01/02/2020

(AU) Bushfire Survivors Join Claim Against ANZ For Financing Climate Crisis

The Guardian - 

Three survivors joined Friends of the Earth to accuse ANZ of misleading consumers by investing in fossil fuel projects
One survivor, Jack Egan, claims there is a clear link between ANZ’s support for fossil fuels and the exacerbated bushfires conditions. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
Three bushfire survivors have joined environment group Friends of the Earth in a legal claim against ANZ, accusing it of financing the climate crisis by funding fossil fuel projects.
The case, lodged under international guidelines agreed by members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), demands the bank disclose its greenhouse gas emissions, including “scope three” emissions resulting from its business lending and investment portfolio, and set ambitious targets that align with the Paris climate agreement.
The claim was inspired by a successful complaint against ING bank in the Netherlands by Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and Greenpeace. Mediation following that complaint led to ING committing to measure and publish its indirect emissions, reduce its thermal coal exposure to near zero by 2025 and make its portfolio consistent with the Paris goal of keeping global heating well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.
The complainants in the ANZ claim include Jack Egan, who was approached by Friends of the Earth to join the action after his home near Batemans Bay, on the New South Wales coast, was destroyed on New Year’s Eve.
Egan said there was a clear link between ANZ and other institution’s ongoing support of fossil fuels and the extreme hot and dry conditions that exacerbated the fire that left him homeless. “We are not seeking damages or compensation from ANZ, I just want them to stop fuelling dangerous climate change,” he said.
Friends of the Earth announced the action at a protest outside ANZ headquarters in Melbourne’s Docklands. It lodged the claim with the federal government’s OECD national contact point, a section of the federal treasury responsible for hearing complaints of corporate wrongdoing under the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
The national contact point’s initial role is to attempt to broker a mediation between the parties. If agreement cannot be reached, it can make recommendations, but cannot force parties to take action. ANZ declined to comment on Thursday.
The environment group alleges ANZ’s breaches of the OECD guidelines include misleading consumers by claiming to support the Paris agreement targets while continuing to invest in projects that undermine the meeting of those targets.
Emila Nazari, a legal officer with Friends of the Earth, said the bank had increased investment in coal 34% over the past two years as it lent $8.8bn to the fossil fuel sector. She said the bank was Australia’s largest financier of fossil fuel industries, and continued to invest billions of dollars in “climate wrecking projects” while bushfires raged across Australia.
“It is illegal for someone to light a bushfire, and we believe it is illegal for companies to finance the burning of our common home. This case is one of many to come against climate criminals,” Nazari said.
The other names attached to the action are Joanna Dodds, a Bega Valley Shire councillor and member of the group Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, and Patrick Simons, a Friends of the Earth renewable energy campaigner whose family lost their home in NSW.

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(AU) Getting Down To The Business Of Evolving Australia's Climate Policy

