Margaret Thatcher’s Environmental Themes as PM

February 25, 2020

As we shall see in the fourth of these posts, after some period of retirement, Margaret Thatcher argued that she was not that into climate change action. But there are recurrent, and obvious themes in her talks as Prime Minister. These speeches, and one TV interview, cannot be dismissed as a mere phase as they stretch from September 1988 to November 1990. I am making little commentary here, mainly just quoting her. More examples could be found in these speeches, and more in other speeches; this is not an attempt to be definitive. Apologies to everyone not that interested in a frustrating history.

From the brief analysis of the previous speech we can take several Thatcherian themes

  • We have to live with nature (life is fragile)
  • Humans are degrading the environment and that can destroy civilisation
  • Take science seriously
    • IPCC is great
  • Recognition of complexity, non linerality, uncertainty
  • Economic growth important but must be bounded.
  • Action is difficult but must be taken
    • Government spending
    • recycle waste
    • control emissions
    • conserve country
    • replant forest
    • research
    • Foreign Aid

So let us see how these work in other speeches by her.

We have to live with nature (life is fragile)

the health of the economy and the health of our environment are totally dependent upon each other.

27 Sep 1988

Protecting this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century

27 Sep 1988

We, who have inherited so much, must hand on a safe, secure future to our children and to their children; to all who come after us. As I said earlier this year: “No generation has a freehold on this earth. All we have is a life tenancy—with a full repairing lease.”

8 Dec 1988

we realise that once you start to fiddle about with the Earth’s balance, you are in danger. 

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

We must hand on the title deeds of life to our grandchildren and beyond. That is our obligation. We here resolve to make it our duty.

7 Mar 1989

Humans are degrading the environment and that can destroy civilisation

For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.

27 Sep 1988

the assumption we have made that the atmosphere somehow would not change and what Man could do was very small compared with it—it is not very small any more! It is having an effect upon it and we have a duty to future generations and therefore, we must look very carefully because it can have two enormous consequences: climatic change—we do not know what consequence—and if it gets warmer parts of the ice cap could melt and the waters could come right in and cover certain parts of the land.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

We rightly set out to improve the standard of life of the world’s peoples but we have now realised that we could be undermining the very systems needed to maintain life on our planet.

7 Mar 1989

carbon which was fixed in the ground as coal, oil and gas and was there over millions of years is being released back into the atmosphere over a matter of decades. We are changing our planet’s environment in new and dangerous ways.

6 Dec 1989

We have cared too little for our seas, our forests and our land. We have treated the air and the oceans like a dustbin. We have come to realise that man’s activities and numbers threaten to upset the biological balance which we have taken for granted and on which human life depends.

6 Nov 1990

It appears from the above that, as PM, recognised the general problem of ecological destruction, through the unintended consequences of economic (and other) action.

Take science seriously

the increase in the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons—which has led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade [this is probably a misprint] would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat to cope.

27 Sep 1988

Scarcely a week goes by without reading or hearing of some new discovery. We learn more about the linkages between different aspects of atmospheric chemistry, between the chlorofluorocarbons and the greenhouse effect.

7 Mar 1989

science holds the key to the solution of the problem, as well as to its definition.

7 Mar 1989

On the broader front of global warming, we have had the scientific report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
This brought together the wisdom and scientific expertise of several hundred of the world’s best scientists. They gave us an authoritative view of the implications for the world’s climate of the enormous increases in carbon dioxide which are reaching the atmosphere year by year:
From our cars,
From our factories and our power stations,
Figures we cannot ignore.

27 Jun 1990

We know, too, that our industries and way of life have done severe damage to the ozone layer. And we know that within the lifetime of our grandchildren, the surface temperature of the earth will be higher than at any time for 150,000 years; the rate of change of temperature will be higher than in the last 10,000 years; and the sea level will rise six times faster than has been seen in the last century.

4 August 1990

The IPCC report is a remarkable achievement. It is almost as difficult to get a large number of distinguished scientists to agree, as it is to get agreement from a group of politicians. As a scientist who became a politician, I am perhaps particularly qualified to make that observation! I know both worlds.

6 Nov 1990

This last comment indicates her identification with scientists as well as politicians. This does not seem a casual idea for her.

Complexity, non linerality, uncertainty, unintended consequences

The fact that half the carbon dioxide generated by the industrial revolution is still in the atmosphere gives some idea of the size of the problem. And we’re still adding three billion tonnes a year. To ignore this could expose us to climatic change whose dimension and effects are unpredictable. So energy efficiency is crucial. 

8 Dec 1988

There are still many uncertainties about it. For example, we have a lot more to learn about the mechanisms of ozone creation and destruction and about the effects of increased ultraviolet radiation on living organisms.

7 Mar 1989

Now, the damage to the environment comes from the actions of millions of people conducting peaceful activities which contribute to their health, their well-being and their work in agriculture or industry, activities in other words which are perceived as beneficial.

7 Mar 1989

The real dangers arise because climate change is combined with other problems of our age: for instance the population explosion; — the deterioration of soil fertility; — increasing pollution of the sea; — intensive use of fossil fuel; — and destruction of the world’s forests, particularly those in the tropics.

6 Nov 1990

Climate change may be less than predicted. But equally it may occur more quickly than the present computer models suggest.

6 Nov 1990

Conservatism and the environment

Conservatives are not only friends of the earth, we are its trustees. But concern for the environment is not, and never has been, a first priority for Socialist governments. As we peel back the moral squalor of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, we discover the natural and physical squalor underneath. They exploited nature every bit as ruthlessly as they exploited the people. In their departure, they have left her chocking amidst effluent, acid rain and industrial waste. …

31 March 1990

Capitalism is not the enemy of the environment, but its friend and guardian. As more people own property, so more people have an incentive to protect it from pollution.

This we have learned from experience and no more so than in the last ten years in Britain. So much of the wealth created by a flourishing economy has been ploughed back directly into measures to protect and enhance our environment. 

In the last five years, we have cut the level of lead in our air by half…. from October this year, all new cars will have to be able to run on unleaded fuel.

This is not the record of a Government with no time for the environment. We stand for clean streets, clean rivers clear seas, fresh air, green acres.

31 March 1990

Economic growth important but must be bounded.

The future of the community demands that business does not try to prosper at the expense of the environment…. That means that the chemicals and other materials we use must be disposed of in a way that safeguards the environment. It also means we must heed the dangers posed by the greenhouse effect.

8 Dec 1988

who has yet looked at the true costs of coal and oil if we must ultimately separate the greenhouse gases they produce and prevent them from going into the atmosphere

6 Dec 1989

There are no simple economic mechanisms to govern countries’ behaviour in this field. The action we must take must harness the market and run with the grain of human nature. It was not regulation but the decisions of millions of individual consumers and the response of industry’s research and commercial initiative which has led to the development of ozone-friendly products, bio-degradable plastics and phosphate-free detergents

6 Dec 1989

Like the Garden of Eden to Adam and Even, anything which is given free is rarely valued. This is especially true of the global environment which mankind has used as a dustbin for decades.

6 Dec 1989

Action is difficult but must be taken

In the past when we have identified forms of pollution, we have shown our capacity to act effectively. The great London Smogs are now only a nightmare of the past. We have cut airborne lead by 50 per cent.

27 Sep 1988

Mr President, the evidence is there. The damage is being done. What do we, the International Community, do about it?

8 Nov 1989

we already have a £2 billion programme of improvements to reduce acid rain emissions from our power stations. We shall be looking more closely at the role of non-fossil fuel sources, including nuclear, in generating energy. And our latest legislation requires companies which supply electricity positively to promote energy efficiency.

8 Nov 1989

Our task as governments is this—
It is to follow the best advice available, To decide where the balance of evidence lies, And to take prudent action.

27 Jun 1990

Our ability to come together to stop or limit damage to the world’s environment will be the greatest test of how far we can act as a world community.

4 August 1990

The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.

6 Nov 1990

Many of the precautionary actions that we need to take would be sensible in any event. It is sensible to improve energy efficiency and use energy prudently; it’s sensible to develop alternative and sustainable and sensible … it’s sensible to improve energy efficiency and to develop alternative and sustainable sources of supply; it’s sensible to replant the forests which we consume; it’s sensible to re-examine industrial processes; it’s sensible to tackle the problem of waste.

6 Nov 1990

Promises are easy. Action is more difficult. For our part, we have worked out a strategy which sets us on the road to achieving the target…. We now require, by law, that a substantial proportion of our electricity comes from sources which emit little or no carbon dioxide, and that includes a continuing important contribution from nuclear energy

6 Nov 1990

I see the adoption of these policies as a sort of premium on insurance against fire, flood or other disaster. It may be cheaper or more cost-effective to take action now than to wait and find we have to pay much more later

6 Nov 1990

We must work together

The thing that emerges from this is that none of us can do it alone. What we could do alone would have some effect, but a small effect, and the world is getting together. There is a United Nations Environmental Protection Group which is very good and this is something that has to be pursued through that.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

The problems will only be solved by common action and every country must play its full part and every citizen can help

7 Mar 1989

It was Immanuel Kant who said that it is often necessary to make a decision on the basis of knowledge sufficient for action but insufficient to satisfy the intellect. Let us therefore do what makes sense in any event, such as conserving tropical forests and improving energy[fo 11] efficiency. In parallel, we must intensify our scientific efforts to model and predict climate change. A new centre to do just this is being established in this country.

6 Dec 1989

Costs are inevitable

we have to do the things on environment because we have a duty to do so and most of us wish to improve the environment in any event. It cannot be done without a cost. We have to take the nitrates out of water—that will be an extra process which will cost money, but we must have the safe water—and we have to do more on the coasts and that will cost money. We have to take the sulphur out of coal—that will cost money. The answer to the greenhouse effect is, of course, to have more nuclear and if we have more nuclear, all the technology is known to look after the residual nuclear waste, that too costs money but you do not get the greenhouse effect from that. 

