(AU) John Hewson: The Morrison Government Has Abrogated Responsibility For The Climate Crisis To The States

The Guardian - John Hewson

It has fallen to the states to lead with more realistic targets, strategies and attempted policy responses

Scott Morrison is ‘wasting even more time trying to wedge the opposition and the states’, writes John Hewson. Photograph: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Author Dr John Hewson AM is an honorary professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and is a former leader of the Liberal party.

A colleague commented to me recently: “Where would we be without the states leading and driving the response to Covid-19?”

It made me think. To cut through all the spin, point-scoring and blame-shifting. Sure, there was the national cabinet and Scott Morrison’s attempt to forge a national, collaborative response, but so much of the heavy lifting was actually done by the states.

Even in areas where our national government has traditionally had clear, overarching responsibility, such as quarantine and aged care, Morrison stepped back, finding it easier to concede, criticise and blame, rather than act.

Of course mistakes are made, and finger-pointing is easy, but none of this “argie- bargie” is in the national interest.

So it is too with the response to a far more significant challenge: climate. Again it has fallen to the states to lead with more realistic targets, strategies and attempted policy responses.

Of course, it would be preferable to have a coordinated national response, but the Morrison government has ignored the significance and urgency of the challenge and abrogated this responsibility. It has again created a leadership vacuum, which the states, rightly or wrongly, are attempting to fill.

Energy is the current political focus, with states such as New South Wales and Victoria forging ahead with net zero emissions targets and various strategies to accelerate the transition to renewables, but causing disquiet with the regulators, major industry players, as well as the Morrison government.

In recent days we have seen the national energy minister Angus Taylor pushing for the states to be “transparent” with their energy plans, industry players crying about “market distortions” (which of course they have been more than happy to exploit), and regulators seeking clear “market principles” and more detail as to transition strategies.

The outcome? A hotchpotch of market forces, regulation, vested interests and confusion, pretty much as was generated against the former South Australian government led by Jay Weatherill, or in the tortuous process around the national energy guarantee, with the result being unreliability of supply and households and businesses overcharged.

Clearly, if the Morrison government were true to its ideological roots, claiming to be “conservative” (believing in small government, limited regulation and market forces), they would step back, develop an appropriate framework for the market to set a “price on carbon”, with a commitment to address the “transition frictions” in certain communities, and let the industry players get on to deliver the transition to cheaper, low emissions, dispatchable renewables with cost-effective storage.

Yet the government prefers to play politics, threatens “big sticks”, falsely claims easy achievement of its modest Paris commitments, and resists longer-term targets and commitments, all while promising cheap and reliable power. Such behaviour guarantees the continuation of our global status as a “laggard”. They hide behind their slogan “Technology Not Taxes” when, ironically, their technology roadmap would be more believable, accelerated and more effective with a carbon price.

The NSW proposals for power infrastructure – renewable energy zones to house a range of renewable energy generation and storage projects, with consumer protections, “reverse auctions” to provide off-take certainty to power generators, and supportive grants – are understandable and have some merit, but raise serious questions as to the “fit” with the grid, the inflexibility and cost of pumped hydro storage, general uncertainty as to how the system will actually work, and whether it will be cost-effective and reliable for consumers.

Meanwhile, the Morrison government and its fossil fuel mates are off on a completely different track, pretending that there is a viable case for more new coal-fired power, and still a case for new gas generation as a “transition”, even though renewables are much cheaper, major banks are reluctant to finance, major insurers are reluctant to insure such projects and investors suspect they will be stranded assets within a decade.

The Morrison government is also committed to storage via Snowy Hydro 2.0 even though it just doesn’t stack up commercially, according to Aemo wouldn’t be needed until about 2042, and is geographically inflexible relative to a sensible and cost-effective development of storage along the grid.

Clearly, there is an urgent imperative for national leadership on not only the transition to renewables in the power sector, but also the essential transitions across all the emitting sectors, especially transport, agriculture, buildings and industrial processes.

This leadership must start with an honest assessment of the climate challenge for a country such as Australia ranking as the 5th or 6th largest global emitter when our fossil fuel exports are taken into account. Our Paris commitments are about half what was recommended by the Climate Change Authority – we need to roughly halve emissions by 2030, and again by 2040, to get near net zero emissions by 2050.