Sydney Morning Herald - Innes Willox*

Scorched by unprecedented bushfires, our nation badly needs a global solution to climate change.
Evolving emissions policy, as the Prime Minister  has suggested, can deliver a more ambitious,  durable and trade-neutral approach, and get investment flowing to the industry and the infrastructure we need for a prosperous future.
Success requires clarity about what we’re trying to do, and smart policy design that suits the enduring needs of the community and industry.
The fire threat will become inescapably worse in a warming climate, but what if global temperatures rise by 3C rather than the target of 1.5C? Credit: Nick Moir
Many fear that the recent fires are the "new normal". The truth seems to be both better and worse than that. The specific circumstances that produced the most dire bushfire season in recorded Australian history won’t recur every year.
But an underlying increase in average temperatures and shift in rainfall patterns has made more severe bushfires more likely. That shift is guaranteed to deteriorate.
Australia is currently dealing with a 1C increase in global average temperatures over pre-industrial levels. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to keep the total increase to no more than 1.5C – with significantly greater impacts than today and requiring difficult, costly adaptation.
But the initial set of commitments that nations have made under Paris puts us on course for 3C or more.
Global central banks say that would seriously threaten the world economy. It is absolutely true that Australia (which accounted for 1.1 per cent of global emissions in 2016) can’t halt climate change alone. Nor can China (23.5 per cent), the United States (11.8 per cent) or the European Union (7.3 per cent).
Collectively, emitters of Australia’s size or smaller account for more than 30 per cent.
It takes ambitious action by all countries to achieve a net-zero-emissions world. The logic of Paris is for nations to commit to the greatest action they can, then keep upgrading those commitments towards net zero as mutual confidence grows and technology improves.
Australia’s national interest lies in everyone driving that positive spiral by going beyond minimalist compliance with current commitments. If we don’t lift our weight, it takes the moral and political pressure off emitters of all sizes and makes a global solution much harder.
We can contribute by charting our own course to net-zero emissions by 2050, backing it with policies that preserve equity and competitiveness, and co-operating internationally to improve technology and promote success.
Australia has many places to start. The federal government is developing a long-term emissions strategy, an electric vehicle strategy and a technology roadmap, it has options to expand its investment in clean innovation.
The states all target net-zero by 2050 and are developing plans to deliver; greater co-operation and co-ordination on those plans is needed.
The next integrated system plan for the national electricity market will be finalised in June. Internationally, Australia has joined a collaboration on harder-to-decarbonise industrial sectors, and Britain is asking all nations to bring deeper emissions commitments to the Glasgow climate summit in November.
Policy-making needs a clear sense of what matters and what doesn’t. Being seen to "do something" is not enough. Quality matters.
The policy principles offered by the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Climate Roundtable – a broad alliance of major Australian business, environmental, farmer, investor, union and social welfare groups – should guide any policy. It covers environmental integrity, economic efficiency, trade competitiveness, social equity and more.
Electricity is already transitioning, but badly needs clear, integrated, long-term climate policy to attract sufficient investment to meet our needs and support net zero. But the rest of the economy accounts for two-thirds of Australian emissions and needs workable pathways too.
Trade matters. Losing competitiveness via uneven international climate policies has long been our greatest reservation about Australian efforts. Different trade risks are now also opening up: Europe pushes climate in trade deals, and is developing a carbon border adjustment – potentially, tariffs on carbon-intensive imports.
Smart policy design can manage these trade risks, allowing Australia to show leadership while maintaining competitiveness. Some current shibboleths may be dispensable. Carry-over credits for past over-performance don’t help with the long-term transition to net zero, and controversy over them threatens to shut Australia out of international co-operation.


The RBA is warning climate change could lead to the next global financial break down.

The aversion to a carbon price should be rethought. What justifies it today beyond the inertia of past politics? Carbon prices are key policies for major economies on every continent except Antarctica – and Australia.
An emissions trading scheme for China’s huge power sector starts this year.
Should Australia rely solely on government regulation and public spending to reform our economy? Many different pricing models are available, not only those developed by former prime ministers John Howard, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
We need creative thinking. The fate of Australia’s fossil fuel exports lies ultimately with our  customers’ decisions about their energy systems in light of changing technology and preferences.
We need to be ready for those decisions.
The recently announced national hydrogen strategy is a great first step towards an economic hedge. It is an industry whose growth prospects are the inverse of the expected long-term decline in fossil exports in a world that successfully limits climate change.
The trauma and tragedy of the bushfire crisis is shaking climate politics and policy out of its rut.
Evolution is needed.
And all of us have a responsibility to shape it.

*Innes Willox is the chief executive of the Australian Industry Group.

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Trust Our Expertise Or Face Catastrophe, Amazon Peoples Warn On Environment

