(AU SMH) Dangerous Disclosures: Risks Abound With ASX Climate Reporting

Sydney Morning Herald - Sarah Danckert

In January 2020, investment titan and Blackrock boss Larry Fink rocked the corporate world by using his yearly letter to the CEOs of large listed companies to call on groups to disclose their environmental credentials alongside a key global standard.

Many of Australia’s largest companies have spent the past two years improving their disclosure of environmental risks and governance to investors.

The pathway to net zero emissions by 2050 includes no new coal or gas developments from 2021.

This year, Coles Group has committed to deliver net zero emissions by 2050 and Santos has introduced new emissions reduction targets.

Macquarie Group has also joined a group of asset managers working towards “net zero”, though a recent report by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald questions how the financial behemoth would account for its investments in a wide range of funds exposed to the oil and gas industry.

Against this backdrop, a recent report by top corporate law firm King & Wood Mallesons into the environmental social corporate governance (ESG) disclosure practices of the ASX50 shows the huge steps forward in reporting by large corporates but also highlights the risks for companies delving into this area face.

The law firm, which has one of the biggest corporate advisory businesses in the country, found that 82 per cent of top ASX companies have taken on board the advice of the corporate watchdog and have started to report against a set of recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Will Heath, King & Wood Mallesons partner Mergers & Acquisitions

But despite this huge effort, there is a “mishmash” of standards – via a blaze of initialisms like TCFD, SASB, CDSB – being applied by Australian companies looking to meeting increasing institutional investor expectation of ESG disclosures.

“It’s a battle of the codes, or a battle of the standards,” says Will Heath, King & Wood Mallesons partner mergers and acquisitions, who praises the companies involved as their reporting has been a voluntary response to investor needs.

“I think all stakeholders would like to see more direction from regulators and governments as to what the reporting standard should be and how they should work.”

Heath says the law firm’s report also tried to unpack some increasingly ubiquitous phrases in the business lexicon, such a “carbon neutral”, “net zero” and “net zero carbon” and what impact the differences in various targets have on company reporting.

‘Tricky things’

“How are you actually going to measure that? Are you talking about CO2? Are you talking about all greenhouse gases? Are you taking into account abatement actions that you do here in Australia or overseas? Are you looking at the impact of the product you’re exporting or just what happens onshore? All those really tricky things start to come into play.

“The policy vacuum here is frustrating, but also really interesting, as to what regulators will do in this area.”

The law firm’s report highlights the variation in company disclosures and stress test scenarios. Some companies are sticking to stress testing their business to 1.5 degree increases in temperatures and others to testing for 2 degrees.

But disclosure and regulation can create significant danger for companies, says Heath.

“As companies disclose more about what they’re doing on ESG, and particularly what they’re doing on climate change, that disclosure opens the companies and their boards and management teams up to potentially more litigation, because most of the litigation we see in a company law context is related to disclosure.

‘People who don’t disclose and get left behind and then are pushed to make disclosure.’
Will Heath, King & Wood Mallesons partner mergers and acquisitions

“And you’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t because as the market gets more disclosures, people who don’t disclose and get left behind and then are pushed to make disclosure.

“And that’s dangerous.”

Heath says that, conversely, disclosing can be dangerous where regulators and governments haven’t put in “guard rails” around what that disclosure should say. This is particularly so when the law generally imposes strict liability for inaccurate disclosure, meaning a company is liable for ensuring its public statements are accurate.

“People can make inadvertent mistakes, which hopefully don’t have consequences and that’s understood as being a learning thing,” he says.

“And on the other hand, some guard rails will help curb greenwashing disclosures where companies are trying to hide practices that aren’t reflective of the company’s best interest, but they’re dressing it up using all these acronyms.”

Heath says this is particularly important once you start looking at below the ASX50 and into the ASX100 and beyond.

“I think in the rest of the market, there are going to be some people who will see opportunities to leverage the grey and the opaqueness,” he says.

“That’s where regulators do have a role to play to set standards and enforce and equally make sure those standards are clear so that people can report against them.”

Links

• ‘Big mountain to climb’: Macquarie chief says Australia behind on EV transition
• A changing landscape: Climate change risk
• China's Carbon Goals
• A big week for the fossil fuel sector: climate activism hits global courts and boardrooms
• Climate Related Financial Disclosures In The Public Sector (pdf)
• Global deal near on forcing companies to disclose climate risks
• Banks publish disclosure rules for extreme climate risk
• Directors’ duties to disclose climate-related financial risks

(AU SMH) Grim Climate Forecasts Point To Shrivelling Rivers In Northern NSW

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

Dams will fill less frequently, farmers will face water cuts and rivers will cease flowing more often in areas across northern NSW as the climate warms and dries, putting at risk communities and wildlife alike.

