Budget 2018 Was Old News For Energy Policy – The Next Big Headlines Won’t Come Until July

The Conservation - David Blowers

No money for new coal - and no change to the current situation for renewables, despite the treasurer’s claims. AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts

As with many previous budgets, matters relating to energy and climate change were relegated to little more than a footnote in Treasurer Scott Morrison’s 2018 budget speech. And even the contents of that footnote told us nothing new.
This will bring relief to some, but cause frustration for others.
No money was set aside for a new coal-fired power station, despite the plaintive calls from the backbench in recent weeks. Nor was there any extra help for consumers struggling with sky-high electricity bills. There was no extra funding for the government’s Emissions Reduction Fund, but neither was money cut from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency or the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
What Budget 2018 did contain was three “announcables” – or, to put it more accurately, re-announcables.
First, Morrison declared that adoption of the federal government’s National Energy Guarantee would save the average household A$400 a year on its electricity bills. This is a bit of sleight of hand. Yes, modelling for the NEG shows that consumers’ bills will be on average A$400 lower than in 2017. But much of those savings will occur before the NEG comes into force in 2020.
Second, the treasurer declared that:

All energy sources and technologies should support themselves without taxpayer subsidies. The current subsidy scheme will be phased out from 2020.

The subsidies to which Morrison refers are from the Renewable Energy Target (RET). But it is hardly news that the scheme will to be phased out from 2020. This has been known for a decade. In fact, it’s a bit of a stretch to say the subsidies are being “phased out” at all.
After 2020, existing or new renewable energy projects will still be able to generate the same renewable energy certificates for every megawatt hour of electricity they produce, which they can then sell to retailers. The ability to generate certificates – and therefore generate a subsidy – will only end in 2030. The difference between the pre- and post-2020 RET is that there will be no annual increase in the target.
Finally, the treasurer pledged that the federal government will keep up the pressure on the big energy companies to give consumers better electricity and gas deals. This announcement is a signal as to when we can expect to see the next real action from the government on energy. It will come in July, when Morrison receives the report on the Retail Electricity Pricing Inquiry, which is being carried out by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
The Turnbull government will be keen to act on the ACCC’s recommendations, given the looming federal election and the pressure on all politicians to find a way to cut voters’ energy bills.
So if we want some real headlines on energy, rather than some reheated footnotes, we will be waiting for a couple of months yet.

Links

• Budget 2018: Climate Change Denial And Conservation Jobs Slashed
• Budget Strategy and Outlook Budget Paper No. 1 2018-19 (pdf)
• Budget 2018: Funding cuts put Paris climate goal further out of reach
• Turnbull’s Election Budget Dumps On Climate And Renewables
• Rare Australian species could slip into extinction as jobs axed at environment department
• A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills
• As the Libs claim South Australia, states are falling into line behind the National Energy Guarantee

