Extract from The Guardian
Australia’s politicians seem to have accepted that climate change is
happening and must be addressed urgently. So why are they delaying?
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
Monday, 24 August 2015
Kiribati president says Australia's loyalty to coalmines 'selfish and unjust'
Extract from The Guardian
Anote Tong, whose island nation is threatened by rising seas caused
by climate change, says Australia has moral obligation to worry about
at-risk countries
The president of Kiribati
has criticised Australia’s commitment to new coalmines on economic
grounds as a “very selfish perspective” that illustrates the
“fundamentally unjust” dynamics of climate change.
Anote Tong, whose small Pacific island nation is threatened by rising sea levels, has written to other national leaders calling for a worldwide moratorium on new mines ahead of UN climate talks in Paris in December.
Tong, who called for a pact to end new coal projects “simply to find some very concrete action on climate change”, told Guardian Australia he knew it would “touch on sensitivities”.
“I know the closure of coal-fired power plants will not happen,” he said.
“But at least the moratorium on coalmines, it gives people that sense that something can be done ... and it allows those involved in the industry time to adapt. I thought it would be more achievable.
“In climate negotiations to date we keep talking around the numbers, two degrees or more than two degrees celsius. [But] it’s about what we do. And coal is certainly something very concrete, very significant in terms of what it does.”
In recent weeks the Australian government and the mining lobby have portrayed environmental groups as saboteurs of valuable coal projects, using legal challenges to put jobs and economic growth at risk.
Tong, who said he was yet to receive a reply from the Australian government, wrote in his letter that “science, as confirmed by the [intergovernmental panel on climate change], dictates that for the world to avoid catastrophic climate change, we must leave the vast bulk of carbon reserves in the ground”.
Asked about the economic arguments raised in defence of the continued advance of Australia’s coal industry – including its self-proclaimed role in helping alleviate world poverty – Tong said: “My response is very simple: it’s a very selfish perspective.
“I understand and I’ve always said that for Australia, climate change is not the top of the agenda because they’ve got high ground,” he said. “We don’t.”
Other countries had refused to acknowledge the “fundamentally unjust” situation that climate change is “not contained within the countries that create it”.
“The question is: do we have the moral obligation to worry and care about those for whom this is a serious issue?” Tong said.
“My answer is yes. You have every responsibility and obligation to do something about it. If it was happening inside Australia, there is no doubt at all in my mind that it would be on top of what everyone was doing.”
Amid fears about Kiribati’s survival, the government has been forced to consider radical engineering schemes to mitigate a shrinking land mass, while buying farmland in Fiji as a “food security” measure.
Climate change had dominated his 12-year term as president (which will end next year), but recent unprecedented tidal flooding and cyclones represented a “new and frightening” development.
“It puts some panic in people,” Tong said. “It’s not something we’re talking about happening into the future – we can see the problem. What do we do when the next tide comes? And we have a spring tide coming at the end of this month.
“There are really no sceptics [in Kiribati] at the present moment in time.
“I must be honest to say that I’ve never really gone out of my way to publicise to our own people what is happening because I didn’t see the sense in making them fear what they really cannot do anything about.
“So my focus has been trying as much as possible to alert the international community to the fact planet Earth has a problem, and so do we.”
Tong said the ideal outcome of Paris would include “realistic solutions” to the impacts that Kiribati and others face. He is among those lobbying for an international aid package for Kiribati and other vulnerable nations to meet the costs of climate change.
“For us, zero emissions is not even good enough. The reality is what’s already in the atmosphere will ... continue to raise the sea to levels that would ensure that we go down,” he said.
“The future is guaranteed to be very terrible in a very short space of time. We need a package.”
Suggestions that vulnerable countries be given loans instead of grants were not politically acceptable.
“People will not go for it. It is the responsibility of the international community to come up with a package,” he said.
He hoped that “what happens in terms of delivery, what happens in terms of the targets, will happen very soon – sooner rather than later”.
“It is a moral issue and it’s absolutely unjust for those to go ahead and do what they’re doing without regard for those whose survival will be in question,” he said.
Anote Tong, whose small Pacific island nation is threatened by rising sea levels, has written to other national leaders calling for a worldwide moratorium on new mines ahead of UN climate talks in Paris in December.
Tong, who called for a pact to end new coal projects “simply to find some very concrete action on climate change”, told Guardian Australia he knew it would “touch on sensitivities”.
“I know the closure of coal-fired power plants will not happen,” he said.
“But at least the moratorium on coalmines, it gives people that sense that something can be done ... and it allows those involved in the industry time to adapt. I thought it would be more achievable.
“In climate negotiations to date we keep talking around the numbers, two degrees or more than two degrees celsius. [But] it’s about what we do. And coal is certainly something very concrete, very significant in terms of what it does.”
In recent weeks the Australian government and the mining lobby have portrayed environmental groups as saboteurs of valuable coal projects, using legal challenges to put jobs and economic growth at risk.
Tong, who said he was yet to receive a reply from the Australian government, wrote in his letter that “science, as confirmed by the [intergovernmental panel on climate change], dictates that for the world to avoid catastrophic climate change, we must leave the vast bulk of carbon reserves in the ground”.
Asked about the economic arguments raised in defence of the continued advance of Australia’s coal industry – including its self-proclaimed role in helping alleviate world poverty – Tong said: “My response is very simple: it’s a very selfish perspective.
“I understand and I’ve always said that for Australia, climate change is not the top of the agenda because they’ve got high ground,” he said. “We don’t.”
Other countries had refused to acknowledge the “fundamentally unjust” situation that climate change is “not contained within the countries that create it”.
“The question is: do we have the moral obligation to worry and care about those for whom this is a serious issue?” Tong said.
“My answer is yes. You have every responsibility and obligation to do something about it. If it was happening inside Australia, there is no doubt at all in my mind that it would be on top of what everyone was doing.”
Amid fears about Kiribati’s survival, the government has been forced to consider radical engineering schemes to mitigate a shrinking land mass, while buying farmland in Fiji as a “food security” measure.
Climate change had dominated his 12-year term as president (which will end next year), but recent unprecedented tidal flooding and cyclones represented a “new and frightening” development.
