Climate Change Top Of Voters' Minds In NSW Election

Fairfax - Alexandra Smith

Climate change is a key election issue for most people in NSW, polling shows, as the environment emerges as a more pressing concern for voters than hospitals, schools and public transport.
Exclusive Herald polling shows that 57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection when deciding who to vote for on March 23.

57.5 per cent of voters say they will be swayed by climate change and environmental protection.

Credit: Brook Mitchell

Almost 37 per cent of people said climate change would not be a vote changer, and five per cent were unsure, the UComms/ReachTEL poll reveals.
Voters identified the environment as their top concern after the management of the state's finances, but ahead of health and hospitals, transport, schools and cost of living pressures.
Internal party research showed climate change played a major role in last year's Wentworth byelection and is shaping up to be a key issue in former prime minister Tony Abbott's seat of Warringah.
With climate change again looming as an issue at the federal election in May, Mr Abbott on Friday abandoned his call to withdraw from the Paris agreement to reduce carbon emissions, falling in to line with Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the key policy.

Independent candidate for Warringah Zali Steggall and former PM Tony Abbott debate over the cost of renewable energy.

A war of words broke out between the NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin and the federal government late last year, when Mr Harwin attacked the Morrison government as "out of touch on energy and climate policy".Mr Harwin's strong stance was seen as a way of differentiating the state Liberals from their federal counterparts over the issue of climate change but also more broadly.
As part of the state election campaign, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced interest-free loans to 300,000 households for solar and battery systems while Labor has pledged to put solar on 500,000 homes over the next 10 years through rebates.
Labor Leader Michael Daley has committed to the state government's agencies acquiring 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. By the 2030, the state will have a renewables target of 50 per cent and aiming for 100 per cent renewables by 2050.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner, Holly Dawson, said the poll results showed voters did not view climate change as a federal issue.
"This poll reflects an ongoing trend - NSW across the political spectrum cares about the environment and expect the state government to act on climate change," Ms Dawson said.
"This poll is a strong mandate for climate change to be at the front of negotiations if a hung parliament were to occur. The independents that both parties will court to form government have already publicly announced that they want strong action to address climate change."
The three independents – Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, Lake Macquarie MP Greg Piper, and Wagga Wagga MP Joe McGirr – are demanding Labor and the Coalition take action on climate change.
The crossbenchers, who will hold the balance of power if the government loses six seats, wrote to the Premier and Mr Daley last week asking them to act on transitioning from coal mining to clean energy.
The poll of 1019 voters across NSW on Thursday night also showed Labor ahead of the Coalition 51:49 on a two-party preferred basis and had Labor leader Michael Daley as preferred premier.
It also revealed that opinions were mixed about which party is best equipped to lead the state amid falling house prices and forecasts for slower growth.
Only one-third of voters said the state's economic outlook makes them more likely to vote for the Berejiklian government, despite the Premier using financial management as a key selling point.
As the leaders ramped up their campaigning ahead of next week's poll, Ms Berejiklian visited a school yesterday to spruik her policy for more before and after school care, while Mr Daley announced 5000 extra teachers.

Links

• Climate change a vote changer in NSW: poll
• Climate change policies major battleground in NSW election
• NSW Labor Party aims for renewable energy target of 'at least' 50 per cent by 2030 if elected
• Koalas and climate to the fore as environment looms large in NSW election
• NSW election: Nationals' hold on environment policy drags down Coalition
• Climate, The Crisis That Threatens Our Political Duopoly
• When The Polls Are Tight The Coalition Pretends To Care About Climate
• Climate Change A Burning Issue (Again) In Voters' Minds
• 'The Right Time': Climate-Change Action The Rallying Cry For Emerging Independents

Victoria Can, And Should, Lead The Country On Climate Change

Fairfax - Jonathan La Nauze*

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has spent much of the past few weeks trying to repair the Coalition’s terrible reputation on climate change.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the government's climate package at a function in Melbourne.
Credit: AAP