The Guardian - 

Indigenous leader urges focus on native knowledge as study shows rainforest areas under tribal stewardship manage carbon better
Amazon-based indigenous leader Tuntiak Katan. Photograph: Courtesy of Tuntiak Katan
Ecosystems will continue to collapse around the world unless humanity listens to the expertise of indigenous communities on how to live alongside nature, a prominent Amazon leader has warned.
Tuntiak Katan of the Ecuadorian Shuar people, who is vice-president of the pan-Amazon organisation representing communities in the river basin, said governments were spending millions of dollars on environmental consultants while largely ignoring the land management skills of the planet’s indigenous people that could help combat the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
Speaking to the Guardian from the Ecuadorian Amazon, Katan, who became the first indigenous representative at a UN climate action summit last year, said environmental “catastrophes” such as the fires that devastated the world’s largest rainforest in 2019 would continue unless the contributions and human rights of indigenous people were respected.
Indigenous communities support around 80% of the planet’s biodiversity despite accounting for less than one twentieth of the human population, according to the World Bank.
Katan’s warning came as a new study revealed that parts of the Amazon rainforest under the stewardship of indigenous peoples sequester carbon better than areas with little protection, leading to less deforestation and degradation.
“We are the defenders of nature, of the life of the forests, of our territories,” said Katan, vice-president of Coordinator of the Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin (Coica). “The world is investing lots of money to implement public policy to combat climate change, help conservation and restoration. But these policies are made in offices by technical experts with little or no knowledge of the Earth.”
Biodiversity loss was named as the third biggest risk to the world in terms of likelihood and severity this year by the World Economic Forum, ahead of terror attacks, infectious diseases and interstate conflict.
Children from the Huni Kuin tribe on land ravaged by the 2019 Amazon fires. Photograph: David Tesinsky/Mediadrumimages
Despite the concerns expressed by the global elite in Davos, there was no indigenous representation at last week’s forum in the Swiss ski resort, according to Katan. He said he would welcome the opportunity to attend next year’s forum to outline an indigenous economic model based on maintaining the health of the world’s soils, rivers and the forest.
“If the proposals, knowledge and management practices of indigenous people are not listened to, there will be more big catastrophes. The issue of fires in the Amazon will continue, the degradation of forests and water will continue, deforestation will continue,” Katan added.
This month, the UN unveiled the draft of a Paris-style agreement on nature calling for a commitment to protect at least 30% of the planet, dramatically reduce pollution and promote the participation and practices of indigenous people.
Katan said: “We are well-coordinated with our brothers and sisters from Indonesia, the Congo, communities in the Arctic and from the Pacific. We’ve been discussing issues with our brothers and sisters from all parts of the world.
“In Indonesia, for example, they also have a lot of knowledge about how to manage tropical forests. But the same story is being repeated here as in other parts of the world: the lack of recognition of their knowledge and the lack of respect for the human rights of indigenous populations.”
Anti-indigenous sentiment is increasing in some parts of the planet. This month activists said they would sue Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro for his latest racist comments in which he questioned the humanity of indigenous communities.
In one of his weekly Facebook broadcasts, Bolsonaro declared: “Indians are undoubtedly changing … They are increasingly becoming human beings just like us.”
A person holds cardboard crosses that read ‘indigenous land’ during a protest against budget cuts on public education by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP
The new study from the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, found that between 2003 and 2016, 90% of net emissions came from outside protected lands in the Amazon.
Scientist and lead author Wayne Walker said: “Our work shows that forests under the stewardship of indigenous peoples and local communities continue to have better carbon outcomes than lands lacking protection, meaning that their role is critical and must be strengthened if Amazon basin countries are to succeed in maintaining this globally important resource, while also achieving their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement.”
The findings add weight to the recommendations of a report on land use and the climate crisis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found that areas held or managed by indigenous peoples had much less human impact on the environment.
The report also highlighted the lack of consideration of indigenous views and knowledge in understanding large regions and ecosystems.

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31/01/2020

(AU) Morrison Questions Importance Of Global Climate Treaties, To Treat Symptoms Of Climate Change