The grim outlook is contained in a slew of draft regional water strategies for major river systems over the next 20 to 40 years, released by the Planning Department. It said it used “the best available evidence including new climate data and updated modelling”.

An aerial view of the southern Macquarie Marshes during the height of the recent drought. Image was taken in August 2019. Credit: Wolter Peeters

Dubbed “deliberately conservative...to give us an idea of the possible climate risks and allow us to begin planning to mitigate these risks if they arise”, the projections for eight major systems released so far point to shorter periods between droughts and less reliable flows when rivers run.

Under a worst-case scenario, for instance, annual volumes in the Peel River are projected to dive by 47 per cent and those in the rest of the Namoi River, into which it flows, would drop by 44 per cent.

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Murray-Darling Basin

‘Irrigation hunger games’: Battle over Australia’s food bowl soon to heat up

One consequence is the Barwon-Darling River, which now gets about one-quarter of its water from the Namoi system, will stop flowing more often. “Under a dry climate change scenario, there could be no end of system flows for 40 per cent of the time,” one of the reports said.

The stark warnings follow renewed alerts this month from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority Authority that flows into the Murray River in the basin’s south had dropped about 40 per cent in the past two decades compared with the average of the century before it.

The state’s findings also raise fresh concerns about the viability of the Berejiklian government’s plan to increase dam capacity or build new ones. For instance, while the government wants to raise the Wyangala Dam wall by 10 metres at a cost that has blown out to as much as $2.1 billion, the regional water strategy for the Lachlan River suggest flows in that system will dwindle.

“The probability of levels in Wyangala Dam decreasing below the critical drought trigger could increase from 7 per cent using the long-term paleoclimate records to 14 per cent using near future climate projections [and] to 43 per cent using long-term climate projections,” the report said.

Wyangala Dam when it all but dried out towards the end of the Millennium Drought in 2009. The NSW government wants to lift the dam wall in a project that may end up being triple the initial estimated cost. Credit: Kate Geraghty

Similarly, total flows along parts of the Gwydir River are forecast to drop by as much as 35 per cent. High flow events, which are important for trigger fish movement and spawning could shrink by a similar proportion.

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Water

‘Unacceptable’: Labor joins other MPs to block flood plain harvesting rules

“It is possible for inflows into Copeton Dam [on the Gwydir River] to be half the volume of 27 gigalitres over 24 months” seen during the recent drought, the report said.

Upper House independent MP Justin Field said the reports should prompt the government to rethink its approach to managing rivers.

“Water Minister Melinda Pavey spectacularly fails to provide any meaningful plan for dealing with the impacts of this decrease in water availability, instead offering up the same discredited strategies of more dam building and turning our coastal rivers inland,” Mr Field said.

“These climate realities also raise yet more concerns about the government’s plan to licence billions of litres of water for floodplain harvesting in the northern Murray-Darling Basin,” he said. “Issuing these licences based on historical take when we know that water simply won’t be there in the future is a recipe for disaster.”

A spokeswoman for Ms Pavey said farmers and regional communities were on the frontline of climate extremes.“This is the first time any NSW government has embarked on long-term planning for water security and drought resilience.”

Menindee Lakes in far-western NSW have been filling for the first time in five years. Future climate predictions suggest the Barwon-Darling River which feeds them may cease to flow about 40 per cent of the time. Credit: Wolter Peeters

“The 12 Regional Water Strategies will consider a full range of options to address current and future water challenges, including infrastructure options, water recycling and reuse, and improved water efficiency, to secure water during extreme events and... the toughest droughts,” she said.

Matt Colloff, a former CSIRO scientist now at the Australian National University, said different NSW agencies were producing varying outlooks.

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Murray-Darling Basin

The fish and bird species at risk from Australia’s failure to manage wetlands

For instance, another part of the Planning Department predicted in a hydrology report that “across much of NSW, surface runoff is projected to increase in both the near and far future”.

“Largest increases are evident in the central west through to the northern tablelands. Large reductions in surface runoff are projected in both the near and far future for alpine areas in the south of the state,” it said.

Dr Colloff said the new batch of reports “present no data on range, variation or uncertainty, only the worst case scenario”.