The essential transitions can be effectively and fairly planned and managed over the next three decades. With Joe Biden as the new US president the global pace will quicken markedly. It is grossly irresponsible for Morrison to duck this responsibility, wasting even more time trying to wedge the opposition and the states.

Links Malcolm Turnbull says Morrison was 'dazzled and duchessed' by Trump on climate policy
Australia's climate record labelled 'simply embarrassing' and among worst of G20 nations

(AU) Climate Change Producing Dangerous Heat Stress In Workplaces

Australia Institute Centre for Future Work - James Stanford

New research has confirmed that climate change is contributing to the growing problem of heat stress in a wide range of Australian workplaces.

A report released today by the Centre for Future Work provides first-hand accounts of dangerous levels of heat stress experienced in a range of occupations – including construction, outdoor maintenance work, and food delivery riders.

Heat Stress in Construction. Image©Getty Images

The report, by a team of authors based at the Climate Justice Research Centre at UTS in Sydney, interviewed workers and trade union officials in several industries, and confirmed that working in excess heat is becoming a more common occupational health and safety risk. The report documents the negative effects of excess heat on physical health, mental alertness, and stress. It also compiled an inventory of union initiatives and workplace best practices for reducing and manage the risks of heat stress.

Key findings:

• Heat stress poses serious health and safety risks for many workers across Australia, and Australia must act on the causes of rising temperatures and changing weather patterns.


• Four key groups of workers are at high risk of heat stress:
  • Workers who work inside, in environments with poor climate control, or whose work requires them to be exposed to heat and humidity;
  • Outdoor workers, especially those who are weather-exposed;
  • Workers moving between different climates as part of their work (i.e., moving between extreme heat and cold); and
  • Workers whose roles expose them to situational extreme heat, such as emergency workers and firefighters.
  
  
• Current labour protections, including health and safety laws, are inadequate.
  • Many workers say that OHS policies might appear to offer protection, but in practice it is simply not the case.
  • Workers say that employers do not want work to stop even when heat stress risk is very high, and that employers priorise productivity over worker health and safety.
  • The hazardous heatwaves, air quality, and bushfire smoke over the recent Black Summer has emphasised the inadequacy of current OHS regulations.
  
  
• The conditions of a person’s employment fundamentally shape their experience of heat stress. Workers who are employed casually, who work in labour hire arrangements, or who are gig workers, often have less capacity to take action on the effects of heat stress.


• Recommendations include:
  
  • The Australian Federal and State Governments must urgently review the management of the current and likely impacts of climate change for workers, and develop national and state-based regulatory frameworks that provide strong protection in relation to heat stress and bushfire smoke.
  
  
  • Governments and employers must be required to provide adequate resourcing for at-risk workers.
  
  
  • Policymakers should strengthen current laws to ensure workers do not lose income when unable to work due to heat stress.

“Last year’s devastating Black Summer bushfires highlighted that for many workers across Australia, appropriate policies and plans are not always in place to ensure that they are protected from dangerous heat stress related conditions that could cause illness or injury to themselves or others,” said Dr. Elizabeth Humphrys, associate at the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work and co-author of the report.

“Workers need to be afforded greater protections to ensure their health and safety are paramount in extreme heat conditions. Our research shows that current workplace conditions are woefully inadequate, while climate change will only serve to make conditions worse.

“To protect workers and the wider community, not only must policymakers act to mitigate the impacts of heat stress, but they must also act on the causes of the climate heating, itself.”

“Our research shows that while existing OHS rules are supposed to protect workers against heat stress in theory, in practice those standards are not adequate, and they are poorly enforced.”

“Many workers say that employers do not want work to stop even when heat stress is very high, and that employers prioritise productivity over workers’ health.”

“Improving workplace practices for identifying and managing heat stress, and empowering workers to refuse work under unsafe heat conditions, must be urgent priorities for employers, trade unions, and regulators.”