RenewEconomy - 

AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has appeared to downplay the importance of major international climate change agreements in a speech to the National Press Club, that further flags his intention to focus on treating the symptoms of climate change, rather than addressing the cause.
Morrison used his speech to outline how his government will respond to the ongoing bushfire crisis and renewed calls for the government to increase action on climate change by focusing on resilience and adaptation.
“This summer is the latest chapter in the often harsh realities of living in this amazing continent. Building our national resilience means building our ability to resist, absorb, accommodate, recover, and transform in the face of such events,” Morrison said.
“And this includes the effects of longer, hotter, drier summers. Practical action on mitigation through reduced emissions needs to go hand in hand with practical action on climate resilience and adaptation.”
Despite dedicating a substantial portion of his speech speaking about the Coalition government’s need to work to adapt and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change, Morrison offered no new commitments from the governments in terms of policy or funding.
The speech further signals an intention to focus attention on the responses to the impacts and symptoms of climate change, rather than taking preventative action by accelerating reductions in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging other countries to do the same.
“Even under the most ambitious global emissions reductions targets, mitigation and adaptation both contribute to resilience. Mitigation reduces the risk and adaptation is how we prepare for the climate risk we cannot reduce.”
“We have to give them the room to adjust and not cut off response options like in gas exploration and development that help them move forward. The answer is not more taxes, and increased global bureaucracy,” Morrison added.
While Morrison is adopting a new rhetoric, with a seemingly greater focus on building resilience to climate change fuelled disasters like bushfires and drought, the Coalition government has a long track record of cutting funding to climate change adaptation bodies.
The Coalition ceased funding to the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility in 2017, a dedicated body established to examine how Australia can adapt to climate change. The Coalition also significantly cut funding to the CSIRO, leading to the science body cutting back its climate adaptation and resilience research.
A 2017 report from Deloitte Access Economics estimated that the average annual cost of natural disasters to the Australian economy in the decade to 2016 was $18.2 billion per year, or the equivalent to 1.2% of average gross domestic product. Deloitte expects the economic cost to grow to $39 billion per year on average by 2050, as the impacts of climate change continue to grow.
Despite this, in his speech Morrison suggested it was potentially futile for Australia to try and force other countries to reduce their emissions, and promoted the often repeated message of the coal lobby that Australia is doing the world a service by selling its coal to other countries.
“Of course, we know that Australia on its own cannot control the world’s climate as Australia accounts for just 1.3 per cent of global emissions. We also know that no fire event can be attributed to the actions of any one country on emissions reduction,” Morrison said.
“You will not reduce the number of coal-fired power stations in the world by forcing the shutdown of Australian coal mines in Australia and jobs that go with them,” Morrison added. “Other countries will just buy the coal from somewhere else, often poor quality with greater environmental and climate impacts.”
The National Press Club speech was Morrison’s first major speech of 2020, and the Prime Minister will hope it will help set the agenda before federal Parliament resumes in early February, after his leadership attracted immense scrutiny over a challenging summer for much of Australia.
It was a speech that was quickly slammed by environmental groups, who see the shift in focus from the Morrison government as being intended as a tactic to distract from the need to phase-out Australia’s coal industry.
“We know that climate change has exacerbated Australia’s current bushfire crisis, and yet the Prime Minister is now calling to add more fossil fuels to the fire,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s Dr Nikola Casule said.
“This is yet another move in a string of logic-defying false solutions to the climate crisis proposed by the Prime Minister, instead of meaningfully committing to reduce Australia’s emissions, which are driven by burning coal, oil and gas.”
“No amount of resilience building or adaptation will prepare Australia for the full brunt of global warming of 3 degrees or more – which is the trajectory we are on,” Australian Conservation Foundation’s climate change campaigner Suzanne Harter added.
Morrison appeared to question the value of global climate change agreements, like the Paris Agreement, reached in 2016, by suggesting they were too soft on some countries, and therefore it wasn’t worth Australia attempting to any additional heavy lifting to reduce global emissions.
“Agreements globally actually endorse massive increases in emissions, some from some of the world’s largest and growing economies. So understandably, this test the patience of people in countries like Australia, particularly in regional areas who asked the question, ‘why does their job have to be exported and their incomes exported to other countries?’, Morrison said.
“While global emissions under those arrangements are allowed to rise for so many, these contradictions and limitations need to be acknowledged.”
Underlining this, Morrison went on to praise the United States for the emissions reductions it has achieved, largely driven by a move towards gas away from coal, despite the Trump administration’s plans to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
“It’s worth noting that the United States has achieved higher rights of emissions reduction than many of the nations that are signatories to the Paris Agreement,” Morrison said.
“All of this is the climate action we need now, building dams, developing new crop varieties, improving planning for natural disasters is climate action now, the science tells us the effects of emissions already in the atmosphere will continue to be filled in coming decades,” Morrison told the National Press Club.
Morrison was greeted at the National Press Club by protesters from the Canberra University Students for Climate Justice, who called on the Prime Minister to ramp up the federal government’s efforts on climate change and clean energy.
“We need an immediate and rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Firefighting services and the cost of the recovery, including compensation for victims, should be paid for by the fossil fuel companies that caused this catastrophe,” coordinator Grace Hill said.