It appears he has finally heard the sustained and unequivocal demand from Australians to step up on this issue – though after a summer of record high temperatures, crippling drought, mass fish deaths and more bushfires, there should be no prizes for noticing.
But a big part of what has caught Morrison’s attention is the voters of Victoria, who sent the Coalition a clear signal last November and appear willing to do so again at the impending federal election.
The signs Victoria was ready to lead the country were evident back in August. Malcolm Turnbull chose appeasement on the National Energy Guarantee and ultimately lost his prime ministership. That same week, Premier Dan Andrews confidently announced his first big election commitment – half-price solar for 650,000 homes.
It was a startling contrast. The federal Coalition couldn’t stomach the most modest of climate policies, while state Labor plastered theirs on the side of their campaign bus. Support for rooftop solar became Victorian Labor’s most visible election commitment and biggest contrast with the Liberal opposition, which had pledged to scrap the renewable energy target and build a new gas or coal power station instead.
After the thumping win for Labor, Victorian Liberals conceded they’d misread the public mood on clean energy and cutting pollution. Having lost his blue-ribbon seat of Hawthorn, shadow attorney-general John Pesutto acknowledged many conservative people “just want our party to do something” about climate change. His own daughter joined the student climate strike rallies.

Julian Burnside will run as the Greens candidate in the seat of Kooyong.
Credit: Jason South

If replicated at the federal election, November’s swing would see Liberals lose safe seats across Melbourne. This has inspired several prominent independent candidates – plus, last week, lawyer Julian Burnside for the Greens – to run against the Coalition in Victoria, with action on climate change central to their pitch. It’s hard to imagine this happening if the Victorian election hadn’t proven voters will dramatically shift loyalties, given a credible climate alternative.
But at the federal level, neither Labor nor the Coalition is offering a serious plan to get us off coal and gas in a meaningful timeframe.
Two days before the Victorian election, Bill Shorten announced a plan for cleaning up Australia’s energy system. Perhaps he was emboldened by polling showing Andrews’ apparent conversion of support for renewable energy into electoral reward. But Shorten’s plan still lacks urgency and would keep pollution at catastrophic levels for decades.
Morrison’s recent policy offerings would be even more damaging to our climate. Some have merit but overall they fail to do the obvious and most important thing needed to stop global warming – limit pollution from coal and gas power stations.
This is the gaping hole in the two major parties’ response to the climate crisis and it presents a unique opportunity for Victoria to step up once more.
Why? Because Victoria’s Environment Protection Authority is currently reviewing the licences of our state’s three coal-burning power stations, which are among the dirtiest in the world, and Victoria’s biggest source of climate pollution.
The EPA already licenses and regulates other types of air pollution, such as toxic particles and sulphur dioxide, but hasn’t yet imposed any constraint on the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.
Victoria could be the first Australian state to put limits on this pollution from coal-burning power stations and the decision would come smack-bang in the middle of a federal election campaign fought on climate change.
We know it would be popular. People hate the big energy companies and want the government to pull them into line. Polling shows overwhelming demand for government action on climate change, including intervening in the electricity market. And imposing a legal limit on pollution is a simple proposition to put to the public.
The conditions today are similar to the debate over renewable energy last August. The federal government is in chaos and the public is crying out for real action, not fudging half-measures.
Many people see climate change as a federal domain, but actually the states are responsible for energy supply and have most of the regulatory levers – like the EPA – to cut pollution across all sectors of the economy. Plus Andrews has already done the hard yards cranking up the renewables we will need as we phase out Victoria’s ageing coal power stations.
All of which means Victoria can, and should, lead the entire country on the issue.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that human civilisation has just 12 years to avert an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. We live in an extraordinary time and it calls for extraordinary leadership, not merely sound management. The Andrews government has just won an election with a massive mandate on climate change and renewable energy and here is the perfect political moment to act. Will they seize it?

*Jonathan La Nauze is CEO of Environment Victoria.

