Climate change poses "a major security challenge for Australia" that
experts warn has the potential to rapidly stretch the capability of the
military, as demonstrated by the current bushfire emergency.
Michael
Thomas, a retired army major, said "rising emissions will result in a
more unstable and insecure world that will have far-reaching human,
national and international security consequences", in an article published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute on Tuesday.
No longer over the
horizon: climate change is already creating challenges for Australia's
military, including the current bushfire season. Credit: ADF/AP
"The
bushfire crisis that’s unfolding across Australia provides some insight
into what that dystopian world will look like," he said.
Major Thomas, who published a 2017 book on the security risks of climate change,
said the fires that caused at least 27 deaths and burnt millions of
hectares revealed the limits of Australia's forces to cope with
traditional threats abroad and concurrent new ones at home.
"Climate change is talked about as a 'threat multiplier' but it's actually a 'burden multiplier'", he told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The
Morrison government copped criticism for waiting until earlier this
month to deploy 3000 dedicated reserve troops to assist with the
bushfire relief despite major fires burning in some states since
September.
It also dispatched the navy to assist in the evacuation of people stranded in Victoria's East Gippsland.
Major
Thomas said "the bushfire crisis may be the moment that opens genuine
but critically honest policy debate on climate change in Australia".
ADF Reservists preparing at Holsworthy Army Barracks in south-west Sydney earlier this month for deployment to respond to the unprecedented bushfires across the country. Credit: James Alcock
Rising
sea levels and more intense storms not only threaten the stability of
domestic and foreign communities, they also undermine the capability of
Australia's own military to respond.
The type, location and
frequencies of challenges for armed forces everywhere were already
changing, with flow-on consequences for the equipment, training and
structures they need, Major Thomas said.
"What was meant to be tomorrow’s security problem has been catapulted into the here and now," he said.
Major Thomas pointed to Australia's participation with South Pacific partners in 2018 in the Boe Declaration on Regional Security as a recognition by the government that defence forces have "a unique and important role" to play in a warming world.
However, while countries such as New Zealand had followed up with a defense assessment later that year and an implementation plan last month, the Australian government had made little public about the military's readiness to respond to climate change.
Major
Thomas, who served in the military for 20 years, said the lack of a
bipartisan political consensus in Australia - unlike in its partner
across the Tasman - meant Australia's defense forces were largely absent
from the public debate.
"The [ADF's] voice has been lost in the Australian debate," he said.
The
government has committed some $70 billion for new submarines and joint
strike fighters. In light of the emerging threats, Major Thomas said it
should reconsider buying more landing craft - such as those used at
Mallacoota in Victoria - or building a reserve fire-fighting or other
disaster-relief capacity.
A spokesperson for Defence said the 2016 Defence White Paper identified climate change "as one of the causes of state fragility, a key driver of our security environment to 2035".
"Defence
factors climate change considerations into our strategic planning for
defence capabilities, estate, personnel and equipment, as well as
related operational responses and preparedness," the spokesperson said.
It's essential that climate change be part of an inquiry into the bushfires raging across the country, says former Supreme Court judge Bernard Teague.
Black Saturday royal commissioner Bernard Teague says the impact of climate change "needs to be looked at it in greater depth". Eamon Gallagher
The former supreme court judge who ran the Black Saturday royal
commission says it is essential that climate change impact be part of an
inquiry into the 2019-20 bushfires and has warned against any move to
restrict its terms of reference.
Bernard Teague told The Australian Financial Review he also supported an examination of state and federal protocols for disaster relief
Other lawyers said current roadblocks on federal assistance – a likely focus of the royal commission flagged by Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the weekend
– could be overcome by relying on the implied nationhood power in the
constitution, which gives the Commonwealth broad authority.
Mr Teague was a judge on the Supreme Court of Victoria from 1987 to 2008 before being tapped to run the inquiry into the Black Saturday fires of February 7, 2009, in Victoria that claimed 173 lives.
He said climate change had been "small beer" for his inquiry because of apparent consensus about its continuing impact.
"We had two hours on climate
change – this is 10 years ago – because we could get a stack of
scientists who would take one side and not one scientist was prepared to
come before our commission and be cross-examined about climate change."
He said that in 2010 "everyone was saying there's only the prospect of worse fires in the future because of climate change".
