12/05/2021

(AU ICIJ) How Climate Change Skepticism Held A Government Captive

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists - 

In her new book, reporter Marian Wilkinson uncovers the network of politicians, business leaders and others who have wielded huge influence over Australia’s climate policy for more than two decades.

Australia’s then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (center) takes part in a press conference with Scott Morrison (left) and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg at the Parliament House in Canberra on August 20, 2018. SEAN DAVEY/AFP via Getty Images
Author
Marian Wilkinson is an Australian journalist and author. She has won two Walkley Awards, and was the first female executive producer of Four Corners. She has been a deputy editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, a Washington correspondent for The National Times, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as a senior reporter for The Australian.
In late April this year, at a global summit arranged to coincide with Earth Day, United States President Joe Biden announced ambitious new goals for tackling climate change, and set a challenge for all other nations to do the same. One country that did not meet that challenge at the Earth Day summit was Australia, whose prime minister, Scott Morrison, reiterated previous commitments, but did not bow to pressure to increase targets.

According to The Carbon Club, a new book by Australian reporter Marian Wilkinson, the Morrison government is continuing a pattern of resistance and inaction that has plagued Australia’s climate change policy for two decades.

Wilkinson, who is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, has spent years uncovering a network of business leaders, politicians, climate sceptic scientists and right wing think tanks that have fought to destroy Australia’s climate change policies, joining an international campaign to undermine confidence in climate science and derail global action to combat climate change.

This edited extract from The Carbon Club covers the political events in Australia in 2018 when the then-prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, was torn down in a party coup aided by climate skeptics who wanted to blow up his climate and energy policy. 

Sacrificing Goats

Australia’s former prime minister, Tony Abbott, arrived in London pretty pleased with himself. After helping to kill off the Clean Energy Target, he was now being welcomed as an honoured guest of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The United Kingdom-based climate-skeptic think tank founded by former chancellor, Nigel Lawson, had invited Abbott to give its annual lecture in October 2017.

Abbott was following in the footsteps of his heroes ex-Prime Minister John Howard and Cardinal George Pell, who had both stood at this podium before him. His lecture had the cautious title “Daring to doubt,” but even he admitted it would best be remembered as his “Sacrificing goats” speech.

In a provocative attack on climate policies, Abbott compared efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change as akin to animal sacrifice by ancient priests. “Primitive people once killed goats to appease the volcano gods,” he told the audience. “We’re more sophisticated now but are still sacrificing our industries and our living standards to the climate gods to little more effect.” Abbott went on to roundly criticise the scientific consensus on climate science. “Beware the pronouncement ‘the science is settled,’” he warned. “It’s the spirit of the Inquisition, the thought-police down the ages.”

But beneath the hyperbole, Abbott used his U.K. lecture for a more strategic purpose. With the death of Australia’s proposed Clean Energy Target, the energy minister Josh Frydenberg was working on a new policy to put to the Liberal-National Party coalition government’s party room. Abbott was spelling out the demands of climate-sceptic Members of Parliament that he wanted met. First, he said, no subsidies for renewable energy. Second, he wanted the federal government to fund a new coal plant. “Given the nervousness of private investors, there must be a government-built coal-fired power station to overcome political risk,” Abbott demanded.

This was politically impossible for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. If Turnbull agreed to build a new coal-fired power station in Australia, it would destroy his political credibility. But Abbott would press this demand and rally his allies against Turnbull.

In July 2018, Abbott turned up the pressure. Echoing President Donald Trump, he called on Turnbull’s government to pull out of the Paris Agreement. He was soon backed up by the right-wing think tank, The Institute of Public Affairs and its skeptic stalwarts, iron ore billionaire, Gina Rinehart and mining entrepreneur, Hugh Morgan who still held huge sway in the Liberal Party. That month had delivered a big problem for Turnbull and Frydenberg. On July 28, five federal by-elections were held across the country and, in a huge setback for Turnbull, the government failed to win even one of them.

The losses entrenched the view in the Queensland members of the Coalition that Turnbull was no longer a winner. If the result was repeated at the next election, the Coalition would be wiped out in that state. At this point, Turnbull lost the support of his influential home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, who had little interest in climate policy, but did hold a marginal seat in Queensland.

