Sunday 28 September 2014

Australia labelled the dirtiest country in the developed world 

Australia labelled the dirtiest country in the developed world 

'The Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific': Australia labelled the dirtiest country in the developed world 



  • An article written by a US-based technology magazine has taken aim at Tony Abbott's decision to repeal the carbon tax
  • The article, published on Slate.com, reads like a list of how Australia became the worst polluter in the world
  • It
    claims Australian leaders will use its power as host of the upcoming
    G-20 summit to steer away from climate change discussions 





Australia has been dubbed the dirtiest country in the developed world and the Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific.   
The
claims were made in reference to the federal government's decision to
repeal a carbon tax on the nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters in a
US-based technology magazine, Future Tense.
The 1,700 word article, titled The Saudi Arabia of the South Pacific and published on Slate.com,
reads like a comprehensive list of how Australia became the worst
polluter in the world and lists things that are wrong with the country's
climate policy. 
Scroll down for video 
An article for US-based technology magazine, Future Tense, lists reasons why Australia became the worst polluter in the world, including a now-repealed decision to dump dredge on the Great Barrier Reef
An article for US-based technology
magazine, Future Tense, lists reasons why Australia became the worst
polluter in the world, including a now-repealed decision to dump dredge
on the Great Barrier Reef
'Australians
like to think of themselves as green. Their island country boasts some 3
million square miles of breathtaking landscape. They've had
environmental regulations on the books since colonial times,' the
article read.
'In
2007 they elected a party and a prime minister running on a
'pro-climate' platform, with promises to sign the Kyoto Protocol and
pass sweeping environmental reforms.
'And yet, seven years later, Australia has thrown its environmentalism out the window - and into the landfill.'
Brisbane
is set to host the G-20 economic summit in November and the article
claims Australian leaders plan to use their powers as host of the event
to keep climate change off the agenda.
Future Tense says Australia has thrown its environmentalism out the window and into the landfill, partly due to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his government dismantling key environmental policies 
Future Tense says Australia has thrown
its environmentalism out the window and into the landfill, partly due
to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his government dismantling key
environmental policies 
'Did
we mention that Australians' per-capita carbon emissions are the highest
of any major developed country in the world? Welcome to the Saudi
Arabia of the South Pacific,' the article reads.
The
authors also draw on the now-repealed-decision to dump coal mine dredge
near the heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef and the government's plan
to open up the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to commercial
logging. 
'Let's see, Australian leaders must wake up wondering every morning: 'What natural wonder could we trash today?',' they said.
The authors say 'Australian leaders must wake up wondering every morning: 'What natural wonder could we trash today'? in reference to a plan to open up the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area to logging
The authors say 'Australian leaders
must wake up wondering every morning: 'What natural wonder could we
trash today'? in reference to a plan to open up the Tasmanian Wilderness
World Heritage Area to logging
'Beautiful
as it is, it's a harsh land in which to make a home. It's often on
fire, usually in drought, and when the streams aren't bone dry, they're
flooding - all natural disasters that are already being exacerbated by
global warming.
'Let's hope that the rapacious policies of the current government represent only a temporary bout of insanity.' 
The
decision to axe the carbon, introduced by the former Labor government,
was a key election promise made by Prime Minister Tony Abbott during the
2013 election campaign.
It was repealed in July - two years after it was introduced. 
Mr Abbott planned to replace the carbon tax with industry incentives to use cleaner energy.  




Thursday 25 September 2014

"Dear Matafele Peinem"



On 23 September 2014, 26 year old poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, from the
Marshall Islands, addressed the Opening Ceremony of the UN
Secretary-General's Climate Summit. Kathy was selected from among over
500 civil society candidates in an open, global nomination process
conducted by the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service
.



Tuesday 23 September 2014

Record carbon dioxide levels means delaying action is no longer an option

Record carbon dioxide levels means delaying action is no longer an option



15





The alarming message from international scientists to
political leaders meeting at today’s UN climate summit in New York is
that record global CO2 emissions this year mean ‘delaying action is not an option’. Tim Radford from
Climate News Network reports.




