(AU) Climate Change Action Stymied By Australian Business Lobby, UK Think Tank Finds

ABC News - Elysse Morgan


Extended interview with Edward Collins (Elysse Morgan)

Key Points A new report finds the Minerals Council of Australia is the "single largest negative influence on Australian climate-related policy" The Business Council of Australia, two state-based minerals councils and the main oil and gas lobby group are also fingered in the report InfluenceMap, which wrote the report, has previously found Australia's climate policies are consistent with a 3-4 degrees Celsius temperature rise

A UK-based climate think tank has named the Minerals Council of Australia, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the NSW Minerals Council as the three organisations most responsible for undermining climate policy in Australia.

Mining giants BHP, Santos, Rio Tinto and Glencore were found to have the most concentrated network of links to industry associations that "continue to work against Paris-aligned policy for Australia".

The new report was written by InfluenceMap, which was launched shortly before the Paris Agreement in 2015 and provides data and analysis to major shareholders and investors on how businesses are affecting climate policy around the world.

It is a think tank funded by environmentally focused charities and organisations, including the IKEA Foundation and the European Union.

The report into Australia's industry associations and their climate policy footprint finds three-quarters of Australia's most influential industry associations are having an overwhelmingly negative impact on climate policy, taking positions against climate regulations and promoting a pro-fossil-fuels agenda.

The report also argues there has been limited public scrutiny of these activities.

Minerals Council 'single largest negative influence'

InfluenceMap looked at 20 industry associations — including the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA), the Business Council of Australia (BCA), the NSW and Queensland minerals councils, and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) — based on their active involvement in climate and energy policy.

The report cites the MCA's recent advocacy for reduced taxes and faster project approval for mining, its opposition to strong international climate commitments, and its calls to water down clean-energy targets as some of the evidence against it.

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It highlights the BCA's push for the Government to support gas as part of the energy transition, that it has opposed renewable-energy policies in favour of "technology-neutral" policies and lobbied against state-based renewables targets.

The report notes the Minerals Council of Australia is the "single largest negative influence on Australian climate-related policy", while the BCA was named as the fourth biggest drag.

This is perhaps surprising given the BCA states publicly: "We support the need for a market-based carbon price to drive the transition and incentivise investment in low and no-emissions technology."

It also says it supports the science of climate change, the Paris Agreement, and investment in technology to get Australia to a net-zero-emissions future.

But the InfluenceMap report finds, despite the positive public statements it has made, the group's actions show it "continues to oppose Paris-aligned climate policy".

Shareholder pressure ramping up

The report comes as activists and shareholder groups increase their pressure on companies, demanding boards take a more active approach to reducing emissions and review the lobby groups they belong to.

As a result of shareholder pressure, BHP has reviewed its membership of organisations such as the BCA and MCA every year since 2017.

Just last month, BHP announced new global climate policy standards, including national emissions reduction targets consistent with the Paris Agreement, and further scrutiny of its lobby group membership.

It faces a vote at its annual general meeting on a recommendation the mining giant suspends memberships of industry associations that have advocated for COVID-19 economic stimulus measures inconsistent with the Paris Agreement's goals.

BHP's board has not endorsed the item, stating: "It does not take account of recent changes to BHP's approach to industry associations." The mining giant is aiming to make changes from within the tent.

In August it adopted policy positions, including net-zero emissions by 2050, and indicated it expected its positions to be reflected by associations it was a member of.

However, "the Big Australian" fares poorly in InfluenceMap's analysis.

"BHP has done a lot on the transparency front recently and I'm sure investors will see that as a positive step, but this assessment is really looking at them and their impact," report author Edward Collins told ABC's The Business.

"So that ranking for BHP is really coming from the fact that they have the largest network of links to industry associations that we judge to be the most negatively influential in Australia and, although we factor in the fact that they have distanced themselves from some of those positions, they've still come out as the worst in our analysis due to the strength and number of those links."

As with BHP, Rio Tinto is also facing shareholder pressure, as is Woodside Energy, which is Australia's largest oil and gas producer.

COVID-19 response highlights transparency problems

The analysis does not include the policy response to the pandemic and, in particular, the "gas-led recovery" pushed by energy sector veterans Nev Power and Andrew Liveris, who sit on the Federal Government's hand-picked economic advisory panel.

