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.”

New UN report outlines ‘urgent, transformational’ change needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C.

A landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, commissioned at the breakthrough 2015 summit that brokered the Paris climate agreement, outlines what’s at stake in the world’s bid to limit global temperature rise to 1.5℃.

The report, released today, sets out the key practical differences between the Paris agreement’s two contrasting goals: to limit the increase of human-induced global warming to well below 2℃, and to “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5℃.

Read the report from The Conversation by Mark Howden and Rebecca Colvin - “New UN report outlines ‘urgent, transformational’ change needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C.”

Back to square one in energy policy: we now have a plan to produce a plan

A year and a day — that’s how long it took Frydenberg to kill off “Finkel”.

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull (left) and federal environment
and energy minister John Frydenberg during a press conference
at parliament house in Canberra on 17 October 2017.

On 7 October 2016, just nine days after a series of tornados took out at least 22 transmission pylons in South Australia and set off a cascading series of events resulting in a state-wide blackout, federal environment and energy minister John Frydenberg commissioned chief scientist professor Alan Finkel to review the stability of our energy system. Finkel’s expert team met with regulators around the world, considered 390 submissions, held 120 meetings and commissioned modelling from multiple experts.

On 8 October this year, word trickled out that the clean energy target (CET), Finkel’s centrepiece, was dead.

A week later, Frydenberg announced the national energy guarantee (Neg). In just three weeks, with no public process, no modelling, no consultation with the Coag energy council, whose approval it requires, the newly formed Energy Security Board (ESB) had knocked together an alternative “conceptual framework”, described in an eight-page letter and a media release, that proposes to push responsibility for reliability and emissions reduction to electricity retailers.

Read the story by Simon Holmes à Court on The Guardian - “Back to square one in energy policy: we now have a plan to produce a plan.”