(AU) It's Not Too Late For Australia To Pivot On Climate Change - Tim Flannery

Sydney Morning Herald - Tim Flannery

Author Professor Tim Flannery is chief councillor of the Climate Council. Note The Climate Ambition Summit is on December 12.

This time last year the federal government was caught dangerously off-guard. Having ignored the clear warnings, our national leadership was woefully unprepared as vast swathes of Australia went up in flames in a disaster fuelled by climate change.

A year on, the government is sailing headlong into a different kind of crisis, having failed once again to read the signs. With all our major trading partners and strategic allies now stepping up their commitments to climate action, Australia faces a diplomatic firestorm, not to mention decades of economic fallout, if it fails to act.

Vast swathes of Australia went up in flames in a disaster fuelled by climate change. Credit: Nick Moir

This weekend’s Climate Ambition Summit is set to up the stakes for Australia even more, with significant new announcements expected.

Just a few months ago, only a fifth of Australia’s two-way trade was with countries committed to net-zero emissions by around mid-century. Today, with more and more countries seeing clean energy and jobs as the path to economic recovery, that figure has shot up to over 70 per cent. The three biggest buyers of Australian coal and gas – China, Japan and South Korea – have all now signalled their intention to get out of fossil fuels, casting a cloud over three-quarters of Australia’s fossil fuel exports, worth a whopping $76 billion.

Just as importantly, the world’s three biggest emitters – the US, China and EU – are all strengthening their 2030 targets. It is, after all, the pace of emissions reductions over the coming decade that will prove decisive in whether we avert a full-blown climate catastrophe or sentence our children to a barely survivable future.

The federal government’s stubborn refusal to either commit to net-zero emissions before mid-century or to strengthen its extraordinarily weak 2030 target means we are now a total outlier among comparable countries, leaving our industries and economy vulnerable.

The world’s three biggest emitters – the US, China and the EU – are all strengthening their 2030 targets. Credit: Getty Images

Prime Minister Morrison’s announcement that Australia no longer plans to use dodgy accounting tricks to meet its current and clearly inadequate 2030 target is an early indication that the government is starting to feel the heat. Though a mere announcement that we no longer plan on cheating will not be enough to convince the international community we are serious. Having watched Australia burn, our international peers continue to look at our recalcitrance with a mix of impatience, anger, and utter bewilderment.

Closer to home, Pacific leaders are growing angrier with Australia for recklessly endangering their future. Significantly, Australia’s anxiety over China’s growing presence in the region means Pacific Islands countries have more leverage than in the past. If we want to remain the Pacific’s security partner of choice, then we are going to have to start doing more to tackle the global climate crisis.

In recent years, Australia had some cover from the US in international negotiations. We were able to hide behind our key ally’s own deeply flawed stance on climate. By contrast, the Biden-Harris administration intends to use every tool at its disposal to push other countries to raise their ambition.


Prime Minister Scott Morrison is facing pressure to make significant climate policy pledges ahead of a United Nations summit with world leaders.

Similarly, while we look forward to seeing more detail on how China plans to meet its net-zero pledge, the favourite excuse of Australia’s naysayers – that there’s little point in raising a finger until China, the world’s biggest emitter, starts getting out of coal – makes even less sense than before. In a further sign of the growing economic risks of Australia’s inaction, the EU – our third-largest trading partner – is on course to place carbon tariffs on imports from 2023, if the producing country does not have a carbon price of its own.

In hindsight, the federal government should surely have seen that such a storm was brewing. Fortunately, it is not too late for a pivot. Australia has everything it needs to flourish in a post-carbon world. We have an unparalleled natural advantage when it comes to developing a renewable export industry and tapping into growing global demand for zero/low-carbon manufactured goods.

Leadership from the states and territories has ensured some welcome progress on renewable energy despite the federal government’s failures. Though with other countries now working quickly to establish new clean industries, without stronger national leadership Australia will soon be left behind.

The Climate Ambition Summit – coming on the five-year anniversary of the Paris Agreement – is but the first in a series of major political moments leading up to COP26, which will take place in Glasgow next November. Only those countries with new targets and actions to announce are being given a platform.

It’s no exaggeration that decisions made between now and next November, including on how governments choose to direct the trillions of further spending on economic renewal, may be our very last chance at leaving a future in which our children can survive and thrive.

As John Kerry, the newly appointed US Special Envoy on Climate Change, has said: “At the global meeting in Glasgow one year from now, all nations must raise ambition together, or we will all fail together. And failure is not an option.”

Links

• Tim Flannery warns of adverse climate impacts if South32 coal mine expansion approved
• Australia, the climate can’t wait for the next federal election. It’s time to take control
• Malcolm Turnbull says a 'toxic troika' is stopping the Morrison government from acting on climate change
• The megafires and pandemic expose the lies that frustrate action on climate change
• We need to talk to our kids about the climate crisis. But courage fails me when I look at my son
• I now look back on my 20 years of climate activism as a colossal failure
• Australia's 'black summer' bushfires showed the impact of human-wrought change
• Tim Flannery: people are shocked about climate change but they should be angry
• Faced with catastrophe, David Attenborough and Tim Flannery search for a cure

(AU) Why Can’t Australia Just Trust The Market On Climate Change?

The Diplomat - Grant Wyeth

Renewable energy technologies have become better and cheaper, but Australia’s politics haven’t embraced the energy market’s transition.

Pixabay

Author Grant Wyeth is a researcher at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.

Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States over the last four years has provided cover for Australia’s recalcitrance toward action on climate change.

However, the incoming administration of Joe Biden, who has plans to take the issue of climate change more seriously, will place greater pressure on Australia to do likewise. Canberra will find it difficult to avoid this state-level pressure; Australia will also face difficulties in avoiding pressure coming from the energy market itself.