So you cannot talk about improving the environment without being prepared to pay for the purer water and the better electricity without damaging the environment.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

the costs of doing nothing, of a policy of wait and see, would be much higher than those of taking preventive action now to stop the damage getting worse. And the damage will be counted not only in dollars, but in human misery as well. Spending on the environment is like spending on defence—if you do not do it in time, it may be too late.

4 August 1990

Research

Britain will continue to play a leading role in trying to answer the remaining questions, and to advance our state of knowledge of climate change. This year, we have established in Britain the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research for this purpose.

6 Nov 1990

But the need for more research should not be an excuse for delaying much needed action now. There is already a clear case for precautionary action at an international level. The IPCC tells us that we can’t repair the effects of past behaviour on our atmosphere as quickly and as easily as we might cleanse a stream or river.

6 Nov 1990

Foreign Aid

So yes, we have a duty. We have to make progress. The Third World wants to make as much progress as we have, but we now have to look at how we are going to maintain that particular atmosphere which supports life, which supports the chain of animal life as well. Absolutely vital. That is why I came out with your quote.

We do not have a freehold. We have a lease of life and at the end of that lease we pass it on to the next generation.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

[We give] £40 million a year to Bangladesh. I said: “Look! It is no earthly good going on relief because they have got floods. We have to get together with all of the countries in the area to try to get the soil back up there, the trees back up there, the silt from the rivers!”

You have to be careful how you do this because those countries are sensitive and you have to say: “Look, there is a problem! Please can we help!” Not: “You have got to do this, that and the other!” but “Please! Can we help? If you need help to do these things, we will put our aid to do those things!”

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

if you do not keep the trees and the forests, you do not get the rain; and also, you do not get the carbon dioxide used up, so immediately we have been talking about this on a much bigger scale and we and our Overseas Development Association are giving some of our aid to those countries who are prepared to keep their tropical rain forests.

30 Dec 1988 Interview for Frost on Sunday

the new technologies and substances which are becoming available should help others to avoid the mistakes which we in the highly industrialised countries have made

7 Mar 1989

it is the duty of the industrialized countries to help them obtain and adopt the substitute technologies which will enable them to avoid our mistakes. And an important part of that will be to help them financially, so they can meet the extra costs involved.

27 Jun 1990

A Colleague’s Comment

Recently, another now ex-leader of the Conservatives had this to say about Thatcher:

[She was] better qualified than any other politician to understand climate science and to foresee the likely course of climate change if left unchecked…. [Her] concerns led to her becoming the first leader of any major nation to call for a landmark United Nations treaty on the issue…

Four years later, as Environment Secretary, I played a small role in ushering that UN treaty into existence at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Its resolutions did not require countries to commit themselves to specific reductions in emissions, but it was significant because it was the first step….

It is important to stress that it has never been a Conservative value to be ‘anti-science’. When climate scientists speak, we should listen.

Putting one’s fingers in one’s ears and denying the problem is not a rational response. The only pragmatic approach is to listen, evaluate and act.

The fact is that we have time to avoid the worst excesses of climate change, by reducing greenhouse gas emissions to levels that will keep impacts at manageable levels.

The good news is that in Britain, we are cutting our emissions effectively and doing so is certainly not harming our economy….

This summer has shown that Margaret Thatcher was correct. We are conducting an experiment with the atmosphere and it is a dangerous one.

Thirty years ago Margaret Thatcher warned of man-made global warming. Daily Mail 16 August 2018.

Even this short collection of remarks shows a degree of dedication and realism towards the climate problem, and possibly bode well for the future – indeed had Thatcher not been deposed, and had she continued in this way, we might be considerably better off than we are now – but after her loss of office, her position ground to fixity and refusal, although it has to be recognised that the UK has a much better position on recognising the consequences of climate change and ecological destruction than Australia, Canada, or the US.

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Margaret Thatcher on Climate Action

February 25, 2020

After excoriating Neoliberalism in the last post. It is only fair to mention the comments of one of the founders of neoliberalism, British PM Margaret Thatcher, to show that in the 1980s things were not this far gone.

After this post, which basically just reports on one of Mrs Thatcher’s speeches, I give another post with a series of excerpts from speeches, which show her recurrent themes. She seems more radical and aware than any mainstream politician in Australia today. In the third post I move into consideration of her early post PM period and her growing turn away from environmentalism. The fourth post describes her largely incoherent but strongly neoliberal position in her final book Statescraft (2002), which basically turns away from the problem altogether. If get around to it, a fifth post will describe what she actually did in office.

To make this introductory post simple I am just quoting from one speech to the UN given on the 8th November 1989, almost exactly a year from her forced resignation. It does not completely cover her ideas, but its clear and to the point. It may need to be emphasised that she made this speech thirty years ago…..

From the end of the speech, because it is surprising:

Reason is humanity’s special gift. It allows us to understand the structure of the nucleus. It enables us to explore the heavens. It helps us to conquer disease. Now we must use our reason to find a way in which we can live with nature, and not dominate nature.

Italics added.

A neoliberal who could admit the aim of policy and reason is not to dominate or destroy nature? This is extraordinary in itself

In this speech, Thatcher claims to have been influenced, in her views, by the photos of Earth taken from space, from which came a powerful realisation.

That powerful idea is the recognition of our shared inheritance on this planet. We know more clearly than everbefore that we carry common burdens, face common problems, and must respond with common action….

[A]s we travel through space, as we pass one dead planet after another, we look back on our earth, a speck of life in an infinite void. It is life itself, incomparably precious, that distinguishes us from the other planets.

Life is precarious. This might be the only place in the universe, at this moment, with intelligent life. Certainly it is the only place we know of. That implies we have a duty to preserve it, and to recognise the fragility of the possibility of life. All present and near future human activity depends upon us preserving this planet, more or less as it is, as best we can. Mrs Thatcher presents no fantasy the elites could leave, or that the world is secondary to economics.

She gets rid of the ‘climate is always changing’ motif quite early on:

Of course major changes in the earth’s climate and the environment have taken place in earlier centuries when the world’s population was a fraction of its present size.

The causes are to be found in nature itself—changes in the earth’s orbit: changes in the amount of radiation given off by the sun: the consequential effects on the plankton in the ocean: and in volcanic processes.

All these we can observe and some we may be able to predict. But we do not have the power to prevent or control them.

However,

What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to the air at an unprecedented rate—all this is new in the experience of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways.

In this statement she essentially recognises that ongoing ecological destruction is a major problem; our problems are not limited to climate. She mentions previous civilisations that have changed their environments and brought about their downfall, but our current action is undoing the planet not just one civilisation.

We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.

At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

This clearance is massive; apparently an area the size of the UK was being lost every year. This clearly lowered the possibility of what we would nowadays call ‘carbon drawdown’; it forms a positive reinforcer of the problem. She recognises the problem is systemic, ‘things’ interact with each other.

She takes the science seriously and obviously talks to scientists:

Let me quote from a letter I received only two weeks ago, from a British scientist on board a ship in the Antarctic Ocean: he… also reports on a significant thinning of the sea ice, and he writes that, in the Antarctic, “Our data confirm that the first-year ice, which forms the bulk of sea ice cover, is remarkably thin and so is probably unable to sustain significant atmospheric warming without melting. Sea ice, separates the ocean from the atmosphere over an area of more than 30 million square kilometres. It reflects most of the solar radiation falling on it, helping to cool the earth’s surface. If this area were reduced, the warming of earth would be accelerated due to the extra absorption of radiation by the ocean.”

“The lesson of these Polar processes,” he goes on, “is that an environmental or climatic change produced by man may take on a self-sustaining or ‘runaway’ quality … and may be irreversible.”

She knows the situation is not linear. That talk asking how could a small increase in temperature, or CO2 concentrations, possibly have a large effect is rubbish talk.

She also knows that no one on the planet is safe from global warming

the problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level.

As we might expect economic growth is important to her, but this growth has to be bounded and sensible. Not just random proliferation.

we must have continued economic growth in order to generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the environment. But it must be growth which does not plunder the planet today and leave our children to deal with the consequences tomorrow.

Italics added

In case this is not clear, she continues

We should always remember that free markets are a means to an end. They would defeat their object if by their output they did more damage to the quality of life through pollution than the well-being they achieve by the production of goods and services.

This is not modern neoliberalism, as should be clear. It is also not her later version of neoliberalism

So what action does she recommend. Again it is not trivial

I believe we should aim to have a convention on global climate change ready by the time the World Conference on Environment and Development meets in 1992.

There are obvious difficulties:

no issue will be more contentious than the need to control emissions of carbon dioxide, the major contributor—apart from water vapour—to the greenhouse effect….

the measures we take must be based on sound scientific analysis of the effect of the different gases and the ways in which these can be reduced. In the past there has been a tendency to solve one problem at the expense of making others worse…

we prolong the role of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change after it submits its report next year, so that it can provide an authoritative scientific base for the negotiation of this and other protocols….

We can then agree to targets to reduce the greenhouse gases, and how much individual countries should contribute to their achievement. We think it important that this should be done in a way which enables all our economies to continue to grow and develop…..

we must not allow ourselves to be diverted into fruitless and divisive argument. Time is too short for that.

The point is clear. In Thatcher’s mind we must act urgently (early 1990s at the latest). If acting means that we ignore fruitless and politically divisive argument then that is what we must do

But it is not just international talk that she wants. The UK has to set an example on its own, not wait for others to do things first. The UK, being successful, has a responsibility. These are the outlines of some of her projected policies.