For Turnbull’s ally, Craig Laundy, the by-election losses were the beginning of the end. Enough numbers in the party room were moving to put Turnbull’s leadership in play: “When you add all the Liberal Party members and senators in Queensland who have been spooked to the rump of [the parliamentary pro-coal lobby] the Monash Forum, you get to mid- to high twenties without blinking. Then what happens? Sky News kicks on inside Parliament House and they are just obsessed and infatuated with two agendas. One, tear down Malcolm. And two, use climate change to do it.”

The Turnbull government’s new climate and energy policy, the National Energy Guarantee or NEG quickly turned into the vehicle to destabilize Turnbull. Reports appeared that Abbott and the climate-skeptic rebels would cross the floor if Frydenberg tried to bring the NEG into parliament for a vote. Turnbull and Frydenberg at first tried to stare the rebels down, arguing the policy had been signed off by cabinet and supported in the party room.

“Abbott was trenchantly opposed, but certainly the feedback that Josh was giving us was that, apart from Tony, we probably wouldn’t have any floor-crossers. That was his view,” Turnbull recalled. “The opposition that blew up in the last week or so of my prime ministership was well beyond anything that Josh had anticipated, or at least in so far as I was aware. And it was being whipped up and supported in the media by the usual suspects in the traditional way.” By this stage, numbers men for Home Affairs Minister Dutton and Treasurer Scott Morrison were already head-counting. In a series of humiliating backdowns to appease the rebels, Turnbull and Frydenberg finally ended up ditching their greenhouse emissions target from the NEG legislation altogether, stunning the government’s business allies and state energy ministers. That week, Abbott watched Turnbull buckling and saw his leadership bleeding away.

“There was the first major adjustment to the NEG,” said Abbott, recalling Turnbull’s retreat. “He’d told the party room that the emissions reduction targets were going to be put into legislation to stop the Labor Party increasing them and then he suddenly announced, for God knows what reason, on the Friday night that was no longer going to be the case. [On Monday] Malcolm went into the prime ministerial courtyard and dumped the whole policy because, while he might have been able to get it through the parliament with the Labor Party support, he couldn’t get the support of the Coalition party room for it.

“The NEG was fatal to his leadership,” Abbott said bluntly. “Dropping it was fatal. But keeping it would have been fatal too.”

Jay Weatherill, who had lost the premiership of South Australia four months earlier, looked in despair at the triumph, yet again, of the climate sceptics, in the Coalition party room: “Everyone has been dancing in circles around a bunch of climate deniers. But until you actually stand in the middle of Martin Place and say ‘I am a climate denier’ they are not going to be satisfied,” he said later.

“It was never about energy policy, it was about killing Malcolm. Malcolm didn’t realise he was dealing with political terrorists. They were never interested in negotiating a result. There was only one result they were interested in and that was killing him. And the way they killed him was to destroy his credibility.”

In a final attempt to save his job, Turnbull moved a surprise leadership spill on August 21. Abbott was sitting next to Dutton: “I said to Dutts, ‘Someone’s got to run,’ and Dutts said, ‘Well I’m going to.’” Dutton lost, 35 votes to 48, but Turnbull was mortally wounded. The next day his top cabinet ministers began to defect. Mathias Cormann, the finance minister, was counting Dutton’s numbers, and Morrison’s backers were also hard at work.

Turnbull couldn’t comprehend how the climate and energy policy had been used to undermine him when it had been supported by every cabinet minister. “Mathias was strongly in favour of the NEG, as was Scott. No dissent in cabinet. There was no one running interference in cabinet,” Turnbull recalled. “Mathias and I worked closely together. His conduct was never explained by him.”

In the final ballot for the Liberal leadership, Scott Morrison emerged the victor after key Turnbull supporters swung his way to block Dutton. At his last press conference at Parliament House, Turnbull blamed those he called “the wreckers” for bringing him down. “So, insofar as there has been chaos this week, it has been created by the wreckers,” he told reporters. “I have done everything I can to maintain the stability of government and the stability of the Party. But, of course, if people are determined to wreck, then we know they will continue to do so.” With his family at his side, Turnbull walked away from parliament house. The Liberal Party leader who had argued long and loud for climate science was gone. Whether he fought the climate skeptics head-on, as he did as opposition leader, or tried to appease them, as he did as prime minister, he could never defeat them.  Climate and energy policy would remain hostage to the Coalition’s skeptics and their allies for now. After all, the new prime minister had famously held aloft a lump of coal in parliament.

Extract from The Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson, published by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2020.

