Posts Tagged ‘climate change’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Pelosi and the PM

September 26, 2021

Australian Reporting

The Australian media has almost been falling over itself to note that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has praised Scott Morrison on Australia’s climate action. The Sydney Morning Herald which is usually denounced by the Murdoch Empire as far left, had the following headlines.

Nancy Pelosi says Australia is ‘leading the way’ on climate

saying she “hailed Australia as a global leader on climate change” and “singled out Australia for praise”

and

Nancy Pelosi’s praise for Scott Morrison should terrify Labor

This article actually points out the government is not doing much, but often the headline is the take-away.

Skynews had:

Scott Morrison wraps up ‘successful’ US trip

Saying, “Absolutely no one expected Nancy Pelosi to stand there and say Scott Morrison has been a leader on climate change” predicting “some kind of deal made while he was here”

The Daily Telegraph:

Australia praised for climate change stance by Nancy Pelosi [Paywall]

This is a little bit of a beat up, It was not quite fulsome praise but hopefully it will help Morrison to move a little away from promoting gas and coal.

The PM in New York

This is what PM Morrison said in NY. This provides the context:

“our achievements in reducing emissions is an important story for Australia to continue to tell, because it’s our record of achievement that actually establishes the integrity of the commitments that we make. That we will meet and beat our 2030 targets, I was able to inform the President today. And that we will continue to work on our plan as to how we can continue to reduce emissions to zero well into the future.

As I indicated at the start of this year, it was our intention to do. Because in Australia it’s not enough to have a commitment to something. You’ve got to have a plan to achieve it. And this is an important part of the way we approach this task. You have a plan to meet your commitment. If you don’t have a plan, you don’t have a commitment.

And so we will continue to work through those issues. It was a good opportunity to discuss the important elements of that plan today, in particular technology, the hydrogen projects that we’re engaged in, which were announced particularly early this week, and the important role that hydrogen technology as well as CCUS battery technology and others are going to play, not just in advanced economies, but in developing economies as well.

We share a passion that developing economies, particularly in our region, in Indo-Pacific, will be able to develop their economies with a clean energy future, that they will be able to realise the jobs that advanced economies have, to develop their industrial base on the new energy technologies. And Australia wants to play a critical role in that. And we want to partner with countries to achieve it. This will be an important topic of discussion on Friday, particularly to the point that you’ve raised [which was, “was critical minerals and hydrogen discussed during the meeting?”]”

Press Conference Prime Minister – New York, USA 22 Sep 2021 Transcript

The fact that the Government has avoided having a plan since they came to power over 9 years ago is not entirely irrelevant to the context, but let us assume they have suddenly discovered that planning can be useful and are now engaging in it.

He is still brandishing CCS or CCUS, which is about as failed a tech as its possible to get, but helps keep us burning coal and gas….

Pelosi Comments

In my opinion, Pelosi had a choice. She could accuse him of lying and incompetence which is really bad diplomacy and likely to lock him into his current denial of a problem, or she can selectively choose his words to try and hold him too those words. This is what she said (Italics for emphasis):

Yesterday, I had the privilege of welcoming two heads of state, Boris Johnson – maybe some of you were at that presentation with Boris Johnson, Prime Minister Johnson – and then later in the day, in the morning, same morning, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia. Why I bring it up in association with climate is that they were so exuberant about the urgency of addressing the climate issues.

Of course, we thanked the Prime Minister of U.K. for hosting COP26.  I just had the privilege of doing that at 10 Downing over the weekend when I was at the G7 Heads of Parliament and to see what was happening there in preparation for COP26.  But then he made a presentation to our bipartisan leadership of his priorities and strongly, strongly, strongly talking about what the U.K. was doing in terms of climate. 

And the Prime Minister of Australia, Morrison, he was saying we’re not only addressing the Paris Accords, we are – our slogan is ‘We Meet It and We Beat It.’

So, they’re [Boris and Scott] leading the way, and that’s what we all have to do, is meet our emissions responsibility and our financial responsibility to other countries so that when we leave COP26, having fulfilled our obligations to the Paris Accords, and then to go further.

It’s a health issue for our children: clean air, clean water. It’s a jobs issue for our country: green technologies, being preeminent in the world on those. It’s a security issue [important in terms of the newly signed sub agreement], because security experts tell us that migrations and the rest, rising sea levels, thermal management of the planet, drying up of rivers, encroachment of deserts [All Australian concerns], the list goes on, you know what they are, I think that is cause for competition and conflict over habitat and resources.

So it’s a security issue – health, jobs, security – and, of course, a moral issue, if you believe, as I do, that this is God’s creation, and we have a moral obligation to be good stewards [appeal to Religion]. But, even if you don’t share that view, we all agree that we have a responsibility to our children, grandchildren, future generations, to hand off the planet in a very responsible way.

Transcript of Pelosi Weekly Press Conference in the Capitol Visitor Center 23 September 2021

So while Pelosi avoids criticism of the PM, and her statement does involve some praise, it seems to be more, “that’s what you have claimed to be doing, so please do it.” She also seems to praise Johnson more than Morrison.

Her approach may produce a better result than an attack, but we will have to see….

Tags:, ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Why is action on climate change difficult?

August 31, 2021

The problem of climate change can appear unsolvable for a number of reasons:

  1. Contemporary society was built on fossil fuels, which are one of the main source of the greenhouse gases which cause and accelerate the current round of climate change, global heating, or climate turmoil whatever you want to call it.
  2. Contemporary society has also been based on free pollution, and largely free ecological destruction.
  3. Often the free pollution and ecological destruction is performed in places where it is difficult to see; in poor areas, overseas, with hard to perceive substances, etc., so the people consuming it don’t realise. However, it can be quite visible.
  4. All the evidence suggests that we now, need to reduce emissions quickly, to avoid climate change as a severe threat. Reducing quickly adds to the challenge, to the turmoil an disorder produced, and to the resistance.
  5. The fossil fuel, free pollution and ecological destruction system has brought about a technological system which benefits many people all over the world, and hence if we change it (especially if we change it rapidly), those people might lose out on something (whatever that is).
  6. Developing countries want to catch up with developed countries in terms of prosperity, and be militarily secure. The only exemplary path is through using fossil fuels, pollution and eco-destruction. If developing countries use this path, it will send everything over the edge, no matter how fair it is for them to use it.
  7. The developed world is not setting a good example of restraint, why should the developing?
  8. Changing a whole system is really difficult, as the system will resist. Many powerful organisations in society will resist. Technologies are locked-in, and hard to change. Previous investment of money, time and energy in destructive technologies will be ‘wasted’ if we change. Social habits, such as excessive consumption by those who can afford it or world wide travel, support the system.
  9. Powerful organisations benefit from ownership of fossil fuels, and free destruction and they fear change. Change may destroy their power and wealth.
  10. Because these people tend to be hyper-rich, they seem to think that they can survive climate change, and other people are expendable – there are so many of those other people.
  11. Because these people tend to be hyper-rich, they can buy media, they can buy politicians, they can buy think tanks; they can confuse the issue, and console themselves.
  12. Many people think CO2 is harmless, because it is a ‘natural’ product. The problem is that we emit too much of it, for the surviving ecology to process and remove.
  13. People don’t understand non-linear systems, in which small changes can lead to huge changes, and in which events in one place can effect events in another. Complex systems theory, or ‘ecological thinking’, is essential to understanding the world and giving a change of survival.
  14. Many people think it is obvious they know more about climate than people who have worked in it all their lives.
  15. Information society encourages feel-good ignorance, and the judging of information by political alliance.
  16. Action on climate change has been tied into political polarization, and hence it is hard to be on the Right and think about potential solutions without feeling you are betraying the party or your fellows, or that there is no problem to solve. Hence there are few solutions coming from the Right, that appeal to people on the Right, and this lowers the availability of plausible solutions in general.
  17. The media has generally been ‘even handed’ to escapist about climate change. Even now most people do not know how bad it is, or how much the world has been ‘on fire’. Ongoing, depressing news does not sell, and besides most media organisations are part of the corporate sector which appears to benefit from pollution and eco-destruction etc., so they are unlikely to try an undermine the system they grew out of.
  18. It is always easier to run away from problems and pretend everything is ok, or hope that because a system has worked well it will continue to work well.
  19. If we are going to change enough to survive climate change, we have to change the energy system. That is difficult because of established interests. It is also costly, and sets up new problems of energy supply, backup and energy organisation.
  20. Gas does not solve emissions problems. It could be better than coal, but its not better enough: it still has continuing emissions when burnt. Gas mines and gas pipes leak. Unburnt methane (‘natural gas’) is worse for global heating than CO2. Gas is no solution to the current problem or the need to lower emissions quickly.
  21. Nuclear energy could possibly solve the problem, but it seems too expensive. Taxpayers usually end up subsiding insurance, waste disposal and decommissioning. It is also possible reactors may not be quick and easy to build – they often run over cost and over budget. Going with nuclear may prolong fossil fuel emissions while we are waiting for the power stations to be built.
  22. While nuclear accidents seem infrequent, they have the possibility of affecting large areas, and they do. Few people want to live next to a nuclear reactor, so there will be resistance.
  23. Fracking usually makes the climate problem far worse, and runs the risk of poisoning local people. Ask almost anyone who lives in a fracking zone, if they will risk talking to you because of legal issues.
  24. If renewables are primarily installed by a corporate sector which likes free pollution and eco-destruction, then the chances are high that the companies and their renewables will bring these features with them.
  25. If renewables are installed by the kind of businesses that routinely exploit people, override local people, and lower wages and working conditions to increase profit, then they will likely continue to exploit people, override objections and probably not replace the jobs they are destroying.
  26. If renewables are to replace fossil fuels, we have to manufacture them. This could mean either using the energy from fossil fuels, or lowering the energy usage, so we have spare energy for manufacture.
  27. If we are going to survive climate change, we have to change the agricultural system, which has grown up with big farms, artificial fertilisers, economies of scale, free pollution, free eco-destruction and so on. Big agriculture is a source of GHG, deforestation and desertification. Big ag will resist any change, as the current situation seems profitable, even as the land becomes precarious. Change may also disrupt food supplies.
  28. If we are going to prevent climate change then we have to lower deforestation and desertification rates. These both reduce the Earth’s ecological capacity to process CO2 and thus make heating worse. This is hard because there is a continuing demand for both timber and land.
  29. If we are going to stop climate change in the long term, we probably have to shift out of a framework that requires continual economic growth, increasing consumption and increasing extraction. This will be difficult, given the world’s current wealth distribution

The main thing is to do what you can, whatever that is – even small changes can make a difference, as they rocket through the system.