"It
needs to be looked at it greater depth in light of the experience of
the past 10 years, which has only shown what everyone now accepts – well
almost everyone – that it has an enormous impact that we need to better
understand.
"It impacts on a lot of things, like controlled burning for example."
He
said the inquiry needed to have the widest possible terms of reference
and suggested there were a number of recently retired judges who would
be candidates.
Mr Teague said it was better to have multiple
commissioners, citing his own experience: "There were so many other
perspectives they would bring to bear."
He said the Morrison
government should brave the potential criticism that might arise with
any examination of the roles of state and federal governments.
"If
a government says 'these are the problems that are arising in the
present situation and these are potential ways of dealing with them', I
think the community is going to be so much better off."
One issue
for any inquiry will be the activation of defence forces. Mr Morrison
said on Sunday that the compulsory calling up of 3000 Army Reservists to
help in the fire recovery effort had pushed the Commonwealth to the
"very edge" of "extreme constitutional territory".
Mr Morrison
said he would take a proposal for a royal commission to cabinet and that
it also would include building better resilience and adaption to
climate events such as fire, drought, floods and cyclones.
'States need to be consulted'
Fiona
McLeod, SC, senior counsel for the Commonwealth at the Black Saturday
royal commission, said there was a fundamental problem.
"If you
look at the way Commonwealth aid has traditionally been provided, the
States have to exhaust their resources – government, commercial and
community – before they can ask for help," Ms McLeod said.
Ms
McLeod agreed with University of Sydney Professor Anne Twomey that there
were doubts about whether such action was supported by the defence
power or the external affairs power, which were used to justify using
the defence forces in humanitarian and disaster aid overseas.
Both
said they felt the implied nationhood power under section 61 of the
Constitution would support any deployment for disaster relief, but
Professor Twomey added that proper protocols for co-operation with the
states were needed.
"The states have the expertise in dealing with
bushfires, while the Australian Defence Forces have the expertise in
the logistics and management of disaster relief, so it is imperative
that systems be developed for them both to work together effectively in a
crisis,'' Professor Twomey said.
"It would be counter-productive
for the Commonwealth to act unilaterally in calling out the troops, if
they were getting in the way of firefighters. States need to be
consulted before the troops are called out, so they can fill the
greatest needs when they arise."
She added the move to call out
the reserves was covered by the provision in section 28 of the Defence
Act which covers "civil aid, humanitarian assistance, medical or civil
emergency or disaster relief".
Professor Twomey said Section 119,
which says the the Commonwealth "shall protect every state against
invasion", could also be given a wide application.
Mr Teague said
the Black Saturday inquiry had no limitations, in contrast to the
Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry of 2015-16, over which he also presided.
When
the final report offered "matter for further consideration" the state
government ordered another inquiry, which led to a recommendations on
the long-term rehabilitation of power plants and the impact on human
health.
He said if there had been any progress, it would be that
there had not been anything like the number of lives lost in recent
weeks compered to the devastation of Black Saturday.
Residents watch flames in Lake Tabourie, Australia. Brett Hemmings / Getty Images
Evan Karlik
Evan Karlik is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and an affiliate at Georgetown University’s Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies. In 2018 he served as a defense fellow in the House of Representatives.
With more than 14 million acres
in Australia blackened by bushfires, climate change is a glaring threat
to Australians — and to the standing of their prime minister, Scott
Morrison.
Distressed residents in fire-ravaged towns have rebuffed his handshakes and heckled his entourage. The nation’s capital, Canberra, rang in 2020 with the world’s worst air quality, causing airline cancellations and government office closures. Beach evacuations of stranded residents cornered between flames and sea now rank as Australia’s largest-ever peacetime maritime rescue operation.
U.S. firefighters feel kinship with their Australian brothers and sisters,
and more than 100 have been dispatched to battle the blazes Down Under.
While Americans are no strangers to wildfires, Washington would do well
to note how Australia’s climate policies are entwined with this current
crisis.
In 2000, an Australian parliamentary committee report
acknowledged the country’s per capita carbon emissions were the highest
in the world and highlighted the country’s acute climatic vulnerability. A 2013 report by the Climate Council, an independent Australian nonprofit, pointed to the increasing likelihood of high fire danger weather due to spiking temperatures, drought conditions and longer and more frequent heatwaves.