“It puts some panic in people,” Tong said. “It’s not something we’re talking about happening into the future – we can see the problem. What do we do when the next tide comes? And we have a spring tide coming at the end of this month.
“There are really no sceptics [in Kiribati] at the present moment in time.
“I must be honest to say that I’ve never really gone out of my way to publicise to our own people what is happening because I didn’t see the sense in making them fear what they really cannot do anything about.
“So my focus has been trying as much as possible to alert the international community to the fact planet Earth has a problem, and so do we.”
Tong said the ideal outcome of Paris would include “realistic solutions” to the impacts that Kiribati and others face. He is among those lobbying for an international aid package for Kiribati and other vulnerable nations to meet the costs of climate change.
“For us, zero emissions is not even good enough. The reality is what’s already in the atmosphere will ... continue to raise the sea to levels that would ensure that we go down,” he said.
“The future is guaranteed to be very terrible in a very short space of time. We need a package.”
Suggestions that vulnerable countries be given loans instead of grants were not politically acceptable.
“People will not go for it. It is the responsibility of the international community to come up with a package,” he said.
He hoped that “what happens in terms of delivery, what happens in terms of the targets, will happen very soon – sooner rather than later”.
“It is a moral issue and it’s absolutely unjust for those to go ahead and do what they’re doing without regard for those whose survival will be in question,” he said.
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Victoria to fast-track the construction of 50 new wind turbines worth $200m
Extract from The Guardian
The Victorian government has set itself against the Coalition
government over renewable energy by fast-tracking plans to build 50 new
wind turbines worth $200m.
The premier, Daniel Andrews, made the announcement on Friday at Keppel Prince Engineering, the same wind tower manufacturer in the state’s south-west where 100 staff were made redundant in 2014 because of uncertainty regarding the federal government’s renewable energy target.
Tony Abbott recently described wind farms as “visually awful” and launched a senate inquiry to investigate their impact.
In June, legislation passed through both houses of federal parliament to wind back the renewable energy target from 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 to to 33,000GWh, with the uncertainty in the lead-up damaging investor confidence.
Andrews said: “The renewable energy sector and the thousand of Victorians and Australians whose lives depend on it, were betrayed with very bad policy. They were forgotten and left behind.”
“That’s not good enough. We’ve got a very different set of priorities. Renewable energy is about jobs, it’s as simple as that. I understand that, my government understands it. We will make sure we see more and more Victorians employed in this industry.”
The government would source renewable energy certificates from new projects in Victoria, bringing forward the building of about 100 megawatts’ worth of new wind energy worth $200m, he said.
It was expected that about 1,000 direct and indirect jobs would be created as a result, he said, with most of the new jobs based in regional Victoria.
Andrews also announced a renewable energy target of at least 20% within the next five years, saying his government was one that “understands” the renewable sector has a strong future.
Some environmental campaigners cautioned that the Victorian government was making only limited gains on wind farms.
Victoria’s target is slightly higher than that of the federal government’s, but falls well short of other jurisdictions.
In 2013, the ACT legislated to have 90% of electricity coming from renewable energy sources by 2020. South Australia has set its target at 50% by 2025, and Queensland at 50% by 2030.
Andrews said he was open to increasing Victoria’s target down the track.
Meridian Energy, the most significant contributor to the New Zealand government’s target of 90% renewable generation by 2025, and a recent entrant into the Australian market, said it was disappointing the federal government did not recognise retailers would need to acquire a growing supply of renewable energy to remain competitive.
“The fact that states and territories have felt the need to introduce these measures highlights the failure of the federal government to provide the sort of certainty that the the target was intended to deliver,” Meridian Australia chief executive, Ben Burge, said.
Greg Barber, the Victorian Greens leader, told Guardian Australia that Andrews was setting the bar too low. There was no reason Victoria should not aim for 100% renewable energy, he said.
“It was federal Labor who got together with the Liberal party to reduce the federal Renewable Energy Target, and now Daniel Andrews, who was silent then, is basically raising his head and endorsing a similar target.
“One hundred megawatts worth of wind is a small investment. It’s a wind farm, but it’s a small wind farm. There’s already 2,800 megawatts approved and ready to go in the state, so he’s encouraging a fraction of that.”
A spokeswoman for AGL Energy Limited (AGL) said the Victorian government’s renewable energy stance was a welcome one.
“Reducing emissions will require policy mechanisms that support the gradual substitution of older, less efficient coal-fired power stations with renewable generation, in order to facilitate renewable energy investment,” she said.
“There also needs to be sufficient confidence that shareholders will be able to receive an adequate return from investing in renewable energy.”
A spokesman for a federation of environmental organisations, Friends of the Earth, Leigh Ewbank, said he was optimistic that the Andrews government would increase the state’s target later this year.
“A Victorian target that matches the ambition of the ACT or South Australia would be welcomed by the community,” Ewbank said.
The premier, Daniel Andrews, made the announcement on Friday at Keppel Prince Engineering, the same wind tower manufacturer in the state’s south-west where 100 staff were made redundant in 2014 because of uncertainty regarding the federal government’s renewable energy target.
Tony Abbott recently described wind farms as “visually awful” and launched a senate inquiry to investigate their impact.
In June, legislation passed through both houses of federal parliament to wind back the renewable energy target from 41,000 gigawatt hours by 2020 to to 33,000GWh, with the uncertainty in the lead-up damaging investor confidence.
Andrews said: “The renewable energy sector and the thousand of Victorians and Australians whose lives depend on it, were betrayed with very bad policy. They were forgotten and left behind.”
“That’s not good enough. We’ve got a very different set of priorities. Renewable energy is about jobs, it’s as simple as that. I understand that, my government understands it. We will make sure we see more and more Victorians employed in this industry.”
The government would source renewable energy certificates from new projects in Victoria, bringing forward the building of about 100 megawatts’ worth of new wind energy worth $200m, he said.
It was expected that about 1,000 direct and indirect jobs would be created as a result, he said, with most of the new jobs based in regional Victoria.
Andrews also announced a renewable energy target of at least 20% within the next five years, saying his government was one that “understands” the renewable sector has a strong future.
Some environmental campaigners cautioned that the Victorian government was making only limited gains on wind farms.
Victoria’s target is slightly higher than that of the federal government’s, but falls well short of other jurisdictions.