Until recently, the global energy market was dominated by fossil fuels — for a long time, no other technology could produce energy in a cheaper way. However, over the past decade this reality has shifted. Renewable energy technologies have considerably improved and the cost of production and delivery has become much cheaper. In many places in the world, power generation from renewable energy sources is now cheaper than power generation from fossil fuels. 

This trajectory could be maintained — and could flourish locally in a country with geographic advantages for both solar and wind generation — if Australia’s energy industry had a stable policy framework for the market to function within. Yet the Australian government has persistently proved unable to develop such a framework.

There have been attempts. The most recent effort was the National Energy Guarantee (NEG). But these attempts continue to come against the internal politics of the Liberal Party, making them impossible to implement. The NEG led to a party revolt that removed Malcolm Turnbull from the prime ministership in 2018. 

If we are being generous to the government, there are genuine economic concerns for the regions whose economies are reliant on fossil fuel generation. But any serious plan to combat the effects of climate change will also address these regional economic effects, as the jobs created by the renewable industry may not have the same geographic distribution as the existing fossil fuel industry.

However, the Australian government has refused to confront this reality, instead deciding to just kick this problem down the road in the hope someone else will discover a solution. This isn’t helped by there being distinct electoral calculations for political parties attached to fossil fuel generating regions, especially in Queensland, where Australian elections are typically won and lost. 

Yet the Liberal Party hasn’t shown any similar concern for other industries whose decline has come via market forces. There were regions that relied heavily on the manufacturing of motor vehicles, but when the market no longer saw an advantage in manufacturing cars in Australia in 2017 the Liberal-led government did not seek to intervene. 

This remains one of the great riddles of Australian politics: Why is the party of free markets so opposed to the forces and mechanisms of the market in the energy sector? The electoral calculations are understandable as political parties will always place their ability to win votes above any philosophical consistency.

But there is also something else going on, something deeply psychological that is preventing the party from acknowledging the reality of climate change. This is driving the Liberal Party to undermine its own adherence to liberal economics by protecting industries that are rapidly losing viability. 

In an essay I wrote for Quillette in September, I argued that the pace of change over the past several decades has proved highly confronting to what British philosopher Michael Oakeshott identified as the “conservative disposition.”

My broad argument was that it has been the mechanisms of increasingly free markets driving this rapid economic and social change, and it has been conservative parties themselves who have been the primary drivers of these economic ideas and structures. The central point is that conservative parties have failed to align their political ideals to their psychological needs. 

The threats posed by climate change are also highly confronting to those who value stability and have an instinctive suspicion toward change in general. The fear for those of a conservative disposition is that human beings will need to reorganize themselves in such a dramatic fashion to mitigate the effects of climate change that people’s current comfortable existences will be upended.

Faced with this potential disruptive prospect, their reaction has instead been to simply deny the phenomenon. This has led to Australia’s conservative parties and their media allies developing a political identity built around this denialism, making it now almost impossible for the issue to now be approached as one of “economics and engineering,” as has become the common phrase used by Turnbull.  

The current trajectory toward more affordable renewable energy is a result of the energy market doing what conservative parties over the past 50 years have told us that markets do: They find solutions to problems and make these solutions cheaper and easier to access.

While these market forces do often extinguish industries and impact regions that are reliant on these industries, they also offer considerable new opportunities, and in doing so they make humanity’s ability to confront its major challenges often far less dramatic than they may otherwise be perceived to be.

Yet an obstinate government that actively seeks to hinder these market forces will prevent Australia from taking advantage of these opportunities, and increase the continued serious threats that climate change presents to the country, as well as to its more precarious neighbors. 

Links

• Australia still back of the global pack on climate, despite best efforts of states
• Taylor avoids mention of bushfires as Australia given a zero for climate policy
• Chart of the day: Renewables are increasingly cheaper than coal
• How government strangled the National Energy Market
• 4 astonishing signs of coal’s declining economic viability
• Renewable Energy Is Now The Cheapest Option - Even Without Subsidies
• Renewable Energy Job Boom Creates Economic Opportunity As Coal Industry Slumps

The World’s Rich Need To Cut Their Carbon Footprint By A Factor Of 30 To Slow Climate Change, U.N. Warns

Washington Post - Brady Dennis | Chris Mooney | Sarah Kaplan

Despite sharp drop in greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic, the world remains on pace for catastrophic warming in coming decades

Students gather at John Marshall Park in Washington to protest climate change during a climate strike on Sept. 20, 2019. (Astrid Riecken for The Washington Post)

The world’s wealthy will need to reduce their carbon footprints by a factor of 30 to help put the planet on a path to curb the ever-worsening impacts of climate change, according to new findings published Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program.

Currently, the emissions attributable to the richest 1 percent of the global population account for more than double those of the poorest 50 percent. Shifting that balance, researchers found, will require swift and substantial lifestyle changes, including decreases in air travel, a rapid embrace of renewable energy and electric vehicles, and better public planning to encourage walking, bicycle riding and public transit.

But individual choices are hardly the only key to mitigating the intensifying consequences of climate change.

Wednesday’s annual “emissions gap” report, which assesses the difference between the world’s current path and measures needed to manage climate change, details how the world remains woefully off target in its quest to slow the Earth’s warming. The drop in greenhouse gas emissions during this year’s pandemic, while notable, will have almost no impact on slowing the warming that lies ahead unless humankind drastically alters its policies and behavior, the report finds.

Instead, nations would need to “roughly triple” their current emissions-cutting pledges to limit the Earth’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average — a central aim of the Paris climate agreement. To reach the loftier goal of holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the report found, countries would need to increase their targets at least fivefold. That goal in particular would require rapid and profound changes in how societies travel, produce electricity and eat.

