We push fossil fuels with the zeal of a drug lord – we do not care about the misery we are creating

Extract from The Guardian

Opinion

Coal

Greg Bourne

Remember when Scott Morrison brought a lump of coal into parliament? The CEO of the Minerals Council gave it to him

Mon 25 Nov 2019 11.52 AEDT Last modified on Mon 25 Nov 2019 17.33 AEDT

‘The problem, as we are now seeing, is that the industry associations are also heavily invested in our political processes, to the detriment of us all.’ Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Coalition is too closely linked to the fossil fuel industry to be able to contemplate a future without coal, oil or gas. As climate change-induced crises continue through Australia, they must distance themselves from the industry associations and their lobbyists, and face up to a future which is different from the past, one that can be both exciting and beneficial to all Australians.
While unprecedented bushfires burn across the country – first in New South Wales and Queensland, then in Western Australia and now in South Australia and Victoria – it is worth pausing for a moment on the word “unprecedented” to let it sink in. Unprecedented does not mean unexpected. At BP, over 20 years ago, we acknowledged climate change and what it would bring and that we needed to reduce emissions. Our acknowledgment brought cries of foul from industry associations and many peer companies.

Here in Australia, I argued long and hard inside the Business Council of Australia for a similar acknowledgement of climate change. I failed.
Global greenhouse gas emissions each year are not reducing, they are accelerating. The scientific community has been issuing increasingly urgent calls for rapid reductions in emissions with the foresight that global warming trends will bring these kinds of “unprecedented” conditions. The federal government chooses to ignore them. Three decades on from the first report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Australia’s emissions are growing again, as are our fossil fuel developments.
Australia is now the second-largest gas exporter, the second-largest thermal coal exporter and the largest metallurgical coal exporter on the planet. We push our products with the zeal of a drug lord – we do not care about the future misery we are creating.
A dangerous game of brinksmanship is on display across the country, as major corporations collaborate with governments to open up more and more basins for exploitation at a time when they know full well the consequences.
At the same time, we are the sunniest and windiest inhabited continent on the planet, capable of reducing not only our own emissions through rapid deployment of renewable energy but also creating export industries of a clean future. And yet the government is invested in the past and protecting the status quo. It dares not to rock the boat in which it sails.
And Australia is seeing the consequences of this failure as we speak. And so the question – still – is: Why?
Australia’s fossil fuel industry has an uncomfortably close relationship with governments, particularly through their industry associations and lobby groups. Many will recall the time that Scott Morrison, thentreasurer, brought a lump of coal into parliament back in 2017. But how many of us have wondered how he came by this prop?
It was a gift.

A neatly shellacked lump of coal, of course, so Morrison didn’t get any dirt on his hands, was gifted to him by the then CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia, Brendan Pearson, a man who earlier this year moved across into an advisory role in the office of now prime minister Morrison.
I have seen how industry associations, in Australia and overseas, are simply the mouthpiece of those who are invested in the status quo. The nature of these groups causes them to move at the pace of the slowest, and the standard of the lowest – bankrolled by those who are most heavily invested in the past.
The problem, as we are now seeing, is that the industry associations are also heavily invested in our political processes, to the detriment of us all. Our politicians are afraid of the future. They are afraid of foresight. They too are invested in the past and walk backwards into a warmer future.
The Coalition must turn its back on the industry associations and their lobbyists, face the future and act in the interests of future generations.
Because current generations are turning their backs on them.

• Greg Bourne is a climate councillor and former head of BP Australasia