Despite the rise of our plain-spoken and highly capable first female prime minister, Julia Gillard has taken little time to make her first false moves on climate.
Writing in The Age, Adam Morton relates the role of climate backsliding in the demise of Kevin Rudd as a conviction politician, but we now see Julia Gillard party to a brown coal deal with Vietnam as she “opens the door” to the mining industry and flags the need to build community “consensus” before Australia acts decisively on climate.
The consensus line comes as a new poll already shows strong concern for action on climate and a perception that the major parties are "clones" on climate policy.
An admitted party to the Rudd Government’s disastrous decision to shelve work on emissions trading, Gillard now appears to be operating on the consensus of the mining industry that it proceed full-steam ahead with the extraction of our natural resources despite the community, environmental and climate impacts, and quite possibly with a watered-down tax payment on its super profits.
The prime minister surely recalls Kevin Rudd’s 2007 election mandate to act on climate, and Australia's historic ratification of Kyoto. Julia Gillard must now acknowledge that should she ignore the scientific and growing community consensus, the climate will render self-evident its own consensus through the clear and worsening impacts of global warming. That is already happening, and further delay on climate action is no better than denial.
Comments welcome!
Showing posts with label Kevin Rudd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kevin Rudd. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
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
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
Monday, May 3, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Urgent action shelved by Rudd as climate burns
The news that the ETS has been shelved might have been welcome if there had been stronger, science-based action to replace it. While the current Bill in no way represents any sort of effective measure against climate change, its ditching comes with no other proposal for the urgent action the global climate needs.
Labor is selling the delay as biding its time for political conditions that will be more favourable for the passing of its current ineffective Bill. In reality, the Government welcomes any delay even on half-measures that come with massive inappropriate compensation for the fossil fuel industry and heavy emitters.
With a bit of guts, the Government could have instead introduced science-based legislation in the first place. By now it would have had a double-dissolution trigger on a Bill that might have been worth passing. Even now, it could negotiate with the Greens in good faith to put in place an interim carbon tax that would make a start on climate action when the science says we need it - now.
Earlier in April I met with Martin Ferguson on these issues, and even then he was flagging that the ETS would again fail in the Senate and the Government would not be taking a carbon price to the next election - how prescient seems our energy and resources minister and champion of fossil fuels. As for the Greens, Ferguson said there would never be a "settlement" with them on climate change.
While Ferguson is the real face of Rudd on this vital issue, we must remember it is in the hands of all voting citizens to decide the terms on which we make our settlement with the global climate.
Labor is selling the delay as biding its time for political conditions that will be more favourable for the passing of its current ineffective Bill. In reality, the Government welcomes any delay even on half-measures that come with massive inappropriate compensation for the fossil fuel industry and heavy emitters.
With a bit of guts, the Government could have instead introduced science-based legislation in the first place. By now it would have had a double-dissolution trigger on a Bill that might have been worth passing. Even now, it could negotiate with the Greens in good faith to put in place an interim carbon tax that would make a start on climate action when the science says we need it - now.
Earlier in April I met with Martin Ferguson on these issues, and even then he was flagging that the ETS would again fail in the Senate and the Government would not be taking a carbon price to the next election - how prescient seems our energy and resources minister and champion of fossil fuels. As for the Greens, Ferguson said there would never be a "settlement" with them on climate change.
While Ferguson is the real face of Rudd on this vital issue, we must remember it is in the hands of all voting citizens to decide the terms on which we make our settlement with the global climate.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
'Delay is denial' fits Labor and the Opposition
ABC Unleashed has today published my article, 'Delay is denial', on the election of Tony Abbott to the Opposition leadership, and what that might mean for the prospects of stronger climate action via a double-dissolution election if Rudd really does think climate action is urgent.
I suggest that Malcolm Turnbull's pithy expression is equally applicable to the Rudd Labor Government. There are 47 comments as of this writing, so why not join in?
A slightly longer, unedited version of the article with supporting links is available at issuu.com In it I talk about the Run for a Safe Climate event as a reminder that any action we take on climate must be strong enough to avoid the worst impacts - hovering just above denial with a weak ETS won't help anyone.
Comments welcome here as well!
I suggest that Malcolm Turnbull's pithy expression is equally applicable to the Rudd Labor Government. There are 47 comments as of this writing, so why not join in?
