Here are 5 ways to flatten the climate change curve while stuck at home

After the horrors of the last bushfire season, climate action in Australia seemed to have new momentum. But then coronavirus struck. All of a sudden, the public was preoccupied by a different catastrophe.

Flattening the climate change curve while stuck at home.

But one positive has emerged from the devastation wrought by coronavirus: our ability to radically shift social and economic systems when needed. It shows real action on climate change is possible, and should encourage us to work towards that even as we stay at home.

I must note here that for some people right now, the focus is on simply surviving. Increased domestic violence risk, housing insecurity, unemployment, mental health issues and other forms of marginalisation means many have little energy for activism. 

Read the story from The Conversation by a Lecturer from the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry art the Curtin University, Sky Crosier -  “Here are 5 ways to flatten the climate change curve while stuck at home.”

Climate Action’s response to COVID-19 and COP26 postponement

As you are probably well aware, late on Wednesday evening, COP26 President, The Hon. Alok Sharma announced a joint UK and UN decision to postpone the UNFCCC’s 26th Conference of Parties (COP26).

Given the current global health emergency, this might not come as a surprise to many.

First and foremost, our sympathies go to those who have already lost loved ones to COVID-19, and we extend our deepest thanks and to the amazing health service professionals and front-line workers who put their lives at risk on a daily basis.

Whilst COP26 has been postponed and environmental diplomacy seemingly put on hold, we cannot delay our commitments on climate action. We cannot postpone the climate emergency.

Read the statement by the founder and CEO of ClimateAction, Nick Henry - “Climate Action’s response to COVID-19 and COP26 postponement.”

Steggall's climate change bill just politics as usual

Climate action requires practical plans reflecting Australia's conditions to cut emissions, not flying more bureaucrats to international climate conferences.

Zali Steggall has crossbench support for her private climate change bill.

Last week independent federal MP Zali Steggall released a new climate change bill to be put to Parliament on March 23.

The bill's central purpose is to create a new climate change commission to advise government policy. There's just one problem. We already have one: the Climate Change Authority with the Chief Scientist on its Board.

It's alleged the proposed Commission is modelled on UK's Committee on Climate Change. That's misleading.

Read the story from The Age by Tim Wilson and Jason Falinski - “Steggall's climate change bill just politics as usual."

Thousands flock to second climate change rally in Melbourne

Thousands of protesters took to Melbourne’s streets for the second time in as many weeks demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and immediate action on climate change.

The protestors gathered at the State Library. 

As 15 bushfires continued to burn in Victoria, the crowd marched from the steps of the State Library, through the streets of the city, chanting "System change on climate change, shut the mines down" and "ScoMo ... we deserve a future too”.

Organisers estimated about 2000 people took to the streets.

Uni Students for Climate Justice co-convener Beth Jackson said their message was simple.

"We’re demanding that Scott Morrison be sacked, we’re demanding that the fossil fuel corporations that caused this pay a levy for what they’ve done, and we're demanding a complete transition to renewable energy," Ms Jackson said.

Read the story from The Age by Tate Papworth - “Thousands flock to second climate change rally in Melbourne.”

The gloves are off: ‘predatory’ climate deniers are a threat to our children

In this age of rapidly melting glaciers, terrifying megafires and ever more puissant hurricanes, of acidifying and rising oceans, it is hard to believe that any further prod to climate action is needed.

A child jumps from a rock outcrop into a lagoon
 in the low-lying Pacific island of Tuvalu.

But the reality is that we continue to live in a business-as-usual world. Our media is filled with enthusiastic announcements about new fossil fuel projects, or the unveiling of the latest fossil-fuelled supercar, as if there’s no relationship between such things and climate change. 

In Australia, the disconnect among our political leaders on the deadly nature of fossil fuels is particularly breathtaking.

Read the story from The Conversation by a Professorial fellow from the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, Tim Flannery -  “The gloves are off: ‘predatory’ climate deniers are a threat to our children.”

Can’t rely on governments alone': Atlassian leads push for staff to attend global climate strike

Tech giant Atlassian will encourage its 3500 employees to take part in this month's global strike for climate action in a move it hopes will reverberate through corporate Australia.

Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes says Australians
 can't rely on government "at all" on climate change.