“We’d better make these shifts, because while covid has been bad, there is hope at the end of the tunnel with a vaccine,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in an interview. “But there is no vaccine for the planet.”

Global carbon dioxide emissions are likely to fall by about 7 percent during 2020 — a significant change driven by the spread of the coronavirus and the shutdowns that accompanied it, which had a particularly strong impact on travel. But that temporary dip probably will have only a “negligible long-term impact” on climate change in the years ahead, the U.N. report found.

If the drop in emissions caused by the pandemic proves an isolated event rather than the beginning of a major trend, the episode will prevent only .01 degree Celsius (.018 degree Fahrenheit) of warming by the year 2050, the report found.

Last year’s “emissions gap” report found that humans would need to collectively cut emissions by close to pandemic amounts (7.6 percent) every year to begin to meet the Paris agreement’s most ambitious climate goals. That is nowhere near to becoming a reality.

“Are we on track to bridging the gap? Absolutely not,” the new report bluntly states.

Global greenhouse gas emissions have risen about 1.4 percent annually on average over the past decade. Last year saw the highest global emissions ever recorded, at 59 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, a category that includes not only the principal greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, but also methane and other climate-warming agents.

Based on countries’ current promises, U.N. researchers found, the world remains on a trajectory to experience a temperature rise this century of about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) — an amount that many experts say would have catastrophic effects on much of the planet.

Bending that disturbing curve in a more sustainable direction will require fundamental, unprecedented changes on the part of leaders around the globe. But as Wednesday’s report makes clear, individual behavior also has a role to play. And the wealthy — whom the report defines as those with the highest 1 percent of incomes globally, or more than $109,000 per year — bear the greatest responsibility for helping fuel such a shift. (The “1 percent” in the United States, a wealthy country, are considerably richer than average, with annual household incomes above $500,000.)

Wealthy people are more likely to travel frequently by car and plane and to own large, energy-intensive homes. They tend to have meat-rich diets that require large amounts of greenhouse gases to produce. They buy the bulk of carbon-costly appliances, clothing, furniture and other luxury items.

Residents of the United States — the world’s largest historical source of planet-warming emissions — have some of the most carbon-intensive lifestyles. The carbon footprint of the average American is about 17.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents a year, about twice the footprint of a person living in the European Union or the United Kingdom, and almost 10 times that of the average Indian citizen’s 1.7 tons annually.

If the world is to achieve the kind of sweeping societal transformation needed, limiting consumption “will be really important,” said Surabi Menon, vice president of global intelligence at the ClimateWorks foundation and a member of the report’s steering committee.

And yet, although it is hard to argue with the numbers overall on the emissions consequences of more affluent lifestyles, this approach to rapidly changing people’s ways would likely prove contentious.

“Shaming people and nations and demanding they change never has or will work,” said Frank Maisano, a senior principal at Bracewell LLP, a law firm that works with a variety of energy companies in multiple sectors. “What is necessary is creating modestly increasing political, technology and cultural successes that build upon each other to create meaningful overall change.”

Still, this year’s pandemic might offer clues about how humans could achieve those cuts, Menon added. People are flying less, teleworking more and making fewer luxury purchases. “The question is, how do you keep these new behaviors we learned this year, but in a more sustainable way?” she said.

The latest sobering snapshot of the world’s uphill battle to halt warming comes amid constant reminders of the urgency of the problem, as well as ongoing uncertainty about whether world leaders can summon the political will to take the actions scientists say are necessary.

Already, 2020 is on pace to be one of the warmest years on record, marked not only by a crippling pandemic but also devastating wildfires, scorching droughts and a startling number of hurricanes in the Atlantic basin. A separate report Tuesday, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that the Arctic as a whole is warming at nearly three times the rate of the rest of the world.

“To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in an address last week at Columbia University, in which he pleaded that world leaders act with more urgency. He pointed to the collapse of biodiversity, the bleaching of coral reefs, and “apocalyptic” fires and floods. He noted that global emissions are 62 percent higher now than when international climate negotiations began three decades ago.

“Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal,” Guterres warned. “Nature always strikes back, and it is already doing so with growing force and fury.”

Wednesday’s report does not paint an entirely bleak view of the future.

Governments around the world have spent $12 trillion boosting their economies in the wake of the pandemic — an unprecedented injection of public funds. The authors found that if leaders around the world seize the opportunity to invest heavily in renewable energy and other green infrastructure as part of a post-coronavirus stimulus, the world could trim as much as 25 percent from its predicted 2030 emissions.

“We are in the middle of the pandemic, and recovery packages can still be shaped to solve the economic and the climate crises at the same time,” Niklas Höhne, a German climatologist and founding partner of NewClimate Institute, and a contributing author to Wednesday’s report, said in an email. “This is the one chance we have. Governments will not spend this much money again in 10 years.”

Still, the report found little evidence that most countries, at least so far, have prioritized climate-friendly stimulus; instead, they have mainly funded existing industries, many of them carbon-intensive. “Large shares of resources still support fossil fuels with waivers of environmental regulations and bailouts of fossil fuel ... companies without environmental conditions,” Höhne said.

A growing number of countries have committed to eliminate their net emissions entirely by mid-century. The report notes that at least 126 nations, representing 51 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have either announced or are considering such a goal. That number is likely to grow in the coming months, with a similar pledge widely expected from the United States under the incoming Biden-Harris administration.

Although such promises offer hope of a dramatic shift in the next decades, most nations have yet to back them up with concrete action.

“What’s very exciting is that countries have now come out with these declarations on net zero,” said Andersen, the UNEP chief. “Now, they need to sit down and do the hard work of telling us how they are going to get there.”