A slightly longer, unedited version of the article with supporting links is available at issuu.com In it I talk about the Run for a Safe Climate event as a reminder that any action we take on climate must be strong enough to avoid the worst impacts - hovering just above denial with a weak ETS won't help anyone.
Comments welcome here as well!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Rudd's false leadership flags climate failure
The Age recently reported that, on Kevin Rudd's New York visit to the UN and G20 talks, Australia's PM was pushing to 'restore momentum' in climate change negotiations, lest the December climate negotiations in Copenhagen become a 'wall too high to scale'.
Judging by Australia's 2020 emissions targets, I suggest that, far from breaking down the wall, Rudd is more concerned to be seen as heroically failing to climb it. The Age has run my letter responding to the article in today's edition (See also, 'Break down this wall, a brick at a time' on their letters page):
Judging by Australia's 2020 emissions targets, I suggest that, far from breaking down the wall, Rudd is more concerned to be seen as heroically failing to climb it. The Age has run my letter responding to the article in today's edition (See also, 'Break down this wall, a brick at a time' on their letters page):
IF, as reported, Kevin Rudd sees a need for world leaders to restore momentum in climate negotiations, he should face up to his own role in building a wall too high to scale at the international talks in Copenhagen. Instead, he makes a show of false leadership that risks merely flagging the expectation of failure.The talks at the UN and G20 in New York would be a good place to start.Comments welcome.
The Prime Minister wrote recently that 'there will always be differences of opinion, but arguments grounded in fact will always win the day'. Given his acknowledgment that climate change is real and that its impacts are already happening, what better case could he make for basing Australia's emission reduction targets on science?
Unfortunately, if Australia's inadequate targets were adopted by the developed nations Mr Rudd purports to lead, science shows we would come nowhere near a solution to catastrophic climate change. If the Prime Minister wants to break down the wall at Copenhagen, he needs to go beyond lip service to the problem and adopt strong, science-based emissions targets for 2020.
Monday, May 4, 2009
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:
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?
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?
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Political tears will not quell fires in a warming globe
With their toll set to exceed 200 lives, Victoria's tragic bushfires challenge politicians not only to mitigate the dangerous global warming that is already locked in, but also to prevent it worsening and making fires and other extreme events ever more likely.
Yet the Royal Commission recently announced by Victorian State Premier, John Brumby, to investigate the fires appears set to focus solely on mitigation, with an admittedly necessary review of fire response strategies and planning laws. This narrow approach fails to acknowledge what could be done to prevent further global temperature increases that will otherwise stoke even more devastating infernos.
Commenting before the fires, Australia's federal climate change minister Penny Wong acknowledged that recent record temperatures reflected climate change. Now Premier Brumby has invoked it as a factor in the disaster. On Monday night, the head of Victoria's climate change reference group, Professor David Karoly, told ABC Lateline that climate change is 'loading the dice' in favour of more frequent extreme conditions. Yet the inadequate climate policies of our leaders are loading the dice in favour of climate change itself.
When Australian governments value cars over public transport, approve new coal mines and coal-fired power stations, when they refuse to harness renewables, and especially when our nation takes to the international bargaining table emissions targets that undermine international action, this undeniably creates the policy conditions for the extreme weather that leads to such monstrous fires.
Without effective climate policy, our leaders may as well cry their political tears on the flames for all the good they will do. We need climate action.
Yet the Royal Commission recently announced by Victorian State Premier, John Brumby, to investigate the fires appears set to focus solely on mitigation, with an admittedly necessary review of fire response strategies and planning laws. This narrow approach fails to acknowledge what could be done to prevent further global temperature increases that will otherwise stoke even more devastating infernos.
Commenting before the fires, Australia's federal climate change minister Penny Wong acknowledged that recent record temperatures reflected climate change. Now Premier Brumby has invoked it as a factor in the disaster. On Monday night, the head of Victoria's climate change reference group, Professor David Karoly, told ABC Lateline that climate change is 'loading the dice' in favour of more frequent extreme conditions. Yet the inadequate climate policies of our leaders are loading the dice in favour of climate change itself.
When Australian governments value cars over public transport, approve new coal mines and coal-fired power stations, when they refuse to harness renewables, and especially when our nation takes to the international bargaining table emissions targets that undermine international action, this undeniably creates the policy conditions for the extreme weather that leads to such monstrous fires.