Turnbull’s Election Budget Dumps On Climate And Renewables

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson

AAP Image/Dean Lewins

What is widely regarded as the last budget to be delivered by the Turnbull government before the next federal election ceded no ground on climate policy, insisting that it’s much criticised emissions reduction targets would remain unchanged.
Budgets are not usually the platforms for changes in climate or energy policy, but they are an expression of the importance that the government of the day attaches to certain programs, its values and its priorities.
For the last few years, it has usually been just an opportunity for the Coalition government to steal from budgets  – from ARENA, the CEFC and The Climate Authority and this budget appears no different.
The budget delivered by Treasurer Scott Morrison on Tuesday night found $15 billion for short term hand-outs to average wage owners and promised a $140 billion handout in the future for mostly high wage owners.
But it couldn’t find a cent for any emissions reduction policies, and its only comment on climate and energy was to flatly reject the idea that encouraging more renewables will deliver cheaper electricity prices, as the renewables target is forecast to do by 2020.
Instead, Morrison – the man who brought a lump of coal into parliament in the middle of a heatwave last year – mocked the very idea of renewables.
“We will maintain our responsible and achievable emissions reduction target at
26-28 per cent, and not the 45 per cent demanded by the Opposition. That would only push electricity prices up,” Morrison said.
“And we will not adopt the 50 per cent renewable energy target demanded by the Opposition that will also only put electricity prices up.”
Energy minister Josh Frydenberg nodded furiously in agreement. And that was that for the Coalition’s climate and energy vision.
Morrison even claimed annual power bills will fall by $400 on average for every Australian household from 2020 “following the introduction of our national energy guarantee.”
But even what he called the “National Energy Security Board” has made it clear that the vast majority of those reductions will come from the benefits of the renewable energy target the government has demonised.
Morrison then went on to say that “all energy sources and technologies should support themselves without taxpayer subsidies. The current subsidy scheme will be phased out from 2020.”
This is the reference to the RET, but as environmental groups point out, the diesel fuel rebate scheme is budgeted to cost $30 billion over from now till 2021, including $1 billion a year just to coal mining companies.
Meanwhile, spending on the environment has been cut further, with no new monies for the emissions reduction fund, leaving Australia on a path of increasing emissions and no policy to address even its own inadequate Abbott-era targets.
Environmental groups also noted that budget cut continued – most notable to the Department of Environment and Energy, whose funding lost another $169 million and whose funding by 2021-22 will be 43 per cent lower than when the Coalition took office in 2013.
The Climate Change Authority, the independent body that Abbot tried to kill after it dared point out that Australia needed to aim a lot higher to meet its Paris commitments, is further trimmed, losing another $550,000 to just $2.9 million – less than half its first budget in 2011.
“This is a reckless budget that actively encourages climate pollution, invests little in clean energy and slashes investment in Australia’s wildlife, forests and rivers,” said Kelly O’Shanassy of the Australian Conservation Fund.
“This is a values choice by the Turnbull Government to slash investment in the clean water, healthy country and safe climate that sustains all Australians.
Labor’s climate spokesman Mark Butler labelled it a disgrace, noting it also confirmed the removal of the energy supplement for older and vulnerable members of the community.
“This budget makes official what we already know; Malcolm Turnbull’s Government is failing to tackle crippling power prices, failing our international obligations under the Paris Agreement, and most importantly failing all future generations of Australians.”
The one bright spot?
The budget papers still include the $110 million promised for the Port Augusta solar tower and molten salt storage project in South Australia.
“The above figures incorporate the Government’s decision to make available up to $110 million for an equity investment, if required, to accelerate and secure delivery of a solar thermal project in Port Augusta, South Australia,” it says. But still no word on when.

Links

• Budget 2018: Climate Change Denial And Conservation Jobs Slashed
• Budget Strategy and Outlook Budget Paper No. 1 2018-19 (pdf)
• Budget 2018: Funding cuts put Paris climate goal further out of reach
• Rare Australian species could slip into extinction as jobs axed at environment department
• Budget 2018 Was Old News For Energy Policy – The Next Big Headlines Won’t Come Until July
• A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills
• As the Libs claim South Australia, states are falling into line behind the National Energy Guarantee

Budget 2018: Funding Cuts Put Paris Climate Goal Further Out Of Reach

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Australia's 2030 Paris climate pledge will be harder to achieve after the Turnbull government ended funding to its "centrepiece" emissions policy and omitted spending on new carbon-cutting programs, analysts say.
Spending on climate issues is projected to drop from $3 billion in the current year - or 0.6 per cent of total spending - to $1.6 billion for 2018-19.
By 2021-22, the outlay will shrink further to $1.25 billion, or just 0.2 per cent of the budget for that year, the government said.
The $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund [ERF], which was set up by the Abbott government to substitute for the carbon tax, was not topped up in this year's budget.

Australia signed up to the Paris climate accord in 2015, pledging to cut emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. Photo: AP

The lack of climate funding "is really, really distressing", Tim Baxter, a research associate at Melbourne University's Climate and Energy College, said. "This isn't the trajectory we need to be having right now - we need to be amping up, not winding down."
Climate change was also absent from Treasurer Scott Morrison's budget speech, save for a mention that Australia would "maintain our responsible and achievable emissions reduction target at 26-28 per cent [versus 2005 levels by 2030], and not the 45 per cent demanded by the opposition".
Labor's climate spokesman Mark Butler, said the government's climate and energy policies were "nothing short of a disgrace", and that Australia's emissions "will keep rising all the way to 2030".
"This budget delivers zero new policies or funding to drive down pollution and combat climate change," Mark Butler, Labor's climate spokesman said. "They are not even continuing their wasteful direct action program" he said, referring to the ERF.
Fairfax Media sought comment from Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg.
The onus to find fresh sources for emission cuts has increased, given the government's insistence that the electricity sector - accounting for about one-third of total carbon pollution - should only meet a 26 per cent reduction out to 2030.