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Mr Collins said the Government's urgent response to the need for stimulus out of COVID-19, and the potential for influential lobby groups to direct policy, only increased the need for transparency.

"One thing we are quite keen on is more meaningful transparency measures so external parties can understand the relationships between companies and government policy institutions and how these influences are taking place," he said.

"It would hopefully make our job redundant in the future."

InfluenceMap's 2019 report found Australian representative groups featured disproportionately among the world's most damaging lobbyists on climate.

According to a consortium of science institutes behind the Climate Action Tracker, Australia is headed for an 8 per cent increase in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which would be aligned with global a temperature increase between 3 and 4 degrees Celsius if replicated globally.

Links

• In the fraught field of energy policy, Scott Morrison is taking the middle ground
• Federal Government threatens to build gas plant if electricity sector doesn't replace retiring coal-fired power stations
• Offsetting your emissions: Greenwashing or a win for the environment?
• Investors are trying to shut down fossil fuel companies from the inside — this is what they're doing
• (AU) Narrabri Gas Project Should Be Blocked, Says Ex-Chief Scientist
• (AU) Australia’s Shifting Mood On Climate Change
• (AU) Climate Change Policy: The Missing Middle
• The businesses that are — and are not — leading on climate change
• Top oil firms spending millions lobbying to block climate change policies, says report

Pakistan’s Most Terrifying Adversary Is Climate Change

New York Times - Fatima Bhutto

The country debates women’s honor inexhaustibly but pays little attention to the ferocious and imminent dangers of climate disasters.

Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan, was flooded in August after the heaviest rains in decades. Credit...Shahzaib Akber/EPA, via Shutterstock

Author Fatima Bhutto, an essayist and novelist from Pakistan, is the author, most recently, of the novel “The Runaways".

Karachi is home. My bustling, chaotic city of about 20 million people on the Arabian Sea is an ethnically and religiously diverse metropolis and the commercial capital of Pakistan, generating more than half of the country’s revenue.

Over the decades, Karachi has survived violent sectarian strife, political violence between warring groups claiming the city and terrorism. Karachi has survived its gangsters sparring with rocket launchers; its police force, more feared than common criminals; its rulers and bureaucrats committed to rapacious, bottomless corruption. Now Karachi faces its most terrifying adversary: climate change.

In August, Karachi’s stifling summer heat was heavy and pregnant. The sapodilla trees and frangipani leaves were lush and green; the Arabian Sea, quiet and distant, had grown muddy. When the palm fronds started to sway, slowly, the city knew the winds had picked up and rain would follow. Every year the monsoons come — angrier and wilder — lashing the unprepared city. Studies show that climate change is causing monsoons to be more intense and less predictable, and cover larger areas of land for longer periods of time.

On Aug. 27, Karachi received nearly nine inches of monsoon rain, the highest amount of rainfall ever in a single day. Nineteen inches of rain fell in August, according to the meteorological officials. It is enough to drown a city that has no functioning drainage, no emergency systems and no reliable health care (except for those who can pay). Thousands of homes and settlements of the poor were subsumed and destroyed, and more than 100 people were killed.

A traders association estimated that the submerging of markets and warehouses damaged goods worth 25 billion Pakistani rupees, or about $150 million. Local papers estimated that with Karachi at a standstill for a week, in some congested areas for longer, Pakistan’s gross domestic product suffered daily losses of $449 million — a number that didn’t include the enormous informal economy. The World Bank estimates that 15 percent of gross domestic product of the Sindh province (Karachi is its capital) is lost every year to environmental damage and climate change.

Pakistan is the fifth most climate vulnerable nation in the world. Between 1998 and 2018, according to the Global Climate Risk Index, the country is estimated to have lost nearly 10,000 lives to climate-related disasters and suffered losses amounting to about $4 billion from 152 extreme weather events in that period. Analysts have estimated Pakistan’s climate migrants over the past decade at around 30 million people.

A funeral being held in Karachi, Pakistan, in August for some victims of the flood caused by relentless monsoon rains. Credit...Fareed Khan/Associated Press

There is no end to the catalog of climate disasters affecting my country. The glaciers in the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas and the Karakoram in northern Pakistan are melting at an accelerated pace. If the emission trends and temperature rises continue unabated, these mountains could lose between a third to two-thirds of their ice fields by 2100. The result will be catastrophic: By 2050, the increased melting will result in landslides, heavy flooding, dam bursts and soil erosion. After the glaciers have melted away, drought and famine will follow.

