Climate Emergency Defined - Paul Gilding

The idea of declaring a Climate Emergency is as polarising as is climate change itself.

Breakthrough, Australia’s national Centre for Climate Restoration has asked the question: 

“What is a Climate Emergency and Does the Evidence Justify One?” and Paul Gilding, who 

has spent over 40 years trying to change the world, doing everything he can think of. 

Gilding has served in the Australian military, chased nuclear-armed aircraft carriers in small inflatable boats, plugged up industrial waste discharge pipes, been global CEO of Greenpeace, taught at Cambridge University, owned and run two ground-breaking sustainability-focused companies and been a close confidant and advisor to the CEOs of some the world’s largest companies.

His report, “Climate Emergency Defined” is, according to Breakthrough, a stark and confronting review of the evidence about the scale, timing and urgency of the risks posed by climate change and set out to determine whether an emergency response is both necessary and feasible.

 Download “Climate Emergency Defined” as published by Breakthrough, Australia’s National Centre for Climate Restoration, and written by Paul Gilding

‘Not up to it': Energy minister blasts power grid after blackouts to 200,000 Victorian households

Up to 200,000 Victorian households have been hit with rolling power outages, with the state's energy minister declaring the energy grid is not fit for modern living.

Victoria's Energy Minister Lily D'ambrosio says the situation
changed rapidly over the course of Friday as Victorians swelter
in unrelenting heatwave conditions.

Major outages at coal plants combined with wind farms operating well below capacity saw the energy market operator pull the plug on more than 60,000 customers.

Power distribution companies reported outages to more than double that number as the heat rose above 40 degrees early in the afternoon.

Read the story from The Age by Cole Latimer, Simone Fox Koob, Rachel Dexter and Liam Mannix - “‘Not up to it': Energy minister blasts power grid after blackouts to 200,000 Victorian households.”

“Degrowth in the Suburbs” is among the best books I have read

Declaring something “the best” is fraught with trouble.

Any suggestion that something, or someone, cannot be bested is a proposal riddled with potential difficulties in that it ignores the subjectiveness applied to such terms as best, worst, biggest, smallest, fastest, or slowest.

However, conscious of those constraints and having been deep in the climate conversation for more than a decade, the book “Degrowth in the Suburbs” is among the best I have read.

Authors and University of Melbourne compatriots Samuel Alexander and Brendan Gleeson have pooled their talents and copious environmental and social knowledge to give us a glimpse of how they see the future.

Both Alexander and Gleeson have individually put their names to several other books and both are linked to the university’s Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, the former as a research fellow and Gleeson as the director. Alexander is also a lecturer at the university’s Office of Environmental Programs.

The book, subtitled “A radical urban imaginary” first, considers turning the current energy-economic crisis around and, second, examines the opportunity of ‘degrowth in the suburbs’.

And what does all this mean for the readers of this newspaper, the people of the Goulburn Valley? 

Well, everything really. Alexander and Gleeson have outlined the challenges we face and yet equally skilfully avoided the apocalyptic doom and gloom messages of many counterparts, while all along making it clear that a safe a secure future rests with immediate and significant behavioural changes.

As good as the book is, it does not come cheap with the publishers Palgrave McMillan listing it at nearly $85, while Amazon sells their Kindle edition for $92.

Promotional material says: “This book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe, safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis.”

It continues, “The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal.

“This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.”

The authors argue that every generation has to accomplish democracy over again for itself and the idea was centre-of-mind, at least for me, during recent meet the candidates' events.

Was this about reinventing democracy, I thought as candidates for the recent State election articulated their views or was it simply the confirmation of the status quo?

It was pointedly the latter and, despite the rhetoric of the event’s organizers, those discussions contravened most everything Alexander and Gleeson wrote about in “Degrowth in the Suburbs” and illustrated that the essence of community has been hijacked by the idea of profit.

Most of us, it is obvious, are swathed in the modern ethos of profit regardless of the social and environmental costs.

Considering what I heard at the meet the candidates' events and what I know the reality to be, we need to pause, rethink our behaviours, consider the thoughts of the Melbourne authors and plot a course to a better life.

Why this council has declared a 'state of climate emergency

A NORTH Coast council has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of climate emergency.

Byron Shire councillor Cate Coorey said the decision was made in response to the latest emissions figures and the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Read the story from The Northern Star - “Why this council has declared a 'state of climate emergency.”

Morrison vows no money for climate conferences and “all that nonsense”

Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison has responded to the latest UN Intergovenmental Panel of Climate Change report by declaring that he had no intention of spending money on global climate conferences and “all that sort of nonsense.”

Australia's PM, Scott Morrision,
gazes lovingly at a piece of coal.

In an early morning interview with radio 2GB’s Alan Jones, where he also supported the push to advertise a horse race on “Australia’s biggest bill-board”, a reference to the sales of a building hitherto known as the Sydney Opera House, Morrison indicated Australia would resume its disruptive role in international climate talks.

He said Australia would not follow the US out of the Paris climate treaty – that would be catastrophic for Australia’s attempts to land a free trade deal with Europe and its ongoing relationship with Pacific neighbours – but it has no intention of increasing its current target of a 26-28 per cent cut in emissions by 2030.

This was despite the IPCC recommendations of decisive action, and a rapid phase out of fossil fuels, if the world was to meet the target of trying to limit average global warming to 1.5°C.

“We’re not held to any of (those recommendations) at all, and nor are we bound to go and tip money into that big climate fund,” Morrison told 2GB.

The participation of Australia and other wealthy countries in the Green Climate Fund is seen as critical to keep the Paris climate accord together, as it was a fundamental part of negotiations in the lead up to Paris in 2015.

Read the story by Giles Parkinson from RenewEconomy - “Morrison vows no money for climate conferences and “all that nonsense”.”