The electricity sector accounts for about a third of Australia's greenhouse gases.

That target, embedded in its signature National Energy Guarantee, is considered to be unnecessarily low even by major electricity companies because of the availability of increasingly competitive renewable sources of power.
"To reach our Paris goals we're going to need to see considerable investment elsewhere in the economy, " Mr Baxter said. "This budget has done nothing to provide for that."
Under Paris, Australia has agreed to reach net-zero emissions by the second half of this century as part of the international pact to avert dangerous global warming.
"There are certain areas of our emissions that will be considerably more difficult to deal with, whether it's fugitives or transport," Mr Baxter said. "We don't actually have a road map to getting to zero in those sectors of the economy."
Most of the ERF money has been allocated, with much of it going to the rural sector to encourage carbon sequestration in vegetation and soils.
Large-scale land-clearing in Queensland and an increase in NSW will most likely have increased emissions from the land in recent groups, the Queensland government and environmental groups say.

Links

• Budget 2018: Climate Change Denial And Conservation Jobs Slashed
• Budget Strategy and Outlook Budget Paper No. 1 2018-19 (pdf)
• Turnbull’s Election Budget Dumps On Climate And Renewables
• Rare Australian species could slip into extinction as jobs axed at environment department
• Budget 2018 Was Old News For Energy Policy – The Next Big Headlines Won’t Come Until July
• A high price for policy failure: the ten-year story of spiralling electricity bills
• As the Libs claim South Australia, states are falling into line behind the National Energy Guarantee

Company Directors Can Be Legally Liable For Failing To Manage Climate Change Risks - Report

Australasian Lawyer - Paolo Taruc

Photo © iStockphoto.com/AndreyPopov

Under Australian corporate governance laws, company directors can be held liable for failing to manage risks associated with climate change, according to a legal analysis paper by the Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI).
The paper warned that the effects of climate change – including extreme weather, an increase in bushfires, and changes in crop yields – can cause harm not only to ecosystems, but to economies as well.
These impacts can give rise to commercial issues, including reduced workforce productivity, business interruption, insurance restrictions, and increased risk of customer default.
While boards in practice delegate operational matters to executive management, the paper said that directors remain responsible for the oversight of corporate performance, for the monitoring and supervision of compliance, the approval of significant transactions, and external reporting.
“In the corporate context, ‘risk’ is simply ‘the effect of uncertainty on objectives’. It is clear that risk management and strategy are interrelated, and that board governance and oversight of both is critical to the creation of corporate value,” the paper said.
The Corporations Act mandates directors to act in the best interests of their firm. Hence they may fail to act in good faith if they consciously disregard, or are wilfully blind to, climate change risks, the paper said.
According to Sarah Barker, MinterEllison special counsel for climate change risk, the Coporations Act accommodates corporate governance and disclosure of climate-related financial risks, as mentioned in the federal government’s response to the recommendations of the Senate Economic References Committee Inquiry into Carbon Risk Disclosure.
Barker worked with the University of Oxford in drafting the CCLI report.
“Australian company directors need to ensure that they view climate change through a corporations and securities law lens, rather than an 'environmental' lens,” Barker said. “If this is news to any business or board, they would be well advised to accelerate their understanding of the issue before enforcement proceedings begin to flow,” she added.