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(UK The Independent) Sir David Attenborough Warns Of ‘Crippling’ Climate Breakdown After Being Handed Cop26 Role

The Independent - Ted Hennessey

‘Crucial’ nations come to together find solution, says TV naturalist


Sir David Attenborough has warned of the “crippling problems” the world faces because of climate change, after being given a role at the Cop26 summit later this year.

The veteran broadcaster, 95, says in a short video message it is “crucial” global leaders find a solution to environmental issues, which will become “greater” in the next few years.

The UN’s Cop26 climate conference is due to be held in Glasgow this November, aiming to bring together world leaders to agree a plan to tackle climate change.

Sir David has been named the summit’s ‘People’s Advocate’ and will make an address to political leaders about why immediate climate action is important.

In the video message, Sir David said: “I am greatly honoured to be given the role of People’s Advocate. There could not be a more important moment that we should have international agreement.

“The epidemic has shown us how crucial it is to find agreement among nations if we are to solve such worldwide problems. But the problems that await us within the next five to 10 years are even greater.

“It is crucial that these meetings in Glasgow, Cop26, have success, and that at last the nations will come together to solve the crippling problems that the world now faces.”

He will also make a speech at the G7 leaders’ summit in Cornwall next month, where environmental issues will be at the heart of discussions.

Sir David Attenborough UN Cop26 climate conference ‘People’s Advocate’

Prime minister Boris Johnson said: “Sir David Attenborough has already inspired millions of people in the UK and around the world with his passion and knowledge to act on climate change and protect the planet for future generations.

“There is no better person to build momentum for further change as we approach the Cop26 climate summit in November. I am hugely grateful to Sir David for agreeing to be our People’s Advocate.”

Cop26 president-designate, Alok Sharma, said: “Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity and the stakes could not be higher for our planet.

“The next decade will be make, or break, for cutting global emissions sufficiently to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

“That is why I am delighted to be working with Sir David, a hero for our country and our planet, to inspire action ahead of Cop26.”

David Attenborough's best TV moments

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(AU RMIT/ABC Fact Check) Kevin Rudd And Malcolm Turnbull Said 70 Per Cent Of Our Trade Is With Nations Committed To Net-Zero Emissions. Is That Correct?

RMIT ABC Fact Check

The former prime ministers warned that Australia was "dangerously at risk". (AAP)
The claim

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has so far refused to bow to pressure to adopt a clear timeline for reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The reluctance to firmly commit to a target has led to speculation that Australia could face "carbon-border taxes", imposed on the exports of countries deemed to be climate laggards.

In an opinion article published in The Guardian, former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull warned that Australia "remains dangerously at risk of the economic and environmental consequences that will come from the climate crisis barrelling towards us".

"With more than 70 per cent of Australia's trade now with countries committed to net zero, the prospect of carbon-border taxes being introduced — beginning with the European Union — also leaves us economically exposed," the pair wrote.

Is it correct that more than 70 per cent of Australia's trade takes place with countries committed to cutting their emissions to zero in net terms?

RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.

The verdict

Mr Morrison was one of 40 world leaders at last month's Earth Day summit. (Reuters)
Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull made a fair call.

At the time the article was published, 20 of Australia's 30 biggest trading partners had already committed to reaching net-zero emissions.

Together, these 20 countries account for 71.6 per cent of Australia's total two-way trade (all exports and imports).

Measured by exports alone, the proportion is even higher.

Of Australia's top 30 export destinations, 17 countries have announced commitments to net-zero emissions, accounting for 74.2 per cent of the total.

On both measures, the numbers are slightly higher again once smaller trade partners — those inside the European Union but outside the top 30 — are included.

What are 'net-zero' emissions?

Climate experts say immediate cuts to emissions are as important as longer-term targets. (Reuters: Thomas Peter)

According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), net-zero emissions are achieved when human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases are matched by the removal from the atmosphere of greenhouse gases, through human intervention, over a specified period.

In assessing whether countries have committed to net zero, Fact Check has not considered the adequacy of current policies for meeting such targets.

Some climate scientists caution that net-zero pledges risk placing the focus too heavily on distant targets and unproven technological solutions, when what is needed to keep emissions in check are large, sustained cuts to emissions in the shorter term.

What makes a commitment?

A number of Australia's trading partners have passed legislation to cut emissions to zero in net terms. This includes the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden.

New Zealand has also legislated a net-zero target, though it does not cover all greenhouse gases.

European Union nations have set ambitious targets for cutting emissions. (Getty Images: Sylvain Sonnet)

Other jurisdictions, including the European Union, Canada and Ireland, have proposed new laws, while others, including the US, China and Japan, have set the target as formal policies.