In his speech last week, Guterres pleaded for a more equitable, thoughtful world to emerge from the pandemic. “We cannot go back to the old normal of inequality, injustice and heedless dominion over the Earth,” he said.

And yet, studies have shown that the economic impacts of the coronavirus have most battered developing countries, the working poor, women and racial minorities. In the United States, billionaires have seen their wealth grow this year while millions of Americans head into the holidays unemployed, behind on rent and dependent on food banks for their next meal.

Research suggests that greater inequality within countries makes them less able to tackle climate change. The more wealth is concentrated at the top, the more powerful people tend to insulate themselves from the effects of warming and resist meaningful climate action. To make the extraordinary changes necessary in the years to come, the United States and other nations will need to overcome the habits of the past.

“We worry about the recovery being K-shaped: The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and inequality keeps widening,” Menon said. “I’m very mindful that those kinds of inequalities can really hamper any kind of climate progress that is made.”

Links

• Earth Is Still Sailing Into Climate Chaos, Report Says, but Its Course Could Shift
• The World Is Headed for 3 Degrees of Warming This Century, U.N. Report Warns—But a Green Pandemic Recovery Could Offer Hope
• Australia will beat 2030 emissions targets if the tech road map works
• UN report rightfully shames Australia over fossil fuel plans
• 'Net zero' climate targets? Read the fine print
• Happy Talk Vs Hard Truth — Why Fossil Fuel Production Cuts Are So Not Happening
• 'Tick tock': U.N. climate talks end with fresh doubts over global unity
• Much of the American West is on fire, illustrating the dangers of a climate of extremes
• Dangerous new hot zones are spreading around the world

(AU) Heat Is The 'Silent Killer' Of Australia's Bushfire Season And Experts Say Climate Change Is The Root Cause

ABC News - Alison Branley | Sophie Scott

Alan Nichols has had severe health problems since last year's bushfire season. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)

At the height of last summer's bushfires, Alan Nichols vividly remembers racing out of his holiday unit, loaded up with essentials.

A fire was rapidly approaching Malua Bay on the New South Wales South Coast and the thick smoke from the looming firestorm was making it hard to breathe.

"It was all dark, as if it was night-time, smoke everywhere," he said.

"It hurt my eyes just to be outside.

"My lungs were going, sort of solid."

Alongside other fellow holidaymakers, Mr Nichols spent New Year's Eve trapped on the beach watching homes burst into flames.

By the time he made it home to Canberra, a heavy cough had set in — coinciding with the thick smoke haze blanketing much of the east coast of Australia.

"We weren't able to have the cooling going because it was pumping the smoke in," Mr Nichols said.

"There was just no relief."

Parliament House in heavy haze after Canberra was blanketed in bushfire smoke. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

The cough was waking him up at night and he couldn't get through a conversation without suffering a coughing fit.

A month after the initial incident, Alan's family urged him to see a doctor.

New figures show he was one of thousands of Australians who struggled with breathing difficulties in the aftermath of the fires.

In the ACT, pharmacy inhaler sales jumped by up to 204 per cent in the week of January 5.

On the South Coast of NSW, prescriptions rose 73 per cent in the second week of January, compared to the same time last year, while in the Hume area of Victoria — an area where the bushfires hit — inhaler sales spiked by 74 per cent.

Cardiologist Arnagretta Hunter said the figures were a clue as to how many Australians suffered health effects from the smoke.

Dr Hunter said the long-term effects bushfire smoke were still an unknown. (ABC News)

Dr Hunter is the chair of a working party at the Australian National University set up at the height of the smoke crisis.

Its aim was to fill a massive knowledge gap that exists in the scientific world about the short and long-term impacts of bushfire smoke.

"We know a lot about air pollution, we don't know as much about bushfire smoke," she said.

Preliminary results of a survey of more than 2,000 Canberra residents showed that between December and January, 89 per cent reported experiencing irritated eyes, scratchy throat or cough.

Almost half of the respondents felt anxious and or depressed as a result of the smoke.

While many of their health impacts will resolve, the bigger question is what will happen to these people long term.

The royal commission into bushfires heard the smoke led to an extra 3,320 hospitalisations and 429 deaths across the country.

"They died from chest infections and pneumonia," Dr Hunter said.

"[And] they've died from heart attack and stroke and cardiovascular disease; they've died because of an increase in the risk of sepsis associated with hazardous air pollution exposure."

Dr Hunter said the health impacts of smoke shouldn't be looked at in isolation, given smoke usually occurs in combination with what public health experts describe as a "silent killer" — heat.

"Thousands more people presented to hospital with cardiovascular problems, stroke problems and with pulmonary problems or exacerbations of asthma and emphysema."

Mr Nichols was prescribed many drugs to help with his condition. (ABC News: Billy Cooper)
 

Mr Nichols was one of them.

After being put on an inhaler at the end of summer he started developing pain in his legs.

He was diagnosed with blood clots and had to be rushed to the emergency department.

"I'll be on blood thinners for life now," he said.

But it didn't end there.

A week later he began experiencing heart problems.

"It was as if someone was playing the drums on the bed — it was just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang."

He was rushed to hospital a second time, this time his heart had gone out of rhythm, what's known as atrial fibrillation.

And in the weeks after the fire, his nasal washes repeatedly came out black with ash.

"For six weeks that [black] soot came out," he said.

Ash washed on many beaches following last summer's bushfires. (Supplied: Renee Tonkin) 

Experts say it's not the ash you can see that's the problem, but the microscopic particles known as PM2.5 which can get deep into the lungs and enter the body.

"What we also know is that exposure to this sort of particulate matter can have a longer-term impact on things like cardiovascular health," Dr Hunter said.