Links

• Top lawyers to take up climate change litigation threat
• Law firm launches definitive guide to Australian class actions
• Renewable energy conglomerate wins major solar farm bid through HSF's help
• How To Fight Climate Change: Figure Out Who's To Blame, And Sue Them
• California Sues Trump Administration Over Car Emissions Rules
• California, 17 Other States Sue Trump Administration To Defend Obama-Era Climate Rules For Vehicles
• The Fighting Has Begun Over Who Owns Land Drowned By Climate Change
• From Australia To El Salvador To Vietnam, The Environment Is Finally Getting Its Day In Court
• The Case For Climate Reparations 

'It's All About Vested Interests': Untangling Conspiracy, Conservatism And Climate Scepticism

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Study across 24 countries suggests the fossil fuel industry has reshaped conservative political values in the US and Australia 

A protest against the US government’s decision to exit the Paris climate deal in 2017. ‘Ignorance-building strategies’ by fossil fuel companies have bred climate change scepticism among conservative in the US and Australia. Photograph: Anthony Anex/EPA

If you reckon the 11 September terrorist attacks might have been an “inside job” or there is a nefarious new world order doing whatever it is the illuminati do, what are you likely to think about the causes of climate change?
Academics have suggested that people who tend to accept conspiracy theories also underplay or reject the science showing humans are causing rapid and dangerous climate change.
But a new study that tested this idea across 24 different countries found the link between so-called “conspiratorial ideation” and “climate scepticism” only really holds in the US.
University of Queensland psychology professor Matthew Hornsey and colleagues surveyed 5,300 people to test the link between climate “scepticism” and acceptance of four internationally propagated conspiracy theories around the assassination of President Kennedy, the 11 September terrorist attacks, the death of Princess Diana and the existence of a new world order.
Only in the US did the correlation fall outside the margin of error. This is perhaps not surprising, given the booming online conspiracy culture in the Trumpocene, with even would-be presidential science advisers hanging around with conspiracy theorists.

Conservatism and climate
The study also tried to tease out the links between the rejection of human-caused climate change and the ideologies that people hold.
It’s here that the study offers the greatest cause for hope, Hornsey says. He has developed a form of “jiujitsu” persuasion technique that he thinks might work.
There’s been a general acceptance that people who have broadly conservative or rightwing ideologies tend to rail against climate science because it rubs their worldview up the wrong way. That is, that tackling climate change will require broad interventions from governments.
But Hornsey’s study finds that “there is nothing inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science”.
Instead, it suggests vested interests have managed to reshape the conservative identity with “ignorance-building strategies” in two countries – the US and Australia.
Hornsey agreed to expand on the study by answering further questions by email.

You found that in the US people’s climate “scepticism” was more aligned to a conservative worldview than any other country surveyed. Why do you think the US is in this position?
I think it’s a result of two things. First, a lot of the big business interests that are threatened by climate change are situated in the US. My overall argument is that there’s nothing inherent to political conservatism that makes people want to reject climate science. Rather, the link between conservatism and climate scepticism only emerges in countries that are economically threatened by the notion of responding to climate change. When the vested interests are high (in terms of the fossil fuel industry, for example) then there is more of a motivation for big business to engage in an organised campaign of misinformation around climate change. These campaigns often develop as a collaboration between the fossil fuel industry and conservative thinktanks, media and politicians, and are designed to “coach” conservatives to believe that the climate science is not yet settled. From this perspective, conservatives don’t spontaneously feel the need to reject climate science; they only do so when they are taking their cues from conservative elites, and these cues only emerge when the economic stakes are high. Second, America has an unusually intense brand of conservatism, one that has a particularly strong opposition to government interference in the free market. Climate science is a nightmare for these people, because in some ways it does imply a big-government response designed to regulate industry.

What role do the views of high-profile politicians have in influencing voters to think about the issue in a certain way?
I think it plays a massive role. In many countries, climate scepticism is not part of the language of the conservative parties. But in Australia and America it is. So in those countries being a climate sceptic starts becoming part of the package of attitudes that you’re supposed to have if you’re a good conservative. The obvious example of this is in the US. Of the 17 candidates who campaigned to be the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential campaign, the majority were climate change sceptics. So people’s sense of what it means to be a Republican in America has expanded to incorporate something that shouldn’t really be political, like climate science. There, people advertise their climate scepticism like they’re advertising their political gang colours. It’s not quite as bad here, but threatened to become like that during the [Tony] Abbott era.

