23/09/2020

(AU) Taylor Favours Fossil Fuels And Farmers As Roadmap Picks Five Technology Winners

RenewEconomy - 

AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi

The Morrison government has picked five technologies that will receive prioritised support under its Technology Roadmap launched on Tuesday, a plan which includes no new emissions reduction targets but which it supposed to form the basis of its climate and energy policy.

Federal energy and emissions reduction minister Angus Taylor launched the Technology Roadmap during a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday, with the focus firmly on technologies that favour fossil fuels, farmers and big energy users such as steel and aluminium users.

The Technology Roadmap is the latest energy policy from the Coalition, which has gone through more than 20 iterations during seven years of government, and continues its trend of preferring to direct taxpayer funding into preferred technologies, rather than policies that place a price on emissions.

“Let’s be clear – there are only two ways to reduce emissions,” Taylor said in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday.

“You either suppress emissions intensive economic activities – usually through some version of taxation – or you improve them. There is no third way. Australia can’t and shouldn’t damage its economy to reduce emissions.”

Taylor said that the government will focus on five priority technologies that will receive targeted government investment, being “clean” hydrogen, energy storage, low carbon steel and aluminium, carbon capture and storage, and soil carbon.

The government’s list of technologies under the Technology Roadmap, obtained by RenewEconomy. LARGE IMAGE

The focus on “clean hydrogen”, rather than specifically renewable hydrogen, and the renewed embrace of CCS are of particular concern as they will likely favour legacy fossil technologies. Other technologies such as electric vehicles and batteries are now second order priorities, will wind and solar are lumped with coal and gas as “mature technologies” that will receive no further support.

“Priority technologies are those expected to have transformational impacts here and globally and are not yet mature,” Taylor told the National Press Club.

“They are priorities where Government investments can make a difference in reducing costs and improving technology readiness.”

“Technologies where we, as a Government, will not only prioritise our investments but where we will streamline regulation and legislation to encourage investment,” Taylor said.

Under the Technology Roadmap, the Morrison government will monitor a number of emerging technologies, including small modular nuclear reactors, which may also receive government support pending future developments overseas.

Taylor said that the Technology Roadmap would be used to guide up to $18 billion in investment, but it is unclear how much of this – if any – is new funding, and how much will actually be able to be deployed by the main agency, the Clean Energy Finance Corp.

“The roadmap will guide the deployment of the $18 billion that will be invested, including through the CEFC, ARENA, the Climate Solutions Fund and the CER,” Taylor said.

“This will turn that into at least $50 billion through the private sector, state governments, research institutions and other publicly funded bodies. That will drive around 130 000 jobs to 2030.”

CEFC already manages $10 billion in funds, along with an additional $1 billion set to be allocated under the Grid Reliability Fund, ARENA already manages a $2 billion in grant funding, with an additional $1.9 billion set to be given to the agency and the Clean Energy Regulator already manages the $2 billion Climate Solutions Fund.

Taylor said that the government expects the plan to “support” 130,000 jobs by 2030 and to “avoid” 250 million tonnes of emissions per year by 2040, but it is also unclear how these figures have been calculated.

The government has set itself a series of four ‘stretch goals’, which do not include an emissions reduction target, but set goals for reducing the cost of the government’s ‘priority technologies’.

These stretch goals include achieving long-term (at least eight to ten hours) energy storage at an equivalent cost of less than $100 per MWh, carbon dioxide storage at less than $20 per tonne, low emissions steel below $900 per tonne and aluminium below $2,700 per tonne and the ability to measure soil carbon content at below $3 per hectare per year.

With no additional emissions reduction targets specified under the roadmap, the government appears set to present the roadmap, and a series of future ‘Low Emissions Technology Statements’, as its future action pledge in international climate talks.

Taylor suggested that the government would wind back support for investments in wind and solar projects, lumping them together with coal and gas, but would consider intervening in the market when there are market failures.

“There is no doubt that existing, proven technologies like coal, gas, solar and wind will play important roles in Australia’s energy future,” Taylor told the Press Club.

“The Government will continue to invest in mature technologies where there is a clear market failure, like a shortage of dispatchable generation.”

Prime minister Scott Morrison has already indicated that he may use government-owned Snowy Hydro to build a new gas generator in the Hunter Region, a market intervention that ha not been received well by the rest of the energy market.

Labor’s shadow minister for climate change and energy, Mark Butler, said that the technology roadmap lacked the policies needed to actually drive investment and the guide Australia’s energy transition.

