21/10/2018

Climate Change Is Exacerbating World Conflicts, Says Red Cross President

The Guardian - 

‘It’s obvious some of the violence we are observing … is directly linked to climate change,’ says Peter Maurer
President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer says mass migration can leads to tensions with local communities. Photograph: Florent Vergnes/AFP/Getty Images 
Climate change is already exacerbating domestic and international conflicts, and governments must take steps to ensure it does not get worse, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross has said.
Peter Maurer told Guardian Australia it was already making an impact and humanitarian organisations were having to factor it into their work far earlier than they were expecting.
“In many parts of the world where we work it’s not a distant engagement,” he said.
“When I think about our engagement in sub-Saharan Africa, in Somalia, in other places of the world, I see that climate change has already had a massive impact on population movement, on fertility of land. It’s moving the border between pastoralist and agriculturalist.”
Maurer, who was in Australia to speak about the changing nature of modern conflict, said concern about the impact of climate change in the Pacific was “enormous”.
He said changing rainfall patterns change the fertility of land and push populations, who may have settled and subsisted in one area for centuries, to migrate.
“It’s very obvious that some of the violence that we are observing … is directly linked to the impact of climate change and changing rainfall patterns.”
Earlier this month the United Nation’s climate panel, the IPCC, gave the world just 12 years to make the drastic but necessary changes. Its report said emissions had to be cut by 45% before 2030 if warming was to be restricted to 1.5C.
At 1.5C, 10 million fewer people would be affected by rising sea levels, and the proportion of the world’s population exposed to water stress could be 50% lower.
A 2016 study, which examined three decades of data, determined that a 1C rise in temperatures in a country reliant on agriculture correlated with a 5% increase in migration to other countries.
“When [populations] start to migrate in big numbers it leads to tensions between the migrating communities and the local communities. This is very visible in contexts like the Central African Republic, like Mali and other places,” said Maurer.
He said it was up to governments, not humanitarians, to develop the policies needed to deal with the “root causes” of climate change.
“As a humanitarian I am used to political decisions … never [being] as fast as we hope for them, or as generous or as big, but it’s encouraging an increasing number are recognising the importance of the issue and are taking steps to reduce the impact of climate change on our habitat – the Paris Agreement is an important step forward,” he said.
“For us we hope the international community will soon enough take necessary steps, so at the end of the day they won’t have to pay by increasing humanitarian impacts which, again, we already see in other conflicts.”
Donald Trump said little about the IPCC report, having already pledged to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.
This made things difficult for everyone else, Ola Elvestuen, Norway’s environment minister, said last month, but still called for countries to transition away from fossil fuels, embrace electric cars and halt deforestation.
The Australian government largely dismissed the IPCC report and its recommendations – which included the rapid phase out of coal – as well as the pleas of Pacific Island nations.
Australia has no formal energy or climate change policy, and the Coalition government at one point flagged pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
MPs and ministers maintain that Australia is on track to meet emissions reductions targets, despite official government figures on emissions suggesting Australia will not, according to current projections.
On Sunday Australia’s treasurer and former energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, rejected the suggestion it should get his government rethink its policies. He said the government did not intend to “reduce emissions at the expense of people’s power bills”.
Anote Tong, the former president of Kiribati, was in Australia this week advocating for action.
“It’s not about the marginal rise in price or reduction in price of energy, it’s about lives, it’s about the future,” he told Guardian Australia.
Maurer said there were now more people displaced than ever before, approaching 70m across the globe. Two thirds are displaced internally, and most of those who fled would go to a neighbouring country.
“At the end of the day there is no single policy that allows in any satisfactory way a response to these issues, but there are multiple things which can be done,” he said.

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Wentworth Won't Prompt Climate Rethink, Says Frydenberg

