Global finance leaves Australia behind in the march to net-zero emissions

Scott Morrison dismissed Anthony Albanese’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050 as "Bill Shorten 2.0". Surely better than the Prime Minister's effort – Tony Abbott 4.0. Then there's the equation proposed by the Nationals' senator Matt Canavan: net-zero emissions equals net-zero jobs. So, that would amount to no job losses, eh? Oh, the tyranny of all-too-simplistic slogans.

EnergyAustralia's Yallourn generator.

The world, meanwhile, is leaving Australia behind. While our politicians dither, a net-zero target is now embraced by almost half of the world’s gross domestic product – some 121 nations. It was just 16 per cent of GDP nine months ago, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in Britain. Major global financial institutions, too, are declaring their exit from coal.

In Australia, where Labor has declared its commitment to net-zero by 2050, the party should be under scrutiny to provide its thinking on transition pathways and how they will be managed. But so should the Morrison government be pressured to substantiate its claim that Labor's path would cost jobs, raise electricity prices and hurt regional Australia. Both the Coalition and Labor should admit the tremendous opportunities for new industries and jobs from an effective energy transition.

Read the opinion piece from The Age by John Hewson - “Global finance leaves Australia behind in the march to net-zero emissions.”

Zali Steggall to unveil climate change bill and push for a conscience vote for MPs

The woman who toppled Tony Abbott in Warringah at the last election on a platform of climate change action now has the whole parliament in her sights as she seeks bipartisan support for a climate change framework bill aimed at transitioning Australia to a decarbonised economy.

Zali Steggall to unveil climate change bill.

Zali Steggall – along with her fellow crossbenchers Rebekah Sharkie, Helen Haines and Andrew Wilkie – will release the climate change national framework for adaption and mitigation bill on Monday, ahead of its introduction to the parliament in March.

Steggall and the crossbench have begun a conscience vote campaign online and within their communities. They hope to win over enough government MPs to see the bill, which has been modelled on existing legislation in the UK, New Zealand and Ireland, pass in Australia.

Read the story from The Guardian by Amy Remeikis -  “Zali Steggall to unveil climate change bill and push for a conscience vote for MPs.”

(Zali Steggall had only just nominated for the seat of Warringah when she agreed to be interviewed for “Climate Conversations” in February last year)

Tony Abbott bet me $100 the climate will not change in 10 years

Tony Abbott has bet me $100 that in 10 years’ time the climate will not have changed.

When I found myself in a Manly coffee shop last week being offered the bet, I was incredulous.

A protester dressed as Tony Abbott joins the 2019
Australian federal election campaign. 

 Abbott was smiling, charmingly dismissive. This person with the power to help steer the world away from anthropogenic disaster wasn’t having a bar of my concerns about climate change. He wasn’t going to help; he was going to wield his status and wealth to show how confident he was in his position of not doing anything.

He was going to prove he disagreed with climate science, with the majority of Australian voters and with the mother of a six-year-old who had just literally begged him to take the climate emergency seriously, with a jocular bet. No doubt he expected me to laugh and back down.

And maybe I should have, amazed and insulted beyond belief. Maybe I should have said instead (as my husband suggested when I got home) “I’m not going to bet $100. Bet me something substantial, like your electorate, or all your power, so that you’ll actually be motivated to work to save the climate.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Cassie Flanagan Willanski - “Tony Abbott bet me $100 the climate will not change in 10 years.”

A climate reckoning is coming to our political hothouse

When Tony Abbott was prime minister, he ordered more Australian strike aircraft and troops into Iraq. Not because Australia was big enough to turn the tide of battle against the barbarians of Daesh, so-called Islamic State or ISIL. But because he believed in the fight.

Climate is no longer a lefty concern. Illustration: Jim Pavlidis

"It's absolutely vital that the world sees and sees quickly that the ISIL death cult can be beaten," he said in 2014. Australia's commitment ultimately made up less than 1 per cent of the combined effort against the terrorist thugs but it was early and firm. Abbott described it as "an important global concern" and he was right. And, with more than 60 countries co-operating, it was a success.

When it came to another important global concern, Abbott argued a very different case. He and like-minded Coalition conservatives have long maintained that Australian action against climate change was futile: "Even if carbon dioxide, a naturally occurring trace gas that’s necessary for life, really is the main climate change villain, Australia’s contribution to mankind’s emissions is scarcely more than 1 per cent," Abbott said last year.

Read the opinion piece from The Age by Peter Hartcher - “A climate reckoning is coming to our political hothouse.”

‘High degree of acceptance': Wind farm commissioner received just 8 complaints last year

The bureaucrat controversially appointed by former prime minister Tony Abbott to investigate complaints about wind farms says public opposition has "dissipated" to just eight complaints about operating wind turbines last year.

