Lethal Heating: 06/19/21

The Conversation - Michelle Grattan

Many observers have been assuming Scott Morrison’s strategy is to creep towards endorsing the 2050 target of net zero emissions, finally embracing it before the Glasgow climate conference in November.

But this week’s developments suggest the prime minister might have to adopt another course.

He could stay with his present position, which has the target as an aspiration he surrounds with a web of subsidiary policies, such as the multiple bilateral technology agreements he announced while he was overseas.

Morrison’s present commitment, reiterated in his major speech in Perth before leaving Australia, is to reach net zero “as soon as possible, preferably by 2050”.

In London British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in an intriguing but unexplained moment at their joint news conference, stated Morrison had “declared for net zero by 2050”. Of course he hadn’t, and Johnson was aware of that – he has been urging him to do so. We don’t know whether there was intent in Johnson’s comment, or just sloppiness.

In the mouth of a politician, the word “preferably” is like that handy phrase “the government plans to …” (or “has no plans to …”). It is cheap coinage. It certainly wouldn’t buy much in Glasgow.

But it is useful and it may be the coinage Morrison will need to continue to deal in. Remember we are talking here about political reality, not what is the best policy, which clearly would be to sign up to the target.

We’ve thought Morrison would want to shift before Glasgow so Australia would have a more credible position internationally, respond to the pressure from the US and Britain, and minimise isolation. That’s apart from the electoral implications surrounding an issue many voters feel strongly about.

But Morrison this year has already worn the awkwardness of taking Australia’s weak position through Joe Biden’s “virtual” climate summit and maintaining it during his trip to the G7 meeting.

And even if he changed for Glasgow, other countries wouldn’t be convinced. There’d be no foreign applause. The sharp point of the debate has moved from 2050 to the medium term, and Morrison won’t make Australia’s 2030 targets more ambitious (though he’ll argue it will exceed them and possibly even project to 2035).

The US and the UK have leaned on Morrison, and he hasn’t firmed his 2050 stand. Now, at home, it’s increasingly looking dangerous for him to do so, even though work is under way to map out Australia’s emissions technology plans and what that means for reductions.

It’s a risk-benefit judgment for Morrison, and the risk of moving could be high.

Not all the Nationals oppose the 2050 target but enough of them do – and very strongly – to create a serious obstacle for the PM. The opponents within the minor party are bolshie and willing to fight.

Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie was a minister until she became the fall girl in the sports rorts affair. She doesn’t owe anything to Morrison or her leader, Michael McCormack.

McKenzie was on Sky with Alan Jones this week. “The National Party is the second party in this Coalition government. [It] has not signed up to net zero anything at any time and we’ll take a lot of convincing that that is actually the destination we need to get to,” she said. “Because we know it’ll be our miners, our farmers, our manufacturers that will be paying the price for all this posturing.

"We will not let our people be put under the bus to chase some fake ambition to appease overseas masters.”

In normal circumstances, Morrison might expect the Nationals’ leadership to be able to get a desired result – by pointing out there could be benefits for farmers – regardless of noisy dissidents.

But nothing is normal in the Nationals. It’s a wasps’ nest. Poke a stick in and anything could happen. McCormack, with a tenuous grip on the leadership, could easily be stung to death.

McCormack knows this. Pressed in a Wednesday podcast with The Conversation, he said the Nationals wouldn’t be agreeing to the target this year. When it was put to him, “we can be sure that the Nats would not embrace that target?”, he replied, “Correct”.

Politics with Michelle Grattan: McCormack on 2050

Resources Minister Keith Pitt told the ABC on Thursday that for the government policy to change to endorsing net zero by 2050 would require the Nationals’ agreement “and that agreement has not been reached or sought”. Asked what the mood of their party room would be now, he said: “I think they’d be unsupportive, but we are yet to have that discussion.”

If Morrison wants to trigger “that discussion”, it could be very messy and divisive in the latter months of this year.

Failing to embrace the target would not do the Coalition any harm in regional seats in Queensland – in fact it would maximise the difference with Labor. But what about climate-sensitive southern seats, such as Higgins in Melbourne and Wentworth in Sydney?

It would obviously be unhelpful. But many of those for whom climate is a major vote-changing issue may have shifted their vote anyway.

The prospects of independent Zali Steggall retaining Warringah would probably be assisted by the government failing to endorse 2050. But the Liberals are not reckoning on regaining this seat unless former NSW premier Mike Baird runs, and he has resisted that.

So while there would be clear costs in staying with the weasel words, “as soon as possible” and “preferably”, they are arguably not as great as a potential blow-up in the Nationals that could have unforeseen consequences.

How embarrassing would failure to have a firm target be for Morrison at Glasgow? Greater if he were there than if he just sent Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who wouldn’t be noticed. But will he go?

He’d remember Kevin Rudd’s presence at Copenhagen in 2009 played badly for him. He’d note Tony Abbott did not attend the 2015 Paris conference. Julie Bishop, as foreign minister, led the Australian delegation.

