02/08/2021

(AU The Guardian) Climate Crisis Cuts Australian Farm Profits By A Quarter Over Past 20 Years

The Guardian -  | AAP

Report finds profits could fall by up to 50% within three decades if global emissions are not significantly reduced and farmers don’t adapt to changing climate

A farm in New South Wales. The new report says the impact of future declines in winter rainfall are expected to be most severe in the state’s west and central Queensland. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

Seasonal changes linked to the climate crisis have reduced annual average farm profits by 23% - or about $29,000 per farm - over the past 20 years, according to the federal government’s agricultural research agency.

The drop in average profitably over 2001 to 2020, compared to the period between 1950 and 2000, came as Australia’s climate warmed and winter rainfall declined in the continent’s south-west and south-east.

A new report by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) found farm profits could fall by up to 50% over the next three decades if global greenhouse gas emissions were not significantly reduced and producers did not adapt to the changing climate.

Scenarios under which emissions were cut more significantly were projected to lead to smaller reductions in farming profitability.

The bureau’s executive director, Dr Jared Greenville, said the report – based on projections by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO – showed seasonal conditions over the past two decades had been “pretty rough for Australian farmers”.

“Lower average rainfall and higher average temperatures have had a negative impact on farm productivity and profit,” he said. “The good news is that farmers have made some remarkable progress in adapting to these hotter and drier conditions.”

Greenville said that after accounting for climate impacts, productivity growth in broadacre farming had increased by 28% since 1989.

“The cropping sector has seen a huge gain of 68%,” he said. “New technologies and practices mean that farmers are able to grow crops under lower rainfall conditions than they could in the past.”

The bureau report suggested Western Australian cropping farmers could face more pressure than those in eastern states under most scenarios as they were expected to face more substantial declines in winter rainfall. It said the impact on inland livestock farmers was expected to be most severe in central Queensland and parts of western New South Wales.

It said the average farm size was likely to increase as smaller farmers would face greater pressure from climate change. Greenville said investing in research, development and climate data would be crucial in preparing for what lay ahead.

He said future climate projections of the extent to which rising temperatures would reduce rainfall varied markedly – from 3% to up 30% by 2050 compared with pre-2000 levels.

One month in the global climate crisis and what it means for Australia, with Lenore Taylor – video 2min16sec

“This uncertainty over future rainfall is itself an important constraint on farmer adaptation,” he said. “While farmers have made significant progress to date, further adaptation will be required to maintain our competitiveness, particularly if other nations are not impacted to the same extent.”

The report lands amid debate within the Morrison government over how agriculture is treated under a potential 2050 net-zero emissions target. Some Nationals opposed to the target have suggested they could be swayed if farming was heavily subsidised.

While Australia continues to resist, more than 120 countries and most major business and industry lobby groups including the National Farmers Federation say they support the 2050 goal. The G7 group of major developed countries have pledged to reach net zero by 2050 at the latest and turned their attention to plans to make much deeper cuts by 2030.

The governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, last month told the Australian Farm Institute conference that reducing emissions would be important for Australia’s agricultural sector as up to 70% of its output was exported and international investors were highly focused on decarbonisation.

“Agriculture has tremendous opportunities here, but we need to find ways to disclose to global investors and global customers the decarbonisation strategy and how successfully we are doing that,” he said.

“It is a really important issue and it’s going to become more important.”

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(AU ABC) ABARES Says Changing Climate Is Costing Every Farm, On Average, $30,000 Every Year

ABC Rural - Kath Sullivan

ABARES has found the risk that Australian farmers will receive a very low income has doubled since 2000. (ABC Western Queensland: Kelly Butterworth)

Key Points
  • Farmers have been losing, on average, $29,200 per farm, every year due to changing climate conditions
  • ABARES' latest report says growers are adapting to weather, growing more from less
  • It predicts the average farm size could increase as farmers meet the challenges of climate change
Australian farms have lost on average almost $30,000 each a year in profits over the past 20 years due to climate change, relative to earnings in the latter part of last century, says the Australian Bureau ofAgricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES).

In its latest report, ABARES finds that the decline in rainfall from 2001 to 2021, compared to 1950-2000, saw farm profits reduced, on average, by 23 per cent, or $29,200, as the risk doubled of farmers receiving very low returns due to climate variability.

 But it also found that Australian farm productivity had significantly increased, with broadacre farmers producing almost 30 per cent more than they did in 1989.