Links

• Scott Morrison pledges $2 billion, 10-year boost to Direct Action fund in election climate pitch
• 'Serious questions' over whether Australia's emissions cuts are real
• Annual emissions keep rising as gas jump counters power sector drop
• Pro-coal Nationals hold electorates most at risk from climate change
• 'Cantering off a cliff': Investor group warns on weak emissions goals
• Living in fairyland': Nats leader links emissions to night sport
• Morrison government hit by new internal dispute over coal
• 'Underhanded': States baulk at Labor's reluctance to nix Kyoto credits
• The one thing we have to fear is fear itself
• Tony Abbott performs major backflip on withdrawing from Paris climate agreement

Students Are Striking For Action On Climate Change — A Truancy Everyone Should Applaud

Los Angeles Times - Haven Coleman | Bill McKibben

A student with her face painted participates in a climate change protest
 organized by 'Youth Strike 4 Climate' in London on Feb. 15.
Facundo Arrizabalaga / EPA-EFE / REX

Haven Coleman Haven Coleman, a student in Denver, has been striking for the climate weekly since January. She is founder and co-director of US Youth Climate Strike. Bill McKibben Bill McKibben wrote the first book on climate change in 1989, and helped found the global climate campaign 350.org.

Consider this a note explaining why one of us will be absent from school on March 15 — and why everyone else should applaud this truancy.
Beginning last August, a Swedish schoolgirl named Greta Thunberg went on strike from her classes, choosing instead to spend the days on the steps of the Parliament building in Stockholm.
Her reasoning: If her government couldn’t be bothered to safeguard her future by taking action against climate change, it was a bit rich to demand that she spend her time preparing for a future that might not exist.
Her protest soon spread across Scandinavia, Europe, Britain and Australia.
Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren have now participated worldwide, and the protest has drawn some prominent support: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on March 2, “I very much welcome that young people, school students, demonstrate and tell us to do something fast about climate change." But of course others have been less understanding.
During climate demonstrations in Australia, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, “We do not support our schools being turned into parliaments. … What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”

Lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.

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AUSTRALIA
School Strike 4 Climate Action

Join A March 15 Strike
DETAILS

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On Friday, many thousands of American students will be joining the school strike, so we’d like to lay out the reasoning behind it in more detail, in the hopes that people will view these protests with the seriousness they deserve.
It was 30 years ago that scientists first explained that burning fossil fuels was changing the composition of the atmosphere and driving the rapid warming of the Earth. That is enough time to educate a student all the way from preschool to a PhD, but it hasn’t been time enough for our politicians to learn how serious a climate catastrophe we are facing.
The American government, in particular, is a study in inaction. Our federal government has reversed course on every effort to change laws and regulations. Our current president has taken steps to drop out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the only international effort to combat global warming. Young people see that their future is on the line, which is why they’ve been at the front fighting against oil companies, pipelines and fracking wells.
You don’t need to be much past first grade to know that when you’re in a hole you should stop digging. Or, in this case, drilling. It is time to replace fossil fuel energy with power from the sun and wind — and we have the cheap solar panels and turbines to do it. But America has become the largest producer of gas and oil in the world, and most politicians lack the courage to stand up to the industry. Both of us, for instance, worked last fall on a modest Colorado referendum that would have prohibited oil wells right next to homes and schools, only to watch fossil fuel companies outspend local activists 40 to 1 and narrowly defeat the measure.
So, lacking access to piles of cash, young people do what they can. And a strike is one such measure.
It’s not a stunt. A stunt is Australia’s now-prime minister bringing a lump of coal to parliament to pass around to his colleagues. A stunt is former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper literally drinking a cup of fracking fluid.
A school strike, instead, recalls some of the most pivotal moments in American history. In 1963, for instance, the Rev. Martin Luther King found that he had run out of adult volunteers to stand up to Bull Connor at the height of the civil rights battle in Birmingham.
So, after much soul-searching, King asked the city’s schoolchildren to leave class and face the police dogs and firehoses. “Don’t worry about your children,” he told their frantic parents. “They’re gonna be all right. Don’t hold them back if they want to go to jail. For they are doing a job not only for themselves but for all of America and for all mankind.”
No one striking for the climate on March 15 will confront the immediate perils those brave schoolchildren had to endure. But just as they anticipated a future blighted by segregation, so today’s young people face a future blighted by environmental destruction. And so they must act.
It would be better, of course, if adults had taken the lead. Stopping climate change is their responsibility. But they haven’t. Though pretty much every politician has made it out of college, their education seems to have done them little good.
Maybe, at least for a day, there’s more education to be found out in the street. Instead of studying history, it’s time to make it.