Morrison has said he hopes to go to Glasgow. Could he find a way to avoid an engagement that would have no upside for him? It would be a matter of scheduling.

He’ll be in Rome for the G20 at the end of October. The Glasgow conference, which runs from November 1-12, is expected to have a leaders’ segment at the start, facilitating them going straight from the G20.

If he attends, Morrison will be armed with a heap of policy on technology and how it will cut emissions. But he still mightn’t have that hard and fast 2050 target in his kit bag.

Links

Earth.Org - Jamie Sarao

The climate crisis is causing ancient permafrost to thaw, which could unleash viruses and bacteria that have been dormant for thousands of years, presenting a potentially catastrophic risk to humans and ecosystems alike.

During the 2016 summer heatwave in the Siberian Tundra, a group of reindeer herders became ill from a mysterious illness, which took the life of 2 500 reindeer and a 12-year old boy.

It was thought that the illness was the “Siberian plague” that was last seen in the region in 1941, and investigations revealed that the disease was anthrax. Its origin was a reindeer carcass that died from anthrax 75 years previously that became exposed due to melting soil as a result of warming temperatures.

This reemergence of viruses and bacteria may become more prevalent as the climate crisis progresses. The conditions of permafrost are ideal for bacteria to remain alive for very long periods of time, perhaps as long as a million years. Permafrost is a very good preserver of microbes and viruses because it is cold, devoid of oxygen and dark.

Scientists have discovered fragments of RNA from the 1918 Spanish flu virus in corpses buried in mass graves in the tundra of Alaska and it is likely that smallpox and the bubonic plague are buried in Siberia, showing the likelihood of these agents being unleashed.

A study in 2011 postulated that as a result of melting permafrost, diseases prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries could come back, especially near the cemeteries where the victims of these diseases were buried.

In a project that began in the 1990s, scientists from the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk have tested the remains of Stone Age people that were found in southern Siberia, as well as samples from the corpses of men who had died during viral epidemics in the 19th century and were buried in the Russian permafrost. The researchers found fragments of the DNA of smallpox in some of the bodies.

Additionally, researchers in a 2005 study successfully revived bacteria that had been frozen in a pond in Alaska for over 30 000 years, since woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth. When the ice melted, the bacteria began swimming around, unaffected. Two years later, scientists were able to revive an 8-million-year-old bacterium that had been frozen beneath a glacier in Antarctica.

Luckily, not all bacteria can come back to life after being frozen in permafrost. Anthrax forms spores, which can survive being frozen for over a century. Similar bacteria include tetanus and the bacteria that causes botulism.

A 2009 study claimed that residents in the Arctic rely on subsistence hunting and fishing for food sources, as well as a suitable climate to store food. This food storage includes ground air-drying, being placed under ground and in close vicinity to permafrost. The bacteria that prompts botulism is active in temperatures higher than 4 degrees Celsius and as the climate warms, the potential of food-borne botulism could grow.

In the Arctic, temperatures have risen faster in the last century compared to the rest of the Northern hemisphere, meaning further rapid melting. In the past decade, the Arctic has warmed 0.75 degrees Celsius whereas Earth overall has warmed 0.8 degrees Celsius in 137 years.

The warming of the climate will also trigger the migration of species that are carriers of diseases such as the Zika Virus, a mosquito-borne virus primarily carried by Aedes mosquitos and which causes fever, muscle and joint pain and headaches. Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause infants to be born with microcephaly and in severe cases, miscarriages.

These mosquitoes also transmit dengue fever and chikungunya fever. Though these mosquitoes primarily reside in tropical southeastern states in America, the increase in temperature could encourage a dispersion of these insects. A 2017 study focuses on the outbreak of the Zika Virus in Brazil from 2014 to 2016. By the end of 2016, approximately 200,000 cases of Zika Virus were confirmed.

The virus was claimed to be brought to the country in the 2014 World Sprint Championship canoe race in Rio de Janeiro which brought those from the French Polyneisa into the country which triggered Zika transmission. A year later, once the virus had domiciled in Brazil, it eventually spread throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and the virus had been found in every country that contained the Aedes aegypti mosquito.

As the climate crisis continues, air temperatures will increase, resulting in quicker thawing. Higher temperatures also encourage the cholera bacteria (Vibrio Cholerae) to duplicate, resulting in a wider spread. The melting of the soil could contaminate water supplies, therefore spreading water-borne diseases such as cholera and others.

While we know of the frightening and life-threatening diseases and viruses that could come back to life with the advancement of the climate crisis, there is no way for us to know the full extent of this without experiencing it. It is imperative that humanity mitigates the climate crisis before unknown and horrific diseases spring back to life.

Links

19/06/2021

(AU The Conversation) Grattan On Friday: Will Bolshie Nationals Or Joe Biden Have More Sway With Morrison On 2050 Target?

(Earth.Org) The Climate Crisis Will Cause Once-Dormant Viruses To Reemerge