“This is typical Scott Morrison – another plan to have a plan but no actual policy,” Butler said. “No policy to help reduce power prices. No policy to give investors the confidence to build new generation and ensure reliable energy.”

“This technology roadmap is useful as far as it goes but there is no shortage of reports lining government bookcases about energy technology, all of which confirm that the cheapest and the cleanest way to renew our ageing, increasingly unreliable electricity system is renewable energy and storage.”

“What Australia has desperately needed is a genuine energy policy to drive investment in affordable, reliable, clean power.”

Taylor said that the government will establish an ongoing advisory council, the Technology Investment Advisory Council, to advise in the development of the ‘Low Emissions Technology Statements’, which will be chaired by chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel.

Membership of the council will include the heads of the CEFC, ARENA and the Clean Energy Regulator, along with those that advised on the creation of the technology roadmap.

This group includes former Origin Energy CEO Grant King, CEO of Australian Gas Infrastructure Group Ben Wilson, the group managing director of Coca-Cola Amatil Alison Watkins and CEO of Macquarie Group Shemara Wikramanayake.

The advisory group will not include any representatives of the clean energy sector, outside those appointed by the government to head the three government agencies.

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The Tipping Points At The Heart Of The Climate Crisis

The Guardian - 

Many parts of the Earth’s climate system have been destabilised by warming, from ice sheets and ocean currents to the Amazon rainforest – and scientists believe that if one collapses others could follow

The Thwaites glacier in Antarctica, where ice is now melting on a massive scale. Photograph: Nasa/OIB/Jeremy Harbeck/EPA

The warning signs are flashing red. The California wildfires were surely made worse by the impacts of global heating. A study published in July warned that the Arctic is undergoing “an abrupt climate change event” that will probably lead to dramatic changes. 

 As if to underline the point, on 14 September it was reported that a huge ice shelf in northeast Greenland had torn itself apart, worn away by warm waters lapping in from beneath.

That same day, a study of satellite data revealed growing cracks and crevasses in the ice shelves protecting two of Antarctica’s largest glaciers – indicating that those shelves could also break apart, leaving the glaciers exposed and liable to melt, contributing to sea-level rise. The ice losses are already following our worst-case scenarios.

These developments show that the harmful impacts of global heating are mounting, and should be a prompt to urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But the case for emissions cuts is actually even stronger.

That is because scientists are increasingly concerned that the global climate might lurch from its current state into something wholly new – which humans have no experience dealing with. Many parts of the Earth system are unstable. Once one falls, it could trigger a cascade like falling dominoes.

Tipping points

We have known for years that many parts of the climate have so-called tipping points. That means a gentle push, like a slow and steady warming, can cause them to change in a big way that is wholly disproportionate to the trigger. If we hit one of these tipping points, we may not have any practical way to stop the unfolding consequences.

The Greenland ice sheet is one example of a tipping point. It contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by seven metres, if it were all to melt. And it is prone to runaway melting.

This is because the top surface of the ice sheet is gradually getting lower as more of the ice melts, says Ricarda Winkelmann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. The result is familiar to anyone who has walked in mountains.

“If we climb down the mountain, the temperature around us warms up,” she says. As the ice sheet gets lower, the temperatures at the surface get higher, leading to even more melting. “That’s one of these self-reinforcing or accelerating feedbacks.”

We don’t know exactly how much warming would cause Greenland to pass its tipping point and begin melting unstoppably. One study estimated that it would take just 1.6C of warming – and we have already warmed the planet 1.1C since the late 19th century.

The collapse would take centuries, which is some comfort, but such collapses are difficult to turn off. Perhaps we could swiftly cool the planet to below the 1.6C threshold, but that would not suffice, as Greenland would be melting uncontrollably. Instead, says Winkelmann, we would have to cool things down much more – it’s not clear by how much.

Tipping points that behave like this are sometimes described as “irreversible”, which is confusing; in reality they can be reversed, but it takes a much bigger push than the one that set them off in the first place.

Satellite images of the disintegration of the Spalte glacier in northeast Greenland between 2013 and 2020. Photograph: EU Copernicus and Geus/Reuters LARGE IMAGE

In 2008, researchers led by Timothy Lenton, now at the University of Exeter, catalogued the climate’s main “tipping elements”. As well as the Greenland ice sheet, the Antarctic ice sheet is also prone to unstoppable collapse – as is the Amazon rainforest, which could die back and be replaced with grasslands.

