Gillard's "sanctuary" no defence against climate inaction

Today's edition of The Age carries my letter responding to Ross Gittin's piece in yesterday's paper, "It's time to raise the bar" (The Age, Comment & Debate, 7 July 2010, p.8; online in a slightly different version).

Gittins questions the role of the deliberate creation of green jobs in emissions reduction. He thinks the jobs will flow as we move away from fossil fuels. He's right, of course, but direct action measures, including the specific creation of green jobs, are a useful complement for a strong price on carbon.

With Labor set to frame its pre-election climate policy, the risk is that so-called direct action will be used as an excuse for a failure to implement a strong price. If that happens, Julia Gillard's "sanctuary" Australia will be no defence against climate inaction.

Here's the letter, or scroll down to "Low-carbon jobs" on The Age letters page. As usual, the published version is followed by the version submitted.

Ross Gittins (Comment, 7/7) is right that jobs will arise from the shift to a low-carbon economy as we replace fossil fuels with renewables.

While he is understandably wary of the ''direct action'' approaches to climate change pushed by Tony Abbott, and now likely Julia Gillard, it would be better to acknowledge the need for a range of approaches to tackle climate change.

A strong price on carbon - one likely to achieve the emissions reductions indicated by science - can indeed be complemented by green jobs assessed as such by their total contribution to reducing our emissions. The problem comes when so-called direct action is substituted for urgent action by governments.

We may now be swinging from a position where a weak emissions trading scheme was seen as ''the'' climate solution to one where ''direct action'' may be used in an attempt to justify inaction at a higher level.

With the world heading for double the ''safe'' warming of two degrees above pre-industrial levels, any proposed solution needs to actually do the job. The challenge for all parties is therefore to show how their proposals will help Australia and the world return to an emissions path that will achieve a truly safe climate. Anything else is political game-playing. In particular, Gillard needs to acknowledge that Australia will be no ''sanctuary'' from climate change should we fail to act.

Now for the submitted version, which has had only a slight trim by the editor.

Ross Gittins (Comment & Debate, 7/7) is right that jobs will arise from the shift to a low-carbon economy as we replace fossil fuels with renewables as our source of energy. While he is understandably wary of the "direct action" approaches to climate change pushed by Abbott and now likely Gillard, it would be better to acknowledge the need for a range of approaches to tackle climate change. A strong price on carbon - one likely to achieve the emissions reductions indicated by science - can indeed be complemented by green jobs assessed as such by their total contribution to reducing our emissions.

The problem comes when so-called direct action is substituted for the urgent action that needs to be taken by governments. We may now be swinging from a position where a weak emissions trading scheme was seen as "the" climate solution, to one where "direct action" may be used in an attempt to justify inaction at a higher level. I commend to Ross the recent Deakin lecture by British green economist, Tim Jackson, who has also written about the economics of climate change and how these approaches might be combined.

With the world heading for double the "safe" warming of two degrees above pre-industrial levels (News, p.8), any proposed solution needs to actually do the job. The challenge for all parties is therefore to show how their proposals will help Australia and the world return to an emissions path that will achieve a truly safe climate. Anything else is political game-playing. In particular, Julia Gillard needs to acknowledge that Australia will be no "sanctuary" from climate change should we fail to act.

Comments welcome!

Rudd drops the ball in climate time-on

In his recent “meltdown” on the ABC’s 7.30 Report, Kevin Rudd was ruffled like a man on the boundary receiving a hand-pass under pressure, a “hospital ball” as footy-speak sometimes has it. The ball was climate change, and it was coming back to him after a much earlier play when he’d got free on a wing – steel-rimmed specs clear and in place – surging forward with his eyes on inside 50.

That was the lead-up to the 2007 federal election, when Rudd ultimately swept to power partly on the promise of strong action on climate change, “a great moral challenge of our time”. Now the hot ball came not from Geelong’s Cameron Ling, but another fiery redhead, the ABC’s Kerry O’Brien – put whatever jumper you like on him, the ball was coming in fast.