The Guardian - 

Josh Frydenberg with Liberal candidate for Wentworth Dave Sharma. Lack of action on climate change was cited by 28% of voters as to why they switched their vote. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP 
Josh Frydenberg has played down the need for a significant shift in the Morrison government’s stance on climate change before the next federal election after the strong protest vote in the seat of Wentworth.
The treasurer and former energy and environment minister Josh Frydenberg told Sky News on Sunday people in Sydney’s eastern suburbs were concerned about climate change, but he said the government did not intend to “reduce emissions at the expense of people’s power bills”.
He said the backlash in Wentworth was driven more by the anger of local voters about Malcolm Turnbull’s removal from office two months ago than about frustration with a lack of climate action.
Frydenberg said the government had met previous emissions reduction targets and declared Australia would “beat our future targets” – despite official government figures on emissions suggesting Australia will not meet the Paris target on current projections, and the lack of a settled policy roadmap to curb pollution.
Scott Morrison backed Frydenberg’s signal in a press conference later on Sunday morning. “On climate policy, we have got that right,” the prime minister said.
While the level of community concern would vary in communities across the country, an exit poll funded by progressive thinktank the Australia Institute after people in Wentworth cast their votes on Saturday suggests climate change was a significant factor in the poor result for the Liberals.
The exit poll of 1,049 respondents indicated 78% of the sample nominated climate change as having some influence on their vote in the contest, with 47% saying it had a lot of influence on their vote, and 33% nominating climate change as the most important issue.
The poll backs Frydenberg’s primary contention that the number one issue for former Liberal voters switching to Phelps was the leadership coup against Turnbull, with 44% nominating that – but it also shows climate change was the second biggest issue on 28%, a result that would be replicated in other inner-metropolitan seats.
The activist group GetUp was active on climate change during the Wentworth battle.
“People have been knocking down our door desperate to do anything to send the out-of-touch Liberals a message that ignoring climate change is both dangerous and unforgivable,” said GetUp campaign director Miriam Lyons.
She said unless the Liberals reconsidered their current policy settings “not even its safest seat is safe”.
When conservatives moved against his leadership in late September, Turnbull attempted to appease his internal enemies by dumping the emissions reduction component of the national energy guarantee – a policy that sought to combine emissions reduction with an obligation on energy retailers to supply sufficient quantities of dispatchable power to ensure grid stability.
Morrison has formally dumped the policy since taking the prime ministership, meaning there is no emissions reduction policy for electricity mapped out to 2030, and the government also proposes to wind down the renewable energy target after 2020.
Despite mulling the options throughout this parliamentary term, the government has not been able to move forward with new emissions standards for vehicles because of internal opposition within the Coalition.
The government has signalled it might seek to boost its climate credentials by increasing funding for the near-moribund emissions reduction fund – a policy which the Coalition was transitioning away from when it worked up the Neg – but the outlook is not yet clear.

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Why Do Climate Change Discussions Ignore Boomers?

Forbes - Odile Robotti

Credit: Getty Royalty Free
The landmark report issued last week by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,  the international body for assessing climate change, warns that our planet will reach catastrophic levels of global warming, capable of provoking extreme drought, wildfires and floods, as early as 2030 unless action is taken.
In order to turn this ship around, we’ll need all hands on deck. Yet an important group is missing from these urgent conversations: older people.

Older People and Climate Change: Almost an Afterthought
Last month, the UN met to review the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (set in 2015 by the UN to steer the world toward ending poverty and hunger and pursuing better health without sacrificing the health of the earth). Among 17 goals and 169 targets, older people are acknowledged only twice — and marginally, almost as an afterthought. The issue of aging is not mentioned once. This omission is not an outlier, but rather reflects a more general neglect of this group when discussing the future.
This is a mistake.
Globally, the 60+ population, already a “continent” of a billion people, is the fastest growing age group. In 2030, the target year for the Sustainable Development Goals, the number of older people in the world is projected to hit 1.4 billion. By 2050, it will have reached 2.1 billion, with all major areas of the world except Africa (aging rapidly, but starting from lower levels) having nearly a quarter or more of their populations aged 60 or over.
Extended lifetime is no longer a first world luxury. By 2050, 75% of the world population over the age of 60 will be in developing countries. Despite these impressive numbers, in our map of the future, they are a submerged continent.

Adding Extra Years to Midlife
Aging has deeply changed in the last 50 years, but our view of it lags behind. Since 1970, approximately 10 to 15 years of life have been gained and, even more importantly, these are, on average, years of good health (unfortunately there is high inequality in health outcomes). To be clearer, these “extra years” — thanks to progress in medicine and modern lifestyles — have not been added at the end of our lives, but rather in the middle. The 60s and 70s are the new 50s, as you can read on birthday cards. This new phase in our lives is an extension, not a reduction, of adulthood.
Older people can be a resource for society and already are strongly contributing to sustainable development and poverty eradication. They are often the ones who care for the sick and the children, and who work or use their savings to support extended families.

Older Adults: The Only Natural Resource That's Increasing
This group could do more to help preserve the planet.
Older Americans take global warming 14% less seriously than millennials, according to Gallup. But rather than dismissing them as set in their ways, we should try to involve them more. As Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center for Longevity, has pointed out, older adults are the only natural resource that is increasing on our planet.
Even so, their contribution, especially in developed countries, appears undervalued. The current narrative makes us think of older adults as the problem and neglects that they are part of the solution, and could be even more so.
To be sure, the absence of a mention to aging in the Sustainable Development Goals (and, previously, in the Millennial Goals) does not mean that the world community ignores aging. Within the UN, the Stakeholder Group on Aging, The Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging and the Open-Ended Working Group on the Rights of Older Persons are all active on these topics. The World Health Organization is focused on “healthy aging.”