According to experts, to be regarded as being "committed" to net-zero emissions a country must clearly state its policy to cut emissions to zero by a specific date — either in legislation, in a policy document or as a formal statement to the international community.

Professor Tim Stephens, an expert in international law at the University of Sydney Law School, said a commitment to achieving net-zero emissions must be stated by a government to the international community as a clear policy goal.

"They are most credible when formally communicated to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as a Nationally Determined Contribution," Professor Stephens told Fact Check.

Ideally, he said, any commitment to net zero would also be backed by credible national policies and comprehensive legislation, as with the UK's Climate Change Act.

Professor Mark Howden, director of the ANU's Climate Change Institute, said he considered a commitment to be "some sort of official statement by the national government that they were aiming for this emissions' target by a specified date".

"Normally, a commitment would also have a broad plan for achievement," he said, adding that any target must also be calculated in accordance with the inventory guidelines of the IPCC.

This means it would apply to absolute emissions, rather than emissions per capita or emissions per unit of gross domestic product (GDP), and take into account sequestration or carbon sinks.

Should China's commitment count?

Although President Xi's climate promises are "noteworthy", they are yet to become Chinese law. (AP: Andy Wong)
In a September 2020 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced China would scale up its efforts to cut emissions with "more vigorous policies and measures", promising to reach carbon neutrality "before 2060".

Both Professor Stephens and Professor Howden said China should be included in the list of committed countries.

"It appears to be a clear statement by the national leadership with both an emission-reduction goal and a timeframe (and something of a plan) to achieve this," Professor Howden wrote in an email.

Likewise, Professor Stephens said President Xi's comments had amounted to a specific promise.

Indeed, China reiterated the promise at the recent climate summit convened by US President Joe Biden.

"We can anticipate that it will be included in China's updated NDC [Nationally Determined Contribution] in due course," Professor Stephens said.

However, not everyone considers China's promise to be a commitment.

For example, the World Resources Institute pointed out that China's net-zero target had not been enshrined in law or an official policy document, although it described the speech as "noteworthy".

Given China made an unambiguous commitment to achieve carbon neutrality (a phrase the IPCC defines as "net-zero" emissions) before 2060, Fact Check has chosen to include China in its list of countries.

It is, however, important to note that China accounts for 28.8 per cent of Australia's two-way trade, or 35.3 per cent of Australia's exports.

The accuracy of the claim made by Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull, therefore, relies on whether China's pledge is real and should be included among the countries committed to net-zero emissions.

Australia's position

The Prime Minister spoke of Australia's net-zero goal for 2050 at the National Press Club. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

While the Government's rhetoric has ramped up in recent months, it has stopped short of announcing a formal target of net-zero emissions, or putting a specific time frame on achieving such a target.

Rather, in a February 1 address to the National Press Club, Mr Morrison said Australia's "goal" was to reach net-zero emissions "preferably by 2050".

"But when we get there … whether in Australia or anywhere else, that will depend on the advances made in science and technology," he said.

And in an April 19 address to business leaders in Sydney, Mr Morrison said he was "increasing in confidence" that Australia would be able to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

10 years of climate policy inertia
Ten years ago one man's plan blew apart Australia's two great parties irrevocably just as they teetered toward consensus on climate change, the most divisive issue of the Australian political century. Read more

He also told the Biden Administration's April 22 climate summit the question for Australia was not "if" or "when" Australia reached net-zero emissions, but rather "how".

"Australia is on the pathway to net zero," Mr Morrison said. "Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can, through technology that enables and transforms our industries."

Australia's states and territories, meanwhile, have individually committed to reaching net-zero emissions, which the Climate Council says amounts to a national "de facto net-zero target".

However, experts do not regard Australia as having committed to net-zero emissions, as the Federal Government has not said when it intends to get there, nor has it included such a target in an official policy document or legislation.

Professor Stephens said the Government had been deliberately unclear as to when Australia's emissions might fall to zero in net terms.

Also citing the lack of a specified timeframe, Professor Howden told Fact Check that Mr Morrison's language to date did not equate to a "commitment".

Australia's trade

Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull referred to 70 per cent of "Australia's trade". Fact Check takes this to mean two-way trade, which combines exports and imports.

However, their article also referred to "the prospect of carbon border taxes", an economic risk that would particularly affect exports.

Consequently, Fact Check has also assessed the former PMs' claim on the basis of exports alone.