Links

• REPORT Heat Stress and Work in the Era of Climate Change: What We Know, and What We Need to Learn
• Construction Workers in a Climate Precarious World
• Heat in the Streets: Mapping the Lived Experience of Heat Stress of Climate-exposed Workers Towards Developing a Thriving and Resilient City
• Heat Stress and On-Demand Work: The Experience of Food Delivery and Courier Cyclists
• Guide for managing the risks of working in heat
• Climate change increases workplace heat stress, affecting work capacity and occupational health
• Impacts of Climate Change on Outdoor Workers and Their Safety: Some Research Priorities
• Climate Change impacts on Workplace Heat Extremes: Health Risk Estimates and Adaptive Options

Into Thicker Air And Onto Thinner Ice: How Climate Change Is Affecting Mount Everest

Smithsonian Magazine - Rasha Aridi

Researchers have documented that the high-altitude air is gaining more oxygen and large glaciers are melting at rapid rates

A white cloud floats over the top of Mount Everest at dusk. (Photo by Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Despite being the highest point on Earth, Mount Everest still can't escape the effects of climate change. The only place that punctures the stratosphere—Everest's peak reaches 29,035 feet above sea level—has an atmosphere so thin that it leaves mountaineers gasping for breath and glaciers so big that they stretch for miles on end. But both of those elements are changing fast.

According to two new studies published today in iScience and One Earth, the air pressure near Everest's summit is rising, making more oxygen available to breathe, and glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates, leading to more meltwater. The changes will impact climbers scaling the peak and local people who live in the shadow of it.

"Some of the lower Himalayan regions are fairly well studied, but a place like Everest is less studied because it's just so hard to do work up there." says Aurora Elmore, a climate scientist at the National Geographic Society. "There's a big gap in the research, especially above 5,000 meters [16, 404 feet]—and Everest is 8,850 meters [29,035 feet]. That huge three kilometers of elevation has been under studied."

To learn more about the highest reaches of the world, last year Elmore helped organize an expedition that sent a team of 34 scientists to Mount Everest to collect glaciological and meteorological data by installing the highest weather stations in the world. The expedition provided the data for both of the new studies, each of which Elmore co-authored.

At 8,430 meters above sea level, the high-altitude expedition team celebrates after setting up the world's highest operating automated weather station during the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition. For more info on the expedition, go to www.NatGeo.com/Everest. (Photo by Mark Fisher, National Geographic)

In a study published in iScience, Elmore and a team of scientists set out to document how the atmospheric pressure on Everest has fluctuated since the 1970s. Each year, around 800 people attempt to summit Mount Everest, but after ascending 21,325 feet, the air gets so thin that most climbers turn to bottled oxygen to help them breathe. Only a handful of mountaineers attempt to climb it without supplemental oxygen. But that may get easier, as climate change is causing the air to slowly thicken, which means more oxygen is available at higher altitudes.

When temperature rises, molecules move faster. And when these molecules start to collide with each other, pressure increases. More pressure means more molecules, making more oxygen available to breathe, says lead author Tom Matthews, a climate scientist at Loughborough University in the U.K.

To analyze the changes in the atmosphere, Matthews and his team collected data using those weather stations they installed on the Everest expedition in 2019. They coupled their newly collected data with analyses produced by the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting to reconstruct what the climate was like on Everest from 1979 to 2020.

Matthews and his team then used the climate data to model how the atmosphere around Everest has changed over time and how it will continue to change as the planet warms. Their models suggest that if global temperatures increase by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—which the planet is on track to meet as early as 2050—the maximum rate of oxygen consumption on Everest would increase by 5 percent. It may seem like a subtle shift, but that's enough to be the difference between life and death for a mountaineer standing at Everest's peak. "Some people would find [thicker air] as a good consequence of climate change," Matthews says with a laugh. "I think that's stretching it a little bit."

The real surprise of this study, Matthews says, is learning how dramatically the atmospheric pressure on Everest can vary. From the 40 years of data, the team picked out the day with the lowest air pressure on record and compared it to the day with the highest. The difference was huge, Matthews says, with oxygen availability between the two days being equivalent to an elevation change of 2,460 feet.

And the climate can vary remarkably within a span of a few days, he says. On one day, the air at the summit can feel breathable without supplemental oxygen; a few days later, the pressure can plunge to thin, sharp, mid-winter-like air, making it unclimbable. This means that for climbers planning to forego supplemental oxygen and push their bodies to the absolute limits, they must pay close attention to oxygen forecasts. For example, if climbers leave basecamp on a day when an oxygenless summit would be physiologically possible and then arrive a week later when the pressure has bottomed out, it could be a "real horror show," Matthews says.

