(AU) Councils Across NSW And Queensland Join Forces To Demand Climate Action From Morrison Government

NEWS.com.au - James Hall

An unlikely group of leaders have broken away from the historic state rivalry to pressure the Morrison government for ‘urgent action’.

Noosa Council is concerned by climate change. Credit: Supplied

Councils across NSW and Queensland are fed-up by the lack of climate action from the Morrison and state governments and have banded together to demand urgent change.

Seventeen mayors and councillors from Shellharbour, south of Wollongong, to Port Douglas, in the Sunshine State’s far north, have joined forces to send a message to Canberra, declaring “extreme weather is hurting Australia and our communities are paying the price”.

The local government areas stretch along the nation’s east coast and have been particularly exposed to devastating bushfires and destructive storm events in recent years.

“We are exhausted by the immediate costs and challenges, and we are worried about what’s to come,” the group’s statement declares.

“Extreme weather disasters used to occur every few years. Now, we are facing them every few months.”

Noosa is vulnerable to climate change. Source: News Regional Media

The plea for help follows a recent report from the Climate Council in which the leading independent body declared the cost of extreme weather on the Australian economy over the past decade totalled $35 billion, with Queensland copping the majority share at $18 billion.

“We can’t do this alone,” the group of concerned councils said.

“We need more support from the federal government to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and invest in clean industries that create regional jobs, unlock business investment and spur technological innovation.”

Noosa Shire Councillor Brian Stockwell called on both the Morrison and Palaszczuk governments to listen to the urgent fears and present danger for local communities.

The tourist hot spot is particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and storm damage while the warming climate has also increased the fire risk with the popular Sunshine Coast resort area the first of hundreds engulfed in flames during the previous summer.

“The one we’re experiencing already is our early summers and springs are much hotter and much drier,” he told the NCA NewsWire.

Brian Stockwell is keen to see have governments take action against climate change. Source: News Regional Media

“We were the first to have a catastrophic fire event in the 2019/20 season, but it also carries across to us having an ageing population and it’s predicted deaths from extreme heat and climate change will exceed what we experienced last year from COVID by 2100.

“These are significant issues and local governments can address them through practical measures right now.”

Mr Stockwell said the federal government had failed to offer a meaningful response to the present threat with a “business as usual approach to dealing with the fossil fuel industry and ignoring the need to convert our economy to a green economy”.

“We saw the debacle of gas being a preferred option identified by the federal government whereas it‘s really clear that new solar power on large farms are far more cost effective at the moment compared to new coal fired electricity.”

Communities across Australia have clearly had enough of the growing cost of extreme weather disasters, Climate Council researcher Dr Simon Bradshaw said.

“All types of extreme weather events — storms, coastal erosion, flooding, bushfires, heatwaves and drought — are influenced by climate change,” he said.

“Australian communities are already paying the price, with the past twelve months seeing a devastating run of extreme weather disasters.”

“Extreme weather has cost our national economy at least $35 billion over the past decade. And it's going to get worse — by 2038, the price tag of climate impacts could climb to $100 billion a year.”

Links

• 'Exhausted' councils sign joint plea for urgent federal help to cover disaster clean-up costs
• (NSW) South Coast mayors, councillors, call for more climate change action
• Giving community tools to take climate action
• Our 'tree-change' and 'sea-change' dreams are under threat as scientists warn about building homes in 'risky areas'
• The Hunter can do more to establish green cities to help adapt to climate change and reduce the heat-island effect 
• Less than half of the government's bushfire recovery funds have been allocated, new research shows
• Qld cops $18bn bill due to extreme weather

(AU) 4 Assumptions About Gender That Distort How We Think About Climate Change [And 3 Ways To Do Better]

The Conversation -  Jacqueline Lau | Pip Cohen | Sarah Lawless

WorldFish/Mike Lusmore, CC BY-ND

Authors Jacqueline Lau is Research fellow, James Cook University Pip Cohen is Research Leader of Small-scale Fisheries at WorldFish, CGIAR, and Adjunct Research Fellow at ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University Sarah Lawless is a PhD Candidate, James Cook University

Gender influences how people experience and respond to climate change. This is particularly evident in developing nations where women and men adapt to climatic shocks differently.

