Rudd's climate backflip deadly in empty pool

In Saturday's edition of The Age, Michael Gordon offerered an interesting analysis of Kevin Rudd’s climate backflip, but highlighted its game-playing political dimensions over the objective impacts of the prime minister’s failure to act. Gordon suggested the backflip “does matter”, but largely as a mistake of arrogance and communication with consequences for voter sentiment.

It was from this perspective that he noted the “case for shifting ground on climate change”, pointing out the decline in still substantial public concern about climate both here and in the US. It was almost as if, were that concern to decline beyond a certain point, the problem of climate change would disappear. Instead, it grows only more compelling as science finds serious impacts occurring at ever lower levels of warming, as the ANU's Professor Will Steffen noted in his address at the launch of the Transition Decade campaign in Melbourne back in February.

Gordon did argue that the prime minister should have stood by Penny Wong to build a “consensus for action”, but this ignores the reality that the currently proposed emissions trading scheme does not amount to the “credible action” the prime minister is demanding of the world before he moves on "the great moral challenge of our time".

A double-dissolution election over the ETS is not the answer, however. If Labor could overcome Martin Ferguson's aversion to a deal with the Greens, an interim carbon tax would be a start while the details of a much stronger scheme are hammered out. Honest, public-interest communication by Government is also needed to persuade voters of the necessity for urgent measures.

In the same edition of the paper, Adam Morton reported Penny Wong's view that deferring a decision on action until the end of 2012 offered “a good opportunity to assess the level of progress internationally”. Unfortunately, without science-based action now, that “progress” is likely to be towards worsening impacts and the realisation that our chance to avoid climate calamity may well be gone.

In the paper's Insight section, Tony Wright gave welcome emphasis to the physical impacts over the political game-playing when he highlighted accelerating changes in the melting of Antarctic ice that featured on last Thursday's excellent ABC TV Catalyst program.

In the business pages, Paddy Manning looked at the Greens interim carbon tax, finding value in the "overlooked" proposal. Business also featured Ross Gittins in a clear but flawed piece on why progress is supposedly being made by the Government, via Copenhagen etc. It's worth reading, but my question to Gittins is how long can we "prepare to prepare" to take weak action?

He also offered a tired argument similar to that advanced by the Australian Industry Group that a 5 per cent cut on 2000 emissions by 2020 is really a much bigger cut on projected, business-as-usual levels by that year. Unfortunately, the more our projected emissions are talked up and characterised as almost inevitable, the better such meagre cuts look. Instead of inflating inadequate actions by comparing them to catastrophic projections we have yet to emit, we should compare every proposed cut to what the science says is needed.

Finally, on a more positive note, in an excellent piece for The Sunday Age, Guy Pearse warned that the campaign for stronger climate measures to replace Rudd's failed CPRS must press for genuine domestic cuts through limiting the use of international carbon credits and pushing for a coal "phase-down" that targets exports, not just power generation in Australia – a must-read.

Don't miss ABC TV's Q&A tonight, which features Senators Wong, Minchin and Milne.

Ferguson's double-standard on renewables and coal

After reading energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson's 7 October letter in response to an article about the Solar Systems collapse in The Melbourne Times, the less well informed might take home the message that solar just can't cut the commercial mustard, that it's failing to achieve milestone after milestone, and that the Australian Government is bending over backwards to help the industry get off the ground to help tackle climate change.

To quote Ferguson, the financial state of Solar Systems 'is unfortunate but is wholly linked to the commercial viability of this company and not a reflection on government policy related to renewable energy'. Well, according to Paddy Manning writing in The Age, this is not the kind of tough-minded, financially accountable commercialism that is being applied to the coal industry.

Manning points out that up to $10 billion could be destined for the coffers of our dirtiest coal-fired power generators if we add to the $3.5 billion compensation under the existing CPRS the Opposition push for a further $6.5 billion in its bid to amend the scheme to make it even more coal-friendly.

And while - unlike renewables - coal-fired power makes a monstrous contribution to carbon emissions and therefore to climate change, in no way can it be said that so-called 'clean coal' technologies are anywhere near implementation on a commercial scale anywhere in the world.

This was recently highlighted by the Four Corners program, 'The Coal Nightmare', and one can only conclude that the sheer scale of the Australian Government's proposed compensation to the industry is a huge vote of no confidence in the viability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. If CCS were viable and allowed low-emission commercial exploitation of coal even with an appropriate price on carbon, why would compensation be considered?