"What really struck me about this study is that climate change may be impacting the conditions on Mount Everest, and the acceptable conditions on Mount Everest for climbers, in more ways that we have already understood," says Kimberley Miner, a climate risk scientist at the University of Maine who was not involved with this study. "Looking at the way that oxygen is affected in the higher alpine environments [is] something that probably doesn't strike people immediately when you talk about climate change, but these secondary impacts could have very specific effects on climbers and mountaineers [and are] also just as significant."

Although atmospheric changes on Everest aren't visible to the eye, the havoc that climate change is wreaking on glaciers is crystal clear to those living in the region.

"The melting ice in the Himalayas is already alarming," says Pasang Dolma Sherpa, the executive director of the Center for Indigenous Peoples' Research and Development in Kathmandu, Nepal. A few weeks ago, she went hiking in a nearby community, and the local people told her, "Oh, by this time [of year] we used to have already white mountains, but now you see all black." And the floods caused by melting glaciers—which were once rare—are now happening more regularly and unpredictably, she says.

The study published today in One Earth reports just how dramatically glaciers have thinned since the 1960s—in some areas by as much as 490 feet. A team of scientists led by glaciologist Owen King, a research fellow at the University of St Andrews in the U.K., used archived satellite images and old surveys dating back to the 1960s to build a baseline dataset from which to compare future glacier melt. The images came from ten different years spread out between 1962 and 2019.

A member of the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Everest Expedition team takes a sample from a rock outcrop next to the Khumbu Icefall above Everest Base Camp. For more info on the expedition, go to www.NatGeo.com/Everest. (Photo by Freddie Wilkinson, National Geographic)

The team studied 79 glaciers—including the Khumbu Glacier, the highest glacier in the world—and found that between 2009 and 2018, glaciers thinned at nearly twice the rate that they did in the 1960s. And some estimates suggest that a few glaciers have areas on them that have likely lost half of their thickness since the 60s.

The average temperature from 2000 to 2016 is about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average between 1975 and 2000. Although rising temperatures are the primary drivers of glacier thinning, other big factors are at play, King says. As the glaciers retreat, they often leave behind rocky debris and expose cliffs and troughs on the mountainsides. The exposed rocks absorb more radiation from the sun, melting the adjacent ice. The melted water then seeps into the troughs created by the retreating glaciers, creating small ponds. The ponds melt the surrounding ice, and more water fills the ponds. Ultimately, clusters of ponds join up and form huge glacial lakes. As a result, more than 400 new lakes formed between 1990 and 2015, King says.

Heidi Steltzer, a mountain scientist at Fort Lewis College in Colorado who wasn't involved in the study, says the results are concerning, given the persistent ice loss across the study area.

In addition to the 18 Indigenous communities residing in the Himalayas, nearly two billion people depend on the mountain range for a source of freshwater. As melting accelerates, it puts that once-steady source of water in jeopardy, threatening the lives and livelihoods of nearly a fifth of the world's population.

And although faster melting might mean more water, "it's only a good thing for a little bit of time," Elmore says. If water melts too fast, it arrives in the form of floods, which communities in the region are already experiencing. "They are reaping the repercussions of a global climatic change that they are not major contributors to," she says.

But despite being on the frontlines of climate change, the Indigenous peoples in the Himalayas are often left out of research, climate strategy dialogues and policy making, Sherpa says. "The studies that help people understand the resources they have and the choices [they have] to adapt are just as important as a study of ice loss," Steltzer says. "And maybe that's the next study to come." 

Links

• A comprehensive look at the effects of climate change on Mount Everest 
• Climate scientists turn Mount Everest into a lab
• Climate Change, Plastics Threaten World’s Tallest Peak
• Climate change thinning glaciers, increasing oxygen levels at Mount Everest
• Climate change has led to a chilling discovery on Mount Everest. 
• Climate change, human impacts altering Everest faster, more significantly than previously known
• Human Face Of A Himalayan Climate Crisis
• An Urgent Call To Protect The World's "Third Pole"

(AU) Big Banks, Insurers Publish Road Map To Net Zero

AFR - James Fernyhough

Australia's entire financial sector, including the big four banks, major insurers, fund managers and superannuation funds, are calling for an institutionally embedded collective target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The target, which if achieved would end Australia's contribution to global warming by the middle of the century, is one of the central goals of the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative's completed road map, released on Monday.