A particularly important tipping element is the vast ocean current known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which carries warm equatorial water north to the Arctic, and cool Arctic water south to the equator. The AMOC has collapsed in the past and many scientists fear it is close to collapsing again – an event that was depicted (in ridiculously exaggerated and accelerated form) in the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow.

If the AMOC collapses, it will transform weather patterns around the globe – leading to cooler climates in Europe, or at least less warming, and changing where and when monsoon rains fall in the tropics. For the UK, this could mean the end of most arable farming, according to a paper Lenton and others published in January.

Tumbling dominoes

In 2009, a second study took the idea further. What if the tipping elements are interconnected? That would mean that setting off one might set off another – or even unleash a cascade of dramatic changes, spreading around the globe and reshaping the world we live in.

For instance, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is releasing huge volumes of cold, fresh water into the north Atlantic. This weakens the AMOC – so it is distinctly possible that if Greenland passes its tipping point, the resulting melt will push the AMOC past its own threshold.

“It’s the same exact principles that we know happen at smaller scales,” says Katharine Suding of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who has studied similar shifts in ecosystems. The key point is that processes exist that can amplify a small initial change. This can be true on the scale of a single meadow or the whole planet.

However, the tipping point cascade is very difficult to simulate. In many cases the feedbacks go both ways – and sometimes one tipping point can make it less likely that another will be triggered, not more. For example, the AMOC brings warm water from equator up into the north Atlantic, contributing to the melting of Greenland.

So if the AMOC were to collapse, that northward flow of warm water would cease – and Greenland’s ice would be less likely to start collapsing. Depending whether Greenland or the AMOC hit its tipping point first, the resulting cascade would be very different.

What’s more, dozens of such linkages are now known, and some of them span huge distances. “Melting the ice sheet on one pole raises sea level,” says Lenton, and the rise is greatest at the opposite pole. “Say you’re melting Greenland and you raise the sea level under the ice shelves of Antarctica,” he says. That would send ever more warm water lapping around Antarctica. “You’re going to weaken those ice shelves.”

“Even if the distance is quite far, a larger domino might still be able to cause the next one to tip over,” says Winkelmann.

In 2018, Juan Rocha of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden and his colleagues mapped out all the known links between tipping points. However, Rocha says the strengths of the interconnections are still largely unknown.

This, combined with the sheer number of them, and the interactions between the climate and the biosphere, means predicting the Earth’s overall response to our greenhouse gas emissions is very tricky.

Into the hothouse

The most worrying possibility is that setting off one tipping point could unleash several of the others, pushing Earth’s climate into a new state that it has not experienced for millions of years.

Since before humans existed, Earth has had an “icehouse” climate, meaning there is permanent ice at both poles. But millions of years ago, the climate was in a “hothouse” state: there was no permanent polar ice, and the planet was many degrees warmer.

‘Hothouse’ conditions will make fires such as this one in the San Gabriel mountains above Azusa, California, in August more frequent. Photograph: Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images

If it has happened before, could it happen again? In 2018, researchers including Lenton and Winkelmann explored the question in a much-discussed study.

“The Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions – Hothouse Earth,” they wrote. The danger threshold might be only decades away at current rates of warming.

Lenton says the jury is still out on whether this global threshold exists, let alone how close it is, but that it is not something that should be dismissed out of hand.

“For me, the strongest evidence base at the moment is for the idea that we could be committing to a ‘wethouse’, rather than a hothouse,” says Lenton. “We could see a cascade of ice sheet collapses.”

This would lead to “a world that has no substantive ice in the northern hemisphere and a lot less over Antarctica, and the sea level is 10 to 20 metres higher”.

Such a rise would be enough to swamp many coastal megacities, unless they were protected. The destruction of both the polar ice sheets would be mediated by the weakening or collapse of the AMOC, which would also weaken the Indian monsoon and disrupt the west African one.

Winkelmann’s team studied a similar scenario in a study published online in April, which has not yet been peer-reviewed.

They simulated the interactions between the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheets, the AMOC, the Amazon rainforest and another major weather system called the El Niño southern oscillation. They found that the two ice sheets were the most likely to trigger cascades, and the AMOC then transmitted their effects around the globe.

What to do?