Women work harder and longer, in poorer conditions, while men are more likely to migrate to find work that’s often insecure and unreliable.

In an article published today in Nature Climate Change, we reviewed the literature on climate change and gender in low and middle-income countries from the last six years. And we discovered many unhelpful assumptions still plaguing climate change policy and research.

These assumptions hinder the pursuit of gender equality. They do this by misdiagnosing the causes of inequality and propping up ineffective strategies that seem like good ideas.

Assumption 1: Gender equality is a women’s issue

In many climate change policies and projects, gender equality is assumed to be a women’s issue.

For example, a 2015 analysis looked at the United Nations’ REDD+ schemes (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) in six countries. It found most projects defined gender equality as women’s participation in pilot projects.

But in many cases, this participation amounted to women simply being passive recipients of information, rather than having an active role in decisions about the design and implementation of initiatives.

In many climate change policies and projects, gender equality is assumed to be a women’s issue. Finn Thilsted/Flickr

In the 1980s, targeting women was a key strategy of development organisations to achieve economic development and poverty alleviation. But this often played out as development “being done” for women, regardless of their actual needs and aspirations.

At worst, it co-opted women into labour markets, such as the shea butter industry, where they received low wages and had their labour exploited by more powerful actors in the value chain.

Assumption 2: Women and men are homogeneous groups

Within genders, there are many differences. For example, the circumstances of older widows are likely to be vastly different to those of a young, unmarried woman. Likewise, the needs of men may vary depending on their ethnicity or economic status.

In Australia, for instance, women and men on low incomes (often single parents) are likely to be most vulnerable to rising energy prices.

But we found climate change projects and policies often gloss over these differences, missing opportunities to increase resilience.

This was shown in a 2019 analysis of 155 policy documents on agri-food policies to build climate change resilience in Tanzania and Uganda. It found many characterised women as marginalised and vulnerable, while men were largely ignored.

In Mali, older and younger women and men had different farming strategies and goals, and so very different needs for climate information. The information provided by Mali’s Agrometeorological Advisory Program was only really useful for around 15% of men.

Women fish retailers negotiate fish prices with wholesalers in Shakshouk village, Fayoum, Egypt. Sara Fouad

Assumption 3: Women are innately caring and connected to the environment

As with economic development in the 1970s, climate change work continues to position women as innately caring and more “in touch” with their environment through domestic work, such as water collection and firewood gathering.

This assumption is also present in Australia — eco-friendly products are more often marketed at women and women are believed to be at the forefront of climate change action.

Buying into this assumption means women get saddled with responsibility to act as saviours of their environments, families and communities. In the process, women’s labour gets doubled or tripled in the name of climate adaptation or mitigation.

For example, in Burkina Faso in West Africa, a REDD+ program connected women with global markets for non-timber forestry products to enhance gender equality. But women’s desire to be involved in the programme was taken as a given, and women had little voice in negotiating the terms of their labour.

Women are often depicted as connected to the environment through domestic labour. ILRI/Georgina Smith

Assumption 4: Gender equality is a numbers game

If women take part in a forum or activity in numbers equal to or greater than men, climate projects and policies often consider this an adequate proxy for gender equality.

In India, UN REDD+ projects aimed to have an equal number of women and men in decision-making groups. But the women had little to no influence in the decision-making process, couldn’t sway opinions and were dissatisfied with decisions and accountability within the group.

While reaching equal numbers of women and men in decision-making groups is indeed an important step, it is not enough.

Numbers don’t automatically translate to equal benefit or empowerment. Strategies are needed to ensure women and men can engage in ways that support their rights, voice and influence.

Composting at a farm near Rupa Lake, Nepal, as part of the Climate Smart Villages initiative. CIAT:CCAFS/N. Palmer

Moving beyond assumptions: three ways forward

Gender assumptions in climate change work have long been critiqued in development studies, an interdisciplinary field that examines the tools, practices and outcomes of development.

So, with these assumptions laid bare, we suggest three ways forward for anyone engaging in climate mitigation and adaptation strategies and associated research.

First, be specific and precise about gender equality. What does an organisation, project or a policy seek to achieve in terms of reach, benefit or empowerment? Each has different measures and goals.