”Call me a cynic, but this says to me they are intended to carry a message that ‘we can’t implement the [Murray-Darling] Basin Plan because of climate change,‘” he said. “And ‘because of climate change, irrigators in the Northern Basin should be allowed to continue with floodplain harvesting’.“

Links

• About the regional water strategies
• Development of regional water strategies
• New climate data and modelling
• Identifying and assessing strategy options
• Community engagement
• Engaging with Aboriginal people
• Regional water strategies previously on public exhibition
• Regional water strategies upcoming public exhibition

(Scientific American) The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth

Scientific American - Chirag Dhara | Vandana Singh

Credit: Getty Images

Authors Chirag Dhara is a climate physicist and a research associate at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology. Vandana Singh is a professor of physics at Framingham State University working on transdisciplinary climate pedagogy.

The electric vehicle (EV) has become one of the great modern symbols of a world awakened to the profound challenges of unsustainability and climate change.

So much so that we may well imagine that Deep Thought’s answer today to Life, the Universe and Everything might plausibly be “EV.”

But, as Douglas Adams would surely have asked, if electric vehicles are the answer, what is the question?

Let us imagine the “perfect” EV: solar powered, efficient, reliable and affordable. But is it sustainable? EVs powered by renewable energy may help reduce the carbon footprint of transport.

Yet, the measure of sustainability is not merely the carbon footprint but the material footprint: the aggregate quantity of biomass, metal ores, construction minerals and fossil fuels used during production and consumption of a product.

 The approximate metric tonne weight of an EV constitutes materials such as metals (including rare earths), plastics, glass and rubber. Therefore, a global spike in the demand for EVs would drive an increased demand for each of these materials. 

Every stage of the life cycle of any manufactured product exacts environmental costs: habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and pollution (including carbon emissions) from extraction of raw materials, manufacturing / construction, through to disposal. Thus, it is the increasing global material footprint that is fundamentally the reason for the twin climate and ecological crises.

The global material footprint has grown in lockstep with the exponentially rising global economy (GDP) since the industrial revolution. This is largely because of egregious consumption by the super-affluent in a socioeconomic system founded on growth without limits. Can we resolve this fundamental conflict between the quest for limitless growth and the consequent environmental destruction?

Industrial era exponential rise in the use of primary and derived physical resources:

cropland (a), fossil fuels (b), freshwater (c), metals (d), plastic (e).

Credit: Our World in Data (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU). 

a)


b)


c)


d)


e)


ENTER TECHNOLOGY

Technological innovation and efficiency improvements are often cited as pathways to decouple growth in material use from economic growth.

While technology undoubtedly has a crucial role to play in the transition to a sustainable world, it is constrained by fundamental physical principles and pragmatic economic considerations. 

Examples abound. The engine efficiency of airplanes has improved little for decades since they have long been operating close to their theoretical peak efficiency. Likewise, there is a hard limit on the efficiency of photovoltaic cells of about 35 percent because of the physical properties of the semiconductors that constitute them; in practice few exceed 20 percent for economic and pragmatic reasons.

The power generation of large wind farms is limited to about one watt per square meter as a simple yet utterly unavoidable physical consequence of wake effects. The awesome exponential increase in computing power of the past five decades will end by about 2025 since it is physically impossible to make the transistors on the computer chip, already roughly 5 percent of the size of the coronavirus, much smaller.

Whether it is principles of classical, quantum or solid state physics or thermodynamics, each places different but inexorable constraints on technological solutions. Basically, physical principles that have allowed incredible technological leaps over the past century also inevitably limit them.

We might consider that extensive recycling of materials would offset efficiency limits. Recycling is crucial; however, while glass and metals can be recycled almost indefinitely without loss of quality, materials such as paper and plastic can be recycled only a few times before becoming too degraded.

Additionally, recycling itself may be an energy- and materials-intensive process. Even if physical laws could be broken (they cannot) to achieve recycling with 100 percent efficiency, added demand from the imperative for economic growth would necessarily require virgin materials.

The key point is that efficiency is limited by physics, but there is no sufficiency limit on the socioeconomic construct of “demand.”

Unfortunately, the situation is even more dire. Economic growth is required to be exponential; that is, the size of the economy must double in a fixed period. As referenced earlier, this has driven a corresponding increase in the material footprint.

To understand the nature of exponential growth, consider the EV. Suppose that we have enough (easily extractable) lithium for the batteries needed to fuel the EV revolution for another 30 years. Now assume that deep-sea mining provides four times the current amount of these materials.