When O’Brien took the PM back to his own past words on the imperative for climate action, confronted him with the charge of “cowardice” Rudd had himself levelled at an Opposition seeking delay, the prime minister found himself with nowhere to go. He was angry, but inept, and finally, with no-one on the lead, sent the ball out of bounds.

Now is the political moment when the crowd holds its breath waiting to see if the umpire will call for a free kick to the Opposition for “deliberate”, or a throw-in and the resumption of play late in the third quarter in the race to the imminent federal election.

Like a player dragged for a “clanger” and on the phone to the coach, Rudd had plenty of excuses for the ABC audience. He was shelving his emissions trading scheme until after the current Kyoto commitment period because climate talks in Copenhagen had confirmed the stalled progress of international action. His legislation had been repeatedly rejected by the Senate.

There was, of course, nothing to differentiate the starkly divergent motives of the Greens and the Coalition for rejecting the ETS. Tony Abbott will always think climate change is “crap”, but the Greens see the ETS in its shelved form for what it is, a climate placebo that, if enacted, would at best give the mere appearance of action while committing Australia to worsening droughts, floods and bushfires.

While O’Brien challenged the PM on why he isn’t taking the ETS to a double-dissolution election, the possibility of the Greens much simpler interim carbon price was not even canvassed. As for Copenhagen, like a footy writer nailing some weird and unpopular rule-change in the AFL’s pre-season competition, O’Brien highlighted the discrepancy of the PM’s past views on waiting for international action.

All this has given rise to an Opposition narrative about a prime minister who stands for nothing, a prime minister turning aimlessly on the boundary, who has backflipped on home insulation, and now on the climate action he had called for with such urgency. Maybe, Abbott suggests, the ETS is really about – and only about – a Great Big New Tax.

Leaving aside the Opposition leader’s dismissal of climate change – his knowledge in that area has more holes than his budget reply speech – we should consider that the ETS might well have been the wrong tool to achieve the right objective.

The science is clear that we need deep cuts to our carbon emissions, and the electorate needs to be clear that this is a process founded on science, one that can be managed as a transition instead of the drastic disruption painted by the opponents of change – including the fossil-fuel energy generators and the mining industry.

If the public does not understand this, it is partly because, floating between government messaging and the science on climate impacts is a fluid layer of political expedience.

First there’s the budget allocation of $30 million over two years for better climate communication – meaningless when that money is to be drawn from the existing resources of a climate change department expected to find savings of $200 million (1).

More significantly, how can the government be serious about climate change when it actively encourages the expansion of the coal industry? This is the alarming message of Guy Pearse writing in The Monthly. Australia, heavily dependent on fossil fuels for its own energy, is on track to become the world’s largest exporter of carbon – ahead, even, of Saudi Arabia.

Contributing to a massive carbon tally disproportionate to our population is the planned significant expansion of oil exploration off Australia’s coast. In the context of our own Montara spill, and the US Gulf Coast disaster, energy and resources minister Martin Ferguson is willing to countenance unacceptable environmental risk in the rush for deep-water oil.

That’s where mere calls for better communication fail. Unless there is some bedrock of reality to which communication is anchored, unless it is consistent with the government’s other actions, it will be rightfully perceived for what it is: empty spin. A genuine commitment to action precedes honest communication.

Rudd’s difficulty does not result just from a failure to communicate, but on the reality that accurate communication would highlight the yawning gap between the government’s professed commitment to climate and the vanishing opportunities for the urgent action demanded by science.

When I met in April with energy and resources minister, Martin Ferguson, I put to him the pressing need for strong action and a public education campaign. Disingenuously, he said the government had made things very difficult for itself with “political advertising”. Yet the kind of truthful climate campaign we need would be about as political as a televised bushfire evacuation warning, or a public health announcement about the closure of airports due to a threat from avian influenza.