Without effective climate policy, our leaders may as well cry their political tears on the flames for all the good they will do. We need climate action.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Victorian bushfire spin distracts a traumatised state
I wonder if anyone noticed a trend in evening television advertising in Victoria as the state was first gripped by the disastrous widespread bushfires. With the fires already raging, there came the sudden appearance of the 'fireready' website ad, which I'd never seen before the fires started. Last night, I noticed, on Victoria's channel 9, an increased screening of the government ad urging personal action on climate change (the black balloon ad), but also the ad for the terrorism hotline ('Have you seen anything unusual?' etc.).
In light of Penny Wong's recent comments that record summer temperatures are consistent with climate change, the question is whether this pattern of advertising is genuinely for the purpose of public information, or to manage the potential public perception that part of the blame for the devastation of the fires lies with the Australian and state and territory governments for their inaction on climate (approval of new coal mines, coal-fired power stations, inadequate targets etc.), and their failure to adequately prepare for bushfires given their knowledge of the likelihood of extreme fire conditions.
In this regard, it would be very interesting to examine when the ads in question were booked, and how the pattern of government advertising in this disaster period compares with the normal schedule for such advertising across the major metropolitan and regional television stations.
Though it is indeed expected that our leaders involve themselves in the efforts to address such disasters, the personal involvements of Premier Brumby and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have been very much in the forefront of the media coverage, with Kevin Rudd quoted this morning as likening the deliberate lighting of fires to mass murder (which is, of course, tragically accurate).
Nevertheless, are the Federal and Victorian State governments using spin in the mass media to distract the public from their own culpability in this tragedy, rather than informing us about what needs to happen to minimise further harm from the fires? This question is all the more urgent given the foreshadowed review of the 'leave early, or stay and defend' strategy following the escalating death toll from the fires. When government communication is overloaded with spin, maybe the real and potentially life-saving messages suffer - with fatal consequences.
Blame personal inaction on climate change, highlight the role of arsonists, and even insinuate terrorism, but turn scrutiny away from government complicity in bringing about the conditions that led to these fires, and may well lead to future ones. That just might be the hidden rationale of the current television advertising campaign, and, if so, it's wrong.
In light of Penny Wong's recent comments that record summer temperatures are consistent with climate change, the question is whether this pattern of advertising is genuinely for the purpose of public information, or to manage the potential public perception that part of the blame for the devastation of the fires lies with the Australian and state and territory governments for their inaction on climate (approval of new coal mines, coal-fired power stations, inadequate targets etc.), and their failure to adequately prepare for bushfires given their knowledge of the likelihood of extreme fire conditions.
In this regard, it would be very interesting to examine when the ads in question were booked, and how the pattern of government advertising in this disaster period compares with the normal schedule for such advertising across the major metropolitan and regional television stations.
Though it is indeed expected that our leaders involve themselves in the efforts to address such disasters, the personal involvements of Premier Brumby and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have been very much in the forefront of the media coverage, with Kevin Rudd quoted this morning as likening the deliberate lighting of fires to mass murder (which is, of course, tragically accurate).
Nevertheless, are the Federal and Victorian State governments using spin in the mass media to distract the public from their own culpability in this tragedy, rather than informing us about what needs to happen to minimise further harm from the fires? This question is all the more urgent given the foreshadowed review of the 'leave early, or stay and defend' strategy following the escalating death toll from the fires. When government communication is overloaded with spin, maybe the real and potentially life-saving messages suffer - with fatal consequences.
Blame personal inaction on climate change, highlight the role of arsonists, and even insinuate terrorism, but turn scrutiny away from government complicity in bringing about the conditions that led to these fires, and may well lead to future ones. That just might be the hidden rationale of the current television advertising campaign, and, if so, it's wrong.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Protest rejects Rudd's weak 2020 target
A protest held in Melbourne yesterday rejected the weak 2020 carbon emissions reduction targets announced on Monday by the Australian Government.
Speakers included Greens Victorian Upper House MP, Greg Barber, and Greens Australian Senator, Rachel Siewert. The following video offers edited highlights of the protest (see also additional video and coverage at Victorian Greens MPs website).
Coming as climate talks in Poznan Poland have recently been completed, the weak 5% cut on a 2000 baseline undermines Australia's international climate leadership heading towards the negotiation of a post-Kyoto climate deal in Copenhagen late in 2009.
The protest was held at 12.00pm at the park on the corner of Spring and Macarthur Streets in Melbourne (opposite the City Museum).