In 2013, the ACT legislated to have 90% of electricity coming from renewable energy sources by 2020. South Australia has set its target at 50% by 2025, and Queensland at 50% by 2030.
Andrews said he was open to increasing Victoria’s target down the track.
Meridian Energy, the most significant contributor to the New Zealand government’s target of 90% renewable generation by 2025, and a recent entrant into the Australian market, said it was disappointing the federal government did not recognise retailers would need to acquire a growing supply of renewable energy to remain competitive.
“The fact that states and territories have felt the need to introduce these measures highlights the failure of the federal government to provide the sort of certainty that the the target was intended to deliver,” Meridian Australia chief executive, Ben Burge, said.
Greg Barber, the Victorian Greens leader, told Guardian Australia that Andrews was setting the bar too low. There was no reason Victoria should not aim for 100% renewable energy, he said.
“It was federal Labor who got together with the Liberal party to reduce the federal Renewable Energy Target, and now Daniel Andrews, who was silent then, is basically raising his head and endorsing a similar target.
“One hundred megawatts worth of wind is a small investment. It’s a wind farm, but it’s a small wind farm. There’s already 2,800 megawatts approved and ready to go in the state, so he’s encouraging a fraction of that.”
A spokeswoman for AGL Energy Limited (AGL) said the Victorian government’s renewable energy stance was a welcome one.
“Reducing emissions will require policy mechanisms that support the gradual substitution of older, less efficient coal-fired power stations with renewable generation, in order to facilitate renewable energy investment,” she said.
“There also needs to be sufficient confidence that shareholders will be able to receive an adequate return from investing in renewable energy.”
A spokesman for a federation of environmental organisations, Friends of the Earth, Leigh Ewbank, said he was optimistic that the Andrews government would increase the state’s target later this year.
“A Victorian target that matches the ambition of the ACT or South Australia would be welcomed by the community,” Ewbank said.
Tony Abbott wrong on costs of tougher climate targets, government modelling shows
Extract from The Guardian
PM’s claim of ‘massive and unmanageable costs’ are laid bare by
figures showing that a 45% emissions target would cut GDP by a maximum
of just 0.7%
The Abbott government has released its own economic modelling of
long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets, confirming that the prime
minister’s assertions about the costs of more ambitious targets have
been incorrect and overstated.
Two weeks ago, Tony Abbott unveiled a new long term greenhouse gas reduction goal of reducing emissions by between 26% and 28% of 2005 levels by 2030.
One day before that announcement, the Daily Telegraph revisited modelling done in 2013 for the Climate Change Authority of a 44% emissions reduction target, in a front-page story headlined “ALP’s $600bn carbon bill”. That dollar cost was based on a calculated 2% reduction in growth in 2030, and the paper argued this cost was attributable to Labor because the party has said it would base its long-term targets on up-to-date advice from the CCA. Labor has not yet announced its preferred 2030 target.
Abbott then used the same figure to claim Labor’s policy would “hit our economy with massive and unmanageable costs, massive increases in power prices, massive increase in the hit on families’ cost of living” and repeated the claim that growth in 2030 would be 2% lower.
He cited the government’s then unreleased modelling to claim its own plan would impose a far lower economic burden, shaving just 0.2% and 0.4% from Australian GDP in 2030, but did not answer questions about what his modelling had concluded about the cost of deeper cuts.
But when the modelling was finally released by the government on Friday it confirmed exclusive reports in Guardian Australia that it had found a 35% target would cut only 0.3% to 0.5% from GDP in 2030 and a 45% target would cut between 0.5% and 0.7%.
Last week, the head of the independent climate change authority and former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser described the prime minister’s claims about a $600bn hit and a 2% economic impact as “weird” and “misleading”.
Environment minister Greg Hunt issued a retaliatory statement, still claiming “the modelling clearly shows the cumulative hit to GDP from Labor’s carbon tax would be more than $600bn by 2030 in nominal terms”.
In an interview last week with Guardian Australia, Fraser insisted the government’s assertion was wrong and explained that it was derived by comparing a 44% cut with the unrealistic scenario of what economic growth would look like neither Australia nor any other country did anything to address climate change at all.
“Some people who don’t understand modelling draw inferences that really can’t be drawn,” he said. “This is a good illustration of the difficulties modelling can create when misinterpreted to derive misleading meanings.”
“This $600bn figure is not drawn from any logical process and it becomes weirder and weirder the more that you look at it. It compares a scenario where Australia has a 44% target by 2030 and the rest of the world is taking very strong action, with a scenario where Australia has no target and does nothing and the rest of the world does very little, almost nothing at all. It is the inferred cost difference between those two scenarios.
“If you wanted a figure with some logical credibility or relevance you would model the cost of the government’s 26% target and a 40% target for 2030 and look at the difference between those two.” This is effectively what the government’s own modelling had done.
The government’s modelling, done by leading economist Warwick McKibbin, compares a 26%, 35% and 45% target with the costs of doing nothing more after achieving Australia’s 2020 emissions reduction target.
Stated another way it found that, with a 26% target, the economy would grow by an average 2.14% a year between 2020 and 2030, under a 35% target it would grow by 2.12% and under a 45% target by 2.09%.
It found that Australia and Canada face larger economic impacts from acting on climate change than other developed economies, including the United States and European Union and that the Australian sector hardest hit would be coal production, which would decline by 14.3% by 2030.
Two weeks ago, Tony Abbott unveiled a new long term greenhouse gas reduction goal of reducing emissions by between 26% and 28% of 2005 levels by 2030.
One day before that announcement, the Daily Telegraph revisited modelling done in 2013 for the Climate Change Authority of a 44% emissions reduction target, in a front-page story headlined “ALP’s $600bn carbon bill”. That dollar cost was based on a calculated 2% reduction in growth in 2030, and the paper argued this cost was attributable to Labor because the party has said it would base its long-term targets on up-to-date advice from the CCA. Labor has not yet announced its preferred 2030 target.
Abbott then used the same figure to claim Labor’s policy would “hit our economy with massive and unmanageable costs, massive increases in power prices, massive increase in the hit on families’ cost of living” and repeated the claim that growth in 2030 would be 2% lower.