GLOBAL CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS will this year reach a new record as
power stations, cars, buses, trains, aircraft, tractors, factories,
farms and cement works continue to burn fossil fuels − releasing an
estimated 40 billion tonnes of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.




And the world’s chances of limiting global average surface warming to
2°C – an ambition agreed by the world’s political leaders in Copenhagen
in 2009 − are dwindling, according to new studies published just ahead of the United Nations summit on climate change opening in New York later today.




Professor Pierre Friedlingstein, chair
in mathematical modelling of climate systems at Exeter University, UK,
and a consortium of colleagues from the UK, Norway, Switzerland,
Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia report in Nature Geoscience that
despite attempts to reduce fossil fuel dependence, greenhouse gas
emissions have on average continued to grow by 2.5% per year for the
last decade.






Ration exhausted


This means that, if there is a ration or quota of emitted carbon
dioxide consistent with a 2°C increase, then the world has already used
up two-thirds of it. And if it goes on burning fuel at the 2014 rate,
then this ration will be exhausted within 30 years.




The study, part of a package of papers and reflections in Nature Geoscience and Nature Climate Change calculated to inform debate and crystallise opinion, has been widely endorsed by other climate scientists.



David Reay, professor of carbon management at the University of Edinburgh, UK, said:



“If this were a bank statement, it would say our credit is running out.”




The scientists, partners in a research consortium called the Global Carbon Project,
list the top four emitters of carbon dioxide: China – emissions grew by
4.2%; US – emissions increased by 2.9%, thanks to a rebound in coal
consumption; India – emissions grew by 5.1%, as a result of robust
economic performance; European Union – emissions actually fell by 1.8%,
due to weak economic growth.




One of the report’s authors, Robbie Andrew, a senior research fellow at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (Cicero), in Norway said China’s contribution is alarming:



“China now emits more than the U.S. and EU combined and has CO2 emissions per person 45% higher than the global average, exceeding even the EU average.”




And co-author Glen Peters, also a senior research fellow at Cicero, said:



“Globally, emissions would need sustained and unprecedented
reductions of around 7% per year for a likely chance to stay within the
quota.”







Corinne Le Quéré, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, UK, said:



“The human influence on climate change is clear. We need substantial and sustained reductions in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels if we are to limit climate change.



“We are nowhere near the commitments necessary to stay below 2°C
of climate change − a level that will already be challenging to manage
for most countries around the world, even for rich nations. Politicians
meeting in New York need to think very carefully about their diminishing
choices exposed by climate science.”





Professor Friedlingstein stressed:



“Delaying action is not an option. We need to act together, and
act quickly if we are to stand a chance of avoiding climate change not
long into the future, but within many of our own lifetimes.”





Most of the message in the Nature Geoscience paper is already familiar as scientists in Europe, Asia and the US have repeatedly stressed that even a 2°C increase in average global temperatures could have alarming consequences for hundreds of millions of people.



The timing of the publication is a reminder of the problem’s urgency, and many of the Nature Geoscience report’s authors also offer a prescription for action in the journal Nature Climate Change.



In this they try to outline ways in which the burden of reduction
might be shared among the world’s nations. This is essentially a
political problem that will require sustained international negotiation
and argument.




Professor Myles Allen, who heads the Climate Dynamics Group at Oxford University, UK, said:



"It is depressing that the immediate reaction to the news we have
a limited carbon pie is discussion of how countries can slice it up. We
didn’t save the ozone layer by rationing deodorant."







Abstract goals



But David Victor, professor of international relations at the University of California San Diego, in an accompanying essay in Nature Climate Change, warns that researchers and campaigners



'… have focused too much scientific talent on abstract goals and
not enough on understanding the practical actions that individual
governments, firms and individuals would take to meet global goals.'





The New York summit is one of a series that will lead up to the UN
climate change summit in Paris in 2015, and Professor Victor foresees a
need for climate scientists to work with social scientists to understand
better how attitudes change and policies are decided.