If you can, organise to try and lower pollution and ecological-destruction in your neighbourhood, or by companies who exist in your neighbourhood.

Get on company boards, and try and shift the emphasis.

Lobby your pension fund to avoid destructive and polluting industries. Better still participate in an organised lobby.

Tell your politicians you do not support free pollution (including free greenhouse gas pollution), or free ecological destruction.

If you can afford it, buy real green power, or put solar panels on your roof.

Organise with other people in your community to see if you can arrange a community energy program or share power.

Consume electricity when its cheap.

Consume as little electricity from the grid as possible.

Use as little fossil fuel transport as possible. Covid has shown that many people do not need to travel.

If you can obtain it and afford it, buy as much organic food as you can/need. In many places some organic food is not that much more expensive than non-organic food.

If you can, don’t buy food that has travelled a long way.

Recognise climate change is not a simple problem, and help change as many of the points above as you can….

Tags:, ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Decline of the West 01: Run from problems

August 14, 2021

Climate change and ecological damage.

People have known, at a public political level about climate since the late 1980s and we basically have done nothing except increase the rate of producing greenhouse gases. Even now with year after year of temperature records, wild weather all over the world, major ice melts, and the UN calling for no new fossil fuel fields, the US, UK and Australian governments (among others) are promoting new coal and gas mines. The Australian government is enmeshed in fantasy.

Ecological damage continues to increase. The day by which we have estimatedly consumed all that the earth produces in a year keeps slipping back towards the start of the year.

Over fishing does not appear to have slowed in general etc etc.

One ongoing issue is the question of whether it is possible for Capitalism and developmentalism not to be destructive of the ecology?

We have to accept that these ideologies have been present during this period of ecological destruction. This may not be complete causation, for example capitalism and developmentalism have developed the way they have, precisely because they were able to freely destroy ecologies and pollute. If pollution and ecological damage had been factored into the system as costs, then they may not have developed the way they have….

However, it does possibly suggest that it is improbable that people will solve problems of pollution and ecological destruction within systems that have flourished by ignoring these problems.

Covid-19

The first year of Covid in the US, was pretty much a disaster. Apart, perhaps, from a roughly two week period in which people were cheering Tucker Carlson for persuading the president it was serious, which now seems to have been forgotten, the year was a mess. We know from the Bob Woodward interviews that the President knew Covid was serious in February 2020, but decided the American people needed to be cheered up and so he pretended the disease would vanish without much problem. Rather than face the problem, he engaged in positive thinking.

The President attacked quarantine and lock downs, he encouraged armed occupation of state buildings. According to some he thought the big cities would suffer worst and that they voted Democrat and so hindered their actions – does not appear to have helped (but part of the problem is the normalized abuse, which makes truth finding difficult). Simple things like using the pandemic plans, telling people the situation was dangerous, or coordinating PPE purchases would have helped. Sure he did help remove obstacles for vaccine production, although the vaccines were first developed overseas. He also seemed to have been caught in political bind about encouraging people to take the vaccine, and got his own shots in private.

Biden came along, and let’s disbelieve ‘sources’ who claim that there was no organisation from the previous administration for vaccine roll out. Despite the vaccines we now seem to face some Republican State admins not only distributing what appears to be misinformation, making it illegal for businesses to protect their customers and staff, and media saying that everyone should get back to work. This is odd as usually Republicans argue that businesses should be free to serve who they want and only who they want, and employ who they want etc.. I guess this is similar to the way it is ok for businesses to chose censor left wing thought and speakers, but terrible if they censor right wing thought and speakers.

The delta variant seems worse than the original form, and is spreading. The vaccines slow infection rather than stop it.

But with America now averaging about 113,000 cases a day, an increase of nearly 24% from the previous week, and hospitalizations up 31% from the week before, Republicans stand accused of causing the deaths of their own voters as the highly contagious Delta variant scythes through red states where vaccination rates are low….

In the past week Florida and Texas, states whose leaders take pride in riling the Biden administration, have accounted for nearly 40% of new hospitalizations across the country

Smith. Republican leaders fiddle while Covid burns through their own supporters. The Guardian 14 August 2021

In the UK, as far as I can see, the government has given up. The disease is rampant in India, Indonesia and South East Asia. People I know who live in those regions tell me that they hear of deaths of people they know almost every day.

Where I live the government is encouraging people from infected areas to go to the regions to buy real estate, and has contradictory rules, that make it hard for people to figure out what they should do, and was so overconfident that they blew their first serious challenge. Indeed it was so overconfident it seems to have had no plans for a problem. We have just heard from the Australian Medical Association that hospitals are not keeping up [2], and we have a long way to go before it gets really bad.

On top of that we seem to be ignoring long covid – well I have not seen any official stats – and pretending Covid is a form of flu rather than a new disease. While I’m ignorant it seems to be worth testing the hyporthesis, that in some cases Covid does long-term, or even permanent, damage to the body which produces long Covid.

In other words, the world as a whole, seemed to want to take the easy option, or even sabotage action, although it is true that some people did not. However, running around panic struck is not facing problems.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Australian response to the IPCC report: Technology and magic

August 11, 2021

The IPCC report is pretty simple. We have to cut emissions drastically in the next ten years to maintain some kind of climate stability. We cannot have more new coal mines or gas fields, or we have to make those new fields produce zero emissions. Even then it may not be enough.

The Australian government’s response has been odd.

From the minister for emissions reduction:

  • He praises the adoption of solar by homes and business – which has mainly been encouraged by the States and people acting on their own.
  • He claims Australia is going to be “a leader in the next generation of low-emissions technologies that will make net zero emissions practically achievable.” This seems to be backed by hope, not evidence.
  • and says “We are reducing emissions in a way that transforms industries through the power of technology, not through taxes that destroy them and the jobs and livelihoods they support and create.” By this he means they are supporting Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which does not work, hydrogen made from gas with CCS and increasing soil carbon which while good, will not fix the problem .

The PM started his day by blaming developing countries for the problem:

We must take action, as we indeed are, and continue to take action, as we will continue to, in developed countries, in advanced economies. But, we cannot ignore the fact that the developing world accounts for two thirds of global emissions, and those emissions are rising. That is a stark fact. It is also a clear fact that China’s emissions account for more than the OECD combined…. Unless we can get the change in the developing countries of the world, then what we’re seeing in these IPCC reports will occur.

I think that is pretty clear. The developing countries are to blame. Not us, thank goodness, even if we are among the world’s biggest gas and coal exporters.

not to say that we should be posing taxes on this, these countries.

Putting tariffs on high per capita emissions countries would affect exports from Australia, this may even affect Australian income – it may not depending on how much tax, royalties and local wages these exports pay for.

His solution to the problem is hope:

World history teaches one thing, technology changes everything. That is the game changer. Governments, political leaders can pretend to these things but, I’ll tell you what makes the difference, technology changes on the ground. And, that is why our approach is technology, not taxes, to solving this problem. It’s not enough for the technology to work with a tax in an advanced economy.

I suspect that world history, if it teaches anything, teaches that societies which fail to recognise their problems collapse. But again the immediate point, we don’t want our exports to be taxed because we are freeloading on emissions, and costs.

what’s important is that we ensure that the technology breakthroughs that are necessary to transform the world over the next 10, 20 and 30 years are realised.

I’ve said this many times but let me say it again. Just because we would like a technology that solves all our problems to exist does not mean:

  • it will come to exist
  • it will come to exist before it is too late to solve the problem
  • It will work at the scale we need
  • people will want to use it
  • It will not be too expensive to use
  • It will not have many unintended and deleterious consequences

Technology is not magic or wish fulfillment.

I could do with a couple of million dollars to move to a safer location from climate change. It does not mean it will happen – even if I tried.

The great thing about imaginary technology is that it can do anything, there are no physical boundaries or limits which cannot be overcome, and there is therefore no need to make any potentially painful changes.

the day before we spoke about COVID, and we talked about how science and technology is helping us, in fact, enabling us to ultimately beat COVID-19.

True, although vaccines are a known and largely working technology. They are not a technology we do not have yet, and as far as I can tell the vaccines we have will not enable us to “beat COVID-19”, they enable us to lessen the effect for a while. To be fair to the PM, later in the press conference he states “you can’t eliminate COVID.”

Even so, people can resist the technology, including the members of the government. Not only do some not recognise Covid is a problem, they don’t recognise climate change is a problem. If enough people don’t risk taking the vaccine, the vaccines will not work. If the vaccine roll out is too slow, or leaves vulnerable parts of the population uncovered, then it will not work well. New forms of covid will develop and people will die. I suspect we cannot wait for technologies which do not exist, before using the ones we have.

However, we will win, because:

Australia has a strong track record of performance, and we intend for that to continue to increase in the years ahead.

Actually we have a terrible record with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) which is one of the Government’s chosen technologies. Like the rest of the world, we don’t have a working energy generator with CCS installed, and significantly lowering emissions. We have thrown money at the idea, masses of money, to save coal exports, but the coal industry was not interested.

Our commitments are backed up by plans, and we don’t make them lightly.

Probably more truthful to say we don’t make plans, we don’t make targets. After all, the Deputy Prime Minister has said:

Until you lay down a plan, and show us the costs, you haven’t arrived at a point of consideration. Now, show us the plan, show us the cost and we’re happy to consider it and the National Party  room will do that.

quoted by Martin. Barnaby Joyce says Nationals won’t commit to net zero carbon emissions without seeing ‘menu’. The Guardian 18 July 2021 see also an interview with Fran Kelly ABC 11 August

So presumably those plans don’t exist. We do have aspirations that we can exceed targets by boosting gas and without losing any exports of fossil fuels. Yes, we can export more gas, and burn more gas and get lower global emissions. That is fantasy. No one has the CCS to store the greenhouse gases, that the gas mining and burning is emitting. So we are increasing world emissions.