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Quiet Australians Decide It Is Time To Speak Up On Climate Change Action

ABC News - Tracy Bowden

Rod and Margot Cunich hold vigils outside Dave Sharma's electoral office. (Supplied: Simon Cunich)
Key points
  • Concern about climate change has become a key political issue for a growing number Australians
  • A perceived lack of government action has prompted many people to protest for the first time in their lives
  • Many new demonstrators are looking for an alternative to rowdy mass demonstrations
For the first time in his life, semi-retired lawyer Rod Cunich is so angry about a political issue he feels he needs to take action.
Concern about climate change has prompted him and his GP wife Margot to take to the streets.
"We decided we need to stand up and try to motivate people who ordinarily wouldn't be motivated, those quiet people who sit by, are concerned and do nothing," he told 7.30.
"I hope it is going to bring people like us, what we call quiet Australians, to ask their local members … to advocate for us and ask for proper climate change policy," Margot Cunich added.
They are just two of an emerging group of new activists.

'Ordinary Australians'
Rob Henderson's placard among other signs at the vigil. (Supplied: Simon Cunich)
It was a smoky summer holiday, as bushfires raged on the south coast of New South Wales, that sparked the Cunichs into action.
"We spent the whole ten days being locked inside because of smoke and then our PM being overseas and coming back and down-playing the role of climate change in the fires," Mr Cunich said.
But the couple was looking for an alternative to the large, often rowdy, protests being staged on the issue.
They organised a quiet protest outside the office of their federal MP, Liberal member Dave Sharma, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
"I look at the protests and I think, they're young activists or old activists who can be easily dismissed as ratbags doing their own thing, we can ignore them. And I've been guilty of that," he said.
"We want to distinguish ourselves from those groups and say, look, we're just ordinary Australians, we're not radical but our votes count."
The self-described swinging voter took out an ad promoting the vigil in his local newspaper and set up a Facebook page.
There were many messages of support in response, but they also struck major opposition from climate change deniers.
"I haven't had a death threat but a lot of things not far short of that," Mr Cunich said.
On the day, more than 250 people turned up, many of them taking part in something like it for the very first time.
"I saw the note going out about quiet Australians and I thought, there's no excuse for not showing up," demonstrator Kirsten Dreese told 7.30.
"If you're quiet, if you're an introvert like me, we should all be doing something."
Rob Henderson was another novice protester.
"It's a first for me holding up a placard, that's for sure," he told 7.30, while holding up a sign reading, "Quiet Australians sick of hot air".

A growing issue
Erin Remblance has become an active climate change protester because of her three children. (ABC News: Nikki Tugwell)


Erin Remblance, a mother of three young children, has also decided to take action, but in a different way.
Two years ago, she knew little about the details of climate change.
"I wouldn't have even described myself as being an environmentalist or a [greenie]," she told 7.30.
"I'd never been to a protest, that wasn't my style."
But, now she's attended a series of major protests and strikes in Sydney and has made practical changes to reduce the family's carbon emissions.
"I assumed [climate change] was being looked after. I wrongly assumed the governments would look after us and do the things that were right," she said.
  10 years of climate policy inertia
Ten years ago one man's plan blew apart Australia's two great parties irrevocably just as they teetered toward consensus on climate change, the most divisive issue of the Australian political century.
"Now I've become aware that actually that's not happening and there needs to be more leadership on this issue.
"I'm fighting for my children's futures."
The latest survey by research group IPSOS shows a jump in concern for the environment.
The proportion of Australians citing climate change as their key concern jumped from 24 per cent in May 2019 to 41 per cent in January this year, coming in ahead of issues such as healthcare and the cost of living.
Dan Evans from IPSOS says the research also shows a broader age group aware of the issue.
"Older Australians, the Boomer cohort, are becoming more concerned," Dan Evans from IPSOS told 7.30.
"But in a broad sense, everyone's a bit more concerned.
"At the federal election that was the fourth most important issue facing the nation, now it's clearly the top concern."

