Defining clean to include dirty

Federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg yesterday revealed that the government is considering changing the mandate of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to allow it to invest in coal-fired power generation.

Making dirty clean with the stroke of a pen.

 

The CEFC’s purpose is to promote renewable and clean energy. Needless to say, coal is neither renewable nor clean. In an ordinary cabinet of a well-functioning government, an environment minister would step in at this point to strenuously oppose such a proposal on the grounds of, well, everything.In the Turnbull government, Frydenberg is also the environment minister. 

The “new” coal-power stations that he and his colleagues tout are marginally (around a quarter) less dirty than the dirtiest old ones, still dirtier than gas and significantly more emissions-heavy than the current CEFC investment guidelines allow. In other words, the government proposes to redefine clean to include dirty. 

Read The Monthly story - “Defining clean to include dirty.”

Two scientists' concerns over years of climate inaction

Precisely how the incoming Trump administration will deal with climate change remains uncertain. But Donald Trump’s statements during the campaign and since his election – and also his Cabinet nominations and his immediately purging the whitehouse.gov website of climate science information – signal, at a minimum, that he will not make addressing climate change a priority.

And that the administration likely will move to shelve federal government mitigation efforts.

Throughout his campaign and during the transition leading up to his January 20th inauguration, Trump frequently had been dismissive of the science and bullish on coal and fossil fuels generally. Proponents for aggressive action and many in the climate science research community have expressed increasing concerns.

In recent months, two climate modelers – Ben Sanderson, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colorado, and Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, Switzerland – examined how Trump administration inaction and actions might influence future planetary warming. They concluded that a four- or eight-year delay in mitigation could lead to substantially exceeding global temperature limits for dangerous levels of emissions and concentrations, perhaps indefinitely.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story - “Two scientists' concerns over years of climate inaction.”

Governance critical to climate change response

G

overnance at every level is critical to Australia’s response to climate change.

John Menadue - he's concerned
about lobbyists.

That governance, however, is being corrupted by the lobbyists, secret and otherwise, who have infiltrated the highest levels of our democracy, and rarely with intentions to boost the efforts of those advocating action to avoid climate change.

Former Secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, John Menadue, has written in today’s Melbourne Age about the corruption of democracy in Australia by paid lobbyists.

His story - “How the rise of the lobbyist is corrupting Australia's democracy” – illustrates how lobbyists stand between climate advocates and a meaningful conversation with federal politicians.