The Capital Wind Farm near Bungendore. Complaints
over wind farms have plummeted over the past three years.

National Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer revealed the figures in Senate estimates on Monday, saying the fall in complaints followed efforts to dispel "misinformation" circulating in the community about wind farms.

Read the story from The Age by Nicole Hasham - “‘High degree of acceptance': Wind farm commissioner received just 8 complaints last year.”

Malcolm Turnbull pushes revenge button as Tony Abbott's climate change highlights election panic

Tony Abbott pulled the panic lever on Friday, and Malcolm Turnbull pushed the revenge button.

Tony Abbott backflipped on his position the Paris
Agreement during a candidates' forum.

The gainers from these spectacular plays were Zali Steggall, the independent candidate who is trying to oust Abbott in Warringah, and Bill Shorten, who is handed another break in his campaign to defeat the Government.

Years ago, in a much earlier round of the climate and emissions wars, Mr Abbott referred to himself as a "weather vane”.

That accurate self-assessment invited ridicule, but his latest change of direction is beyond absurd.

Read the ABC News story by Michelle Grattan - “Malcolm Turnbull pushes revenge button as Tony Abbott's climate change highlights election panic.”

(Listen to the “Climate Conversations” podcast featuring Zali Steggall)

Tony Abbott says no need to pull out of Paris climate agreement after all

Tony Abbott has changed his mind and now says Australia should stay in the Paris climate agreement.

 Tony Abbott has gone back on his opposition to the
Paris climate agreement, during a debate with his federal
 election opponent in the seat of Warringah, Zali Steggall. 

Abbott, who signed up to Paris when he was prime minister but then declared that Australia should pull out during the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull, confirmed he had changed his mind again during a debate on Friday morning with the independent challenger Zali Steggall and other federal election candidates in his seat of Warringah.

Asked by moderator David Speers if his change of heart was due to the ousting of Turnbull as prime minister, Abbott said it partly was.

“I certainly thought that the only way to break the emissions obsession was to pull out of Paris,” he said. “I think that the government has lost its emissions obsession now that Angus Taylor is the energy minister … Circumstances have changed. We have a new prime minister and a new energy minister.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Naaman Zhou - “Tony Abbott says no need to pull out of Paris climate agreement after all.”

(Tony Abbott would not be taking such a stance if he wasn’t feeling threatened by the arrival of Zali Steggall who has a clear policy on helping the residents of Warringah address and deal with climate change. Listen to Zali Steggall during an interview on Climate Conversations - Robert McLean)

It should not be up to Australia's schoolchildren to stop Adani

The Coalition government under Scott Morrison appears to have forgotten the first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging. It’s far too early to describe the Morrison government as terminal; the six months or so till a mooted May federal election is a long time in politics. But the government seems content to write off the message from Liberal voters in Wentworth and Victoria, particularly on climate change, because they do not represent its ‘base’. God only knows where the Liberal base is if it isn’t located in blue ribbon Liberal seats, but who are we to argue?

There were 114 fires burning across Queensland on Friday.CREDIT:

Coalition government policies under John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and now Scott Morrison have failed to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Australia’s emissions are rising when they should be falling. Worse, the Morrison government appears determined to back policies and projects that will increase emissions and fuel global warming.

Read the story from The Sydney Morning Herald by Ebony Bennett - “It should not be up to Australia's schoolchildren to stop Adani.”

Jane Caro poised to run against Tony Abbott in seat of Warringah

The author and commentator Jane Caro has confirmed she is seriously considering running against Tony Abbott for the seat of Warringah at the next election, and says it is her “duty”.

 The writer Jane Caro says she feels it is her ‘duty’ to run
against Tony Abbott as an independent in the seat of Warringah.

After the apparent victory of independent Kerryn Phelps in Wentworth on Saturday, other very safe Liberal seats – including that of the former prime minister’s seat on Sydney’s Northern Beaches – are now in the sights of prospective challengers.

On Saturday night Caro’s sister, a school principal, tweeted her in response to a call for Warringah candidates.

Caro responded: “Grew up there. Went to school there. Sent kids to school there. Live in neighbouring electorate. Anyone interested? Get in touch.”

Read the story from The Guardian by Helen Davidson - “Jane Caro poised to run against Tony Abbott in seat of Warringah."

The Morrison government’s biggest economic problem? Climate change denial

Last week Peter Costello accused Malcolm Turnbull of failing to develop an economic narrative to unite the Coalition. Turnbull promised this when he challenged Tony Abbott for the leadership of the Liberal Party, but, said Costello, it never came, and the result is a government struggling to manage deep differences over social issues. There was “jobs and growth”, but this is really just a goal without much of a story about how to get there, except for the company tax cuts.