And in a November poll, 60% of Australians said they believed the country should be doing more to combat climate change.
But Australia’s reigning politicians have been deaf to these signals.
Greg
Mullins, a former fire commissioner in the Australian state of New
South Wales, recently told National Public Radio that the national
government has been “missing in action in terms of leadership” and that Morrison “does not have his finger on the pulse of the nation.”
Morrison gleefully wielded a fist-sized chunk of coal on the floor of Parliament in 2017. A year and a half later, his right-wing party — incensed over proposed legislation
that would have instituted energy sector emissions targets — ousted his
predecessor and made fossil-fuel-friendly Morrison head of state.
Australian journalist Hugh Riminton has lamented the coal lobby’s grip on Canberra, calling his country “a burning nation led by cowards.”
Tasmanian novelist Richard Flanagan compared the rabid bushfires to the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster — another environmental catastrophe that
foretold the demise of the existing, untenable political order — and
likened Morrison and his “criminal course of inaction”
to the decadent and disconnected Roman emperor Nero, who is famously
said to have played a fiddle while flames leveled most of ancient Rome.
These
domestic denunciations square with the persistent criticism of
Australia from its regional neighbors. Pacific island countries are
markedly vulnerable to climate change on account of sea level rise,
ecosystem collapse due to ocean acidification and coral bleaching, and
saltwater contamination of freshwater wells.
Enele Sopoaga, former prime minister of Tuvalu in Polynesia, scoffed at Canberra’s highly publicized Pacific Step-Up
diplomatic initiative, which offers generous infrastructure financing, a
work-visa program and new undersea communications cables “while you
keep pouring your coal emissions into the atmosphere … and drowning my people into the water.” An official in Palau, 600 miles east of the Philippines, called Australia an “abusive spouse” that provides aid for climate mitigation projects while refusing to adopt meaningful emissions reductions.
Prior
to the annual conclave of leaders at last year’s Pacific Islands Forum
in Tuvalu, Rev. James Bhagwan pointedly reminded Australia’s prime
minister that “he is setting foot in a country that could soon be under
water.” The headline on his Sydney Morning Herald commentary said it all: “A climate plea to Scott Morrison from a churchman of the Pacific’s sinking nations.”
“No leader who claims Christian morality can allow this conduct on their watch,” Bhagwan wrote.
Present U.S. policy could benefit from such soul-searching. The White House’s abandonment of emissions targets— and combative legal action against states such as California that pursue their own fuel efficiency requirements or carbon cap-and-trade programs — demonstrate either complete obliviousness or categorical insensitivity to those affected by climate change.
For
Morrison, the wrath of a traumatized Australian electorate may become
evident at the ballot box. In the United States, legislators who
acquiesce to how the Trump administration is undermining the 2015 Paris
climate agreement and discouraging state-level climate initiatives could
find themselves indicted during campaign season and punished at the
polls for their dereliction and inaction.
Climate policy negligence will also undermine U.S. relations with Pacific island states.
Morrison’s “utterly tone deaf” defense of robust coal exports during
the most recent Pacific Islands Forum meant Australia “upset its
friends, opened the door further to China, and trashed its global reputation,” former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wrote last fall.
American
climate policy requires a course correction, or it’s only a matter of
time until the U.S. is pilloried in the strategically essential Pacific,
leaving an influence vacuum for opportunistic Beijing. China is all too
happy to tout itself as one of the first countries to sign the Paris agreement and to reiterate its pledge of stabilizing its carbon emissions over the next decade.
A heart-wrenching image
of a charred juvenile kangaroo trapped against barbed wire captured the
devastation of Australia’s bushfires and the bitterness of climate
inaction. Distraught onlookers around the world took note. We can only
hope that U.S. leaders did too.
Kangaroo, koala, livestock carcasses strewn along highways like it really is the end of the world. Yet Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is heading the wrong way: Our view
A mural depicting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison in Melbourne on Jan. 7, 2020. James Ross/epa-EFE
Among global-warming
skeptics, it used to be popular to mock environmentalists and climate
scientists as Chicken Littles, forever frantic that the sky was
falling.