ABARES' executive director Jared Greenville said the research had shown that, over the same period, despite the weather challenges, grain growers had increased productivity by 68 per cent.

"New technologies and practices mean that farmers are able to grow crops under lower rainfall conditions than they could in the past," Dr Greenville said.

What future looks like

 The report has also made projections about the pressure climate change could place on Australian farmers in the next 30 years.

It says cropping farms in Western Australia would be "more heavily impacted than other regions under most climate scenarios, due largely to the more substantial projected declines in winter rainfall and the resulting effects on crop yield".

For livestock producers, ABARES forecast the impact of climate change would not be as great and more likely to be most severe on the northern edge of WA's cropping zone, parts of New South Wales and central Queensland.
"While the most severe projections show large reductions in farm profits – up to 50 per cent nationally – these results do not account for adaptation," Dr Greenville said.
The ABARES report said that, while technology was likely to drive productivity gains further, "Climate change could still reduce the international competitiveness of Australian farmers, relative to other nations, particularly if Australia's main competitors are not affected by climate change to the same extent."

Pressure on smaller farms

 ABARES said that it was likely smaller farmers would face greater pressure from climate change compared to larger farms and that the average farm size could grow.

Other major changes forecast for Australian farms as result of climate change included investment in on-farm grain storage and other climate-change mitigation tools.
"This could include the emergence of new land use activities — such as carbon abatement, biodiversity conservation or renewable energy generation — as complements to traditional farming," ABARES said.
The report has been released as the federal government calls for expressions of interest for its drought-resilience innovation grants, which will be funded by the Future Drought Fund.

That fund has set aside $34 million for the latest round of grants.

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(AU The Guardian) Having Spent A Decade Framing Emissions Reduction In Apocalyptic Terms, The Coalition Now Has To Present Different Facts

The Guardian -  

If Scott Morrison is inclined to execute the pivot he’s spent months telegraphing – towards net zero by 2050 – a report out this week contains some helpful fodder
The federal government led by Scott Morrison hopes to have something concrete to say at the Cop26 in Glasgow in November. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

With 14 million people in lockdown and the news in Sydney going from bad to worse, and with Scott Morrison steadfastly avoiding an apology for moving too slowly on vaccinations until the moment the word sorry crossed his lips, all eyes were on the pandemic.

This was a week where any other interesting insights sank like a stone, so let’s clear some space for one of the lost insights.

On Tuesday, the group Beyond Zero Emissions released a report based on economic analysis from ACIL Allen.

This work found that establishing renewable energy industrial precincts in two Australian regions would create 45,000 new jobs and generate revenue of $13bn a year by 2032.

The two regions the report identified were the Hunter in New South Wales and Gladstone in central Queensland. If you follow politics closely, you’ll know these regions will be heavily contested at the next federal election.

In the world envisaged by this report, dedicated renewable energy zones would support energy intensive businesses during the transition to low emissions. I might need to repeat that sentence because the Coalition has spent more than a decade telling Australians that renewables and heavy industry are fundamentally incompatible.

In case that cacophony of mendacity has messed with your cognition, allow me to repeat: new renewable energy industrial precincts would be created to support activity like aluminium smelting, hydrogen and chemical production and manufacturing for the new energy economy.

This conversation is about re-industrialising Australia for the low emissions global economy, using the existing industrial precincts that have been domestic employers and export powerhouses for generations because these regions have skilled workers, deepwater ports, existing transport infrastructure, and access to renewable energy resources.

The report says a renewable precinct in the Hunter could unlock new capital investment of $28bn in the region, including $8.6bn for storage/firming capacity, as well as transmission lines, freight networks and renewable hydrogen infrastructure and export facilities.

There is an aluminium smelter in the Hunter, which the report notes will need 800-900 megawatts of firmed energy.

In Gladstone, which has Australia’s second largest aluminium smelter (at Boyne Island), the analysis points to new manufacturing activities attracting additional capital investment of $7.8bn to the region, including $1.7bn for key infrastructure such as storage and firming facilities.

If Morrison is inclined to execute the pivot he’s spent months telegraphing – the creep towards a net zero commitment by 2050 – this week’s report contains some helpful fodder. Forecasting the future is always a function of inputs and outputs, with a heavy overlay of uncertainty.