Assuming Boomers Don't Care About the Future
However, when it comes to debates about the future, older people almost disappear. The underlying assumption is that it does not concern them, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The point is about giving older people full recognition in a world still designed for the young and, paradoxically, that values youth more than ever. Age discrimination is rampant, particularly in hiring and especially against women. More often than ever, applicants over 50 feel the need to hide their age or make it less obvious to remain relevant and be considered, particularly in professional settings.
The saying “the future belongs to the young” is anachronistic in the age of the 100-year-life and should be ditched. Older people should be part of the conversation to ensure that their specific needs are met, but also because the planet needs all the help it can get.

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20/10/2018

‘Not Happy’: Australia Must Act On Climate, Says Former Kiribati Leader

The Guardian - 

Anote Tong, allegedly insulted by Australian minister, says inaction means Canberra risks losing its status in Pacific region
Former Kiribati president Anote Tong is advocating for robust action on climate change. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP 
Anote Tong has had quite a week. The former president of Kiribati has been in Australia to advocate for more robust action on climate change, which threatens to wipe out his Pacific home within a matter of decades as sea levels rise.
But on Wednesday he got caught up in controversy when reports emerged that Australia’s environment minister, Melissa Price, allegedly told him it was “always about the cash” when Pacific Islands leaders came to Australia.
It’s about lives, it’s about the future
Anote Tong
As a result, Tong has become hot property. When we meet in the late afternoon the next day he has been on the go since 4am with interviews and meetings.
While Price’s alleged comments have given him prominence, they have also threatened to derail his message about the impact of climate change on Kiribati and what countries such as Australia should be doing to help.
Tong says he did not hear the comments Price is alleged to have made at a restaurant. “I do have a hearing problem. I’m a free diver and I lost my hearing [in one ear],” he says. “If it was true that those were the comments then I would not be happy.”
Mostly, Tong just wants to move on. “We’ve gone beyond that, I don’t want to go back. I’ve had a call from the minister, which I thought was very gracious of her to do that, just saying if I have offended you in any way I assure you it was not my intention.”
Tong has other criticism for the environment minister and her colleagues. He was angered by their reactions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report last week, which said the world had just 12 years to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5C. Price said it would be “irresponsible” for Australia to commit to phase out coal by 2050, while the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said Australia would not change policy based on the recommendations of “some sort of report”.
“I was not happy. I was very disappointed when the credibility of the report was being questioned, because there is no alternative science being put forward and what’s at stake is not minor,” said Tong. “It’s not about the marginal rise in price or reduction in price of energy, it’s about lives, it’s about the future.”
If Australia, which has been criticised by its Pacific neighbours for failing to take more concerted action to reduce emissions, does not change its tone, Tong says it is in danger not only of losing its position as a regional leader but of being welcome in regional organisations at all.
“When countries in the region do things that are not proper, like have a coup, we expel them from the regional body … When you believe somebody is destroying your future and your home, what should you do?”
For Kiribati, the impacts of climate change are being felt acutely, with increased storms and flooding. Rising sea levels mean it is inevitable the island will disappear, says Tong. “If it doesn’t happen in 20 years’ time, it’ll happen in 50 years’ time or in 100 years’ time.”
When people have to leave Kiribati, Tong does not want them to leave in an emergency situation or as climate change refugees – a term he dislikes. Instead, he says, governments should be training people in countries such as Kiribati that are feeling the brunt of climate change so they can get jobs elsewhere, which Tong calls “migration with dignity”.
“We have more than enough time to make our people qualified,” he said. “It has already worked. We had a Kiribati-Australia nursing initiative, where our young people were trained in Queensland and they found jobs in Australia.”
By one estimate from an Oxfam report last year, the sea-level rise resulting from 2C of warming could submerge land that is currently home to 280 million people. Each year from 2008 and 2016 an average of 21.8 million people were reported as newly internally displaced by extreme weather disasters such as cyclones.
Tong says Kiribati and other countries like it are “owed” the resources to train their people so they can relocate. “If I drop a tree on your home and I come to you and say ‘where are you going to live?’ [you’re] going to say: ‘I’m going to live with you until my home is fixed.’ That’s the normal thing, isn’t it? Otherwise I think I take you to court. Now we don’t have that remedy, but I think the principles are essentially the same.”