That kind of lampooning has worn
thin, given the relentless rise in global temperatures coupled, most
recently, with hellish images of a fire-ravaged Australian continent: Skies cast in orange. The spectral image of the famed Sydney Opera House, lost behind smoke so thick that breathing is like inhaling a pack of cigarettes a day. A scorched region across Australia nearly the size of South Carolina.
Mountainous clouds of smoke extending 10 miles high that generate their own weather, triggering lightning without rain and on a course to circle the earth. Nearly 30 people dead since fires started in September; 2,000 homes destroyed.
Up to a billion animals dying
And the animals. A staggering estimate of up to a billion lost. Kangaroos, koalas, livestock. Carcasses strewn along highways like it really is the
end of the world. The most searing and heart-wrenching disaster
photograph shows the blackened, upright remains of a juvenile kangaroo, a
joey, halted in flight by a fence, its arms still wrapped around the
wire.
There's a warning in all of this about the direction of the planet.
No,
climate change doesn't start wildfires. But its twin symptoms of
persistent drought and hot weather create tinder-like conditions
— particularly in southeast Australia with a climate not unlike that of
California — and allow wildfires to rage out of control. Australia is in
the third year of a punishing drought, and high temperature records were recently shattered with triple-digit heat.
Despite
international commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement to
curb the emission of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide,
created in large part by the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 levels in
earth's atmosphere are greater than at any time in human history and are continuing to rise.
The results have been made plain not just with
more destructive wildfires but also stronger hurricanes, record floods
and rising seas from melting ice caps. Last year was the world's second hottest on record.
Australia and USA ranked last
Greenhouse
gas emission must be curbed in the next decade if there is any chance
of preventing average global temperatures from rising above 2 degrees
Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) beyond preindustrial levels, the Paris
accord goal.
The independent Climate Change Performance Index ranks Australia and the United States dead last among nations on climate policy. The parallels are beyond troubling. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has scoffed at climate concerns by brandishing a lump of coal before Parliament and exhorting, "Don't be scared. Won't hurt you."
Australia
is one of the world's leading exporters of coal, the dirtiest of fossil
fuels contributing to greenhouse gases, and Morrison seeks to increase
exports. While he hasn't gone so far as characterizing climate change as
a hoax, as President Donald Trump has done, both administrations were blamed for stalling international negotiations last month in Madrid aimed at advancing worldwide emission-reduction goals.
Morrison's
approval ratings are tanking as Australia burns. He was ridiculed for
flashing a thumbs up from a beach in Hawaii as the fires grew in
December. Demonstrations in Australia for climate justice are on the
rise.
Earth is growing warmer, and there's no
stopping that reality. But Americans, like their counterparts Down
Under, can demand that their leaders heed the lessons of a burning
continent and take the hard steps necessary to prevent even worse from
happening.
The Australian Embassy in Washington declined to provide an opposing view to this editorial.
Despite the political smokescreen, scientists are in no doubt that global heating has contributed to Australia’s fire emergency
Smoke from Australia’s unprecedented bushfires as seen from the International Space Station on January 4. Photograph: NASA Earth Observatory Handout/EPA
As Australia’s unprecedented bushfire season continues to unfold,
competing arguments have been made about the principal causes of the
human and environmental tragedy – particularly around the role of climate change.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has acknowledged that climate change has had an influence on the fires and has defended his government’s climate record.
But Morrison has also said that “job-destroying, economy-destroying,
economy-wrecking targets and goals” on climate change “won’t change the
fact that there have been bushfires or anything like that in Australia”.
Backbench MP Craig Kelly denied any link between climate change and bushfires in a combative interview on British TV.
Conservative media have concentrated on other factors, such as the amount of hazard reduction burning carried out, or the activities of arsonists – a claim shown to have been inflated and misrepresented.
Bushfire experts say that in normal years hazard reduction is a way
to control the behaviour of fires, but the changing climate is making it
harder to carry out prescribed burns and, according to fire chiefs, it
is not a “panacea” for extreme bushfires.
Here is what we know about the long-term influences on the bushfire catastrophe. Why has this bushfire season been so devastating?
Extreme heat and dryness are two important influencers of fire and, on both measures, 2019 was remarkable for Australia.
Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2019, with
average temperatures 1.52C above the 1961-1990 average. Our second
hottest year was 2013, followed by 2005, 2018 and 2017.
New South Wales – one state hard hit by the bushfires – broke its
record by a greater margin, with temperatures 1.95C above average,
beating the previous record year, 2018, by 0.27C.