"So whether you develop a little bit of plaque in your arteries, either in the heart or the brain, or other parts of the body, whether or not there is an association with a slight increase in malignancy and cancers.

"Those are questions we won't know the answer to for another 10 or 20 years."

It is why academics are strongly urging governments to invest in long-term studies.

Climate change a 'big driver'

The royal commission into bushfires made a series of recommendations including aligning air-quality measurements around the country and standardised warnings and health advice.

It also suggested the establishment of "smoke plans" so that communities can evacuate to safe havens such as libraries and shopping centres with air filters.

But many believe dealing with the smoke is just treating the symptom of an underlying condition: climate change.

Concerned emergency services leaders have vowed to make sure the royal commission's recommendations are more than just words. 

Why the royal commission's report
is not about blame

Anyone hoping the pages of the commission's final report would deliver a reckoning or apportion blame over the handling of the fire season will be largely disappointed. Read more ...

The group, Emergency Leaders for Climate Action, consisting of retired fire chiefs and health leaders, has launched its own tracker to monitor outcomes.

The tracker is an online list of recommendations of the royal commission with updates about whether they've been implemented and what stage those reforms are at.  

"It's very critical that the states don't lose momentum," public health expert David Templeman, who is part of the group, said.

"Climate change is the big driver here; you can't get improvement in air quality unless you address the root cause of it."

Calls for the climate as cause of death

Imogen Jubb said the bushfire smoke caused her mother's health to decline. (ABC News) 

Imogen Jubb's 85-year-old mother Annemarie died of a heart attack in Canberra at the height of the fires. 

The retired psychologist had been hospitalised with breathing difficulties in early December and was able to spend Christmas with her family.

"I had no thought that she wouldn't be alive a few weeks later," Ms Jubb said.

Ms Jubb, who works for climate change think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, said as the weeks of smoke dragged into January her mother started to decline.

"She didn't feel comfortable going outside, it was really hot in the house," she said.

Annemarie Jubb died after last summer's bushfires. (Supplied) 

Ms Jubb works as a climate campaigner, but her concerns are backed by experts and her brother, a doctor, who also watched his mother's decline.

Medical experts say when patients have several health issues, it's impossible to pinpoint single contributing factor for a health emergency like a heart attack.

Imogen's brother Brendan, a practising paediatrician, believed the air quality was a factor in their mother's death.

"Certainly, she had heart problems to begin with. But the presence of the smoke did make it more difficult for her to breathe," Mr Jubb said.

"She was certainly struggling."

The family wants to see people whose deaths are linked to extreme weather events have climate change listed as an official cause of death on the death certificate, following similar calls from academics at ANU earlier in the year.

"I don't want other communities and other families to have to suffer," Ms Jubb said.

Brendan Jubb wants climate change listed as an official cause of death, following similar calls from academics at ANU. (ABC News) 

Federal Assistant Minister for Environmental Management Trevor Evans said the Government agreed with the findings of the royal commission that summers would get longer, hotter and drier because of climate change.

"Our most recent focus was to ensure that Australia's emissions continued to fall so that we met our 2020 targets," he said.

"And I'm very pleased to say that we managed to do that this year.

"We're now working very hard on meeting Australia's 2030 targets."

He said the Federal Government had worked with the states and territories throughout this year to get a consistent approach to air quality readings and warnings as recommended by the commission.

"I can confirm that New South Wales is delivering these improvements to their residents in time for this summer, our hope is that other states and territories are able to do so," Mr Evans said.

He said the Government was giving $2 million to the CSIRO and to the Bureau of Meteorology to work on a smoke forecasting tool and the Government was "open" to the suggestion of smoke plans.

"Those ideas are definitely under consideration by the Government as we speak," he said.

Links

• Climate change is resulting in profound, immediate and worsening health impacts, over 120 researchers say
• Climate Change: 2020 Set To Be One Of The Three Warmest Years On Record
• (AU) Australia Endures Hottest Spring Ever, With Temperatures More Than 2C Above Average
• (AU) Bureau Of Meteorology Says The NT Experienced Its Hottest November In 100 Years
• Sydney Records Hottest November Night As Heatwave Sweeps City
• Born In The Ice Age, Humankind Now Faces The Age Of Fire – And Australia Is On The Frontline
• (AU) The Bushfire Royal Commission Has Made A Clarion Call For Change. Now We Need Politics To Follow
• People who don't have asthma 'using inhalers for the first time', western Sydney GP tells
• Doctors worry 'unprecedented' bushfire smoke creating new health risks

The Paris Agreement Five Years On: Is It Strong Enough To Avert Climate Catastrophe?

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey

With Trump no longer a threat, there is a sense of optimism around what the accord could achieve – but only if countries meet their targets

Illustration: Guardian Design

No one who was in the hall that winter evening in a gloomy conference centre on the outskirts of the French capital will ever forget it. Tension had been building throughout the afternoon, as after two weeks of fraught talks the expected resolution was delayed and then delayed yet again. Rumours swirled – had the French got it wrong? Was another climate failure approaching, the latest botched attempt at solving the world’s global heating crisis?

Finally, as the mood in the hall was growing twitchy, the UN security guards cleared the platform and the top officials of the landmark Paris climate talks took to the podium. For two weeks, 196 countries had huddled in countless meetings, wrangling over dense pages of text, scrutinising every semicolon. And they had finally reached agreement. Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister in charge of the gruelling talks, looking exhausted but delighted, reached for his gavel and brought it down with a resounding crack. The Paris agreement was approved at last.

Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, found himself hugging Xia Zhenhua, the normally reserved Chinese minister, while whoops and shouts echoed round the hall. “I felt that the Paris agreement was the moment when the world decided it really had to manage climate change in a serious way,” he said. “We were all in it together, that’s what people realised.”