In the US people advertise their climate scepticism like they’re advertising their political gang colours.
Professor Matthew Hornsey

Why do you think this has happened?
I think it’s all about vested interests. When the vested interests are high, the fossil fuel industry and conservative thinktanks, media and politicians collaborate in an organised campaign of misinformation. In my data, the link between conservatism and scepticism is really only obvious in countries with high per capita carbon emissions. If you think of per capita carbon emissions as a measure of how fossil fuel reliant a country is, then this makes sense. In countries with low fossil fuel reliance – where the vested interests are low – then there’s no need to kick off a campaign of misinformation, and no motivation to believe one either.

In the paper, you say “there is nothing inherent to conspiratorial ideation or conservative ideologies that predisposes people to reject climate science”. Can you clarify this? Doesn’t endorsement of small governments and low regulation actually predispose conservatives to engage in motivated reasoning to reject the science of climate change?
Yes, but most conservatives aren’t paying that much attention. I really think conservatives have to be trained and coached to pay attention, and to see the issue through the lens of their worldviews. In the 1980s you didn’t see conservatives get upset about governments shutting down CFCs to protect the ozone layer. Technically the issue was the same – government regulations curbing the freedom of industry – but because the vested interests were low there was no need for conservative elites to fight back.

What do you think it would take for the US and Australia to break the apparent link between conservative ideology and climate “scepticism”?
As the negative consequences of climate change become more severe and more immediate, I think the ideological element will fade away (although by then it’s likely to be too late, sadly). The other option is to use what I call “jiujitsu” persuasion techniques; to talk about climate mitigation in a way that aligns with people’s underlying ideologies rather than competing with them. There’s already evidence that if you frame climate change mitigation as something that’s sympathetic to free markets, or as a patriotic act designed to maintain energy security, or as a chance to generate green jobs, then conservatives are less likely to resist the science.

Links

• Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations
• Hey millennials, don’t fall for Shell’s pop star PR
• You don't have to be a climate science denier to join the Monash coal forum, but it helps
• Murky world of 'science' journals a new frontier for climate deniers
• Checkmate: how do climate science deniers' predictions stack up?

New Study Finds Climate Change Threatens Marine Protected Areas

University of North Carolina

The photo shows the projected warming per year (indicated by the color-coded bar on the right) of the world's Marine Protected Areas (indicated by the black dots). Credit: Bruno et al

New research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and collaborators found that most marine life in Marine Protected Areas will not be able to tolerate warming ocean temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions. Marine Protected Areas have been established as a haven to protect threatened marine life, like polar bears, penguins and coral reefs, from the effects of fishing and other activities like mineral and oil extraction. The study found that with continued "business-as-usual" emissions, the protections currently in place won't matter, because by 2100, warming and reduced oxygen concentration will make Marine Protected Areas uninhabitable by most species currently residing in those areas.
The study, which will be published on May 7 in Nature Climate Change, predicts that under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario, better known as the "business as usual scenario," Marine Protected Areas will warm by 2.8 degrees Celsius (or 5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.
The study concludes that such rapid and extreme warming would devastate the species and ecosystems currently located in Marine Protected Areas. This could lead to extinctions of some of the world's most unique animals, loss of biodiversity, and changes in ocean food-webs. It could also have considerable negative impacts on the productivity of fisheries and on tourism revenue. Many of these marine species exist as small populations with low genetic diversity that are vulnerable to environmental change and unlikely to adapt to ocean warming.
The study also estimated the year in which Marine Protected Areas in different ecoregions would cross critical thresholds beyond which most species wouldn't be able to tolerate the change. For many areas in the tropics, this will happen as soon as the mid-21st century.
"With warming of this magnitude, we expect to lose many, if not most, animal species from Marine Protected Areas by the turn of the century," said John Bruno, lead author, marine ecologist, and biology professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill. "To avoid the worst outcomes, we need to immediately adopt an emission reduction scenario in which emissions peak within the next two decades and then decrease very significantly, replacing fossil fuels with cleaner energy sources like solar and wind."
Key takeaways include:

• There are 8,236 Marine Protected Areas around the world, although they only cover about 4 percent of the surface of the ocean.
• The projected warming of 2.8 degrees Celsius (or 5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 would fundamentally disrupt the ecosystems currently located in Marine Protected Areas.
• Mean sea-surface temperatures within Marine Protected Areas are projected to increase 0.034 degrees Celsius (or 0.061 degrees Fahrenheit) per year.
• Marine Protected Areas in the Arctic and Antarctic are projected to warm especially quickly, threatening numerous marine mammals like polar bears and penguins.
• The Marine Protected Areas at the greatest risk include those in the Arctic and Antarctic, in the northwest Atlantic, and the newly designated no-take reserves off the northern Galápagos islands Darwin and Wolf.