The firm's billionaire co-founder, Mike Cannon-Brookes, said companies had to take their share of responsibility for the "climate crisis" and warned Australians in particular could not rely on governments "at all" to address the problem.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, he said prominent politicians such as Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who has been critical of corporate activism in the past, should "stick to [their] knitting", something Mr Dutton has previously told chief executives to do.

Millions are expected to walk out of work or school on September 20 as part of "Strike 4 Climate Action" – inspired by 16-year-old Swedish schoolgirl and activist Greta Thunberg – to demand global action on climate change ahead of a major United Nations summit in New York the following week.

Read the story from The Age by Michael Kozoil - “Can’t rely on governments alone': Atlassian leads push for staff to attend global climate strike.”

Government sits on secret modelling of climate policy costs

Controversial economist Brian Fisher has accused the Morrison government of failing to act transparently over secret modelling it commissioned on the costs of climate action, saying even he has not seen the findings despite contributing to the work.

Modelling on the costs of acting on climate change has
been a topic of hot debate throughout the election campaign. 

Debate has raged during the federal election campaign over the cost of taking meaningful action on climate change, fuelled by competing modelling that predicts wildly different outcomes for the economy.

Read the story from The Age by Nicole Hasham - “Government sits on secret modelling of climate policy costs.”

Daily Updates: what’s happening at COP24 this year?

I attended the huge march for climate action that took place on Saturday in Katowice, to demand action from country negotiators at COP24.

Reflecting the growing climate movement around the world, there was a strong youth presence at the march, with demands for urgent action from those with the power to protect younger people and future generations. Many international observers from NGOs who are participants at COP24 attended the march, along with environmental activists from around the world. The march was also extremely well attended by locals who want their country to give up its coal dependence for the sake of the planet and its people.

Read the report from Climate Counsellor Professor Hilary Bambrick -  “Daily Updates: what’s happening at COP24 this year?”

‘Jaw dropping': New Zealand offers lessons in tackling climate change

Scott Simpson, New Zealand's National Party environment spokesman, stunned a trans-Tasman investment meeting last week by stating that climate action was "too important to be playing politics with”.

Agriculture accounts for half of New Zealand's greenhouse
 gas emissions - and will be the central to that country's climate action.CREDIT:

Or rather, it was the Australian delegates who were shocked, so used are they to the toxic debates in Canberra.

"It made my jaw drop, that's for sure," said Emma Herd, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “‘Jaw dropping': New Zealand offers lessons in tackling climate change.”

The Global Climate Action Summit

The Global Climate Action Summit will bring leaders and people together from around the world to “Take Ambition to the Next Level.” It will be a moment to celebrate the extraordinary achievements of states, regions, cities, companies, investors and citizens with respect to climate action.

It will also be a launchpad for deeper worldwide commitments and accelerated action from countries—supported by all sectors of society—that can put the globe on track to prevent dangerous climate change and realize the historic Paris Agreement.

The decarbonization of the global economy is in sight. Transformational changes are happening across the world and across all sectors as a result of technological innovation, new and creative policies and political will at all levels.

States and regions, cities, businesses and investors are leading the charge on pushing down global emissions by 2020, setting the stage to reach net zero emissions by midcentury. 

Liberals have a responsibility too: make climate change a top issue

(In a brutal news sense, this story is a little dated, but the topic is as current as tomorrow - Robert McLean)

On Thursday when the announcement hit that Trump was taking America out of the Paris Climate Accord, my social media feed predictably blew up. As an environmental journalist with a lot of left-leaning friends, you can imagine what it looked like: anger, frustration, shock, sadness, another outrage from the world’s most outrageous leader. All of a sudden every one I knew was talking about climate change; I’ll admit it was a nice change of pace, but after nearly ten years of covering climate change I also knew it would be fleeting.

A firefighter carries a woman from her car after it was caught in street
flooding as a powerful storm moves across Southern California on
February 17, 2017 in Sun Valley, California. After years of severe drought,
 heavy winter rains have come to the state and the evacuation of hundreds
of residents from Duarte, California for fear of flash flooding from areas
denuded by a wildfire last year. Research has shown that California’s
drought was likely worsened by climate change. And climate change,
 as well, is also leading to heavier, more extreme rainfalls worldwide.