First, we shall be introducing over the coming months a comprehensive system of pollution control to deal with all kinds of industrial pollution whether to air, water or land…

We are encouraging British industry to develop new technologies to clean up the environment and minimise the amount of waste it produces—and we aim to recycle 50 per cent of our household waste by the end of the century [1999-2000].

Secondly, we will be drawing up over the coming year our own environmental agenda for the decade ahead. That will cover energy, transport, agriculture, industry—everything which affects the environment….

we already have a £2 billion programme of improvements to reduce acid rain emissions from our power stations. We shall be looking more closely at the role of non-fossil fuel sources, including nuclear, in generating energy. And our latest legislation requires companies which supply electricity positively to promote energy efficiency.

we shall look for ways to strengthen controls over vehicle emissions and to develop the lean-burn engine, which offers a far better long-term solution than the three-way catalyst, in terms of carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect….

With regard to agriculture, we recognise that farmers not only produce food—which they do with great efficiency—they need to conserve the beauty of the priceless heritage of our countryside. So we are therefore encouraging them to reduce the intensity of their methods and to conserve wild-life habitats…

We are planting new woods and forests—indeed there has been a 50 per cent increase in tree planting in Britain in the last ten years…

Third, we are increasing our investment in research into global environmental problems….

Fourth, we help poorer countries to cope with their environmental problems through our Aid Programme…

We shall give special help to manage and preserve the tropical forests.

I can announce today that we aim to commit a further £100 million bilaterally to tropical forestry activities over the next three years, mostly within the framework of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan.

While energy is missing from this speech, she has discussed it in earlier speeches. Perhaps she thought there would be resistance at the UN to talk of cutting down fossil fuel use. Elsewhere she shows her keenness for nuclear energy as it does not emit CO2. However she did not succeed in getting a set of nuclear reactors going in the UK, possibly because they were so expensive to build, the cost of their electricity was much greater than that of fossil fuels, and the cost of proper decommissioning was so great no private company would take it on. She also did not have a feasible or working renewables industry to discuss, or draw to people’s attention. What she might have said if she had, is possible to imagine.

No contemporary neoliberal has this vision, program for action, or grasp of the problems. So neoliberalism has become a lot worse as it has gained in power and as it celebrates its triumphalism.

The point is that for Mrs. Thatcher, at this stage in her life, it is possible to support both capitalism and climate action, whatever modern neoliberals suppose.

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Comment on Ted Nordhaus: ‘The Empty Radicalism of the Climate Apocalypse’

February 24, 2020

Mr Nordhaus’s article ‘The Empty Radicalism of the Climate Apocalypse‘ is challenging and interesting. Any summary of it will probably not do it justice, but hopefully I’m not distorting it too much.

Ted Nodhaus hails from the Breakthrough Institute (not to be confused with Breakthrough: National Centre for Climate Restoration), that is generally pro-corporate, anti-carbon price and pro-nuclear in its approach to climate change, so his argument that mainstream ‘left’ climate action proposals, are not really that left wing, or anti-capitalist, is interesting and worth engaging with. He is largely correct; environmental action has largely been adapted to not challenging capitalism. Neoliberalism is both all-pervasive, unable to take action itself, and inhibiting of any action by others.

Lets begin with his final point:

“we are all neoliberals now. Some of us just haven’t realized it.”

Neoliberalism is about protecting and promoting corporate dominance. A neoliberal is a person who talks about free-markets and small government, but is quite happy to have government intervene to crush workers’ rights or popular protest, to protect companies when they engage in pollution and harm, and to distort or regulate markets in favour of established corporate power.

In neoliberalism, anything established companies do is perceived as the ‘market in action’, and hence wonderful; anything which anyone does to curtail corporate dominance or to protect livelihood, or even existence, is acting against the market, and is evil and to be suppressed. Neoliberalism is both fundamentally anti-democratic and pro-corporate liberty. Corporations do not need democracy, or generate democracy. Profit and financial power are the only virtues neoliberalism recognises. If destroying ecologies makes profit, even if there are any laws left to protect ecologies (which neoliberals will attempt to remove), then ecologies will be destroyed.

Neoliberalism is inherently boring and real world problem avoiding. Neoliberals pretend that what they call free markets bring liberty rather than corporate dominance. Their only solution to every problem is even greater corporate dominance and less government acting on behalf of the people.

It is not surprising that after forty years of neoliberal ‘free market’ talk most people feel alienated from a politics which has become about corporate subsidy and corporate freedom, while considering most of the electorate expendable, or mindless, and to be manipulated rather than listened to.

Neoliberalism creates the conditions of its perpetuation by preventing any challenge emerging, by ensuring critical politicans generally get little funding, by funding fawning politicians, by owning the media and ensuring you get bombarded with neoliberal talking points, by enforcing the market, and dismissing whatever challenge becomes known as ‘anti-market’, and markets are inherently good. It also sabotages its conditions of existence by removing responsibility for the destruction of the ecologies it depends upon.

It is not a surprise that neoliberalism cannot deal with climate change, as recognising climate change demands changes in the behaviour of dominating corporations, a recognition of their responsibility for ecological destruction, and a reassertion of the rights of those ordinary people who are going to suffer severely from climate change. All of this, like any other democratic action is simply branded an interference in the market and unworkable as a result.

Most people (including neoliberals) deny they are neoliberals in this sense, but this is the way neoliberalism works. It forms the destructive background of our crisis

“Many conservatives have attacked the Green New Deal as socialism”

Neoliberals attack everything that does not give the corporate sector more power and wealth, as socialist or communist, suggesting it will lead to mass death. That is their main shtick. It also shows the poverty of their arguments – a slur is enough to satisfy them and prevent any further thinking.

But, as Mr Nordhaus says,:

“what is striking about the Green New Deal and similar proposals coming from climate hawks and left-leaning environmentalists is not their radicalism but their modesty.”

Yes. The left is now what would once have been called economically right wing. The solutions which are being proposed in our parliaments to the problem of climate change, are moderate capitalist, not socialist. They are not radical. The fact that they are attacked in this way, rather than discussed, shows the intensity of the neoliberal desire not to trouble the established and dominant corporate sector. The right is always attempting to push us further to the right.

“almost no one, in either electoral politics or nongovernmental organizations, seems willing to demand that governments take direct and obvious actions to slash emissions and replace fossil energy with clean.”

For the mainstream left, this is pretty accurate. From the 50s to early 70s direct government action would have seemed the sensible and obvious thing to do to almost everyone, as survival is more important than corporate power or markets. Markets have no necessarily beneficial teleology, other than seeking profit at this moment; their long term processes can easily lead to destruction, or the crash. Its not as if we don’t know that markets do crash, and bring many people down with them. Markets always require custom and regulation to work.

“the apocalyptic rhetoric, endless demands for binding global temperature targets, and radical-sounding condemnations of neoliberalism, consumption, and corporations only conceal how feeble the environmental climate agenda actually is”

He is right again. Neoliberal dominance or free market fundmentalism, crushes all innovation and potential innovation (unless it renders profit). Mainstream environmentalism yields, possibly to keep funding and avoid full-on media attacks.

The left’s agitation boils:

“down to some variant of either regulating corporations to stop them from doing things that produce carbon emissions or subsidizing them to use energy and other technologies that reduce carbon emissions”

As he is arguing, this is pretty minor stuff considering the potential scale of the disaster, yet it is vehemently opposed.

It is also true that as well as regulation and subsidy, some people suggest a carbon price as a solution. Not carbon trading, but a governmentally determined price with predictable increases, which gives the business world certainty (to the degree certainty is possible), and is given back to ordinary people to compensate for price increases. Again this is a mild impingement on markets, less of an impingement than sea level rises and so on. Its not hard to find this suggestion, as he recognises in his next paragraph. He continues:

“the primary frame through which climate change has been viewed over the past three decades is as a market failure.”

Yes. With the reservation that this is not really what is usually meant by ‘market failure.’ The term ‘market failure’ implies the possibility of ‘market success,’ yet the complete inability of neoliberal markets to deal with climate change is now reasonably obvious. It is not market failure. It is the nature of the neoliberal market itself that is the problem.

“Missing from this frame is the notion that abundant, cheap, clean energy and the low carbon infrastructure and technology necessary to provide it is a public good.”

Indeed because neoliberalism and its free market theory will not allow, or recognise, this. There is no such thing as ‘public good’ in neoliberalism, and talk of ‘public good’ is seen as a screen for ‘socialist dictatorship’ (lessening of corporate dominance). This again shows the poverty of neoliberal thought. Economics and exchange is a social activity, which depends on social order and a sense of public good. If it does not serve the good of the general public, what is the point? But, in neoliberalism, there is only the private good of the corporate class. No one else counts.

“Treating climate change as a public infrastructure challenge, not a private market failure, brings a range of advantages that pricing and regulation cannot provide.”

Yes again. This kind of action should recognise the inability of the market to work to save us, by itself. Dominant players in the market are currently profitting from the actions which lead to climate change, and they are not about to give those benefits up, without struggle.

“[Public action] enables long time horizons that private investors are unlikely to tolerate; planning and coordination across sectors of the economy to integrate technology, infrastructure, and institutions necessary to achieve deep decarbonization; and low-cost public finance that could make the price of the energy and climate transition far more manageable. And assuming a reasonably progressive tax system, it would arguably do so in a manner at least as straightforward and equitable as cap-and-trade or carbon taxes that aim at “correcting” market failures.”

Yes, but a carbon price may also be useful, as not everything would have to be done by government fiat alone. Perhaps a non-neoliberal market, in competition with central planning, might be useful. We have had mixed economies previously, and they worked quite well; certainly better than neoliberal markets.

“Green opposition to nuclear energy and hydroelectric dams has evolved into skepticism of centralized grids and infrastructure planning.”