At a very basic level, rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere change the earth’s radiation balance, allowing less heat to escape.
Australia also had its driest ever year in 2019, with rainfall 40%
lower than average, based on records going back to 1900. NSW also had
its driest year.
A
visualisation from Prof Nerilie Abram, a climate scientist at the
Australian National University, examines hot and dry years in Australia
since 1910 and how they correlate with major bushfires.
An animated history of average maximum temperatures and rainfall in Australia since 1910.
Fire authorities and the Bureau of Meteorology look at the risk of bushfires using the forest fire danger index, a combined measure of temperature, humidity, wind speed and the dryness, but not the amount, of fuel on the ground.
Australia’s 2019 spring months of September, October and November were the worst on a record going back to 1950 for bushfire risk.
What about ‘natural’ weather patterns?
There have been two other meteorological patterns that helped
generate the extreme conditions Australia has been experiencing, and
both these “modes of variability” were in “phases” that made conditions
worse.
The Indian Ocean dipole was in a “positive phase”, meaning the Indian
Ocean off Australia’s north west was cooler than normal and the west of
the ocean was warmer.
Positive dipole events draw moisture away from Australia and tend to deliver less rainfall.
But there is evidence that the extra greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere are also impacting the dipole and another phenomenon, known
as the southern annular mode (SAM).
A 2009 study
found that positive dipole events “precondition” the south of the
country for dangerous bushfire seasons and that these events were
becoming more common.
A 2018 study in the journal Nature Communications found the number of extreme positive dipole events goes up as climate heating continues.
At 1.5C of global warming, the frequency of extreme positive dipole events doubles compared with the pre-industrial period.
The southern annular mode was in a “negative phase” as the bushfires
took hold in November and December. This phase was generated by a sudden
warming event in the stratosphere above Antarctica.
This caused westerly winds to track further north, blowing hot air
across the continent into fire-prone areas, further fanning flames.
Abram’s own research has found that the SAM is being pushed towards more positive phases which, when they occur in Australia’s winter, tend to dry the continent.
Prof Matt England, of the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, said:
“These modes of variability are not changing in a way that’s good for
south-east Australia.
“We know with certainty that we are stacking the dice for the chances
of these extreme drought years because of the changes in the modes.”
What has happened to Australia’s fire weather?
Scientists have already detected a trend towards more dangerous fire weather in Australia.
A 2017 study of 67 years of FFDI data
found a “clear trend toward more dangerous conditions during spring and
summer in southern Australia, including increased frequency and
magnitude of extremes, as well as indicating an earlier start to the
fire season”.
That trend continued in 2019, which was the riskiest year for bushfires on a record going back to 1950.
What role is climate change playing in the risk of fire?
A study of Queensland’s historic 2018 bushfire season
found the extreme temperatures that coincided with the fires were four
times more likely because of human-caused climate change.
In advice issued in November 2019, Australia’s National Environmental Science Program was unambiguous.
“Human-caused climate change has resulted in more dangerous weather
conditions for bushfires in recent decades for many regions of
Australia.
“Observations show a trend towards more dangerous conditions during
summer and an earlier start to the fire season, particularly in parts of
southern and eastern Australia.
“These trends are very likely to increase into the future, with
climate models showing more dangerous weather conditions for bushfires
throughout Australia due to increasing greenhouse gas emissions.”
Despite such unequivocal statements, Scott Morrison has been
irritated that interviewers have asked about his government’s record on
climate change, saying it was “just ridiculous” to link “any one
emissions reduction policy to any of these fires”.
Morrison’s argument that no emissions reduction policy can be tied to
individual events is spurious, as the same argument could be put for
any and all efforts to reduce emissions anywhere in the world, at any
time.
Scientists also believe that 2019 was a “stand out”
year in Australia for the formation of extreme bushfires that became
“coupled” with the atmosphere, generating their own lightning and gusty,
violent and unpredictable winds. Rainfall is replaced with blackened
hail and embers that can be shot out over distances of 30km.
Another study has found that global heating will create more favourable conditions for these “pyroCB” storms to form in Australia.
What about the future?
Climate studies show that conditions in Australia for extreme
bushfires will only get worse as more greenhouse gases are added to the
atmosphere.