French Special Representative for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference. Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA

At Paris, for the first time rich and poor countries joined together in a legally binding treaty pledging to hold global heating to heating well below 2C, the scientifically-advised limit of safety, with an aspiration not to breach 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Those two weeks of tense talks in the French capital were the climax of 25 years of tortuous negotiations on the climate, since governments were warned of the dangers of climate chaos in 1990. The failure, discord and recriminations of those decades were left behind as delegates from 196 countries hugged, wept and cheered in Paris.

Todd Stern, climate envoy to President Barack Obama, recalls: “My team and I had been working toward this for seven years … and the story of climate negotiations had so often been one of disappointment. And yet here we were and we knew that we had – all together – done a really big thing. A very special moment. An unforgettable one.”

The accord itself has proved remarkably resilient. Bringing together 196 nations in 2015 was not easy – even as Fabius brought down the gavel on the agreement, there was a little chicanery as Nicaragua had planned to object to the required consensus, but was ignored. Yet that consensus has remained robust. When the US – the world’s biggest economy and second biggest emitter – began the process of withdrawal from Paris, under President Donald Trump in 2017, a disaster might have been expected. The Kyoto 1997 protocol fell apart after the US signed but failed to ratify the agreement, leaving climate negotiations in limbo for a decade.

If Trump was hoping to wreck Paris, he was disappointed: the rest of the world shrugged and carried on. There was no exodus of other countries, although some did pursue more aggressive tactics at the annual UN talks. The key axis of China and the EU remained intact, deliberately underlined by China’s President Xi Jinping when he chose to surprise the world with a net zero emissions target at the UN general assembly in September, just as the UN election race was hotting up.

Remy Rioux, one of the French government team who led the talks, now chief executive of the French Development Agency, said: “The Paris agreement has proven to be inclusive and at scale, with the participation of countries representing 97% of global emissions, as well as that of non-state actors such as businesses, local government and financial institutions – and very resilient, precisely because it is inclusive. The Paris agreement is a powerful signal of hope in the face of the climate emergency.”

On some measures, Paris could be judged a failure. Emissions in 2015 were about 50 bn tonnes. By 2019, they had risen to about 55bn tonnes, according to the UN Environment Programme (Unep). Carbon output fell dramatically, by about 17% overall and far more in some regions, in this spring’s coronavirus lockdowns, but the plunge also revealed an uncomfortable truth: even when transport, industry and commerce grind to a halt, the majority of emissions remain intact. Far greater systemic change is needed, particularly in energy generation around the world, to meet the Paris goals.

Ban Ki-moon, former UN secretary-general, told the Guardian: “We have lost a lot of time. Five years after the agreement in Paris was adopted with huge expectations and commitment by world leaders, we have not done enough.”

What’s more, we are still digging up and burning fossil fuels at a frantic rate. Unep reported last week that production of fossil fuels is planned to increase by 2% a year. Meanwhile, we continue to destroy the world’s carbon sinks, by cutting down forests – the world is still losing an area of forest the size of the UK each year, despite commitments to stop deforestation – as well as drying out peatlands and wetlands, and reducing the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon from the air.

Global temperatures have already risen by more than 1C above pre-industrial levels, and the results in extreme weather are evident around the world. Wildfires raged across Australia and the US this year, more than 30 hurricanes struck, heatwaves blasted Siberia, and the Arctic ice is melting faster.

António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, put it in stark terms: “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal. Nature always strikes back – and it is already doing so with growing force and fury. Biodiversity is collapsing. One million species are at risk of extinction. Ecosystems are disappearing before our eyes.”

But to judge Paris solely by these portents of disaster would be to lose sight of the remarkable progress that has been made on climate change since. This year, renewable energy will make up about 90% of the new energy generation capacity installed around the world, according to the International Energy Agency, and by 2025 will be the biggest source of power, displacing coal. That massive increase reflects rapid falls in the price of wind turbines and solar panels, which are now competitive or cheaper than fossil fuel generation in many countries, even without subsidy.

 Illustration: Guardian Design

“We never expected to see prices come down so fast,” said Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission and former chief of the UK’s committee on climate change. “We have done better than the most optimistic forecasts.”

Oil prices plunged this spring as coronavirus lockdowns grounded planes and swept cities free of cars, and some analysts predict that the oil business will never recover its old hegemony. Some oil companies, including BP and Shell, now plan to become carbon-neutral.

Electric vehicles have also improved much faster than expected, reflected in the stunning share price rise of Tesla. The rise of low-carbon technology has meant that when the Covid-19 crisis struck, leading figures quickly called for a green recovery, and set out plans for ensuring the world “builds back better”.

Most importantly, the world has coalesced around a new target, based on the Paris goals but not explicit in the accord: net zero emissions. In the last two years, first a trickle and now a flood of countries have come forward with long-term goals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to a fraction of their current amount, to the point where they are equal to or outweighed by carbon sinks, such as forests.

The UK, EU member states, Norway, Chile and a host of developing nations led the way in adopting net zero targets. In September, China’s president surprised the world by announcing his country would achieve net zero emissions in 2060. Japan and South Korea quickly followed suit. US president-elect Joe Biden has also pledged to adopt a target of net zero emissions by 2050. That puts more than two thirds of the global economy under pledges to reach net zero carbon around mid-century.

If all of these countries meet their targets, the world will be almost on track to meet the upper limit of the Paris agreement. Climate Action Tracker, which analyses carbon data, has calculated that the current pledges would lead to a temperature rise of 2.1C, bringing the world within “striking distance” of fulfilling the 2015 promise.

Niklas Hohne of NewClimate Institute, one of the partner organisations behind Climate Action Tracker, said: “Five years on, it’s clear the Paris agreement is driving climate action. Now we’re seeing a wave of countries signing up [to net zero emissions]. Can anyone really afford to miss catching this wave?”