Liberals have been the champions of climate action for decades, but they’ve largely championed it as an afterthought, something that comes near the end of a long to-do list, like the brussels sprouts you conveniently forget to pick up at the grocery store (polling bears this out). When I bring up climate change during chats with left-leaning friends, I often get that pause – that suspended moment – when I can see someone in the group look askance. I can see what they’re thinking, “Again, Jeremy, with the climate change?”

Read the story on The Guardian by Jeremy Hance - "Liberals have a responsibility too: make climate change a top issue.”

A clean energy target is not 'unconscionable', Tony Abbott. Wrecking climate policy is

Tony Abbott has been an implacable force against rational climate action in this country for the best part of a decade, and nothing has changed.

‘Like an armchair general summoning a militia, using his
favoured media proxies as loud hailers, the former PM
has seeded a story that he might cross the floor.’

Having destroyed one set of energy policies designed to achieve orderly economic transformation and emissions reduction, and created a monumental policy botch-up as a consequence, he’s determined to destroy another.

After warming his vocal cords for months, Abbott now says it would be “unconscionable” for Malcolm Turnbull to “go further down the renewables path”. By this he means implement a clean energy target.

Let’s be very clear about this.

What is actually unconscionable, and I don’t invoke the word lightly, is Abbott’s own behaviour.

Let’s also be very clear about what is happening right now.

Read Katharine Murphy’s comment on The Guardian - “A clean energy target is not 'unconscionable', Tony Abbott. Wrecking climate policy is.”

Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial.

It is easy to understand why advocates for climate action have become somewhat dispirited in recent months. In the space of less than a year, we’ve seen the United States go from playing a leading role in international climate negotiations to now being the only nation in the world to renege on its commitment to the 2015 Paris climate accord.

It is in this environment of defeat and despair that we’ve witnessed a dramatic rise in the prominence of climate doomism — commentary that portrays climate change not just as a threat that requires an urgent response but also as an essentially lost cause, a hopeless fight.  Some of the more egregious examples can be found among fringe characters such as ecologist Guy McPherson —a doomist cult hero who insists that exponential climate change likely will render human beings and all other species extinct within 10 years.

Read the piece by Michael Mann in The Washington Post - “Doomsday scenarios are as harmful as climate change denial.”

Only A Fossil Would Fuel The World With Coal

President Donald Trump has announced the US will be seeking to renegotiate the Paris climate accord. It sounds like big news. The kind of news that can be depressing for the wonderful people working to secure climate action. But it isn't all doom and gloom. A set of powerful realities mean that our destination has been set, we're just not sure how we're going to get there yet.

Simon Sheikh, his wife Anna Rose, who was brought
to Shepparton in 2013 to talk about climate change
at and event organised by Slap Tomorrow, and
their son, Robbie.

The first reality is that the US has confirmed it will adhere to the legal terms embedded in the Paris accord. This means that the US will not actually leave the Paris accord until November 2020 (which happens to be the same month as the next US election). And even when (or perhaps we should say 'if') the US leaves, the legal mechanism will survive, with more than 140 countries having ratified the Paris accord.

More importantly, China and the European Union have confirmed that their intentions are to uphold their Paris commitments. Both have booming renewable energy industries that are out-competing their US counterparts. Indeed, the global renewable energy sector is now a $1 trillion industry -- it's hard to ignore how quickly it's growing.

Read the story by the managing director and founder of Australia’s Future Super and former national director of GetUp, Simon Sheikh, on the Huffington Post - "Only A Fossil Would Fuel The World With Coal.”

Call for better climate action

Australian shoppers and farmers will need to band together to protect the country’s food supply, according to the newly appointed Australian Farmers for Climate Action chief executive officer.

"When it comes to understanding how growers are
affected by extreme weather events, climate change
offers the perfect talking point."

Verity Morgan-Schmidt said climate change presented an opportunity for farmers to better connect with consumers who bought and enjoyed Australian-grown produce.

‘‘Climate change could serve as a huge wake-up call for consumers in understanding the entire paddock to plate process,’’ Mrs Morgan-Schmidt said.

‘‘When it comes to understanding how growers are affected by extreme weather events, climate change offers the perfect talking point.