Everyone who studies tipping point cascades agrees on two key points. The first is that it is crucial not to become disheartened by the magnitude of the risks; it is still possible to avoid knocking over the dominoes. Second, we should not wait for precise knowledge of exactly where the tipping points lie – which has proved difficult to determine, and might not come until it’s too late.

Rocha compares it to smoking. “Smoking causes cancer,” he says, “but it’s very difficult for a doctor to nail down how many cigarettes you need to smoke to get cancer.”

Some people are more susceptible than others, based on a range of factors from genetics to the level of air pollution where they live. But this does not mean it is a good idea to play chicken with your lungs by continuing to smoke.

“Don’t smoke long-term, because you might be committing to something you don’t want to,” says Rocha. The same logic applies to the climate dominoes. “If it happens, it’s going to be really costly and hard to recover, therefore we should not disturb those thresholds.”

“I think a precautionary principle probably is the best step forward for us, especially when we’re dealing with a system that we know has a lot of feedbacks and interconnections,” agrees Suding.

“These are huge risks we’re playing with, in their potential impacts,” says Lenton. “This is yet another compulsion to get ourselves weaned off fossil fuels as fast as possible and on to clean energy, and sort out some other sources of greenhouse gases like diets and land use,” says Lenton. He emphasises that the tipping points for the two great ice sheets may well lie between 1C and 2C of warming.

“We actually do need the Paris climate accord,” says Winkelmann. The 2016 agreement committed most countries to limit warming to 1.5 to 2C, although the US president, Donald Trump, has since chosen to pull the US out of it.

Winkelmann argues that 1.5C is the right target, because it takes into account the existence of the tipping points and gives the best chance of avoiding them. “For some of these tipping elements,” she says, “we’re already in that danger zone.”

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions is not a surprising or original solution. But it is our best chance to stop the warning signs flashing red.

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(AU) Australia’s New National Preventive Health Strategy Must Include Climate Change, 30 Health Groups Say

NEWS.com.au - Charis Chang

A huge group of experts are going public with dire concerns the Federal Government is ignoring the biggest threat to Australians’ health.

Climate change must be acknowledged as a significant health risk in Australia, experts say. Source: News Regional Media 

A new strategy aimed at improving the health of Australians must include the impacts of climate change, according to 30 prominent health groups.

Experts say the impact of climate change is being ignored despite predictions that it will lead to 85 deaths per 100,000 people globally per year by the end of the century – more than are currently killed by all infectious diseases across the world.

Climate and Health Alliance Executive Director Fiona Armstrong said climate change would see thousands more Australians suffer from infectious and cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illness, heat stress, mental illness, violence, food insecurity, poor water quality and poorer nutrition.

“If the government chooses to ignore the health impacts of climate change, they are refusing to prevent that,” she said.

The Federal Government is currently developing the National Preventive Health Strategy to identify areas of focus for the next 10 years that will improve the health of Australians and to address the complex causes of things like obesity, reducing tobacco use, or improving mental health.

It aims to looks at factors such as access to green space, nutritious food supply, sanitation, supportive community networks and how cultural influences can contribute to better outcomes.

But health groups, including three groups that are part of the expert steering committee advising the government on the strategy, have released a joint statement today criticising the failure of the consultation paper to mention climate change, or include it as part of its six focus areas.

The Public Health Association of Australia, Consumers Health Forum of Australia and the Australian College of Nursing are all now going public with their concerns.

“As with unhealthy food, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, and alcohol, it is critical that the role of vested interests in relation to climate change is identified as undermining efforts to prevent illness and promote health and wellbeing,” the statement says.

It notes that climate change can impact impact people’s health in many ways.

This includes the impacts of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and bushfires, which pose a direct threat to people’s lives.

Images of the Sydney Opera House shrouded by smoke haze from bushfires over last summer went around the world. Picture: Steven Saphore/AAP

But there are also other indirect impacts. Worsening air quality from smoke can create health risks, and there can also be impacts due to changes in temperature, risks to food safety and drinking water quality, and effects on mental health.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has estimated 250,000 extra deaths a year are expected to be caused by climate change between 2030 and 2050.

This includes 38,000 extra deaths from heat stress as well as deaths from diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition.

Elderly people in particular are susceptible to high temperatures, which can cause deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

Floods can contaminate freshwater supplies, heighten the risk of waterborne diseases, and create breeding grounds for disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes. They can also disrupt the delivery of medical and health services.

Ms Armstrong said climate change was the biggest threat to health this century.