He concludes:



'It is highly unlikely that the Paris summit will deliver an
accord that limits warming to 2°C, and hopes for that outcome in the
scientific community are built on a naïve vision that science sets goals
and that politicians, once they shed the scales from their eyes, will
follow in lockstep.




'Awareness of what the behavioural sciences can bring suggests,
as well, that the era of really important science is perhaps just
beginning.'





Climate News Network





Wednesday 17 September 2014

‘ We are burning our trust’: Abbott’s climate denials winning Australia no friends –

‘ We are burning our trust’: Abbott’s climate denials winning Australia no friends –

‘We are burning our trust’: Abbott’s climate denials winning Australia no friends



t as nothing will persuade the Michael Smiths of the world
that Julia Gillard is innocent, we are well past the point where more
evidence will persuade climate sceptics or those vested interests
opposing climate action to change their tune.




Remove price on carbon. Check. Avoid international
climate talks. Check. Deny fossil fuel subsidies. Check! This is your
captain Tony Abbott speaking, and Australia is cleared for take-off,
destination: last century.



Yesterday brought another sensible report from the annoying
Nicholas Stern spelling out the economic benefits (not to mention every
other benefit) of acting on climate change before it’s too late. But the
Abbott government still doesn’t seem convinced  — and repeated denials
that we are subsidising the fossil fuel industry are killing Australia’s
credibility.



Stern’s 2006 report made
front-page news around the world as the first attempt to weigh up the
costs of action versus the costs of inaction on the climate. The
conclusion reached was the obvious one — that acting early is cheaper
than acting later — but critics complained that depended heavily on the
discount rate used. That is, the rate of return used to calculate
long-term costs.



Yesterday’s report by
the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate — of which Stern is
co-chair — tries to put that argument to bed by reining in the time
horizon, pointing out the economic benefits of action are apparent over
the short term too and we can have both economic growth and climate risk
mitigation together, right now.



Just as nothing will persuade the Michael Smiths of the world
that Julia Gillard is innocent, we are well past the point where more
evidence will persuade climate sceptics or those vested interests
opposing climate action to change their tune.



Particularly in Australia. Abbott just doesn’t want to talk about climate change at all. He wants climate off the G20 agenda. He won’t be going to
the climate talks starting in New York next Tuesday, which will be
attended by over 100 heads of state, including US President Barack Obama
and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, as momentum builds
for agreement on a new post-Kyoto climate deal in Paris next year.
Australia will be represented by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop — at
least that’s one better than last year’s Warsaw talks, when Environment
Minister Greg Hunt stayed home.



High on the action agenda — for the rest of the world, at
least — is abolishing fossil fuel subsidies. Yesterday’s report cites
estimates that fossil fuel subsidies are running at US$600 billion a
year, far outweighing clean energy subsidies of US$100 billion a year.



The most hardened sceptics must concede there is no reason
on earth why the taxpayers of the world should subsidise production of
coal, oil and gas to make global warming worse.



Everybody wants fossil fuel subsidies abolished,
including the G20, International Monetary Fund, World Bank,
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and International
Energy Agency.



Australia’s tack has been to simply deny we have fossil fuel subsidies at all, as we told the G20 in 2010.


The Australia Institute executive director Richard Denniss,
who has just returned from a trip to Europe, where he gave a paper on
fossil fuel subsidies, says our denialist position has definitely raised
eyebrows. “Senior European officials are deeply sceptical of those
claims, and they don’t strengthen Australia’s credibility in
international forums,” he said.



The problem is that while fossil fuel subsidies are easy to
rail against, they are much harder to identify. Big numbers get thrown
around, but there is no international standard to define what a fossil
fuel subsidy is.



Denniss agrees: “There is no methodology. It’s done on
trust, and we’re burning our trust by maintain the farce that we have no
fossil fuel subsidies.”



The issue has a fraught history in Australia. Academic Chris
Reidy, then at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University
of Technology Sydney, estimated in 2007 that Australia has fossil fuel
subsidies of roughly $9 billion to $10 billion a year, of which the
majority was the diesel fuel rebate to miners and others, of some $5
billion a year. The mining industry denies it is a subsidy at all,
arguing they were exempted from the diesel fuel excise because the
revenue was hypothecated to highway funding and they didn’t use
highways. That’s where the debate is stuck.