We will set out a clear plan, as we have been working to do.

Ok, the Prime Minister admits we don’t have a plan, but we might have one some time.

He then attacks protesters who peacefully wrote ‘Duty of Care’ on various walls and buildings in Canberra…

I’ll tell you what the Australian way isn’t, the Australian way is not what we have seen with the vandalism in our capital today. I don’t associate, in any way, shape or form, that foolishness with the good-hearted nature of Australians who care deeply about this issue, as I do and my Government does. I don’t associate them with this. They have no part with that foolishness today, any more than we’ve seen in other selfish protests around this country.

Sorry I’m not going to get indignant about people protesting against government policy, and I doubt anyone outside of Skynews will.

We need the technological changes that will transform the global energy economy of the world. It’s not good enough for it to just happen to Australia and the United States and in Europe. It must happen in these other countries, and they must have prosperity.

So it is the developing world’s fault again – nothing to do with the gas and coal we are selling.

Let me repeat. Just because a technological change would be nice, that does not mean it will happen.

The Minister for emissions reduction gets a speech now. He says, the IPCC report

underscores the importance of practical solutions to bring down global emissions, find those pathways that allow countries across the globe to strengthen their economy, at the same time as they’re bringing down emissions.

It might be thought that the main practical solution is to cut back on making the emissions in the first place, not increasing them through increased mining.

And the pathway to do that is technology, not taxes, not defacing buildings.

I’m glad they get so worked up about slogans on buildings. It must mean something. I guess protesters should shut up, because protest does not help.

By the way government supported technological research has to raise money from somewhere, and that somewhere is the taxpayer. At the moment, it appears that taxpayers’ money is being used to support fossil fuels, or attempts to keep fossil fuels viable.

The technology investments that we know solve hard problems, have been solving hard problems for humans for a long, long time.

How often do we have to repeat technology is not magic. CCS has been around since 1976 at least. It has not worked well enough, no matter how much we would like it to.

We have the highest rate of installed solar PV in the world. One in four houses in Australia with solar on their roofs.

True, but the government decided that emissions free technologies were now established, and taxpayers needed to support new technologies like gas pipelines and fracking. I’m not quite sure how long we have been using gas for heating, but I presume it must be more recent than solar, or perhaps they are just directing taxpayers’ money to friends, or they have a weird sense of innovation…. It all looks suspiciously like “Imaginary or established technology and taxes”.

we will lead the world on healthy soils, energy storage, Snowy 2, a huge storage project to make sure that not only can we absorb the record renewables investment in our grid

Putting carbon back in Australia’s destroyed soils is good, but how much carbon do we have to put in the soil to make a difference to emissions? Is it possible to do that? Where is the carbon coming from? Does it look like we will do that? How will Snowy 2 (pumped hydro) work if we have drought and low snow falls? What powers the pumps?

also bringing down emissions with flexible dispatchable storage.

I think everyone now knows that by ‘dispatchable’ storage the government does not mean batteries, but gas power. For example the government stopped the Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility from supporting a wind power and battery development in North Queensland and favoured a gas development, because they did not consider the stored energy from wind and battery to be dispatchable and, perhaps more importantly, the development was inconsistent with their goals and policies.

A journalist bravely asks where is the modelling? We might want to know how you model non-existing technology?

The PM replies

We need more performance. We need more technology. And, no one will be matching our ambition for a technology driven solution, because I believe that’s what will work.

Yep we need more vroom. Vroom is good. Vroom is better than modeling. Vroom predicts the future.

The PM then talks about transparency of emissions. Yes that is good, but not everyone agrees that Australia is transparent, or that the government is not engaged in some pretense about figures. For example coal use has not declined very much – it is still over 60% of the energy supply, and if you take out decreased rates of land clearing then emissions have increased.

The PM also claims:

We are the only country to our knowledge, that engages in the transparency of reporting our emissions reductions, every sector, every gas, every quarter. No other country, to our knowledge, does that. 

We perhaps are living in fantasy land here. Next day Pat Conroy will ask in the House:

Is the prime minister seriously telling the House he has no idea that the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands have published quarterly greenhouse gas emissions statistics for years?

Australia Covid live news updates The Guardian 12 August: 14.34

I gather from the answer from Angus Taylor, that they either didn’t know this, or they hoped no one would notice it was wrong.

Back to the Press conference. Another journalist points out that mining magnate Andrew Forest says the report shows humans are slowly cooking themselves, but that Matt Canavan, a member of the government, says the coal assumptions in the report are overstated and therefore the numbers can’t be trusted.

As an addition it appears Mr Canavan condemned the “absolute panic merchant material that we get from the IPCC these days.” Presumably because he knows better than the people who study climate change for a living.

The PM replies

The Government’s policy is clear and the Government’s position is very clear. We need to take action to address climate change and are.

Presumably he is taking the position that if you say something often enough it must be true. He also states:

in fact, it’s everybody in this building’s job to take all Australians forward with us on this

I guess no dissent or querying is to be allowed. He does point to an important possible truth. That there are people:

who have great anxieties about these changes and what it means for them. Will they have a job? Will their kids have a job? Will their electricity prices go up?

There are also people who wonder if their houses will burn down again. If they will have enough water for their farms and families. If they can survive days of the heat that we have reached. If they can survive another ‘one in one hundred year flood’. If their houses will have high tides running through them. What will happen if another unseasonable storm blows trees and powerlines down and so on. However, these people apparently do not need to be mentioned.

Yes, there is a problem, but you can’t just look at one side of the problem and ignore the other. And you could recognise that jobs, and living without jobs, is affected by more than policies intended to deal with climate change – neoliberal economics for example.

The PM goes on to assure people that Australia will beat its low targets for 2030, and we don’t need higher targets.

We will meet and beat our targets and we will update what we expect to achieve by 2030, as we always do. And we will make that very clear about what Australia is achieving and what we intend to achieve

So targets will be achieved without targets. Certainly if you don’t have targets, you cannot fail to achieve them. Lets scrap exams, and scrap KPIs. I think that would make many people happier. It could be a good general policy, but I suspect that it will remain with climate change alone.

Australia’s old targets are for a decrease in emissions of 26% from the levels of 2005 by 2030. On the other hand G7 countries are supposed to be making cuts of between 40% and 63% by 2030. We don’t even have aspirational targets for 2050, just a preference that we achieve something, but no problems if we don’t.

The minister for Emissions reduction adds

We have an extraordinary track record of beating those projections and we’ll update them this year, as we always do.

I guess this is updating the projections rather than the targets.

The PM then adds that there will be no target for agriculture because he does not want rural Australia to carry all the burden – which I suspect is not being suggested by anyone. And if there are no targets and no benefits for soil carbon, how well will it work?

Again the solution is technological magic.

My approach is finding practical solutions to what are very practical problems. And that practical problem is ensuring that the technology that works here needs to work in other parts of the world and we’re positioning Australia to be in the forefront of that. And our hydrogen strategy, our carbon capture and storage, our soil carbon, all of these initiatives are about positioning Australia to be successful in that world. Chris.

The only incentive to be offered, seems to be taxpayer handouts to the right people, there is nothing like a carbon price which provides a financial incentive for innovation all over the place and that costs the taxpayers very little. Indeed the carbon pricing mechanism the government got rid of, used the price to subsidise ordinary people so they could make market based decisions to buy expensive polluting energy, or cheaper non-polluting energy if they wished.

focusing on political solutions won’t solve this problem. Focusing on technology solutions will.

Unfortunately technology is not separated from politics. The arguments, and ministerial powers, over the new energy market shows that. Regulations, tax breaks, subsidies and so on, can support deadly technologies, or hinder those deadly technologies. It is a matter of politics whether we protect fossil fuels, or encourage them to die out. Technology is social and is governed by rules, inclinations and fashions, and therefore by politics.

For example, it can be argued that we already have low emissions energy production, we already have low pollution transport, we already have storage. All these could be improved perhaps, but without the politics we could start to cut back polluting energy to the minimum (without pushing for even more of it) and increase the supply of renewables. Yes there are problems, but we would be working with tech that works, and if better tech came along we could use that as well. That is, if the politics did not get in the way.

It’s about technology and technology that works in countries that need it to transform their economies, provide jobs and livelihoods for people to ensure that they can prosper as we have in advanced countries like ours. I recognise that equity issue. I think it’s a very real issue. But the thing that solves it is not political commitments. It’s real technology.

Equity and climate justice demands we pollute, unless the magical tech comes along to solve not only climate problems, but economics problems and political problems like how income is distributed.

A journalist asks:

The point of the IPCC report is the cost of inaction. Will any government modelling that you’re currently undertaking to put costs in front of people also include a cost of inaction?

The PM says they recognise this, this is why they are taking action. But essentially the answer is no, in the sense that the question is not answered by other than insisting they have a plan and that the plan will be successful because of future technology

Comments

It is hard to say how much the Government is under the control of fossil fuel companies. How much it is derailed by ideas that established players in the markets should keep wining. How much it assumes Australia depends upon fossil fuel exports for jobs and income. How much it believes that fossil fuels are essential for the economic structures it supports, And, How much it is being held to ransom by a very few parliamentarians who don’t consider climate change an immediate problem, and who support fossil fuels at all costs to their own side. Essentially, the government depends for its majority on these radical MPs, and could lose power if it did not yield to them. This means that about 5-10 parliamentarians govern Australia on this issue, backed by the might of the Murdoch Empire.

The Government’s policy and evasion would possibly have been fine 50 years ago, but Australia has already experienced a 1.4 degrees temperature rise since 1910. We have longer term droughts. We have massive fish kills in rivers, and rivers are drying up. We have wild storms creeping south. We have inland temperatures which are life threatening in the suburbs of Sydney. The great Barrier Reef is dying. We have longer and fiercer bushfire seasons. And we have fossil fuel mining that threatens the water table, and water supplies. Delay is not sensible. the problem is urgent. If we (a relatively prosperous country) won’t make the effort to fix the problem, then who will?