Ferguson, himself a champion of fossil fuels, is a symptom of the climate split-personality of this Labor government. When the government should be vigorously taking on the miners, the minister has embarked on a “listening tour” of mining companies to gather the views he seems to have missed from their Canberra lobbyists.

Instead, Rudd should be communicating that strong action on climate – including a price on carbon – is consistent with the need for an appropriate resources tax. Aside from the fact that the royalties paid by mining companies have been declining as a percentage of their super-profits, the climate cost of mining activities will never feature in the strident blasts of the Minerals Council of Australia.

With the election fast approaching, Kevin Rudd should be hoping like hell that the ball is thrown back in, not handed to Tony Abbott for a free kick that will lose us the larger game. It might be the third quarter in the electoral race, but it’s time-on in the fourth for climate, and the siren’s coming. Prime minister, for the moment you’re the captain–coach. Whose side are you on?

(1) Katharine Murphy, "Of backflips and backchat", The Age Insight, 15 May 2010, p.5

Comments welcome

Real offsets cut cost of zero emissions Australia

It was good to see Adam Morton reporting yesterday on the practical plan to achieve zero emissions presented at Sunday's Transition Decade launch by the Beyond Zero Emissions people. Unfortunately, the headline, "Zero emissions possible - at $40bn a year", played up the cost, when there are numerous savings to set against it.

Against the high-end estimate of $40 billion a year to switch Australia to solar and wind energy over ten years, we need to allow many genuine "offsets" that are far more valid than the dodgy evasions of responsibility that would be allowed under the proposed emissions trading scheme.

As Beyond Zero Emissions' Mark Ogge pointed out at Sunday's launch, the cost of the renewable switch should be discounted by what we would no longer be spending on the exploitation of emissions-intensive fossil fuels. Then there's the cost-savings from not paying the big polluters, and, most important of all, the saving of human lives and suffering from avoided climate impacts.

This is entirely consistent with the positions of Sir Nicholas Stern and Professor Ross Garnaut, who have long advocated that the cost of acting early on climate is far less than the cost of later action, or none at all.

As the ANU's Professor Will Steffen also pointed out at the Transition Decade event, climate risks are being linked to progressively lower levels of global warming as knowledge accumulates.

That means that more impacts are likely to fit under the European Union's "guardrail" of 2 degrees warming over pre-industrial levels. We need to be aiming for much lower levels of warming by cutting our emissions by as much as possible, as soon as we can. That makes even $40 billion a year a bargain, and Beyond Zero Emissions should be commended for its work to transition Australia to a renewable, green economy.

See also a couple of good letters on Morton's article in today's edition of The Age ("Zero obstacles" and "See the possibilities").

Climate discretionary at bushfires royal commission?

The bushfire royal commission can deal with climate if the royal commissioner, Mr Bernard Teague, feels it is important. This was the response of Mr Kevin Love, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Sustainability and Environment, speaking at an Environment Week event held last night at the University of Melbourne to discuss the Victorian 2008 State of the Environment Report produced by the Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, Dr Ian McPhail.

Mr Love was responding to a question from the audience following the presentations about the omission of climate change and climate policy as areas for specific inquiry in the royal commission terms of reference. Other areas - such as fire warnings and emergency responses - are specifically identified.

Prefacing his remarks with concern that he avoid contempt of the royal commission, Mr Love invoked a catch-all in the terms, allowing the commissioners to investigate 'Any other matters that you deem appropriate in relation to the 2009 Bushfires'.

Yet the omission of climate change and climate policy follows 2007 research by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre commissioned by the Climate Institute linking climate change to a marked increase in bushfire risk, with recent trends matching or exceeding previously projected risk under global warming scenarios.