Are we covered for 120 years? No, because the current 10 percent rate of growth in demand for lithium is equivalent to doubling of demand every seven years, which means we would only have enough for 44 years.

In effect, we would cause untold, perhaps irreversible, devastation of marine ecosystems to buy ourselves a few extra years’ supply of raw materials. 

Exponential growth swiftly, inevitably, swamps anything in finite supply. For a virus, that finite resource is the human population and in the context of the planet it is its physical resources.

The inescapable inference is that it is essentially impossible to decouple material use from economic growth. And this is exactly what has transpired. Wiedmann et al., 2015 did a careful accounting of the material footprint, including those embedded in international trade, for several nations.

In the 1990–2008 period covered by the study, no country achieved a planned, deliberate economywide decoupling for a sustained length of time. Claims by the Global North to the contrary conceal the substantial offshoring of its production, and the associated ecological devastation, to the Global South.

Recent proposals for ecocidal deep-sea and fantastical exoplanetary mining are an unsurprising consequence of a growth paradigm that refuses to recognize these inconvenient truths.

WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY?

These observations lead us to a natural minimum condition for sustainability: all resource use curves must be simultaneously flatlined and all pollution curves simultaneously extinguished.

It is this resource perspective that allows us to see why EVs may help offset carbon emissions yet remain utterly unsustainable under the limitless growth paradigm. 

Sustainability from a resource perspective: Exponentially rising resource use and pollution (a and b) are unsustainable. We define sustainability as flatlined resource use (c) and extinguished pollution (d). Credit: Aditi Deshpande

THE REAL QUESTION

We have argued that the inextricable link between material consumption and GDP makes the infinite-growth paradigm incompatible with sustaining ecological integrity.

Thus, while EVs constitute a partial answer to the climate question, within the current paradigm they will only exacerbate the larger anthropogenic crises connected to unsustainable resource consumption. 

The real question is this: how do we transition to alternative economic paradigms founded on the reconciliation of equitable human well-being with ecological integrity? 

Links

• Climate crisis: Is it time to ditch economic growth?
• Day-to-day temperature variability reduces economic growth
• Climate Change and Economic Growth
• Climate-driven temperature swings slow economic growth
• Climate Change Could Cut World Economy by $23 Trillion in 2050, Insurance Giant Warns
• The challenge of climate change
• Climate Change Is a Challenge For Sustainable Development

(AU The Conversation) Three Weeks Without Electricity? That’s The Reality Facing Thousands Of Victorians, And It Will Happen Again

The Conversation - Anthony Richardson

James Ross/AAP

Author Anthony Richardson is Researcher and Teacher, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Last week’s storm system wreaked havoc across Victoria. Some 220,000 households and businesses lost power, and residents in the hills on Melbourne’s fringe were warned yesterday it might not be restored for three weeks.

The extreme weather severely damaged the poles and powerlines that distribute electricity, particularly in the Mount Dandenong area. Senior AusNet official Steven Neave said of the region this week, “we basically have no network left, the overhead infrastructure is pretty much gone. It requires a complete rebuild”.

That leaves about 3,000 customers without electricity for weeks, in the heart of winter. The loss of power also cut mobile phone and internet services and reportedly allowed untreated water to enter drinking supplies.

So, could this disaster have been avoided? And under climate change, how can we prepare for more events like this?

Fallen trees brought down power lines across Melbourne. Daniel Pockett/AAP

An uncertain future

The Mount Dandenong area is heavily forested, and the chance of above-ground power infrastructure being hit by falling trees is obviously high.

Without electricity, people cannot turn on lights, refrigerate food or medications, cook on electric stoves or use electric heaters. Electronic banking, schooling and business activities are also badly disrupted. For vulnerable residents, in particular, the implications are profound.

Such disruptions are hard to avoid, at least while the electricity network is above ground. Good management, however, can prevent some trees coming down in storms.

The more pertinent question is: how can we prepare for such an event in the future?

Scientists warn such extreme weather will increase in both frequency and severity as climate change accelerates. The Australian Energy Market Operator is acutely aware of this, warning climate change poses “material risks to individual assets, the integrated energy system, and society”.

However, it’s challenging to predict exactly how future heatwaves, storms, bushfires and floods will affect the power network. As AEMO notes, many climate models related to storms and cyclones involve an element of unpredictability. So, plans to make the electricity system more resilient must address this uncertainty.