He cited the government’s then unreleased modelling to claim its own plan would impose a far lower economic burden, shaving just 0.2% and 0.4% from Australian GDP in 2030, but did not answer questions about what his modelling had concluded about the cost of deeper cuts.
But when the modelling was finally released by the government on Friday it confirmed exclusive reports in Guardian Australia that it had found a 35% target would cut only 0.3% to 0.5% from GDP in 2030 and a 45% target would cut between 0.5% and 0.7%.
Last week, the head of the independent climate change authority and former Reserve Bank Governor Bernie Fraser described the prime minister’s claims about a $600bn hit and a 2% economic impact as “weird” and “misleading”.
Environment minister Greg Hunt issued a retaliatory statement, still claiming “the modelling clearly shows the cumulative hit to GDP from Labor’s carbon tax would be more than $600bn by 2030 in nominal terms”.
In an interview last week with Guardian Australia, Fraser insisted the government’s assertion was wrong and explained that it was derived by comparing a 44% cut with the unrealistic scenario of what economic growth would look like neither Australia nor any other country did anything to address climate change at all.
“Some people who don’t understand modelling draw inferences that really can’t be drawn,” he said. “This is a good illustration of the difficulties modelling can create when misinterpreted to derive misleading meanings.”
“This $600bn figure is not drawn from any logical process and it becomes weirder and weirder the more that you look at it. It compares a scenario where Australia has a 44% target by 2030 and the rest of the world is taking very strong action, with a scenario where Australia has no target and does nothing and the rest of the world does very little, almost nothing at all. It is the inferred cost difference between those two scenarios.
“If you wanted a figure with some logical credibility or relevance you would model the cost of the government’s 26% target and a 40% target for 2030 and look at the difference between those two.” This is effectively what the government’s own modelling had done.
The government’s modelling, done by leading economist Warwick McKibbin, compares a 26%, 35% and 45% target with the costs of doing nothing more after achieving Australia’s 2020 emissions reduction target.
Stated another way it found that, with a 26% target, the economy would grow by an average 2.14% a year between 2020 and 2030, under a 35% target it would grow by 2.12% and under a 45% target by 2.09%.
It found that Australia and Canada face larger economic impacts from acting on climate change than other developed economies, including the United States and European Union and that the Australian sector hardest hit would be coal production, which would decline by 14.3% by 2030.
Abbott government's zeal for political hyperbole makes facts dispensable
Extract from The Guardian
It was easy to miss in the prime minister’s bluster about green
‘sabotage’ of the Carmichael mine, but the project’s delay was down to
administrative error
Perhaps due to the repeated deployment of blunt-force political
hyperbole, the government appears to have developed an almost complete
immunity to facts.
Listening to the prime minister’s angry rhetoric about green “sabotage” of the $16bn Carmichael coalmine, for example, you may have missed the fact that it was not delayed by “vigilante” green groups succeeding in an attempt to use legal process to defend worthless skinks and a snake, but rather by the fact that the environment minister Greg Hunt and/or his department made a mistake.
The federal government actually consented to the legal case being set aside so it could get the paperwork for its approval right – something it says it will be able to do in a couple of weeks.
Hunt was quite open about this in a radio interview on the day after the decision on 5 August.
“What has happened is that the court has at my request, set aside the decision to be reconsidered,” the environment minister happily conceded. “That would usually take six to eight weeks, the reason being the department gave advice that there was a possibility that the court might conclude that additional material never before considered could be required…. So the department said look as a matter of prudence so as we don’t find in six or eight or 10 or 12 months, a court decision which says there was a procedural issue, let’s remake it now.”
But as the government’s political woes deepened and it struggled with its “narrative” – that it stands for “jobs and growth” and Labor doesn’t – this administrative error somehow morphed into a plot by inner-city greens to rob hard-working Australians of employment.
In response, the government did not just try to change the technical requirements that tripped the environment minister up, but to undermine the commonwealth’s main environmental law – the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – in a way that will stop almost all environment groups from testing federal environmental approvals in court.
The details seem to have been done on the fly. As Guardian Australia revealed, federal cabinet met on Monday night with no formal cabinet submissions before it. The EPBC issue was discussed “under the line” and announced the next day. But for most of Wednesday the government was still trying to figure out how it could change the act in a way that would stymie (bad) greenies from challenging developments but continue to allow (good) farmers to do so, and was saying contradictory things about which part of the act it wanted to change.
The amendments eventually introduced on Thursday morning may still allow an individual farmer to challenge a development that has a direct impact on his or her farm, but only on the grounds of that direct impact, and only after lengthy and expensive legal debate about whether the farmer does have standing before the court. (Peak farm groups are not happy and are seeking legal advice.)
But for the most part environmental groups will not have standing because their concerns will be to make sure the government has done the right thing by the matters of national environmental significance that the Howard government designed the act to protect, and no individual is hurt by the eradication of a species, or the spoiling of a world heritage area or the damage to a commonwealth marine area. If a government makes a mistake that allows the destruction of those things it doesn’t hurt one person, it hurts us all, which was the whole reason environment groups were given standing to challenge federal decision-making in the first place.
None of that deterred the prime minister.
“We are taking the steps necessary to protect 10,000 jobs, to protect a $20 billion investment and to enable 100 million people in India to get coal and power for the best part of 50 years … because we support jobs and growth,” Abbott told the parliament – skillfully deflecting actual facts with almost every breath. “We support the workers of this country … when it comes to dudding workers, (Bill Shorten) has form. He wants to dud the workers of Adani ... we will never conspire with the Greens to close down the Carmichael mine, to stop it ever happening.”
Actual facts like – Adani’s own economist has said the project will create 1,464 jobs, that the Indian energy minister has said his country wants to try to stop imports of thermal coal within three years, that the court case has not prevented the mine from proceeding and that Labor supports Carmichael going ahead but does not support the unnecessary destruction of federal environment law. Or the fact that the EPBC act has successfully held up projects in only 0.4 per cent of cases.
To support its suspicions about the enviro-Labor de-industrial complex, the government disinterred a “secret” 2012 planning document by a network of green groups, leaked at the time, which did indeed show they wanted to delay new coalmines, especially those in the Galilee basin.
The reason was not a hatred of Australian workers or industry, but because if the coal from Carmichael – the biggest coalmine in Australia and possibly the world – were mined and burned it would use up 7 per cent of the greenhouse gas “budget” beyond which the world will not contain global warming to 2 degrees.