Addenda 27 October 2019

The Government issued a 15 shot powerpoint to show the response it was taking to COP.

The graph at the end is the killer:

  • 40% from roadmap tech
  • 15% from global tech trends
  • 10-20% from offsets and
  • 15% from tech breakthroughs

That seems to mean that 70% of reductions will come from imagined technology. [offsets are generally accounting tricks]

Tags:, ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Climate change in the Marshall Islands

July 20, 2021

Recently a colleague suggested I read Peter Rudiak-Gould’s article published in 2014. “Climate Change and Accusation: Global Warming and Local Blame in a Small Island State”. Current Anthropology 55(4): 365-386.

This is a wonderful article. It might be out of date now but it suggests how we can learn from the inhabitants of the Marshall Islands in terms of their response to Climate Change. There is far more to the article than I am going to cover, so read it yourselves if you can…

Rudiak-Gould begins by pointing out there are two traditions of climate change blame in the West:

  1. Some are more at fault than others, usually the industrialised or industrialising world
  2. Everyone is to blame. Humanity is self-destructive. With the implication there is not much we can do alone.

The Marshall Islanders are clearly not to blame for Climate Change. They contributed 0.0002% of world CO2 emissions in 2008. Yet it is (was?) common for the Islanders to clearly take on the blame. People rarely mention the culpability of other nations for their severe climate problems, and insist they have to do something about their own problems before facing the world. One person, for example, says

“How can we ask the bigger nations for help, when we are [also] a contributor to climate change?”

p.368

While they agree they make a contribution to climate change, they don’t think they have much ability to affect climate change in total. Rudiak-Gould writes:

“It is never suggested that Marshall Islanders can stop climate change, only that they contribute to it…”

p.371

They don’t have delusions of grandeur, and the idea is not a defense, against action.

Rudiak-Gould explains this situation, by seeing it as related to a wide spread realisation of a decay in traditional life, which they see as the fault of the Islanders themselves: “We follow American culture;” “we have too many things from outsiders… We don’t grow our food anymore.”

RG writes, that for the Islanders Climate change is “the final proof of modernity’s folly, [and] a powerful inspiration to revitalize older ways.” By saying they are responsible, they reassert cultural continuity and distinctiveness, and a course of action.

They are using recognition of their responsibility for climate change to help themselves, not just trying to solve the problem.

Taking responsibility is not an “empty performance.” Islanders try to reduce dependency on foreign oil through solar; restart traditional shoreline management practices; stop throwing plastic onto the beaches and into the sea, and aim to take control over their society’s cultural future.

Taking responsibility says they have a right to speak to each other and to the world. It champions local citizen action, and challenges the dominance of the state, high tech and elite high science, all of which assume people know little and cannot act by themselves.

Taking responsibility also undermines assumptions that a nation cannot act, through ‘people power’. It shows even a small nation can act for itself, and by itself, without any constricting fear that action will ruin the economy or destroy a people’s way of life – it even assumes that a way of real and desirable social life can be revitalised and improved by climate action.

Finally, it challenges common ideas in the rest of the world that pacific islanders are the victims of others. They assert they can help the world and themselves, even if they cannot solve the problem completely, and their action sets an example others might follow.

Taking responsibility and acting the best we can casts doubt on the supposed necessity for a top down solution driven by State or business occurring first. It asserts climate change can be affected by people taking on their own responsibility in a practical way. We do not have to wait for the State or for business to get on board and act.

In a relatively large State, like the ones most of the people reading this will live, this local responsibility and action is possibly the only way that the State will get the message that the people care enough for it to take on the forces that oppose action.

The Marshall Islanders set forth an agenda we can all learn from.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

There is no such thing as climate denial????

July 18, 2021

There seems to be a number of people making the rather silly argument that there is no such thing as climate denial any more [not that the article referenced actually does that]. Presumably people do this to imply that as long as a person says “climate change is occurring” then no matter what else they say, or agitate for, they are supposedly not denying reality – they can be trusted.

‘Accepting climate change’ without accepting the causes or consequences of climate change, seems to be a strategic assertion to do nothing, or do little to challenge the current circumstances causing climate change (Greenhouse gas emissions). This may be accidental, or it may be because people can lie strategically…. This is life. So how do we tell if people are doing something we might call climate denial?

First off

What does acceptance of climate change involve?

  • Acceptance that the agreement of the vast majority of climate scientists about the evidence for climate change is our best guide to climate reality. This scientific agreement, on the whole, asserts:
  • a) Climate change is happening
  • b) Climate change is harmful and serious and getting increasingly serious
  • c) While there are many possible causes, the main cause is the growth in greenhouse gases (GHG) from: the burning of fossil fuels; concrete use and manufacture; and agriculture
  • d) The most important of these causes is the burning of fossil fuels
  • e) We cannot predict the exact course of climate change, because it forms a set of interlinked complex systems. For example, some places such as the UK, may get colder if the gulf stream changes its pattern. However we can make the general prediction climate change, as it is progressing, will be intensely disruptive.

Scientists can be wrong of course, but they usually squabble over areas of doubt. If there is doubt, then there is not that much agreement. On the other had people who deny what is agreed at present, can be wrong as well as opposed to leading the new science.

What acceptance of climate change leads to is the realisation that climate change forms a major threat to the continuance of current forms of social organisation, through many different pathways

  • collapse of food supplies
  • problems with water supplies
  • increased death from heat
  • wild weather
  • increased droughts
  • increasingly destructive floods
  • rise of sea levels and loss of habitability of islands and low lying coastal areas
  • intense storms, cyclones and hurricanes.
  • etc…

These events will pressure economies, supply chains, security of living and so on. The cumulative effects will be very hard to deal with. Again the exact form of collapse in different places is very hard to predict, because of the complex system problem

However, we can predict pretty solidly, that the effects will not be good for humans.

This is the basic level. Then there is the level of action. Are people attempting to act on this knowledge? Are they attempting to reduce GHG emissions, encouraging GHG reductions to the best of their ability, or to render GHG less necessary? If not, then they are effectively denying what they are supposed to be recognising.

This border between recognition and action, means that climate change denial is a much more sprawling beast.

Climate change denial involves some of the following:

  • Assertions that the ‘consensus’ of climate scientists is unreal (as there is supposedly lots of dissent about climate change), or the result of widespread fraud.
  • Lots of reference to non-climate change scientists, or non-scientists, who disagree with the ‘consensus’
  • Assertions that science should not be about agreement, when the absence of large scale dissent in the field, implies there is no recognised cause for disagreement over the presence and source of climate change
  • Assertions that climate scientists are conspiring to impose a dictatorial left wing government on the world [attempts to make climate change political rather than an agreement as to evidence]
  • Assertions that climate change is not happening
  • Assertions that climate change has nothing to do with human actions: “There’s been billions of years of climate change,” without explaining why if climate change is natural, humans cannot be a factor in causing it, and we should not do anything any differently
  • Assertions climate change is happening, and there is an anthropogenic component, but there is no point lessening the effect of that component.
  • Assertions that climate change is happening slowly and is nothing to worry about, or that we will easily adapt
  • Assertions that climate change will be beneficial – it will increase plant growth, or stop deaths from cold etc. [While Climate change may appear beneficial in some places, it will not be in general, because of the systemic disruption, and the imbalances generated]
  • Assertions that extreme, highly unusual, or unprecedented weather events are absolutely normal and happen every so many years
  • Assertions that tiny increases in CO2 levels cannot significantly change the climate
  • Assertions that we can continue to burn fossil fuels with no ill effects
  • Assertions that we can increase the burning of fossil fuels with no ill effects
  • Assertions that burning fossil fuels ‘we’ have sold somewhere else in the world, is irrelevant to our situation
  • Attempts to enforce, or encourage, the emission of greenhouse gas emissions
  • Attempts to argue that reduction of ’emissions intensity’ is wonderful even if GHG emissions increase
  • Attempts to avoid targets for GHG emission reduction
  • Assertions that action against climate change will harm the economy and should be performed in such a way that it does not affect the economy at all
  • Assertions that everyone else should act before we act to prevent climate change
  • Some people may claim they are doing something to hinder climate change, but their actions reveal that they are not, or their actions increase GHG emissions. Yes people lie.
  • Attempts to silence or threaten climate scientists, or prevent public servants from mentioning climate change
  • Attempts to remove climate data from public websites

Resolution

Acceptance of climate change, means acceptance of climate action

At a minimum, that means:

  • Steady reduction of fossil fuel use.
  • Stopping new fossil fuel use and new fossil fuel mines, unless it can be shown that newness reduces the total amount of GHG emissions in practice
  • Steady reduction of all other sources of greenhouse gas emissions
  • Regeneration of ecologies
  • Encouraging change in lifestyles that need fossil fuels

There are many other solutions which may need to come into play, but these are basic factors in moving towards a solution, and which come from the scientific agreement about what is happening.

Supposed acceptance of climate change but rejection of climate action, trying to hide the lack of climate action, or trying to maintain or increase fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions means that a person does not accept the reality of climate change and its causes. They are essentially in denial, whatever they might want to call it.

In this sense, whatever they say, the Australian Coalition Federal government is engaging in climate denial. It does not act to reduce GHG, and it encourages more emissions by supporting more coal and gas power and exports. It pretends extreme weather events or bushfires [1], [2] are normal, and denies the Great Barrier Reef or the inland river systems [1], [2], [3] are in unprecedented trouble. The Canadian government is similar.

Tags:,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Cambridge Sustainability Commission Report – some comments

April 23, 2021

This is a summary of a report that already has a summary website, but hopefully this summary might get some more recognition for the report. The ‘Executive Summary’ and the Report itself, are both linked on that site.

The initial point is similar to ones that have been made repeatedly:

Over the period 1990–2015, nearly half of the growth in absolute global emissions was due to the richest 10%, with the wealthiest 5% alone contributing over a third (37%).

Action targeted to change the behaviour of these people will be more effective, than action that targets poorer parts of society, even if as many people as possible need to be engaged.

To come anywhere near meeting the target of peaking at 1.5 degrees C.:

the richest 1% of the global population needs to reduce their emissions by a factor of at least 30 by 2030, while the poorest 50% of humanity could increase their emissions by three-times their current level.