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After Nobel In Economics, William Nordhaus Talks About Who’s Getting His Pollution-Tax Ideas Right

New York Times - Coral Davenport

A few governments — notably, parts of Canada and South Korea — have adapted his ideas in ways that frame them as a financial windfall for taxpayers.
“Things change over the long run,” said William D. Nordhaus. “What is toxic or opposed in one generation gradually becomes accepted in the next.” Credit Monica Jorge for The New York Times
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — William D. Nordhaus, the Yale economist who shared the Nobel in economic science this week, has pointed words for some of the experiments so far with his theories on taxing polluters to fight climate change.
“It was a catastrophic failure in the European Union,” he said just days after not only being awarded the Nobel, but also seeing his life’s work embraced in a landmark United Nations assessment of the global threat of climate change. That document, approved by more than 180 nations, described Professor Nordhaus’s ideas as essential for slowing the carbon dioxide emissions that are rapidly warming the atmosphere.
But in other places around the world — notably, parts of Canada and South Korea — politicians have adapted the idea in ways that not only show signs of working, but that also reframe it not as a tax, but as a financial windfall for taxpayers. Other governments, including China and some individual states in the United States, are also testing different ways to force companies to pay to pollute.
In short, the world is becoming a laboratory for theories that Professor Nordhaus developed decades ago, when global warming was an abstract future threat. By contrast, this week’s United Nations report amounts to a stark warning of immediate risk.
The report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that if greenhouse gas emissions continued unabated, the atmosphere would warm up to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2040, leading to irrevocable damage including severe food shortages, coastal inundations and the displacement of tens of millions of people as soon as 2040. If the planet keeps warming to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the effects could include devastating floods and droughts and the permanent loss of the world’s coral reefs.
The Nobel, which Professor Nordhaus shared with the New York University economist Paul M. Romer, was widely perceived as a rebuke to President Trump, who has called climate change a hoax and sought to roll back the United States’ existing climate change policies. It is also seen as a broader challenge to powerful Republican political voices in the United States, among them the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who have attacked lawmakers who support a carbon tax, making it among the most volatile ideas in American politics.
On Wednesday, Professor Nordhaus discussed his carbon pricing theories and the political landscape. The exchanges have been edited and trimmed.

Why is carbon pricing seen as political poison in the United States?
It’s been caught up in the politics, and it just happens that this particular policy is one that has faced the wrath of a whole group of thinkers. Grover Norquist, energy companies, it’s the Koch brothers and their foundations, it’s people using fair tactics and foul tactics — it’s been caught up as one of the issues in the Great Divide.
This anti-tax movement has been so powerful and so harmful in the United States. There have been a large number of conservative economists in the United States who have endorsed the idea of a carbon tax.

Where has carbon pricing been successful? Where has it failed?
We learned with the European Union that once you go beyond the simple, idealized version of carbon prices and into implementation, it’s a very different thing. One of the things we found out: One of the problems with cap and trade [a system in which governments place a cap on countries’ carbon-dioxide pollution and companies then pay for, and trade, credits that permit them to pollute] is that it is dependent on predicting what future emissions will be. But if those projections are wrong, the system fails.
With the E.U., their projected carbon emissions were high, but the actual carbon emissions were low, and the carbon price fell drastically, from $30 to $40 per ton down to single digits. So the price was so low it did not have an effect in lowering emissions. It was flawed design. If the models had predicted too few emissions, and the price had gone to $1,000 per ton. we would have had a different problem.
The carbon tax has different problems, but not this one. The price of carbon is independent of the amount of emissions.
When I talk to people about how to design a carbon price, I think the model is British Columbia. You raise electricity prices by $100 a year, but then the government gives back a dividend that lowers internet prices by $100 year. In real terms, you’re raising the price of carbon goods but lowering the prices of non-carbon-intensive goods.
That’s the model of how something like this might work. It would have the right economic effects but politically not be so toxic. The one in British Columbia is not only well designed but has been politically successful.

What went wrong when President Obama tried to implement a carbon price in 2009?
I did not talk to Obama about this directly, but I spoke with many of his advisers over the years.
One of my very, very few disappointments in Obama when he was president is that he did not come out in favor of carbon tax. I’m sure he did the political calculus on this. He should have come out and talked not just about climate change and its dangers but how to use a carbon tax to fix it. He was a great speaker a great educator but this is one where he let us down, I think.
Professor Nordhaus said the problem of carbon taxes was political, rather than one of economics or feasibility. Credit Monica Jorge for The New York Times
How do you think a carbon tax could get bipartisan support?
Things change over the long run. What is toxic or opposed in one generation gradually becomes accepted in the next. Social security took a long time. It was opposed for many, many decades but since Reagan is has been widely accepted.
On carbon taxes, people’s views have changed from being very hostile, to conservative economists embracing this, to the I.P.C.C. saying, this is the approach.
I have to be hopeful that, if we continue to work on this, the public will get there on the science, and make an exception to the toxicity of taxes. It will help if it’s tied to something popular — if, as a result of the revenue from a carbon tax, you get a check in the mail, or it funds health care.
In terms of implementation, it’s not much more difficult to implement than a gasoline tax. Gasoline taxes are very easy to implement.

But gasoline taxes are also politically toxic.
Only in this country! In other countries, people are grown-up, and they can live with taxes.
The problem is political, rather than one of economics or feasibility. It’s because it’s used as a weapon. At some point, I’m hopeful that grown-ups will take over and we will do what is necessary. I hope so. If we don’t, then things will just get worse and worse.