The prime minister might well disagree with that argument. The green group’s alleged co-conspirators, the Labor party, certainly disagreed with it when the document was first leaked.
Then treasurer Wayne Swan declared the campaign “reprehensible” and “puerile” and said the coal industry was “a very important wealth generator and a driver of jobs”.
“Unfortunately there are some in the environmental movement who do not understand that you can reduce carbon pollution and still have a viable coal industry, and indeed we need a viable coal industry unless you want to tank the global economy,” he said.
Abbott might well think so too. He has recently announced a long-term greenhouse gas reduction target that isn’t exactly ambitious, but is better than many expected. And his own modelling, finally released on Friday, shows that reaching that target will indeed reduce production and exports of coal, while shaving only a tiny fraction from economic growth.
But he started that debate by incorrectly overstating what his own modelling showed the costs of a tougher target would be, in order to try to continue to claim that he had found a way cheaper way to act on climate change than Labor, who would – you guessed it – destroy jobs and growth. (Labor hasn’t actually announced any targets yet, but Abbott’s modelling showed tougher targets would shave only a tiny bit extra from continued strong economic growth.)
But having a sensible debate about the desirable speed of Australia’s shift to a lower carbon economy or about the relative costs or about the impact of world action on the medium-term prospects for our exports of coal – any of that would require the debate to enter the realm of fact.
Listening to the prime minister’s angry rhetoric about green “sabotage” of the $16bn Carmichael coalmine, for example, you may have missed the fact that it was not delayed by “vigilante” green groups succeeding in an attempt to use legal process to defend worthless skinks and a snake, but rather by the fact that the environment minister Greg Hunt and/or his department made a mistake.
The federal government actually consented to the legal case being set aside so it could get the paperwork for its approval right – something it says it will be able to do in a couple of weeks.
Hunt was quite open about this in a radio interview on the day after the decision on 5 August.
“What has happened is that the court has at my request, set aside the decision to be reconsidered,” the environment minister happily conceded. “That would usually take six to eight weeks, the reason being the department gave advice that there was a possibility that the court might conclude that additional material never before considered could be required…. So the department said look as a matter of prudence so as we don’t find in six or eight or 10 or 12 months, a court decision which says there was a procedural issue, let’s remake it now.”
But as the government’s political woes deepened and it struggled with its “narrative” – that it stands for “jobs and growth” and Labor doesn’t – this administrative error somehow morphed into a plot by inner-city greens to rob hard-working Australians of employment.
In response, the government did not just try to change the technical requirements that tripped the environment minister up, but to undermine the commonwealth’s main environmental law – the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – in a way that will stop almost all environment groups from testing federal environmental approvals in court.
The details seem to have been done on the fly. As Guardian Australia revealed, federal cabinet met on Monday night with no formal cabinet submissions before it. The EPBC issue was discussed “under the line” and announced the next day. But for most of Wednesday the government was still trying to figure out how it could change the act in a way that would stymie (bad) greenies from challenging developments but continue to allow (good) farmers to do so, and was saying contradictory things about which part of the act it wanted to change.
The amendments eventually introduced on Thursday morning may still allow an individual farmer to challenge a development that has a direct impact on his or her farm, but only on the grounds of that direct impact, and only after lengthy and expensive legal debate about whether the farmer does have standing before the court. (Peak farm groups are not happy and are seeking legal advice.)
But for the most part environmental groups will not have standing because their concerns will be to make sure the government has done the right thing by the matters of national environmental significance that the Howard government designed the act to protect, and no individual is hurt by the eradication of a species, or the spoiling of a world heritage area or the damage to a commonwealth marine area. If a government makes a mistake that allows the destruction of those things it doesn’t hurt one person, it hurts us all, which was the whole reason environment groups were given standing to challenge federal decision-making in the first place.
None of that deterred the prime minister.
“We are taking the steps necessary to protect 10,000 jobs, to protect a $20 billion investment and to enable 100 million people in India to get coal and power for the best part of 50 years … because we support jobs and growth,” Abbott told the parliament – skillfully deflecting actual facts with almost every breath. “We support the workers of this country … when it comes to dudding workers, (Bill Shorten) has form. He wants to dud the workers of Adani ... we will never conspire with the Greens to close down the Carmichael mine, to stop it ever happening.”
Actual facts like – Adani’s own economist has said the project will create 1,464 jobs, that the Indian energy minister has said his country wants to try to stop imports of thermal coal within three years, that the court case has not prevented the mine from proceeding and that Labor supports Carmichael going ahead but does not support the unnecessary destruction of federal environment law. Or the fact that the EPBC act has successfully held up projects in only 0.4 per cent of cases.
To support its suspicions about the enviro-Labor de-industrial complex, the government disinterred a “secret” 2012 planning document by a network of green groups, leaked at the time, which did indeed show they wanted to delay new coalmines, especially those in the Galilee basin.
The reason was not a hatred of Australian workers or industry, but because if the coal from Carmichael – the biggest coalmine in Australia and possibly the world – were mined and burned it would use up 7 per cent of the greenhouse gas “budget” beyond which the world will not contain global warming to 2 degrees.
The prime minister might well disagree with that argument. The green group’s alleged co-conspirators, the Labor party, certainly disagreed with it when the document was first leaked.
Then treasurer Wayne Swan declared the campaign “reprehensible” and “puerile” and said the coal industry was “a very important wealth generator and a driver of jobs”.
“Unfortunately there are some in the environmental movement who do not understand that you can reduce carbon pollution and still have a viable coal industry, and indeed we need a viable coal industry unless you want to tank the global economy,” he said.
Abbott might well think so too. He has recently announced a long-term greenhouse gas reduction target that isn’t exactly ambitious, but is better than many expected. And his own modelling, finally released on Friday, shows that reaching that target will indeed reduce production and exports of coal, while shaving only a tiny fraction from economic growth.
But he started that debate by incorrectly overstating what his own modelling showed the costs of a tougher target would be, in order to try to continue to claim that he had found a way cheaper way to act on climate change than Labor, who would – you guessed it – destroy jobs and growth. (Labor hasn’t actually announced any targets yet, but Abbott’s modelling showed tougher targets would shave only a tiny bit extra from continued strong economic growth.)