An Oxfam report says something similar:

From 1990 to 2015, a critical period in which annual emissions grew 60% and cumulative emissions doubled, <despite knowledge of the dangers> we estimate that:

The richest 10% of the world’s population (c.630 million people) were responsible for 52% of the cumulative carbon emissions – depleting the global carbon budget by nearly a third (31%) in those 25 years alone

The poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people) were responsible for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and used just 4% of the available carbon budget

The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone were responsible for 15% of cumulative emissions, and 9% of the carbon budget – twice as much as the poorest half of the world’s population

The richest 5% (c.315 million people) were responsible for over a third (37%) of the total growth in emissions, while the total growth in emissions of the richest 1% was three times that of the poorest 50%.

Oxfam. Confronting Carbon Inequality. 21 September 2020

In terms of global wealth, most (but not all) middle class people in the West, and often elsewhere, probably count as in that wealthiest 10-20% of the world population. In other words, almost anyone who is living a comfortable material lifestyle could help reduce emissions directly by cutting their own emissions, and teaming up with others to reduce emissions and eco-destruction in their local areas. The more that wealthier people end excess carbon emissions, then the more the transition is likely to be welcomed by those who are poorer and help boost their sense of agency and participation. The process could become a circular, with one group of people encouraging another and this coming back to encourage the original people. This is part of “just transitions” theory, in which everyone participates, people who loose livelihoods are compensated and few suffer, as opposed to neoliberal transitions theory in which sacrifice is extracted from poorer people.

This means “sustainable behaviour change” is an essential element of any attempt to reach useful climate targets. Social and cultural involvement is vital for success, and we may need to help cultivate a real and accurate sense that this movement is a collective effort to deal with an urgent existential threat. There is a risk that with massively divergent carbon emissions, people might think that their emissions are unimportant, that those at the top are doing nothing, or that it should be someone else who is doing the work.

If poorer people want to emulate the producers of massive pollution then everyone is sunk. If poorer people start to find new (or old ways) ways of organising and looking after the world without destructive lock-in, and assert their authority in the world, then that will absolutely help. While the movement does not have to be led by richer people, and indeed it may be more successful if it is not, wealthier people do have to change as well. We need climate generosity. We need people to start reducing their own emissions without waiting for others, and without waiting for fairness. We need people to organise themselves with others to reduce their emissions, as much as we may need to help wealthier people lower their emissions and eco-destruction.

It is even possible that with leadership from the poor, the wealthier may start to come along. Through the interlinks of complexity, even small local changes to reduce emissions and eco-destruction can be emulated and spread, and have large effects.

[W]e need both individual and systemic change, and the key challenge is to ensure that they reinforce one another”

Executive Summary

Wider social action means dealing with the causes of over-consumption of carbon. Which they say includes:

excessive working,…. [and] the bombardment of advertising glamourising frequent air travel, large cars and large houses.

Which really comes down to changing consumerist capitalism, and the pursuit of happiness, contentment, wisdom, love and so on, through earning money and purchasing largely pointless items on a market. We may need to change the economic system, so as to enhance survival, rather than simply carry on defending a system which is not delivering, and not helping that survival. This could involve “embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency” instead of attempts to produce wellbeing through over-consumption. But it can also involve simple measures such as buying less, changing buying patterns, and using any shareholdings to support those who are arguing for an end to corporate destruction of ecologies.

As Ban-Ki Moon says elsewhere:

…our current economic model has been an enabler of catastrophic climate change and equally catastrophic inequality. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an incontestable imperative to rebuild better and place the global economy on a more sustainable, resilient and fairer footing. Addressing the disproportionate carbon emissions from the wealthiest in society must be a key priority as part of this collective commitment.’

Oxfam. Confronting Carbon Inequality. 21 September 2020

The Cambridge report adds the possibility of restricting the availability of high carbon products and services, but recognises that undoing unsustainable behaviours is much harder than preventing unsustainable products from coming to market in the first place (Executive Summary). But if we don’t manage to change our attitudes at the same time, then people are likely to think that they are being restricted, rather than freed, and companies will object because they (and their shareholders) may see themselves as coming to a dreadful end.

This is why there needs to be research into “key points of leverage and traction that bring about shifts of the scale (as well as speed) now required to tackle the climate emergency” (Executive Summary).

On the positive side the report recognises that this movement involves developing new infrastructure to make low-carbon choices easier for poor households, particularly through measures around travel, energy, housing and food.

They further suggest:

Attitude Change:

  • embracing ideas of wellbeing and sufficiency, rather than consumption as an end in itself
  • recognising that what works in one place may not work in another, without being caught in the trap of thinking everyone else has to change but not us.
  • Help people to participate in creative problem solving.

Restrictions:

  • frequent flyer levies – flying frequently should not be encouraged
  • bans on selling and promoting SUVs and other high polluting vehicles
  • dietary shifts away from destructive foods to more sustainable foods
  • abolishing tax credits for those who pollute and destroy ecologies

Support:

  • increasing green grants for homes and electric cars
  • electric public transport and other forms of low-cost electric transport,
  • community energy schemes,
  • insulating homes to address energy poverty and reduce emissions.
  • rewiring the economy [although they don’t mean this, we also need to change and extending the grid]
  • lowering working hours (redistributing wealth back to producers)

Political Change:

  • severing ties between polluting and destructive industries and the political system. Perhaps finding a way to prevent politicians from lobbying for big companies after they have finished their political careers
  • control the process through Citizen Assemblies and democratic engagement – protecting and expanding spaces of social and citizen innovation

I would add we probably need to:

  • Stop non-local biofuels,
  • End fantasies about Carbon Capture and Storage, although greenhouse gas drawdown is worth pursuing.
  • Stop subsidies (tax and environmental) for fossil fuels.
  • Phase out fossil fuel drilling and mining.
  • Lower ecological damage and pollution of all types.
  • Support regenerative agriculture.
  • Restore the oceans, by ceasing over-fishing, bottom trawling, and enforcing world national parks in oceans so fish can come to flourish again.
  • Help people to recognise complexity, the primacy of functional ecologies and the existence of planetary boundaries.
  • Be careful with changes in land use, and reduce rates of dispossession of people from their land or traditional land.
  • Increase the input of citizens into corporate governance.
  • Revoke neoliberalism.
  • Recognise the problems of using corporately owned, and corporately sponsored, media to try and promulgate the solutions, and find other ways of communicating, as well.

They conclude:

We need an account of the role of behaviour change that is more political and social, that brings questions of power and social justice to the fore in order to appreciate how questions of responsibility and agency are unevenly distributed within and between societies….

social mobilisation is crucial to pressuring governments and businesses to show leadership and accountability for major decisions that lock-in carbon-intensive behaviours. Examples include the divestment movement and community energy programmes, as well as pressure for pedestrianisation and car-free cities, and against airport <and highway> expansion….

Harnessing… social innovation and mobilisation towards the goal of scaling behaviour change is vital to the success of collective efforts.

The goals of the Paris Agreement… cannot be achieved without radical changes to lifestyles and shifts in behaviour, especially among the wealthiest members of society, and on the part not just of individuals, but all actors in society.

(Executive Summary)

We don’t have to wait for governments and others to act. We can act now, we can act with others, we can try and do local research as to what involves other people, and we can support the change that is happening.

Change is difficult but it is not impossible.

Tags:,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

CO2 Increase since the 1970s

April 18, 2021

Atmospheric CO2 readings from the 1970s until today.

Yes we have done nothing but make the situation worse in a very short period of time.

A case could be made for a return to the economic levels of the 1980s 🙂 It would be interesting to know whether the level of economic ‘development’ in Europe in the 80s, if spread throughout the world, using contemporary renewables and so on, would still result in a reasonable level of CO2 in the atmosphere?

  • 19 May 1974: 333.37
  • 13 April 1980: 340.98
  • 08 April 1990: 356.17
  • 09 April 2000: 372.17
  • 11 April 2010: 392.93
  • 09 April 2017: 409.03
  • 15 April 2018: 411.26
  • 14 April 2019: 413.82
  • 12 April 2020: 416.51
  • 11 April 2021: 418.96

Pre-industrial base: estimated 280

Supposed safe level: 350

Increase of about 78 points in 42 years (since 1980). Thats about an increase of 23%.

Source:

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_weekly_mlo.txt

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Grant King and the Climate Change Authority

April 10, 2021

After looking at the Misfortunes of Malcolm, we can now look at another board, this one appointed by the Federal Government, that seems to be getting by with only half hearted protest….

The Climate Change Authority has a long and chequered history.

In 2014, it recommended the government set a 2030 climate target equivalent to a 45-60% cut in emissions below 2005 levels. The Coalition ignored the advice, setting a 26-28% reduction target.

Cox. A ‘win’ for fossil fuels: green groups critical as former Origin Energy boss named chief of climate body. The Guardian 9 April 2021

The Coalition tried to abolish the Authority and failed, so cut funding and staff.

CEO of the Climate Change Authority, Brad Archer, told a senate estimates hearing in February that the Morrison government has not asked the body to undertake any new work and has not been asked to complete any modelling or research into what may be required to transition Australia to a zero net emissions economy.

Mazengarb. Taylor slammed for “stacking gas lobbyists” on Climate Change Authority. RenewEconomy 9 April 2021

However the Federal government recently appointed, as its head, Grant King, well known for being the former CEO of Origin Energy, and a persistent advocate for the methane industry.

Dan Goucher of the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility said:

Under his leadership, Origin forcefully opposed credible climate policy. During his tenure on their boards, the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) campaigned to repeal the carbon tax, the only effective policy Australia has ever had to reduce emissions

O’Malley ‘Uniquely unsuited’: Government accused of stacking climate body with fossil interests. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 2021

The Australia Institute remarks

King was responsible for initiating Asia Pacific LNG,  the largest Queensland coal seam gas LNG project which has resulted in well over 200 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions already, which will rise to well over one billion tonnes over the life of the project

O’Malley ‘Uniquely unsuited’: Government accused of stacking climate body with fossil interests. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 April 2021

King was also on the board of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), which has campaigned strongly against climate action, and described itself as “the effective voice of Australia’s upstream oil and gas industry on the issues that matter“. It needs to be said that this body is more radical than the Government as they claim:

Policies should achieve emissions reductions consistent to achieve net zero emissions across the Australian economy by 2050 as part of a contribution to a goal of global net zero emissions by 2050. The Australian Government has the responsibility to set interim targets and for the policy framework that meets them.