As Manning points out in his most recent column, the viability of combined wind and solar is a different story according to a recent Deakin lecture by Dr David Mills, Chief Scientific Officer with US solar thermal developer Ausra, whom he quotes as follows:

We are finding that solar and wind are a beautiful match for each other and together can carry almost the entire electrical load of a large economy

Ferguson is fond of referring to 'energy security', but this argument for dirty fossil fuels is rapidly disappearing, and in any case has always ignored the pressing need to secure our global climate. It is in fact viable to provide baseload power supply by combining wind and technologies such as molten salt storage for solar thermal generation, and thereby secure our energy and climate at the same time.

As the development of truly clean renewable technologies increasingly outpaces the empty promises of 'clean' coal, Ferguson will be forced to admit that he's not really talking about energy security at all, but instead protecting the profits of the coal industry. As I've said before, if the coal barons owned the sun and the wind, it would be a different story, but they can't stand to leave their dirty coal in the ground when there's profit to be had. Too bad for the global climate.

Further commentary on the Solar Systems collapse at the ABC and David, a worker from the plant, is interviewed onsite here.

Read more about Martin Ferguson on this blog.

Climate Green Paper closes today

Comments on the Victorian Climate Change Green Paper close today. There's still a chance to have your say, so make your case for stronger climate action by the Victorian Government.

My submission argues that Victorian policy needs to build in stronger advocacy for an effective national approach in the lead-up to Copenhagen. It also highlights the unwillingness of State and Federal Governments to explicitly link their climate measures - such as emissions targets - with the degree of climate impacts we experience.

For example, how will the Australian Government's current weak targets play out for bushfire risk if adopted by other developed nations? Of course, Rudd's targets will increase bushfire risk over time. If, as the Green Paper argues, 'effectiveness' will be one of the measures of climate policies, surely the link between policy and impacts must be explicitly acknowledged at State and Federal level?

Already with the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, we have seen a reticence to speak about climate policy as a means of long-term risk prevention. That must change in the policy discussion about all climate impacts.

Australia makes the climate news in Copenhagen

The Danish Government has an official website and blog for December's climate negotiations in Copenhagen (COP15). Australia features in a recent post, 'US Bill has an effect Down Under'. Here's the comment I posted in response:

The Australian Federal Opposition may well fold and end up voting for Australia's climate legislation when the Senate resumes in August. However, should a compromise be reached on the legislation and it is voted in, that will not mean Australia has a policy that will help lead us back to a safe climate with fewer severe bushfires and other climate change impacts we are already experiencing.

Nor will being guided by the US guarantee an effective outcome. Every government's position must be tested against the science, and international agreement reached that brings greenhouse gases much closer to pre-industrial levels. Science is the only true yardstick; not the relative merits of one scientifically inadequate position compared to another.

In Australia's case, we should be looking at 2020 cuts of at least 40% on 1990 levels, with the further aim of contributing to global stabilisation of carbon dioxide at around 300ppm as soon as possible.

As prominent US climate campaigner Bill McKibben has said, the earth's climate doesn't negotiate. In Copenhagen this December, the world needs to listen to the science and, hopefully with Australian leadership, work out a way to share the burden of effective action in a way that is fair for developed and developing nations.

Updates to the Copenhagen website can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook, or you can post your 'climate thoughts' on their spinning globe that shows climate views from around the world.

We don't agree to burn, Mr Rudd

Citing the recession, the protection of jobs, and certainty for business, Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has further undermined the possibility of a strong international climate agreement this year by delaying the start of Australia's emissions trading scheme until 2011. Changes to the proposed scheme also include targets inadequate to secure a safe climate, a reduced carbon price in the first year of the scheme, and additional compensation to heavy polluters.

The changes extend high-emitting business-as-usual for Australia, putting us on track to cross what may well be irreversible climate tipping points. The proposed targets also fail to act with sufficient urgency even when emissions trading is implemented, continuing the government's fudging on a baseline for measurement of emissions (2000 v. 1990) and claiming the consistency of its target with a stabilisation level of 450ppm atmospheric CO2 - itself now frequently deemed inadequate by leading climate scientists.

With a group of eminent Australian scientists having recently written a letter to the coal industry describing its contribution to dangerous climate change, the government must surely also be on notice. It stands to significantly contribute to dangerous climate change through continued ineffective action, and a failure to show the kind of international leadership that would strengthen the chances of effective global solutions being agreed at the Copenhagen climate negotiations this December.

