end coal mining as “reckless,” prioritizing economic interests and loyalty to a powerful lobby. He has opposed taxing heat-trapping emissions or taking other significant steps to reduce them, although a majority of Australians say the government should take stronger action.
Credit Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock
And he has signaled no change in his policies even as 24 people have died, hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and more than 12 million acres have burned, an area larger than Denmark. On Sunday, weather conditions eased a bit, with light rain in some areas, but blazes were still burning in Victoria and New South Wales, and some towns were being evacuated.
“The thing that strikes everyone about the present situation is the federal government’s disengagement and lethargy, to put it politely,” said Bill Hare, director of Climate Analytics, a policy institute.
“People are just bewildered,” he added.
As the fire conditions worsened over the weekend, Mr. Morrison defended his government’s response and announced a military mobilization — one that he quickly promoted in a video on social media, drawing widespread criticism. He also denied that his government had played down the links between global warming and changes in Australia’s weather patterns.
“The government has always made this connection, and that has never been in dispute,” he said.
The prime minister said he was undeterred by the anger directed at him. “There has been a lot of blame being thrown around,” he said. “Blame: It doesn’t help anybody at this time, and over-analysis of these things is not a productive exercise.”
Mr. Morrison’s attempt at damage control came as Australians have been voicing a growing sense since November, when the fires arrived early and with far more force than usual, that the government is no longer protecting them in the way it once did.
For much of the time since, the prime minister said that it was not the time to talk about climate change, and that those who did were merely trying to score political points.
But each surge of the flames into crowded suburbs and coastal getaways has presented a fresh test of Mr. Morrison’s defense of the status quo. He has sought to tamp down outrage mostly with photo opportunities and a populist appeal that echoes President Trump. Mr. Morrison has portrayed those who support greater climate action as effete snobs trying to impose their ways on an unwilling quiet majority.
The prime minister published a New Year’s message in newspapers across Australia that pushed back against international pressure for the country to do more.
Credit Adam Taylor/Australian Prime Minister's Office