The terror of our coming era will be born of heat and fire and ice. Some years ago, I was in a village in Sindh after a massive flood had devastated it. Thousands were displaced overnight. The blistering heat soaked the faces of displaced young women in sweat thick like glycerin. I was unsure what would be more lethal — the drowning or the heat.

Not far from that drowned village in Sindh is the city of Jacobabad, where temperatures in the summer run as high as 124 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the hottest city in Asia, if not the world. Jacobabad has long electricity blackouts. Its poor die as they toil in the fields.

Temperature increases have brought plague after plague in rural areas. This year has brought Pakistan the most devastating locust infestations in nearly 30 years. The insects destroyed entire harvests, causing the government to call a national emergency as winter crops were decimated, resulting in losses of $2.5 billion. The locusts descend like a haze, so thick that from a distance it looked like a soft pink fog. Because of heavy rains and cyclones, there has been unprecedented breeding of locusts in the United Arab Emirates. They traveled to us from the Arabian Peninsula.

This is a climate war between the large industrial superpowers, financial predators that have polluted and poisoned our planet for profit, and the poor, who have done the least damage but will pay all of the consequences. Pakistan is responsible for less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but its people will bear the burden of the world’s deadliest polluters. If nothing is done to mitigate global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Bank, 800 million people in South Asia will be at risk of amplified poverty, homelessness and hunger.

The World Bank has identified Karachi as one the planet’s climate hot spots. Temperatures across South Asia are estimated to rise by 3.9 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 30 years. Karachi is already struggling with poor road connectivity, dire educational facilities and limited market access. Its already pathetic public health system will plummet. The rich might buy generators for electricity, pay for water tanks and rely on expensive hospitals, but the poor will continue to be devastated.

Pakistan’s current government is speaking about climate change, but it is a conversation that has come too late, unaccompanied by serious action. In 1947, Pakistan was 33 percent forest. Today, we have tree cover of just about 4 percent, all because of deforestation. This destruction, largely caused by the illegal logging by timber mafias, has silted up our waterways and left us undefended against floods and storms.

The country can easily be whipped into hysteria over supposed religious infractions committed by minorities and can debate women’s modesty and honor inexhaustibly, but it has little attention for the ferocious and imminent dangers of climate change.

Karachi’s rainfall, like the rising temperatures, is a consequence of the raging climate war. We have sat by and watched how cities die: slowly. We didn’t watch closely enough when the villages sank and struggled. But it is clear now that this is how a planet burns, one fire at a time, one degree hotter until eventually all that remains will be the chalky bones of Karachi’s ancient saints, buried on disappeared cliffs.

Links

• Pakistan 5th most vulnerable country to climate change, reveals Germanwatch report
• United Nations Development Programme Climate Change Adaptation: Pakistan 
• Wikipedia: Climate change in Pakistan
• Asian Development Bank: Climate Change Profile Of Pakistan
• Pakistan: Climate change, environmental problems put government in a bind 
• Pakistan is ground zero for global warming consequences
• A Water Crisis Looms For 270 Million People As South Asia’s Glaciers Shrink

Climate Primer: How To Talk About Climate Change

Reuters - Laurie Goering

Want to have a productive conversation about climate risk? Be respectful, look for common ground and always offer solutions, says climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe

LONDON - Climate change-related threats - from record wildfires to worsening heatwaves, floods and storms - are affecting more and more people around the world. So why aren't we acting on the increasingly evident changes around us?

One reason is too many people still see climate change as a faraway threat - one their children or grandchildren, people in distant countries or polar bears will face, but not one that will hit them personally, or that needs attention now.

Others are simply too busy to give the issue much attention - or they understand the deadly risks but don't know how to act effectively to reduce them. Depressed and frightened, they switch off engaging.

"For most of us, scaring the pants off us doesn't move us forward. It causes us to freeze. That's how our brains are hard-wired," says Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and climate communication expert at Texas Tech University.

So how do we get more people to understand and engage with climate risks in a productive way, so the threats can be reduced?

Hayhoe says it's as simple as talking to others - not about climate change but about the things they care about, whether it's less snow on the ski slopes, saving money on fuel bills or keeping asthmatic kids safe when forest fire smoke spreads.