I have not noticed this at all. This seems to be lazy thinking. It’s easy for the right to assume Greens are stupid (as they are not neoliberals) therefore they wouldn’t approve of grid planning.

However, as an example of reality, the Australian Greens argue they wish to:

  • “Establish PowerNSW. A new, publicly owned electricity company to generate, distribute and retail renewable energy for the people of NSW fairly and affordably.”

and:

  • “Upgrade the power grid. Build much-needed new public network infrastructure, connecting our abundant renewable energy resources to the National Electricity Market.”

So there is no skepticism about improving the grid. It should be fairly obvious that nuclear energy and Hydroelectricity present fundamental ecological challenges, and dangers, in ways that grids do not. Greens might prefer local people not to be restricted by neoliberal regulations designed to protect commercial grid operators at the expense of those local people, but if the grid became a national project, aimed at more than just private profit, then this might be much less of a problem.

“It was only the distortion of energy markets by policy-makers, at the behest of fossil and nuclear incumbents, [Amory] Lovins [chair of the Rocky Mountain Institute] has long insisted, that has stood in the way of the rapid adoption of renewable energy.”

Sadly this ‘distortion’ (which is not a distortion but part of the way the neoliberal market works) is inevitable in a society in which the official ideology only values profit. Massive inequalities in wealth allow massive inequalities in social power and in access to that power. The super-wealthy can, and will, buy and reward politicians for supporting them, and pay for think tanks to persuade those politicians that, in being bought, they are acting virtuously.

“the realities of renewable energy at scale look nothing like the distributed and decentralized utopia that Lovins and his environmental followers promised.”

Yes, again neoliberal ideology and action ‘distorts’ everything to perserve the powers of the corporate elite. Their aim is to prevent this elite having to change or respond to peoples’ needs or requests, and claim this is reputable because “the market knows best”. The environmental movement should not go along with any of these propositions, however dangerous this might appear.

“Most renewable energy today comes not from homes clad in solar panels but from enormous, industrial-scale wind, solar, and biomass facilities.”

This depends a little on where you live, but yes captured governments and renewable energy corporations, have tended to favour the enormous, and the centralised. They have favoured the structures which were good for coal energy companies and which removed local people from consideration or participation.

“The only remotely plausible path to the sorts of changes that many environmentalists now demand,… would require top-down, centralized, technocratic measures that most environmentalists are unwilling to seriously embrace.”

This is the fundamental paradox, but a centralised system which responded to, and involved, local communities could well have a different dynamic, if that was built into the planning. Again the problem is trying to adapt to neoliberalism.

“That is why the rhetoric of climate emergency in recent years has not been matched by explicit and specific proposals to do the sorts of things that a climate emergency would seem to demand.”

He should perhaps listen to some of the climate emergency declarations, and then realise the practical difficulty of acting against the endlessly wealthy elites…

This radicalism is

“fundamentally lacking any well-formed idea of what such a world would look like, in either its institutions, its actual social and economic organization, or most of its specifics—rationing, nationalization, or even just preempting local resistance to action… what most environmentalists, including radical greens, are basically demanding is capitalism with carbon regulations and lots of windmills.”

Yes true, and yet what visions there are, are still rabidly opposed by neoliberals, because it might set a precedent to challenge unfettered corporate power. There is no agreed on vision, because neoliberals refuse any negotiation, at all, even with this dilute environmentalism.

“there is little reason to believe at this point that we are capable of arriving at or sustaining the sort of political consensus that such an undertaking would require.”

This all suggests that the time for compromise with neoliberalism has passed. Neoliberals, as Nordhaus almost recognises, have obstructed climate action at every turn; no matter how mild the suggested action, they still claim it is too ‘socialist’. Over 40 years of neoliberal dominance there have been pretty much no neoliberal ‘free market’ suggestions for a solution to climate change that neoliberals have been willing to actually act upon. Perhaps because there cannot be.

Climate survival clashes with fundamental neoliberal principles.

The left may have to gain the kind of intolerance displayed by the neoliberals and not bother about further attempts at dialogue. Neoliberal markets do not work. Challenging neoliberals will be painful. Not challenging neoliberals will be death. Possibly this needs to be the fallback realisation of the environmental movement, left and right. Neoliberalism is not conservative at all.

Nordhaus ends with a kind of solution, which is probably yet another avoidance of the problem of neoliberal love of destruction.

“technological change will likely continue to prove more easily seeded and sustained than political change.”

Possibly, but again technological change and the way it is used, needs to be removed from neoliberal hands, or we will have more of the fracking disasters, and the leaking of methane in to the air. Fracking might “have significantly reduced the role of coal in the US electricity market” but it is doubtful it has reduced emissions, or preserved ecologies. It just reinforces the destructive system.

Technology has unintended consequences, but neoliberal technology will be designed and organised to benefit neoliberal power and wealth structures, before it will be designed and organised to improve quality of life or ecological stability.

Attempts to accommodate neoliberalsim and keep corporate support, may explain the incoherencies I have discussed in Australian climate policy, as neoliberalism is essentially hostile to ecological preservation and loss of any established corporate power. There is, and can be, no neoliberal effective climate policy. Consequently, neoliberalism must be defeated. We can begin by recognising that Neoliberalism in all its forms, is:

  • essentially anti-democratic
  • inherently destructive
  • unable to deal with ecological problems or climate change
  • reduces everything to maintaining profit
  • uninterested in most peoples’ survival, if that might lessen corporate wealth
  • controls the media, and hence what most people know
  • attempts to destroy information which is true, but might affect it
  • formidable as it is a form of plutocracy or rule by wealth
  • attempts to take over the state, through buying politicians, lobbying, privatisation, and positioning corporate people in government departments responsible for regulating their corporate activities.

Challenging neoliberalism will be difficult. Perhaps the only alternatives are revolution or death. I’d much rather they weren’t, but when established power seems bent on destruction and ignoring the problems, then perhaps that is the only option.

Fighting neoliberalism will be painful, but it is the only course of action that will get us anywhere.

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Communism, Dictatorship and Climate Change?

February 18, 2020

Some parts of the political Right argue that climate change is far less of a problem than Communism and consequent left-wing dictatorship. This might strike, non-righteous thinkers as a bit odd given that communism has passed into history. Cuba is tiny, and voted for a new constitution in February 2019. It has almost no influence. North Korea does not seem communist, in any form, other than name, and also has no influence – certainly I have never read a recent Western communist using North Korea as a positive blueprint for anything. China, which is the only possibly ‘communist’ country of influence, seems nowadays to manifest a form of authoritarian State based capitalism. When people want to praise Chinese progress they frequently say it is because of capitalism, when they want to condemn Chinese politics, they frequently blame communism.

So far, communists or left-dictatorships alone have made no real impact on global natural systems, so their legacy, however painful, has been short term.

However, climate change, assuming the predictions are correct (and the IPCC predictions have so far underestimated the rates of change), will be disastrous for the long term. You can see world wide firestorms already, record temperatures in the arctic and antarctic already, melting of land ice already (this will accelerate as the ice melts and with 68 degree Fahrenheit temperatures in the Antarctic ice will not stay frozen), and melting of the permafrost and the release of stored Greenhouse gases (which will make the situation even worse) already. We see no tendency for temperatures to return to ‘normal’, or for the system to be returning to any kind of stability. Indeed this January set quite startling temperature records. Global climate change is here already

We know the major causes of this problem, and that includes human burning of fossil fuels, and some human agricultural and building practices – and these practices happen in all kinds of political systems.

There is no sign these polluting practices are diminishing at the rates we need to diminish the threat of climate change.

Consequently it is pretty likely that we are going to see sea level rises of a couple of metres in a relatively short period of time in geological and historical terms (it is hard to predict when, but within a hundred years is certain, within 10–15 years is possible). These rises may end up being between 25–50 metre rises. It is extremely unlikely that governments will be able to deal with the flooding of coastal cities and the large-scale displacement of people that will result. The economy is likely to tank due to the losses, people are likely to starve while the financial elites try and save themselves.

We already know that the market (by itself) is unlikely to save us in time, as we have been pretty much leaving it to the market for the last 30 to 40 years. The market could quite possibly be more useful if it was not politically dominated and structured by fossil fuel companies and mining companies who are trying to prevent financial losses for themselves, through using disinformation and purchase of politicians and regulations. Crony capitalism is the natural form of capitalism, and it always values short term profit for the established elite over long term survival for everyone.

Normally we try to avoid possible disasters, even if we are not sure how and when they will arrive. The unusual thing (which shows the effect of corporate power) is that, with this probable disaster, we are trying to avoid dealing with it. We have politicised it to such an extent, that many people on one side of politics (not by any means all) refuse to acknowledge it and obstruct discussion and thinking about the problem – often by throwing around terms like ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’.

As I have argued previously, neoliberalism tends towards authoritarian plutocracy. Capitalism can operate easily within a dictatorship which protects elite wealth from democratic processes such as climate action. So if we have to fear long-term destructive dictatorship it may well come from elite business operatives rather than from left-wing ‘communism.’

But even if these propositions are wrong, if we don’t act soon, then people will have a lot more to fear from climate change, while there is little to fear from communism.

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Climate Emergency Summit 04: Psychology and Feeling

February 18, 2020

Having briefly discussed the lack of political interest in the emergency, we can now look at general psychological issues, which hinder our response.

There are two strong features in the psychology of our responses to the climate emergency, which came out at the Summit.

Firstly recognition of the emergency presents us with an existential crisis. Acts that were praiseworthy and brought success, can now be perceived as harmful. Going along as we have been going along does not make sense. Indeed, most of what we do in our lives does not make sense. Consumerism is destructive, travel can be destructive, expanding growth can be destructive, seeking profit can be destructive, and so on. The expansion of self into the globe is potentially destructive, yet the alternative of narrow racist nationalism, lack of world wide commerce and interaction seems equally destructive. The forms of meaning within which our lives are embedded, seem fragile, and provide no guidance for life. This is psychologically disruptive and disorienting.