Business council faces negative ad blitz over criticism of 45% emissions target

The Business Council of Australia will find itself the target of a negative advertising campaign for declaring that an emissions reduction target of 45% would wreck the Australian economy.

The Australia Institute will run an ad campaign debunking a
Business Council of Australia claim that a 45% emissions
reduction target is ‘economy-wrecking’. 

With Labor planning to go to the federal election with an emissions reduction target of 45%, and the Coalition spoiling for a partisan fight, the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute will invest campaign resources in debunking a claim from the BCA that the proposed target is “economy-wrecking”.

In public statements in support of the Coalition’s now dumped national energy guarantee, a policy that included an emissions reduction target of 26% by 2030, the BCA described that level of abatement as “workable” but characterised Labor’s 45% alternative as “economy wrecking”.

Read the story from The Guardian by Katharine Murphy- “Business council faces negative ad blitz over criticism of 45% emissions target.”

Australia’s biggest mining states, ACT raise issues about energy plan

The Turnbull government’s hopes of securing an early ‘‘green light’’ to its landmark energy plan have received fresh setbacks, with Queensland, Western Australia and the ACT each declaring serious concerns about its design.

The federal government is seeking state and territory
support this Friday for its national energy guarantee.

The states object to the federal government’s proposed carbon emissions cuts and renewables targets, but energy minister Josh Frydenberg is confident his plan will progress past this Friday’s key meeting with state counterparts.

In their first responses to detailed papers on the National Energy Guarantee – a plan that aims to lower power prices, improve the grid’s reliability, and cut greenhouse emissions from the electricity sector – Queensland and Western Australia said key issues remain.

Read the story by Peter Hannam and Nicole Hasham from The Age - “Australia’s biggest mining states, ACT raise issues about energy plan.”

Former cyclone Gita sparks state of emergency in New Zealand

Grey District on the West Coast has followed Christchurch and Buller District in declaring a state of emergency as the remnants of tropical cyclone Gita bears down on central New Zealand.

Raroa Rd in Aro Valley, Wellington is closed as
power lines are felled by ex-Cyclone Gita.

The council says the declaration is precautionary at this stage as the worst of the weather is yet to arrive.

Residents have been urged to stay inside and not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

Earlier on Tuesday, a state of emergency was declared for Christchurch and Buller.

Read The Age story - “Former cyclone Gita sparks state of emergency in New Zealand.”

NGOs to Singapore banks: Act on climate change and stop funding coal

A few weeks after the Singapore government launched an initaitive declaring 2018 the Year of Climate Action, a coalition of international green groups has issued an open letter calling on the country’s powerful banks to stop financing coal power in Asia.

A dump truck at a coal mine owned by Banpu Public
 Company Ltd in a paddy field in Kerta Buana village
in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan. 

In a letter published on Wednesday, NGOs including Australia’s Market Forces, Friends of the Earth US and Japan, and Indonesian group Wahli said that if global warming is to be capped below 2˚C below pre-industrial levels to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, Singapore’s banks must follow the lead taken by their European and North American counterparts and stop funding new coal power plants. 

Read the Eco-Business story - “NGOs to Singapore banks: Act on climate change and stop funding coal.”

Louisiana, sinking fast, prepares to empty out its coastal plain

WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - Louisiana is finalising a plan to move thousands of people from areas threatened by the rising Gulf of Mexico, effectively declaring uninhabitable a coastal area larger than Delaware.

Flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey cover a road in Iowa,
 Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, on Aug 29, 2017

A draft of the plan, the most aggressive response to climate-linked flooding in the US, calls for prohibitions on building new homes in high-risk areas, buyouts of homeowners who live there now and hikes in taxes on those who won't leave. 

Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings' eventual demolition.

Read The Straits Times story - “Louisiana, sinking fast, prepares to empty out its coastal plain.”

‘Worst fears': States prepare to highlight the negatives in Turnbull's energy plan

The Turnbull government's national energy guarantee is set for a rocky reception when energy ministers meet in Hobart, with one state declaring new modelling confirmed its "worst fears", and another saying it was "deeply disappointing”.

Sunrise or sunset for coal-fired power: NEG would
 extend the life of aging fossil fuel plants. 

Federal Environment and Energy minister Josh Frydenberg will front the dinner on Thursday night and is expected to release a paper during Friday's talks that has yet to be shared with state and territory counterparts.

The federal government provided a summary of its modelling for the energy guarantee on Wednesday, claiming wholesale prices would be as much as 23 percent lower than business usual under the dual "guarantee" to cut emissions while improving reliability of the nation's ailing electricity grid.

South Australia Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis indicated his state would reject the plan, which needs consensus from all parties to proceed. For historical reasons, changes to the National Electricity Market also need to pass the SA parliament.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “‘Worst fears': States prepare to highlight the negatives in Turnbull's energy plan.”

The human face of climate change is often hidden

The noise of the melting, crashing glaciers
in Peru adds something of a "human face'.

The human face of climate change rarely shows itself in Australia, at least officially.

Australians, like most others in the world, are becoming normalized to the extreme and different weather that has become a constant companion around the world.

The recent super-cell storm that swept through Brisbane causing damage worth in excess of more than $1 million was described as a “freak storm”.

That, along the simple and definable things such as warmer night’s, which have the finger prints of climate change all over them, are simply morphing into becoming how things are meant to be.

Even though our scientists can clearly define the damage we have caused to earth’s atmosphere, few people are prepared to risk reputation in declaring such events as that in Brisbane as clear evidence of climate change.

Writing in the Age in a story headed: “Annual United Nations climate conference held in Peru, the human face of climate risks” Marcus Priest discusses the human face of climate change in Peru, the venue for next week’s annual United Nations climate conference.