The government’s stubborn commitment to coal is alienating
 it from its natural supporters in the business community.

The big question, though, is why the government does not have a coherent economic narrative.

One possible answer is that it has been too preoccupied with social issues such as religious freedom and before that, same-sex marriage, to give the economy sufficient attention. There is something in that.

Read what the Emeritus Professor of Politics, La Trobe University, Judith Brett, has written on The Conversation - “The Morrison government’s biggest economic problem? Climate change denial.”

Tony Abbott targets renewables subsidies in latest energy intervention

Tony Abbott has reignited his push to scrap subsidies for renewable energy, taking on the new energy minister, Angus Taylor, at his first meeting of the government’s backbench energy and environment committee on Tuesday.

Tony Abbott asked a number of questions about the
future of subsidies for renewable energy at a
backbench committee meeting.

Sources at Tuesday’s meeting have told Guardian Australia that the former prime minister, who joined the backbench committee as a voting member just before Malcolm Turnbull was deposed as part of efforts to sink the national energy guarantee, asked a number of questions about the future of subsidies for renewable energy, both for rooftop solar and the renewable energy target – but Taylor was not drawn.

During the discussion, the minister made the point that the schemes were in the process of winding down.

Read Katharine Murphy’s story from The Guardian - “Tony Abbott targets renewables subsidies in latest energy intervention.”

(Maybe Mr Abbott could also push for the scrapping of government subsidies for fossil fuels - Robert McLean)

‘Merchant banker gobbledigook’: Abbott lashes out

Tony Abbott has issued an extraordinary statement bashing his successor Malcolm Turnbull’s “merchant banker gobbledigook” after suffering a resounding defeat in the Coalition party room on energy.

The former PM could reportedly muster only four strong backers. 

The former prime minister went into Tuesday’s all-important meeting attacking Mr Turnbull’s proposed National Energy Guarantee policy as “very dangerous”, warning of higher power prices if a mandatory carbon reduction target was imposed.

It was a tactic that worked well in 2009, when Mr Abbott used internal dissent over Mr Turnbull’s backing of the Rudd government’s proposed emissions trading scheme to seize the leadership.

Read The New Daily story by Jackson Stiles - “‘Merchant banker gobbledigook’: Abbott lashes out.”

Advice for Tony Abbott in today's Age

Advice to Tony Abbott in today's Age - 

Tony Abbott urges withdrawal from Paris agreement, despite signing Australia up as PM

Tony Abbott, the prime minister who signed Australia up to the Paris agreement before losing the Liberal party leadership in 2015, now says Australia needs to pull out of the treaty to end “the emissions obsession that’s at the heart of our power crisis”.

Tony Abbott before his speech at the Australian
 Environment Foundation event in Melbourne urging Australia to abandon the Paris climate agreement.

In a significant escalation of his campaign against the national energy guarantee, and in an overt political attack on Malcolm Turnbull, Abbott used a speech to a group of climate sceptics on Tuesday night to claim he would not have signed up to the Paris treaty had he known the US would withdraw from it.

Despite saying in 2015 that Australia was making a “definite commitment” to a 26% reduction in emissions and “with the circumstances that we think will apply ... we can go up to 28%” – Abbott says now he didn’t anticipate, as prime minister, “how the aspirational targets we agreed to at Paris would, in different hands, become binding commitments”.

Read the story from The Guardian by Katharine Murphy - “Tony Abbott urges withdrawal from Paris agreement, despite signing Australia up as PM.”

Tony Abbott tells party he was misled by advisers over Paris climate deal

Tony Abbott has claimed he was misled by bureaucrats before he signed Australia up to the Paris international climate agreement in 2015 during another sortie by government conservatives against the national energy guarantee.

Tony Abbott - "mislead" about Paris climate agreement.

Opponents of the government’s energy policy used the opportunity of the regular Coalition party room to resume their attacks on the policy that goes to a critical meeting of state and territory energy ministers in early August.

With these two parliamentary sitting weeks the last remaining window for internal opponents to try and blow the policy off course, Abbott raised objections, as did Eric Abetz, Andrew Gee, Ian MacDonald and the voluble Liberal Craig Kelly.

Read Katharine Murphy’s story from The Guardian - “Tony Abbott tells party he was misled by advisers over Paris climate deal.”

Tony Abbott steps up attack on Malcolm Turnbull's climate plan

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told nervous Liberal and Nationals MPs that Australia must do its part to cut greenhouse gas emissions, as his predecessor Tony Abbott led another attack on the issue in the Coalition party room.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has again
questioned the Coalition's energy policy.

Mr Turnbull held the line on the government’s pledge to cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2030 under the National Energy Guarantee, against vocal concerns from six Liberal MPs, including Mr Abbott.

