Coalition Gives $54m From CEFC To Large-Scale Solar And Renews Pumped Hydro Push

The Guardian - Paul Karp

Plan for pumped hydro project co-located with a large-scale solar farm demonstrates government’s ‘strong commitment to energy security’, PM says

Treasurer Scott Morrison (left) brought a piece of coal to question time on 9 February, and Greens MP Adam Bandt brought a solar panel on 13 February. Energy security has become a key political battleground since parliament returned last week. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP 

The Turnbull government has given a $54m loan from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to a large-scale solar development which it says has the potential for pumped hydro storage.
Malcolm Turnbull and the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, have announced the government had directed the CEFC and Australian Renewable Energy Agency (Arena) to fund large-scale storage and other flexible capacity projects including pumped hydro.
The solar development will take place at Genex Power’s Kidston renewable energy hub, 270km north-west of Townsville.
Arena has provided $4m to study the next phase, a 250 MW pumped hydro-storage project. If a large-scale pumped hydro project is eventually built, it will be the first time such a form of storage has been co-located with a large-scale solar farm.
Turnbull and Frydenberg said the project demonstrated the government’s “strong commitment to energy security”.
“Developing storage technology for renewables is important for stabilising the grid as electricity can still be used when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing.
“Now, more than ever, we have to ensure that renewable energy is being properly integrated into the grid following a series of blackouts in South Australia.”
Renewable energy policy and energy security have become a key political battleground since parliament returned last week.
The Coalition has targeted Labor for its policy aspiration of achieving 50% of energy from renewable sources by 2030, a policy Bill Shorten struggled to explain on Wednesday.
Although Turnbull has been at pains to stress a “technology neutral” approach to energy, several ministers have spruiked the benefits of ultra-super critical coal power plants.
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, brought a lump of coal to question time, while the deputy prime minister, Barnaby Joyce, and northern Australia minister, Matt Canavan, are open to subsidies for new coal plants.

Scott Morrison brings a chunk of coal into parliament

Turnbull has walked a fine line, calling for an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy and saying the renewable energy target will not last forever.
He has been forced to defend comments in September following the South Australian blackout which acknowledged it was caused by transmission towers being blown over but nevertheless saying the storm was a “wake-up” call on reliance on renewable energy.
In evidence to a parliamentary committee on Friday, the CEFC warned against investment in so-called “clean coal” power plants.

Links

• Hard facts unmask the fiction behind Coalition's 'coal comeback'
• Energy Australia boss says she fears bill shock for customers after heatwave
• Coalition's renewable energy target won't last forever, says Turnbull
• Australia’s conservative government fiddles on climate policy while the country burns
• Direct Action review: Coalition leaves carbon trading option open
• With opponents inside and out, there's no plain sailing for Malcolm Turnbull
• Malcolm Turnbull says South Australia blackout a wake-up call on renewables
• Labor accused of being 'clean energy charlatans' after deal to cut $500m from Arena
• How the Coalition is using clean energy financing as an election slush fund

Climate Change, Migration And Human Health

ABC Ockham's Razor - Robyn Williams

Residents from the small coastal village of Vunidogoloa in Fiji have relocated to higher land because of the impacts of climate change. (Supplied: Dr Celia McMichael)

Globally, the impacts of climate change are going to contribute to human migration. While estimated numbers of climate migrants are widely debated, it has been projected that hundreds of millions of people could migrate by the middle of this century due to climate-related hazards such as flooding, sea-level rise, erosion and drought.
While a 'last resort option', migration can be an adaptive response to climate change impacts, says Dr Celia McMichael.
And where it occurs, it should be supported so as to protect people's communities, livelihoods, rights, and health.
The lecturer in geography says that as people begin to move from sites of climatic vulnerability, it's critical that the international community takes decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a low-carbon world and support climate adaptation.



Transcript
Dr Celia McMichael is Lecturer in Health Geography, School of Geography, University of Melbourne
Robyn Williams: Could it be that climate change is already causing the migration of people and even conflict? An article headed 'Climate Change Helped Spark the Syrian War' appeared in March 2015 in National Geographic magazine, and told how droughts drove Syrian farmers to "abandon their crops and flock to the cities", triggering unrest and then civil war. Well now closer to our region, Dr Celia McMichael finds that other movements of people have also been happening. She's at the Department of Geography, University of Melbourne, and here she reflects on the work of her famous father, Tony McMichael, who wrote on climate and the health of nations.