Secondly, our political rule of action is neoliberalism and ‘free market’ theory. Neoliberalism does not work in the way it is supposed to, as markets become subject to power-in-the-market through oligopoly (when a few corporations control a particular market) and plutocracy (rule by wealth in general). Markets are never free. Changing from this set of presecriptions for the world, is difficult because it is so entangled with our systems of power, order and suppression. It is inherently used to rejecting, or co-opting, challenges to its rule, rather than listening to information it regards as hostile.

One of the many problems of neoliberalism is that it reduces almost everything to numbers that refer to money and profit. This means that, as a directive, if an action brings established companies profit (especially if of low personal risk to highlevel managers), then it must be done, and also that whole realms of human experience become demoted and ignored, unless they can be manipulated to get people to attack those people who are suspicious of neoliberalism. This includes any recognition of a complex psychology, or even of feeling itself. Let alone our dependence on ecology.

These two factors means that our main social habits, patterns of life, patterns of power, ease of getting on with others, sense of meaning, ways of interpreting reality, and so on, lead us to deny the seriousness of the climatic situation and suppress awareness of our pain in relationship to the changes going on around us; the mass death, the burning, the strange weather, the threat of what is to come. Awareness brings pain and dislocation. We cannot be completely unaware of the crisis, nowadays, without a degree of effort, or without attempts to blame others for our pain. Humans are good at denial, and it can be useful up to a point. But in this case it is helping to perpetuate our own destruction, and suppress our selves as manifested in our feelings and understandings.

There is a possibility that we are encouraged in this response, precisely because the neoliberal life is so psychologically unsatisfying that we do not value ourselves, or that we actually might enjoy the release of the destruction of this narrow life. Destruction might satisfy our hatred of ourselves, the way we live, and our sense of confinement.

The crisis is frightening in itself, but when tied to these other factors can be overwhelming, so the desire to live peacefully, with equinamity, perhaps in the ‘spirit’ can also lead to suppression of information about the crisis, the feelings associated with it, and constructive discussion about it.

Indeed the media and the political Right have generally tried to stop recognition of climate crisis, and to turn climate change into a subject people are too frightened to talk about. People feel they will be attacked, humiliated, or inadequate. They may think the science is too complicated and they may get it wrong, or they would not know what is inncorrect in someone else’s assertion. Even the most open news sources may undermine their own articles on climate change by finishing with doubt. Or media may portray a heatwave with pictures of people at the beach, rather than people in ambulances. This lack of public conversation, and recognition of helps make climate emergency seem an intractable problem, and reinforces the idea that there is a real debate about whether climate change is happening, or whether it is humanly caused.

Even the climate movement seems generally ‘afraid’ of feelings, apparently thinking that fear or grief, for example, will lead people astray; but these feelings are a non-detachable part of human response to the crisis, and if ignored will undermine the work we do.

As Margaret Klein Salomon argued at the Summit, fear tells us to protect ourselves and those we value; it can move us into action. Fear is a warning and fear can be a fuel. If you are not frightened of climate change then you are not really alive – at the best you are probably suppressing your awareness of the situation we are in, and thus not reacting to it appropriately.

She went on to argue that grief also tends to be locked out, yet many of us grieve for the world we have lost, the animals, ecosystems and people who have been destroyed or severely injured. Grief is an expression of love and fellow feeling. We grieve because the loss matters, and because we feel the connection that has gone. By feeling the grief we feel, we are taking in the truth of the situation, and opening our way to something new. This world is dying, but with recogition of grief, we can start to build a new one.

Sally Gillespie suggests that discussing our feelings and understandings with like minded people, in places which are safe, furthers our ability to act, and overcomes the sense of isolation which is encouraged by the media and the Right. Simply listening to others and recognising these feelings can give people a sense of their own solidity and reality, and of the possibility of action. It makes the crisis real, and the possibility of response real.

The facts of climate change can be overwhelming, we can zone out when hearing them, and we need to acknowledge the feelings that arise so that we can process the information and its connection to our daily lives. Without these forms working together and acknowledging feelings and problems, we can enter a cycle of individual disconnection which reinforces established powers and destructive patterns. We are ecologies as much as we live in an ecology, and we need to acknowledge this reality.

Listening to reality and to others, implies the importance of listening to those things we are unconscious of, which we may find in fantasies and more particularly in dreams. Dreams themselves are modes of perception. Learning to live with these modes of awareness is vital to our response and to our psychological health, as we deal with the crisis which our society would rather did not exist.

Denying and suppressing feelings and distress takes energy, quite a lot of energy in muscle tension amongst other things. When we are able to acknowledge the feelings and share them with others so they seem normal and we can come to accept them and let them flow (rather than try to hold them in place), then we have a lot more energy with which to do things with, including protest and political (and other) action against climate change. We become alive again, and can honour life.

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Climate Emergency Summit 03: Political disinterest

February 16, 2020

Previously I discussed what needs to be done in the Emergency, now we discuss the lack of political interest.

We have to understand how little interest there is amongst the political class at Federal or State level, in solving, or even recognising the emergency – which is one reason why we might have to work outside of Parliament, maybe at the local council level. As far as I can see there were only two current Australian Federal politicians present, and few State politicians. Although there were numbers of people from local councils, and from the ACT.

Perhaps politicians think that acknowledging the presence of an ’emergency’ would make them look weak or panic driven? Certainly they know it would leave them open to attack from the Murdoch Empire and the Minerals Council and probably the Business Council, and that this three pronged attack would not be comfortable. In some cases it may not be survivable….

Adam Bandt, the new leader of the Greens, remarked that when people brought the remains of their homes in protest to Canberra, they were largely ignored. The government continued to pretend it was acting to make things better while actively trying to make things worse.

When Greg Mullins, a former fire chief, was talking to people in his field, before the current fires, he found they all said the changes were worse than the predictions. There has been close to a 20% reduction in rain; the winter rains do not come; the season for hazard reduction burning is shortening; the gaps between major fires is shortening; and the fire season is lengthening at both ends. Fire fighters in different states could previously share resources, because the fires in one state would happen when it was not burning in another state, now the fires are pretty much continuous leaving no respite. In the current fires, areas can burn several times, which is almost unheard of previously, hindering the process of regeneration; usual fires leave islands of bush in which plants and animals shelter, these fires did not. They tried several times to get discussions with the PM, but he refused and, as we all know, went on holiday in the middle of the fires. When they did finally get a meeting with a minister, the minister rushed to a press conference to say the government was already acting and had done enough already… Mullins said that as soon as they mentioned climate change these older ‘chiefs’ were branded as activists, and as of no worth. The Murdoch Empire news sheet The Australian tried to emphasise that the group was funded by the Evil alarmist Tim Flannery and the Climate Council. A volunteer fire fighter who complained about the Prime Minster on Television, because he had seen so much loss, was dismissed from the Rural Fire Service. That is how politicised the Coalition has made the issue, and how dismissive they are.

SM’s only solution to the crisis is for us all to adapt, or get used to it, as the satiric Australien Government ads suggest. It is not possible to get used to, or adapt to, 25m sea level rises and dying land; anyone who thinks we can do this without massive planning is either lying or without imagination, so its not surprising they can’t think of solutions…

Even more to the point is that PM Morrison’s staff members are often heavily associated with the fossil fuel industry, business-favouring denial is right in his office, and we know the Coalition will not support a Federal ICAC, and Labor are reluctant.

Labor is little better. Some people describe the last election as the climate election, but Labor hardly explained its climate policy let alone emphasised it, was ambiguous about the Adani mine, promoted fracking in the NT, and allowed Morrison to get away with claiming his government was acting. After the election, Labor seemed to spend most of its time defending coal mining and the new leader dropped Labor’s 2030 targets, but that is not enough for some of his party who seem convinced that they lost because they were perceived as being anti-fossil fuels.

It also shows willful refusal to face the problems. A refusal which is contemptible and cowardly.

****

In explaining the term ’emergency’ in ‘climate emergency’ Adam Bandt argued that we declare an emergency to safe lives. Ambulance workers and fire fighters are emergency workers. We could not live without them. An emergency does not always require a war.

As well as looking at the obvious fact that politicians seem controlled by factions of the corporate elite, who reward their lack of interest, there are also psychological factors which could be involved.

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Climate Emergency Summit 02: Action?

February 16, 2020

Part 1 of this discussion deals with the current state of the world and what the emergency looks like. We can now move on to what constitutes an adequate response.

The minimum actions seem to be something like the following. How they are organised is a political question which is vital, but open for discussion.

Firstly we need to stop all new fossil fuel mines and exploration. We almost certainly won’t do this, because of the power of fossil fuel companies and the (dis)information they disperse, and because some people cannot imagine life without fossil fuels, but it’s absolutely necessary. More fossil fuels will only make the situation worse.

This means no Adani mine, and no Clive Palmer mine. We apparently have plans for another 50-80 coal mines in Australia and even more new gas wells. This stops, Now. Personally I don’t think there should be any compensation for this. These companies were trying to profit from our destruction, so I have little pity for their loss, and we need all our resources to help the transition, but that is not my decision – that is part of the political process.

All existing fossil fuel mines need to be phased out over the next ten years. For the purposes of climate change, it is irrelevant whether these materials are burnt overseas or here. They have to be stopped.

We immediately start building, as public works, a grid that is capable of handling renewable energy and connecting new sources of energy to its markets. We also make it possible to directly transmit generated energy from a rooftop to another building without having to use the grid; this will make community energy developments much easier. The actual building of solar and wind farms can be left to companies or preferably communities, as there seems considerable will to build these.