Speakers included Greens Victorian Upper House MP, Greg Barber, and Greens Australian Senator, Rachel Siewert. The following video offers edited highlights of the protest (see also additional video and coverage at Victorian Greens MPs website).
Coming as climate talks in Poznan Poland have recently been completed, the weak 5% cut on a 2000 baseline undermines Australia's international climate leadership heading towards the negotiation of a post-Kyoto climate deal in Copenhagen late in 2009.
The protest was held at 12.00pm at the park on the corner of Spring and Macarthur Streets in Melbourne (opposite the City Museum).
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
A tough call on climate is just what we need
Today Professor Ross Garnaut will release his final report recommending the emissions cuts Australia should adopt as its contribution to the international effort to fight dangerous climate change. The final recommendations come as 16 eminent scientists have written to the prime minister, Kevin Rudd, urging the adoption of at least a 25 per cent cut on 1990 levels by the year 2020.
The prime minister has a big decision to make. Either he will disregard the science and set a target that plays to the interests of the big emitters, or he will act with courage, heeding the evidence that a 2020 target that reduces our 1990 emissions by 25-40 per cent is urgently needed to give us a chance to avert dangerous climate change.
The Age has today published my letter urging the prime minister to make this tough and courageous call. Here is the full version:
Quick, strong action is our best chance, and the position we take to international climate negotiations - one of leadership and courage, or of defeatism and climate inaction - is prime minister Rudd's decision to make.
The Larvatus Prodeo blog is running an open thread on the outcomes of the final Garnaut report.
The prime minister has a big decision to make. Either he will disregard the science and set a target that plays to the interests of the big emitters, or he will act with courage, heeding the evidence that a 2020 target that reduces our 1990 emissions by 25-40 per cent is urgently needed to give us a chance to avert dangerous climate change.
The Age has today published my letter urging the prime minister to make this tough and courageous call. Here is the full version:
The minimum 25 per cent cut on 1990 emission levels a group of eminent scientists has urged on the prime minister on the eve of Garnaut's final report looks tough. It should not be compared, however, to the 10 per cent cut on 2000 levels Garnaut has recommended to the stifled delight of high-emitting industries. The scientists have in fact recommended as a minimum cut the start of the 25-40 per cent range science says is needed to fight dangerous climate change.The same Lowy Institute survey that showed a slip in our ranking of the foreign policy goal of fighting climate change also found that 60 per cent of respondents nevertheless agreed with the statement that:
With the ABC reporting a Lowy Institute survey showing that, since last year, fighting climate change has slipped from our first to fifth most important foreign policy goal, it appears we are being persuaded the Rudd Government is doing something on climate. Unfortunately, the scale of our response will literally be a matter of degrees. If adopted, Garnaut's recommendation will see warming of at least three degrees, by which point dangerous climate change will be well and truly, and perhaps irreversibly, in play.
If Australians have been distracted by the global financial crisis and think that's where our focus needs to lie, they should think again. Climate impacts - both economic and environmental - will amplify and stand to dwarf the impacts of a greedy Wall Street. So I say to the prime minister that he needs to get tougher on climate, but enough to stop the climate getting tough on us.
Global warming is a serious and pressing problem. We should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs.This is what the prime minister should bear in mind: that a clear majority support strong action on climate change even if it involves significant costs. However, as Professor Garnaut has himself said, we must compare the cost of action - in both environmental and economic terms - with the cost of doing too little.
Quick, strong action is our best chance, and the position we take to international climate negotiations - one of leadership and courage, or of defeatism and climate inaction - is prime minister Rudd's decision to make.
The Larvatus Prodeo blog is running an open thread on the outcomes of the final Garnaut report.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Rudd's election a chance for progress
The night before the election I was out to dinner with my family at an inner-city pub in the seat of Melbourne. On the next table, the conversation mixed popular culture and, of course, the election. 'Instead of changing their own lives, they'll change the government,' a young man said.
Last night's emphatic defeat of the Howard Government was also a defeat of the kind of distorted aspirational thinking captured by this comment. At its heart was an arrogance that suggests that everything affecting our lives is within our grasp to change. For the inner-city professional classes, that may largely be the case. But tell that to Australia's Indigenous people, to refugees in mandatory detention, and to workers suffering under Howard's industrial laws.
Despite my disagreement with some key ALP policies - the mining of uranium and the pulp mill among others - there was enough in last night's victory speech by Kevin Rudd to hope for a more progressive Australia. I'm looking forward to a new vision for education, for cooperation on health, an improvement in the plight of Indigenous people, action on climate change, and fairer workplace laws.