Celia McMichael: In 2014, residents from the small coastal village of Vunidogoloa in Fiji relocated to higher land. Their village of 26 houses was previously located a few meters from the foreshore, but over recent years they experienced increasing coastal erosion and flooding. When I was there last year on a research visit, villagers told me that the community had relocated, ultimately, because of the impacts of climate change. Higher tides and flooding were damaging their homes and crops, and coastal erosion was washing away the land upon which their village was built. As one man said to me:
"Well it all started about ten years ago when we noticed the sea water coming into the village. At first we used to have spring tide that used to come up, but then it was almost a daily occurrence. The bread fruit trees weren't fruiting well because of the salt water. Some parts of the houses were washed away."
With the support of government, international agencies and, of course, community involvement, they designed and built a new village located about two kilometres inland. So while people still walk down to the remains of their old village — to fish and to swim — their new village has fish ponds, pineapple plantations, a coconut copra drier and better access to roads. Some infrastructure work still needs to be completed, but residents agree that moving the village uphill has provided a way for them to adapt to climate change and to protect their livelihoods, community, health and wellbeing, and indeed their future.
My own interest in conducting research in this area stems from concern with the urgent and inequitable realities of climate change impacts; but on a more personal note, it has been developed through talking and co-authoring with my late father, Professor Tony McMichael, who was an eminent epidemiologist. We wrote together about potential health outcomes for climate migrants, such as infectious disease risks among people who are displaced by environmental disaster, or the opportunities for improved health via well-supported migration and relocation planning.
When my dad died unexpectedly in 2014, he was putting the finishing touches to his forthcoming book, Climate Change and the Health of Nations. The book examines historical records and finds that human health is very sensitive to changes in climate. And drawing on history, he warns that the impacts of climatic change — such as environmental disaster, increasing temperatures, and food insecurity — will amplify infectious diseases, under-nutrition, and heat-related deaths, especially among vulnerable populations, such as children and forcibly displaced people.
Globally, the impacts of climate change are going to contribute to human migration. While estimated numbers of climate migrants are widely debated, it has been projected that hundreds of millions of people could migrate by the middle of this century due to climate-related hazards such as flooding, sea-level rise, erosion and drought.
So sea-level rise, for example, is expected to displace people living in low-lying communities in many small islands and coastal areas. Somewhere between 70 to 190 million people could be affected by coastal flooding and land loss by the end of this century, assuming an average sea-level rise of somewhere between half a meter and two meters. In some places, adaptation to sea-level rise will entail relocation of people and communities to areas of lower environmental risk. Now this is a really complex phenomenon; particularly as climate change will rarely act alone, but will intersect with other social, economic and environmental factors that shape migration patterns.
Many governments, policy makers and researchers now regard climate-related migration not as a crisis, but in fact, a potential adaptive response to climate change. More than a dozen low-income countries have submitted national adaptation plans to the United Nations that include relocation of affected communities. And in 2010, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change officially recognized the need for community relocation.
So coming back to the Pacific region, where I started, low-lying atolls and island nations — such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Carteret Islands — have drawn attention to the potentially devastating impacts of sea-level rise. Among policy makers, researchers, governments and affected communities, there's been a lot of discussion about the need for people to migrate. Kiribati, for example, is initiating a state-led attempt to develop migration opportunities in a warming world, which the government refers to as 'Migration with Dignity'. But low-lying coastal villages in Fiji are among the first in the region, and indeed the world, to actively begin relocation of communities in response to environmental changes.
Over the last few years, I've been visiting villages in Fiji, along with local colleagues from the Fijian Government Climate Change Division, a development donor agency, and Provincial Councils, and we conducted research that aims to understand and document experiences of relocation. It is clear that people are very concerned about their environmental futures. They describe local flooding and coastal erosion, and they're worried about the impacts of sea-level rise for their villages in coming years and decades.
So as one older man explained: "We understand climate change because we live climate change, we experience it, it's our daily lives, we walk through this."
As I first mentioned, Vunidogoloa relocated to higher land about three years ago. Another low-lying village, Narikoso, has 27 households and a population of around 90 to 100 people. Over the past few decades, the shoreline has receded by about 15 metres; homes closest to the waterfront are now inundated during high tide and storm surges. The government and international agencies have supported planning and earthworks for the new village site; and community members have funded and constructed a water source for the new village. During a recent visit, people spoke of their concerns about how and when the relocation will occur, and who will move. They're quite unhappy that the village might be moved in phases, rather than as a whole. In other low-lying villages, relocation and retreat is considered an impending likelihood, particularly as they hear about relocation initiatives elsewhere in the country.
But importantly, relocation is possible in Fiji as people are able to move to higher land, and many villages can move quite small distances within their customary land. Nonetheless, relocation is expensive, disruptive, and represents a last-resort option.
During my time in Fiji, I heard from a lot of people about the global inequities of climate change, and how their immediate environments, lives and futures are compromised by greenhouse gas emissions produced by higher-income countries. It's clear that most people regard global climate change as the primary or even sole driver of local environmental changes and coastal erosion.
As one man explained: "Other big countries caused the problem. And the small countries suffer".
My dad's last book challenges us to learn from the past, understand the present, imagine a better and more sustainable future — and act on it. This is a call to action that resonates with the realities of people living in low-lying coastal areas and other sites of climate vulnerability, such as people I've spoken about in Vunidogoloa and Narikoso in Fiji.
While a 'last resort option', migration can be an adaptive response to climate change impacts. Where it occurs, it should be supported so as to protect people's communities, livelihoods, rights, and health. As people begin to move from sites of climatic vulnerability, it's critical that the international community take decisive action to cut greenhouse gas emissions, create a low-carbon world and support climate adaptation.