Is the Government doing enough?
The crowd outside Dave Sharma's electoral office demanding action on climate change. (Supplied: Simon Cunich)
Wentworth MP Dave Sharma declined 7.30's request for an interview.
But Prime Minister Scott Morrison has consistently said the Government is acting to reduce emissions and insists Australia will "meet and beat the emissions reduction targets".
Daniel Wild, from the free-market think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs, understands the demonstrators' concerns about the bushfires this summer but says the Government is already acting.
"One of the points these protesters seem to be making is that Australia isn't doing anything when it comes to reducing emissions," he told 7.30.
"Well, that's just not true.
"Australia has the deepest cuts to emissions per capita under the Paris (climate) Agreement, which is the Government's policy."
Rod and Margot Cunich don't believe it is enough.
They are planning quiet demonstrations every four weeks for as long as it takes and they want others across the nation to follow their lead.
"It's non-partisan, we don't care who the politician is," he said.
"Every single politician, in our view, should be taking climate change seriously and doing something about it."

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We Can’t Recall The Planet If We Mess Up: Climate Change Is Risky Business

Washington Post - Rob Motta | Jim White

A man stands in a flooded street in Miami on Sept. 10, 2017, as Hurricane Irma hits the area. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
If we handled climate risk the way that businesses manage risk every day, we would have tackled climate change a long, long time ago. But that’s not how we as a society are responding — even though the potential consequences are a lot worse than most business risks.
Consider how climate change risk is expressed in key reports like those from the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA) and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The NCA says there is at least a two-thirds chance that your asthma or hay fever will get worse because of climate change. There’s a more than 90 percent probability that extreme precipitation (think flooding) will increase in frequency and intensity. What about heat waves increasing? There’s a 99 percent probability. In fact, heat waves kill more people than any other weather-related event in the United States.
What about rising sea level? Under our current emissions trajectory, the NCA says there is a 2 in 3 chance that between $66 billion and $106 billion of real estate will be underwater by 2050. And we mean literally underwater.
How do we handle these risks from climate change? Not very well. We want more data, more proof that the risks are real before acting.
Let’s contrast that with how businesses handle risks. Companies would not be content with a 66 percent chance that a fire will start in their building, or a 66 percent chance that the wheels will fall off a new car they release to production. That’s an untenable level of risk.
How do we know this? Because we know of the tools companies use and the level of risk they are willing to tolerate. One tool used extensively is a Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). An FMEA is used to assess the risk of failure of every component in a product (like every bolt), and the consequences of that failure to the overall product (like the car).
The FMEA scale goes from 1 to 10, with 10 being worst case and one being what the engineers and designers shoot for. A 10 rating corresponds to a 10 percent or greater probability, a nine to a 5 percent probability and a two rating corresponds to a 0.0001 percent probability or lower. A one rating corresponds to zero probability. So the automotive designers strive for a 0.0001 percent probability of failure, or better. Wow! Meanwhile, we are talking 66 percent, 90 percent and 99 percent probabilities with climate change, and we have done little so far to mitigate these risks.
In contrast to the automotive world, it seems like we want climate scientists to strive for 100 percent certainty. It’s like saying, “I want you to be 100 percent certain the wheel is going to fall off my car before you take any action.”
Risk is generally expressed as the probability multiplied by the impact. It is the combination of these two variables that determines the level of risk. So a high probability risk with a small impact might not be a significant concern. But a high probability risk with big impact is a real problem.
The wheel falling off your car has a big impact. So is your house being underwater. In both cases, we want to drive the probability as low as possible. And there is one big difference between the wheel falling off your car and climate risk. When the auto company makes a mistake and a risk occurs, they can recall the vehicles and fix the problem. You cannot recall the sea lapping at your front door or the air that your asthmatic child is breathing.
It’s like we are speaking two different languages. I guess the risk of destroying the climate, and a good part of Earth, is not as worrisome to us as the risk to an individual car.
One of the most worrisome risks of all with climate change is that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets will start to collapse this century, triggering up to eight feet of rising sea level by 2100 and putting the fate of our low-lying coastal cities in peril. Can you imagine trying to relocate millions of people inland? How many people will suffer? Who will pay the cost?
What’s that probability? Nobody really knows for sure, but a recent survey of climate scientists who specialize in rising sea level put it at 5 percent. Multiply that by the cost of all the infrastructure in harm’s way. The same study indicated almost 200 million people would be displaced. Nothing to worry about, right? No need to take action.
Let us make it clear: We are not criticizing scientists for the way they express risks. We certainly want scientists to have high confidence before we accept a new wing design on a plane or that new prescription drug. But climate change is different. We have already gone way beyond what the business industry would react to. We can’t recall the planet if we mess up. So let’s get on with it and stop asking the scientists for ever higher certainty in their predictions. That’s a recipe for beyond disaster.