The debate flared again this week with the release by the Minerals Council of a report attacking a June report
by the Australia Institute, which estimated Australia’s state
governments spent $17 billion over six years on assistance to the
minerals and fossil fuels sector.



To illustrate the difficulty: over half of that estimate or
almost $8 billion was made up of the costs of transporting
coal — particularly, providing publicly owned, dedicated rail and port
infrastructure. The Minerals Council’s consultant made the fair point
that this investment is recouped through user charges paid by miners
through the “take or pay” contracts that are weighing on industry
profitability right now. The consultants estimated dividends and taxes
paid back to state governments by publicly owned infrastructure
providers are $35 billion. Denniss replies that many of these user
charges are not publicly available and the institute did seek input from
the mining industry, without success. The point of the report was to
try to examine both sides of the ledger, he says, and to call for more
transparency.



“We hear every day how much the mining industry contributes
to the budget. Our report was not an attempt to identify the net effect
but to highlight that the money flows both ways.”



It is a difficult question to resolve without case-by-case,
asset-by-asset analysis. The Australia Institute and the South
Australian Minerals Council are about to sit down to do exactly that.
Australia can not avoid such a tally forever.




Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Climate Change Debate (HBO)



CLIMATE CHANGE FOR THE DUMMIES. ( TONY ABBOTT AND CO AND CONSERVATISM)



Monday 15 September 2014

Peoples Climate March in Merimbula food for thought

Peoples Climate March in Merimbula food for thought



Peoples Climate March in Merimbula food for thought


In New York on August 28, people gathered in Times Square to promote the global People’s Climate March. Photo: NYC Light Brigade.
In
New York on August 28, people gathered in Times Square to promote the
global People’s Climate March. Photo: NYC Light Brigade.
A BYO picnic to discuss the climate change issue will take place in Merimbula this weekend. 

Clean
Energy for Eternity (CEFE) is hosting the event in conjunction with
GetUp and other groups and organisations from the Bega Valley. 


CEFE
event organiser Prue Kelly said it is for people around the region to
meet, have a picnic and talk about what they can do to fight against
climate change.


“It’s about like-minded people coming together to support the plea for climate action,” Ms Kelly said. 

“This isn’t just happening in our region, it’s all around the country and we are just one small part of it.

“We want to send a strong message to the Australian Government.”

The
day, September 21, is the day for Peoples Climate March, which is a
global event with the theme “action, not words” to demonstrate support
for more action on climate change. 


It is the weekend before the
Heads of State Climate Meeting on September 23 in New York, which is
hosted by United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon.  


The Merimbula picnic will be photographed and those photos sent to the climate meeting for Mr Ki-moon to see.  

“We want him to know our government isn’t too active on the climate change front, but our people are,” Ms Kelly said. 

Matthew
Nott will be speaking on behalf of CEFE, and it is not a formal event
so anyone is invited to get up and speak if they wish. 


Ms Kelly
said it is not a political rally, but a rally for everyone who believes
more action needs to be taken against climate change. 


It was initiated after GetUp Merimbula member Carol Bartlett contacted CEFE with the idea of having a rally in the local area.

“In
terms of what the issue means to me personally, I’ve long had concerns
for the needs of the developing world, and they are the ones affected by
climate change much more than we are,” Ms Bartlett said. 


She
said a recent example was in the Solomon Islands, where rising sea
levels have meant islanders’ wells are being contaminated by salt
water. 


The picnic will take place at Spencer Park, Merimbula on
Sunday from noon, and for more details visit
act.350.org/event/peoples_climate/9340. 


In other CEFE news, Ms
Kelly said they hope to announce the start of construction of the Tathra
Solar Farm in the next few days, as they are currently finalising
documents. 


She said CEFE is still on target to have it finished by the end of the year.




Thursday 4 September 2014

Rubbishing the RET for King Coal by David Leyonhjelm and The Australian

Rubbishing the RET for King Coal by David Leyonhjelm and The Australian



2







A prime example of the rubbish spread by fossil fuel fans was an opinion piece by Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm published in The Australian, writes Lachlan Barker.