We begin to reduce emissions in all fields (energy, transport, industry, building, agriculture etc) to zero by 2030. We start by phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, and by having a carbon price that rises every year in a predictable manner. We phase out ‘natural gas’ through renewably generated hydrogen and ammonia for transportation of the hydrogen. The hydrogen or ammonia can act as storage, along with weights, batteries etc. We mandate that all new buildings should have 7* energy efficiency by the end of this decade, exploring energy efficiency as best we can, and make sure regenerative agriculture becomes the norm. We may need to increase all taxes to raise money for action and research. At the minimum, no company should trade here and not pay tax on their local income.

People may say that being planned this is not going to deliver things as well as the market, but the market alone shows no signs of delivering what we need within the time frame in which we need it. The market is one of the factors which has generated the problem and it has failed to generate a solution. This does not mean we destroy the market, we just provide better parameters for it to function in. Parameters which are not determined by fossil fuel companies.

All the workers in these fields need to feel and perceive there is a progression to a new stable financially comparable and interesting employment. This will require more planning.

We need to engage in drawdown, not to offset burning fossil fuels, but to remove existing emissions from the air. Regenerative agriculture, biochar and massive tree replanting (that is not just planting the same tree over and over, but planting ecologically appropriate distributions of trees and bushes) might be useful here, as will be bans on land clearing and clear felling. We also need massive investment in research into carbon removal and reuse, as current tech is nowhere near adequate.

Drawdown, even to preindustrial levels, may not be sufficient. If the ice caps have melted enough then the world will be warmer and may not shift back into cooling fast enough. In which case we may need to do solar radiation management; that is cooling the earth by reflecting light back into space. This is dangerous with unintended consequences almost certain to arise. It requires worldwide co-ordination, and some plan to compensate those who end up worse off than previously. It is not to be contemplated before all other methods are found to fail and a time limit should be set for its use and slow withdrawal.

We almost certainly need to plan for migration inland resulting from sea level rises, and to protect coastal cities, towns and infrastructure where possible (nothing much is possible if we don’t prevent the 25 m rise). We almost certainly will need to have huge flexible and well equipped emergency services. And we will need to organise people to protect and tend changing eco-systems.

These requirements are truly massive in terms of preparation and expense (probably overwhelming) and we will not be able to protect everything. However the problem needs to be acknowledged, so we can do our best in advance, and it should create plenty of jobs.

The difficulties of such a project are enormous and possibly insurmountable. But the neoliberal elites from Keating onwards have derailed any attempts to solve these problems previously, and have politicised these problems in order to carry out their prime directive of making corporate power and hierarchy safe by destroying the power of ordinary people to affect their corporate overlords. In the long term, they have failed. In twenty to thirty years, without action of the kind discussed here, the whole economy will be falling apart and that includes the corporate sector, not to mention the billions who will suffer and die as a result of that refusal to act. If we had been able to start 30 years ago, we might not be needing this kind of ‘excessive’ action now.

This is not an exaggerated bid to gain action, it is a minimum bid for what is needed. Going still further would be better.

It is unlikely the State will go with these proposals, so we will have to work outside the State and build a new participatory democracy from the grass roots up. Some people will argue that the project violates their rights. But if we don’t have a working ecology, and a functional society, then no one will have rights. If we do nothing, we face dictatorship as the Corporate State tries to enforce its rule in a crumbling war torn world.

However if the best we are offered is 2050 targets (as, in Australia, with Zali Steggall’s Bill) then we should go with them, and press further. Anything serious is better than nothing. Even if it won’t work, it will get people thinking about what we need to do, and that might make the dangers clearer than if people keep running away from them in the hope that they personally will be special enough to escape the consequences.

This is a hard set of demands, which will not encourage unity. But it is extremely difficult to have unity with climate change deniers, after all they are seeking a unity in denial of the challenges and in flight from the challenges. However, as Zali Steggall said at the summit, as an athlete you live with failure: you have to be prepared to put it all on the line, and sometimes you will fail and sometimes it will be wonderful.

Part 3: The lack of political interest in the Emergency

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Climate Emergency Summit 01: Position

February 16, 2020

The Summit in Melbourne demonstrated the way that mainstream politics on climate action is nearly delusional. Mainstream politics basically denies the seriousness of the situation.

Firstly, and this is my opinion obviously, the fires all over the world in the last two years have not only released heaps of excess Greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere, making our situation leap into the next bracket of bad, but we already have record temperatures all over the world, and more importantly, the melting of the permafrost. This melting will release stored methane, another GHG, and this release will further increase the warming and rate of warming. We are now going into a phase in which natural processes are accelerating human induced warming. The Amazon has apparently become so messed up it is turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source, and this transformation in damaged forest is not rare. Melting of the Antarctic and Greenland land ice, has already begun, and the melting once started, and accelerated by the extra GHG release, will be hard to stop and will increase ‘exponentially’; that is it will start off slow and rapidly accelerate. We can expect a sea level rise of 25 to 50 metres in a fairly small timeframe – probably within a human life time. For reference, 25 m is about a seven story building. Speeds of melting seem massively underestimated in the older literature – it was not supposed to have started yet.

I could expect, with the situation continuing to worsen, that we might even get a couple of metres of rise in the next 10 to 15 years. Most big cities are on the coast, and large populations are also coastal. Billions of people will be dispossessed all around the world. Few countries will be safe as the waters continue to rise. The stress of flooded cities and loss of fertile land, with the sea gradually getting higher, will destroy economies, destroy supply chains and destroy residencies. Even if the displaced people can get to refugee camps, then there will be no organisation, as countries and corporations will be using their resources elsewhere to hold themselves together. Even those people who live above 50 m above sea level will feel the cascading destructions.

Many places in the world will become uninhabitable with a three degree rise. Parts of Australia are already approaching uninhabitable, after a mere one degree, because of the tendency to have strings of really high temperature days with no breaks and no rain – this can kill even the most resilient plant life.

On top of this, we can expect the recurrence of hugely destructive storms and floods, as well as droughts, as the climate system struggles to find equilibrium. It cannot find equilibrium while we keep increasing the stress in the climate systems. This weather will clearly add to the stress on our social systems and our abiilty to be resilient, or make useful change. Insurance bills seem to be mounting, which marks increased destruction.

The current mass extinction is another problem. Collapsing biodiversity will affect all surviving living systems including those of agriculture. Given the change in climate as well, we can expect very different biosystems to begin to start existing around us. This will mean new diseases and new spreads of old diseases.

Tropical disease will move into the first world. Heat stroke is a major cause of death indirectly through heart attacks and so on. At the summit, representatives of the AMA announced they believe that global warming will be catastrophic for human health. On top of this the disorder will promote the collapse of the medical system; hospitals may be underwater, or without power and supplies. You, your children, your siblings, spouse and your parents are more likely to die of avoidable disease if climate change runs away.

The threat is huge. Climate change is no longer in the future but here now and going to get worse.

Given the situation we have described, targets which are to be achieved by 2050 are almost a waste of time. Indeed 2050 targets can be primarily seen as a way of doing nothing now. By 2050 we will be deep into a deadly disorganisation of enforced change. While the disruption will not be reaching its peak by then, it is still extremely likely to be society destroying.

The targets need to start being visibly implemented now, and we need to start carbon dioxide drawdown now. The GHGs we already have in the air are going to increase warming. There is a delay in the effects; how much is hard to predict, but even if we stopped all emissions tomorrow we are still not past the worst consequences of what we have already set in motion – Michael Mann thought it was likely that we are already locked into a 10 m sea level rise. If you try to stop a passenger liner just by turning the engines off, it will still keep going forward.

The next post describes how we probably need to act….

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More on Energy Policy: Consequences

February 11, 2020

The previous post discussed the incoherencies of Australian energy policy. This post discusses the consequences of that incoherence.

Two relatively straightforward consequences of this mess, are, that emissions reduction is failing, largely because of policy issues.

[I]ndustry emissions (excluding electricity) have risen to 60% cent above 2005 levels behind increases in the Oil & Gas (621% increase), Road Transport (122%), Aviation (54%) and Mining (41%) sectors….

Emissions from the industrial sector will surpass electricity as Australia’s largest emitting sector in 2023-24, with companies free to increase their ‘emissions baselines’ under the government’s Safeguard Mechanism scheme.

RenewEconomy 12th Feb 2020 a

And, it appears that, in NSW, more expensive gas production is displacing cheaper coal and solar, due to internal market factors. As the reporters remark:

While more remains to be done to understand this in detail, prima facie this is yet another instance of the exercise of market power by the coal generation oligopoly in New South Wales.

RenewEconomy 12th Feb b

The incoherence of policy is also starting to bite into investment in Renewables, and it is quite possible it was intended that way, but it could have been an unexpected consequence of incoherence. Who can tell?

The level of new investment commitments in large-scale renewable energy projects has collapsed by more than 50 per cent according to new analysis by the Clean Energy Council which reveals a fall from 51 projects worth $10.7 billion in 2018 down to 28 projects worth $4.5 billion in 2019.

Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said mounting regulatory risks, under investment in transmission and policy uncertainty have contributed to increased risks for investors and resulted in a lowering in confidence and slow-down in investment commitment….

The top reasons for a decline in investor confidence was due to grid connection issues, a lack of strong national energy and climate policy and network congestions and constraints.

Clean Energy Council 30 Jan

As the Clean Energy Council suggests, one of the fundamental problems is lack of working electricity grid, which is certainly influenced by energy policy. As a consequence, The Australian Energy Market Operator has warned of long queues for connection. The gird in some parts of Australia is massively fragile. This may be resolved by the AEMO’s Integrated System Plan, but the earliest this is likely to be built is in 2026 or 2027. So it may take seven years before some new projects can connect to the grid. What this does for investment, should be clear to nearly everyone.