“The National Preventive Health Strategy must tackle climate change to protect and promote health. If we don’t, everything else risks being done for nought,” she said.

Other groups that have signed the statement include Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) and the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

The elderly are particularly susceptible to high temperatures. Source: Supplied

“A National Preventive Health Strategy that is fit for purpose in the 21st century must address climate change – or it will fail in its objectives,” the statement says.

“Preventing deaths, illnesses and injuries associated with climate change requires leadership from governments to tackle the root causes of climate change, support the health sector and the health professions to build climate resilience, and ensure the community is well informed and capable of taking health protective actions.”

A University of Melbourne study released this month found the annual economic damage of climate change in Australia, could be similar to the annual cost of the coronavirus pandemic by 2038.

Climate change is estimated to cost the Australian economy at least $1.89 trillion over the next 30 years if current emissions policies are maintained.

Health Minister Greg Hunt announced in June 2019 the government would develop the 10-year strategy and it is due to be completed by March 2021.

The consultation paper will set out what the strategy will aim to achieve and how it could be done. Rather than focusing on specific diseases, the strategy will focus on system wide, evidence-based approaches to reducing poor health.

The strategy’s consultation paper is open for feedback until September 28.

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22/09/2020

(AU) Scott Morrison Refuses To Commit To Net Zero Carbon Emissions By 2050

ABC News - Stephanie Dalzell

Scott Morrison says he is focused on technology that lowers emissions rather than "the politics of these commitments".



Prime Minister Scott Morrison has refused to commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050, despite describing it as "achievable".

Ahead of the release of the Federal Government's long-awaited technology roadmap for the energy sector this week, Mr Morrison said zero net emissions would be achieved in the second half of this century.

But when pressed by ABC Insiders host David Speers about a commitment to a 2050 target, Mr Morrison said he was more committed to investing in technology.

"I'm more interested in the doing," he said.

"I know people get very focused on the politics of these commitments, but what I'm focused on is on the technology that delivers lower emissions, lower cost and more jobs.

"That's what actually matters to people, that's what changes their lives, and so that's what we're delivering. And when we make a commitment, we meet it. And we don't just meet it we beat it."

Net zero emissions means every tonne of man-made greenhouse gas that is emitted must be matched by a tonne removed from the atmosphere.

Anthony Albanese has restated Labor's pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. (AAP: Bianca De Marchi)

More than 70 countries have adopted the 2050 target. Individually, every Australian state has also signed up to net zero emissions by 2050 — either as a target or goal.

Labor leader Anthony Albanese has also pledged to meet a target of net zero emissions by 2050 but has yet to detail how Australia would get there.

But federally, the Coalition has long been divided over climate change and energy policy, with some Government backbenchers deeply opposed to any 2050 target.

It has also previously said it will not sign up to net zero emissions without knowing what the costs are.

The Coalition last week announced it would broaden the scope of government agencies set up to invest in renewables, by allowing it to fund new low-emissions technology.

Mr Morrison said the policy would help the Government achieve the target of net zero emissions, without specifically mandating it.

"Our policy is to achieve that in the second half of this century, and we'll certainly achieve that, and that's why this week's announcements were so important because it was about the technology we need to invest in now, which will make it a reality, particularly on the other side of 2030 and I think even the sort of target you've talked about, then becomes absolutely achievable," he said.

"I'm interested in doing the things that make that happen. And I think that is very achievable."

Mr Albanese said the Coalition was still struggling to settle on energy policy, sending the wrong signal to investors.

"The problem with the Prime Minister's position is that he's creating massive uncertainty as well, which is a disincentive to invest," he said.

"The Government says they're going to have a roadmap — but to a destination they don't have.

"A roadmap without a destination is a road to nowhere."

Energy shortfall revised down

Last week, Energy Minister Angus Taylor and Mr Morrison said 1,000 megawatts of new dispatchable energy was needed to replace the Liddell power station before it closed in 2023.


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But the Government then released the advice it received in April from a task force set up to assess the impact of Liddell's closure, which did not find that 1,000 megawatts of additional dispatchable electricity would be needed, and instead, listed projects that would be sufficient to maintain power grid reliability when Liddell shut.

On Insiders, Mr Morrison appeared to revise the figure down.

"Well, there's about 250 megawatts, or thereabouts, that we believe are going to be necessary to fill that plan out. And we can do that, and deliver it on the ground, and that's important," he said.

