Australia wasted decades in climate denial – and must break free of the mire of misinformation

Extract from The Guardian

Climate change

Lenore Taylor

Guardian Australia editor says we can be a superpower of the post-carbon world economy if we set aside the self-defeating culture war

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Wed 16 Oct 2019 19.20 AEDT Last modified on Thu 17 Oct 2019 03.30 AEDT

‘Many of the same politicians responsible for these wickedly wasted decades have the temerity to attack the protesters for not coming up with considered policy responses.’ Photograph: James Ross/AAP

Australia’s climate “debate” has been bogged in a culture war for decades. What should be a straightforward discussion of scientific fact and possible responses has instead become a mire of misinformation and denial that has paralysed policy, clogged investment, increased power prices and delayed change.
National greenhouse gas emissions have risen every year since soon after the abolition of the carbon price in 2014, yet the prime minister stands on the international stage and insists Australia is “doing our bit on climate change and we reject any suggestion to the contrary”.

The climate crisis becomes more apparent by the day, with more summer days of extreme heat, more frequent and severe extreme weather events, bushfire seasons starting earlier, lasting longer and burning different types of forest, the Great Barrier Reef hit by successive years of bleaching and sea levels rising. What were once predictions by climate scientists are steadily becoming our lived reality and yet senior Australian ministers are still trying to make up their minds about whether humans have anything to do with global heating at all.

Business has pleaded for years for clear and predictable policy to inform investment decisions, the Reserve Bank says climate change poses a systemic risk which could become a risk to financial stability and the corporate regulator has warned that climate is a foreseeable risk for many listed companies but our national policy remains sparse, ineffective and contradictory. The government’s own energy policy adviser says parts of it are “ill-advised”.

A government fund pays millions to some farmers to preserve trees on their properties at the same time as tree-clearing laws are relaxed to allow massive new clearing by their neighbours. The “safeguard” mechanism, intended to stop industry increasing emissions to effectively wipe out the emission reductions purchased elsewhere, allows most factories and mines to increase their greenhouse pollution if they just ask.

Scott Morrison was not invited to address the UN climate “action” summit because he was unwilling to speak about how Australia would decarbonise in the long term – which was the whole point of the meeting. So he gave a speech to the general assembly instead, attacking the UN climate agreement as an example of “negative globalism” – despite it being the only mechanism to tackle a global problem, despite Australia having benefited from a series of special deals through the international talks and despite its most recent commitment having been made by his own Coalition.
Now, as students and citizens take to the streets in utter despair, many of the same politicians responsible for these wickedly wasted decades, and some of the same columnists who have cheered them on, have the temerity to attack the protesters for not coming up with considered policy responses.
From its launch six years ago, Guardian Australia has provided clear and factual reporting about the climate crisis, the science, the impacts and the many attempted policy responses, and unflinching analysis of Australia’s action, and inaction.
Our in-depth series including Our Wide Brown Land, Great Barrier Reef In Crisis, the New Normal: How Climate Change is Making Droughts Worse, Murray Darling: When the River Runs Dry, the carbon clock, our fact-checks, political analysis and commentary have all been informed by a determination to neither sensationalise nor recoil from the facts. Our readers tell us through their attention, their responses and their support that this is reporting they value.

We now have three dedicated environment reporters in Australia, who work with colleagues around the globe. But we do not see environment reporting as separate. The climate crisis is the defining issue of our lifetimes, and informs all our journalism, across business, science, politics, lifestyle and culture.

We have considered the language we use and decided to call this an emergency and a crisis, because that is what the science tells us it is. We are also auditing the environmental impact of our own operations.
As Prof Ross Garnaut has set out, Australia has the potential to be a superpower of the post-carbon world economy if we could just set aside the self-defeating culture war and look to the future with imagination.
But the solutions require complicated change, and understanding change requires careful, fact-based reporting, to inform and to counter the misinformation and well-funded PR campaigns designed to prolong the dangerous and unsustainable status quo.
Guardian Australia will provide that reporting, because only a properly informed debate can help us avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis and steer us out of this cul-de sac and towards a low-carbon future.

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