Do we have enough time to avoid the warming that will bring severe and damaging effects of climate change?
It’s not going to happen in time for 1.5 degrees. It’s very unlikely to happen for 2 degrees. We’d have to be very pessimistic about the economy or optimistic about technology for 2 degrees. If we start moving very swiftly in the next 20 years, we might able to avoid 2 degrees, but if we don’t do that, we’re in for to changes in the Earth’s system that we can’t begin to understand in depth. Warming of 4, 5, 6 degrees will bring changes we don’t understand because it’s outside the range of human experience in the last 100,000 to 200,000 years.
We’ve been going backward for the last two years. Maybe we can stop going backward and start going forward.

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Here’s 123 Things Our Leaders Did To ‘Confront’ Climate Change

New Matilda - 


 A recent ReachTel poll commissioned by Greenpeace Australia found that for the voters of Wentworth – former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s old seat – tackling climate change was their number one priority. Here's a list of Liberal Party decisions on climate change over the last five years.

Tony Abbott eats an onion. Just because.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott
  1. Abolishes key ministerial positions of climate change and science – 16 September 2013
  2. Abolishes the Climate Commission – 19 September 2013
  3. Denies there is a link between climate change and more severe bush fires and accuses a senior UN official of “talking through their hat” – 23 October 2013
  4. Abolishes the Antarctic Animal Ethics Committee which ensured research on animals in the Antarctic complies with Australian standards – 8 November 2013
  5. Cuts 600 jobs at the CSIRO – 8 November 2013
  6. Abandons Australia’s emission reduction targets – 12 November, 2013
  7. Downgrades national environment laws by giving approval powers to state premiers – 9 December 2013
  8. Removes the community’s right to challenge decisions where the government has ignored expert advice on threatened species impacts – 9 December 2013
  9. Approves the largest coal port in the world in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area – 10 December 2013
  10. Approves Clive Palmer’s mega coal mine in the Galilee Basin which opponents say will severely damage Great Barrier Reef – 11 December 2013
  11. Overturns the “critically endangered” listing of the Murray Darling Basin – 11 December 2013
  12. Scraps the COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water – 13 December 2013
  13. Starts dismantling Australia’s world leading marine protection system – 13 December 2013
  14. Axes funding for animal welfare – 17 December 2013
  15. Defunds the Environmental Defenders Office which is a network of community legal centres providing free advice on environmental law – 17 December 2013
  16. Scraps the Home Energy Saver Scheme which helps struggling low income households cut their electricity bills – 17 December 2013
  17. Cuts funding to the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Programme which makes it mandatory for large energy-using-businesses to improve their efficiency –17 December, 2013
  18. Requests the delisting of World Heritage status for Tasmanian forests – 21 December 2013
  19. Breaks his promise to provide a customs vessel to monitor whaling operations in the Southern Ocean – 23 December 2013
  20. Defunds all international environmental programs, the International Labour Organisation and cuts funding to a range of international aid programs run by NGOs such as Save the Children, Oxfam, CARE Australia and Caritas – 18 January 2014
  21. Exempts Western Australia from national environment laws to facilitate shark culling – 21 January 2014
  22. Appoints a climate change skeptic to head a review of our renewable energy target – 17 February 2014
  23. Blames carbon pricing for the closure of Alcoa smelters and rolling mills and the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs, despite the fact the company states it had no bearing on their decision – 19 February 2014
  24. Axes funding earmarked to save the Sumatran rhinoceros from extinction – 28 February 2014
  25. Cuts hundreds of jobs at the CSIRO – 14 March 2014
  26. Cuts 480 jobs from the Environment Department which help protect places such as Kakadu, Antarctica and the Great Barrier Reef – 7 April 2014
  27. Scraps the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) which was set up to support new and emerging renewable technologies and in doing so breaks an election promise – 13 May 2014
  28. Axes industry and community clean energy programs including the Low Emissions Technology Demonstration Fund, the National Low Emission Coal Initiative, Energy Efficiency Programmes, the National Solar Schools Plan, Energy Efficiency Information Grants and Low Carbon Communities – 13 May 2014
  29. Cuts Australia’s Animal Welfare Strategy – 13 May 2014
  30. Rips a further $111.4 million over four years out of the operating budget of the CSIRO – 13 May 2014
  31. Reduces funding to the Australian Institute for Marine Science – 13 May 2014
  32. Breaks a promise to have one million more solar roofs across Australia and at least 25 solar towns – 13 May 2014
  33. Breaks a promise to spend $2.55 billion on the Emissions Reduction Fund by committing less than half this amount in the budget – 13 May 2014
  34. Terminates the Office of Water Science research programme – 13 May, 2014
  35. Slashes the Biodiversity Fund – 13 May, 2014
  36. Scraps the National Water Commission – 13 May, 2014
  37. Axes the carbon tax with no viable policy to address climate change or Australia’s emission targets – 17 July, 2014
  38. Repeals the mining tax on the profits of big coal and iron ore companies – 2 September 2014