In particular, I saw Australians unite in last night's vote to defeat together efforts under WorkChoices to fracture their collective power in the workplace.
I was heartened that, at the possible dawn of a new progressive era, Kevin Rudd chose to acknowledge the approaching end of Bernie Banton's brave life.
I was heartened that Greg Combet, who has stood with Mr Banton in his fight, was acknowledged in his victory as a man who has consistently worked for the rights of Australian workers - recognised as a champion of workers' bargaining equality in spite of a scare campaign demonising unions for opposing the one-sided power of business.
Yet last night's victory is also a challenge to Mr Rudd to acknowledge the debt owed to the Greens in ousting the Howard Government. As Bob Brown noted, it was Greens preferences that substantially helped the ALP over the line. Even in safe Labor seats, the growth in the Greens vote sends a clear signal to the new Rudd Government to reconsider the drift of the party to the right.
In Batman, won convincingly by Martin Ferguson, the Greens' Priya Carey continued the rapid growth in the party's support. In Melbourne, Adam Bandt signalled the Greens' eclipse of the Liberals as the second political force.
With the new Senate still emerging, it is to be hoped that the progressive note sounded by the vote in the House of Representatives will be echoed in the house of review. It is a sadder note of this election that we will likely lose the proven qualities of Queensland Senator Andrew Bartlett and Victorian Senator Lyn Allison. With the retirement of Andrew Murray and Natasha Stott-Despoja, that would signal the end of the Democrats' contribution in the Senate.
A strong Senate – with the Greens possibly holding the balance of power – would test the new Government, in particular where Kevin Rudd's victory speech signalled cause for concern in its call to move past 'old battles' such as the one between 'public and private'. We should remember that Rudd's election is a chance for progress, not its fulfilment.
This article is cross-posted at YouDecide2007.org
Last night's emphatic defeat of the Howard Government was also a defeat of the kind of distorted aspirational thinking captured by this comment. At its heart was an arrogance that suggests that everything affecting our lives is within our grasp to change. For the inner-city professional classes, that may largely be the case. But tell that to Australia's Indigenous people, to refugees in mandatory detention, and to workers suffering under Howard's industrial laws.
Despite my disagreement with some key ALP policies - the mining of uranium and the pulp mill among others - there was enough in last night's victory speech by Kevin Rudd to hope for a more progressive Australia. I'm looking forward to a new vision for education, for cooperation on health, an improvement in the plight of Indigenous people, action on climate change, and fairer workplace laws.
In particular, I saw Australians unite in last night's vote to defeat together efforts under WorkChoices to fracture their collective power in the workplace.
I was heartened that, at the possible dawn of a new progressive era, Kevin Rudd chose to acknowledge the approaching end of Bernie Banton's brave life.
I was heartened that Greg Combet, who has stood with Mr Banton in his fight, was acknowledged in his victory as a man who has consistently worked for the rights of Australian workers - recognised as a champion of workers' bargaining equality in spite of a scare campaign demonising unions for opposing the one-sided power of business.
Yet last night's victory is also a challenge to Mr Rudd to acknowledge the debt owed to the Greens in ousting the Howard Government. As Bob Brown noted, it was Greens preferences that substantially helped the ALP over the line. Even in safe Labor seats, the growth in the Greens vote sends a clear signal to the new Rudd Government to reconsider the drift of the party to the right.
In Batman, won convincingly by Martin Ferguson, the Greens' Priya Carey continued the rapid growth in the party's support. In Melbourne, Adam Bandt signalled the Greens' eclipse of the Liberals as the second political force.
With the new Senate still emerging, it is to be hoped that the progressive note sounded by the vote in the House of Representatives will be echoed in the house of review. It is a sadder note of this election that we will likely lose the proven qualities of Queensland Senator Andrew Bartlett and Victorian Senator Lyn Allison. With the retirement of Andrew Murray and Natasha Stott-Despoja, that would signal the end of the Democrats' contribution in the Senate.
A strong Senate – with the Greens possibly holding the balance of power – would test the new Government, in particular where Kevin Rudd's victory speech signalled cause for concern in its call to move past 'old battles' such as the one between 'public and private'. We should remember that Rudd's election is a chance for progress, not its fulfilment.
This article is cross-posted at YouDecide2007.org
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