Links

• Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour
• Why I'm encouraging my daughter to wag school
• Climate Change And The Power Of One
• Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
• Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
• How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
• Youth Climate Strikers: 'We Are Going To Change The Fate Of Humanity'
• Young Climate Strikers Can Win Their Fight. We Must All Help
• How A 7th-Grader’s Strike Against Climate Change Exploded Into A Movement 

Even In Its Dying Days, The Government Denies The Need For Climate Action

The Guardian - Peter Lewis*

The reckoning for this failure will come at the next election. And it can’t come soon enough

‘While the PM will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.’ Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAP 

For all the skittishness of Australian politics through the years of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments there’s been one factor that has been remarkably consistent.
Amid leadership coups, cultural offensives and the revolving door of energy policy acronyms, the Australian public has remained steadfast in its belief that more needs to be done to address climate change.
Whether the focus has been an ETS, an ERF, a CET or a Neg or just a big stick, the majority of the voting public has not moved from its view that meaningful action is required by government.
After the craziness of another fortnight of Coalition energy policy where our fossil-fondling PM has whipped up some new renewable buzzwords while his National party partners are baying for taxpayers to fund new coal projects, it’s worth reminding ourselves of this baseline. Because it explains so much of why this government’s condition has reached terminal status.
For the past decade the Essential poll has asked two benchmark questions when it comes to climate change. The first is around whether people believe the climate science.

Over the past decade this split has been stable. Granted, it dipped into the high 50s at the height of Tony Abbott’s attack on the Gillard government’s so-called carbon tax, but that was after Labor had spent the best part of a term faffing around on the issue.
What’s most striking in these numbers is the disconnection between the climate sceptics within the government and Coalition voters. Indeed, on the science they are much more aligned with One Nation and conservative independent voters who make up the “other” cohort of voters. As for younger voters, the Coalition comes across every bit as much a fossil as the fuel they seek to dig up.
The second question we have regularly asked is whether people believe Australia is doing enough to address climate change. Again, a majority – including one-third of Liberal voters – say they are not.

All of which makes Barnaby Joyce’s entreaty for an election fought on coal appear delusional, as some of the more tethered members of the government have felt compelled to point out in recent days. These words of moderation come too late. Joyce’s indulgence will only provide further impetus to the swathe of moderate independents challenging the Liberal heartland in more affluent areas of Sydney and Melbourne where Sky after dark does not rate.
Meanwhile, as the Coalition’s self-inflicted wounds fester, Labor simply holds its line with a commitment to 50% renewables by 2030 and aggressively promotes battery storage. Yes, there are calls for a more rapid phaseout of coal from the left, but all the pressure on policy is currently on the Coalition.
As a separate table in this week’s report shows, one of Labor’s core brand advantages over the Coalition, alongside wages and workplace conditions, is climate change.
While Scott Morrison will blow his foghorn on taxes and boats, it is the climate change policy failure that leaves his government condemned in the eyes of so many of its own.
Perhaps it’s the ultimate revenge on a government that came to power through a cynical attempt to deny the need for climate action. As the summers have got warmer and warmer, the public’s anger at the inaction has got hotter.
The failure of this government has not just been the toppling of its leaders. It’s been the reason for the topplings, which has been more than the blind pursuit of power, but power in the name of energy.
And even in its dying days, key members of the government continue in this state of denial. Not just of the science, nor the need for meaningful action, but denial that this is the sort of leadership elected governments are expected to exhibit.
The reckoning is coming and it will be harsh. And it can’t come soon enough.

*Peter Lewis is the executive director of Essential and a Guardian Australia columnist

Links

• Coalition is struggling to handle the heat of its own bonfire
• Angus Taylor Again Falsely Claims Australia's Greenhouse Emissions Are Falling
• Scott Morrison's Pea-And-Thimble Trick
• The Government Thinks We’re Idiots And Is Not Serious About Reducing Emissions
• Scott Morrison Announces $2 Billion Climate Solutions Fund To Reduce Australia's Emissions
• When The Polls Are Tight The Coalition Pretends To Care About Climate
• If The Coalition Has Had A Climate Epiphany, I'm Beyoncé
• Morrison Must Break With Climate Denialists
• Astounded': Former Fire Chief Unloads On Politicians Over Climate Change Inaction
• Coalition Signals It Will Provide Taxpayer Support For New And Existing Coal Plants
• Morrison's Big Stick On Energy Defies What A True Liberal Believes In
• It Should Not Be Up To Australia's Schoolchildren To Stop Adani