The CEO of AGL remarked that although battery technology was improving rapidly, was cheaper than pumped hydro and will compete with gas peaking plants, fewer renewable energy projects would go ahead because of the costs and economics of connection. “There is a struggle for new projects, there is a struggle to get on, and they are struggling to maintain forecast loss factors… A lot of renewable energy is getting choked.”

There are forces pushing renewable companies out of the market.

One of the biggest contractors and constructors of large-scale solar farms in Australia, the listed constructing giant Downer Group, has signaled a dramatic exit from the solar business, saying it is too hard.

[The CEO said:]

“Developers, contractors and bankers all struggle to come to terms with the risk of large power loss factors, grid stability problems, connection problems, and equipment performance issue”

RenewEconomy 12 Feb 2020

Other companies are also having problems with the complications of the rules around connection and moving out of the field.

“To say this is a significant blow to investors is a major understatement,” said David Shapero, managing director of the Australian arm of German renewable energy developer BayWa r.e., which has one solar farm in Victoria forced to operate at half capacity since September and a second that was due to come online in October but is lying idle. “In the end, we have invested around $300 million in two solar farms and we’re getting returns on half a solar farm.”

Australian Financial Review 24 Feb 2020

Mr Shapero continued, to indicate that inadequate and old regulations were the main problem:

“There is no doubt that AEMO understand the issues. They have very good leadership. But there’s also no doubt AEMO needs assistance from government, other regulators, and the industry to put in place immediate, small changes to the rules.

“These small changes will allow them to ensure such issues don’t occur in the first place, and give them much greater control to manage the transition.”

as above.

Senior economic journalist John Kehoe, who again is not left-wing, generalises the problem to almost the whole economy:

The uncertainty and unpredictable energy market regulatory interventions by the government are contributing to business investment falling to its weakest share of the economy since the early-1990s recession.

Australian Financial Review 22 Feb 2020

Meanwhile the NSW government and the Federal Government are planning to fast track evaluations of three projects under the federal Coalition’s Underwriting New Generation Investment program. This agreement includes:

  • extension of the Vales Point coal generator 
  • ensuring sufficient coal supplies for the Mt Piper coal generator near Lithgow, to keep it going to 2042.
  •  a gas plant in Port Kembla
  • pumped hydro scheme in the state’s North
  • work on the grid in exchange for more gas production.

They also are trying to keep the Liddell coal fired energy generator going beyond its planned 2023 closure date which would cost $300m for three years. It is now likely that it will cost more to keep the power station operating than can be recovered in operating profits. It is not clear who would be paying this money.

Vales point gives further information about how business works in NSW. In November 2015, the NSW Government sold Vales Point Power Station to Sunset Power International for $1 million – less than the price of many suburban houses. In 2017 the site was valued at $730 million. The company bought back the shareholdings and the investors received a great cash pay out.

The shareholders are companies associated with Trevor St Baker who controls more than 25 per cent of ERM Power Limited, which purchases power from Vales Point, and which has contracts to supply the NSW Government with electricity. So the NSW government sells a station, used to provide it with power, at a bargain price and then buys power from it, making a fortune for those who invested. That seems like a sensible energy policy.

To make the power station cheap, the NSW government said it would close in 2021, but still sold it massively under the normal commercial rates. And now, the supposed closure date is being ignored, and it may be (according to the Daily Telegraph 14 Feb 2020 “Coal’s $11m turbo charge”) that at least $11m dollars of taxpayers’ money is being used to provide a turbine upgrade and high pressure heaters. This is how the free market works in practice.

This may also be more than government stupidity and policy incoherence, if it was, then why keep supporting the problem?

Nevertheless, the trends are clear. Have policy to make life difficult for investors in renewable energy, and life easy for investors in coal.

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Confusion in Australian Energy Policy….

February 10, 2020

This is a two part post. News from the last week helps capture the total confusion and incoherence of Australian energy policy. The first post discusses the incoherences and the second discusses the consequences of those incoherences.

Firstly, Australian electricity prices are falling. This is supposed to be of great concern to the Coalition government, which campaigns heavily on the idea of cheap electricity, and of blaming renewables, or a repealed carbon price, for any price increases…

However the reason the prices appear to be coming down is because of renewables…

In its Quarterly Energy Dynamics report for the fourth quarter of 2019, the Australian Energy Market Operator says spot wholesale electricity prices averaged $A72/megawatt hour (MWh), marking a 19 per cent fall from Q4 2018, and the lowest prices since Q4 2016….

The market operator said that a “key driver” of this fall in spot prices was increased supply from wind farms and solar farms, whose combined output increased by a massive 39 per cent compared to Q4 2018.

The largest fall in price occurred in the renewable rich state of South Australia, “where the average price for the quarter was $68/MWh”

The Energy Security Board, which reports to the Council of Australian Governments is expecting further price reductions:

Looking forward a downward trend in retail prices is noted. Over the period to 2021-22 a decrease in prices of 7.1% (about $97) is expected. A decrease in wholesale prices is the main driver and this decrease is in turn driven by new low-cost renewable generation entering the system.

ESB Health of the National Electricity Market Media Release

There were also a large number of coal outages in 2019 – we have old coal power stations which are unreliable in the heat – so much for the stability of coal power. The system used to collapse quite regularly when the generators where young as well, as many older people can tell you. What is worrying about the breakdowns is not the breakdowns of the old lignite fired power stations, but of the most recent and biggest power station, built in 2007, Kogan Creek. These collapses, and other factors, lead the AEMO to say:

black coal-fired generation around the country decreased by 1,061MW on average compared to Q4 2018, its lowest quarterly level since Q4 2016

So more black coal is not needed all the time, even now. Gas can also be problematic. RenewEconomy reports:

Origin [a major electricity provider] has been hit by a long-term outage at its Mortlake gas generator in Victoria, and at its Eraring coal generator in NSW. These outages alone slashed $44 million from its first half earnings, while a 7 per cent slump in volumes due to the growth of rooftop solar and expired business contracts cut profits by $46 million, and price controls in Victoria and federally cost another $55 million.

Renew Economy 20 Feb 2020

This apparently cost Origin $170 million in electricity earnings, an overall drop of 11% for second half of 2019.

There was so much renewable energy around, that not only did it reduce profits for some corporations, but prices were occasionally negative and some renewable sources were told to curtail production.

[R]enewable energy curtailment across the National Electricity Market – the main grid covering the eastern states – increased to 6 per cent of total output in Q4 2019, the highest amount on record.

With typical realism, former minister Matt Canavan (who left the ministry to support Barnaby Joyce’s leadership bid) declared that “Renewables are the dole bludgers of the energy system, they only turn up to work when they want to“. The reality is that they have to sometimes be laid off to keep the coal energy industry in business. He continued to argue that Australia apparently needs coal for our remaining manufacturing. Supporting manufacturing has not been something the Coalition has been that interested in for a while.

As the article quoted above states, it is close to “impossible to name a single federal Coalition MP that recognises the potential of wind and solar”, even with the latest research from the CSIRO and AEMO stating that renewables with storage are cheaper than coal, and far cheaper than nuclear. Some other research suggests storage and “dispatchability” could potentially no longer be a problem; a report from the ANU states that there are around 22,000 potential pumped hydro storage sites in Australia, and Professor Blakers from the ANU Research School of Engineering says:

“Australia needs only a tiny fraction of these sites for pumped hydro storage – about 450 GWh of storage – to support a 100 per cent renewable electricity system…”

There are large scale plans to sell renewable energy generated in Australia to Singapore, or to generate hydrogen gas and export it instead of methane (especially in South Australia), but the Federal government appears to ignore these ideas, or realities. Coal is still its god, and needs taxpayer support. So it is not surprising that:

The Australian Coalition government has announced a new $4 million grant to pursue a new 1GW coal fired generator in north Queensland in one of the first acts of the new pro-coal resources minister Keith Pitt.

Taxpayers’ money is being given to Shine Energy to conduct a feasibility study for a proposed 1GW HELE coal plant at Collinsville in Queensland.

Let’s ignore the probability that Northern Queensland already has more energy than it needs.

“The problem is it makes little commercial sense to build more generation in Queensland at the moment. The state is in oversupply. Queensland’s 13GW of conventional generation has been augmented over the last decade by more than 5GW of new rooftop solar and large-scale renewables. There’s more on the way”.

Australian Financial Review

Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute commented:

there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that marginal electorates are the cheapest or best places to build new power stations. …

The former resources minister Matt Canavan even pulled out the schoolyard defence of ‘they started it’, arguing on Twitter that: “I see some are saying that we should not help coal-fired power stations provide jobs because we should leave it to the market. Well if that’s the view be consistent and argue against the billions we give to renewables every year!”….

First, no federal government has spent billions per year on subsidies for renewables. None. While it’s true that the government mandates that minimum amounts of renewable energy are supplied to the grid, such obligations don’t cost the budget a cent.

Australian Financial Review 24 Feb 2020

Denniss also points out that:

Only one coal-fired power station is being built anywhere in Western Europe, North America or Australia; a German plant that is nine years overdue. Even in Trump’s America, no coal-fired power stations are under construction.

as above

What this grant to Shine shows is that nobody is prepared to even look at building coal power in Australia without subsidy. Just as Adani is constantly demanding subsidy for its coal mine (free water, royalty holidays, train lines, apart from straight money gifts), and this mine is unlikely to benefit any Australians at all, and likely to damage a few.

We now know:

The only physical trace of Shine Energy, which wants to build a $2bn coal-fired power station in north Queensland, is a small post office box next to an Asian grocer at a suburban Brisbane shopping complex…. 

Company documents show Shine Energy is worth a nominal $1,000 on paper. It has no registered financial obligations, and no physical office at its listed address.