As researchers have noted, there is no “one future” to prepare for – we must be ready for many potential eventualities.

Under climate change, extreme weather is predicted to become more severe. Daniel Pockett/AAP

Yallourn – the bigger problem?

Meanwhile, in Victoria’s LaTrobe Valley, a situation at the Yallourn coal-fired power station which may have even greater consequences for electricity supplies.

A coal mine wall adjacent to the station is at risk of collapse after flooding in the Morwell River caused it to crack. If the wall is breached and the mine is flooded, as happened in 2012, there will be no coal to power the station and almost a quarter of Victoria’s power supply could be out for months.

Victoria’s energy needs are increasingly supplied by renewables. However, losing Yallourn’s generation capacity would reduce the capacity of the network to adapt to other possible disruptions.

If further disruptions seem unlikely, it’s worth noting the Callide Power Station in Queensland is still operating at reduced capacity after a recent fire.

A wall adjacent to the Yallourn power plant may collapse. Julian Smith/AAP

Look beyond the immediate crisis

The Victorian government has offered up to A$1,680 per week, for up to three weeks, to help families without power buy supplies and find alternative accommodation.

Welfare groups say the assistance could be improved. They have called for changes to make it quicker and easier for people to access money, cash injections to frontline charities and more temporary accommodation facilities for displaced people and their pets.

While no doubt needed, these are all reactive responses targeted at those without electricity. When any system is disrupted, however, the effects can be widespread and felt long after the initial problem has been addressed.

Take dairy farmers in Gippsland, for example, who could not milk their cows without electricity. Cows must be milked regularly or else they stop producing milk – they cannot be “switched back on” when electricity is restored. Longer-term assistance may well be required for farmers facing such ripple effects.

And as welfare groups have noted, power companies should support affected customers over the long-term, with electricity discounts, deferrals and payment plans.

Relief centres offer affected residents a hot shower and electricity access, but longer-term solutions are also needed. Daniel Pockett/AAP

A call for backup

So, what else can be done to prepare for future power disruptions? Those with backup options, such as portable fuel-powered generators, or off-grid household batteries connected to solar panels, will undoubtedly be more resilient in such events.

These are examples of “system redundancy”, providing alternative electricity until the network is restored.

But it costs money to invest in household batteries or a generator that may never be used. Resilience is often a function of wealth, and the less well-off risk being left behind.

Certainly, governments can act to make society as a whole more resilient to power outages. For example, mobile phone towers have backup battery life of just 24 hours. As Victoria’s Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp said this week, extending that is something authorities “need to look at”.

Power and communications infrastructure could be moved underground to protect it from storms. While such a move would be expensive, it has been argued not doing so will lead to greater long-term costs under a changing climate.

The recent challenges at Yallourn and Callide show the risks inherent in a centralised electricity network dominated by coal.

Certainly, integrating renewable energy sources into the power network comes with its own challenges. However, expanding energy storage such as batteries, or shifting to small, community-level microgrids will go a long way to improving the resilience of the system.

Links

• Victoria's wild storms show how easily disasters can threaten our water supply
• No food, no fuel, no phones: bushfires showed we're only ever one step from system collapse
• Eucalypts in a time of climate change
• What the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says about extreme weather events
• Planning for an unknowable future: uncertainty in climate change adaptation planning
• Victorians count the cost after violent storm sends trees crashing through homes
• VIDEO: Storm hit houses in Melbourne may be without power for weeks
• Victoria’s grid runs on 50 per cent renewable energy for first time
• Modernising Victoria's electricity system
• Victorians left without power in deadly storms may not be reconnected until the weekend
• Explainer: what is the electricity transmission system, and why does it need fixing?
• Redundancy in Systems is Critical
• Texas electricity grid failure shows how microgrids offer hope for a better future
• Yarra Valley Water Has Issued A Contaminated Water Warning For 88 Suburbs In Melbourne
• An act of God, or just bad management? Why trees fall and how to prevent it

(AU The Guardian) ‘From Denial To Delay’: A Forehead-Slapping Week In Australian Climate Policy

The Guardian - Graham Readfearn

Australia sees a high-profile show of political backing for gas even as world leaders and investors exert pressure to shift away from fossil fuels

The Woodside gas plant at Burrup, Western Australia. A ‘gas-led recovery’ is likely to further exacerbate Australia’s rising emissions at a time when they need to be falling. Photograph: Daniel Munoz/Reuters

It took a major international investment group with $279bn under its control to break through the climate-laden rhetoric of geopolitics last week.