But drilling into the opportunities for two industrialised regions that sit on the frontline of Australia’s deranged carbon wars marks a welcome break from the weaponised hyper-partisan windbaggery about the costs of the transition.

Morrison, armed with his “preference” to achieve net zero by mid century, had already entered this territory – the territory of opportunity rather than cost – before the Barnstorm hit a month ago. But Barnaby Joyce has returned to the Nationals leadership and the first run of prognostications associated with the resurrection suggested net zero was now dead, buried and cremated.

Perhaps it is, but Morrison has not folded the tent.

Before Joyce ran down Michael McCormack, generic discussions had begun in the relevant cabinet sub-committee about the direction Morrison wanted to go. But people insist there was no specific proposal on the table, and no decisions were made at that time.

The current talk around the government is four different options are being worked up with a view to getting the Nationals on board – options informed by obvious organising questions, like what can we say on longer term targets? Is agriculture in or out? What do you do with methane?

The ambition remains having something concrete to say at the Cop26 in Glasgow in November. But before anyone gets to Glasgow, the government first has to square its own circle.

Having spent a decade framing emissions reduction in apocalyptic terms, the Coalition now has to present different facts. It has to present a transition plan where transition looks more like an opportunity than armageddon.

Senior players believe that Joyce is open to a deal on net zero (despite his daily word salad, which rollercoasters from nick-off mate to maxims and reflections on menu pricing). Lest this sound like rash optimism, history furnishes a precedent.

It’s long forgotten now, but Joyce was actually disciplined in a policy sense during the period when Malcolm Turnbull tried to get sign-off on the national energy guarantee. Turnbull’s problem during the Neg crusade, predominantly, was in the Liberal party room, not so much with the Nationals.

That’s one of the reasons Joyce felt bruised after Turnbull turned on him forcefully once the deputy prime minister’s private travails exploded in the public domain. Joyce felt he’d been a good soldier on a tough assignment.

After that conscious uncoupling, Joyce, sitting mulishly on the backbench, reverted to his meandering populism. It will be genuinely fascinating to see what he does now, with the full responsibility of Coalitionism resting once again on his shoulders.

Joyce’s party room is split. Some will support signing on to net zero at a price. Other colleagues are hard noes, and the hard noes will not be persuaded by modelling that says coal and gas workers can transition to be hydrogen producers, or wind turbine manufacturers.

If Joyce ultimately chooses deal rather than no deal, we can expect the hand grenades to come out.

Speaking of hand grenades, the Liberals are nursing some of their own. A number of metropolitan Liberals do not want to endure another uncomfortable election like they endured in 2019 when they experienced the anger of constituents sick to death of the Coalition’s decade of wrecking on climate action.

These MPs want to be able to point to tangible action, not smoke signals and fudges, and patience is not in abundance.

These are difficult times for the Coalition. The coming election was supposed to be framed by a booming economy, and underpinned by exceptionalism when it came to the management of the pandemic. But the emergence of the Delta strain has punctured a significant hole in that plan.

Government MPs say, right at the moment, it is bad on the ground – as bad as the opinion polls suggest. Voters are angry about the slow pace of the vaccination rollout, and they are also articulating doubts about Morrison.

When you talk to MPs you get the same situation report: the mob has moved, we are behind, particularly with younger voters; if the Pfizer turns up, it’s possible we can pull out of this downdraught and reap the benefits of incumbency, but it’s not clear whether there’s enough time to shift people back.

When it comes to climate and energy policy, Labor has its own difficult internal debates to land. But Anthony Albanese isn’t letting any grass grow under his feet.

Unburdened by the ceaseless requirements of governing, and thus far, one step ahead of quarantining restrictions – the Labor leader has been running a faux campaign, pinging between Tasmania and Queensland, going to pubs and cafes and worksites, trying to connect with the voters who abandoned Labor in 2019.

Labor strategists report the reception on the ground in Queensland is better than it has been for some time, and noticeably better than 2019. Albanese isn’t being peppered by questions about the future of coal in central Queensland anymore.

The culture wars of the Adani election are, of course, dangerous and ever-present – but right now, the issues don’t feel as resonant as they did even 12 months ago.

Camp Albanese knows the Coalition has a big electoral buffer in Queensland because of the significant positive swings in 2019.

People also know the positive reception sits at the point of voters working out whether Labor can be trusted rather than expressions of rapture.

But as the government grinds through a tough winter, in Camp Albanese, the current mood is bending toward optimism.

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