ASFI was launched in early 2019 with the goal of designing a comprehensive blueprint to reshape the financial system to deal with climate change and other sustainability issues. On Monday it published that road map, describing it as a "plan for aligning Australia’s financial system with a sustainable, resilient and prosperous future for all Australians".

The road map includes 37 recommendations that seek to embed sustainability concerns in corporate, government and regulatory governance structures, build sustainable finance markets and support community resilience through more socially responsible lending practices.

The global economy is on the edge of the next industrial revolution to a more sustainable low carbon future.
— Geoff Summerhayes, APRA

Many of the recommendations deal explicitly with climate change, proposing a standardised use of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures for all ASX-listed businesses and any financial institution with turnover of more than $100 million, regular climate change scenario analysis and stress testing, portfolio holdings disclosure, and common, science-based emissions targets.

But while the road map calls for the creation of "a sustainable capital market", it stops short of recommending concrete market-based measures favoured in other countries, such as an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax, reflecting the continued political stalemate on the subject of carbon pricing.

At The Australia Financial Review Energy and Climate Summit on Monday, Energy Minister Angus Taylor reiterated the federal government's opposition to carbon pricing

The road map also recommends that ASFI be made a permanent official body similar to the Council of Financial Regulators.

"ASFI would be governed by a board composed of representatives of financial institutions, with an advisory council composed of government, regulators, industry bodies and civil society representatives contributing perspectives and providing advice to the Board on workplan priorities," the road map states.

Beyond climate change

The road map goes beyond just climate change to areas such as biodiversity, community finance and indigenous affairs in an effort to build what ASFI co-chair Simon O'Connor called a "new normal". Alongside the Paris Agreement goals, it aims to help Australia meet its sustainable development goals and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Convention on Biological Diversity.

“Recent events, such as bushfires, floods and drought, as well as COVID-19, have highlighted how locally and globally connected our economy, society and environment are," Mr O’Connor said.

“The financial services sector recognises the critical role it needs to play for Australia to recover from the pandemic and to prepare for our future challenges. We need to mobilise now to enable a prosperous and thriving economy, which can only be delivered while investing in a sustainable and resilient society, and healthy environment."

Its 18-person steering committee includes representatives from Australia's most powerful financial institutions, including the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac, NAB, ANZ, insurers QBE and IAG, asset manager Pendal and industry super fund Cbus.

NAB's executive general manager of corporate finance Connie Sokaris, who is on the ASFI steering committee, said a key aim for NAB in participating in the initiative was to help customers transition their business models in line with a low carbon and sustainable model.

"I’ve been really pleased with the level of industry and private sector involvement, " says Connie Sokaris of NAB and a member of the ASFI steering committee.

"The transition will take time and planning," she said. "Some are really well progressed, others are just starting."

Ms Sokaris declined to comment on whether federal government needed to play a more active role in the initiative.

“I’ve been really pleased with the level of industry and private sector involvement. ASFI is about the industry and our customers taking the lead on this. I cannot comment on government policy, but we are seeing industry playing a leading role."

While no federal government representative sits on the steering committee, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's Geoff Summerhayes participates as an observer, as do two representatives of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The steering committee also includes former Liberal leader John Hewson.

“The global economy is on the edge of the next industrial revolution to a more sustainable low carbon future," Mr Summerhayes said. "ASFI recognises the immense risk and opportunity that this transition presents for the Australian financial system and the global economy.

“A number of the recommendations are directed at APRA and our regulatory peers. While there is a degree of alignment between the recommendations and APRA’s strategy, we are committed to carefully considering the ASFI report."

Links

• Recovery must be green, say big banks
• Big four banks form climate investment initiative
• Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures
• Australia must act on energy reform or be left behind: AEMO
• Council of Financial Regulators
• Aware Super nearly halves emissions in mass divestment
• Top CEOs form exclusive climate change club
• Australia is a net zero embarrassment
• We can become a net exporter of clean energy, say experts

(AU) Australia Needs A Climate Policy Turnaround - Not A Pathetic Crab Walk

Sydney Morning Herald - Kevin Rudd

Author Kevin Rudd was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from December 2007 to June 2010 and again from June to September 2013.