'The terms of reference are important given they determine what the commission is specifically directed to investigate, and the areas in which it is empowered to make recommendations. The potential contribution of more effective climate policy to international leadership, a stronger global agreement, and therefore long-term bushfire prevention should be rigorously examined in this inquiry,' Darren Lewin-Hill said today. His comments follow his 18 March opinion piece published on ABC Unleashed, making the case for the inquiry to address climate policy.

The wording of the bushfires royal commission website itself underlines why the terms are important, with the following requirement for leave to appear before the commission:

'The notice [to appear] should comprise a brief outline of no more than three pages identifying the term or terms of reference [my emphasis] in which the person or organisation claims an interest, explaining the nature of that interest and giving reasons why they should be given leave to appear before the Royal Commission'.

With no specific terms of reference applicable to climate change and climate policy, their inclusion in the inquiry, and emphasis in the findings, are at the discretion of the commission. Yet the science suggests that the influence of climate change was far from incidental in the Black Saturday fires.

With its preliminary report due in mid-August this year, the royal commission can, if it chooses, acknowledge the scientific evidence and recommend that the influence of climate in the Black Saturday fires be taken into account in framing the position that Australia takes to international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December.

'While the royal commission is not precluded from considering climate under these terms, it is not directed to do so, and climate scientists and advocates must be clear in their calls to ensure that climate change gets the air-time it deserves. As Quentin Dempster, writing on the fires for the ABC, noted, to openly acknowledge the role of climate change in the fires "would require a coordinated national, state and territory policy response". In essence that means a moral imperative to act,' Mr Lewin-Hill said.

In discussing climate change in the presentation about his 2008 State of the Environment Report, Dr McPhail told the audience that you don't believe in climate change as you do in a religion; you are either persuaded by the scientific evidence or you are not. He declared himself persuaded, and called on targets adopted by the Emissions Trading Scheme to be based on that evidence. He said the targets were currently being seen 'in terms of the politically possible'.

Dr McPhail had earlier noted that the climate responds to absolute reductions in emissions, not gains in efficiency. Victoria had 'translated' such gains into increased production, he said.

Apart from Dr McPhail and Mr Love, presenters at the event included Dr Peter Christoff, Vice President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Ms Kelly O'Shanassy, Chief Executive Officer of Environment Victoria. The event was chaired by Mr Rob Gell. The event was organised by the Office for Environmental Programs at the University of Melbourne, with which the author is not associated.

See further coverage of the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

Grassroots hope in a climate of defeatism

It's good to see The Age focusing on climate change, analysing the gloom and doom big-picture of the defeatist Rudd Government and pathetic Opposition leavened with the small-scale hope of increasing grassroots responses.

Today's edition focuses on Garnaut's own critique of the Government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) White Paper. The professor is still sticking to his weak line on targets, but he does critcise the White Paper position that precludes Australia taking a stronger position than 15% cuts on 2000 levels by 2020 even if a better international deal is reached at Copenhagen next year.

Garnaut is also critical of the flaws in the emissions trading scheme (ETS), with its billions in compensation and free permits for energy generators and trade exposed emissions intensive industries. As well as criticising these ridiculous hand-outs to the (coal-fired) generators, Garnaut says the ETS threatens to over-compensate the trade exposed industries because it doesn't take into account the increasing carbon constraints on international industries in its proposed five-year cap on permit prices in Australia.

The basic point is that Australian prices should increase as overseas industries become more carbon-constrained and lose any claimed competitive advantage they may have previously enjoyed over Australian industries because of lower constraints on their emissions. Garnaut also points out that the White Paper approach to free permits and compensation for big emitters means that more ambitious targets would ultimately see industry relief eating into funds for research and development, as well as relief to households facing increasing carbon prices.

The capped permit prices and inappropriate compensation measures therefore reinforce Rudd's weak 2020 5% target by putting a brake on more ambitious goals. Shouldn't the ETS facilitate the targets indicated as necessary by the science (at least 40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2020), rather than having the targets constrained by the ETS?