You may not have heard of Robeco Institutional Asset Management, but on Thursday the Netherlands-based asset manager made a stunning declaration, singling out Australia as a country with a “particularly high-risk profile” that it wants to pressure to transition out of fossil fuels.

The warning that it would look to restrict investments in the country’s government bonds came after a week that started in the village of Carbis Bay in Cornwall and careered through an oil and gas conference in Perth.

Robeco’s position shows it’s unconvinced by the Morrison government’s claim its technology-led approach to cutting greenhouse gas emissions stands credibly on the international stage.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, had taken his technology-focused, Australia-first talking points to Cornwall’s Carbis Bay for the G7 summit.

Robeco’s bruising intervention suggests the government’s carefully crafted climate messaging is now being usurped by reality.

“It can’t have been easy for the prime minister to be at a meeting like that, with [US president] Joe Biden and [German chancellor] Angela Merkel, and then taking a position to put a foot on the brake,” says Prof Frank Jotzo, an expert in climate economics at the Australian National University.

“In the context of the type of actions these countries are taking, talking about the development of future technologies really doesn’t cut it.”

Morrison did return to Australia with some endorsements, signing agreements with Germany and Japan on developing lower emissions technologies.

But he also returned without any update to Australia’s 2030 emissions target that remains stuck in its 2015 position to cut emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels. He also did not commit Australia to a date to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions.

Political backing for fossil fuel gas

Over in Perth, the country’s oil and gas sector kicked off its annual conference with a video message from Morrison, who told the gathered executives their fossil fuel industry “will always be” a major contributor to Australia’s prosperity.

Not surprising, given the Morrison government has gone full-bore on identifying gas, rather than renewables, as the key feedstock for Australia’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

By Thursday’s close – and after the resources minister, Keith Pitt, and Labor’s spokeswoman, Madeleine King, had both injected heavy praise on the industry – the chief executive of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), Andrew McConville, was bullish.

He said the industry saw a clear future in a lower emissions world. It could help the world to a lower emissions future, he said, and provide the feedstock for an expected hydrogen boom.

But, like Pitt and King, he took a swing at climate “activists” who, he said, “will say and do anything to get their way”.

“We are the innovators and the doers, while our opponents are the naysayers,” he said.

But what is inescapable here (aside from how those activists now include other governments, major banks and major investors), is that gas extraction and LNG production has been identified by the federal energy department as a major new contributor to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

A “gas-led recovery” is likely to further exacerbate Australia’s problem of rising or plateauing emissions in the transport, heavy industry and agriculture sector at a time when they need to be falling steeply.

All this comes before fossil fuel gas is burned, accumulating more and more greenhouse gas molecules in the atmosphere that will remain there for decades, heating the planet, acidifying the ocean and driving the climate crisis.

Scott Morrison at the table with other world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall. Photograph: Reuters

APPEA says its use of gas is helping to cut emissions, claiming it has the potential to cut 170Mt a year in Asia.

The energy minister, Angus Taylor, has been criticised for making a similar claim – that LNG is replacing coal in power plants and is “saving” emissions to the tune of 148Mt a year.

The International Energy Agency’s data does not back this up, and says replacing coal with less dirty gas in the power sector only saved 58Mt in 2020, compared to 440Mt for renewables. 

The agency’s most recent report detailed a path to reaching net zero, with its scenario being clear that to get there (which Morrison says he wants to do as soon as possible) there can be no more new fossil fuel production.

When you add the pressure from the world’s capital investors on both companies and governments, and then multiply that by the geopolitical pressure that could end with countries placing trade tariffs on goods from intransigent economies, Australia is starting to look a little surrounded.

Yet the political backing for fossil fuel gas – from both sides of Australian politics – continues.

‘Before the curtain falls’

Prof Chris Wright, of the University of Sydney, is an expert in climate and energy politics. In a study last month, Wright and colleagues looked at how the fossil fuel industry had managed to maintain its grip on political discourse over the past decade.

“In some ways the politicians take a more extreme position [than industry groups]. The industry associations are the mouthpieces of the corporations and gives them some deniability.

“But the politicians on the conservative side have become even more extreme. It’s like they operate as an extreme flank in the public debate.”

Wright’s analysis finds fossil fuel groups have moved away from attacking the science and, instead, deploy one of four arguments. They back the science and the need to act, but paint themselves as being part of Australia’s prosperity, and as pragmatists that can be part of the solution in a measured response to the climate crisis.

