25/03/2020

(AU) Call To Integrate Post-Virus Rebuild With Land And Climate Repair

Farmonline



COVID-19 stimulus and budget initiatives should align with investment and policies working on land, climate and economic repair, the Carbon Market Institute says.
In welcoming the Climate Change Authority's latest policy toolkit report, CMI's chief executive officer John Connor said the government should plan now to integrate both the recovery from COVID-19, and the huge public stimulus, with the recovery from Australia's black summer bushfire season.
"Aligning the three tasks of land, climate and economic repair will give clear long-term signals to investors, business and farmers who are managing risks and seizing the opportunities in the transition to net-zero emissions economy. These signals can help ensure the long-term safety and prosperity of Australia," he said.
"It is imperative that we use the public funds that are available now well, but plan for when public taxpayer funding will need to be reduced," added Mr Connor.
This can be done by evolving policies such as the Government's safeguard mechanism so that its carbon reduction regulations or 'baselines' for emissions intensive industries align, at least, with national carbon reduction targets.
Farmers have been winners from the Government's Emission Reduction Fund with $100 million being invested in land sector projects.
"The ERF is throwing lifelines and new revenue streams to farmers who have been struggling with drought, but these policies need more to be put on more sustainable footing, and be less dependent on public taxpayer funds," said Mr Connor.
Next week will see the tenth ERF auction after the last auction priced carbon reductions at $14.15 a tonne.
"The Government's commitment to add almost $2 billion to the ERF over the next 15 years is welcome but we should be planning to transition to policies - such as stronger Safeguard Mechanism baselines - that make business the drivers of this market, not the taxpayer," said Mr Connor. This week's report by the Climate Change Authority "Prospering in a Low Emission World: A Policy Toolkit for Australia" also recommends declining baselines and measures to maximise the potential of the land sector in carbon reduction.
CMI believes we can and must reform with smart policy that manages emissions intensive companies' trade exposure and supports affected workers and communities.
CMI's January 2020 bushfire recovery workshop report noted that recognising climate change as a factor in the unprecedented bush fire weather conditions meant that emissions reduction is hazard reduction. It called for an integration of land and climate repair tasks, now we need to also integrate economic repair with these tasks.
"Finally, it is worth noting that the South Korean Government, so successful in containing COVID-19's impacts, is announcing policies for net-zero emissions for 2050 and boosting its carbon pricing mechanism, setting the course for a clean and more resilient post-COVID-19 economy, Australia should do the same," said Mr Connor.

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(UK) Climate Change Is Still With Us

Financial Times - Nick Butler

The fundamentals of energy use have not changed, even if the focus of attention has
A visualisation of Tidal Lagoon Power’s tidal energy project in Swansea Bay, Wales © PA 

Nick Butler is chair of the Policy Institute at King’s College London
Climate concerns were top of the agenda just a few weeks ago. Governments were making commitments to transform the ways in which energy is used. Companies from Microsoft to BP were expressing their intention to decarbonise.

None of the fundamentals have changed: emissions will fall a little this year in line with energy consumption but the shift is not permanent. After the coronavirus pandemic ends, a carbon-rich reality will return. The world in 2021 will still rely on hydrocarbons for close to 80 per cent of its energy needs, the chances of extreme weather conditions have not changed and the risk of floods has not receded.

The level of attention being given to the issue has, however, fallen sharply. Preparations for the COP26 meeting planned to be held in Glasgow in November have been minimal and the event could be postponed. Media coverage has moved on to more immediate problems, and companies are focused on responding to dramatic short-term falls in activity and income and on survival.

Recapturing attention will not be easy but it will be necessary. Two practical approaches would match the mood of the moment and help restore lost momentum.

The first is to accept the urgent need for international co-ordination of policy in key areas. That is evident in the coronavirus crisis in terms of both the medical issues and the economic implications. Similar co-ordination is needed for the climate agenda. The International Energy Agency, in the absence of any other serious body equipped to do the job, should be asked to propose how such co-ordination can be put in place.

The process matters but so does the substance. The second thing to do is to shift the focus from the setting of goals for 2050 to what can be done over the next decade — 2050 is beyond the horizon of any government, while 2030 is within measurable sight. Countries can take different actions depending on their circumstances but all can move towards a common objective. A cut of 25 per cent in emissions by 2030 will not satisfy campaigners but it has the virtue of being within reach.

The aggregation of certain steps using proven technology can make a material difference in the short term. These include:
  • efficiency gains encouraged through incentives and regulation to close the wide gaps between performance at national and sector levels;
  • the development of infrastructure from strengthened grids to charging systems capable of dealing with growing numbers of electric vehicles;
  • the deployment of smart systems to maximise energy use; and 
  • greater use of storage technology that is advancing beyond vehicle batteries and already playing a role in managing volatility at grid level.
Of course, a 25 per cent reduction is not enough and we should also use the next few years to prepare for the bigger steps needed later. That is about testing at scale prospects that are already within sight, for example hydrogen, which could transform the heating sector and potentially many other forms of energy consumption such as in ships’ engines.

Work needs to be done on carbon capture and storage to identify ways in which costs can be reduced and how carbon can be used rather than simply stored. Tidal and wave power must be made more economic and new financing mechanisms found that match their potential to produce power over many decades. Small modular nuclear reactors should be built and tested. Fusion power is a possibility but needs years of further research.

Some of these may not prove to be viable but all need exploring. At the same time the door must be opened to other technologies that can reduce the emissions from the production, processing and use of energy.

