(AU SMH) Climate Change Spurs Threat Of War, Mass Migration In Region

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley

Rapid climate change threatens to leave hundreds of millions of people displaced on Australia’s doorstep in south-east Asia in coming decades, says the former United Nations Secretary General’s special representative for disaster risk reduction Robert Glasser.

He said climate risk had become a “threat generator” rather than a “threat multiplier”, and was a “blind spot” in Australian security planning.

In Kiribati large parts of the village Eita have already been flooded. Credit: Getty

Dr Glasser, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s climate centre, says sea level rise is occurring four times faster on the equator than anywhere else in the world and will leave up to 400 million people subject to what was once estimated to be one-in-100-year flooding every year within the forseeable future.

He said while Australians appeared to have an increasing understanding of how climate change might affect them through floods or fire domestically, the regional threat was not yet properly considered.

Australia not only faces the threat of mass displacement in its region, but also the potential for warfare over access to water and a decline in influence in the region through its failure to properly address the security implications of climate change, according to a report by the Climate Council co-authored by Cheryl Durrant, who spent 30 years working at the Australian Defence Department, most recently as the Head of Defence Preparedness.

Paris Agreement

Military leaders, security chiefs demand action on climate threat

According to the report, Rising To The Challenge: Addressing Climate And Security In Our Region, Australia has fallen behind the US, Britain, Japan and New Zealand in its analysis of the climate security threat, and climate change remains on the margins of Australia’s defence, foreign affairs and trade strategies.

Citing a speech by United States Secretary of Defence Lloyd J Austin in April in which he called climate change an “existential threat”, Ms Durrant said it was clear the United States was “politely” calling for Australia to increase its efforts in the area but had not yet been heard.

“The US is already asking it to step up ... to show greater leadership and ambition.”

She said it was “bizarre” that Australia was willing to commit to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan in support of the US alliance, but not take greater action on climate change.

In his speech, Mr Austin, a retired four-star general, said, “We face all kinds of threats in our line of work, but few of them truly deserve to be called existential. The climate crisis does.”

It has been revealed UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has bowed to pressure from the Morrison Government over climate change targets.

Ms Durrant said she expected the security threat of climate change would be raised at this week’s talks between Australian foreign and defence ministers and their American counterparts.

Former US deputy undersecretary of defence Sherri Goodman, who contributed to the report, said it was “not too late for responsible action by Australian leaders”.

She said Australia not only had to protect its homeland security but was “a vital American partner in the region and globally”.

“It needs to be able to help address climate risk throughout the region.”

She said this would mean not only increasing its efforts to reduce carbon emissions, but also ramping up its analysis of climate security threats.

The government was approached for comment.

Links

• (Climate Council) Climate Change Undermining Regional Security: New Report
• (Climate Council) Rising to the Challenge: Addressing Climate and Security in our Region
• (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) Missing in Action: Responding to Australia’s climate & security failure
• (US) Defense Secretary Calls Climate Change an Existential Threat
• (Common Dreams) Climate Emergency May Displace 216 Million Within Countries By 2050: World Bank
• (Report) Groundswell Part 2 : Acting on Internal Climate Migration
• (Forbes) World Bank Predicts Massive Internal Migration From Climate Change By 2050 
• Climate Change Could Create 63 Million Migrants In South Asia By 2050

(AU ABC Media Watch) Climate Conversion?

 ABC Media Watch

News Corp says it will explore net-zero emissions in an 'editorial series on the environment'. A change in how the media group covers climate change or just hot air?

6min17sec Broadcast Mon 13 Sep 2021

Transcript

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MOLLY HUNTER: Tonight, wildfires raging across Greece and Turkey forcing thousands to flee their homes. 

- NBC News, 7 August, 2021

MAGGIE RULLI: … everyone we speak to says the same thing, they’ve just never seen anything like this.

- ABC News (USA), 10 August, 2021

CATHY NEWMAN: Part of British Columbia reached 46.6 degrees celsius yesterday and that could be beaten again by tomorrow.

- Channel 4 News, 29 June, 2021

REPORTER: It’s a natural disaster on a shocking scale …

Such freak weather events are unusual in Germany.

- DW, 23 July, 2021

Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.

From record heat and bushfires to record rains and floods, extreme weather has hammered the world in recent months.

And as the latest IPCC report makes clear, we can expect more of it thanks to global warming.

But the good news, it seems, is that News Corp has finally seen the light and wants to save the planet:

Murdoch papers, Sky in policy shift on climate action

- The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September, 2021

That is amazing. But can you believe it?  