At one point Mr Abbott claimed he was “misled by bureaucrats” over the cost of the emissions cut he helped decide as Prime Minister in 2015, which was taken to the United Nations climate talks in Paris that year.

Read the story from The Age by David Crowe - “Tony Abbott steps up attack on Malcolm Turnbull's climate plan.”

The energy crisis is all about politics rather than supply

Australia relies more heavily on coal for its electricity than almost any other country in the world, yet we have some of the most expensive electricity in the world. Tony Abbott blamed the carbon tax for the rapid increase in the price of electricity, but its removal did nothing to stop the wholesale price of electricity from nearly doubling.

The May issue of The Monthly.

Australia is producing record amounts of gas, and soon we will become the world’s largest gas exporter. Yet the gas industry has told us that we have a “shortage” of gas. It assures us that the only solution is to allow even more fracking of coal seam gas on even more farmland. It’s the environmentalists who get the blame for high energy prices.

And despite the fact that the Turnbull government claims to be both short of cash and committed to tackling climate change, the Coalition plans to subsidise Adani’s enormous new export coalmine. Why are environmentalists opposed to it? You guessed it: because they are trying to ruin the economy.

It is often said that the Australian energy market is “broken”, but the market is working just as it was designed to. It’s not the market that is broken but the politics of energy.

Read the essay from The Monthly by Richard Denniss - “The energy crisis is all about politics rather than supply.”

Part-time bureaucrat on $205,000 resolved one wind farm gripe a week

Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew
Dyer receives an income of
$205,000 a year for his part-time
 role and has a staff of three
people to assist him.

A part-time bureaucrat in a role created by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott to appease wind farm critics earned $205,000 a year to resolve one complaint a week – most relating to wind farms that have not yet been built.

The revelations into the controversial wind farm commissioner are contained in a review by the Climate Change Authority. It said the commissioner had “exceeded expectations” and should continue for at least three years, with a bigger budget to also address public concerns about solar projects.

The taxpayer-funded commissioner role was established by Mr Abbott in October 2015 to monitor the wind industry and respond to community complaints about turbine noise and health effects. Mr Abbott called wind farms "visually awful" and noisy, and former treasurer Joe Hockey decried them as "utterly offensive”.

Official estimates put the cost of establishing the office and running it for three years at more than $2 million. The commissioner, Andrew Dyer, collects $205,000 a year for his part-time role and has a staff of three to assist him. He was appointed by former environment minister Greg Hunt.

Read the story from The Age by Nicole Hasham - “Part-time bureaucrat on $205,000 resolved one wind farm gripe a week.”

What’s really behind the pro-coal Monash Forum

When Malcolm Turnbull challenged Tony Abbott by invoking his 30th bad Newspoll, the primary vote for both Labor and the Liberals was 39 per cent. Abbott had crashed the Coalition’s primary vote to that level from 45.6 per cent on polling day in 2013.

Tony Abbott and Craig Kelly are two key members of the Monash Forum. 

And then a fortnight ago, the 29th losing Newspoll for Malcolm Turnbull recorded the Coalition’s primary vote even lower at 37 per cent, down from the 42 per cent achieved by the PM on polling day in 2016. Labor’s vote had improved from 34.7 per cent to 39 per cent over the same period.

Supporters of Tony Abbott aim to make the most of this synchronicity when Mr Turnbull’s 30th losing Newspoll appears on Monday. They kicked things off this week by confecting a test of Mr Turnbull’s leadership on energy policy aimed at chipping away the PM’s soft supporters to create momentum for a leadership challenge in May.

Read Paula Mathewson’s story from The New Daily - “What’s really behind the pro-coal Monash Forum.”

Tony Abbott-led push on energy policy struggles to find serious numbers to threaten PM

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is spurning a backbench push to ramp up support for coal as critics including Tony Abbott work to force a shift in direction on energy policy but struggle to secure widespread support.

Take my advice, mate: Malcolm Turnbull and local
 Norm Clarke at a community lunch in Brisbane.

The government is confident of sealing an agreement with the states within weeks on its National Energy Guarantee, clearing a key hurdle for national rules that require energy retailers to improve reliability and reduce emissions.

Mr Turnbull’s allies on Tuesday blamed a backbench “ginger group” for trying to undermine the Prime Minister ahead of any agreement, and the government's expected loss of its 30th Newspoll survey next week.

The rebel MPs claim 20 signatures or more for a statement that backs the use of coal for electricity generation and calls for an end to renewable energy subsidies, reviving demands they made in the Coalition party room last year.

Read David Crowe’s story from The Age - “Tony Abbott-led push on energy policy struggles to find serious numbers to threaten PM.”