But having a sensible debate about the desirable speed of Australia’s shift to a lower carbon economy or about the relative costs or about the impact of world action on the medium-term prospects for our exports of coal – any of that would require the debate to enter the realm of fact.
Boot Trade Strike June 1, 1895.
*THE
WORKER*
BRISBANE,
JUNE 1, 1895.
The
Boot Trade Strike.
A sullen
struggle.
The
strike in the Brisbane boot trade still continues, and the men remain
as firm as ever. Overtures from the operatives union for friendly
conference have been contemptuously rejected by the manufacturers,
who, it would seem, aided and encouraged by the forces of Capitalism
– as no doubt they are – have resolved upon a brutal attempt to
starve the men into submission. The employers were approached again
recently by a communication from the union embodying the following
definite proposals:
“1
That our members regret they cannot reconcile with any degree of
sincerity your desire for an amicable settlement of the dispute in
your action by advertising for hands to take the place of the men now
out before opportunity was given them to consider the amended
statement. 2 That they find the statement does not coincide with your
public avowal – namely, the reductions were only from 5 to 7 per
cent on old rates. 3 That, unfortunately, the most essential and main
point at issue is entirely ignored – namely, that no satisfactory
agreement can be made without the concurrence of both parties, and
this can only be done by a conference.”
The
communication also pointed out there were so many lines in the
employers' statement of prices that, unless altered, it must only
lead to continued and unnecessary friction. But, in spite of the
fairness of these proposals, the employers have intimated that they
see no reason for shifting from stubborn position they have taken up.
With
a view to bring the disputants together a deputation from the
recently-established Conciliation Board waited on representatives of
both unions during the past week. This effort has also terminated
without result, the employers having absolutely declined to discuss
in conference the disputed matters, which involve, as already pointed
out, very serious reductions in the men's earnings. The position
taken up by the employers practically resolves itself into this; We
have drawn up a list of prices which, fair or unfair, we are going to
force upon you. What do we want to confer with you about? You are our
wage-slaves. Accept the terms and conditions we dictate to you or
else you and those wives and little ones depending upon you for
life's sustenance must starve. This is the heartless reasoning of
these representatives of Capitalism, who have been enabled to build
large factories, to live in fine palatial dwellings, to enjoy all the
luxuries that this life can offer out of the toil and sweat of those
whom they now seek to trample under foot.
It
is an old saying “ there is nothing like leather,” and never was
better evidence of its truth than in the loyalty and the cheerful
courage which members of the Operative Boot Trade Union of Brisbane
are displaying at the present juncture.
Efforts
have been made by most of the firms, but particularly by one “rosy”
one, to secure “free” labour from the other colonies, but so far
these efforts have proved futile, which speaks volumes for the
organisation in the South. The men's pickets have been most energetic
and watchful, and the odd man or two who has been persuaded into
accepting employment, quickly joined the strikers when the facts of
the dispute have been placed before him. There can be no doubt that
several of the employers are being made the catspaws of unscrupulous
capitalistic agitators. Were it not so, a conference would have taken
place ere this.
The
struggle, however, at the time of going to press with this week's
WORKER, continues without a ray of hope for its immediate
termination. Every Queensland wage-earner will join with us in
wishing the men a speedy and a glorious victory. Labour is ever
struggling in all parts of the world for its very life, and the
causes of this struggle in which the boot-makers are now engaged are
so serious in their nature that they should nerve every man who fully
realises the injustice which is sought to be imposed upon him to
stand firm, fully determined to fight against them, and, if fighting
means suffering, to nobly endure it. The advance of industry makes it
imperative on every man to rally round the banner of unionism, for it
is the only check that he has against the gigantic combinations of
unscrupulous employers, who never hesitate to fleece Labour of its
just reward. The conditions prevailing in the Boot trade now are bad
enough, but if the present struggle ends in defeat they will be ten
times worse.
Irritated
and goaded on to a strike by the attacks of the employers in the
shape of repeated an unwarranted reductions, the men have been forced
into the present position after exhausting every reasonable efforts
consistent with honour to avert a struggle, and have nothing left to
them now but to fight on, nerved by the injustice of the employers'
term, and roused to indignation by their boast of starving them into
submission.
______________________
English
Labour Pledge.
At
the recent great meeting of the Independent Labour Party of Great
Britain the following pledge of membership was adopted with a view of
keeping out of the party those political intriguers who very often
climb into office for the sole purpose of gratifying their desires at
the expense of Labour:
“I
hereby declare myself a Socialist, pledge myself to sever all
connection with any other political party, and to vote in the case of
local elections as my branch of the Independent Labour Party may
determine, and in the case of Parliamentary elections as the
conference specially convened for that purpose may decide.”
Thursday, 20 August 2015
Farm groups furious at Coalition move to restrict environmental challenges
Extract from The Guardian
Farm organisations horrified they will be swept up in changes to
environmental laws that aim to stop green groups taking legal action
against resource projects
Angry farm organisations have learned they will be caught by changes
to federal environmental laws aimed at stopping “environmental
saboteurs” using the courts to delay big projects, but agriculture
minister Barnaby Joyce says some individual farmers may not.
After the surprise announcement of major changes to federal environmental law on Tuesday, the Abbott government spent much of Wednesday making conflicting statements about which part of the laws it intended to abolish.
But by the day’s end it confirmed it would try to repeal all of section 487 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – contrary to an answer given by the responsible minister, attorney general George Brandis, just hours earlier, and contrary to confidential speaking notes mailed to all MPs that morning.
The clarification horrified farm groups because many farm organisations will also be denied standing to challenge federal environmental approvals in the court and this could stymie several planned challenges to federal approval of the controversial $1.2bn Shenhua Watermark coalmine on the fertile Liverpool Plains in NSW.
Any person wanting to mount a challenge would have to prove they had been directly and personally adversely affected.
Joyce, who holds the northern NSW electorate in which the Shenhua mine is proposed and who had earlier denied that farm groups could be affected, said late on Wednesday he now believed only “farmer fighting funds” would still be able to bring challenges because they could represent farmers who “were on the same aquifer or connected aquifers” and would be seen to have a legitimate interest.