Robyn Williams: There's a challenge.

Dr Celia McMichael from the Department of Geography, University of Melbourne.
She mentioned her late father's book: Climate Change and the Health of Nations. It's by Tony McMichael and published by Oxford University Press. He was at the Australian National University.

Links

• Dr Celia McMichael
• Climate Change and the Health of Nations
• Climate Change Helped Spark Syrian War, Study Says
• Escaping the waves: a Fijian village relocates

Images Of New Bleaching On Great Barrier Reef Heighten Fears Of Coral Death

The Guardian - Elle Hunt

Exclusive: Coral bleaching found near Palm Island as unusually warm waters are expected off eastern Australia, with areas hit in last year’s event in mortal danger

Newly bleached corals discovered near Palm Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Photograph: Australian Marine Conservation Society

The embattled Great Barrier Reef could face yet more severe coral bleaching in the coming month, with areas badly hit by last year’s event at risk of death.
Images taken by local divers last week and shared exclusively with the Guardian by the Australian Marine Conservation Society show newly bleached corals discovered near Palm Island.
Most of the Great Barrier Reef has been placed on red alert for coral bleaching for the coming month by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Its satellite thermal maps have projected unusually warm waters off eastern Australia after an extreme heatwave just over a week ago saw land temperatures reach above 47C in parts of the country.
According to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, sea surface temperatures from Cape Tribulation to Townsville have been up to 2C higher than normal for the time of year for more than a month.

Newly bleached coral. Most of the reef has been placed on red alert for coral bleaching for the coming month by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Photograph: Australian Marine Conservation Society

The NOAA Coral Reef Watch’s forecast for the next four weeks has placed an even higher level alert on parts of the far northern, northern and central reef, indicating mortality is likely.
Corals south of Cairns, in the Whitsundays and parts of the far northern reef that were badly hit by last year’s mass bleaching event are at fatal risk.
Imogen Zethoven, the Great Barrier Reef’s campaign director for the AMCS, said the projections for the next four weeks, plus evidence of new coral bleaching, were “extremely concerning”.
The bleaching that occurred over eight to nine months of last year was the worst-ever on record for the Great Barrier Reef, with as much as 85% of coral between Cape York and Lizard Island dying. Twenty-two per cent of corals over the entire reef are dead.
Zethoven pointed to projections by NOAA that severe bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef would occur annually by 2043 if nothing was done to reduce emissions.
“The reef will be gone before annual severe bleaching,” she said. “It won’t survive even biennial bleaching.”
The $1bn reef fund announced by the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in June last year was a “cynical rebadging exercise” undercut by its support for fossil fuel initiatives such as Adani’s Carmicheal coalmine “that will spell catastrophe for the reef”, Zethoven said.
“There’s no doubt about that anymore,” she said. “They know what they are doing and they should come clean with the Australian public that they have no interest in the long-term survival of the Great Barrier Reef.
“To the average person on the street, that’s what it looks like. And if the government thinks that’s not the case, they’re out of touch.”
In December last year the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund granted Adani “conditional approval” to $1bn loan for its Carmicheal coalmine and rail project in central Queensland, which could produce 60m tons of coal annually for 60 years.
Warmer ocean temperatures brought about by climate change is a key factor in coral bleaching. Polling suggests that more than two-thirds of Australians believe the reef’s condition should be declared a national emergency.
Zethoven said the government had made “a very deliberate decision to go down the coal road”, despite it jeopardising the reef’s future prospects as well as the 70,000 jobs in regional Queensland that depend on it.
John Rumney, a diving operator based in Port Douglas, said the “commercial advantage” to saving the reef went beyond jobs. Much of coastal Queensland was “majorly invested” in reef tourism, he said.