Few of these ideas can be deployed at scale until the 2030s but the work should be accelerated once the coronavirus crisis subsides. The effort should be public and private, local and international and should not be delayed by waiting for the most reluctant to sign up.

It is time to move on from proclamations of extinction and vague promises to do something by 2050. Over the coming weeks we should turn our idle, if well washed, hands to producing a practical, pragmatic plan to reduce emissions over the next decade.

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Everyone, Everywhere: The Global Challenge Of Climate Change

Nature - Maria Ivanova

Christiana Figueres (second from left) and other global leaders celebrate adoption of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Credit: Arnaud Bouissou/COP21/Anadolu Agency/Getty
 
Climate change demands action: humanity must shift from persistent destruction to intentional regeneration. So, how best to make that happen? Two new books give very different answers. In one, the solution lies exclusively with nation states and their protection of security and self-interest. The other expects a global-scale spirit of shared endeavour to harness the collective power of governments, corporations and individuals.

The collaborative approach is set out insightfully in The Future We Choose. Its authors — Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac — had crucial roles in the Paris climate agreement of December 2015. Hailed both as a monumental achievement and as woefully inadequate, the agreement saw 197 parties commit to keeping the global average temperature rise to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial levels. Figueres is recognized as the person most responsible for that achievement: as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, she was at the heart of the process for six years, from the aftermath of the breakdown of negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 to the success in Paris. Rivett-Carnac worked with Figueres at the UN and ran political strategy for the agreement.

Visions of the future
The book is an immersive journey through two very different visions of the year 2050. In one, the world has no fresh air and two billion people live with temperatures exceeding 60 °C for days on end. On the alternative, thriving, green planet, renewable energy powers smart grids and 50% of the land is covered in forest. Although such a stark choice could be criticized as simplistic, it brings into sharp relief the risk that humanity runs.

“Systemic change is a deeply personal endeavor,” the authors write. The most effective way to get anyone to act — from the person on the street to the diplomat in the negotiation room — is, they argue, to shift mindsets towards a deep acknowledgement of humanity’s dependence on nature.

Figueres and Rivett-Carnac are in a prime position to unpick exactly how to do that. Their behind-the-scenes stories are captivating, including the little-known details of the 2014 climate negotiations in which China and the United States moved away from competition towards shared wins, or Figueres’s decision to keep the 2015 conference running after UN security services found a bomb in the underground station serving the conference centre. I yearned for more, however, on what it took to change the mood and get commitment that no one thought possible. What was the exact chain of events leading up to the strike of the green gavel at 7.25 p.m. on 12 December 2015?

One of the duo’s major achievements was to bring civil society and business into the historically intergovernmental affair. Rivett-Carnac, for example, designed and led the Groundswell Initiative — a largely covert organization that mobilized support for the ambitious agreement from a wide range of stakeholders. Nation states are not the single or even most important driver in solving the climate crisis; it is, as the authors put it, an “everyone-everywhere mission”.
Bolivian soldiers combat forest fires in 2019. Credit: Aizar Raldes/AFP via Getty
National self-interest
By contrast, Climate Change and the Nation State argues for reframing the struggle in nationalist terms. Some 55% of all emissions come from four countries — China, the United States, India and Russia. What would compel these states to drastically change their behaviour and reduce emissions? For author Anatol Lieven, the answer lies in self-interest.

A British journalist with significant expertise in Pakistan and Russia, and an academic post in international relations, Lieven weaves his first-hand knowledge and experience into a compelling narrative. The branch of international-relations theory called realism, which assumes that states act to maximize their power, has rarely considered environmental concerns. Lieven calls on his realist colleagues to “wake up” to climate change as a paramount security threat. The heatwaves across Europe in 2003 and in Russia in 2010, he points out, respectively claimed more lives than France lost in its eight-year war in Algeria and Russia lost in a ten-year conflict with Afghanistan.

The mass movement of people, Lieven argues, will be “the most dangerous indirect effect … on Russia and the West”. The confluence of climate change, migration and automation will be the perfect storm, rivalling the devastation of nuclear war. Displacement of large numbers of people will put strain on states’ ability to provide for their populations. When this comes on top of massive unemployment resulting from increased automation, the nation state will not be able to respond. That will lead to a world much like Figueres and Rivett-Carnac’s potential dystopia.

 Urgent action
Lieven makes a strong case for urgent action, especially by powerful states. He sees the armed forces, as experts on national security, as the logical first responders — not just for crowd control, but for large-scale infrastructure changes such as building flood defences. He advocates military support of the US Green New Deal, for example.

But Lieven is wrong to disregard global governance. Climate change is the quintessential worldwide problem. No one state, no matter how powerful its economy or military, can resolve it alone. Despite the primacy of the nation state in international affairs, global agreements and institutions are indispensable in ensuring that commitments are fulfilled, action is supported and agreements revised — think of the role of the World Health Organization in the coronavirus pandemic. This underscores that human and planetary health are inextricably bound, that global action is imperative, and that effective international or supranational organizations are crucial.

Lieven is convincing when he writes: “If there was ever an issue that demands prudence in judgment and courage in action, it is climate change.” But the judgement and action have to be global. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac might come across as overly optimistic in their conviction that a sense of global responsibility, for fellow humans and other species alike, will prove sufficient to spur the necessary action. But their short and simple book grabs you by the heart and makes you want to join the great adventure against overwhelming odds.

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