Joyce avoided answering a question about his support for Shenhua Watermark during question time Wednesday, but later told Guardian Australia: “I’ve never supported the Shenhua mine and my opposition to the mine remains.”
The government now says it will abolish all of section 487 of the EPBC Act, but confidential speaking notes, circulated to government MPs on Wednesday to help them answer media questions, said the government intended to repeal only section 487(2) of the act and Brandis made the same claim on Wednesday in the Senate.
The proposed changes were made in response to the federal court decision this month to overturn the approval for Adani’s proposed $16bn Carmichael coalmine in Queensland, delaying the project for a few weeks.
The government insists the changes to the law will stop only what it calls environmental “vigilantists” and “vandals” and not farm groups.
According to Joyce the Shenhua mine is a “far different proposition” from the Adani mine because it is located on a fertile farming plain.
According to lawyers expert in the operations of the EPBC Act, the amendments proposed by the government would leave both environmental and farm groups bogged in lengthy and expensive legal proceedings to decide whether or not they had the “standing” to take legal action, and will mean many of them wouldn’t.
The proposed amendment, to be introduced on Thursday, appears likely to be defeated in the Senate. Labor and the Greens have said they would not support it. Independent Queensland senator Glenn Lazarus and Palmer United party senator Dio Wang are also unlikely to vote for it and independent Nick Xenophon has said he is “very wary”.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, continued to try to make political capital from the issue on Wednesday, by insisting it proved that only the government cared about “jobs and growth”.
National Farmers’ Federation vice president Fiona Simson said it was not clear what the government was trying to achieve.
“The Adani decision seems to have been caused by either Adani or the department not applying the law properly, but then, suddenly and with no warning or consultation, we get this put forward … we prefer evidence-based policy making.”
Brent Finlay, NFF president, called for the law to be delayed until the impact on farmers was understood.
“It is critical that farmers have access to the court system to ensure their interests are fully considered during the EPBC assessment process. It is impossible to understand how the standing of farmers and their representative bodies will be impacted under these changes without seeing the proposed changes,” he said.
Tim Duddy, local farmer and the chairman of the Caroona Coal Action group lobbying against the Shenhua mine, said the change would mean even a “directly affected” farmer would be risking their farm if they tried to take a public interest case because adverse costs could be awarded against them and because the issues upon which a complaint could be based would be so limited.
Legal advice suggests a farmer could only take an action if their legal rights or business interests were affected. Living on a neighbouring farm might not be sufficient.
As the government began talks with crossbench stakeholders and senators, sources said different ministerial offices were “at sixes and sevens” and there was continued confusion about the plan.
Sue Higginson, principal solicitor and the NSW Environmental Defenders Office, said the action “would probably be limited to farmers protecting their direct business interests, but not the interests of an endangered species or the Great Barrier Reef”.
She said the change would place a huge burden on the courts, would create uncertainty about who could take action, and would contradict the whole point of the federal laws to protect the public interest in nationally significant environmental issues.
Guardian Australia revealed former Howard government attorney general Philip Ruddock also raised concerns about the plan in Tuesday’s joint party meeting.
Ruddock told the meeting any attempt at vexatious litigation could be stopped by forcing groups to promise to pay costs if it was determined that their case was wasting the court’s time. He said that if the problem was an abuse of process then it was best to use the courts to solve it.
The Abbott government is giving conflicting advice about which part of its own environmental laws it intends to abolish, raising fears among farm groups that the attack the government says is aimed only at “environmental saboteurs” will also hit them.
Government officials have told stakeholders and senators they intend to abolish all of section 487 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Legal advice suggests that would mean any person wanting to challenge a federal environmental approval would have to prove they had been directly and personally adversely affected.
This would strike out many environmental challenges and also stymie several planned challenges by farm organisations to federal approval of the controversial $1.2bn Shenhua Watermark coalmine – prompting deep concerns in farm groups.
But confidential speaking notes, circulated to government MPs on Wednesday to help them answer media questions, said the government intended to repeal only section 487(2) of the act “so that activists cannot use this to sabotage decisions.”
The attorney general, George Brandis, told the Senate on Wednesday the government would only abolish 487(2). There are three parts to section 487 and (2) is the part allowing individuals to take court action. Repealing only that section would stop individual farmers taking action, but leave the sections that allow both environment and farming peak bodies to continue to take action as they do now.
After the surprise announcement of major changes to federal environmental law on Tuesday, the Abbott government spent much of Wednesday making conflicting statements about which part of the laws it intended to abolish.
But by the day’s end it confirmed it would try to repeal all of section 487 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act – contrary to an answer given by the responsible minister, attorney general George Brandis, just hours earlier, and contrary to confidential speaking notes mailed to all MPs that morning.
The clarification horrified farm groups because many farm organisations will also be denied standing to challenge federal environmental approvals in the court and this could stymie several planned challenges to federal approval of the controversial $1.2bn Shenhua Watermark coalmine on the fertile Liverpool Plains in NSW.
Any person wanting to mount a challenge would have to prove they had been directly and personally adversely affected.
Joyce, who holds the northern NSW electorate in which the Shenhua mine is proposed and who had earlier denied that farm groups could be affected, said late on Wednesday he now believed only “farmer fighting funds” would still be able to bring challenges because they could represent farmers who “were on the same aquifer or connected aquifers” and would be seen to have a legitimate interest.
Joyce avoided answering a question about his support for Shenhua Watermark during question time Wednesday, but later told Guardian Australia: “I’ve never supported the Shenhua mine and my opposition to the mine remains.”
The government now says it will abolish all of section 487 of the EPBC Act, but confidential speaking notes, circulated to government MPs on Wednesday to help them answer media questions, said the government intended to repeal only section 487(2) of the act and Brandis made the same claim on Wednesday in the Senate.
The proposed changes were made in response to the federal court decision this month to overturn the approval for Adani’s proposed $16bn Carmichael coalmine in Queensland, delaying the project for a few weeks.
The government insists the changes to the law will stop only what it calls environmental “vigilantists” and “vandals” and not farm groups.
According to Joyce the Shenhua mine is a “far different proposition” from the Adani mine because it is located on a fertile farming plain.
According to lawyers expert in the operations of the EPBC Act, the amendments proposed by the government would leave both environmental and farm groups bogged in lengthy and expensive legal proceedings to decide whether or not they had the “standing” to take legal action, and will mean many of them wouldn’t.