According to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, sea surface temperatures from Cape Tribulation to Townsville have been up to 2C higher than normal for the time of year. Photograph: Australian Marine Conservation Society

The federal government’s measures to save the reef were hypocrisy and lip service, he said, when it was simultaneously “actively supporting the cause of the cancer – the worst cause”.
“It’s immoral that those of us who are making our living from a healthy environment are paying taxes to subsidise infrastructure that’s going to cause climate change in a major way for the next 50 years,” he said. “If this all goes ahead, we’re basically dooming our tourism industry.”
Rumney said he had seen new and extensive bleaching of corals from Cairns to Townsville.
“There are definite large areas of mortality. It’s just the next depressing moment. Before, the reef has bleached and recovered but now we’re talking about how often is it bleaching and what percentage is left.”
Areas that suffered in last year’s event were now less resilient and there seemed to be less coral strong enough to spawn.
Climate change-induced mass bleaching increasingly resembled a catastrophe the reef would be unable to recover from, he said.
“It’s weaker, just like humans,” Rumney said. “If you’re already down and out with a cold or cancer, you’re less resilient – the next thing that comes along is going to knock you back more.
“It’s the continual onslaught that will eventually kill the reef.”

Links

• The Great Barrier Reef: a catastrophe laid bare
• The reef was my workplace and I knew so little about it. Then I started asking questions
• Australia must choose between coal and coral – the Great Barrier Reef depends on it
• ‘It’s a depressing sight’: climate change unleashes ghostly death on Great Barrier Reef
• Sections of Great Barrier Reef suffering from 'complete ecosystem collapse'
• Great Barrier Reef: tourists will go elsewhere if bleaching continues – poll
• Coral bleaching 'has changed the Great Barrier Reef forever' – video
• Coral graveyard: the aftermath of bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef – in pictures
• Most coral dead in many parts of central section of Great Barrier Reef, surveys find
• Great Barrier Reef: devastating images tell story of coral colonies' destruction

Green Bank Could Fund Coal Under Malcolm Turnbull Rule Changes

Fairfax - Adam Gartrell

Coal-fired power stations could be eligible for funding from Australia's $10 billion green bank under changes being considered by the Turnbull government.
In what would represent a significant weakening of the country's environmental financing rules, Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg confirmed the government is considering issuing a new ministerial directive to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to put investment in so-called "clean coal" on the table.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, pictured with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Photo: Andrew Meares

"That is certainly one of the options we are looking at because we have recognised that we have an obligation after what we've seen in South Australia to ensure this does not happen across the country," he told the ABC.
"It's called the Clean Energy Finance Corporation not the renewable energy corporation."

'Clean coal' makes a comeback
New technology means coal will play a role in electricity generation long into the future, says Malcolm Turnbull. Courtesy ABC News 24.

Mr Frydenberg's comments drew immediate criticism from South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill, who says recent blackouts in his state are due to market failures rather than problems with renewables.
"When 'clean' has its meaning expanded to include 'coal' you realise how busted national electricity policy truly is," he said.
The government can ask the CEFC to broaden its investment mandate provided the project is still considered a low-emissions technology – defined as having 50 per cent less emissions than existing benchmark generation.
But under the government's plans the 50 per cent figure could be relaxed to allow high-efficiency, low-emissions – also known as "super-critical – coal-powered plants. By law, the only technologies the CEFC is precluded from investing in are nuclear power and carbon capture and storage.