On Friday afternoon the president of the Australian Academy of
Sciences, Prof John Shine, said Australia would need to further improve
its climate modelling ability and understanding of fire behaviour to
mitigate against the extreme events that would become more frequent and
intense because of climate change.
“Australia must take stronger action as part of the worldwide
commitment to limit global warming to 1.5° C above the long-term average
to reduce the worst impacts of climate change,” he said.
England said: “We are loading the dice for more and more of these summers. But we have had knowledge of this for some time.
“What we have seen in Australia this year will just be a normal
summer if we warmed the planet by 3C. And an extreme summer would be
even worse than we’ve seen now.”
Abram said: “Even from my perspective, I am surprised by just how bad 1C of warming is looking.
“It’s worrying that we are talking about this as a new normal,
because we are actually on an upward trajectory. Currently the pledges
in the Paris agreement are not enough to limit us to 1.5C – we are
looking more like 3C.”
Scott Morrison in a sit down interview with the ABC on Sunday. Photo: YouTube
Leading
scientists have demanded urgent action on the climate crisis as Prime
Minister Scott Morrison defended his government’s policies during the
worst bushfire season on record.
Appearing on Insiders
on Sunday morning, Mr Morrison said it was his “intention to meet and
beat” Australia’s 2030 commitment to cut emissions 26 to 28 per cent on
2005 levels. And he left the door slightly ajar to cut more emissions if
needed.
It’s a small but significant step considering just weeks ago Mr Morrison said he saw no need to change his climate policies.
In
another move to show it is helping the environment, the Morrison
government will on Monday announce it is pledging $50 million to help
protect wildlife and fauna impacted by bushfires.
Could it signal
that the bushfire disaster has finally woken the government up to do
more to acknowledge and fight manmade climate change?
Experts aren’t holding their breath. And now the polls indicate the PM has some work to do to persuade voters amid fury over Mr Morrison’s bushfire response.
The
latest Newspoll figures show Mr Morrison’s approval rating has plunged
and Labor leader Anthony Albanese is now the preferred leader.
Mr Albanese leads the Liberal leader 43 to 39 per cent, according to the survey results released on Sunday night.
Labor is in front 51-49 on a two-party-preferred basis in the poll conducted for The Australian, a significant turnaround from early December when results showed the coalition led 52-48.
Support for the Greens rose one point to 12 per cent, while One Nation lost ground, falling one point to four per cent.
Meanwhile,
scientists say Mr Morrison’s mea culpa on his holiday and hint on
climate policy shift are nowhere near the strong response needed to show
the government is going to commit to any meaningful change in their
climate response.
Lesley
Hughes, a professor of biology at Macquarie University and a climate
councillor at the Climate Council of Australia, said the government’s
targets are so “weak” that it means little when the PM promises to meet
or beat them.
“It’s like saying I want a 20 per cent pass rate on
my exam. So we met those targets because they were so low,” Professor
Hughes told The New Daily.
Meeting the 2030 Paris targets
would rely heavily on including emissions reductions from the previous
international agreement, the Kyoto protocol.
“The best analogy
I’ve heard – and it’s not mine – but it’s like saying I got a really
good mark on my kindergarten colouring test and I want to use those to
pass my university test now,” Professor Hughes said.
On top of the targets being criticised as too low, the UN reported last year that Australia was not even on track to meet them.
“There
has been no improvement in Australia’s climate policy since 2017 and
emission levels for 2030 are projected to be well above the target,” the
report found.
Central to the government’s climate plan is the
Emissions Reduction Fund, which was allocated an additional $2 billion
to purchase about 100 million tonnes of emissions from businesses
between 2021 and 2030.
Protesters at the “Sydney is Choking” rally in December demand more action. Photo: AAP
While
the framework of the ERF has been praised, the OECD said in a 2019
report it would need to be scaled up to meet the Paris targets.
Australia
is part of a growing cohort of G20 countries that are falling short.
This will have dire consequences for our environment and economy,
Professor Hughes said.
“If
we do meet our 26 per cent reduction, it is not enough if you multiply
that on a global scale to stop us from getting to three per cent
warming,” she said.
“This fire season has been with just one degree of warming.Just imagine three times – what that means. That’s what we’re talking about.”