Scott Morrison's attempt last week to crab walk away from his government's insistence on being able to use so-called "Kyoto credits" to achieve Australia's formal commitments under the Paris Agreement was inevitable.

Morrison's position was not only legally baseless and at odds with the rest of the world, it did nothing for the atmosphere.

His "crab walk" is also an early sign of the pressure that will be brought to bear by the Biden administration. But the government would be mistaken to think this soft shoe shuffle will be enough to change our status as an international climate pariah, especially when we are no longer able to hide behind there being a climate denier-in-chief in the White House.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

President-elect Biden has made clear his determination to put the fight against climate change at the centre of his domestic agenda and to rally the rest of the world to lift our collective climate ambition. Despite Morrison making low-emissions technology a priority for co-operation in his congratulatory message to Biden, Australia's seven years of climate inaction is well known in Washington.

Remember it began when Biden was Obama's vice-president. Sometimes the conservative political class in Canberra suffers from the delusion that their destructive record on climate has been quarantined to the Australian domestic debate. It hasn't. The truth is it is as much a global story as Trump's giant wrecking ball on climate – with our record of inaction powerfully brought into contrast with the "Great Australian Inferno" last summer which received worldwide coverage.

Similarly, both the Democrats and the wider international community are under no illusion that the Murdoch media has been the great global political enabler for both Morrison and Trump's destructive records of climate inaction. Watch this space as not just Australia but the world turns on Murdoch as the global repository of climate change denialism.

The reality is that Australia lacks both short-term ambition and long-term vision on climate action. In Biden's eyes, this will set us apart from other countries that also need to do more in the short term – including China and Japan – which at least now have clear pathways to decarbonise their economies by mid-century.

President-elect Biden has made clear his determination to put the fight against climate change at the centre of his domestic agenda. Credit: AP

That is why if the Kyoto credits were Morrison's first climate crab walk, it won't be his last. The next will be Morrison saying that the time has finally come to move towards carbon neutrality by 2050 – not least because Europe and possibly the US are threatening carbon tariffs against the countries that don't. But the risk here is that Scotty from Marketing’s objective is to simply throw something to the chattering classes while doing nothing of real substance in the critical decade ahead.

Morrison must do two things: honour the commitment Australia made in the 2015 Paris Agreement to increase our appallingly low national target to reduce greenhouse gases by 2030; and, second, to put in place the domestic policy changes to give effect to a new and genuinely ambitious national target.

Instead, despite attempts by Boris Johnson in recent weeks, there is a real risk that Morrison will seek to try to cut off any pressure from the incoming Biden administration by slipping under the rug a "reconfirmation" of Australia's existing lacklustre 2030 target before the end of the year. This would immediately attract global ridicule, not least because Australia's existing commitments are so anaemic.

Back in 2014, when Tony Abbott announced Australia's current target to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030, he explained it was chosen on the basis it mirrored the same target the Obama administration had put on the table. That was a lie. The Americans had promised to reach this goal five years earlier – a massive difference in terms of gigatons of carbon.

According to a report published last week by the Asia Society Policy Institute and Climate Analytics, Biden is likely to now commit the US to a new target of cutting emissions between 38 and 54 per cent by 2030. By the government's own measure, this will now be the benchmark for what Australia should do.

Thankfully, in the five years since Australia's current 2030 target was tabled, the cost of renewables has plummeted and low-emissions technologies have radically improved. That's precisely why the Paris Agreement put in place a mechanism for countries to increase their ambition every five years.

This brings us to the question of how Australian domestic policy actions must also give effect to our international targets.

The tragedy is that the vast bulk of Australia's greenhouse gas reductions over the past decade have been delivered by the actions our government put in place before we left office in 2013 – and despite the fact the conservatives recklessly repealed our price on carbon.

First, our introduction of a Mandatory Renewable Energy Target has driven renewables from 4 per cent of the national electricity supply in 2009 to roughly 21 per cent today.

Second, our national program to subsidise solar panels for Australian homes.

Third, and despite the real problems in implementation which have been well documented, our Energy Efficient Homes package which significantly reduced demand for domestic heating and cooling in one-fifth of our national housing stock – cutting the equivalent of almost 20 tonnes of carbon through to today.

So, in addition to committing to a substantive increase in our Paris commitment for 2030, the time has come for Morrison to enunciate a series of similar substantive national measures to get there.