Using the Australian Bureau of Statistics as its source, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publishes figures on both, showing the volume of trade between Australia and individual countries.

Fact Check analysed the department's latest data for Australia's 30 biggest trade partners, plus the European Union, covering the 2019-20 financial year.

Two-way trade

China is Australia's largest two-way trading partner, with an almost 29 per cent share. (Reuters: Jason Lee)


Fact Check's analysis found that 20 of Australia's 30 biggest trading partners had committed to reaching net zero by 2050 or earlier, while China was committed to net- zero emissions by 2060.

Together, these countries accounted for 71.6 per cent of Australia's total two-way trade in 2019-20.

This is consistent with Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull's claim.



This figure takes in some, but not all, members of the European Union, which in March 2021 resolved to design a "carbon border adjustment mechanism".

A statement issued by EU parliamentarians explained that such a mechanism would "place a carbon price on imports of certain goods from outside the EU, if these countries are not ambitious enough about climate change".

In total, EU countries (excluding Poland, which does not currently support a net-zero target) accounted for 8.8 per cent of Australian two-way trade. This included EU members already counted in the top 30 (7.6 per cent of trade) as well as remaining EU countries (1.2 per cent).

Including all European trading partners in the count would take the portion of Australian two-way trade covered by net-zero commitments to at least 72.8 per cent.

Trade with Taiwan, which accounts for a further 2.1 per cent of total trade, has not been included.

However, the day after Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull made their claim, the Taiwanese government announced that it, too, would begin looking at how it could reach net zero by 2050.

Australia's exports

Fact Check also examined Australia's 30 biggest export destinations, along with the European Union.

Measured this way, 17 of Australia's 30 biggest trading partners were committed to net-zero emissions, accounting for 74.2 per cent of total exports.

EU nations not included in the top 30 trading countries added a further 1.3 per cent — for a total of 75.5 per cent of Australia's exports

Again, this is consistent with the claim made by Mr Rudd and Mr Turnbull.



As with the two-way trade figures, countries that announced net-zero targets after the date of the claim have not been included.

During the Biden-led April 22 summit, the Brazilian government said it would achieve climate neutrality by 2050, though days earlier it also said doing so would require $US10 billion ($12.7 billion) a year in foreign aid.

Principal researchers: David Campbell and Josh Gordon, Economics and Finance Editor factcheck@rmit.edu.au

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11/05/2021

(AU The Guardian) Ashes To Ashes: Pentecostalism, The PM And The Climate Crisis

The Guardian - 

Scott Morrison’s recent speech to a Christian conference draws fresh attention to Pentecostal churches’ lack of climate evangelism
Scott Morrison at a Horizon church service in Sydney. Religious scholars say many Pentecostal Christians believe God will take care of the climate. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Guardian Environmental Investigations
“We are called, all of us, for a time and for a season and God would have us use it wisely.”

Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime minister and a Pentecostal Christian, flew in on a taxpayer-funded plane to deliver those words to a church on the Gold Coast.

His sermon-like speech was given to the national conference of Australian Christian Churches – the umbrella body for the majority of churches in the country’s only Christian denomination showing growth: Pentecostalism.

Pentecostalism, including the more than 1,000 churches under ACC’s umbrella – which includes the Morrison family’s Horizon church in south Sydney – has, by some reports, the largest number of active churchgoers after Catholicism.

But when Morrison tells Pentecostals to use their season wisely, there are some religious scholars worried that acting on climate change has not been a feature of that season.

Speaking to Guardian Australia, some argue the historical guiding principles of Pentecostalism – its focus on personal salvation with a strong consumerist vibe – has not lent itself to conjuring a congregation of climate evangelists.

The Australian Religious Response to Climate Change has among its members organisations belonging to an array of faiths – from Catholics and Quakers to Buddhists and Muslims. Members have blockaded coalmining sites and campaigned hard for rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

“We have 41 member organisations,” says the ARRCC president and Catholic, Thea Ormerod. “None are Pentecostal. We have occasionally asked leaders in the Pentecostal tradition to sign on to our letters to government. They have declined the invitations.”

In March ARRCC organised more than 120 silent protests outside the offices of government figures. Jews, Christians, Buddhists and Muslims were among the activists. The protests were a short verse in a lengthening chapter of faith-based groups’ response to the climate crisis.

The Church of England has been pulling investments out of fossil fuel companies. The Pope says climate change is a “challenge of civilisation”. Islamic leaders have issued calls for a 100% renewable energy strategy.