The key issue, though, is whether countries will meet these long-term targets. Making promises for 2050 is one thing, but major policy changes are needed now to shift national economies on to a low-carbon footing. “None of these [net zero] targets will be meaningful without very aggressive action in this decade of the 2020s,” said Todd Stern. “I think there is growing, but not yet broad enough, understanding of that reality.”

Renewing the shorter term commitments in the Paris agreement will be key. As well as the overarching and legally binding limit of 1.5C or 2C, governments submitted non-binding national plans at Paris to reduce their emissions, or to curb the projected rise in their emissions, in the case of smaller developing countries. The first round of those national plans – called nationally determined contributions – in 2015 were inadequate, however, and would lead to a disastrous 3C of heating.

The accord also contained a ratchet mechanism, by which countries must submit new national plans every five years, to bring them in line with the long-term goal, and the first deadline is now looming on 31 December. UN climate talks were supposed to take place this November in Glasgow, but had to be postponed because of the pandemic. The UK will host the Cop26 summit next November instead, and that will be the crucial meeting.

The signs for that decisive moment are good, according to Laurent Fabius. The election of Biden in the US means it will be aligned with the EU and China in pushing for net zero emissions to be fully implemented. “We shall have the conjunction of the planets which made possible the Paris agreement,” Fabius told the Guardian. “Civil society, politics, business all came together for the Paris agreement. We are looking at the same conjunction of the planets now with the US, the EU, China, Japan – if the big ones are going in the right direction, there will be a very strong incentive for all countries to go in the right direction.”

US president-elect Joe Biden has appointed John Kerry as his special presidential envoy for climate. Illustration: Guardian Design

As host of the Cop26 talks, the UK is redoubling its diplomatic efforts towards next year’s conference. The French government brought all of its diplomatic might to bear on Paris, instructing its ambassadors in every country to make climate change their top priority, and sending out ministers around the globe to drum up support.

 Laurence Tubiana, France’s top diplomat at the talks, said another key innovation was what she termed “360 degree diplomacy”. That means not just working through the standard government channels, with ministerial meetings and chats among officials, but reaching out far beyond, making businesses, local government and city mayors, civil society, academics and citizens part of the talks.

“That was a very important part of [the success] of Paris,” she said. The UK has taken up a similar stance, with a civil society forum to ensure people’s voices are heard, and a specially convened council of young people advising the UN secretary-general. The UK’s high-level champion, Nigel Topping, is also coordinating a “race to zero” by which companies, and non-state actors such as cities, states and sub-national governments are also committing to reach net zero emissions.

One massive issue outstanding ahead of Cop26 is finance. Bringing developing countries, which have suffered the brunt of a problem that they did little to cause, into the Paris agreement was essential. Key to that, said Fabius, was the pledge of financial assistance. The French government had to reassure poorer nations at the talks that $100bn a year in financial assistance, for poor countries to cut their emissions and cope with the impacts of the climate crisis, would be forthcoming. “Money, money, money,” Fabius insisted, was at the heart of the talks. “If you don’t have that $100bn [the talks will fail].”

For the UK as hosts of Cop26, the question of money presents more of a problem since the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, swung his axe at the overseas aid budget in the recent spending review. Although the £11bn designated for climate aid will be ringfenced, persuading other developed countries to part with cash – and showing developing countries that the UK is on their side – has suddenly become more difficult. Amber Rudd, the former UK energy and climate minister who represented the UK at the Paris talks, said: “A country that understood the seriousness of Cop26 would not be cutting international aid right now.”

Alok Sharma, president of Cop26 and the UK’s business secretary, will draw on his experience as the UK’s former international development minister in dealing with developing countries’ expectations. He said: “I completely recognise making sure we have the finance for climate change action is very important. That’s why we have protected international climate finance. I think people understand we are in a difficult economic situation. We have said when the economy recovers we would look to restore [overseas aid as 0.7% of GDP]. I do think when it comes to climate change we are putting our best foot forward.”

Boris Johnson will be hoping to smooth over these tricky issues when he, alongside the French government and the UN, presides over a virtual meeting of world leaders this weekend, on 12 December, the fifth anniversary of the Paris accord. At least 70 world leaders are expected to attend, and they will be pushed to bring forward new NDCs and other policy commitments, as a staging post toward the Cop26 summit.

Illustration: Guardian Design

Johnson kicked off preparations for the meeting last Friday by announcing the UK’s own NDC, setting out a 68% cut in emissions compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. That would put the UK ahead of other developed economies, cutting emissions further and faster than any G20 country has yet committed to do.

Critics pointed out, however, that the UK is not on track to meet its own current climate targets, for 2023. Far more detailed policy measures are likely to be required, some of them involving major changes and economic losers as well as winners, before the path to net zero is clear.

The world is facing the task of a global economic reboot after the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The green recovery from that crisis is itself in need of rescue, Guardian analysis has shown, as countries are still pouring money into fossil fuel bailouts. But with so many countries now committed to net zero emissions, and an increasing number coming forward with short term targets for 2030 to set us on that path, there are still grounds for optimism.

This week’s climate ambition summit will be an important milestone, but the Cop26 summit next year will be the key test. The Paris agreement five years on still provides the best hope of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown: the question is whether countries are prepared to back it up with action, rather than more hot air. 