WHAT HAS BECOME CLEAR to me in this debate about scrapping the Renewable Energy Target (the RET) is that the Federal Government and the conservative state governments, have been massively successful at spreading the message that the RET is a bad thing.



RET bad, coal good; or, renewable energy expensive, coal cheap.



And a prime example of this was the rubbish printed by The Australian on August 27, 2014 in an opinion piece by Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm.



This piece was entitled:



‘Ditch RET to set economy free.'




When I returned to reread this piece for this article, I was
astonished to discover that the full article was no longer visible on
the Oz website, and was now hidden away in the ironically titled ‘Premium Content’ section.




As you’re about to see, if this rubbish from the senator is premium content, I dread to see what’s non-premium.



However, I found another link to the full article, if your blood pressure is too low, you can read it here.





It’s an oddly ordered article, but the fifth paragraph gets to the nub:



The repeal of the carbon tax will help, but studies show that the
RET has an even greater impact on the bottom line, reducing our living
standards and the competitiveness of our entire economy.





Above that is a spray about Queensland, saying:



The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show
that in the five years to June 2012, Australia's retail electricity
prices rose by 72 per cent with even higher increases in Melbourne and
Sydney.




The Queensland Competition Authority's annual report revealed
recently that 344 households were disconnected every week in the
Sunshine State because of non-payment of electricity bills.





So, my first port of call was to check out this figure of 344:



I got onto the Queensland Competition Authority and the helpful media rep there, Richard, directed me to the relevant report.



I did the maths and the figure was approximately accurate; 307 was the number I came up with.



However, I checked with the two largest providers of electricity connections in Queensland, Energex and Ergon,
and learned from Graeme at Energex and Rob at Ergon, that in the same
period the two companies were connecting approximately 340 new
households.




Thus for almost every disconnection, there was a new connection,
hardly the-RET-is-bringing-the-economy-to-its-knees affect that
Leyonhjelm is trying to make us believe.




What’s more, trying to lay electricity disconnections at the feet of
the RET is a staggering leap of illogic — as it is well known, if power
prices are a problem, the poles and wires component is a far bigger
issue, as this graphic from the Ergon Annual Report 2013 demonstrates:








While in NSW this story in the Sydney Morning Herald
indicates that, of the 100% power price increase over the last six
years, 55% of the increase is due to network charges — improving the
poles and wires for transmission of power.




What’s more, the website of the Queensland Competition Authority, on its electricity prices page, says this:



The main cost is that of networks, or the ‘poles and wires’, which deliver electricity from power stations to homes.



The carbon tax and green schemes are government policies that add costs.




But I certainly didn’t see the poles and wires component mentioned in Leyonhjelm’s article.



Leyonhjelm then goes on to say:



The dramatic surge in power bills has been a major factor in the
decline of our manufacturing sector and the loss of thousands of jobs.





Well, maybe.



Other factors in the decline of our manufacturing are the ongoing effects of the GFC, the strong Australian dollar and the dramatically lower labour costs in factories in developing economies.



Professor Phil Lewis, director of the Centre for Labour Market Research at the University of Canberra, told ABC Fact Check in an article updated March 3, 2014, that:



“Jobs in manufacturing have been declining for decades.”




And I’m sure you’re here already, but what about the thousands of jobs created by the RET?



The Clean Energy Council estimates 18,400 new jobs by 2020 if the RET is maintained in its current form.



Moving on, Leyonhjelm writes:



A report from the accounting firm Deloitte shows the RET will
stifle the economy, cost jobs and drive up prices, and is a very
inefficient means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.




It concludes that abolishing the RET would increase real GDP by
$29 billion in net present terms relative to the RET continuation.





So I found the Deloitte report that the senator refers to, you can read it here.



However, there is really no need, because what do you think I found on the title page?







So this report is sponsored, in part, by the fossil fuel industry —
the people with the most to gain from seeing the RET scrapped for good.




So I contacted David Leyonhjelm’s office and asked why they didn’t
mention that the report was sponsored by the minerals council.