Enough Scandalous Time-Wasting On Climate Change. Let's Get Back To The Facts

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor

At this point of crisis we must bypass rhetoric and political posturing

Drought-affected pastures near Wyandra in Queensland. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian 

Over the past 30 years I have reported so many broken climate policy promises and quoted so much rhetoric that proved to be hollow, it is difficult to trace it back to the start.
I think it’s a faded press release from 11 October, 1990 headed “government sets targets for reductions in greenhouse gases”.
“The government recognises the greenhouse effect as one of the major environmental concerns facing the world,” said Ros Kelly, Bob Hawke’s environment minister. “This decision puts Australia at the forefront of international action to reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases.”
We knew we had to do something almost three decades ago. Children have grown to adulthood and had their own children during the time we have known, and done not very much.
We were then, apparently, going to meet our target through “no regrets” actions – things that made sense for other environmental reasons as well as climate concerns. We didn’t meet it. We haven’t ever met any of a succession of greenhouse gas reduction targets by actually reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which continue to rise, still. No regrets? At the forefront? If only.
1990 was the year the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report made clear predictions – of higher temperatures, changes in rainfall patterns and impacts on agriculture.

They are no longer predictions. They are our reality now. We just endured the hottest summer on record. In Port Augusta the thermometer hit 49.5 degrees. Across the country more than 200 temperature records were broken. Nine of the 10 warmest years in Australia’s records have occurred since 2005. Communities have no water. Flying foxes are dropping dead from the trees. Up to a million fish have died in the parched Murray-Darling – an ongoing environmental, social and economic catastrophe. We have been warned that without urgent action, the Darling will die.
 The bushfire season is starting earlier and different kinds of forests are burning, one in Tasmania stands over 1,000 years old. Flooding is more frequent and rainfall patterns are changing. Our ecosystems are being driven to collapse.
For all those decades some politicians tried and failed to act, because others tried harder and succeeded in preventing it. For a brief moment we had a carbon price, and greenhouse emissions did fall, but then it was abolished, ostensibly in the name of reducing the price of groceries and services, which had never risen much in the first place, but mostly in the cynical interests of trying to win an election.
There were various other attempts at credible policy over the years, from across the political spectrum, as well as some spectacularly bad ones, but in the end effective policy was mostly washed away by political timidity, outright ignorance and the well-financed lobbying efforts of mining companies determined to delay the eventual phasing-out of coal.
But as the evidence of a changing climate defies denial, those who have spent careers delaying or refuting the need for action have untethered their arguments from fact.
Climate policy is no longer a real “debate” about the existential threat at the heart of the issue, and competing ideas about how to address it, but rather it has become a proxy for an ongoing war of attrition, in particular between the Coalition’s moderates and conservatives, stripped of policy meaning to become a vacuous argument about being “for” or “against” fossil fuels.
Those who would thwart action are also again resorting to that tired contention that would undermine any action by any nation on any global issue – we shouldn’t have to do anything because we are responsible for just a proportion of the problem, or put another way, we shouldn’t do anything because we can’t solve the problem on our own.
They sow uncertainty and sometimes they descend to farce, such as citing Dorothea MacKellar’s poetic reference to “droughts and flooding rains” in refutation of scientific fact or claiming that renewable energy will “kill” night sporting fixtures.
They ignore or misquote their own advice to persist with the blind belief that building new coal-fired power stations is the only way the nation can secure affordable, reliable power.
They claim, for example, that the energy market operator backs investment in coal-fired power, when in fact its modelling says the opposite. And, just for the record, as Guardian Australia’s Katharine Murphy has pointed out, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission didn’t recommend it either. No one has, because underwriting a coal-fired power station and indemnifying it against any future climate measures makes no economic sense.
But the government – including its resources minister – is persisting with its faith in new plants, even as the mining and power companies that have profited richly from coal fired power for years, and spent millions on secret public relations campaigns trying to prolong its use, are conceding the gig is up.
Even more bewilderingly, it is persisting with the idea even as it seeks to build credentials with an electorate increasingly concerned about global warming, informed by what they are seeing and reading about current events, and what they are experiencing in their lives.
The prime minister who once fondled a lump of coal in the parliament, is brandishing a “climate solutions package”, the contradiction most baldly evident in the fact that he is now simultaneously advocating taxpayer support for renewable projects that rely on coal-fired power stations closing, and also taxpayer support for opening new ones.
We’ve seen this eleventh hour conversion before – when John Howard reluctantly said he would introduce an emissions trading scheme in 2007, faced with rising voter concern after the millennial drought. (He later admitted he did it only because of the political pressure, and never really believed in the idea.)
At Guardian Australia, we think it is time, a long way past time, to take a breath and go back to the facts.
We’ve tried to do this all along, of course, but at this crisis point we want to take stock of what is already happening – things we know about but need to understand better, such as the crisis in the Murray-Darling – and also consequences of climate change that are less well known or just emerging. We want to look at the latest forecasts and what they mean for our lives, our communities and our environment, and – putting the political rhetoric and posturing aside – assess the policies for emission reduction and adaptation and the broader impacts and consequences.
Regret, at this point, is unavoidable: regret that Australia has been a drag on global efforts to address climate change, regret for having scrapped so long that the cost and disruption of doing what we must has risen and will be borne largely by our kids, regret for the billions of dollars wasted on half-baked policies, regret for the scandalous waste of time and effort and opportunity.
But given what’s at stake, it can’t be too late to regroup, and assess the facts, to inform the most sensible path from here.

