How climate change policy helps farmers

Drought is ravaging the land. Large swaths of eastern Australia are experiencing some of the worst seasons on record. Frosts have wiped out large areas of crops in Western Australia, southern New South Wales and Victoria. Hail has beaten crops into the ground in Queensland.

Tony Windsor.

The government is scrambling to be seen to be doing something meaningful for farmers, particularly in Queensland where traditional National voters are looking to desert in favour of minor parties, such as One Nation and Katter’s Australian Party. In some coastal seats in the state, Labor is also doing well. Hence the scene is set for the champion of the short-term, former agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce, to weave his web of utterances that join the drought, energy and climate scepticism into an electoral defence.

At the same time, the climate change debate proceeds at a crawl without any meaningful policy regarding the risk of increased drought and other weather events. This week a report, released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), declared that in order to keep warming within a relatively safe 1.5 degrees Celsius, global emissions will need to be cut by 45 per cent by 2030. Coal power will need to be phased out by 2050. The world has just 12 years, according to the IPCC, to avoid a climate change catastrophe. The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, rejected the IPCC’s call for transition from coal, saying “some sort of report” won’t stop Australia using up its coal resources. Renewable energy, and the opportunities it offers regional Australia, is still being used as a political pawn.

Read the story by Tony Windsor from The Saturday Paper - “How climate change policy helps farmers.”