Minister for the Environment and Energy Josh Frydenberg. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

"If you can lower emissions and stabilise the system with baseload power, that's a pretty good outcome for Australian households," Mr Frydenberg said. "The key here is about stabilising the system. We don't have the storage technology today to ensure that intermittent wind and solar can be up to 50 per cent of the market. So we actually need that coal and that gas."
The federal opposition has categorically ruled out supporting any legislative changes to relax the CEFC rules.

Clean Energy Finance Corporation CEO Oliver Yates. Photo: Supplied

If the government were to change the CEFC's mandate it would still be unlikely to fund any new coal-powered stations, not least of all because high-efficiency, low-emissions plants would be extremely expensive.
Outgoing CEFC chief Oliver Yates said this month even if a coal proposal met the corporation's rules it may not be viable.

Chief scientist Alan Finkel. Photo: Rohan Thomson

"To be honest in a market of such volatility it would be very difficult to find a private operator or commercial investor investing in coal-fired power stations in the Australian market today," he told a parliamentary committee.
"We, like a commercial investor, are very unlikely to find circumstances in which that would be an appropriate investment to expose taxpayers to."
Chief scientist Alan Finkel has also declined to back taxpayer subsidies for high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired power stations but has said some carbon capture and storage projects could be viable. Mr Finkel is currently conducting a review of Australia's energy market, due to report in June.
Mr Frydenberg on Sunday maintained his attack on Labor's 50 per cent renewable energy target, saying Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has fallen "under the spell of the deep Green left-wing of his party".
However the Australian Greens are concerned Labor is wavering in its commitment to renewables, under pressure from the government. Environment spokesman Adam Bandt says his party will force Labor to declare whether it will legislate its target if it wins government, by moving a Senate motion.
"The Liberals have declared war on renewables and it is time for Labor to decide which side it is on," Mr Bandt said. "The Liberals are backing coal, the Greens are backing renewables and we desperately hope Labor joins us so that the clean energy industry has confidence to invest in Australia."
Senate crossbencher Nick Xenophon said he wants the Coalition to consider an emissions intensity scheme to reduce power prices and ensure security – but that is something already ruled out by Mr Frydenberg.
He was forced to dump the option after his own backbench criticised its similarity to Labor's carbon price.
The Coalition under Tony Abbott tried to scrap the CEFC – even though it is profitable – but was blocked by a hostile Senate.
The Turnbull government subsequently announced it would keep the CEFC, which primarily invests in wind, solar and energy efficiency projects.

Links

• Victoria to get its first large-scale solar plants
• Mining industry tipped millions into pre-election clean coal campaign
• As politicians bicker, Australia's energy security is at risk
• The coal war: Inside the fight to build Australia's biggest coal mine
• Coal kills people. Is that funny?

Turnbull Resorts To Poppycock On Renewables At Big Mining's Bidding

Independent Australia - John Ward

John Ward investigates the misleading campaign against renewable energy by coal and oil interests using the Turnbull Government as the attacking force.

Turnbull of Abbott and climate change back in December 2009. (Image via @smh)

ARE YOU confused by the issues of alternative energy and climate change?
This is why.
The president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim MD PhD recently stated that it was crazy that governments were still driving the use of coal, oil and gas by providing subsidies.
Said the president:

“We need to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies now.”

In July 2016, Nicholas Stern estimated that tackling climate change would require investment of 2% of world GDP each year. The IMF indicates that if governments stopped world fossil subsidies of $5.6 trillions per year, it would benefit world GDP a year by 3.8%.

How did the fossil fuel industry react to this knowledge in 1980?
The Global Climate Science Communications Plan, written with the direct involvement of fossil fuel companies including ExxonMobil (then Exxon) and Chevron, detailed a plan for dealing with climate change that explicitly aimed to confuse and misinform the public.

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How did governments and fossil fuel industries collude?
There is collusion to bring about World Government subsidies of $5.6 trillions per annum (according to the IMF calculations), to create the illusion of low costs and reliable coal generated electricity, and to manage, resist and delay the growing threat of investment in renewable energy as competition to the dominance of the fossil fuel sector.
There certainly has been a climate hoax that continues today. It is the four decades long campaign by the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to deceive the public by distorting the realities and risks of climate change.