“Australians have never been fussed about trying to impress people overseas or respond to what others tell us we should think or what we should do,” Mr. Morrison said. “We have always made our own decisions in Australia.”
Critics suggest that his antipathy toward action on climate change has contributed to what they consider a hands-off response to the fires, treating them as a tragedy rather than a turning point.
For months, Mr. Morrison rebuffed calls for a more forceful intervention by the federal government — like a broad military deployment or the largely symbolic declaration of a national emergency — by noting that firefighting had long been the responsibility of individual states. He changed course on Saturday, announcing a call-up of military reservists and new aircraft resources.
The prime minister also initially resisted pressure to compensate the thousands of volunteer firefighters who are performing the overwhelming bulk of the work to protect communities. He later relented, approving payments for each of up to about $4,200, or 6,000 Australian dollars. The decision came a week after he cut his Hawaii trip short and returned to Australia following the deaths of two volunteer firefighters.
Mr. Morrison, who began his professional life in tourism, has been mocked online with the hashtag #scottyfrommarketing. On New Year’s Day, as fire victims surveyed the destruction from the wildfires under orange skies, photos emerged of Mr. Morrison hosting the Australian cricket team in Sydney.
Credit Matthew Abbott for The New York Times
“It reminds me of the George W. Bush moment after Hurricane Katrina in 2005,” said Daniel Flitton of the Lowy Institute, a nonpartisan policy center in Australia. “He seemed to be out of touch, and misread the depths of public concern. That became a lodestone he had to carry for the rest of his term in office.”
More recently, Mr. Morrison has tried to defend Australia’s environmental policies, portraying his government as taking firm action. He said repeatedly in a news conference on Thursday — his first since before Christmas — that the government was on course to “meet and beat” its emission reduction targets.
Climate scientists say those targets were low to begin with. And Australia’s emissions have been rising, while the leadership continues to fight for the right to emit even more.
During United Nations climate talks in Madrid late last year, Australia came under heavy criticism for proposing to carry over credits from the two-decade-old Kyoto Protocol to help it meet its targets under the landmark Paris accord.
“We are laggards,” said Joseph Camilleri, an emeritus professor of politics at La Trobe University in Melbourne, where he specializes in existential threats, including climate change.
“What the Australian fires do best is show us that climate change is now with us here and truly,” he added, “and everyone, including Australia, needs to do an awful lot more than we are doing.”
Australia’s conservative leaders often point out that the country accounts for only a tiny percentage of the world’s heat-trapping emissions. But some experts called the Madrid maneuver a potentially pernicious example from a country that continues to extract and export huge amounts of coal that ends up being burned in power plants around the world.
Credit Wendell Teodoro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Credit...Wendell Teodoro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“The government claims it has reduced emissions,” Mr. Hare said. “What they’re using are essentially accounting tricks to justify or explain their reasoning.”
In his news conference on Thursday, Mr. Morrison framed the government’s climate policy in a way he often has before, as something he will not let get in the way of continued prosperity. He also asked Australians to trust the government and to be patient.
To many, that appeal did not match the gravity of the fear and anxiety coursing through the country.
Jim McLennan, an adjunct professor specializing in bush-fire preparedness at La Trobe University, said that many of the regions affected this season had no recent history of severe bush fires, making it difficult for communities to prepare.
Australians are also emotionally unready, he added, for the extreme future that most likely awaits them. Some scientists say
people may have to throng to cities to escape the threat of bush fires.
“I can’t think of a time,” he said, “where we have had so many serious fires occurring in so many different parts of the country at roughly the same time. It is a kind of new world.”
Mr. Morrison may be able to weather the political storms. The next election is two years away, and he is fresh off a surprise electoral victory in which he was buoyed by support in Queensland, a coal-mining center.
But across the country’s heavily populated eastern coast, the public’s patience is nearly exhausted and turning rapidly to fury. Hours after the news conference on Thursday, Mr. Morrison visited a fire-ravaged community, Cobargo, to see the damage and pledge support to residents.
They heckled him out of town. “You left the country to burn,” one person yelled before the prime minister walked away and set off in his car.
In Mallacoota, another devastated community in southeastern Australia where hundreds of people were evacuated by naval ship to the town of Hastings, Michael Harkin, a vacationer from Sydney, said his experience during the fires had intensified his anger toward the government over its inaction on climate change.
The Morrison government, he said, was exhibiting “incompetent governance avoiding the inevitable.”
“They’re not keeping us safe at all,” he added.
Credit Steven Saphore/EPA, via Shutterstock
 
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(AU) The Bushfire Crisis Has Given The Government A Political 'Out' To Its Climate Change Problem

ABC News - Frank Jotzo

The bushfire emergency, arising from the drought, has become a national crisis. (Supplied: DELWP Gippsland)
Frank Jotzo
Frank Jotzo is a professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy.
He is representing the ANU as an observer at the UN climate conference. 
The fires across Australia are taking a terrible toll. For those who have lost their loved ones and for those who have lost their homes.
For those who suffer weeks and months of fear, and for the firefighters working beyond exhaustion.
For the millions who breathe harmful smoke with the risk of future illness, and for the many businesses that go broke.
And for nature: we are losing animals and their habitat, biological diversity and natural beauty at massive scale.
The physical and mental scars will be with us for years. Every drive or walk in the woods will be a reminder. Spring will bring fear of the summer.
The bushfire emergency, arising from the drought, has become a national crisis.

You need to lead
It could be the turning point for Australia's climate change politics and policy that is so deeply in the ditch.
It could allow Government politicians to discard their past destructive stance on climate change, and give the opposition an opportunity to look to the future.
So dear Prime Minister and Cabinet, please find it within yourselves to drop the old anti-climate change stance.
You have created the perception of being aloof, uncaring and ineffective on the fires. This was epitomised in the way the Prime Minister turned his back on a resident of fire-ravaged Cobargo when she pleaded for help and the partisan way of going about the announcement of the federal measures.
You will need to lead, and that means showing concern and acknowledging that climate change is a huge issue for Australia.
And you will need to pivot on climate change policy. You've been politically locked into a no-action position, but the bushfires give you the reason to change. The bulk of Australia's business community will be behind you, they yearn for sensible national climate policy.
You can make it your mission to protect the country from harm, an essential conservative cause.
Your biggest problem will be the Murdoch media, some rabid backbenchers and some coal companies. But you are in charge, right?