Second, conduct, critique and communicate data that separate gender and gender research. This is a critical first step for research, evaluation and communication.

Finally, understand, question and shift the more intractable barriers to gender equality. These include the gender norms that manifest in material differences in tenure and inheritance rights, livelihood opportunities, education, health care and access to material and credit resources.

To do this better, climate change programs and institutions need to direct more resources towards gender equality, longer time lines and better gender training and capacity.

As the world braces for more climate change impacts, working towards gender equality requires serious and informed commitment at all levels: from global leadership to organisations and communities at the forefront of change.

Links

• Australia is lagging on climate action and inequality, but the pandemic offers a chance to do better
• Climate conferences are male, pale and stale – it's time to bring in women
• Misogyny, male rage and the words men use to describe Greta Thunberg
• Climate change and migration in Bangladesh – one woman's perspective
• We’ve made progress to curb global emissions. But it’s a fraction of what’s needed
• How 18th-century weather diaries shed light on the effects of an Icelandic volcanic eruption on Scotland
• Scientist at work: Tracking the epic journeys of migratory birds in northwest Mexico
• NZ’s Climate Change Commission needs to account for the huge potential health benefits of reducing emissions

Carbon Needs To Be Much Pricier To Limit Climate Change: Report

Al Jazeera - News Agencies

Carbon prices must climb 600 percent to deter industries from emitting gases that cause global warming: Wood Mackenzie.

Policymakers could combine techniques such as carbon, capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture with other measures to help reduce carbon emissions, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie [File: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images via Bloomberg]

A significant rise in carbon pricing is needed to achieve the goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to a report by consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

 Global average temperatures are currently 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.16 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Limiting the rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) would not be possible without rapid and sustained action, the consultancy said on Thursday.

The Paris climate agreement, adopted by almost 200 nations in 2015, set a goal of limiting warming to “well below” a rise of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times while “pursuing efforts” for the tougher 1.5 degree Celsius goal (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).

“To be on a 1.5-degree pathway, carbon support prices will need to reach $160 per tonne of carbon dioxide by 2030,” said Wood Mackenzie’s Asia Pacific head of markets and transitions Prakash Sharma.

As of the end of last year, the global average carbon price across various regimes stood at $22 per tonne of carbon dioxide, he said.

The industrialised world has been spewing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases faster than they can be contained for centuries.

To rein in temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) – as pledged by countries in the Paris Agreement – governments have been trying to cut emissions through what is known as carbon pricing, an approach that imposes a tax on carbon dioxide emitted or creates a market to trade permits to pollute.

While fossil fuel CO2 emissions dropped 7 percent last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the world must replicate similar declines every year throughout the 2020s and beyond or else face increasingly dire environmental consequences, according to an analysis published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Mixed picture

The price of carbon permits has recently climbed to a record in Europe amid speculative buying and efforts by policymakers to lower emissions but Asian nations have lagged behind.

Japan is considering revising its carbon tax, which is one of the lowest in the world. In China, online carbon trading is set to begin by the end of June.

[Bloomberg]

Governments around the world need carbon policies that focus on hard-to-abate industries, for instance, by facilitating low-carbon hydrogen production, Wood Mackenzie said.

Industries such as heavy industry and transport are considered hard to abate because of the cost and upheaval of transitioning to electrification.

Policymakers could also combine techniques such as carbon, capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture with other measures to help reduce carbon emissions, the consultancy said.

To limit the rise of global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, $50 trillion is the minimum capital expenditure needed, said Wood Mackenzie’s Americas head of markets and transitions David Brown.

Of that, “$27 trillion will come from new power capacity, energy storage, electrolysers and CCS deployments through to 2050, while $23 trillion is required to cover associated infrastructure, battery metals and hydrocarbons,” he said.

Links

• US oil lobbying group mulls throwing weight behind carbon pricing
• Race for EV batteries pits conservationists against green energy
• Climate and cooperation: Biden’s trade goals differ from Trump’s
• Global CO2 pollution returns to pre-COVID levels: IEA
• In extreme Texas cold, Green New Deal turns into hot potato
• US energy body to examine climate change threat to power grid
• US, Canada pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050
• ‘Mutual suicide’: US issues stark warning on climate change