Why do taxpayer funds subsidise the fossil fuel industry while coal and oil giants pay virtually no tax?
Malcolm Turnbull has been subsidising the fossil fuel industry with, according to IMF estimates, $1,712 per Australian a year, or $41 billion of taxpayer funds. This includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia, and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The IMF calculates that Australians subsidisations to the fossil fuel industry account for hidden adverse costs spread out across the states and the ATO that, ultimately, permanently come out of taxpayers’ pockets.

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Why does the CEFC cause offence to the fossil fuel industry, its institutions and its front group, the IPA?
In 2013, Tony Abbott addressed the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).
"I want to assure you," he said, "that the coalition will repeal the carbon tax, abolish the Department of Climate Change, and abolish the Clean Energy Fund. (CEFC)".
That was his intent. However, the legislature (Parliament) twice refused to allow the executive’s bill to abolish the CEFC Act to become law.
To undermine the purpose of the Act, the executive attempted for two years to alter the CEFC investment mandate by revoking a provision of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012. The fact is any change to the CEFC Act 2012 must be to the original Act. Altering the CEFC Act to achieve the executive’s purpose can only be done by going back to the Senate.

What is the CEFC?
The CEFC was set up by the Gillard Government in 2012.
It mobilises capital investment to facilitate increased flows of finance into the clean energy sector in renewable energy, low-emission technology and energy efficiency in Australia.
The corporation operates like a traditional financer, working with co-financers and project proponents to seek ways to secure financing solutions for the clean energy sector.

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Was the aim to change the law or maximise confusion and demoralise the alternative energy participants?
Coalition ministers have schemed with coal and oil corporations to support coal generation of electricity, and attacked alternative energy by removing all possible funds from the CEFC.
Treasurer Hockey created a disruption so great that the alternative energy industry collapsed by 88%, mirroring a similar executive incursion into the car manufacturing sector. Prime Minister Turnbull caused similar disruption during the 2016 election campaign by pledging a total amount of $6.5 billion, left in the CEFC account to other non-climate change related LNP causes.
As the PM reallocates funds, he is disrupting and ignoring the directly expressed objectives of the Act — that the CEFC invest to increase the flow of finance into the clean energy sector.
Also ignored were the CEFC’s constitutional functions relating to external affairs powers (section 51(xxix) of the Constitution) — that is, giving effect to Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Climate Change Convention, by investing in the development of renewable energy and low-emission technologies that could reasonably be expected to control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.
Recently, the cabinet created a third investment directive to modify the intent of the CEFC Act and, in so doing, has exceeded its authority, ignoring the need to return to the Parliament to get the required authority from the legislature. By doing so they are committing misfeasance, by benefitting the coal and oil energy sector, but causing a deficit to the alternative energy sector.

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Expressed or implied, which is it?
Ministers Hunt and Cormann have claimed that the power to issue new investment mandates is implied in section 64(1) of the Act, what they continue to ignore are the express limits placed on them by section 65. As responsible ministers, they cannot issue direction that has the purpose or that is likely to have the effect, of directly or indirectly requiring the board to, or not to, make a particular investment that is inconsistent with the CEFC Act – (including the object of the Act), which is:

'The Object of this Act is to establish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to facilitate increased flows of finance into the clean energy sector.'

When will the correct interpretation be made to sweep away this manufactured confusion?
The level of malfeasance, and misfeasance and corruption, in Federal and state governments must be addressed by courts as a matter of urgency. The High Court and Federal Courts are ultimately the only judicial bodies with the constitutional authority to address these executive levels of wrongdoing.
The fundamental rule of interpretation is that a statute is to be expounded according to the intent of the parliament that made it and that intention has to be found by an examination of the language used in the statute as a whole. It is abundantly clear that the Parliament that produced the Clean Energy Finance Corporation Act 2012 intended that the Act not be easily diverted or altered by new directives inimical to its purpose.
As former Chief Justice Murray Gleeson said in his ABC Boyer Lecture ‘The Rule of Law’:

The High Court is given jurisdiction in matters in which a writ of mandamus or prohibition or an injunction is sought against an officer of the Commonwealth. This jurisdiction cannot be altered or taken away by Parliament. It confers on the High Court the power, by making certain forms of order that historically followed judicial review of executive action, to compel officers of the Commonwealth to act according to law. The expression 'officer of the Commonwealth' includes the Prime Minister and Ministers, and all public servants. The effect of the provision is, no one is above the law. Thus government officials must exercise their powers according to law. If they do not, then, in the last resort, the High Court may order them to do so The Constitution, which is the basic law, itself declares that the government must obey the law, and gives the High Court the jurisdiction to compel such obedience.
That jurisdiction cannot be removed or modified except by constitutional amendment.
Parliament, if acting within the limits of the powers assigned to it by the Constitution, may change the law. The executive government must obey the law. That is what the rule of law means.