My own view is that some industries simply need to go out of business, and in those cases compensation should be directed to the workers, not the owners of massive corporations with a history of contributing to the problem. A big part of this should be re-training for new jobs in the green economy.

Penny Wong's line, now echoed by the Australian Workers' Union - that the Government position is about jobs - can only mean it's about old jobs that will leave the workforce ultimately unprepared for the changes that must come if we are to save our climate. In effect, then, the Rudd Government is betraying workers' futures for the benefit of the owners of dinosaur polluting industries. The ETS will perpetuate these industries and any transition, however minimal, will take place according to timelines the climate simply cannot afford.

Friday's coverage was both depressing and hopeful. Tim Colebatch reported on another flaw of the ETS - that domestic reductions would in effect make room under the emissions limit for heavy-polluters to increase their own emissions. Together with Government inaction on solar panels, this threatens a big disincentive to personal emissions reductions, which may come to seem futile if they will merely be soaked up by the big emitters.

Yet Suzy Freeman-Greene pointed to another compelling motive to continue personal action: collectively, it sends a political message to Government that is currently being demonstrated by the proliferation of local climate action groups. Today, The Age published my letter on the Colebatch and Freeman-Greene articles:

With typical cogency, Tim Colebatch highlights a flawed emissions trading scheme that will in effect allow big polluters to increase their emissions by the amount saved through domestic reductions. While this may dissuade some from personal efforts to reduce their emissions, Suzy Freeman-Greene offers a compelling reason our efforts should continue even as we fight to have them properly recognised by the trading scheme: collectively, they send a strong signal for change at a political level.

It is heartening to read that in Victoria alone there are some 50 climate change groups, with Darebin Climate Action Now just one I am aware of in my own neighbourhood. Together they are sending the message that, while Rudd is set to hand out billions in free permits to big polluters, millions of us care about the climate and have a permit to vote.

The Victorian state and federal elections aren't far away, and electoral pressure may be the best way to put the heat on the politicians before they put it on us through their cynical neglect and pandering to industry on the climate change challenge.

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.

An open challenge to Martin Ferguson on climate

Following a recent comment at Larvatus Prodeo, I have decided to issue a challenge to Martin Ferguson, Federal MP for Batman, to publicly answer for his retrograde stance on Australia's climate policy. Are his constituents too small-picture for the big-picture Minister for Resources and Energy? Only time will tell. Here's my email:

Dear Martin,

I understand that the Rudd Government recently refused to comply with its obligation to table in Parliament documents related to the Wilkins Review on climate policy and a proposal from your office advocating a softened ETS to industry. I further note that your proposal to industry has failed to make its way to the page on your website featuring your recent media releases. Why the lack of transparency on the part of the Rudd Government and yourself, especially at a time when submissions on the CPRS have recently been invited from the public?

It seems to me, as one of your constituents, that there is the public consultation, and another submerged, secret channel of influence open only to industry and beyond the scrutiny of voters. Industry may lobby you on the supposedly dire impacts of a transition to low-carbon practices, but I assure you, Martin, there is only one test of an ETS - its efficacy in helping to restrict global warming below levels where tipping points will be irreversibly triggered. Your industry stakeholders have had more than enough time to change their high-emitting behaviour - in fact, since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 - so please let us not have a soft start to the ETS for the sake of continuing the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. By all means compensate the workers, not the owners, but things must change.

Finally, I know you like a bit of a stoush, so I am happy to argue this issue in person at your convenience. Maybe you'd like to hold a public meeting to discuss your views with the Batman electorate, and why you're willing to argue for climate inaction that will condemn their children, and particularly the world's poor, to the impacts of unconstrained emissions in our atmosphere. Come on, Martin, with all your resources and minders you should be able to take on all comers. Maybe you can distribute copies of your proposal at the meeting and answer questions about it?

Cheers etc.

(Contact details supplied)

If you'd like Martin to answer some questions on this issue, why not contact him and let him know. Put the heat on him, before he puts it on us.