Lethal Heating: 07/22/21

22/07/2021

(AU AFR) Australia Faces Carbon Tariffs Without Big Ambitions: Mark Carney

AFR - Michael Roddan

Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney believes Australia must show high ambitions to tackle climate change and reduce emissions to avoid carbon tariffs being whacked on the country.

Former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney. Bloomberg

The UN’s November Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow would pressure countries to develop solid policies for reducing emissions, said Mr Carney, the current UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance.

“The more high ambition is shown by all countries – Australia included – the less likely there is to be border adjustment mechanisms and, and that’s, that’s what we’re going for,” Mr Carney told the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors conference on Wednesday.

COP26 was trying to recognise that different counties were going to have different policies, such as carbon taxes or regulation or subsidies, but the world was trending towards enforcing climate action through trade policy, Mr Carney said.

“There is a push, we see it in Europe, most prominently, but also the United States, talking about carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs). Canada as well,” he said.

“A number of countries as they up their ambitions, are saying: ’Well, wait a minute, what about these high intensity and high emission industries - aren’t I putting myself at a competitive disadvantage if others aren’t moving as fast as rapidly, and therefore do I put these so-called CBAMs in place.”

“There’s no question that momentum is there. We’re trying to arrest it, as Australia’s a free-trading nation, so is the UK as is Canada, and the world is better off if we can keep the trade system open. But there is a risk, without question.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been averse to carbon pricing and taxing schemes, but there is growing pressure on Australia as international groups push for the introduction of CBAMs, a tariff Trade Minister Dan Tehan has attacked as a potentially protectionist measure.

President Joe Biden has said the US will introduce a carbon price, and will look at carbon border taxes on imports if necessary. China is also examining a broad-based domestic carbon price, although has evinced less support for carbon border taxes.

A combined US-EU carbon tariff would raise the prospect that some Australian exporters could face significant new costs even if Mr Morrison does not introduce a carbon price domestically.

Also speaking at the ACSI conference was Dr Graham Sinden, head of climate risk at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, who said the regulator’s work on comparing the country’s top bank’s preparedness for climate change was racing ahead.

The work, which is organising big lenders to analyse the exposure to climate-related risks of their balance sheets, was put on hold last year after the plan was announced on the same day Australia enacted emergency measures in relation to the then-growing coronavirus scare.

APRA was working with the five big banks and the Australian Banking Association to design the probe, and had “just recently handed that project over to the execution phase with the banks to commence working through understanding what the risks are to their balance sheets”, Mr Sinden said.

“We expect the outcomes of that, both from a quantitative perspective – understanding what risk looks like – and the potential influence of different climate pathways on risk after 2050, we expect that to be quite informative,” he said.

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(AU The Guardian) Coalition Believes It Has Numbers To Stop Great Barrier Reef Being Listed As ‘In Danger’

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Exclusive: Diplomatic email suggests whirlwind lobbying trip by Sussan Ley has won over at least nine of 21 members on World Heritage Committee

Federal environment minister Sussan Ley spent eight days flying around Europe to lobby ambassadors from 18 countries for support against UNESCO Great Barrier Reef ‘in danger’ listing. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo

Australia’s global lobbying offensive to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the world heritage “in danger” list has secured support from at least nine of the 21-member committee that will make the decision, according to a diplomatic email seen by Guardian Australia.

Australia’s Paris-based ambassador to UNESCO, Megan Anderson, said in the email she believed the government had won enough support to delay the decision on the “in danger” listing until at least 2023.

UNESCO says ‘in danger’ listing would be ‘call to action’ on Great Barrier Reef. Read more

It was sent on Saturday, shortly after the start of a two-week World Heritage Committee meeting in China that will decide whether to change the reef’s world heritage status. A decision on the reef is expected on Friday.

The federal environment minister, Sussan Ley, was due to return to Australia overnight from an eight-day lobbying trip that included flights to Hungary, France, Spain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Oman and the Maldives.

The minister’s office said she had met ambassadors from 18 countries either face-to-face or virtually.

The trip was to lobby against a recommendation by the UN’s science and culture organisation, UNESCO, that the reef be listed as “world heritage in danger” due to the impact of three mass coral bleaching events in five years, and slow progress to cut pollution from farms and properties.

Sussan Ley returned home after an eight-day lobbying trip that
included flights to Hungary, France, Spain and the Maldives

MAP

If the committee agrees, it would be the first time a world heritage site has been placed on the list due to damage from climate change. The committee is chaired this year by China.

In the email, Anderson said Bahrain, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Ethiopia, Hungary, Mali, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, had indicated “they would like to co-author/co-sponsor” an amendment supporting Australia’s position.

In a document tabled to the committee early Wednesday those countries, as well as Russia and Spain, are listed as backing Australia.

Anderson said Australia believed the level of support would “send a good message about consensus and that the committee would not need to spend a lot of time discussing [the reef]”.

The amendment, which was submitted by Bahrain, would require a UNESCO monitoring mission to the reef and allow Australia to report back to the committee by December 2022. Any consideration for placing the reef on the danger list would be pushed back until at least 2023.

Last week, the Guardian revealed Australia had won the support of oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to co-sponsor “amendments” to be put to the committee that would see a decision delayed until the 2023 meeting of the committee.