"A lot of people can talk projects but they've got to get approved, they've got to be built in time, and you can get a gas-fired power station built in that time and delivered when it'll be there. It won't be on the wish list, it'll be on the done list."

Mr Albanese accused the Government of constantly changing its position on energy policy.

"Now Scott Morrison is saying it might be 250 [megawatts] that's needed, and we're neutral about what the technology will be to fill that void," he said.

"The Prime Minister has to explain how it is that people, companies, can bid for that process."

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(USA) Global Warming And The Presidential Election

The Economist

Joe Biden is on course to make fighting global warming his signature issue



THIS WEEK America’s oldest magazine offered its first-ever presidential endorsement. “We do not do this lightly,” said Scientific American, in explaining its decision to come out for Joe Biden. But what choice did it have?

The country is gripped by two science-related catastrophes, a global pandemic and global warming. Donald Trump downplays the first on a good day (as America’s death-count approaches 200,000, he predicts it will soon “go away”) and denies that humans are causing the second.

During a visit to Sacramento this week, to acknowledge the wildfires that have so far incinerated over 5m acres of forest and thousands of homes and killed at least 35 people, he assured a roomful of silent, serious Californians that global warming was about to go into reverse.

In a speech delivered in Delaware the same day, Mr Biden meanwhile underlined his determination to introduce at a national level the policies to combat climate change that America, almost uniquely among Western democracies, still lacks.

Where Barack Obama made the issue secondary to health-care coverage, and Hillary Clinton put it behind immigration and other promised reforms, Mr Biden promises to make tackling climate change his priority. His proposals, with an important caveat, reflect that degree of urgency.

There is no starker contrast between the Republican president and his Democratic challenger than on this issue.

The climate plan Mr Biden released in July includes faster, deeper cuts to America’s carbon emissions than either of his Democratic predecessors envisaged.

Mr Biden promises a commitment to decarbonising the electricity grid by 2035. To that end, he pledges among other things to invest $2trn in renewable energy and other technologies over four years. He would also commit America to cutting its emissions to net zero by 2050.

Mr Obama’s failure to enshrine a much more modest commitment—an 80% emissions reduction by 2050—indicates how bold that would be. Yet, if backed by a Democratic-controlled Congress, Mr Biden would probably have a much better chance of making progress on the issue than Mr Obama had.

That is chiefly because his party is desperate for him to do so. Before covid-19 hit, the combination of Mr Trump’s denials with ever-worsening wildfires, hurricanes and floods had made Democratic voters increasingly likely to cite climate change as their main concern. And Mr Biden, a master at hewing to his party’s shifting currents, has further hardened this environmental consensus by using it to bridge the rifts exposed by his nomination.

His appointment of John Kerry and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—emblems of the centre-left and activist left—to co-chair his climate-policy shop was evidence of that. So is the heterodox nature of his proposals.

For example, though he dispensed with the socialism-by-stealth of the left’s Green New Deal—which included guaranteed jobs and Medicare-for-All—he has mollified Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s faction by emphasising environmental justice, as well as with the scale of his ambition. Labour unions are reassured by his stress on job creation in low-carbon industries.

Centrists are thrilled that he has bucked the left by remaining open to nuclear power and to the possibility of making fossil fuels safe by capturing the gases they emit when burned.

In a sign of how the climate-policy debate often scrambles ideological positions, moderate Democrats are also largely responsible for limiting the scope of market mechanisms—either a cap-and-trade scheme or a carbon tax—in Mr Biden’s plan.

Democratic leaders in Congress consider them desirable but unsellable. Hence the more regulatory approach laid out in a 547-page climate plan released by House Democrats in June. While allowing for the possibility of a nationwide carbon tax—as Mr Biden’s plan does—it lays more emphasis on the sector-by-sector low-carbon standards adopted in California—including zero-emissions from cars, as well as power stations, by 2035. Mr Biden’s plan follows suit.

Implicit in the way it is designed to have maximum Democratic appeal is an assumption that a Biden administration could count on no Republican support. That is a reasonable precaution. While Democrats and independents have become more concerned about climate change, opinion on the right has hardly moved. Like Mr Trump, half of moderate and 75% of conservative Republicans deny the link between human activity and global warming.

At the same time, any Republican tempted to break with his or her party should not find Mr Biden’s proposals off-putting. His emphases on growth and technology are hard to argue with. The recent rise of renewables industries—which employ a lot of people in Republican states—has also made them less divisive. And the fact that Mr Biden would probably jam much of his promised $2trn splurge into a broad, post-virus stimulus package would provide moderate Republicans with additional cover on their right flanks.