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30/01/2020

Top Academics Write To Morrison Government Asking For 'Deep Cuts' To Australia's Greenhouse Gas Emissions

ABC News - Michael Slezak

The academics have called Australia "ground zero" for climate impacts and climate policy uncertainty. (ABC News: Michael Barnett)
Key points
  • Australia's top academics say research has identified what technologies are needed to address the solution
  • Angus Taylor stands by the track record of the Federal Government on the issue
  • Researchers believe Australia can be a world leader on the issue if governments accept the need for action
Eighty of Australia's top academics have written an open letter declaring an "urgent need for deep cuts" to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions following the current unprecedented bushfire crisis.
The group of Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellows describe Australia as "ground zero for both climate impacts and climate policy uncertainty" and warn that without strong action on climate change, the world may not support human societies "in their current form and maintain human well-being".
They say research has identified what policies and technologies are needed to address the solution but "what is lacking is the courage to implement them at the required scale".
The letter calls on Australian governments to "acknowledge the gravity of the threat posed by climate change driven by human activities" and "reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to safeguard against catastrophe".
"We owe this to younger generations and those who come after them, who will bear the brunt of our decisions."
The letter, signed by 80 past and present ARC Laureate Fellows, notes that decades ago, scientists warned that the impacts we're seeing now, like the bushfire crisis, were coming.
It is only the second time the group of Australia's top academics have taken such action. The first was in December last year when 50 of them wrote in defence of whistleblowers who raised concerns about international students on ABC's Four Corners.

More than just fire management
The letter was coordinated by Professor Steven Sherwood, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, and includes top academics in fields including economics, healthcare, history and law, as well as many different scientific disciplines.
Professor Steven Sherwood has called for action on greenhouse gas emissions. (Supplied: UNSW)
"We're a small group that has been selected by the Australian Research Council as the top researchers in our respective fields," Professor Sherwood said.
"It's a good group to think about all aspects of the problem — it's not just a science problem. It's a problem that spans all of those areas."
They call on governments to do more than just focus on adaptation to future fires.
Adaptation isn't enough, they say, since the world is still warming and is "only at the beginning of the climate change phenomenon."
"The current impacts are happening with just one [degree] Celsius of global temperature increase, but we are set for the best part of another degree even if very strong international action is taken to reduce emissions."
"If strong action is not taken, environmental degradation and social disruption will be much greater and in many cases adaptation will no longer be achievable.
"It would be naive to assume that such a world will still support human societies in their current form and maintain human well-being."
Opportunity for Australia
The researchers note that Australia cannot fix the problem on its own, but argue Australia's "visibility as ground zero for both climate impacts and climate policy uncertainty" means we could become a leader on the issue."Doing so will aid our economy, strengthen our standing in international affairs and relations with neighbours, and help secure Australia and the world from the impacts of climate change."
Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor has backed the Morrison Government's record on climate change. (ABC News: Marco Catalano)
Professor Sherwood noted the transition could be painful for some communities and they will require assistance.
"For example, we probably need to provide economic support to coal-mining regions," Professor Sherwood said.
"Many mining jobs are set to disappear no matter what our governments do, so this would be a concern even if we didn't care about the planet's future."
The letter concludes: "We call on all governments to acknowledge the gravity of the threat posed by climate change driven by human activities, and to support and implement evidence-based policy responses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to safeguard against catastrophe.
"We owe this to younger generations and those who come after them, who will bear the brunt of our decisions."
"It's an urgent problem and a problem where the political sphere isn't moving fast enough," Professor Sherwood added.
In a statement, Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said the Federal Government has a track record of which "all Australians could be proud".
"We have beaten our first Kyoto target, we are on track to overachieve on our 2020 target by 411 Mt and the most recent projections published in December 2019 show we are on track to beat our 2030 target."

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Lethal Heating is a citizens' initiative