Australia has argued UNESCO did not follow the normal process because it did not carry out a monitoring mission before making its recommendation. Australia also argued the decision had been politicised.

Environment groups, prominent Australians and a lineup of international figures from the worlds of entertainment, science and conservation have all backed UNESCO’s call.

Senior UNESCO officials have repeatedly rejected claims due process had not been followed and said an “in danger” listing was a chance to rally the world to the reef’s plight. Since the World Heritage Committee last considered the reef in 2015, corals across the world’s biggest reef system have been hit by mass bleaching in 2016, 2017 and 2020.

In the email, sent to ambassadors from more than 20 countries, Anderson supplied a scientific summary from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims) which, she said, had found “widespread recovery of coral at key sites across the property”.

Record-breaking ocean temperatures over the Queensland reef in February 2020 led to the most widespread bleaching event on record. But since then, conditions have been benign, the Aims report said.

But the report said rising coral coverage was thanks to fast-growing species that were susceptible to storms and coral-eating starfish – and would probably be hit in the next bleaching event.

The minister has been flying in one of the RAAF’s three new Dassault Falcon 7X planes. Charges for previous ministerial flights on the same aircraft suggest the trips cost in the region of $4,200 an hour.

Joanna Lumley and Jason Momoa join prominent group backing Great Barrier Reef ‘in danger’ listing. Read more

Last Thursday, the government hosted ambassadors from 13 countries and the EU for a day of snorkelling on Agincourt Reef, off Port Douglas, with reef envoy Warren Entsch.

Ley was accompanied on the Europe trip by the chief executive of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Josh Thomas.

Publicly available flight logs showed the RAAF plane crisscrossed Europe for meetings with members of the 21-country world heritage committee.

The plane landed in Budapest last Monday and then flew to Paris. On Wednesday, the plane flew to Madrid and back. On Friday, there was a return trip to Sarajevo.

The jet then flew to the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, via Oman, on Monday, where Ley met with the country’s environment minister and the country’s special climate change envoy.

A spokesperson for the minister said there was “strong appreciation of the minister’s concerns in regard to the absence of process from UNESCO”.

“The meetings included constructive and cordial conversations, including two with the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to UNESCO,” they said.

Australia had a strong relationship with all countries in the world heritage system, the spokesperson said, “as we work together to protect the world’s cultural and natural heritage”.

Imogen Zethoven, a consultant on world heritage for the Australian Marine Conservation Society who has also been briefing countries on the reef, said: “The trip by minister Ley is all about politics ahead of conservation.”

“The government wants to defer any decision about the Great Barrier Reef until after the next election. I hope committee members can see through this,” she said.

Richard Leck, head of oceans at WWF-Australia, said the recommendation from UNESCO to the committee was “based on the best available science”.

‘“It contains recommendations that are urgently needed to give the reef a fighting a chance.

“We urge the committee to assess whether to implement this draft decision based on the integrity of the science, not based on the lobbying efforts of the Australian government.”

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(Legal) Climate Change Cases Doubled Past Six Years

Environmental + Energy Leader - Harun Asad

(Credit: Insurance Journal)

The number of climate change-related cases worldwide more than doubled in the past six years, according to recent data from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.

More than 1,000 cases globally have been brought in the last six years, since the Paris Agreement in 2015 — with 191 new climate change cases being filed between May 2020 and May 2021. This compares to about 800 cases filed from 1986 to 2014.

While the majority of claims since 1986 have been in the U.S. — with the EU and Australia being other jurisdictions with the highest volume of cases — in the past year, cases were filed for the first time in Guyana, Taiwan, the East African Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights.

While claims against corporations have historically been dominated by cases against fossil fuel companies, claims are now being filed against a wider range of private sector organizations.

For example, in 2020, an action was brought against dairy company Fonterra claiming a duty of care to reduce emissions, and cases were also filed against companies with a more indirect role such as those in the financial services sector.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals are responsible for an increasing number of claims. And, ‘strategic’ cases, which aim to bring about some broader societal shift such as advancing climate policies, creating public awareness, or changing the behavior of government, are also dramatically on the rise.

A report from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) released earlier this year corroborates these findings. Key trends trends in climate litigation, according to the UNEP, include:

Violations of ‘climate rights’, i.e. fundamental human rights including the right to life, health, food, and water.
Failures of governments to enforce their commitments on climate change mitigation and adaptation.
‘Greenwashing’ and non-disclosures, when corporate messaging contains false or misleading information about climate change impacts.

The Grantham Institute researchers predict that climate change litigation will continue to grow and diversify.

Growth areas include supply and value chain litigation; cases challenging government support to the fossil fuel industry; and so-called ‘just transition’ cases, in which claimants oppose climate change adaptation or mitigation projects due to their impacts on the environment and communities.

Corporations should also be wary of potential actions that can occur outside of the courtroom, explain Mark Clarke and Clare Connellan, partners at international law firm White & Case.

The rising sense of urgency to mitigate the effects of climate change has prompted shareholders to utilize traditional business mechanisms, such as voting on environmental resolutions at annual meetings to decrease the company’s carbon footprint.

In the last year, shareholders at a number of financial and energy companies have proposed and voted in favor of setting climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement, though not all have passed.

Some companies are also being asked by their shareholders to disclose how their business models will be compatible with a net zero economy.

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