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Links

• SA blackout: Australia storms Right into the dark over renewables
• The latest renewable energy myths from Murdoch and the Coalition
• Citibank: Global cost of climate change inaction — $44 trillion by 2040
• Australian scientists warn of climate change flash flood risk in cities
• Turnbull's first budget ignores climate change and dumps clean energy: That's #innovative?
• How the IPA feeds kids lies about climate change

Comical Coal-ition Is A Dunce On Renewable Energy

Fairfax - Crispin Hull

In the past fortnight, I've been reminded of "Comical Ali", Iraq's former information minister, Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, whose broadcasts and media conferences denied the presence of US troops and tanks in Baghdad even as they could be seen behind him. The delusional in denial.
What reminded me of him, of course, were all the climate-change deniers spouting their nonsense while high-temperature records were broken and bushfires raged across the country.

Coal salesman? Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf ignored the tanks, just as many conservatives can't see that the climate has already changed. 

America's tanks are in Baghdad. The climate has already changed. But still they want to open new coal mines and build new coal-fired power stations.
How do you explain it? Perhaps we're looking at these people the wrong way. We assume they don't think climate change is happening, therefore it's fine to continue to mine and burn coal. But it seems to me that it's the other way around. They first want to continue to make money by mining and burning coal (or receive donations from those who do) and therefore they must deny that climate change is happening, even in the face of overwhelming evidence and appalling economic and health costs.
Renewable blame game
The Liberal Party has been accused by Labor of lying about the reason for South Australia's blackouts by blaming renewable energy, something Malcolm Turnbull rejects. Courtesy ABC News 24.

We've seen it before. People wanting to make money by selling tobacco must deny that it causes lung cancer, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Unfortunately, therefore, it doesn't matter if – climate change aside – there are other reasons for stopping the mining and burning of coal. Those, too, will be ignored.
This is what we've seen recently. There are solid reasons, based on economics and energy technology, to stop mining and burning coal for electricity generation. But this government is ignoring the obvious.
Let's look at technology. We have an existing technology that works quite well. Let's call it coal, or taxis, or hotels, or vinyl records, or CDs or books. Then something comes along that delivers to consumers what they want more efficiently, and cheaper.

Cartoon: Alan Moir

Usually governments play a role. They have regulatory regimes, taxes and other mechanisms that usually help the status quo against the newcomer, at least for a while. But invariably the new technology wins. Horse and buggy gives way to car. CDs, tapes and vinyl give way to MP3. Coal power stations give way to solar, wind and batteries.
So it's going to happen, and these things have a history of happening very rapidly. Battery technology will become cheaper and more effective. And governments need to deal with it.
But the Coalition (let's call it the Coal-ition) has gone backwards, starting in late 2016, when it ruled out a carbon-intensity trading scheme for electricity generation, against the chief scientist's advice, just because then Coal-ition senator Cory Bernardi said it was "economic suicide". In fact, not implementing it would be economic suicide. Kowtowing to Bernardi has proven to be futile, now he has left the Coal-ition.
Compare this to the good sense put out by then environment minister Greg Hunt in 2015, when he said: "Australia has the highest rate of household solar in the world. This makes Australia an ideal place to develop storage and battery technology."

That's where we are with electricity generation in Australia: as mad and irrational as Americans with their guns.