Links

• Greens demand documents on 'dodgy' carry-over credits for Paris target
• Climate change is a burning issue (again) in voters' minds
• Australia had third-warmest year on record in 2018
• 'The Darling will die': Scientists say mass fish kill due to over-extraction and drought
• Revealed: Glencore bankrolled covert campaign to prop up coal
• Scott Morrison brings coal to question time: what fresh idiocy is this?
• Out of sight, out of luck: the hidden victims of Australia’s deadly heatwaves

'Change Now Or Pay Later': RBA's Stark Warning On Climate Change

Fairfax - Eryk Bagshaw | Nick Bonyhady

The Reserve Bank has warned climate change is likely to cause economic shocks and threaten Australia's financial stability unless businesses take immediate stock of the risks.
The central bank became the latest Australian regulator to tell business that they must analyse their investments on Tuesday, as the Coalition grapples with an internal battle over taxpayer-funded coal fired power and energy policy.
In a speech to the Centre for Policy Development in Sydney, the Reserve's deputy governor Guy Debelle said challenges for financial stability may arise from both physical and transition risks of climate change.

Dr Guy Debelle, deputy governor, Reserve Bank of Australia. Credit: Jessica Hromas

"What if droughts are more frequent, or cyclones happen more often?" he asked.
"The supply shock is no longer temporary but close to permanent. That situation is more challenging to assess and respond to."
Financial stability could be put at risk if businesses remained unaware of unanticipated insurance payouts, pollution driven reputational damage, legal liability and regulation changes that could cause valuable assets to become uneconomic.
"All of these consequences could precipitate sharp adjustments in asset prices, which would have consequences for financial stability," he said.
He said the current drought across large swathes of the eastern states has already reduced farm output by around 6 per cent and total economic growth by about 0.15 per cent
"We need to think in terms of trend rather than cycles in the weather. Droughts have generally been regarded as cyclical events that recur every so often. In contrast, climate change is a trend change."
That has an impact on monetary policy, Dr Debelle said, citing the temporary shock of banana prices surging after Cyclone Yasi in 2011, which in turn boosted inflation by 0.7 percentage points.
But he said future events may not be so one off, with repeated climate events and the transition of the economy likely to have a longer term impact.
"We need to be aware that decisions taken now by businesses and government may have a sizeable influence on that transition path," he said.
Dr Debelle said the transition posed challenges and opportunities.
Industries especially exposed to the consequences of changes in the climate will face lower costs if there is an early and orderly transition, some will bear greater costs from the transition to a lower carbon economy, while others such as the renewables sector, may benefit.
"There has been a marked pick-up in investment spending on renewable energy in recent years," he said.
"It has been big enough to have a noticeable impact at the macro-economic level and affect aggregate output and hence the monetary policy calculus."
In comments that are likely to be used against some pro-coal Nationals MPs urging the Coalition to build a taxpayer-funded power station, the deputy governor said the renewable sector was a good example where price signals have caused significant behavioural change.
"There has been a rapid decline in the cost of renewable energy sources," he said.
Dr Debelle said the cost of generating electricity has declined in the case of wind and solar to the point where they are now cost-effective sources of generation. He added that storage and transmission remained relevant costs.
Despite coal being one of Australia's top exports, Dr Debelle said opportunities remained as China transitioned away from coal.
"Natural gas is expected to account for a larger share of its energy mix, and Australia is well placed to help meet this demand," he said.
He endorsed comments by Australian Prudential Regulation Authority executive Geoff Summerhayes in London in January, which warned tackling climate change had become a "financial necessity".
In the speech to the UN's sustainable insurance forum, Mr Summerhayes lashed government inaction, arguing the summer's extreme weather, severe drought and floods were all fuelled by climate change, but Australia still lacked the political consensus needed to respond to the threat.