APPEA Australia’s cleaner energy future, p2.

In counterposition, the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, told the National Press Club:

Our goal is to reach net zero emissions as soon as possible, and preferably by 2050.

Morrison. Address to the National Press Club, Barton ACT, 1 Feb 2021

Which might be said to mean, as soon as possible as late as possible ?? No interim targets have been mentioned.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the APPEA recommend more gas, and the money consuming fantasy of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

The Minister for Emissions Reduction, Angus Taylor, described Mr King as:

a thought leader who has already made a significant contribution to the development of Australia’s emissions reduction policy framework

Taylor. Appointments to the Climate Change Authority, Press Release 9 April 2021

Which means, I suppose, that Mr King can be reliably expected to go along with Mr Taylor’s views.

The new board will also include Susie Smith, who was a long serving executive for the gas company Santos (who have large projected and new projects in Australia, one of which has been described as so rich in CO2 that it “looks more like a CO2 emissions factory with an LNG by-product.”) She is also head the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which has been heavily pro-fossil fuels, and some members once apparently called themselves the “Greenhouse Mafia“.

King and Smith have previously worked together on the ‘King Review’ which recommended CCS, and that ARENA and the CEFC not to be constrained to supporting only clean energy projects. The Review’s consultations have been described as being “heavily stacked towards representatives of big industrial emitters and the fossil fuel industry.”

Independent MP, Zali Steggall, said:

These new appointments are completely at odds with the Authority’s purpose to give independent advice on climate, science and policy to the Government.

The Morrison Government continues to only listen to vested interests in fossil fuels. We need a truly independent expert Climate Change Commission, as the UK has had since 2008, to advise the Government if we want a chance at achieving net zero by 2050. The Climate Change Authority, as it is currently is now constituted, is not it.

Steggall. MEDIA RELEASE: New appointments by the Morrison Government to the Climate Change Authority miss the mark

It is too early to tell what the media and political reaction will be, and I’ll keep adding as information accumulates, but my bet is that the media will largely leave it alone, or make it a one day wonder. The current most popular headline suggests the pick “ruffles feathers” – which suggests those who are complaining fuss about nothing. I also suspect in the current political climate that the government will see protests by climate concerned people as showing the Government is completely right about the appointments, as opponents have to be completely wrong. They are unlikely to be criticised by the Murdoch Empire, which may be almost all the media Coalition parliamentarians take seriously, so they will be happy. King and Smith do not have the political enemies that Turnbull made, so they will brazen it out, and the government will ignore protests.

This kind of standard neoliberal approach could lead to corruption, which is not corruption for neoliberals, such as taxpayer support for polluting gas, gas pipelines, gas exports, or legal threats against NSW if it decides it does not want the gas it agreed to. They will also encourage wasting more taxpayer funds on CCS, which almost certainly will not achieve its promises. But this will happen anyway, because its not corruption, or vested interest, its just what is called plain business good sense – it supports established business.

However, the news may not all be bad. King is associated with several organisations that want firm targets for 2050, and targets on the way, which is better than what the government wants, which seems to be aspiration alone.

The new members may also encourage a carbon price, which at least is a direct encouragement for people to reduce emissions (yes it has problems but I’ll take what I can get).

We shall see.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Malcolm Turnbull: Coal and Renewable futures

April 9, 2021

Recently former Coalition Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was briefly appointed by the NSW Cabinet to being the Chair of the NSW Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board.

It was not a long lasting appointment, and the politics are illuminating

For those who are not local. Malcolm Turnbull is a member of the supposedly conservative Coalition of Liberal and National parties. He was deposed from Prime Ministership because he took a few vague steps towards climate action and had an energy policy of sorts. The current PM does not take action or have an energy policy in favour of transition, but says he does. The other main figure in the story is NSW Energy Minister, Matt Kean who also appears to believe in climate change and is working to produce an energy transision policy for NSW. The policy has been exceedingly vague, but is slowly taking shape.

The Announcement

Matt Kean, organised the position for Turnbull on the Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board and said the Board would provide strategic and expert advice on program design and funding proposals under the State’s inaugural $1 billion Net Zero Plan Stage 1: 2020-2030.

The Board will help us to drive a clean industrial revolution for NSW – providing advice on opportunities to grow the economy, create jobs of the future, support industry to develop low emissions technologies and modernise industrial processes,… The Board is also going to be key in delivering low-carbon jobs in the Hunter and Illawarra [where there are coal mines and old industries], to help those economies diversify.

Environment NSW, Malcolm Turnbull AC to chair Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board, 29 March 2021

At the Launch on the 29 March (?) Mr Turnbull said

the world’s move to net zero emissions by 2050 will create huge economic opportunities for Australia and I intend to make sure NSW realises them.

Environment NSW, Malcolm Turnbull AC to chair Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board, 29 March 2021

and:

“In reality, we are going to move away from burning, and the world is going to move away from coal,” he told the Herald and The Age. “I’m very concerned we do that in a way that preserves and increases economic opportunities for everybody”.

Hannam. Turnbull named head of NSW government’s climate advisory board. Sydney Morning Herald, 29 March 2021

The previous month, Mr Turnbull was appointed chairman of the Australian arm of Fortescue Future Industries, the new venture set up by Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest to invest in renewable energy and so-called green hydrogen – which would later be used to indicate a conflict of interest. It should be noted that the Coalition do not, in general. seem to think that membership on government advice bodies and on boards of fossil fuel organisations seem to be conflicts of interest at all.

Turnbull had previously clashed with members of the Coalition at Federal and State level. However NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, who is also important to this story, said that when approached by Matt Kean:

many weeks ago… I said then, as I say now, that Malcolm Turnbull is very much qualified for such a role…. I’m not opposed, and believe this appointment is based on Mr Turnbull’s merits.

Maddison Turnbull to head climate board. The Australian, 30 March p.2: Paywalled.

The clash begins: the by-election

However a clash started almost immediately. On the 31st March a government member who had allegedly raped a sex worker, and had offered another(?) sex worker money to have sex in Parliament resigned, due to the scandal – probably the scandal was made more prominent by the series of rape and sexual abuse scandals coming from the Federal Coalition, and their propensity to ignore the problem.

A by-election was called for the Upper Hunter. If the NSW government lost, then they would become a minority, so this is an important by-election.

The Hunter Valley can be described a coal mining area or an agricultural area being rapidly turned into a coal slag heap, depending on one’s politics and aesthetics. The problem for NSW is intensified as while some of the Coalition seem in favour of a low emissions economy, otherwise Kean would not be in his position, many do not seem to be in favour of a low emissions economy which does not include coal burning or coal sales. Coal is supposedly popular with people, and the Upper Hunter has the highest proportion of coal mining jobs of any seat in the state, but is also the fifth-highest for agricultural jobs.

A Report from the Australia Institute found that proposals for new projects in the Upper Hunter amounted to 98 million tonnes of extra coal production a year, or 10 times the size of currently approved for the Adani mine in Queensland. In NSW, 23 mines or mine expansions where being requested for a total production of 155 million tonnes of coal. Coal production in NSW doubled between 2000 and 2014, from 130m tonnes to 260m tonnes a year.

The Australia Institutes’ Richard Denniss said:

At the moment there are more mines seeking approval than could ever be handled by the rail networks and the Port of Newcastle, let alone the world’s coal customers.

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

The morning of the day the MP resigned, and before the resignation occurred, Turnbull called on the NSW government to pause the approval of new coal mines in NSW, saying the industry is already in decline as the world makes changes to address the climate crisis.

“I think [approvals for new mines are] out of control”, Mr Turnbull told the Herald and The Age, emphasising he was speaking in a private capacity as a landholder in the Upper Hunter region. “It’s like a lunar landscape… There is massive devastation that’s going [on].” [emphasis added, for reasons which will be seen later.]

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

He accused coal mining companies of “trying to get in before the party ends”, and that approvals are being made without any regard for the cumulative effects.

“The rehabilitation challenge is gigantic and it’s far from clear where those resources are coming from,… It would be good to have a public inquiry into the whole rehabilitation program. The state government is going to end up picking up the tab”

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

“We have no reason to believe that the companies concerned will have the financial capability to remediate the land, or whether in fact remediation is really possible. And there is no transparency about the level of the bonds or the adequacy of the bonds that have been lodged to support the level of remediation.”

Morton Malcolm Turnbull backs moratorium on new coalmines in NSW. The Guardian 31 March 2021

Turnbull said the government should encourage industries with a long-term future such as clean energy, agriculture, tourism, thoroughbred racing and wine-making. He supported the Australia Institute’s call for a regional plan and coal approval moratorium. “If we want to look after the future of the people in the Hunter as opposed to a few coalminers – coalmining companies – we’ve got to carefully plan it” [1]

He also noted that he had written a submission opposing the proposed expansion of the Mount Pleasant mine [2]

Other reports suggest that the Upper Hunter postcode 2333 area has the worst air quality of any postcode in the state, almost certainly from the existing coal mines, so expansion of coal would be dangerous for resident’s health [3]. This is apparently unimportant, and is rarely mentioned by politicians except to be denied [4].

Condemnation

John Barilaro slammed Mr Turnbull’s comments, saying the government remained “firmly committed to the coal industry in NSW” and there would be no pause on coal mining approvals anywhere in the state.

“Malcolm Turnbull has been appointed to chair the NSW Net-Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board but this is not a mandate for him to speak on behalf of the NSW government when it comes to coal,” Mr Barilaro said.

“I was willing to give Mr Turnbull the benefit of the doubt but by day two of his appointment he has misjudged his role by calling for a moratorium on mining.”