The politics and economics of climate change may thus, for once, be coming into alignment. The issue has already gone some way to making sense of Mr Biden’s unexciting candidacy. One of its overarching promises is to salvage Mr Obama’s legacy, then improve upon it; the former president’s climate record is in dire need of both services. Another is to rebuild America’s economy at home and reputation abroad; Mr Biden’s climate plan could help do both.

But there’s no escaping the flames

The lurking caveat to this upbeat prospect is that the regulatory approach he is pushing will almost certainly deliver much slower, more partial and more inefficient progress than he predicts. America is not California.

A Biden administration’s sector-by-sector carbon standards would draw a storm of legal challenges, stalling them and making them vulnerable to partisan judges and hostile successors. That is not to knock Mr Biden’s plans unduly; they may well be as bold as is politically feasible.

But what is feasible in America’s dysfunctional politics is likely to be much less than the country—and in this instance the world—requires.

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(AU) Commission For The Human Future Calls For Action On Global Catastrophic Risks

Canberra Times - Alex Crowe

Dark Emu author Bruce Pascoe has joined a growing list of prominent Australians calling for action to prevent further disaster.

Bruce Pascoe describes the newly green forest growing through the burned-out bushland where he's pulled over on the road 10 minutes from his home in Mallacoota.

"When I drove through here on January 1 where I'm parked right now was totally black - parts were still on fire," he said.

"Yet now she has produced another forest. The old trees are here with new growth. That's the power of the Earth to recover."

Mr Pascoe is a writer of Tasmanian, Bunurong and Yuin descent who lives on a farm in the Victorian coastal community which saw scores of tourists evacuated via Navy vessels this past summer.

The Dark Emu author has since joined prominent Australians calling for urgent action on what they've acknowledged as 10 major threats to humanity's survival.

Mr Pascoe, alongside Sydney mayor Clover Moore, former governor-general Quentin Bryce and rocker Jimmy Barnes, have agreed bushfires and the pandemic are a "dress rehearsal for what awaits us".

"It doesn't mitigate the tragedy but if we can realise that the way we conduct our societies around the world lends itself to this type of virus, maybe we can look at how we behave on the planet," he said.

"Like all Aboriginal people I believe that the Earth is our mother and my first and foremost concern is for her health. If we look after the health of the Earth everything else that is good about humanity will follow."

Bruce Pascoe

The growing list of signatories have responded to a commission's report, following a roundtable held at the Australian National University in March bringing together leading experts across health, climate change, economics and public policy, which identified 10 potentially catastrophic global risks.

The threats include pandemics, ecosystem collapse, rising food insecurity, nuclear weapons and global warming.

Mr Pascoe said rising temperatures and rising sea levels impacted Indigenous people around the world.

"It will affect Aboriginal people right around Australia because global warming will reduce the world's economy and Aboriginal people have such a tenuous hold within that economy any way," he said.

"The deterioration in the environment is very important in Aboriginal justice because Aboriginal communities rely so much on those natural resources."

Mr Pascoe was working for the Country Fire Association over summer when the bushfires hit his town of around 8000.

Although his wasn't one of the 140 homes in Mallacoota lost over summer, they did lose their crops, sheds and fences.

Yet as neighbours call out their greetings while passing on the road he admits he was a silly bugger to have driven with his dogs on New Year's Day.

He acknowledged his "survival guilt".

"So many of my neighbours and friends lost their houses and I survived, my dogs survived," he said.

"Considering the scale of the disaster, I'm incredibly lucky."

Chairman John Hewson said the commission aimed to start a national conversation on the threats humanity faced and how they could be addressed.

Bruce Pascoe

"The list is long and deadly: climate change, nuclear war, water and food shortages and of course pandemics," Professor Hewson said.

"We need to act and we need to act now."

Mr Pascoe said it was time we took responsibility for the planet the way Aboriginal people had done for more than 120,000 years.

"If we can we'll have prospering health, we'll have a prospering economy and we'll have prospering societies," he said.

"It's a no-brainer to think that if we look after our world our world will flourish. Australia can tolerate fire but we never want to see fire like that again."