We need a strong and positive voice
And dear Labor, please be a strong and positive voice. You'll need to get over the idea that the way to electoral salvation is by singing the praises of coal to differentiate from the Greens.
The party of progress and social justice needs to stand for strong action on climate change, and for helping workers and communities in the transition that will sweep Australia's energy and industrial sector.
An all-around strong position on climate action is the natural position of the progressive centre.
Under climate change, the conditions for catastrophic fires will likely be much more frequent. (Supplied: Adam Meredith)
A large majority of voters know that climate change is real and important and say that something should be done about it. That sentiment will likely strengthen.
The usual limitation is the fear of costs. But the fires and drought remind people that our high standard of living depends on nature, and that the very underpinnings of our wellbeing slip away when nature gets out of balance.
The bushfire catastrophe will put climate change policy once again into the mainstream of public concern. And perhaps 2020 will be the year when the political contest starts being over what specifically to do about it, rather than whether or not to act.
It is possible: the UK and Germany have conservative governments that pursue strong climate change policy, and the main opposition parties are broadly in agreement.

If there was ever a 'nation building' program, this is it
Under climate change, the conditions for catastrophic fires will likely be much more frequent — along with the conditions for drought, flooding and storms.
It is plain to see how hard climate change could hit Australia's economy: the rebuilding after catastrophes like the fires, the costs of upgrading infrastructure including to better withstand flooding, and the losses in tourism and agriculture which are major sources of export income. Add to that the widespread damage to unique ecology, which is not only a value in itself but part of what makes Australia attractive to the world.
There is no need to despair. There will be rebuilding and regrowth, but as a nation we need to muster the courage to accept the inevitability of future catastrophes, and have an honest conversation about how we will go about them in a future of accelerating climate change.
It is plain to see how hard climate change could hit Australia's economy. (Instagram: @travelling_aus_family)
We need to plan ahead, provide the resources to fully deal with the impacts as they come, invest in infrastructure and raise capability. If ever there was a "nation building" program, this is it.
A good starting point is the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework that was prepared within the Department of Home Affairs.
It argues for better anticipation of future disasters in the context of climate change, and for more integrated decision making.
It has been buried, but Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton and the Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo could now take the running with this blueprint.
Dealing with disasters is only the start of it. We need a comprehensive strategy for responding to climate change impacts.
That means a shakeout of government policy and planning at all levels of government, testing investments for whether they are climate change proof. It also means giving businesses — including farmers — the best information and right incentives to plan ahead for climate change.
Worryingly, in recent years Australia has fallen behind in climate change adaptation research and planning.

Your legacy is at stake
And of course we need to do what we can to limit future climate change. That means encouraging strong global action on emissions.
We cannot do that as long as we are seen as a recalcitrant on the global stage, as we are now.
We should invest to transition Australia's economy to a zero carbon powerhouse, and to build up renewables-based energy export industries.
With our unrivalled renewable energy resources, we are extremely well placed to prosper in a global zero-carbon energy system. But we need to get started, and be seen to be playing ball on climate change.
Australia has profited from fossil fuels for decades. The workers and architects of the carbon industries deserve respect. But the future for our economy lies in services, clean industries and smart agriculture.
This is all quite obvious to most of our young people, and that is where things will turn.
For those who see their future in peril, climate change action is not a left-right divisive issue, but one of common sense.
The pressure and that will come from the young generation will sweep the climate nay-saying aside.
So dear politicians of all stripes: get with sensible climate policy, or be left behind. Your legacy is at stake.

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