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

“He needs to set aside his war on the Coalition, because of his damaged ego after being rejected as leader and prime minister, like I’ve set aside my own past grievances on this issue,…

“Under the NSW government there will be no moratorium on coal in the Upper Hunter or anywhere else in the state”

Morton. John Barilaro attacks Turnbull over ‘war on Coalition’ and says NSW ‘firmly committed’ to coal. The Guardian 31 March 2021

I don’t know if his past grievances show that much sign of being put aside – they were pretty easily triggered. Later on Barilaro said that he supported plans for an expanded coal mining industry in New South Wales, and that this was the wider position of the NSW government.

“For someone to be appointed in a government role, and not to understand the passion and the policy position of the government, that in itself shows that they are thick-headed and and they aren’t interested in what is right and good for the economy.”

Mazengarb. Turnbull pulled from NSW net zero advisory board, after calling for halt to new coal mines. RenewEconomy 6 April 2021

The Minerals Council of Australia joined in the condemnation. They are probably the most powerful lobby group in the country, and already claim the demise of one Prime Minister.

““The NSW government has a Coal Strategy and, given the importance of the sector to the NSW economy, Malcolm should read it because 12,000 Hunter coal miners don’t need another rich guy from Sydney telling them what’s good for them,”

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

Only minor points for readers noticing that the minerals council is also representing “rich guys.”

Matt Canavan a federal senator stated:

“Stopping our coal going to poor countries is an inhumane policy to keep people in poverty.”

Hannam Turnbull calls for halt on new coal mines, inquiry on rehabilitation funds. Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 2021

I suppose its worth noting the pseudo climate justice justification for coal, for poisoning locals and making money.

And the Federal Minister for emissions reduction said:

“I was a bit surprised that Malcolm took on this role, a former prime minister, we’ll work with the NSW government to do the work we really need to get more gas into the market…. What I’ll be doing is working with the NSW government to make sure they keep their commitments on gas, on keeping enough energy in the system to put downward pressure on prices.”

McHugh Mal’s green job a shock. Daily Telegraph, 31 Mar 2021: 19. Paywalled

The Federal Coalition is keen on supporting fossil fuels, and considers more gas is vital to economic recovery and growth. Emissions reduction is apparently not something one can plan.

Murdoch Empire

The Murdoch Daily Telegraph reported that Matt Kean had asked Turnbull to stop attacking coal and that the appointment had “sparked an inundation of angry calls from the party’s rank and file, with multiple Liberals now ‘ropeable’ about the former PM’s role.” One MP, Lea Evans, said the job should have gone to “anybody else but Malcolm”. Multiple MPs also told the Telegraph that the rank and file Liberals are furious at the appointment.[O’Doherty Libs hit a minefield as Mal-content fires up. Daily Telegraph 2 April 2021, p2. Paywalled]

Attacks extended to Matt Kean

Mr Kean has been allowed to run, unchecked by the Premier, with energy policies more suited to Labor or even the Greens. Now those misguided policies are coming home to roost.”

Terrible time to hire Turnbull. Daily Telegraph, 2 April 2021. p.28

Another Murdoch vehicle SkyNews was also against the appointment. Immediately on 29 March, Commentator Alan Jones said:

a “rejection” of NSW Liberal MP Matt Kean’s nomination of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to head the NSW Climate Policy board, is “precisely” what the state government “ought to do”. Mr Jones said Mr Kean… “ought to declare an interest; does any of Malcolm Turnbull’s family have a financial interest, yes or no, in renewable energy,” he said. “I think this is beyond extraordinary and if Matt Kean thinks it’s going to win votes for the Liberal Party, he’s kidding.”

NSW govt must ‘reject’ Turnbull as nominee for NSW Climate Policy board: Alan Jones. SkyNews 31 March 2021

Chris Smith said:

the Liberal Party needs to “wake up to itself and cut ties” with their “miserable old ghost” Malcolm Turnbull.

The former prime minister is set to head up the New South Wales Government’s climate advisory board after being nominated by state Energy Minister Matt Kean.

“How they consider this loser even a valid member of a conservative party, defies everything that comes out of his mouth – especially since he was given the boot,” Mr Smith said. “Everyone who knows anything about politics knows what Turnbull is trying to do – trying every way possible to bring down the government that turned on him…”

Mr Turnbull is “already planning some kind of scorched earth policy” even before they’ve “designed the letterhead for this new agency”.

“On his favourite media again yesterday – the ABC, he called for a moratorium on all new coal mines in New South Wales…. Turnbull might have some kind of renewable dream, but he has no technology or existing system to replace coal.”

Liberals need to ‘wake up and cut ties’ with ‘miserable ghost’ Malcolm Turnbull. SkyNews 1 April, 2021

Rowan Dean said:

Within hours of this ludicrous appointment Turnbull was doing what he does best, sabotaging his federal colleagues at the same time as selling the coal miners of the Hunter down the river… But the biggest fool of them all is Gladys Berejiklian by allowing this lunatic Matt Kean to destroy the future prosperity of Australia’s premier state. We will all be paying for this folly for decades.

‘Biggest joke’: Turnbull’s new climate change job. Sky News. 4 April 2021

There was more in the same temperate vein.

On the 6th April. The daily Telegraph had the headline Malcolm’s Coal War:

EXCLUSIVE Ex-PM’s NIMBY activism against mine

MALCOLM Turnbull wrote to the NSW government objecting to the expansion of a coal mine citing his family’s nearby 2700 acre grazing property among reasons for his concern.

Caldwell. Malcolm’s Coal War. Daily Telegraph, 6 April 2021, p1. [Unavailable online]

Turnbull protest letter exposes the former PM as ‘anti-coal activist’

MALCOLM Turnbull wrote directly to the NSW government objecting to the expansion of a key coal mine in the Upper Hunter citing his family’s nearby 2700 acre grazing property among reasons for his concern.

Caldwell. Mal’s mine shaft sparks furore. Daily Telegraph. 6 April, p.4 [Unavailable online]

This was the letter that Turnbull mentioned at the beginning of his remarks. It is hardly a triumph of investigative reporting to have ‘uncovered’ it. However the Telegraph recognises that:

The letter was sent before Mr Turnbull’s appointment as the chief of the government’s Net Zero board was publicly announced

So even if you protest against coal in your private life and make clear that you have protested against coal in your personal capacity as a landholder, you don’t escape the cancel… The Board had no influence on planning approvals so it was not a conflict of interest.

The Telegraph then appears to accuse Turnbull of hypocrisy for previously supporting coal.

On February 1, 2017, while he was still prime minister, Mr Turnbull told the National Press Club that old high-emissions coal power plants “cannot simply be replaced by gas, because it’s too expensive, or by wind or solar because they are intermittent”.

As prime minister, Mr Turnbull was also a keen supporter of coal exports to India and backed Australian miners to help power South Asian.

Enough to turn a fossil fan green. Daily Telegraph, 6 April 2021, p.5 [paywalled?]

So he can’t win, whether he supports or does not support coal, or changes his mind based on evidence. Changing your mind, from Murdoch orthodoxy, is not allowed.

On the 6th April Turnbull’s appointment was terminated…

John Barilaro was the first to announce the sacking on radio 2GB, saying:

We are not proceeding with the appointment of Malcolm Turnbull as chair… You need someone who brings people together and not divides and unfortunately Malcolm has done the opposite… He pulled my pants down within 48 hours of his appointment on an area that I take seriously.

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull dumped from NSW climate board after backlash. New Daily, 6 April 2021

And later:

Under no circumstances did this appointment provide [Turnbull] with a mandate to criticise the mining industry and, as a result of his comments, the NSW government has decided not to proceed with the appointment,

Smith How Turnbull’s new role was ended before it even began. Sydney Morning Herald, 7 April 2021

Matt Kean stated:

The purpose of the Net Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board is to create jobs in low carbon industries and see the State reduce its emissions in ways that grow the economy… It is important that the focus is on achieving these outcomes, based on facts, technology, science, and economics.

The focus should not be on personality.

…no person’s role on the Board should distract from achieving results for the NSW people or from the government’s work in delivering jobs and opportunities for the people of NSW,

Kean Statement on Net Zero Emissions and Clean Energy Board 6 April 2021

Later Kean said:

I realised that I’d lost the support of my colleagues in keeping Malcolm as the appointed head of the net zero emissions board, and in order to keep the team together, I had to make a very tough decision about someone that I think the world of and I respect greatly.

in order to move forward, in order to keep reducing our emissions in the way we have in New South Wales, I need to bring the whole community along this journey,

Mazengarb “I lost the support of my colleagues”: Kean explains decision to dump Turnbull. RenewEconomy 7 April 2021

Turnbull said:

his [position] was a part-time role which I was asked to do. I didn’t seek it. I agreed because we need to move as quickly as possible to a net zero emissions economy… Unfortunately there are vocal forces in our country, particularly the fossil fuel lobby and the Murdoch media, who are absolutely opposed to that.

Morton. Turnbull blames ‘rightwing media’ for dumping from NSW climate change board. The Guardian 6 April 2021

The Labor Party

On the other side of politics, Labor politician and coal miner supporter Joel Fitzgibbon said on Facebook:

Malcolm Turnbull now formally speaks for the NSW Liberal & National Parties and wants to make the Upper Hunter a coal mine free zone. Every voter in the area should listen to Wednesday’s @RNBreakfast interview. Jodi McKay [the leader of the NSW opposition] should play it over and over again through loud speakers!

Joel Fitzgibbon Facebook, April 2nd

Adam Searle, Labor’s spokesman for climate change and energy said:

This appointment, made without consultation with the Opposition, looks like the government is playing politics and risks creating political divisions in this crucial area.”

Hannam. Turnbull named head of NSW government’s climate advisory board. Sydney Morning Herald, 29 March 2021

Later he wrote on Facebook:

Mr Turnbull’s dumping vindicates Labor’s opposition to his appointment.

It was a divisive appointment – not only on a partisan basis but within his own side of politics. It’s just humiliating for Minister Kean, the Premier and the government to dump him.

Labor is calling on the Berejiklian Government to learn from its mistake here and pick a respected independent person for this very important role.

Searle Facebook, April 6.

The opposition leader, Jodi McKay pointed out that:

It will take a miracle for the Nats [National Party, part of the Coalition] to lose the seat they’ve held for 90 years

McKay Twitter, April 1 2021

That Labor has never won the Upper Hunter, implies that coal miners are unimportant, have never been pro-Labor, or that the area is full of agricultural workers who vote for the supposed farmer’s party [Nationals], although it is pretty much a miner’s party nowadays.