Here is the response:



Because this is clearly stated in the report, and when
information is publicly available it does not always need to be
declared.




To use the same logic, it might be relevant to declare in each
article you write on the subject that you used to work for Greenpeace,
or that the Independent profits from renewable energy industry sponsors -
however, it's just not necessary.





Make of that what you will, but it is beyond belief to expect the
readers of Leyonhjelm’s piece to not wish to know that the information
he relies on comes from a vested interest.




I contacted our editorial team and enquired about advertising here at IA.



Deputy editor Sandi Keane said this:



It's a bit of a stretch for Leyonhjelm to suggest that someone
who spends a  few hundred dollars with us on an ad has any editorial
influence.





Editor David Donovan said this:



Anyone can advertise with us, providing that they are an ethical organisation.



We don't have any renewable industry sponsors, though a solar company did advertise with us at one time, not any more.



Almost all our advertising comes from Google. We have, in fact,
run advertisements for the Liberal Party and The Australian newspaper on
IA through Google.





DD concluded by offering Leyonhjelm some, arguably gratuitous, advice:



So tell him to stick that up his jumper.




However, David Leyonhjelm is a politician with a barrow to push, in
this case (it would appear) to protect the profits of the fossil fuel
industry, so I understand why he wrote this blatantly one-sided piece.






What I couldn’t understand is why The Australian published it.



So I decided to see what they had to say for themselves.



I learned that the person responsible for putting Leyonhjelm’s piece to press is the Opinion Editor, Rebecca Weisser.



So I emailed Ms Weisser and asked:



...why did David Leyonhjelm not mention in his piece that one of the sponsors of this report was the Minerals Council of Australia?




No response.



Leyonhjelm then goes to say:



It is undisputed that despite being a mature technology the wind
generation industry is not viable anywhere in the world without
government or customer subsidies. It is just government- mandated
corporate welfare.





Oh please.



More than a quarter of South Australia's electricity was generated by wind in 2011, up from 18 per cent in 2010.



Also, the Renew Economy website tells us that for a week in August 2013, 47% of South Australia’s power came from wind.



And shadow environment minister, Mark Butler, said this at the Clean Energy Week Conference in July this year:



"It was only a few weeks ago that we got to the point in South
Australia – it was a particularly blowy week – but we got to the point
where wind power generation almost entirely matched total demand in the
South Australian electricity sector
that’s how successful wind power development had been in our state."





Leyonhjelm then ends with this truly extraordinary spray:



If Labor, the Greens and Clive Palmer really care for social
justice they will not allow working families, pensioners and the
disadvantaged to be ripped off by wealthy wind generators and will back
the abolition of the RET.





Excuse me? Wealthy wind generators?





I checked the list at Forbes of Australia’s top 50 richest people.



Gina Rinehart is at the top, with $17.7 billion — source of wealth: mining.



Clive Palmer is at the bottom of the 50, with $0.55 billion — main source of wealth: mining.



Other sources of wealth include agribusiness, real estate, retail,
construction, gambling, investment and ends, alphabetically, with wine.




Renewable energy is not the source of wealth of any of Australia’s top 50 richest people.



So, in the end, this piece by Leyonhjelm sums up nicely how the
voices of, and for, the fossil fuel industry have been so successful in
demonising the RET and before that, the carbon price, as the ultimate
destroyers of Australia’s economy.




And I’ll close with this heard from ABC Radio National’s business editor, Sheryle Bagwell on Monday, 1 September.



That Monday’s business report was entitled:



‘The week in finance, featuring GDP numbers, mining and the RET’.



At the end Sheryle said this:



“The crazy thing about all this is that there was a cheaper way
than the RET to reduce Australia's carbon emissions and it was the
carbon tax. Next year it would have dropped from US$23 a tonne to less
than $US10 a tonne.”





And of course, the Federal Government has already demonised, then quickly and with extreme prejudice, dispensed with that.



Lachlan Barker blogs at cyclonecharlie88.blogspot.com.au. You can follow him on Twitter @cyclonecharlie8.



Creative Commons Licence