After all, this is the group that helped kill the carbon tax, claims Australia’s worst-ever bushfires had little or nothing to do with climate change, plays down threats to the Great Barrier Reef and has influential commentators decrying the great global warming hoax.

Yet, as the Herald revealed last week, News Corp has supposedly decided to:

… end its long-standing editorial hostility towards carbon reduction policies and advocate for the world’s leading economies to hit net zero emissions by 2050.

- The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September, 2021

As one Herald reader noted drily: 

Welcome, Rupert Murdoch, to the 21st century!

- The Sydney Morning Herald letters, Maree Nutt, Newport, 7 September, 2021

But is a sea change really coming?  

Drill into the detail of the Herald story and all it’s promising is “a two-week campaign”, “fronted by news.com.au columnist and former Studio 10 host, Joe Hildebrand”.

This will run in mid-October before the Glasgow climate summit. And according to the Herald will “not appear in the national masthead, The Australian”.

We can’t see Sky News pushing it either, given that in the past it’s called net-zero “insanity”, “stupid”, “ridiculous”, “rubbish”, “nonsense” and “economic suicide”.

Sky boss Paul Whittaker told the Senate last Monday they are planning a documentary on net-zero, but said: 

PAUL WHITTAKER: I wouldn’t describe it as a campaign. I would describe it, in terms of Sky News, as an exploration of what are very complex issues. 

- Senate Environment and Communications References Committee, 6 September, 2021

So what should we expect? Something like this perhaps from Rowan Dean?

ROWAN DEAN: This Sunday, we’re going to solve climate change. Just there.

ROSS CAMERON: Just here?

ROWAN DEAN: … It’s gone up by about a millimetre!

ROSS CAMERON: Rising sea levels

You got it?

ROWAN DEAN: I got it. Three mill.

- Outsiders promo, Sky News Australia, 6 August, 2017

If News Corp is about to take global warming seriously, rather than just on its younger-aiming website News.com.au, it really would be something. 

And in the US, The New York Times and Vanity Fair were excited by the news.

But plenty of people warned them not to believe it, with veteran climate scientist Michael Mann quipping: 

“Color me skeptical,” … “Until Rupert Murdoch and News Corp call off their attack dogs at Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, who continue to promote climate change disinformation on a daily basis, these are hollow promises …”

- The New York Times, 6 September, 2021

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has accused News of doing enormous damage to the world through climate denialism, was also unconvinced:  

“... If there’s a change there, that would be significant,” ...

“I’m not going to give them credit for something they haven’t done yet.” 

- The New York Times, 6 September, 2021

And another former PM Kevin Rudd agreed with both of them, branding it greenwashing and tweeting:

It’s all politics. They want to accommodate Morrison … 

- Twitter, @MrKRudd, 8 September, 2021

Casting further doubt on the supposed change of tack, several senior figures at News Corp last week knew nothing about it.   

And then, on Friday afternoon, an email from News Corp boss Michael Miller hit the newsrooms, confirming, quote, “an editorial series on the environment and Australia’s ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2050”.

With Miller telling the troops:

I am personally supportive of a net zero target and I would like to reiterate that News Corp recognises climate change ...

- Email, Michael Miller, Executive Chairman, News Corp Australia, 10 September, 2021

Miller also said all mastheads will be involved, adding “commentators and columnists will be encouraged to participate” and their  “views will not be ‘muzzled’”.

And, yesterday, as if to prove they won’t be gagged, Sky’s Rowan Dean served up his regular Ice Age Watch on Outsiders:

ROWAN DEAN: … I've been on the planet a fair few decades now and the weather doesn’t seem all that different to when I was a little kid. Indeed it sometimes appears colder! Indeed. According to Electroverse, South Africa has had a brutally cold winter this year …

… in Japan. The iconic Mt Fuji’s first snow cap of the season has arrived a good four weeks earlier ...

- Outsiders, Sky News Australia, 12 September, 2021

So the big question is, will commentators like Rowan Dean, Chris Kenny, Peta Credlin, Alan Jones, Tim Blair, Miranda Devine, Andrew Bolt and Terry McCrann now change their tune on global warming, or continue to ridicule the call for urgent action?

As they did during Australia’s terrible bushfires in January last year:

CHRIS KENNY: … climate change exaggeration, alarmism and hysteria ...

- The Kenny Report, Sky News Australia, 22 January, 2020

PETA CREDLIN: … hysteria or worse ...

- Credlin, Sky News Australia, 20 January, 2020

ALAN JONES: … hysteria …

- Jones & Credlin, Sky News Australia, 28 January, 2020

ROWAN DEAN: … the loonies in the climate cult ...

- Outsiders, Sky News Australia, 26 January, 2020

ANDREW BOLT: Lunatic stuff.