Earth's 10 Major Threats
  • Decline of key natural resources and a resource crisis, especially in water
  • Collapse of ecosystems and the mass extinction of species
  • Human population growth and demand, beyond the Earth's carrying capacity
  • Global warming, sea level rise and changes in the Earth's climate, affecting all human activity
  • Universal pollution of the Earth system and all life by chemicals
  • Rising food insecurity and failing nutritional quality
  • Nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction
  • Pandemics of new and untreatable disease
  • Advent of powerful, uncontrolled technologies
  • National and global failure to understand and act preventively on these risks

Links - Commission For The Human Future Articles
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21/09/2020

Climate Crisis: News Outlets Still Giving A Platform To Dangerous And Outdated Views

The Conversation - 

John Gomez

Author
 is Senior Lecturer in Media Psychology, University of Salford
For years, scientists have been stressing the need to act quickly and effectively on climate change. And as part of my work as a media psychology academic, I’ve seen the way media outlets along with readers have discussed climate change over the past decade.

I’ve observed very slow progress on the issue. But many news outlets do now present the climate crisis as fact rather than a matter of belief. Though given the scale of the problem, this feels like too little too late. This is why I, along many other academics and psychologists, have joined the environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion (XR).

This group of activists have long advocated for the need to put in place policies and regulations aimed at addressing the climate emergency and breakdown. Extinction Rebellion poses three demands:
  1. Tell the truth
  2. Net zero emissions by 2025
  3. Organise Citizen Assemblies whose decisions are binding
Extinction Rebellion repeatedly claim that government and media alike are not telling the truth about the gravity and seriousness of the climate crisis. This has led to a series of recent demonstrations against mainstream media outlets calling on them to highlight the crisis and to increase their coverage of climate issues.

So just how much of an issue is press coverage of the climate crisis and are journalists going far enough in their reporting?

False balance and distortions

Back in 2007, researchers from Oxford University highlighted the barriers to accurate and consistent coverage of the climate crisis.

One of the key messages of their report was that sometimes coverage is poor not because of an intentional distortion by the media, but because of a clash between journalistic values and the need to tell the truth about the climate crisis.

Providing a balanced view is an important aspect of reporting and is highly valued by journalists. But research has found that so-called “false balance”, whereby a counter argument or expert is given on a topic where there is otherwise overwhelming consensus, can distort the public’s perceptions of what ought to be noncontroversial subjects.

The way the news is often framed (for example, whether a natural disaster is presented as an isolated incident or in the context of a large-scale phenomenon) can also lead to distortions. So can the types of images associated to climate change news – such as the iconic polar bears, or the melting ice. These images can make it seem like this is something happening far away that won’t impact most people’s lives.

Beyond consensus

I’ve spoken with Extinction Rebellion critics who argue that modern coverage of climate change no longer questions consensus. Indeed, research has found that more recently, the media does generally recognise the existence of consensus in the scientific community – and that critics of climate crisis are in a small minority.

One of the classic climate change images. FloridaStock/Shutterstock



But the study also shows how distortions still occur in the way journalists frame and interpret climate change issues and expert opinions around it. These results support previous research that analysed climate crisis coverage in British newspapers between 2007–2011. It found that uncontested sceptical voices - though in clear decline - were still present. This practice was predominant in editorials and opinion pieces in right-leaning newspapers often written by non specialist, in-house columnists.

In other words, although the mainstream media has corrected its representation of scientific consensus, a sceptic view is still delivered to readers – just via opinion pieces or editorial rather than news reporting.

This can also be seen in the BBC’s recent response to a complaint concerning the way Justin Webb, presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, described the climate and ecological emergency as “a matter of opinion”. The complaint office responded by saying that while there is agreement on the reality and existence of man-made climate change, the “notion of there being a climate emergency is the subject of some debate”.
This is despite the fact that the UK Parliament has declared a climate emergency in response to accumulating evidence on the need to act urgently to save our planet.

Similarly, Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp papers were promoting a sceptic reading of the devastating 2019 wildfires in Australia.

Outdated views

Research on journalistic norms shows how, by and large, journalists see their role as “informing the citizenry, free from influences of government or obligations to any external force”.

But in the upcoming book, The Psychology of Journalism, that I’ve edited with my colleague Peter Bull, we explore how demands posed by the political and economic system journalists work in can affect the way in which news information is presented. And this can also influence the way people receive and respond to news.

Ultimately though, journalists can still be hesitant to adopt a “doom and gloom” approach when talking about the climate emergency. But research shows this is not the only way to talk about climate crisis – and continuing to present it as a topic to be debated is outdated and dangerous.

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