Links

• Paris climate goals 'within striking distance'
• Tackling degraded oceans could mitigate climate crisis - report
• Most countries' climate plans 'totally inadequate' – experts
• Greta Thunberg tells EU: your climate targets need doubling
• The 'climate diaspora' trying to save the Paris agreement from Trump
• Michael Gove 'deeply regrets' Trump's approach to Paris climate agreement
• Paris climate change agreement enters into force
• Maldives urges rich countries to rapidly ratify Paris climate agreement

(AU) Morrison Yet To Be Granted Speaking Slot At Climate Summit He Vowed To Attend

The Guardian - Adam Morton | Katharine Murphy | Jessica Elgot

Australian PM last week insisted he would address forum to ‘correct mistruths’ about Coalition’s action on emissions

The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, hopes to address an online climate summit this weekend but speaker’s slots are only open to leaders announcing new measures to tackle climate change. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Scott Morrison does not yet have a speaker’s spot at a global climate ambition summit this weekend despite telling parliament last week he intended to use an appearance at the event to “correct mistruths” about his government’s heavily criticised record on emissions reduction.

A government spokesman on Monday night said Australia had been invited to take part in the 12 December summit “both personally by [British] prime minister Boris Johnson during a phone call with prime minister Morrison, and again in writing by the leaders of hosting nations: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Chile and also the United Nations”.

But diplomatic sources have told Guardian Australia there had been debate among the co-hosts including Britain – which is hosting the next major climate conference in Glasgow in 2021 and has taken a leading role in calling on countries to do more – as to whether Morrison should be approved to speak at the summit given the widespread view Australia is a laggard on climate commitments.

Australia does not at this point have final confirmation that it will be granted a speaking slot and a government spokesman confirmed: “The final speaker list is a matter for the event hosts.”

Australia’s high commissioner in London, George Brandis, is now back in Canberra, in part to help aid Australia’s preparations for the virtual summit. Brandis flew into the nation’s capital on Sunday.

The countries hosting the summit wrote to national leaders in October calling on them to make ambitious new commitments to combat the climate crisis in return for a speaking slot.

They said such slots would be given only to leaders who set stronger targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade; announced a long-term strategy to reach net-zero emissions; made a new financial commitment to help developing countries; or put forward ambitious policies to adapt to locked-in climate change.

As reported by Guardian Australia, the letter stated “we hope to see you in December with a bold new commitment” but noted there would be “no space for general statements”.

A Downing Street spokesman said on Monday the program of speakers would be announced over the coming days but the summit was “an opportunity to announce new commitments”. He declined to say whether Australia’s commitments were insufficient.

There has been speculation in some media that Australia had been granted a speaking slot and would use it to confirm it would drop its bid to use controversial “carryover credits” to help meet the 2030 emissions target it set as part of the Paris agreement.

While Morrison telegraphed a potential shift on carryover credits to business leaders in a speech, the Coalition has resisted calls for it to set a net-zero emissions or carbon neutrality target for 2050 despite the goal being backed by more than 100 leaders, all Australian states and multinational companies.

After the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president in January, all members of the G7 and China will have a net-zero goal.

The Morrison government was criticised for its plan to use the credits at the Madrid climate summit a year ago. It has said it does not plan to increase its 2030 emissions target – a 26% to 28% cut below 2005 levels – and stopped making contributions to the global climate fund which was set up to help developing countries respond and adapt to the crisis.

Britain last week announced it would increase its 2030 target to a 68% cut compared with 1990 levels. The EU is meeting this week to decide on a potential 55% cut.

The host countries have asked leaders to specify what they will say in prerecorded videos to be played at the summit before being granted a slot. More than 60 countries had been given slots by Monday.

The Climate Change Authority recommended in 2015 that Australia should be cutting emissions by at least 45% and up to 65% by 2030 to play its part under a meaningful global deal.

During the previous sitting week, the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, asked Morrison in parliament whether he intended to attend the 12 December summit and whether he proposed making a meaningful announcement.

Morrison did not attend a UN climate action summit in New York last year despite being in the US to visit the Trump administration at the time. Speaking slots at that event were also reserved for countries announcing new commitments.

But the prime minister was clear about his intentions for this week’s event. He told Bandt he would be attending the summit and it would be “a great opportunity to correct the mistruths spoken by the leader of the Greens”.

The independent MP Zali Steggall said the host countries should not offer Morrison a speaking slot unless he committed to net-zero by 2050.

Steggall, who has a climate change bill before parliament, said if the prime minister did “not have sufficient authority in his party room” to set the goal he should allow a conscience vote.

“As the rest of the world moves forward in drastically reducing their emissions, the government appears unable to commit to anything other than not cheating by counting carryover credits – and this still has to be passed in the party room,” she said on Monday.

Australia’s position on net-zero by 2050 was a focus of last week’s Australasian emissions reduction summit hosted by the Carbon Market Institute.

Nigel Topping, who has been appointed by Johnson as “high-level climate action champion” for the Glasgow conference, told reporters on Thursday that Australia was “on track for the wooden spoon” on climate change but had a chance to be a leader in new energy systems based on renewables and hydrogen.

Topping said he did not know if Morrison had been confirmed to speak at the 12 December event but noted it was an “ambition summit”.

“Without a commitment to net-zero 2050 it would be very surprising to me if there is an Australian voice on the stage,” he said.

Links

• Scott Morrison says Australia will attend climate ambition summit to 'correct mistruths'
• Scott Morrison's climate language has shifted – but actions speak louder than words
• Malcolm Turnbull: The Coalition will lose more former heartland seats to independents without a climate plan
• VicForests allowed to resume logging despite risk of ‘irreversible damage’ in fire-hit Gippsland
• A change in the weather: new demand for TV presenters to include climate in forecasts
• Frydenberg proposed delisting part of wetland to allow Queensland's Toondah Harbour development
• Why Australia has no clear policy on electric vehicles
• NSW's clean energy plan means the federal government is even more isolated on fossil fuels
• Scott Morrison's climate language has shifted – but actions speak louder than words