  39. Cuts spending on science and innovation to the lowest levels since the data was first published – 07 October, 2014
  40. Describes coal as “good for humanity” while opening a coal mine in Queensland – 13 October, 2014
  41. Refuses to contribute to the fund Green Climate Fund, which Abbott described the year before as “socialism masquerading as environmentalism” – 17 November, 2014
  42. Cuts  CSIRO funding, which means that CSIRO will lose 1/5 of its workforce  – 24 November, 2014
  43. Cuts the Climate Adaptation Outlook Independent Expert Group – 15 December 2014
  44. Cuts the Biological Diversity Advisory Committee – 15 December 2014
  45. Abolishes the Subcommittee on Animal Health Laboratory Standards – 15 December 2014
  46. Abolishes the Antarctic Science Advisory Committee – 15 December 2014
  47. Abolishes the Emissions Intensive–-Trade Exposed Expert Advisory Committee –15 December 2014
  48. Disbands the Commonwealth Environmental Water Stakeholder Reference Panel – 15 December 2014
  49. Abolishes the COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water – 15 December 2014
  50. Abolishes the Bureau of Meteorology Water Accounting Standards Board – 15 December 2014
  51. Abolishes the National Marine Mammal Scientific Committee – 15 December 2014
  52. Disbands the National Marine Mammal Advisory Committee – 15 December 2014
  53. Abolishes the National Landscapes Reference Committee – 15 December 2014
  54. Abolishes the Technical Advisory Committee for the Coal Mining Abatement Technology Support Package – 15 December 2014
  55. Abolishes the Marine Council – 15 December 2014
  56. Appoints a climate skeptic who praised Rupert Murdoch as the “starting point for green innovation” to the position of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment – 21 December 2014
  57. Cuts $12.5 million from the National Heritage Trust – 12 May 2015
  58. Establishes a Commissioner for Wind Farms – 24 June 2015
  59. Slashes the renewable energy target – 24 June 2015
  60. Intense lobbying keeps Great Barrier Reef off UNESCO’s world heritage in-danger list despite many government decisions which threaten it – 2 July 2015
  61. Directs the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to stop investing in wind power – 12 July 2015
  62. Bans the Clean Energy Finance Corporation from investing in roof top solar panels and other small scale solar energy – 12 July 2015
  63. Reduces Australia’s carbon emissions reduction target – 11 August 2015
  64. Tries to introduce laws to stop citizens exercising their legal rights to stop big developments that damage the environment – 19 August 2015
Former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (IMAGE: Veni, Flickr).
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
  1. Approves Carmichael coal mine – 16 October 2015
  2. Environment Minister Greg Hunt claims selling India Australian coal will cut carbon emissions – 10 Dec 2015
  3. Approves Abbot Point Coal Terminal expansion – 22 December 2015
  4. Presides over a drop in Australia’s ranking on the Environmental Performance Index of 10 places – 28 January 2016
  5. Approves logging in Murray Valley National Park – 28 February 2016
  6. Tries to loan Adani $1 billion to build a railway link to the Carmichael mine and promises to “fix” native title problems – 11 April 2017
  7. Describes Labor’s emissions trading scheme as “jobs destroying”, a handbrake on the economy, leading to “much higher energy prices.” – 27 April 2016
  8. Says coal will be important for “many, many decades to come” – 25 October 2016
  9. Seeks changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to stop conservation groups challenging environmental ministerial decisions – October 31, 2016
  10. Says “if anyone had a vested interest in showing you that you could do really smart, clean things with coal, it would be us” – 1 February, 2017
  11. Opens $5 billion infrastructure fund for “clean-coal” power stations – 3 February 2017
  12. Hires Sid Marris, former head of climate and environment at the Minerals Council of Australia, to be his climate and energy adviser – 3 February 2017
  13. Scott Morrison brings a lump of coal to question time and says “This is coal. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be scared.” – 9 February 2017
  14. Ignores advice that renewable energy was not to blame for South Australian blackouts – 13 February 2017
  15. Oversees 3.4% rise in emissions within 12 months and 7.5% increase since the Abbott-Turnbull government scrapped the carbon price – 01 March 2017
  16. Diverts funds from Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund coal with carbon capture and storage – 31 May 2017
  17. Stops releasing pollution data that used to be announced on a quarterly basis – 7 July 2017
  18. Attacks South Australian renewable energy policy as “ideology and idiocy in equal measure” – 14 August 2017
  19. Lobbies AGL to delay closure of ageing Liddell coal power station for another five years – 5 September 2017
  20. Dumps Clean Energy Target – 17 October 2017
  21. Plans to reduce environmental spending to less than 60% of 2013-2014 budget – 13 December 2017
  22. Data released in the week before Christmas shows highest greenhouse gas emissions on record when land use change emissions excluded – 19 December 2017
  23. This data shows emissions increasing to 2030 and beyond – 19 December 2017
  24. Declares climate policies are a big success – 19 December 2017
  25. Climate policy review loosens the safeguard mechanism that sets limits on pollution – 19 December 2017
  26. Government fails to list a single piece of critical habitat for protection despite 1800 species and ecological communities being identified as threatened in Australia – 6 Match 2018