"Talking about it is so powerful," she said. "Our voice is a massively underestimated agent of change. We all have a voice we can use in some way."

Hayhoe should know: As the wife of an evangelical Christian pastor, a resident of hugely conservative Lubbock, Texas, and someone who regularly engages with climate change doubters on social media, she has the conversations every day.

Here are her top tips for having a productive conversation about climate change, from a Reuters online event with her this week:

Start with your own communities

Whether you're a football fan or a parent, a diving enthusiast or a knitter, talking to people you know, spend time with and share interests with is likely where you'll have the best conversations.

If you're an atheist, trying to engage church-goers about obligations in scripture to protect the earth isn't likely to get you very far, Hayhoe notes.

Search for common ground

Maybe you're both gardeners battling new pests and diseases in your roses, or parents of teenagers wanting to ditch school on Fridays to attend climate protests. People are more inclined to listen to others they see as like themselves.

"You have to get to know them, what makes them tick, what incentivises them, what they get really excited about," she said. "Then connect the dots to climate change."

Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe joins Reuters to discuss to discuss climate change, our ability to tackle the challenge and whether society can adapt to a warming planet.

Talk about their concerns - not just climate change

Don't start off with a lecture. Listen and look for opportunities to talk about how global warming may be affecting their concerns.

Perhaps you're both worried that heatwaves are making it harder for you to run the marathons you love, or that the lengthening allergy season means your children need to take more medicine.

"Don't hit people with facts," Hayhoe said. "Show why it matters to them in the places where they live - and what people are already doing to fix this problem."

Start with mutual respect - don't judge what they say or do

You may be a devoted cyclist concerned by their passion for SUVs, but keeping an open mind, listening and maintaining genuine respect is crucial to helping the other person do the same and consider what you have to say.

Don't "wave a bony finger of judgment at someone," Hayhoe warns.

Always offer solutions and action

Helping someone understand the scale of the climate crisis - and then leaving them with nothing to do about it - is debilitating and unhelpful, Hayhoe says.

If the person you're speaking with runs a clubhouse or other facility, talk about how installing solar panels could save operating cash.

Chat about good, high-earning alternatives to investing pension funds in fossil fuels, or offer to accompany drivers to try out safe bicycle routes.

Encourage them to contact elected representatives about their concerns, or join a community effort to protect forests or cut food waste.

"Action is the antidote to anxiety and despair," she said. "If we present the risks without what we can do about it, we’re doing people a disservice."

 Accept that some people simply won't listen

Surveys of U.S. attitudes toward climate change by the Yale Program on Climate Communications show nearly 60% of people are either "alarmed" or "concerned" about the problem.

But at the other end of the spectrum are the 10% of Americans "dismissive" of climate risks.

"We all have an uncle or a cousin or an old college roommate or a neighbour" who falls into that category - someone whose identity is bound up with rejecting that climate change is real or a worry, Hayhoe said.

In those cases, "if an angel from God appeared in front of them with brand new tablets of stone saying global warming is real… they would dismiss them too," she said.

How to engage with such people on climate issues? It's best not to bother, she says. The other 90% of people are out there, and may be more ready to listen and engage than you think.

Links

• The 12 Arguments Every Climate Denier Uses – And How To Debunk Them
• 'Not seeing the urgency': Communications failure blamed for climate inaction
• Climate primer: Why is everyone talking about 'net zero'?
• 'Cranky Uncle' game offers a vaccination against climate disinformation
• The five corrupt pillars of climate change denial
• Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent?
• We just had the hottest year on record – where does that leave climate denial?
• Climate denial: Donald Trump mimics criminal behaviour when justifying his stance
• IPCC: The Dirty Tricks Climate Scientists Faced In Three Decades Since First Report
• After Two Years Of School Strikes, The World Is Still In A State Of Climate Crisis Denial
• What Facebook And The Oil Industry Have In Common
• Facebook Creates Fact-Checking Exemption For Climate Deniers
• Climate denial hasn’t gone away – here’s how to spot arguments for delaying climate action
• (AU) The Number Of Climate Deniers In Australia Is More Than Double The Global Average, New Survey Finds
• How Much Do People Around The World Care About Climate Change? We Surveyed 80,000 People In 40 Countries To Find Out