"There has been a lot of talk about establishing marine reserves to buy time while we figure out how to confront climate change," said Rich Aronson, ocean scientist at Florida Institute of Technology and a researcher on the study. "We're out of time, and the fact is we already know what to do: We have to control greenhouse gas emissions."

Links

• Rising ocean temperatures harm protected coral reefs
• More N. Atlantic fishing bans may be needed: ministers
• Latest ocean warming review reveals extent of impacts on nature and humans
• More 'losers' than 'winners' predicted for Southern Ocean seafloor animals
• Marine protected areas: changing climate could require change of plans
• Marine reserves are critical for coral reef resilience
• Earth's orbital changes have influenced climate, life forms for at least 215 million years
• Geoscientists suggest 'snowball Earth' resulted from plate tectonics
• Global tourism carbon footprint quantified in world first

Malcolm Turnbull Has Become A De-Facto Climate Denier

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson

President of France, Emmanuel Macron, delivers "thinly disguised lecture" to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. AAP Image/Getty Images Pool, Jason McCawley

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has been delivered two home truths this week about his failure to act on climate change, and his refusal to tackle his party’s right-wing ideologues.
The first was a speech, more a thinly disguised lecture, from visiting France president Emmanuel Macron, who eviscerated Turnbull in front of a big audience at the Sydney Opera House on Tuesday night:
“I am fully aware of the political and economic debate surrounding this issue in your country, and I respect this,” Macron said.
“But I think that actual leaders are those that can respect those existing interests, but at the same time decide to participate to something broader, to something more strategic.”
“Actual leaders”? It seems Turnbull’s capitulation to the far right has not gone unnoticed on the international stage. And bravo to Macron for telling him so.
The second moment came the next day, at Kirribilli House, and again in the company of Macron, at the signing of a deal between Sanjeev Gupta, arguably one of the country’s leading industrialists, and the head of French renewable group Neoen.
The deal was for a solar farm to supply Gupta’s steel plant in Victoria, and so dramatically reduce its costs, and the message to Turnbull could not have been any clearer.
“The switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the revolution of this century, transforming our economics and our impact on the environment,” said Neoen president Xavier Barbaro.
“We believe renewable energy is a game-changer and (these) agreements reflect a shared commitment to deliver low-cost sustainable energy solutions to the market.”
Gupta intends to embrace renewables, to slash electricity costs not just in Victoria, but across his entire steel industry portfolio in Whyalla and NSW, and use this to make Australia great again in manufacturing and industry.
Yet here we are, with the leader who promised never to lead a political party that didn’t take climate change seriously … doing exactly that. And at the same time deliberately ignoring one of the greatest technology transitions in the world, just to placate a handful of vested coal interests.
There is now no doubt that Turnbull’s refusal to act on climate change, and his refusal to embrace Australia’s renewable energy riches, is driven by his Faustian bargain with the far right that both denies the science of climate change, and is sworn to defend coal.
According to the Institute of Public Affairs, a right wing think tank that rejects climate science, more than half of the Coalition’s parliamentarians are climate skeptics. The IPA should know, it has provided a few of those MPs from its own ranks.
Yet what were the major policy initiatives of the Turnbull government in the days before the Macron visit? Two programs that highlight its willingness to spend money to “adapt” to the impacts of the climate change that much of the government insists is not happening.
First was the $500 million to be spent on the Great Barrier Reef, an Australian and international treasure to be sure, with a fair chunk of this money aimed at developing new coral species that are more resistant to warmer waters.
Why do they need new species of coral to be able to cope with warmer waters? Climate change of course. What are we doing about climate change? Not much.
Ditto the announcement a day earlier from agriculture minister David Littleproud about an agreement with state ministers to help farmers adapt to climate change.
Why was this needed? Because the climate is changing. What are we doing about it? Not much.
As environmental groups, the Labor Party and The Greens have pointed out, there is little sense spending money on trying to adapt to climate change if you haven’t made much of an effort to tackle it first, and still refuse to do so. It becomes a never-ending pit.
Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, an environmental organisation that wants to hold the world to account on its Paris ambition to limit average global warming to 1.5°C, visited the reef last weekend as part of his latest tour of Australia.
“It was a weird feeling being up on the reef and reading news that the government was going to save the reef by not doing anything about the problem that the reef is actually facing. It was quite disorientating,” McKibben told RenewEconomy.
“It’s like coming across someone who has been mugged in a dark alley and you offer them a cholesterol test. It doesn’t address the problem.”
McKibben laments the fact that all around the world, nearly every leader – apart from Trump, who doesn’t care – wants to be perceived as doing something about the environmental problems we face.
“But they refuse to do the things that might actually help,” and this is despite the fact that right now – as Gupta and Neoen pointed out to Turnbull on Tuesday – it would actually be quite easy to achieve significant emissions reductions, given the falling cost of renewables and the emergence of battery storage.
“And that is infuriating,” McKibben says. “For years we listened to people saying (renewable energy) was too expensive, then it was too unreliable. Now it’s cheap, and Musk has built the biggest freaking battery in the world, and it’s working like a charm.
“They are running out of excuses, but the problem is they are still taking money from coal.”
McKibben has no doubt that the world will be running on the wind and the sun within 50 years, and for that matter neither do most energy institutions and forecasters.
The problem is that it needs to happen a lot quicker, and the small bump of momentum that occurred with the signing of the Paris climate treaty has been squashed by the election of Trump.
“One of the overlooked problems with Trump is that he sets the bar so low by being such a grotesque buffoon, and that makes it easier for others to look statesmanlike.”
As for Turnbull, McKibben is less forgiving.
“Turnbull knows everything there is not know about climate change, but doesn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if that if that makes him worse than Trump or better.”
It begs an interesting question. Has Malcolm Turnbull, he who crossed the floor to vote against his party’s bill to scrap the carbon price, become a de-facto climate denier?
Not a denier of the science, because it would seem he accepts that, but a denier of the need to act.
As Macron told him, it requires leadership to overcome dissent, and the “power of conviction”. But Turnbull has shown no inclination to argue his point.
Turnbull is a constant denier, too, of the march of renewable energy, and its undoubted benefits, which are now being embraced by many of Australia’s biggest corporates, as well as millions of households.