McKay was reasonably quite on the Turnbull affair but wrote on Twitter:

How on earth did it even come to this? John Barilaro backed Turnbull’s appointment in Cabinet.

This should never have been a political appointment and was always going to divisive.

A monumental failure of judgment by John Barilaro.

McKay Twitter April 6 2021

Labor chose a coal miner and union official, Jeff Drayton, as their candidate, who said

I’m a coal miner and a proud coal miner,

Every time I open the newspaper or every time I turn the TV on I see somebody having a go at coal miners and that has to stop.

And I’m going to fight bloody hard to make sure that does.

Raper NSW Labor announce Jeff Drayton as candidate for Upper Hunter by-election. ABC News 13 April 2021

McKay said at the launch:

We have to protect the jobs that are here,” Ms McKay said.

We have to make sure that we respect each and every person that walks into a coal mine.

They don’t do it because they want to damage the environment, they do it because they’re paying the mortgage.

Raper NSW Labor announce Jeff Drayton as candidate for Upper Hunter by-election. ABC News 13 April 2021

Which seems to be missing the point. Who actually is disrespecting coal miners? The problem is that coal mining is dangerous for the world, not just the miners. Miners deserve a transition into decent jobs.

However, it does seem that few people in the Labor Party, perhaps no one, thought it worthwhile to defend either Turnbull’s right to have private opinions, or his proposition that the Hunter did not need more coal mines. No one seems to have thought it worthwhile to ask what was the point of an attempt to deal with climate change, while promoting more coal exports.

As a sidelight on the Election campaign, the Nationals registered websites under the names of their opponents. These seem to be currently not working, so I have no idea what was on them. John Barilaro, the deputy premier said:

They don’t like it when it’s the rough and tumble in reverse, we aren’t a charity, this is a political party and we are in the political game and we’ll use everything to our advantage… <He does not seem to bother describing what rough and tumble he is supposedly responding to>

They were slow off the mark, I’m sorry but it’s not illegal. They were slow off the mark and if you can’t even get your campaign right, the question is are you going to be good enough to run government?…

It’s not the first time, it’s happened to us. It’s a bit of fun, we’ll go through a process to see how we will resolve it but at the end of the day when you say negative campaign, you jump on those websites, it’s the truth…

If they did it to us, we’d be upset, we got them this time, we pulled their pants down,

Fellows. Barilaro: “We pulled their pants down.” Scone.com, 16 April 2021.

Apparently he has an obsession with pants being pulled down.

Economics of Coal?

Australia is one of the biggest coal exporters on the planet. It is the largest exporter of metallurgical coal, and the second largest exporter of thermal coal (Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, Resources and Energy Quarterly December 2020: 42, 56). Exporting more will, unless other coal sellers collapse, more than likely completely blow any chances of containing climate change.

Last year during Covid the price of coal crashed from nearly $100 a tonne to $60-$70 a tonne. The Wambo mine closed for 8 weeks in June, and when the miners returned to work, the owners announced that half the jobs, at least 75 workers, would have to go.

Glencore announced a collection of temporary site and equipment shutdowns across its Hunter Valley mines due to the market. BHP confirmed it intended to offload its Mount Arthur open cut mine, near Muswellbrook.

It seems unlikely that without a major turn around in the coal price, that more coal mines would actually remedy this problem [1].

Later news suggests that Glencore might shut down three of its Hunter Valley mines by 2023 [2]

The Port of Newcastle in the Hunter, also fears the limited future of coal. It is one of the largest coal export ports in the World.

Recognising the terminal decline of coal use to be a long-term threat to the Port [of Newcastle] and the entire Hunter Valley region of NSW, the Port, which exported 158 million tonnes of thermal coal in 2020 (99% of its export volume), has outlined an urgent need to diversify into non-fossil fuel sectors, including green hydrogen/ammonia/aluminium….

The Port suggests demand for its coal exports are expected to peak by around 2027, however this timeframe is likely to have considerably shortened as its major export markets, China, Japan and South Korea have all pledged to become carbon neutral.

Rose. Australia: Port of Newcastle’s roadblock on the path away from thermal coal, IEEFA, 18 March 2021

Later Turnbull said:

Demand for export coal is declining,… That’s clear. The statistics are very clear there and the reasons are obvious. It’s that people in other countries are burning less coal.

We have a number of existing mines in the Hunter [that] are operating below capacity already. There is already enough capacity in the Hunter to meet export demand, you know, for a decade and more. Well into the future.

If you have an unconstrained expansion of existing mines like the expansion at Mt Pleasant or the opening of new mines, all that you are going to do is cannibalise the demand from the existing mines and put workers out of work today.

Kurnelovs & Morton Malcolm Turnbull accuses John Barilaro of ‘gaslighting’ with claim air quality data is manipulated. The Guardian, 8 April 2021

Richard Denniss of the Australia Institute remarked:

No-one would suggest building new hotels in Cairns to help that city’s struggling tourism industry. But among modern Liberals it’s patently heresy to ask how rushing to green light 11 proposed coal mines in the Hunter Valley helps the struggling coal industry.

Coal mines in the Hunter are already operating well below capacity and have been laying off workers in the face of declining world demand for coal, plummeting renewable energy prices and trade sanctions imposed by China. The problem isn’t a shortage of supply, but an abundance.

Denniss Is Malcolm Turnbull the only Liberal who understands economics and climate science – or the only one who’ll talk about it? The Conversation 7th April

Denniss also makes the obvious point, that coal mine expansions impede and lessen investment in agriculture and tourism. Coal Mining also has the capacity to damage agriculture, and cause farmers to sell up and move out.

New coal is supported by “independent experts” paid for by the coal companies.

It’s amazing [how] companies like Ernst & Young that talk about ‘the need to embrace the climate emergency’ are also prepared to knowingly inflate the economic case for new coal mines.

Ernst & Young’s economists use methods for coal mines that result in valuations hundreds of millions higher than even other coal industry consultants. These methods have been described as ‘inflated’, ‘contrary to economic theory’ and ‘plainly wrong’ by the NSW Land and Environment Court, but EY is happy to keep using them.

Deloitte also goes in to bat for new coal mines while saying climate change is the ‘biggest shared challenge facing humanity’”.

Stacey. Crooked Consulting: EY and Deloitte spruik climate on one hand, the explosion in new coal projects on the other. Michael West Media, 5 April 2021

This is yet another example of the information mess. The problem is not the experts but neoliberalism and depending on commercial information sources and consultation companies which are paid to deliver results for those who pay. They won’t get repeat consultation by delivering the results which are not wanted, even if correct. If they do deliver the required results, then they’ll get recommendations from the firm that hired them to other businesses that also require results, so the money keeps coming, and the information keeps getting worse.

Its probably best to have ‘experts’ funded by the public who are free to give advice as neutrally as possible. Science tends to get corrupted when employed by business – as the demands of business are for profit, not for truth.

Some employment stats:

The Upper Hunter Council, which is part of the electorate, claims that it supports “14,180 people, [with] 5,260 jobs and has an annual economic output of $1.668 billion.”

1,344 of those jobs are in the Agricultural sector and 26!! are mining.

On the other hand Musswellbrook which is also part of the upper Hunter claims it supports “16,377 people, [with] 10,017 jobs and has an annual economic output of $7.290 billion.”

It has 3,120 jobs in mining and 541 in Agriculture, forestry and fishing. see remplan

The 2016 census reports that 14.2% of people, in employment in the Upper Hunter electorate, worked in Coal Mining, while only 0.4% of the Australian population works in that field. Coal mining jobs will have a spill over effect, as does any source of income which reaches the general population, but it is always hard to estimate what other jobs and industry it supports.

A poll

This is added a week or so later…

The Australia Institute, which has featured reasonably prominently in this story, carried out a poll in the Upper Hunter electorate using a sample of 686 residents, on the nights of the 7th and 8th of April 2021. Such a small poll is probably not that accurate, but they found:

The majority of voters (57.4%) in the NSW state seat of Upper Hunter support former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s call for a moratorium on new coal mine approvals and a remediation plan for existing mines for the Hunter Valley.

Polling: Upper Hunter – Moratorium on New Coal Mines in the Hunter. Australia Institute, 13 April 2012

About a third of those who support the moratorium ‘strongly support’ the moratorium, while of those who oppose the moratorium only 16% ‘strongly oppose’. Support for the moratorium on new coal mines was present in most voting groups:

  • Nationals voters 54.1% support,
  • Labor voters 69.8% support,
  • Greens voters 91.3% support,
  • Shooters Fishers & Farmers Party 56.7% support.

The only party offering a moratorium is the Greens, and they will be extremely unlikely to win the by-election as the poll shows they have 9.3% support, so the idea is not being put to the people, only expansion is being allowed. This is one way politics suppresses peoples’ views.

Conclusion

If NSW is to reach real zero emissions, it cannot do this by locking in more coal mines, whether the coal is burnt here or overseas, and so some discussion needs to be had about what will happen in coal intensive areas. What kind of industries can be encouraged?

It is sensible to have that discussion in the Upper Hunter because of the agricultural remnants of the area and the high level of agricultural jobs which exist. Coal expansion will destroy the possibility of those jobs existing in the future. A massive over-production of coal, such as that which seems to be proposed at the moment, would depress the price of coal massively.

The point seems to be, that the NSW government cannot allow such discussion, by anyone associated with the Party, or else they might look disunified. I guess the idea is to encourage lock-in to coal power to keep the industry going and help destroy the Upper Hunter and the climate.

Turnbull was right to bring up the question though unfortunate in his timing – which allowed the fundamentalist coal people to stomp all over him, to get rid of him, and continue settling old scores. It also looks as if any targets, or exploration of green jobs, for NSW are precarious, and likely to be folded away as soon as possible.

Coal and emissions reduction are not compatible, and it appears that, in NSW and the Coalition, emissions reduction must come second to the promotion of coal, and not in any way conflict with the promotion of coal – even if there is apparently no market for the new coal being promoted, the coal poisons local people, and threatens agriculture.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »