Abbott’s wind commissioner has been a boon for renewables, climate body says

The role of Australia’s windfarm commissioner has been a success and should be expanded to include solar and other large-scale renewables, a report by the Climate Change Authority has recommended.

 A windfarm in Bungendore. A Climate Change Authority report
says the role of windfarm commissioner, set up under Tony
 Abbott, has facilitated the uptake of wind energy. 

It says the post, set up under the former prime minister Tony Abbott to handle complaints and investigate potential risks, has actually facilitated the uptake of wind energy by helping to address community concerns.

The controversial role of national windfarm commissioner was established by the Coalition in 2015 as part of a deal with anti-wind senators in response to complaints about turbine noise.

Read the story by Lisa Cox from The Guardian - “Abbott’s wind commissioner has been a boon for renewables, climate body says.”

Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist

Imagine, if you will, a government board to champion Australian arts without any artists on it, or an agency to advise on medical research without any medical researchers.

Professors David Karoly and Clive Hamilton at a 2012
Climate Change Authority media conference.

Or perhaps even, imagine a government authority set up to provide expertise on climate policy without any actual climate scientists.

Well you don’t have to imagine that last one, because that’s what we now have – the government’s Climate Change Authority is now sans climate scientist.

Prof David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, has just finished his term on the authority’s board – the only member to stick it out for the full five years.

Read The Guardian story by Graham Readfearn - “Climate Change Authority loses last climate scientist.”

Climate Change Authority says Turnbull government should adopt new low emissions target

The Turnbull government should adopt a Low Emissions Target as a fall back option to help Australia reduce its carbon emissions and meet its Paris climate targets, according to the Climate Change Authority.

The Climate Change Authority says the Turnbull
government should adopt a low emissions target. 

The call is contained in a new joint report by the Authority and the Australian Energy Market Regulator, requested by Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, on how to improve power security in Australia and reduce electricity prices.

Fairfax Media understands the recommendation is likely to be mirrored in chief scientist Alan Finkel's review of the electricity sector, which will be released at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting next Friday. 

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age - “Climate Change Authority says Turnbull government should adopt new low emissions target.”

Climate countdown: is Australia on track to avoid catastrophe?

To have a good chance of keeping global warming under 2C, there is only a finite amount of carbon pollution the world can emit – that amount is known as our carbon budget.

In 2014, the government’s Climate Change Authority examined what “Australia’s fair share of the global emissions budget” is.

It concluded Australia could emit 10.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases between 2013 and 2050. If we go beyond that, we have emitted more than our fair share of the global carbon budget.

Using NDEVR Environmental’s latest quarterly projections to the end of September 2016, we have taken a rolling average of emissions from the past four quarters, estimated how much of the carbon budget has been used up to the current second, and created Australia’s carbon clock.

Read The Guardian story - “Climate countdown: is Australia on track to avoid catastrophe?”

Professor Karoly to talk about reports, minority and otherwise

Professor David Karoly.
 

David Karoly and Clive Hamilton are both members of the Climate Change Authority who don’t always agree with everything the body says.

So much so, that soon after the authority’s latest report, Professors Karoly and Hamilton, who both had serious reservations about many intentions within the official report, combined to write and publicise a “minority report”.

Discontent within the authority obviously received considerable publicity in our mainstream press, but people will soon have the opportunity to hear directly from Professor Karoly why he and Professor Hamilton penned their contrary view.

The Professor of Atmospheric Science from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and who is Climate Change Authority member, will be the speaker at the “Climate Conversations” on Tuesday, October 25.

Promotional material for the one hour lecture starting at 12:30pm says: “David Karoly will present the recommendations from the Authority’s Report and then will change hats and present the recommendations from the minority report.”

Read the “Minority report”.

The lecture, headed “Towards a climate policy toolkit: Special Review of Australia’s climate goals and policies”, will be at the university's School of Design and those eager to attend should notify Claire Denby at the university’s Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI).

 

'Climate change policy needs market mechanism' - Age Editorial

The public brawl being played out in the Climate ChangeAuthority is a fresh story, and yet a highly familiar one. It is not surprising people plucked from differing walks of life to advise the government on global warming would have sharply conflicting views.

A majority of board members, most appointed by the Coalition, have recommended the government build on current policy settings to meet existing greenhouse gas reduction targets. They have been challenged by two members, scientist David Karoly and academic and author Clive Hamilton, who believe the majority has failed by not stressing Australia needs to cut emissions much more rapidly if it is to play its part in limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees – a benchmark agreed under the Paris climate deal.

Read the Editorial in today’s Melbourne Age - “Climate change policy needs market mechanism.”

(Friend David Karoly is one of those, the implication suggests, who is “brawling” in the Climate Change Authority – brawling conjures images which do David an absolute disservice and so was a rather sad and poor choice of words. David’s intent, I’m sure, is about the authority honestly and objectively reflecting what the science explains and consequently what our community should be doing in response. Although David may well be uncomfortable about the whole “brawling thing”, I know he will remain faithful to the science and continue to publically advocate for a thoughtful and reasoned response to climate change and not be influenced, as others have, by vested interests – Robert McLean).

'We're not going anywhere' - CCA dissenters

David Karoly (left) and Clive Hamilton
have refused to endorse 
the Climate Change Authority’s report. 

Despite its brevity, the dissenting report from two members of the government’s supposedly independent Climate Change Authority has landed with a dull and uncompromising thud.

Last week the CCA published its report advising the government what it should and shouldn’t do in the wake of the Paris climate agreement. In short, the report recommended the government keep the chief pillars of its current policies, but make a few tweaks here and there.

Australia needs two emissions trading schemes, Climate Change Authority says

But it emerged that two members of the 10-strong authority would not be endorsing the report, namely Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University, and David Karoly, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Now Hamilton and Karoly have published their dissenting report, which has already been dismissed by the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg.

Read Graham Readfearn’s story on The Guardian -“'We’re not going anywhere,' say Climate Change Authority dissenters.”

Like death, we refuse to think about climate change

From today's Melbourne Age.

Our attitudes to climate change are becoming like our attitude to death: we know we must face up to it one day, but right now we'd prefer to think about something else.

This may explain why the media's coverage of a potentially breakthrough report from the government's Climate Change Authority focused on environmentalists' criticisms of it rather than its actual content.

Similarly, why focus on the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, China and the United States, using the G20 meeting in Hangzhou to ratify the Paris climate change agreement – thus encouraging other countries to do likewise and raising hope the deal will come into effect this year – when you can speculate about conflict over the South China Sea and foreign investment?

Forgive me, but I'd never make a card-carrying greenie, righteously condemning any proposal to act on climate change that's less than heroic – as both the Paris agreement and the climate authority's report on the policies we need to ensure we deliver on our commitment, most certainly are.

Read the comment piece in today’s Melbourne Age by Ross Gittins - “Climate change like death, an inevitability we must face.”

David Karoly and Clive Hamilton write unprecedented CCA minority report

Two members of the Australia’s independent Climate Change Authority have criticised a report published by the Authority on Wednesday, warning that the actions recommended in the report are manifestly inadequate to meet Australia’s international obligations.

Climate scientist Professor David Karoly and economist Professor Clive Hamilton have taken the unprecedented step of publishing a minority report in response to what they say are major flaws within the CCA report.

The report accepted as the basis for its recommendations Australia’s current 2030 emissions reduction target rather than recommending action consistent with the goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

Professor Karoly said the recommendations of the majority report were a recipe for further delay in responding to the urgent need to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“Even if Australia reduces its emissions by 28 per cent by 2030 as our current targets dictate, more than 90% of Australia’s current carbon budget will be used up by then,” he said.

“To meet the budget constraint, Australia’s emissions would have to decline steeply from the current 2030 target and reach net zero by 2035. This is clearly impossible and means that the majority report, by accepting the government’s targets, lacks credibility.

“Put simply, the actions recommended in the report will not put Australia on a path to playing its role in limiting global temperature rise to less than 2°C.”

“The majority report gives the impression that Australia has plenty of time to implement measures to bring Australia’s emissions sharply down,” Professor Clive Hamilton said.

“This is untrue and dangerous. Given this, we felt we had no choice but to write our own report.”

The minority report:

● Argues for the adoption of a carbon budget as the basis of all of Australia’s climate policies, as recommended by the Climate Change Authority itself in 2015. (A carbon budget specifies the upper limit of Australia’s total emissions between now and 2050.)

● Calls for a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme for electricity and other sectors withthe option for an emissions-intensity baseline in the electricity sector.

● Urges consideration of the closure of selected brown-coal power plants through a bidding process, with closure payments funded by a mandatory charge on other generators.

● Calls for an increase in the Renewable Energy Target so that renewables account for 65% of electricity generation in 2030.

● Recommends abolition of the Emissions Reduction Fund, while supporting the Carbon Farming Initiative.

Professor Karoly said that the majority report fails to meet the Review’s terms of reference. “It makes recommendations that are not soundly based on climate science,” he said.

Professor Hamilton said it was disappointing that the majority report had chosen to frame its recommendations around what is seen to be politically possible rather than what needs to be done to protect the nation.

“The evidence suggests that most Australians want stronger action on climate change, and we hope that policy makers are not spooked by the fear campaigns of the recent past. Climate change is too big and too important,” he said.

Read the Minority Report.

David Karoly and Clive Hamilton refuse to sign latest CCA report

Professor David Karoly - a friend of
 Beneath the Wisteria and a member
 of the CCA, who along with Clive
Hamilton has written a dissenting
report on what action the
Australian Government should take.

For three years, good climate change policies in Australia have been eviscerated by those who would prefer to do nothing. This is happening at a time when the urgency to act has never been greater and the rest of the world is pursuing a bolder and more determined path.

All of the evidence shows that most Australians want much stronger action from the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and hasten the transition to a clean energy economy.

Which is why it's so disappointing that the latest report from the Climate Change Authority on how Australia should meet its international climate commitments seems to be responding to those who do not accept the science of climate change.

The Climate Change Authority was set up in 2012 as an independent body charged with providing the Australian Government and the Parliament with evidence-based advice on the nation's climate change policy options. Introducing the bill to establish the authority the minister said:

"The authority will be independent from government … This means that climate change policy will be directed by evidence and facts, rather than fear and political opportunism. It will take the politics out of the debate."

As we see it, last week's report from the authority is a recipe for further delay in responding to the urgent need to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

Read The Sydney Morning Herald story - “David Karoly and Clive Hamilton: why we can't sign the latest Climate Change Authority report.”

Authority splits over report commissioned by Coalition

Climate Change Authority members Anthea
 Harris, Professor David Karoly and Professor
 Clive Hamilton in 2012. Karoly and
Hamilton plan to issue a dissenting
 report on how the government
can meet its emissions reduction target.

A Climate Change Authority review charged with advising the government on how to meet its climate change commitments has led to an unprecedented split in its top ranks, with two of the body’s 11 members writing a dissenting “minority report”.

Guardian Australia understands the official Climate Change Authority report will recommend Australia adopt an intensity-based trading scheme for electricity generators.

A similar scheme was taken to the 2016 election by the Labor party, and was also proposed by Malcolm Turnbull in 2009 when he was opposition leader. Many believe it is a promising way to form a bipartisan approach to climate policy.

Read The Guardian story - “Climate Change Authority splits over ETS report commissioned by Coalition.”

Coalition Government has 'tamed' the CCA

It was baseball great Yogi Berra who said:
 "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!

Australia’s Coalition government discovered that it could not dismantle the Climate Change Authority created by its Labor predecessors, what with its bothersome analyses that Australia needed to do more on climate action, but it has found that it could be tamed.

The reconstituted CCA – containing a majority of board members appointed by the Coalition and sympathetic to its policy stance (including the architect of its own Direct Action policy), and with a much reduced staff – delivered its long-awaited and long-delayed report on climate policy options on Wednesday.

And it looks remarkably like something that the Coalition would have chosen to write itself. Or at least its moderate faction.

It is similar to what the proponents of Direct Action had always imagined their policy would become, once the Coalition fessed up to the fact that climate targets it signed to in Paris will not be reached with only wishful thinking, half-baked plans such as the emissions reduction fund, and without some sort of biting policy.

But the policy “toolkit” that the CCA recommends also looks a lot like the climate policy that Labor brought to the election campaign. That’s why the Coalition was relieved that CCA chose to delay its report until now, leaving the conservatives free to brand Labor’s idea as an economy-killer and putting off what will be an intense internal debate.

Read Giles Parkinson’s story on RenewEconomy - “Tamed CCA gives Coalition breathing space, but no path to Paris targets.”

Frydenberg not listening to calls to toughen emissions limits

(Many have heaped praise on what happened in Paris last December when the world’s nations agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and so although that praise is not necessarily misplaced to see it as a solution to climate change is, at best, mischievous. Even if the world’s nations all achieve their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) as submitted at Paris and which are not binding, the global temperatures are predicted to rise by nearly three degrees. Understanding that, we need to be cautious of any comments from Mr Frydenberg arguing that Australia is achieving its targets and beyond that, suggesting we should subsequently ignore any calls from the government appointed Climate Change Authority for tougher climate policies – Robert McLean)

Minister for Energy and Environment, Josh
Frydenberg - known to some as "Mr Coal".

The Coalition’s energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has hit back at a report from the Climate Change Authority calling for Australia to toughen its climate policies.

Frydenberg said the government had no plans to tighten limits on emissions by the biggest polluters and the Climate Change Authority’s advice to introduce two emissions trading schemes was a “report to, not by, government” and committed only to a review of its policies in 2017.

On Wednesday the Climate Change Authority advised the Australian government to institute two emissions trading schemes and strengthen regulations in order to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reduction targets and to allow it to lift those targets in line with international climate change obligations.

Read The Guardian story - “Josh Frydenberg plays down Climate Change Authority call for tougher emissions limits.”

'Thumping majority' oppose government cuts to ARENA

A massive Reachtel poll of 10,271 people has found a thumping majority of Australians oppose the government cutting $1 billion from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

And there is even stronger support for an emissions intensity scheme that would force high emissions power plants to reduce their emissions.

The poll, commissioned by the progressive Australia Institute think-tank and conducted across the country on Tuesday evening, has been released as the Climate Change Authority released a final report that backed some kind of market mechanism - such as an emissions intensity scheme - as part of the push to reduce the nation's emissions.

The Authority's report stated that an emissions intensity scheme "should be part of Australia's toolkit" and that "mechanisms of this type are capable of making significant emissions reductions in a way that is both flexible and scalable".

The ARENA is facing a billion-dollar funding cut by the Turnbull government in its so-called omnibus savings bill, which was introduced to the Parliament on Wednesday.

Read James Massola’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “New poll puts pressure on Senate,Labor to save renewable energy agency.”

CCA split a rerun of decade-long climate policy fight

The split in the Climate Change Authority is a rerun of the climate policy fight Australia has been having for the past 10 years – the clash between what is undeniably necessary and what is politically possible.

The CCA report, to be released on Wednesday, lands exactly on the spot where the major parties might, just might, be able to reach a compromise and finally end the barren years of climate policy “war”, policy reversal and time-wasting gridlock.

Guardian Australia understands the report recommends a type of emissions trading scheme for the electricity sector where generators are penalised for polluting above an emissions-intensity baseline.

It’s the policy Labor took to the last election and exactly what most observers assumed the Coalition’s Direct Action would morph into after next year’s review shows what everyone already knows, that it isn’t fit for purpose in its current form.