IMAGE

It was galling for many – and to the Victoria government – that Turnbull should be seeking to claim credit for a major solar farm that will be built as part of Victoria’s state-based target that Turnbull has often described as “waffle” and “left-wing ideology”.
Turnbull’s government is also a denier of the immense opportunity presented by the falling costs of renewables, and other actions, to be more ambitious on emissions, and to save money and reduce costs at the same time.
Analysis after analysis shows that his government’s weak emissions reduction targets for the electricity sector for 2030 will have already been met by 2020 – creating the prospect of yet another lost decade.
Energy minister Josh Frydenberg continues to label any higher targets as “reckless and extreme.” The government has no policy – nearly five years after it came to power – to address long-term emissions reductions in other sectors of the economy.
So how long will this climate denial last? For Turnbull, at least until the next election, because that is what his compact with the far right appears to demand.
At that poll, either he and his government will get turfed out, and be replaced by a Labor government that will hopefully deliver on its rhetoric, or Turnbull will sneak back in.
The question is whether he will still be cowed by the Far Right at that point – or will he take Macron’s advice on how to be a leader and show that power of conviction.

Cartoon by Mark David / @mdavidcartoons.

Links

• Emmanuel Macron calls on Malcolm Turnbull to show 'power of conviction' in fighting climate change
• More than half of federal Liberal MPs 'don't trust' climate science: think tank
• Climate change: Australia's position is unconscionable for a wealthy country
• Another record year throws the heat on Australia's Paris climate targets
• The 'Kodak moment' for coal, and why the Adani mine could be a financial disaster