These measures should include changing the national building codes to make solar panels mandatory for all new residential and non-residential construction.

Or is Morrison just too gutless to do what is right for Australia, forever fearful of Dutton and the far right of the Liberal and National parties breathing down his neck, for whom chanting the coal mantra will forever be their pathetic political anthem?

Links

• Kevin Rudd on the economic impacts of climate change
• Australia, Climate Change and the Complacent Country
• Labor's battle over climate change action
• Australia will lose more than $3 trillion and 880,000 jobs over 50 years if climate change is not addressed, Deloitte says
• ‘New jobs, new industries, new wealth’: Kevin Rudd’s vision for a green recovery out of the pandemic
• ‘Shocking legacy’: Turnbull blasts News Corp’s climate change coverage in fiery exchange
• Ex-PMs unite in Australia in bid to curb power of Murdoch empire
• Climate change—reducing Australia’s emissions
• Gillard on climate action: “It was done. And … we can do it again in the future”
• Survey shows Australian support for Paris Agreement and net zero target
• Revved-up Boris leaves old fossil Oz for dust

The Silly Debate About Climate Change

Forbes - Art Berman

Author Art Berman is a petroleum geologist with 42 years of oil and gas industry experience.

Arguments that dispute climate change are ignorant and contrary to geologic history.

To say that climate is always changing, that temperatures were higher during earlier periods of Earth history than today, that higher CO2 levels are good for agriculture, or that deviations from the warming trend invalidate its truth—these are wrong or hopelessly simplistic.

The debate about climate change is silly because it doesn’t matter what we think about it. The effect of the debate is to make one side or the other feel better or worse about what is happening. But climate change is happening whether we like it or not. 

Climate change has been a primary factor in the history and development of human civilization. It caused the earliest migrations out of Africa. It led to the transition from hunter-gather to agricultural society. The agricultural revolution had nothing to do with technology. It was a climate-change revolution. The agricultural revolution took place when climate stabilized and warmed 12,000 years ago at the beginning of the Holocene Epoch (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Holocene temperature variations from Greenland ice surface temperatures. Source: Dalum Hjallese Debate Club: https://www.dandebat.dk/eng-klima7.htm and Labyrinth Consulting Services, Inc. artberman.com

Temperatures were warmer, not colder, than today through most of geologic time—until recently. Heating is greater than it was millions of years ago. Long-term temperature has declined because CO2 has decreased—until recently.

CO2 levels were higher than pre-industrial values (278 parts per million) for most of the last 420 million years (Figure 2). In other words, the long-term decrease in CO2 largely compensated for the increase in solar output.

CO2 levels decreased because of the proliferation of land plants that converted it into oxygen. The erosion and weathering of clay minerals in granitic rocks absorbed large volumes of CO2 as the continents evolved. Long-term volcanic activity has declined as the earth has matured limiting the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere from inside the earth.

We must focus on the deviation from these long-term trends over the last 200 years.

Figure 3 shows the same data as in Figure 2 but on a logarithmic time scale to compare more recent earth history with its more distant geologic past.

Among the various projections on the right-hand side of the figure, RCP8.5 represents the “do-nothing” or business-as-usual scenario. It indicates CO2 values by early in the next century that exceed levels from more than 99% of the last 420 million years. A return to unstable climate would make agriculture impossible again.

Figure 3. Temporal evolution of CO2 and Paleogene formation of ice caps. Source: Leonard and Berman (2019): https://www.artberman.com/wp-content/uploads/Climate-Change-Transitional-Role-of-Fossil-Fuels_Commodities_APR-2019-1.pdf; modified from Foster et al (2017) and Montanez (2018). artberman.com

Regardless of the reliability of this projection or the ultimate causes for the rise of post-industrial CO2 levels, the message is clear.

What lies ahead during the lifetimes of our grandchildren will most probably not be comparable to anything since the development of multi-cellular life on Earth.

Please visit artberman.com/2020/11/21/climate-change-the-great-and-silly-debate/ for a more detailed version of this story.

Links

• The Discovery of Global Warming

• Climate Change History

• A brief history of climate change

• History of climate change science - Wikipedia

• Historical Overview of Climate Change Science (pdf)

• Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human migration

• Future climate forcing potentially without precedent in the last 420 million years

• Climate Change First Became News 30 Years Ago. Why Haven’t We Fixed It?