Read Lenore Taylor’s story on The Guardian - “Climate authority split is no surprise – Australia has fought the same battle for 10 years.”

Hidden climate report might help Turnbull find the middle ground

The Climate Change Authority report that some suspected was buried by the Australian government to save it from policy embarrassment during the election campaign, could now make it easier for prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to find the middle ground in a minority government, or one ruling with a razor-thin majority.

The CCA report had been expected to be released in late June, but was delayed until after the election, to the obvious relief of the government. So, too, was a report on options for the electricity sector, which had been due for release in April or May, and which leaked reports suggest strongly supported some form of mandatory carbon price.

Those reports by the CCA, despite its board being stacked by Turnbull government appointees following the resignation of former chairman Bernie Fraser and other directors, would not have suited the Coalition election platform.

They were expected to reaffirm the position that Australia was trailing the world in emission reductions, needed to do more, and would need to adopt a carbon price. And, they would likely note, this would not be anywhere near as expensive as many suggest.

Read the RenewEconomy story - “Hidden climate report could help Malcolm find the middle.”

Climate Change Authority withholds electricity carbon charge report

A report that recommends putting a price on emissions from the electricity sector has been held back by the Climate Change Authority until after the election, prompting calls from Labor and the Greens that it be made public to inform debate.

The independent authority, whose board is now dominated by appointments made last October by Environment Minister Greg Hunt, was to have released its policy options paper for the power industry by the end of April.

The board, though, decided to withhold the report - along with the large Special Review due out by June 30 - until after the election, "assuming it is called for early July," the authority said on its website.

"Why would the authority not release something before the caretaker period?" a source said to Fairfax Media about the report on the power sector, which creates about one-third of Australia's carbon emissions.

Leaked details of the Climate Change Authority's electricity industry "policy options" report said "a mandatory carbon price of some form is desirable in the sector".

Read Peter Hannam’s story in the Melbourne Age - “Climate Change Authority report recommending 'a mandatory carbon price' held back until after election.”

Experience pooled to discuss low-carbon transition

Several people with wide experience in Australia’s energy infrastructure recently gathered in Canberra to discuss a low-carbon transition.

The event featured Tony Wood, of the Grattan Institute; Olivia Kember, of The Climate Institute; Steve Hatfield-Dodds from the CSIRO; Tim Nelson from AGL Energy; Frank Jotzo from the Australian National Univeristy’s Crawford School; Salim Mazouz, from The Centre for International Economics; and Kathryn Smith from the Climate Change Authority.

Canberra’s ANU hosted the symposium.

Watch the symposium here - “Australia’s electricity sector: policy options to support a low-carbon transition.”

Ian Chubb's final piece of advice: 'Don't flinch!'

Outgoing chief scientist, Ian Chubb -
parting advice: "Don't flinch".

Australia’s chief scientist through the bitter “climate wars” has some advice for scientists denigrated and disparaged by those who do not like their evidence-based advice: “don’t flinch”.

And as he prepares to leave the job on Friday, Ian Chubb has some unflinching parting advice – Australia will inevitably have to adopt tougher greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Chubb is also on the board of the independent Climate Change Authority, which the Abbott government unsuccessfully sought to abolish, and he is convinced Australia will eventually have to adopt targets similar to those advocated by the CCA.

ReadThe Guardian story - “Outgoing chief scientist Ian Chubb says tougher greenhouse gas targets inevitable.”

Where to now for the decimated Climate Change Authority after resignations and being ignored by government

B

ernie Fraser’s resignation as chairman of Australia’s Climate Change Authority has left many wondering what is left of it and what its future might be.

Established three years ago as part of the climate change package negotiated by the previous parliament’s Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, the Authority was formed to serve as the principal source of climate policy advice to the federal government, particularly on the issue of emissions targets. Championed by the then Greens deputy leader Christine Milne, it was modelled closely on Britain’s Committee on Climate Change.

Read The Conversation story - “Ignored by the government, shrunk by resignations – where now for Australia’s Climate Change Authority?”