Coal: Australia’s king
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has said the government is “refusing to act” on climate change, but he has also backed coal exports.
Jobs, especially the 37,800 that the coal industry creates, have now been pinned against real action on climate change.
On Insiders, Mr Morrison said he would not put jobs at risk or apply a tax to meet our emissions goals.
“What
I’m saying is we want to reduce emissions and do the best job we
possibly can and get better and better and better at it,” he said.
“I
want to do that within a balanced policy which recognises Australia’s
broader national economic interest and social interest.”
But
Professor Mark Howden, director of the Climate Change Institute at the
Australian National University, said ending coal was inevitable – and it
would lead to job creation. They just won’t be the same type of jobs.
“At
a global level, achievement of the Paris targets is not compatible with
large scale coal-fired power,” Professor Howden said.
Coal is the
king of Australia’s economy; the industry is valued at $46 billion.
Most of it is burnt overseas but including the emissions of exported
fossil fuels pushes Australia’s share of global emissions up to 3.3 per
cent, making our country one of the highest per-capita carbon emitters.
We’re selling it off to China and India in rapid rates. But long-term our big-buyers are looking to rely on their own mines.
Australia’s coal exports are adding to our international carbon emissions. Photo: Getty
“I think the writing is on the wall for the coal industry,” Professor Howden said.
“Globally
the demand for coal will drop, it’ll be harder for coal activities to
continue, to insure new coal companies – that’s not an ideology.”
But most importantly, transitioning to a clean future can mean more, not fewer jobs, he said.
“Whether
it’s renewables or gearing up our systems to be more energy-efficient,
there are lots of high-quality jobs if we do it sensibly,” Professor
Howden said.
“There’s huge amounts of money to be made in new
energy sectors. Locking ourselves into the way things have been done in
the past does not look like a good proposition.”
Making sure communities don’t suffer in the transition is paramount, he said.
“We
do need to look after those workers and their families. Unless we’re
careful those people could suffer,” Professor Howden said.
But if
we don’t make the change, he said, other people will suffer. For proof
just look at the people left homeless by the bushfires tearing through
communities across NSW and Victoria.
“The people on the South
Coast, businesses who won’t get customers, lives that will be lost,
homes destroyed,” Professor Howden said.
“They’re also costs. We need a much more transparent debate.”
Australians have heard so many messages about so many climate change
policies over so many years that they may shrug off the latest talk from
Scott Morrison about his solution to the problem.
The Prime
Minister spoke on Sunday about doing “better and better and better” at
reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to “evolve our policy” over time,
while also promising to adapt more to a changing climate.
But
he did not outline any substantive change in policy and his office made
it clear that he was not signalling a more ambitious target for 2030,
the deadline for the government’s 26 per cent cut to emissions.
It
is easy to dismiss this as meaningless but it is also worth remembering
that Morrison can be as cagey with his language as John Howard. A small
shift in his words can prepare for bigger changes to come.
Scott Morrison sat down with David Speers for an interview on his response to the Australian bushfire crisis.
This
was a considered interview with David Speers on the ABC on Sunday
morning. Morrison’s remarks were thoroughly workshopped, totally
prepared and carefully calibrated. On the whole, Morrison achieved his
goal.
The effect was to give Morrison more room to move in
response to a bushfire crisis that has changed the climate change
debate. Anxious about cities shrouded in smoke, more Australians are
likely to want more action. Morrison has to respond to this reality.
Morrison’s
language on climate change has been extraordinarily passive for too
long. On Sunday he was more direct. He promised action on climate in a
way that offered a way forward for the “modern Liberals” in his party
room without declaring war on the climate change deniers. He accepted
the science and the need for "resilience" and adaptation.
This
should be encouraging for anyone who wants the Coalition party room to
move on from the climate wars of the past decade. Many of the Liberals
and some of the Nationals accept the science. It is wrong to brand them
all as sceptics or deniers.
The key
word on Sunday – “evolve” – can be used by Liberals to argue for policy
change with Morrison's blessing. Whether these moderate voices will push
hard for change, and whether they are successful, is difficult to tell.
What
happened on Sunday was an adjustment in political positioning, but it
is easier to change the marketing than change the product. It is likely
to take until the next election to judge whether the government stands
for greater action on climate change. Morrison has shifted his language.
Whether he shifts his policies is yet to be seen.