Links

• Climate Change and the Economy | Speeches | RBA
• Climate change costs will have knock-on effect on interest rates, Reserve Bank warns
• RBA deputy warns climate change a threat to Australian economy (audio)
• RBA warns of 'abrupt, disorderly' effects of climate change
• Climate change poses risk to Australia's financial stability, warns RBA
• Coal baron and LNP donor blasts RBA for sounding alarm on climate
• Fossil fuel 'special interests' putting Australian economy at risk, warns Stiglitz

Striking Schoolkids Should Wear Storm Of Criticism As A Badge Of Honour

Fairfax - John Birmingham

I hope a lot of school kids join this global children’s strike on Friday and I hope they’re mocked and traduced by their elders in politics and the media, because those elders aren’t really their betters on this issue; they’re mostly either dangerous fools or mendacious swine.
The hammer of the coming climate catastrophe will fall most heavily on these kids and eventually upon their children and grandchildren, 20, 30, 40 years from now, and it will do them no harm to take a few rhetorical knocks from a bunch of bloviating, overpaid idiots simply because they chose to step up and take action now. It’ll be good practice.

These are the people who will have to deal with the consequences of their critics' inaction. Credit: Nick Moir

They’re going to be doing this for the rest of their lives, unless they’re cool with those lives ending in famine, superstorms and wars over diminishing water supplies, and shrinking remnants of arable land.
Protest won’t directly change that of course. Only radically revised policy settings, massive expenditure on clean energy R&D, and the accelerated deployment of paradigm shifting new technologies can change that. But that change will come only when political actors feel a real sense of terror for their futures. Not the future of the planet and its inhabitants, mind you. Just for their own immediate futures. Their pay cheques.
When they feel that existential terror creeping up on them, you’ll start to see things like Tony ‘climate change is BS’ Abbott, perform the sort of tortured interpretive dance routine the electors of Warringah have enjoyed this week.
Abbott is tying himself into Yogi Master knots as he tries to fend off the challenge of Zali Steggall, a highly accomplished and impeccably conservative independent candidate for his seat, who somehow manages to believe in the free market, the primacy of the individual, franking credits for everyone and how awesome it would be if our lives didn’t end in famine, superstorms and war over diminishing water supplies etc, etc.
The only reason Abbott and his fellow travellers on the dirty great coal train to oblivion feel any need to move away from their previous embrace of pro-apocalypse energy policy is because they can see that public opinion has moved on. Year after year of worsening climate and extreme weather events will eventually do that to people.
All those kids who strike on Friday are helping to move that opinion. Yeah, they’ll be derided and ridiculed, their motives questioned and belittled. But they just need to remind themselves that those who caused this problem will soon enough all be dead, leaving them to clean up the mess.
Best they get started now.

Links

• Why I'm encouraging my daughter to wag school
• Climate Change And The Power Of One
• Striking For The Future: From Australia To Japan To India, Youths Will Skip School On March 15 To Protest Against Climate Change
• Generation Greta Will Step Up Their Climate Strikes On 15 March
• How Greta Thunberg’s Lone Strike Against Climate Change Became A Global Movement
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