In Australia, the National Council of Churches wrote to Morrison last week asking him to announce more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

There is no grand body of research on what different Christian groups think about climate change, but what there is suggests that Pentecostals are among the least concerned.

According to 2016 research on Australian Christians “it appears to be Pentecostalism in particular where skepticism about the causes of climate change is prevalent”.

Other research has suggested that people belonging to faiths with a more literal view of religious texts – including Pentecostals and Evangelicals – were more likely to doubt the need to act on climate change. They were also less likely to think global heating was caused by humans.

‘The end isn’t coming tomorrow’

Dr Mark Jennings, an expert on the sociology of religion at the University of Divinity, says Pentecostalism is still shaking off its early incarnation as a denomination coloured by fears and hopes of an end times and a renewal ushered in by God.

“They started with the idea that the world would end soon and so this stuff [climate change] doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “That was from the origins of the movement, but now they are starting to be more comfortable with the idea the end isn’t coming tomorrow and those attitudes have adjusted.”

Jennings says Pentecostalism is not on its own in taking a strong cue from the Bible’s first chapter, Genesis, where the Christian God tells Adam and Eve to “fill the earth and subdue it”.

“They take that as the world being the property of humans and we should bring nature to subjugation,” he says.

Focus on personal salvation

Growth in Pentecostalism in Australia is part of a global boom of so-called charismatic Christians that now stands at 655 million people out of 1.5 billion Christians worldwide.

Ormerod says the apparent absence of many Pentecostals in speaking up about the climate crisis “has to do with how they tend, as a culture, to interpret the Gospel message”.

“They tend to believe God will take care of the climate,” she says. “Their focus overall is on personal salvation.” She worries that a prime minister “who shares Pentecostal beliefs puts Australians in further danger”.

Ormerod’s husband is Neil Ormerod, a retired professor of theology at the Australian Catholic University who had a 20-year association with ACC’s training and theology centre, Alphacrucis College.
It’s a form of religion for an individualistic modern consumerist age
He knows several Pentecostals concerned about climate change. But he says many tend not to see a link between between social and political contexts and their own personal salvation.

“It’s a form of religion for an individualistic modern consumerist age,” he says. “There is no critique of, say, modern neoliberal economics or the consumerist society.”

One Pentecostal leader with a public profile – albeit much smaller than Morrison’s – is James Macpherson, a pastor and vice-president on the executive board of Alphacrucis College.

Macpherson writes for the conservative magazine the Spectator, where climate science and environmentalists are an object of ridicule.

At the start of the global pandemic, Macpherson wrote how “leftists” and “environmental doomsayers” were pushing for a reaction to the Covid crisis that mirrored the “fabled climate emergency”.

He describes the public broadcaster, the ABC, as the “national purveyor of climate doom” and calls the teenage Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg the “goblin of doom”.
Pastors have been reflecting upon the concept of new creation ... not as a disposing of the old ... but actually as a transformation
The Rev Prof Jacqui Grey is the dean of theology at Alphacrucis. She says Macpherson is voicing personal opinions and writes in a personal capacity.

She accepts that there is an absence of strong voices for climate action among Pentecostals but puts this down to the relative youthfulness of the denomination (it has roots from the early 20th century) and the lack of a hierarchical structure that means most leadership is local.

Young Pentecostals, she says, are passionate about caring for the environment and there is change afoot.

The strong emphasis on achieving “personal salvation” is a “fair critique”, she says, but one the church’s theologians have been “rethinking”.

Some of that rethinking “is yet to be reflected in the everyday life of the church”, she says. “It is not just the individual, but the individual is part of the community both human and non-human.”

The Pentecostal movement has matured, she says, beyond the belief that an “end times” would come and Jesus would establish a new kingdom.

File photo of Hillsong church members. Former US congressman Bob Inglis says he has ‘found a receptiveness there’ on the need for climate action. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

“Scholars and pastors have been reflecting upon the concept of new creation to understand it not as a disposing of the old with a new and separate creation, but actually as a transformation.

“We are still working through the full implications of our understanding of faith and how that applies to many different social issues including climate change.”

One sign of a strong shift among Pentecostal theologians could come with the release of a special issue of the church’s academic journal – Australian Pentecostal Studies – which Grey edits. The June issue is dedicated to caring for the environment and climate change.

“As far as I know, no other Pentecostal journal globally has ever had a dedicated issue,” Grey says.

‘Young Christians want action’

That slow shift among Pentecostals will be gospel music to the ears of a former US Republican congressman, Bob Inglis.