In fact, Australia has 1.6 million Australian households with rooftop solar already installed and most of them say they intend to install battery storage. They are saying this for several reasons. Electricity is very expensive in Australia and looks like it will get more expensive. Many have a moral conviction that we should reduce carbon emissions.
Further, like all humans, they like getting something for free. Once the capital equipment is installed, the sun and wind are free. So it's galling to see the paltry amounts electricity generators pay for household-generated surplus electricity, at least outside the ACT.
How much better to store that excess and use it later, perhaps even to charge the electric car and cut fuel bills.
The market and technology are all pointing one direction, and it's not down a publicly subsidised railway line to coal mine or to a coal-fired power station.
But if you start from a position "I want coal" (or, to use a US analogy, "I want a gun"), no rational economic or health and safety argument has a chance. And that's where we are with electricity generation in Australia at present: as mad and irrational as Americans with their guns.
This government is allowing Australia to fall behind on technology and exposing us to trade sanctions if we don't meet our Paris targets.
There's a further point about the government not embracing and encouraging battery technology. People will go it alone if necessary as the financial cases for household batteries gets inevitably stronger. If that happens, the government will lose what should become a very important grid-security mechanism.
With government regulation and incentives, you can ensure that household battery systems are open to the grid, not just the excess off the roof after the batteries are fully charged, but a full-scale system of households selling some or all of the power in their batteries at times of peak demand.
In the long run, that will be a far cheaper and easier way of easing the strain on the grid than using coal.
Ultimately, real energy security can only come through renewables. Financiers and businesses realise this. This week, they joined environmentalists in crying out for sensible energy policies. Even without those policies, financiers are not going to put long-term money into a technology that will be priced out of the market.
So the question for our politicians is not, childlike, to go vermillion in the face (Barnaby Joyce) nor, stuntlike, to bring a lump of coal into the parliamentary chamber (Scott Morrison). It's to deal with the market. Coalition governments are supposed to be masters of the market. But on renewable energy they are dunces.
(A footnote: my rooftop solar system is now four years old and has generated 25,000 kilowatt hours of electricity worth about $7000. The system cost $9000. I thought it would take nine years to pay for itself, allowing for forgone interest and lower prices for power sent back to the grid. But with the rising cost of electricity, it now looks like it will be less than six years.)

Links

• Australia Positioned To Be Renewable Energy Superpower
• The Simple Truth: Coal-Fired Generators Have No Future In Australia
• Turnbull's turnaround from pro-carbon price to anti-renewables
• Meet "Mr Coal" — our new climate change minister

Climate Change A 'Material' Risk For The Financial System: APRA

Fairfax - Clancy Yeates

Australia's powerful financial regulator has revealed it views climate change as a "material" risk that it will be watching much more closely in its monitoring of banks, insurers and wealth managers.
Geoff Summerhayes, an executive board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, on Friday made the first detailed comments from a domestic regulator on how they are responding to financial risks created by global warming.

Geoff Summerhayes says APRA will keep a close eye on climate change risks. Photo: Jessica Hromas

As global regulators also turn their sights to these risks, Mr Summerhayes signalled APRA would be looking more closely at how the financial system may be affected by a move away from carbon-intensive energy.
It also expects big companies to carefully consider these risks, and warned that company directors could be liable if they failed to do so.
Mr Summerhayes said climate change was often seen as a "future problem" or a "non-financial" one, but APRA did not view it this way.
"Some climate risks are distinctly 'financial' in nature. Many of these risks are foreseeable, material and actionable now," he said.
"Climate risks also have potential system-wide implications that APRA and other regulators here and abroad are paying much closer attention to."
Specifically, he emphasised the financial risks created by changes in laws or technology, as opposed to physical changes in the environment.

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The transition towards less carbon-intensive forms of energy could trigger a "significant repricing of carbon-intensive resources and activities and reallocation of capital," he said.
He said APRA was "keenly aware of potential systemic implications," but it was not possible to properly understand these risks and how they could be averted, unless companies were disclosing enough information and talking about these risks.
Companies should be including climate change in their internal risk management processes, he said, highlighting that Australia was a signatory to the Paris Climate Agreement, a pledge to limit global warming to a temperature increase of no more than 2 degrees.
He also referred to a legal opinion from barrister Noel Hutley SC that found company directors could be personally liable if they fail to properly consider and disclose climate related risks they could have foreseen.

Climate risks also have potential system-wide implications that APRA and other regulators here and abroad are paying much closer attention to.
Geoff Summerhayes

It comes after a business taskforce working under the Financial Stability Board in December recommended new guidelines pushing for listed companies to disclose more information on how they were handling the risks of climate change.

Links

• Mark Butler denies Labor has ditched 2030 renewable energy goal
• It's a goal, it's a target, no, it's ... Labor's energy policy
• Australia positioned to be renewable energy superpower
• Oceans are losing oxygen, posing growing threats to marine life, research says