Already with melting of Arctic sea ice, the growth in bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, the Queensland floods, and drought in south-eastern Australia, we are seeing the severe but only beginning impacts of climate change. Among these were February's Victorian bushfires, which have been increasingly related to climate change, with bushfire itself a significant contributor of greenhouse emissions fuelling subsequent warming.

Prime Minister Rudd's scuttling of Australia's international leadership puts transient economic cycles and vested interests ahead of permanent dangerous changes to our climate that are within our capacity to control with effective and concerted national and international measures. The failure of his government will correlate to worsening climate impacts over time, including more frequent and severe bushfires such as those we have seen in Victoria.

As University of Tasmania researcher, David Bowman, recently told Radio National's The World Today program:

We have got to understand increased bushfire activity as a direct consequence of uncontrolled climate change. This is a very good reason for Australia to do everything we possibly can to bring down the global temperature, to control carbon emissions and other gases which are resulting in the warming of the planet.

We don't agree to burn, Mr Rudd.

Update: Disappointingly, major environmental groups such as the Climate Institute and the Australian Conservation Foundation have given qualified support to the changes. While they have both offered more ambitious hopes for Australia's ultimate position, saying that 25% by 2020 in the context of a global agreement is a starting point and that Australia needs to do more, this was all lost in tonight's grabs on ABC Television's The 7.30 Report, which simply noted their support for the package, which will do nothing for Australia's international leadership on climate at December's Copenhagen negotiations.

As Kerry O'Brien did well to note against evasive climate minister, Penny Wong, Australia's unconditional commitment remains a 2020 cut of 5% on 2000 levels, with the still-meagre 25% only kicking in with a global agreement.

While the impulse for consensus is no doubt correct, it is interesting that the climate groups chose to align with the government, rather than unify around the position of the Greens, which is closer to the science in its push for a 40% cut on 1990 levels by 2020.

If we're going to build consensus, shouldn't it be around a position that stands some sort of chance of solving the problem? It seems the politics of compromise, the dangers of which have been well identified in Spratt and Sutton's Climate Code Red, have emerged to significantly weaken Australian climate advocacy - clever politics by Rudd, but the climate will respond by degrees.

See also this article outlining the Greenpeace response that Rudd needs to start again and look at a 50% cut in the next decade. In the article, deputy PM, Julia Gillard, claims to have consulted widely on the delayed start for the scheme. With whom did she consult?

Hundreds make submissions on CPRS Green Paper

As of today, the Department of Climate Change has published more than 900 public submissions on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) Green Paper. My submission (No. 398) has only recently appeared, so I can only surmise that there must have been a flood of submissions on the last day or many late submissions were accepted, as mine was sent mid-afternoon on the deadline, Wednesday 10 September.

The responsiveness of the bureaucracy in making the submissions available has been decidedly poor. Add to that the possibility of substantial numbers of submissions made confidentially that will never see the light of day, and I think the transparency of this process leaves much to be desired.

While a late submission from the Business Council of Australia (No. 812) is now open to scrutiny, what other organisations and lobbyists have submitted under a veil of secrecy, hopeful of influencing the Government's decision while avoiding the need for a difficult public defence of their arguments? The Department of Climate Change should report on how many confidential submissions were made, and at the very least give an indication of the numbers submitted by category - for example, by industry associations and lobbyists.

On a more positive note, the sheer scale of submissions is indicative of the importance accorded by the public to framing effective policy to address dangerous climate change. Many environmental groups, community organisations, businesses with a sustainability focus and individuals have taken the trouble to argue the case for strong action on climate. Good on them!

Ferguson's boiler-plate response offers no answers on climate change

Well, back on 19 September one of Martin Ferguson's media minders said he'd respond to my email the day before challenging the federal energy and resources minister to hold a public meeting. This to explain a proposal said to be circulating from his office/department advocating a softer emissions trading scheme to industry.

His reply, dated 26 September but received today, is nothing short of an embarrassment.

About 90 per cent of it is a limp recital of generalities about the Rudd Government's position on climate change, along with this gem of irrelevance:

Detailed fact sheets about all of these measures, as well as copies of the Green Paper and further information about how to make a submission, can be found at www.climatechange.gov.au

Small problem there, Martin. Submissions closed on 10 September (mine should be online shortly). That's the problem with unresponsive, boiler-plate text.