Inglis was treated as heathen by Republicans when, in the early 2000s, he began to call for action on climate change and, later, a tax on carbon in a party shot through with climate science denial.

“It wasn’t the only heresy I committed, but it’s the most enduring,” he says.

The Christian from South Carolina now spends most of his time trying to convince the reluctant rump of Republicans that climate change is real, is human-caused, and it’s a Christian duty to act on it.

He says the idea “the Earth is going to burn up away and so it doesn’t matter” is prevalent among the Pentecostals he speaks to.

Inglis did a speaking tour of Australia in 2017, a few months after Morrison, then treasurer, held up a lump of coal in parliament, telling his leftwing opposition not to be scared of it.

Inglis met representatives from Hillsong – another large grouping of Pentecostals that has since broken away from ACC – and says “we found a receptiveness there”.

Australia is a special place for Inglis. A snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef with a scientist, he says, helped him see how marvelling in the corals and the ecosystem was, to him, a form of worship.

In the US, Inglis says, the most challenging hurdle he finds is the belief that because “God is sovereign” humans can’t be responsible for changing the climate.

“You can’t just dump into the air and say God cleans it up,” he says. “That’s not right. We have to be fully accountable and if we are, blessings flow from that accountability.

“Young Christians want action on climate change. It’s the older ones that have the hesitancy on action.”

In a statement, ACC said: “Caring for the environment and God’s creation is viewed as an important responsibility for all people, including the Church.”

Congregation members “reflect a broad demographic” and “there are certainly many who are strong advocates for environmental concerns and climate change within the Pentecostal church”.

“For the record, while the ACC does not have a specific policy regarding climate change, our Missions arm has a very strong environmental policy on Creation Care that serves our commitment to the nations we work in and includes our local communities in Australia.”

Guardian Australia has approached Morrison’s office for comment.

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(AU SMH) ‘The Media Uses It To Scare People’: Survey Detects Climate Change Scepticism In Young People

Sydney Morning Herald - Caitlin Fitzsimmons

More 16 and 17 year-olds believe the media has exaggerated the issue of climate change than recent school leavers and scepticism in this age group has grown in the past two years.

However, four out of five 16- and 17-year-olds in a recent survey do not believe the issue is exaggerated, while most polls show young people generally are overwhelmingly concerned about climate change.

The findings are from a wide-ranging report on Generation Z by research organisation Millennial Future, based on a nationally representative survey of 1018 Australians aged 16-20 conducted in April.

Maria Tynan, 17, says the media “just make it seem so bad that it seems completely unbelievable”. Credit: Nikola Kinder

In one question survey respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the statement: “I believe the science of environmental issues such as climate change has been exaggerated and is less of an issue than what we are led to believe in the media”.

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Among the Generation Z minors (age 16 or 17), 21.7 per cent agreed the media exaggerated climate change.

This was significantly higher than 16.1 per cent for the Generation Z adults (aged 18 to 20) in the same survey or 17.2 per cent for Millennials (aged 21 to 38) who were asked the same question in a separate survey in January.

Scepticism appears to have increased over time - when the same research was done in 2019 only 16.1 per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds agreed with the statement.

Only 13.4 per cent of young people in metropolitan areas believed the media had exaggerated the issue, compared with 22.1 per cent for young people in the regions. It also skewed male; for young women aged 16 to 20, it was 16.3 per cent, compared with 21.8 per cent for young men.

These reported differences are outside the poll’s margin of error.

Maria Tynan, 17, a student at St Francis De Sales Regional College in Leeton in the Riverina, agrees the media tends to exaggerate the severity of climate change.

“They take scientific information, and then they extrapolate on that and they just make it seem so bad that it seems completely unbelievable,” Maria said.

“This isn’t to downplay the severity of climate change or anything but the media uses it to make people scared, instead of focusing on what can be done about it.”

She said this was counter-productive because it pushed people into either denial or a sense of hopelessness.

Maria, who was a representative in the NSW Youth Parliament two years ago, went through “depression and despair” thinking about the issue of climate change when she was younger. She felt better after she researched the problem and realised we had so many of the solutions already with existing technology, let alone future inventions.

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Maria describes herself as “fairly optimistic this going to be something that humanity, like it always does, will push through”.

Associate Professor David Holmes, the director of the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub, said effective climate communication combined the warnings about the risks with the solutions about how to fix it.