The proposed amendment, to be introduced on Thursday, appears likely to be defeated in the Senate. Labor and the Greens have said they would not support it. Independent Queensland senator Glenn Lazarus and Palmer United party senator Dio Wang are also unlikely to vote for it and independent Nick Xenophon has said he is “very wary”.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, continued to try to make political capital from the issue on Wednesday, by insisting it proved that only the government cared about “jobs and growth”.
National Farmers’ Federation vice president Fiona Simson said it was not clear what the government was trying to achieve.
“The Adani decision seems to have been caused by either Adani or the department not applying the law properly, but then, suddenly and with no warning or consultation, we get this put forward … we prefer evidence-based policy making.”
Brent Finlay, NFF president, called for the law to be delayed until the impact on farmers was understood.
“It is critical that farmers have access to the court system to ensure their interests are fully considered during the EPBC assessment process. It is impossible to understand how the standing of farmers and their representative bodies will be impacted under these changes without seeing the proposed changes,” he said.
Tim Duddy, local farmer and the chairman of the Caroona Coal Action group lobbying against the Shenhua mine, said the change would mean even a “directly affected” farmer would be risking their farm if they tried to take a public interest case because adverse costs could be awarded against them and because the issues upon which a complaint could be based would be so limited.
Legal advice suggests a farmer could only take an action if their legal rights or business interests were affected. Living on a neighbouring farm might not be sufficient.
As the government began talks with crossbench stakeholders and senators, sources said different ministerial offices were “at sixes and sevens” and there was continued confusion about the plan.
Sue Higginson, principal solicitor and the NSW Environmental Defenders Office, said the action “would probably be limited to farmers protecting their direct business interests, but not the interests of an endangered species or the Great Barrier Reef”.
She said the change would place a huge burden on the courts, would create uncertainty about who could take action, and would contradict the whole point of the federal laws to protect the public interest in nationally significant environmental issues.
Guardian Australia revealed former Howard government attorney general Philip Ruddock also raised concerns about the plan in Tuesday’s joint party meeting.
Ruddock told the meeting any attempt at vexatious litigation could be stopped by forcing groups to promise to pay costs if it was determined that their case was wasting the court’s time. He said that if the problem was an abuse of process then it was best to use the courts to solve it.
The Abbott government is giving conflicting advice about which part of its own environmental laws it intends to abolish, raising fears among farm groups that the attack the government says is aimed only at “environmental saboteurs” will also hit them.
Government officials have told stakeholders and senators they intend to abolish all of section 487 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Legal advice suggests that would mean any person wanting to challenge a federal environmental approval would have to prove they had been directly and personally adversely affected.
This would strike out many environmental challenges and also stymie several planned challenges by farm organisations to federal approval of the controversial $1.2bn Shenhua Watermark coalmine – prompting deep concerns in farm groups.
But confidential speaking notes, circulated to government MPs on Wednesday to help them answer media questions, said the government intended to repeal only section 487(2) of the act “so that activists cannot use this to sabotage decisions.”
The attorney general, George Brandis, told the Senate on Wednesday the government would only abolish 487(2). There are three parts to section 487 and (2) is the part allowing individuals to take court action. Repealing only that section would stop individual farmers taking action, but leave the sections that allow both environment and farming peak bodies to continue to take action as they do now.
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In the early 1990’s Australia was among the reasonably ambitious countries when it came to fighting climate change. Yes, Australia was slow to ratify the Kyoto Protocol – to put it diplomatically. However, in 2007, the then new Australian government announced it would ratify, much to the applause of the international community.
Up to the 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen Australia then engaged in a much stronger fashion in the international climate talks. Yet these last few years I have again witnessed strong elements of explicit climate scepticism in the fierce and polarised domestic Australian debate. Luckily, these days seem to be over. The impacts of climate change are already taking their toll, including in Australia.
The Australian government has now sent to the UN its bid as to what Australia’s contribution to the joint global effort of addressing climate change will be. The level of ambition has not gone down very well with the international community. Only if all developed countries do their fair share of the required joint effort, can we expect developing and emerging countries to also take action.
But the good news is that finally there now seems to be an unequivocal acceptance in Australian politics, from the top down, that climate change is happening and that it must be addressed urgently.
Now here is the puzzling question: why on earth wait until 2017/2018 to be more specific on how Australia should address climate change? It has been six years since the climate conference in Copenhagen. It has also been four years since the world, including Australia, agreed in Durban to set Paris 2015 as the deadline for all countries to explain how they would move forward.
What has Australia been doing in all these years? What are you waiting for? And what is the rationale for postponing further the reforms and actions so badly needed to cut emissions substantially?
Nobody believes delaying action diminishes the challenge. Not many believe it is a durable, economic and responsible strategy to continue to bet that the future belongs to coal. China is rapidly ceasing to be an importer of seaborne thermal coal and India’s energy minister says he is confident India will stop importing coal in the “next year or two”. American coal companies have lost more than 80% of their value over the last few years.
Europe is already reducing its emissions substantially and the 28 governments of the European Union have decided on target that bind us to do much more and reduce our domestic emissions by at least 40% in 2030 compared to 1990. We are using a range of tools: binding targets, a price on carbon, renewables, energy efficiency targets etc. In my country Denmark, we have created new industrial strongholds and jobs by exporting green technologies and solutions to a world that demands exactly this, only more and more.
Is it easy to go low carbon? No. Change is difficult. Does it come without costs? Of course not. There is no cost-free way to transition to a low carbon economy. Some prefer to ask polluters to pay which usually means consumers buying emissions intensive goods would experience a rise in price. Others would rather ask taxpayers to financially help polluters reduce emissions. Others again prefer to give economic incentives. Or to set up tough standards.
There are many ways to do this. Each country must find its own home-grown mix of solutions. But the choice is easier to make when all understand that continuing business as usual also comes with a price.
In Europe, governments believe that it is better – also economically speaking – to invest in a more sustainable and low carbon future than it is to wait for the costs and consequences of climate change to mount. It seems this recognition is now prevailing also in the world’s biggest emitters like e.g. the US and China.
In short: the world is changing track. Hopefully Australia is too.