“It’s gone from denial to delay,” Wright says.

Part of the fossil fuel industry’s success at capturing political discourse, Wright says, is down to the revolving lobby door that sees personnel moving between high political offices and the industry.

Even before the G7 dust had settled onto the Cornwall cobbles, the Morrison government was releasing more offshore areas for oil and gas – some 80,000sq km, including a swathe of ocean just 5km from the picture-perfect tourism mecca of the Twelve Apostles on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.

In submissions to the government before it released the new acreage, other stakeholders – including the government’s own environment department – lined up to either oppose it on climate grounds, or note the risks to wildlife and fish stocks.

The conservation division of the government’s own environment department pointed out some areas being released overlapped with areas vital for whales and turtles.

Last month the International Energy Agency’s landmark report set out how the world could still reach net zero emissions by 2050 – a mark that would give the planet a fighting chance of keeping global heating below 1.5C.

Jotzo says it was notable, coming from the usually conservative global energy advisory group, but it was just a scenario “and not a projection”.

But the fact Morrison chose to keep talking up the fossil fuel industry in its wake, and as he sat with international leaders bearing more ambitious 2030 plans, “shows how deep the politics must be running [in Australia]”.

The global shift away from fossil fuels is inevitable, he says, and there now appears to be a race on to “squeeze the most out of fossil fuel reserves before the curtain falls”.

“Continued investment in new fossil fuel supply infrastructure at this point means betting on the world not reaching the Paris agreement goal. It is that clear.”

Links

• (AU Bloomberg) A $213 Billion Investor Targets Whole Nation Over Climate Change
• Liberal-led committee says Angus Taylor’s planned change to renewable energy agency could be illegal
• Donors say they won’t support University of Newcastle after coalmining executive made chancellor
• A $283 billion investor targets Australia over climate change
• Scott Morrison says gas will ‘always’ be a major contributor to Australia’s prosperity
• Australian resources minister attacks ‘green activists’ for trying to ‘cripple’ fossil fuel companies
• Federal Labor’s Madeleine King defends gas as ‘critical’ to Australia’s needs
• Earth is trapping ‘unprecedented’ amount of heat, NASA says
• Angus Taylor's claim LNG exports reduce global emissions 'likely wrong' – climate expert
• Carbon tariffs: what are they and what could they mean for Australia?
• Beyond the discourse of denial: The reproduction of fossil fuel hegemony in Australia
• ‘Nothing off limits’: offshore gas and oil exploration area 5km from Twelve Apostles 

(BE Common Dreams) 'Historic': Belgium Court Says Inadequate Climate Policy A Human Rights Violation

Common Dreams - Andrea Germanos

Climate campaigners welcomed the ruling as a victory.

Youth protest during 7th Brussels youth climate march on February 21, 2019 in Brussels. (Photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Climate campaigners claimed a "historic victory" after a Brussels court on Thursday condemned Belgium for its climate policy that breaches the country's duty of care and human rights obligations.

The verdict from the Court of First Instance followed a six-year legal battle first launched by non-profit group Klimaatzaak (Climate Case) representing over 58,000 citizens.

HUGE court ruling in 🇧🇪 yesterday: government climate action violates human rights because it's TOO SLOW.

🪧 #ClimateJustice is a human right! 💚@greenpeace_be #KlimaatZaak https://t.co/VGSBfJr2Nr

— Greenpeace EU (@GreenpeaceEU) June 18, 2021

According to the Guardian: "By not taking all 'necessary measures' to prevent the 'detrimental' effects of climate change, the court said, Belgian authorities had breached the right to life (article 2) and the right to respect for private and family life (article 8)" of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The federal government and those of three regions—the Brussels-Capital, the Flemish, and the Walloon regions—had "not behaved as generally prudent and diligent authorities, which constitutes an offense," reported Agence France-Presse.

In an explanation of the legal action on its website, Klimaatzaak references a 2019 ruling from the Supreme Court of the Netherlands:

This lawsuit is necessary because temperature records continue to be broken, because flooding is becoming more frequent… but above all because there is no real Belgian climate policy. We've seen in the Netherlands that this can be enforced via legal action: the Dutch climate organization Urgenda won a similar case that has led to an ambitious climate law.

The climate group had sought from the Brussels court specific emissions reduction targets: at least 42% compared to 1990 levels by 2025 and at least 55% compared to 1990 by 2030, with zero net emissions reached in 2050. The judge did not authorize those demands, however, citing separation of powers.