“The message of hope is that by reducing or eliminating the greenhouse emissions that we have today, which is largely a policy area, we can dramatically minimise the dangers that climate change poses to the whole planet,” he said.

Associate Professor Holmes said there had been targeted attempts to seed climate denial among young people and counteract the Greta Thunberg effect. For example, until last year US-based right-wing think-tank the Heartland Institute had funded a young German climate denier Naomi Seibt as an “anti Greta”.

Social researcher Rebecca Huntley, author of How to Talk About Climate Change, who has conducted her own research on climate change attitudes, said the Millennial Future survey was a good sample size, including the breakdown into the two age groups, and the findings could not be dismissed. But she said it also posed further questions.

“It’s not just measuring how people feel about climate change, but how the media reports on it,” Dr Huntley said. “There’s a high level of cynicism about the agenda of the media.”

Report co-author Tom McGillick said the average trust in media was slightly lower for 16-20 year olds than 21-38 year olds, but average trust in media was not falling as steeply as scepticism of climate change was climbing.

“My interpretation is that it’s a little of both, but primarily a growing scepticism of climate change independent of media cynicism,” he said.

Bailey Linton-Simpkins, who is in year 11, says: “I think what the media is presenting are the facts.” Credit: James Brickwood

Bailey Linton-Simpkins, 16, a student at Epping Boys High School in Sydney, said he was very concerned about climate change because we have known about the problem for so long and leaders have consistently failed to act.

“Based on me going to different sources and reading scientific reports, I think what the media is presenting are the facts, and they’re not being alarmist about it,” he said.

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But Bailey said his generation was definitely cynical about the media because “they’ve been trained that way”, with constant teaching about how the truth can be manipulated.

The Lowy Institute has run questions about attitudes to climate change in its polls for many years and will be releasing a standalone study later this month, though only polling Australians aged 18 and up.

Natasha Kassam, director of the Lowy Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program, said the results consistently showed higher concern about climate change among younger Australians.

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(China CNN) China's Annual Emissions Surpass Those Of All Developed Nations Combined, Report Finds

CNN - Laura Smith-Spark | Ivana Kottasová

In this June 2017 file photo, a state-owned coal-fired power plant is seen in Huainan, China.

China's annual emissions exceeded those of all developed nations combined in 2019, the first time this has happened since national greenhouse gas emissions have been measured, according to a new report from the Rhodium Group.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to make his country carbon neutral by 2060, and climate policy is seen as a major area of cooperation -- and even competition -- between the United States and China.

But the new report highlights how difficult reducing China's impact on the climate could be.

According to the researchers, global emissions reached 52 gigatons of CO2-equivalent in 2019, an increase of 11.4% over the past decade. And China's share is growing fast.

While China's emissions were less than a quarter of developed country emissions in 1990, they have more than tripled over the past three decades, the report said. In 2019, they exceeded 14 gigatons of CO2-equivalent for the first time.

"China alone contributed over 27% of total global emissions, far exceeding the US -- the second highest emitter -- which contributed 11% of the global total," the report said. "For the first time, India edged out the EU-27 for third place, coming in at 6.6% of global emissions."

China is a large country, with a population of 1.4 billion, and up to now its per capita emissions have remained considerably lower than those in the developed world, the researchers note. But that, too, is changing fast.

"In 2019, China's per capita emissions reached 10.1 tons, nearly tripling over the past two decades," the report said.

While they remained lower in 2019 than the US -- 17.6 tons a person -- the report predicts that when full 2020 data is available, China's per capita output will have overtaken the OECD average of 10.5 tons, even as the emissions "from almost all other nations declined sharply in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic."

Nonetheless, China still has a way to go before it catches up with the total amount of carbon dioxide that has been spewed into the atmosphere by developed nations. The report notes that "since 1750, members of the OECD bloc have emitted four times more CO2 on a cumulative basis than China."

Greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere like a blanket, trapping radiation that would otherwise escape into space. This causes temperatures on Earth to rise, which is linked to more extreme weather, ice melt and a rise in sea levels. And the more carbon emitted into the atmosphere, the more the planet will warm.

Reinhard Steurer, a climate scientist and associate professor at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, told CNN that those in the West shouldn't be congratulating themselves just yet.

"A lot of the stuff we [in the West] consume is produced in China and the emissions are counted into the Chinese carbon emissions record," he said.

"If you take into account those consumption-based emissions, our record isn't that good... We should never really blame China as the worst emitter on earth, because quite a lot of their emissions go into our consumption."

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