The last couple of paragraphs may actually have had some input from Ferguson. He refers me to Kim Carr's return to order in the Senate on 15 September for the supposed facts about the soft ETS proposal (which his media minder claimed did not exist). I had, of course, already provided links to that statement and other relevant sections of the Senate transcript in my 19 September post, thanks to openaustralia.org.

Regarding the Wilkins Review on climate policy suppressed by the Rudd Government, Ferguson's letter instructs me to write to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Lindsay Tanner. So, after his media minder told me on 19 September that the Wilkins Review was 'one of Penny's', it has now become 'one of Lindsay's'.

You see how the silos work? Quarantine the different facets of climate and environmental policy so it's harder for citizens to make connections between them. A tokenistic ten per cent cut on 2000 emissions on the one hand, the greedy pursuit of the Sunrise oil and gas fields (disputed by East Timor) on the other. Then we have the secret Wilkins Review on climate policy held at arm's length from a claim to open consultation on the Green Paper.

And what of the public meeting? Nothing. In short, no answers and no accountability to his electorate for the views Ferguson holds on climate change and his fondness for our big emitters. On the eve of the release of the final Garnaut report, I just can't wait for tomorrow's good news.

Martin Ferguson leaves climate evasions to media minder

In my previous post, I challenged Martin Ferguson to hold a public meeting in his Batman electorate to answer questions about a proposal circulated by his office (or department) pushing a softened approach to an emissions trading scheme to industry. The proposal, along with the Wilkins Review on climate policy, recently failed to appear in the Senate despite the Government's obligation to table them.

This lack of disclosure comes at a critical time, as the documents in question bear on decisions about an effective climate response by Australia, and the signs thus far indicate that response will be manifestly inadequate.

In answer to my open challenge to Ferguson, one of his media minders called me this afternoon not really to offer actual answers, but to proffer evasions on Ferguson's behalf. The proposal to industry did not exist, she claimed, referring to Kim Carr's recent statements to the Senate (see infra for links).

That response is itself rather minimal when the story told by the Senate transcripts indicates that, since Senator Christine Milne's request for the tabling of the proposal on 3 September, it had morphed into the supposedly exempt working notes of an individual within Ferguson's department. The notes were provided to a business organisation before Ferguson's business round-table on 29 August, but Senator Carr's statements distance the notes from Ferguson.

In the context of the green paper and the forthcoming white paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), the circulation of the notes - if they perhaps did not constitute a proposal for the lack of spiral binding - warrants further scrutiny. Either they were circulated in the minister's knowledge and reflected his views, or they were circulated without his authority in the context of imminent discussions between Ferguson and his business round-table. In both cases, we need to know what the notes contained, who circulated them, and who they were given to, as there is a strong likelihood that their purpose was to influence the discussions and, ultimately, the Government's consideration of Australia's climate response measures.

For Ferguson's media minder to refer to Senate statements that themselves raise many more questions is simply an evasion.

And so to the Wilkins Review on climate policy. 'That's one of Penny's,' was the minder's response. Again, the Senate transcripts are revealing. Senator Nick Sherry states that 'The review has been prepared as an input in developing the government's climate change policy, including the forthcoming CPRS white paper'. Once again an influence on the decision process is concealed from open scrutiny, at the same time as the Government invites submissions from a selectively informed public. That consultation process is itself imperfect, with its option for confidential submissions that will never be made public, and now the talk that the white paper position is firming even before all public submissions on the green paper have been placed on the Government's climate change website

'One of Penny's' meant that Martin's minder would not be drawn on his position regarding the unjustified suppression of the Wilkins Review. I'd have to ask her office. My suggestion that Ferguson in fact had no explicit position (we can surmise where he stands) was met with a repetition of the line about the Office of Climate Change Minister, Senator Penny Wong. The proposal was the 'working notes of an individual', the Wilkins Review 'one of Penny's' - you get the picture.

If you'd like to read all the transcripts for yourself and want the specific links rather than the vague reference of a media minder, here they are. First read the Senate debates for 3 September, then the return to order for 4 September, and finally the return to order on 15 September. Thanks to openaustralia.org for making these transcripts readily accessible.

Finally, the media minder told me Ferguson would respond to my challenge to hold a public meeting on these issues and on his climate stance in general. I said I hoped he would do so within the timeframe for decision. As I've said before, we need to keep the heat on Ferguson, or he'll put the global heat on us. Stay tuned.