On its website, Shine describes its business as providing “renewable energy solutions”, but the company could offer no evidence that it or its directors…. has ever previously worked on an energy generation project.

The Guardian 29 Feb 2020

Superficially, this looks like a strange company to entrust with the task.

The PM justified all of this by saying “We listen to all Australians and we listen to Australians right across the country, not just those in the inner city.” I suspect they only listen to Australians who sponsor them, or agree with them, after all “60% of a sample of 1,083 voters believes Australia should be doing more” and 64% of another poll see climate change as the prime critical threat to Australia, and most of them think we should act even if it involves significant costs. Quite a few people, including Coalition voters, think their lack of climate policy is problematic.

And of course this spending on coal is being justified as it will “help drive down prices for businesses and their customers.” The Prime Minister apparently said: “we won’t be bullied into higher taxes and higher electricity prices.” Barnaby Joyce argued that the government needs to ensure that “the poor people can get affordable power, and that we can get dignity in people’s lives.”

However, prices are already going down without coal, and coal emissions will have disastrous effects on poorer people in fire and flood zones – they won’t be able to afford the insurance hikes. No one in the Coalition seems at all concerned about the cost to the ecology in terms of climate change. The future costs of the loss of agriculture, loss of water and through storm, flood and fire damage appears completely opaque to them. It does not count. Effectively fossil fuels are being subsidised by ignoring the costs that will fall on ordinary people and the economy in general.

We already have problems of too much energy for the market, subsidised coal will not solve that problem, and if it is more costly to build, then without even more taxpayer subsidy, it will cost more and pollute more, and take more water and damage climate even more. Coal is a loose/loose situation.

And then we learn that:

Renewable Energy Partners has been given $2 million in funds from the Coalition government to advance a feasibility study into a project that would combine 1.5GW of pumped hydro, with seven hours storage, along with up to 1.3GW of solar PV, 800MW of wind energy and a 200MW hydrogen electrolyser, fuelled by the green energy sources.

The CEO states:

“Our initial studies have already shown that our site is well suited for solar generation, the topography is ideal for the construction of a large-scale wind farm and a recent study by the Australian Energy Market Operator has confirmed the need for a large pumped hydro facilities in North Queensland, the Urannah Renewable Hub is the battery of the north,” 

There is no evidence of coherency in this policy. The government could strongly point out that they are trying to find the best system, by linking or comparing the projects, but they don’t and probably can’t.

The government has also apparently started leaking that it would prefer to “favour technology over taxation” because, according to the PM:

“currently no one can tell me that going down that path won’t cost jobs, won’t put up your electricity prices, and won’t impact negatively on jobs in the economies of rural and regional Australia.” 

PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

We have seen electricity prices seem to be coming down and the CSIRO working with other people such as the National Bank and other businesses (so this is not some ‘crazy’ left wing report) have argued:

Australia faces a Slow Decline if it takes no action on the most significant economic, social and environmental challenges. But, if these challenges are tackled head on, Australia can look forward to a positive Outlook Vision. This could mean higher GDP per capita, ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, strong economic growth and energy affordability, and more liveable major cities

CSIRO Australian National Outlook 2019

They go on to suggest that this could lead to 2.75–2.8% annual growth in GDP (ok there are possible problems with this, but from the Coalition’s point of view this is good), 90% wages growth by 2060, and $42–84 billion increase in returns to landholders (Executive Summary p.9). This is much better than the option of failing to “adequately address the global and domestic issues, resulting in declining economic, social and environmental outcomes.” So the Prime Minister can’t really say that nobody has told him that going renewable would be good for the economy and the country.

The PM continues his argument by suggesting that:

There’s a lot of people at the moment wanting us to put more taxes on people to solve problems. I don’t believe higher taxes are the solution to our problems. 

PM Transcript 18 Feb 2020

He does not say who these people are, but another commentator in the not leftwing Australian Financial Review remarks:

far from being mutually exclusive, technology and a carbon price can be complementary in driving down emissions. …

without a market-based carbon price to incentivise lower emissions technology and private sector research and development, the government will resort to heavy-handed interventions to try to spur new emissions-reduction technology. It’s remarkable that on climate and energy policies, a Liberal government favours big government picking winners instead of market principles.

Australian Financial Review 22 Feb 2020

In a later speech the Prime Minister seems to assume that:

“hazard reduction for keeping people safe as, frankly, as important as emissions reduction when it comes to addressing these climate issues…. And, you know, rural and regional Australia is tough. They’re resilient. And it’s a great place to be.”

PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020

You almost certainly cannot reduce the hazard from 3-4 degree temperature rises and and sea level rises, enough to keep people safe.

Then we hear there are:

Record levels of investment in renewable technologies, beating our Kyoto emissions reduction target by 411 million tonnes. 

PM Transcript 17 Feb 2020 b

Ignoring the Kyoto accounting trick [2] [3] [4] [5] and its effects, in this statement, the government, with Labor support, are running down the finances of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which helps fund the establishment of renewable energy systems and research into renewable energy. ARENA expects to exhaust its funds by the end of the year. This is simultaneous boasting of spending on renewables and inhibiting that spending. It is not coherent. Unless of course, by technology, they do not mean renewables, or greenhouse gas free technologies.

Indeed we have to assume that incoherency is the standard response of Australian politicians when faced with climate change. The Labor deputy leader responded to all this, by saying:

“I absolutely support coal mining jobs and coal miners, and the role that that plays within our economy, and it will continue to play a role for a long time to come,… [we should] acknowledge the significant role that coal miners play and the communities play within our economy” [but] “A Labor government is not going to put a cent into subsidising coal-fired power. And that is the practical question as to whether or not it happens”

Yes look after the workers, but don’t poison the planet. This is not a difficult idea; the climate movement has been talking about “just transitions” for a long time. A few days after this, Labor leader Anthony Albanese said, in response to questions about coal fired energy plants:

You may as well ask me if I support unicorns…. I don’t think there’s a place for coal-fired power plants in Australia, full stop… The truth is no private sector operation will touch a new coal-fired power plant with a barge pole

Canberra Times

However,

Business and industry groups are urging the government to commit to zero carbon emissions by 2050…. Mr Albanese refused to give a clear answer when pressed on whether Labor supported their calls, saying his party would cement their climate policies closer to the next federal election in 2022.

same as above

Later Mr Albanese objected to the proposal to give Shine Energy taxpayer’s money, saying:

“they are using $4m of taxpayers funds to give to a private operation that has no record of building a new power station anywhere”

However, he went on to support the Adani mine saying:

“It’s a good thing those jobs have been created. I support jobs regardless of where they are [and, he supports] and the economic activity that will arise from them…..Our priority is jobs and jobs here in Queensland, and we make no apologies for that.”

The Guardian

As I have argued on several occasions there are not that many jobs in the Adani mine, and there are severe disputes about the economic flow on benefits, especially granted the royalty holidays, taxpayer subsidies and risk of destroying water flows. It might be cheaper just to use the subsidies to start new local industries in Queensland to provide real jobs.

Late last year Albanese also said:

“the proposal that we immediately stop exporting coal would damage our economy and would not have any environmental benefit”.

Brisbane Times

Nobody I am aware of, is arguing that we “immediately stop exporting coal,” so this is not a real point, but lots of people are arguing that we should not open new coal mines or expand the coal exports. This is because, climate change is a global systemic problem. It does not matter where the fossil fuels are burnt, they affect, and worsen, Australia’s climate, causing job losses in other parts of the country.

In an interview on the ABC’s Insiders, after the policy speech, Albanese agreed there was still likely to be coal mining and export in Australia after 2050. “[The target is] net, that’s the point.” He said that exported coal was not counted in Australia’s greenhouse gas budget. “You don’t measure the emissions where the original product comes from.” This avoidance of responsibility is despite him recognising the targets are economy wide, and not cutting back emissions affects the world.

If Labor supports the mining and burning of coal, they do not have an effective climate policy, they (at best) only have a ‘get Australia out of coal fired energy policy’.

Conservative Independent Zali Steggall has proposed legislation which would enforced zero net emissions by 2050, and give a series of targets on the way, but Albanese appears not to be keen to support her move, giving the excuse that the Government would not allow debate, leaving his climate change spokesman Mark Butler to try and say they would engage with the possibility of supporting the proposed legislation. Later Albanese said:

the world must achieve net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050…. [so that] the amount of pollution released into the atmosphere is no greater than the amount we absorb which can occur through agriculture, forestry and other means.

Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

Nothing in this speech, or in what he has said elsewhere, gives any interim targets to get to “net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050”. This indicates little planning, or expectation of planning, and the apparent refusal to take on Steggall’s interim targets suggest this lack, is part of the policy.

He continued:

We pride ourselves on always pulling our weight. And we have seen climate change be a factor in our devastating bushfires. We could see it, smell it, even touch it. Our amazing continent is particularly vulnerable. So we have a lot to lose. But the good news is we also have a lot to gain. Action on climate change will mean more jobs, lower emissions and lower energy prices….in recent months we had some foreshadowing of the costs of inaction.

Speech: Leadership in a New Climate 21 Feb 2020

So, we are told both that action on climate must be sacrificed for jobs and produces jobs. And that we can sell climate change elsewhere and suffer here, and not suffer here. Labor is not coherent either.

One problem with neoliberalism, and Australian politics is primarily neoliberal, is that because it only recognises the virtues of profit, and preferably profit by established companies, it looks like corruption. Neoliberals will always support established corporate power and give it handouts, but they don’t have to be bought, they just do it anyway.

Then I guess there is the problem of existential crisis, and the difficulty of recognising that we cannot do what we have previously done, as it will harm us. This may well be affecting politicians and many high level business people, and if so then that leaves us in a storm without a rudder, clinging to what worked in the past and destroys us now.

The next post discusses the consequences of this confusion

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