‘‘I’d love it if all mums and dads, when picking up their groceries, understood what’s going on out on our farms so that when there’s a drought in the Wimmera, for example, shoppers in the supermarket know that’s the reason why their bread is a bit more expensive this month.’’

She warned politicians of all stripes that the time for delay on the issue of climate change was over.

Read the Country News story - “Call for better climate action.”

Farmers for Climate Change gets a chief executive

THE NATIONAL group Farmers for Climate Action has appointed a its inaugural chief executive.

Verity Morgan-Schmidt.

Verity Morgan-Schmidt, who resides on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, has stepped into the role.

Farmers for Climate Action is an associate member of the National Farmers Federation. It reports 2000 members from across the country.

It is focused on lobbying for political action to tackle global warming, investment in research, development and implementation of climate adaptation measures, increasing on-farm use of renewable energy and developing opportunities for producers in carbon markets.

Read Mick Foley’s story on farmonline - “Farmers for Climate Change gets a chief executive.”

Victoria steps up climate ambition. Turnbull takes two steps back

Victoria steps up, and the Turnbull
Government steps back.

As an increasingly divided Turnbull government rules out any new policy tools to cut power sector emissions or boost renewable energy development, Victoria’s Labor government has upped the ante on climate action, pledging to cut state emissions by up to 20 per cent within three years on the road to its ultimate target of zero net emissions by 2050.

The new interim target, announced by Victoria’s energy and climate minister Lily D’Ambrosio on Sunday, aims to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by between 15-20 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020.

Details on how the Andrews government aims to meet that target were released alongside the party’s Climate Change Framework, which maps out a plan to 2020 to put it on track for its 2050 goal.

As has been noted, the majority of the 2020 target will be met through the March closure of the state’s Hazelwood coal power station, following a decision made by the plant’s French owners, Engie, last year. But it will also require other cuts through energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.

Read the RenewEconomy story - “Victoria steps up climate ambition. Turnbull takes two steps back.”

In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo

Marianne Lavelle - climate
action now upside down.

Donald Trump's astonishing victory has turned the world of climate action upside down, setting back U.S. environmental policy and threatening the international drive to cut carbon pollution and slow global warming.

The stunning upset by Trump, who has routinely suggested that climate change is a hoax, threatens to unravel President Obama's climate action agenda, built on executive orders and regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon clampdown at power plants. Trump has vowed to "cancel" the Paris climate agreement, but could cripple it by merely retreating from the U.S. commitment. As the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution, the U.S. could render the global treaty meaningless, at a time when scientists are urging nations to quickly raise their ambition, or risk an escalating climate crisis.

Leading up to the election, the gulf between Trump and Hillary Clinton on climate and energy was wide and the stakes couldn't have been higher. But the campaign was not fought on those issues. And despite environmental groups pouring an enormous amount of money and people power into the race, they were unable to break through with the message that climate action is urgent.

Read the Inside Climate News story by Marianne Lavelle - “In Trump, U.S. Puts a Climate Denier in Its Highest Office and All Climate Change Action in Limbo.”

Australian climate inaction might mean ejection and pariah status: letter

Anglesea’s Andrew Laird wrote thoughtful comments in today’s Melbourne Age articulating his concerns that the Turnbull-led Australian Government is doing little or nothing about meaningful climate action.

We will, according to Andrew, soon be “ejected and accorded pariah status” from among those nations actively working to counteract climate change.

Here is his letter:

 

End climate silence: The most important thing you can do to fight global warming

People often ask me what is the most important thing they can personally do bring about climate action. The answer is both simple and hard: Talk about climate change and its solutions with everyone you know a lot more than you are doing now.

The need to have more conversations about an uncomfortable subject is, I believe, one of two crucial messaging lessons the climate movement can learn from the LGBT community. The other is to focus on the immorality of inaction.

The result, according to experts on climate communications at George Mason University (GMU) and Yale University, is a “spiral of silence” in which “even people who care about the issue, shy away from discussing it because they so infrequently hear other people talking about it — reinforcing the spiral.”

I think it’s even worse than that. Humans use many shortcuts to deal with the overwhelming amount of information we must process (see Nobelist Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow).

Read the ThinkProgress story by Dr Joe Romm - “End climate silence: The most important thing you can do to fight global warming.”