3 Fns on the 🇧🇪 #Klimaatzaak case:
📌 The Court granted standing to 58.000+ citizens as founded on climate science: unprecedented.
📌 Liability under art. 1382 🇧🇪 Civil Code against all federated entities: unprecedented.
📌 Court rejected injunction due to separation of powers. https://t.co/tZHGUk4dfa

— Matteo Fermeglia (@MFermeglia90) June 18, 2021

Greenpeace Belgium called the court's verdict "a clear condemnation of our country's climate policy" and urged all ministers to "get to work." 

Links

• Belgium’s climate failures violate human rights, court rules
• Judge agrees with Climate Case, but does not impose specific targets
• 5 Legal Tactics Environmentalists Are Using to Fight Climate Change
• For the First Time Ever, Climate Justice Is on the G7 Agenda
• (The Guardian) The Young People Taking Their Countries To Court Over Climate Inaction
• (The Guardian) UK Students Sue Government Over Human Rights Impact Of Climate Crisis
• German Climate Change Law Violates Rights, Court Rules
• How Children Are Taking European States To Court Over The Climate Crisis – And Changing The Law
• Surge In Court Cases Over Climate Change Shows Increasing Role Of Litigation In Addressing The Climate Crisis
• (Fr.) Court Convicts French State For Failure To Address Climate Crisis
• (AU) Top Judge Urges Lawyers To Take Stand On Climate Change

(Bloomberg) IMF Staff Propose Carbon-Price Floor To Slow Climate Change

Bloomberg Green - Eric Martin

• Measures could help meet Paris Agreement goals, IMF staff says
• One option is varying price based on nations’ development rung
  

International Monetary Fund staff proposed a carbon-price floor to slow global warming over the next decade, saying that climate change presents huge risks to the functioning of the world’s economies.

In a paper published on Friday and still under discussion by the IMF executive board and members, fund staff proposed as one option different minimum carbon-price levels for countries based on their stage of development. The proposal parallels the debate on a minimum global corporate-tax rate.

Implementing a three-tier price floor among the U.S., China, the European Union, India, U.K. and Canada, with prices of $75, $50 and $25 a ton for advanced, high- and low-income emerging markets, respectively, could help cut global emissions 23% from baseline levels by 2030, the fund staff wrote.

That would greatly enhance the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement goal of keeping temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 Fahrenheit), the IMF staff said.

The case for an international carbon price floor in two minutes: pic.twitter.com/U5v3MkSBHp

— Kristalina Georgieva (@KGeorgieva) June 18, 2021

Focusing on a small number of large emitters “would make negotiations easier and could still cover a big percentage of global emissions, thereby taking a major step towards the cuts in greenhouse gases we need,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in remarks prepared for a Brookings Institution event.

While a tax is one option for achieving the price floor, it could also work through regulation or emissions trading, Georgieva said.

The revenues could be used to compensate households for price increases and helping businesses and workers move from activities with high- to low-carbon intensity, she said.

The plan would also be more effective and less divisive than border-adjustment carbon taxes, which are levies on the carbon content of imports.

The plan could spur a modest further reduction in emissions if scaled up to include the full Group of 20 largest economies, which will be responsible for 85% of projected global carbon-dioxide emissions in a decade, according to the report, the IMF staff said in the paper.

The global carbon price needs to increase to $75 a ton or more by 2030 in order to limit global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, according to the paper. Currently about four-fifths of global emissions remain unpriced, and the global average emissions price is $3 a ton, the IMF staff said.

"The last window of opportunity to keep alive the possibility of containing global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius is about to close,” Ian Parry, the principal environmental fiscal policy expert at the IMF, said in the Brookings online event. “There’s an awful lot that we need to do over the next decade.”

Links

• The IMF thinks carbon taxes will stop the climate crisis. That's a terrible idea
• How Biden Is Putting a Number on Carbon’s True Cost: QuickTake
• Key Climate Talks Are Headed for Trouble After G-7 Wrangling
• Biden to Meet With Top U.S. Financial Regulators on Monday
• Power Crunch Keeps California on Edge as Brutal Summer Looms
• California Confronts Another Day of Heat, Possible Blackouts
• Huge Methane Leak Spotted by Satellite Came From Gazprom Pipeline
• Nations Must Promote ‘Green Recovery’ From Virus, IMF Chief Says