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(USA) With John Kerry Pick, Biden Selects A ‘Climate Envoy’ With Stature

 New York Times - Lisa Friedman

Mr. Biden said he would name Mr. Kerry to a cabinet-level climate post, giving him the job of persuading global leaders that the United States is prepared to resume a leadership role.

John Kerry has been advocating for action on climate change for decades at state and federal levels. Credit...David Degner for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — When John Kerry served as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, he helped steer the negotiation of the Paris Agreement, locking down commitments from nearly 200 nations — including his own — to begin to reverse the dangerous warming of the planet. Now his diplomatic task may be even tougher. 

On Monday, president-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said he intended to name Mr. Kerry his special presidential envoy for climate, a cabinet-level position in the new administration.

In that role, Mr. Kerry will need to persuade skeptical global leaders, burned by the Trump administration’s hostility toward climate science, that the United States is prepared to resume its leadership role — and will stay the course, regardless of the Biden administration’s future.

Those who know him best say Mr. Kerry is well suited to the role. He has been advocating for action on climate change since he attended the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the framework of United Nations climate talks was formed.

He also knows the struggle of persuading his own country to take action, having co-authored climate change legislation as a Massachusetts senator that ultimately failed. Then, after joining the Obama administration, he made climate change a core part of the State Department.

The appointment of Mr. Kerry to sit on the National Security Council as a climate envoy elevates the issue of climate change to the highest echelons of government and marks it as an urgent national security threat.

“America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat that it is,” Mr. Kerry said in a statement.

In naming Mr. Kerry Mr. Biden has tapped the biggest name in his government so far, a veteran politician adept at drawing attention to himself and his causes since he led opposition to the Vietnam War as a decorated young veteran.

“John Kerry brings unmatched stature, a record of being an effective, tireless and indefatigable negotiator, a record of profound commitment to this issue and an understanding of just what the speed and scale of the transformation needs to be,” said Todd S. Stern, who served as the State Department’s climate envoy under Mr. Obama.

Mr. Kerry was joined by his granddaughter during a signing ceremony for the Paris Agreement at the United Nations General Assembly in 2016. Credit...Timothy A. Clary/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As special presidential envoy for climate, Mr. Kerry will participate in ministerial-level meetings with a cabinet rank. He will not have to face Senate confirmation, according to Mr. Biden’s transition team.

The move marks the first time the National Security Council will include an official dedicated to climate change, “reflecting the president-elect’s commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue,” the transition team said in a statement.

“It’s an unusual sign, and certainly one that will grab everybody’s attention internationally. Every government from China to the E.U. to India is going to sit up go, ‘Wow,’” Mr. Stern said.

Paul Bodnar, managing director at the Rocky Mountain Institute, which works on climate policy, and who served on the climate change negotiating team under Secretary Kerry, called him a “dream choice for this kind of role” and “a powerful signal of the importance of climate to the incoming administration.”

Mr. Bodnar described Mr. Kerry as someone who “does the homework” on policy even as he works the room as a negotiator.

During the Paris climate talks in 2015, he recalled, Mr. Kerry “almost alone among climate ‘ministers’ from other countries, spent the better part of two weeks roaming the halls of the giant conference center day and night, listening and advocating, getting into the details.”

Democratic administrations in the United States have a history of joining climate pacts like the Paris Agreement (and before that, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol) only for them to be abandoned by subsequent Republican presidents.

Restoring U.S. credibility once again will be a challenge, but several international leaders said they are eager to see Washington back at the table.

“I think the rest of the world will welcome the U.S. under Biden and Kerry with open arms and huge relief,” said Saleem Huq, director of the Bangladesh-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development, who works closely with the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

According to Mr. Biden’s transition team, the president-elect also will name in December a White House climate policy coordinator who will help streamline domestic climate change policies throughout the various federal agencies.

Links

• John Kerry named as Joe Biden's special climate envoy 
• John Kerry launches coalition to fight climate crisis: ‘We are way behind’
• John Kerry says we can't leave climate emergency to 'neanderthals' in power
• John Kerry: Europe must tackle climate change or face migration chaos 
• John Kerry warns of climate threat at talks overshadowed by Trump – video
• John Kerry rejects leading climate scientist's claim Paris talks were 'fraud'