  27. Backs Pauline Hanson’s motion for new coal-fired power stations – 27 June 2018
  28. Turnbull’s signature emissions reduction policy, the National Energy Guarantee, described as having ‘no benefit’ to emissions – 18 July 2018.
  29. Personally approves $443m fund for Great Barrier Reef Foundation, an organisation with ties to BHP, Shell and Peabody Energy – 31 July 2018.
  30. Removes emissions reduction target from National Energy Guarantee – 20 August 1018
Scott Morrison is sworn in as the 30th Australian Prime Minister.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison
  1. Appoints Angus Taylor, long-time campaigner against the Renewable Energy Target and a fierce critic of wind energy, as Minister for Energy – 26 August 2018
  2. Appoints Melissa Price, a former general counsel for Crosslands Resources, which owns the Jack Hills iron ore project in Western Australia, as Minister for the Environment – 26 August 2018
  3. Appoints Matt Canavan, who doubts the importance of climate change mitigation and is a strong advocate of Adani’s Carmichael coal mine but dismisses the battery storage facility, the Hornsdale Power Reserve, as the “Kim Kardashian of the energy world”, as Minister for Resources – 26 August 2018
  4. Angus Taylor indicates more taxpayer money for existing coal and gas – 30 August 2018
  5. Revealed that the Marine Park Authority had to scale back surveys in 2017, a year of massive coral bleaching, due to lack of government funds – 2 September 2018
  6. Angus Taylor says there is too much wind and solar in the electricity grid – 5 September 2018
  7. Tries to water down climate change resolution at Pacific Islands forum – 6 September 2018
  8. Union tells Senate inquiry that 87% of members who work in threatened species management in the environment department and other government agencies thought Australia’s effectiveness in protecting critical habitat was poor or very poor – 7 September 2018
  9. Resources Minister Matt Canavan says Paris agreement “doesn’t actually bind us to anything in particular” and doesn’t stop Australia building new coal plants – 7 September 2018
  10. PM says National Energy Guarantee “is dead” – 8 September 2018
  11. Tony Abbott advocates scrapping of renewable energy subsidies – 11 September 2018
  12. Report shows Australia’s transport emissions rose 3.4% from December 2016-December 2017 – 13 September 2018
  13. Angus Taylor announces Morrison government won’t be replacing the renewable energy target “with anything” beyond 2020 – 18 September 2018
  14. Approves private tourism development with helicopter access in Tasmanian world heritage wilderness – 31 August 2018
  15. Morrison says Australia will meet its Paris emissions targets “at a canter” despite no emissions reductions policies and statements from the Energy Security Board to the contrary – 5 September 2018
  16. Australia receives bottom three ranking for environmental policy among wealthy nations – 18 September 2018
  17. Government tells Great Barrier Reef scientists to focus on projects which make the government look good and encourage more corporate donations – 26 September 2018
  18. Releases data showing March quarter increase in emissions of 1.3% on a Friday afternoon, which was a public holiday in Victoria and the same day as the release of the banking sector royal commission interim report – 28 September 2018
  19. Describes $444m Great Barrier Reef Foundation grant as the “right financial decision” – 1 October 2018.
  20. Data reveals 770,000 hectares (three times the size of the ACT) of forests in the Great Barrier Reef catchment zone have been cleared since Tony Abbott was elected in 2013 – 4 October 2018.
  21. Senate inquiry into threatened species told Australia’s environment laws have been “white-anted with loopholes” and hears of “massive and pervasive non-compliance with legislation” – 8 October 2018
  22. PM rules out providing more money for global climate conferences and “all that sort of nonsense”– 8 October 2018
  23. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack says Australia should “absolutely use and exploit its coal reserves” despite IPCC warnings of climate catastrophe and says Australia wouldn’t change climate policy because of “some sort of report” – 9 October 2018
  24. Matt Canavan responds to the IPCC calls for phasing out coal by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change by saying “many argue that coal markets are in structural decline when nothing could be further from the truth” and “our coal is the envy of the world and we should promote it proudly” – 9 October 2018
  25. Melissa Price responds to the IPCC report by saying “every year there’s new technology with respect to coal and what it contributes to emissions. So I think to say it’s got to be phased out by 2050 is drawing a very long bow” – 9 October 2018
  26. Angus Taylor says the government would “not be distracted from our goal of lowering power prices for Australian households and small business” and “coal will continue to play a vital role in our energy mix, now and into the future” – 10 October 2018
  27. Former Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg responded to the grave IPCC warnings with “If we take coal out of our energy system, the lights will go out on the East Coast of Australia” – 9 October 2018
  28. Chairman of Coalition’s backbench energy committee Craig Kelly says the government needs to axe renewable energy subsidies – 16 October 2018
  29. Melissa Price reported to have told the former president of Kiribati at a dinner in Canberra ““I know why you are here, it’s for the cash. For the Pacific, it’s always about the cash. I have my cheque book here, how much do you want?” then accused of misleading Parliament over it – 17 October 2018
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19/10/2018