- The Bolt Report, Sky News Australia, 27 January, 2020

We would be astonished if Herald Sun columnist and Sky News host Andrew Bolt could be turned into a climate change activist.

And his reaction to the Herald’s story last week pretty much confirms he won’t:

ANDREW BOLT: OK, so we’re going to champion a useless gesture by Australia that won’t lower the temperature but will cost jobs and money when we’re already so much in the schtuk. A pretend fix to a pretend crisis. After we campaigned against the carbon tax? OK, it’s the bosses’ paper, it’s their right to campaign, even for something stupid, even for something that makes us seem fools for once fighting against what we’re now fighting for ... 

Am I now expected to reframe my arguments that global warming is a widely exaggerated crisis?

- The Bolt Report, Sky News Australia, 6 September, 2021

Answer no, with Bolt telling his viewers — and management — that he was not for turning. 

Not now. Not in time for Glasgow. Not ever:

ANDREW BOLT: … I refuse to believe those things in the paper today, that they represent the views of News Corp. But I can’t be sure so the proof will be in the practice and in whether I stay or go. If I’m still here you know it was all untrue. If I’m gone, worry.

- The Bolt Report, Sky News Australia, 6 September, 2021

We’ll let you know if he packs his bags.

And one thing’s for sure: if News Corp is to change its tune on climate change, a lot of high-profile commentators will have to go with him.

Links

• (AU SMH) News Corp About-Turn On Emissions Too Little, Too Late, Scientists Say
• (AU The Age) News Corp’s Climate Change Shame
• News Corp Hasn’t Seen The Light On Climate – They’re Just Updating Their Tactics
• (AU Crikey) News Corp’s Net Zero By 2050 Push Is What Climate Change Denial Looks Like In 2021
• ‘Brand responsibility’: Major advertiser backs News Corp climate shift
• Climate Denialism, ‘Doom Porn’, Deflection And The New Climate War
• Former Australian PMs Put Murdoch In The Hot Seat On Climate Change
• (AU) News Corp Has Caused Massive Climate Delay, But Its Grip On Power Is Slipping
• (AU) Australians Fed Up With News Corp’s Climate Scepticism

(AU Canberra Times) Agriculture Roadmap To Net Zero By 2040

AAP - Georgie Moore

A new report predicts the agriculture sector can achieve net zero emissions within two decades. Image by Tracey Nearmy/AAP PHOTOS

Climate-conscious farmers are backing a roadmap to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 without shrinking the agriculture sector.

Changing how livestock are bred and fed and vaccinating them to reduce methane production are among the proposals in an EY report commissioned by Farmers for Climate Action.

It recommends shifting to renewable energy and electric-powered machinery, re-foresting less productive land and restoring degraded farmland so CO2 can be better sequestered in soil.

Compared to a business-as-usual trajectory, the report predicts the $67 billion-a-year agriculture sector can cut emissions by 40 per cent by 2030, 65 per cent five years later and achieve net zero within two decades.

Farmers for Climate Action believes the changes will boost farm productivity and profits by scaling up initiatives, including around land use and management, already under way.

“Farming families should be able to diversify to use their land to grow profitable, productive carbon and biodiversity crops which provide them rare drought-proof payments when and where they choose,” the group’s chief executive Fiona Davis said.

Methane produced through livestock digestive processes accounts for a significant source of on-farm emissions. 

Feed supplements, including a seaweed additive, have the potential to reduce this, as does selective breeding of sheep and cattle. 

The report also points to work on a vaccine to influence methane-producing microbes in livestock. 

It touts the potential for electricity to power tractors and heavy machinery as well as a shift to renewable energy used farms.

A case study looking at the southern Queensland region of Maranoa models how ramping up carbon abatement could increase revenue by up to $2.4 billion and create between 14,000 and 17,000 extra jobs over a decade.

The report also urges the sector to look beyond net zero by 2040 so it can amass and sell carbon credits to other sectors seeking to decarbonise.

“The carbon offset surplus past net zero is a value bank. The speed at which the industry can achieve net zero will help determine the value that farmers can access,” it said.

The agriculture sector accounted for nearly 15 per cent of Australia’s emissions last year, equating to around 70 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Links - Farmers for Climate Action

• Farmers for Climate Action
• Farmers urge government to heed climate wake up call from top scientists
• Farmers need support, not dress-ups, to reap benefits of climate action
• Farmers in Canberra to back renewables for regional renewal
• Australian ag leading way on net zero emissions
• No excuses left say farmers as warming tops 1.4 degrees
• Gas-led recovery leaves farmers high and dry: New briefing paper
• Farmers set to harvest benefits of renewable energy zones