Pacific Nations Aren’t Cash-Hungry, Minister, They Just Want Action On Climate Change

The Conversation - 

Environment Minister Melissa Price is accused of insulting Kiribati’s former president, saying he was only in Australia “for the cash”. Lukas Coch/AAP
Environment Minister Melissa Price has been trending on Twitter this week – and not for any good environmental reasons.
Price was introduced to the former president of Kiribati, Anote Tong, during a dinner at a Canberra restaurant hosted by Labor Senator Pat Dodson. Tong has brought global attention to his country because of the existential challenges it faces from climate change and rising sea levels.
According to Dodson, Price made what many have deemed an insulting comment to Tong:
I know why you’re here. It’s for the cash. For the Pacific it’s always about the cash. I have my chequebook here. How much do you want?
Others at the restaurant verified Dodson’s version of the incident. For his part, Tong said he has some hearing problems and others closer to Price could better hear what she said.

IMAGE

My response on Twitter was that in Kiribati, it’s rude to call out bad behaviour in public.
Maybe Price thought she was making a good Aussie joke. Or maybe she’d observed other members of her party laughing at the expense of the Pacific and wanted to crack one like the rest of the boys.
Peter Dutton’s foray into comedy in 2015 springs to mind. In response to a quip by then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott about how islanders are not good at being on time, Dutton said:
Time doesn’t mean anything when you’re about to have water lapping at your door.
Water lapping at the door apparently doesn’t translate into concern over climate change and global warming – a matter of urgency for the low-lying island nations in the Pacific.
Rather than share the concerns of Pacific leaders on this issue, some Australian politicians have chosen to trivialise them and accuse Pacific nations of only being interested in a cash grab.
Just last month, Liberal Senator Ian Macdonald also accused Pacific nations of swindling money from Australia to address the effects of rising sea levels. The Sydney Morning Herald reported him saying:
They might be Pacific islanders, but there’s no doubting their wisdom and their ability to extract a dollar where they see it.
If Macdonald had been listening to the Canberra speech last month by Dame Meg Taylor, the secretary-general of the Pacific Islands Forum, he would have heard a very different message:
It is absolutely essential that we work together to move the discussion with Australia to develop a pathway that will minimise the impacts of climate change for the future of all … including Australia.
So far this call has fallen on deaf ears.

Australia’s history of phosphate extraction
Australians know well how polite and friendly Pacific people are. Flights to Fiji during school holidays are packed with families seeking sun, sand and true island hospitality. But both the shallow view of the Pacific as a paradise, and political slurs of cash-hungry islanders, reveal a deep Australian ignorance of Pacific histories, environments, peoples and cultural values, and of Australia’s projects of colonial extraction in the region.
For over a century, Australia has had an intense social and cultural relationship with Oceania, paralleling its economic and geo-strategic interests, and not just with Papua New Guinea or Melanesian states.
From the start of the 20th century, Australian mining companies began extracting phosphate as fast as they could from Nauru and Banaba island (in what is now Kiribati) in order to grow the country’s agricultural industry.
Australian mining officials and workers on Banaba. National Archives of Australia/Author provided
And grow it did, exponentially, while consuming the landscapes of much smaller Pacific islands. Pacific phosphate – and the superphosphate fertiliser it produced – was the magic dust of Australian agriculture. Little could have been grown here without it, as Australia has always been “a continent of soils with a low plant nutrient supply”.
But decades of phosphate mining on Banaba stripped away about 90% of the island’s surface. By the late 1970s, when the mining operations ended, 22 million tons of land had been removed. The island wasn’t rehabilitated and all the mining infrastructure was left to rust and decay.
Many Banabans were relocated to Rabi Island in Fiji over the years, including my grandfather. It was a migration that foreshadows future relocations that many Pacific islanders face due to climate change.
It’s hypocritical for Australian leaders to accuse the Pacific of being solely after money, when Australia exploited Banaba and other Pacific islands in this way. At a time, when the future of many Pacific nations is under threat, a little compassion, responsibility and real action on climate change is in order, not jokes or barbs at islanders’ expense.

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