Australia isn't doing its part for the global climate. Sooner or later we’ll have to pay our share

As the Australian election approached, the UK parliament declared a national climate emergency. Perhaps, with a different electoral outcome, Australia would have followed suit. Instead, at least for the next three years, we will ignore the emergency while chasing the mirage of coalmines promising to create thousands of jobs.

‘The coal boom of the last decade will fade away, whatever Australian
 governments do. By contrast, the climate emergency is not going away.’

That mirage began to fade almost immediately with the announcement that the China Stone project, right next to Adani’s Carmichael mine project in the Galilee Basin, had suspended its bid for mining leases. Other projects in the basin have been on hold for years.

Read the story from The Guardian by John Quiggin - “Australia isn't doing its part for the global climate. Sooner or later we’ll have to pay our share.”

Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather

He once dismissed it as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to destroy American jobs, but right now Donald Trump is pining for some of that “good old global warming”.

 Climate scientists have long warned against using individual
weather events to assess global warming, but now
 Donald Trump wants some "good old global warming".

While on holiday in Florida on Thursday, the US president wondered whether global warming might not be such a problem after all.

As severe cold and record amounts of snow sweep across the US east coast, Trump wrote on Twitter that the country “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”. 

“Bundle up!” he added.

Read Michael McGowan’s story on The Guardian - “Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather.”

‘Rocketing': Australia's clean energy rebounds from setbacks, heads for record year

Australia's clean energy sector is heading for a record year for new solar and wind farms, generating thousands of jobs in regional areas and bringing the 2020 Renewable Energy Target within range.

Renewable energy's new dawn in Australia as uncertainty clears. 

The Clean Energy Council's annual report released on Tuesday shows the country generated about 17,500 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy last year, more than half way to the 2020 goal of 33,000 GW-hours a year.

A surge in new investment starting in late 2016 will see a record amount of new large-scale solar and wind added to the grid this year, with about 4000 direct jobs already added so far in 2017.

"We're really rocketing into and through 2017," Kane Thornton, the council's chief executive, said. "It's a major turnaround.

Read Peter Hannam’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “‘Rocketing': Australia's clean energy rebounds from setbacks, heads for record year.”

Apprehension about climate change at community forum was unfounded

Apprehension was the prevailing sense walking into the lecture room this week at the Tatura offices of the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources (DEDJTR).

Tuesday night’s forum at the Tatura centre, commonly known as the Tatura Agricultural Research Centre, has been set up to allow the community to comment on what is being proposed as strategic directions for ‘Water for Victoria”.

The Tatura forum was one of 16 organized through the state to allow public input into the “Water for Victoria” discussion paper.

Fewer than 30 people were at the Tatura forum, and of those several were directly connected with organizers or from local or State Government organizations intimately involved with the maintenance and supply of water.

A few were farmers or had a direct connection with the commercial use of water.

An interest in climate change and its direct impact on water made it impossible to not attend.

Having been involved in previous conversations at which the attendees had similar characteristics, it seemed likely that climate change would quickly be dispensed to the “of little consequence” category, but surprisingly, that was not the case.

Many aspects of water were discussed during the two-hour workshop, but as had often been the case in previous similar discussions, climate change was discussed seriously and several people appeared to believe that the crisis that is climate change needed to be either at the top or close to the top of hierarchy of matters warranting attention when considering “Water for Victoria.”

Although, it is near too late, the serious of climate change and the need for it to be attended to appears to be gaining traction.

-       Robert McLean.

Taking climate talks beyond 'the big tent'

E

arlier this summer I helped to organize the March for Jobs, Justice & the Climate — an action that brought more than 10,000 people to the streets of Toronto in one of the largest and most diverse climate mobilizations in Canadian history.

More than 100 organizations supported the march — from national environmental groups to labor unions to the indigenous rights’ movement Idle No More to Toronto-based groups tackling poverty, food justice and migration. It was, as Naomi Klein put it, the “first steps of a new kind of climate movement” that reached beyond the traditional boundaries of the environmental movement.

Read Cam Fenton’s story - “Why the climate movement needs to move beyond the ‘big tent’”.

Victoria unveils its 'Renewable Energy Roadmap'

T

he Government is rebuilding Victoria's reputation as the nation’s leader for renewable energy, by unveiling its Renewable Energy Roadmap.

The Roadmap sets out the Government's plan to attract Victoria’s share of renewable energy investment and jobs in Australia by 2020.

The Government has also launched an initiative to source renewable energy certificates from new projects in Victoria, bringing forward around $200 million of new investment in at least 100 megawatts of renewable energy projects.

Check out “Victoria's Renewable Energy Roadmap”.

Mitigation hostage to profit and growth

Mitigation of the world’s CO2 emissions is hostage to the capitalist profit and growth scenario.

Evidence of that can be seen today in a Melbourne Age today by environment reporter, Tom Arup, headed “Australian coal mining threatens CO2 target”.

Arup talked with the chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, Mitch Hooke, who pointed out, and probably correctly, that the proposal to stop Australia’s coal exports wouldn’t stop global coal use.

He said such a move, “Will just send Australian jobs offshore and deprive state and federal governments of billions in revenue.”

Hooke is correct, but someone, somewhere has to illustrate the courage and clarity of thinking to make decisions and take action to begin to end the pollution of our atmosphere.

Many would argue: “Why us?” and a reasonable response is “Why not?”

Undoubtedly the advocates of the continued mining, sale and use of coal could easily produce and array of catastrophic figures illustrating how and end to Australia’s coal exports would mean an end to modern Australia.

Equally those who advocate societal changes aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change could equally easily illustrate that the maintenance of a pattern that was simply business as usual will decimate Australian society,

The argument of the coal lobby is based on rude, brute figures that enforce costs against the commons while those attempting to mitigate climate change use science, reason and logic to illustrate their argument.

Science, reason and logic trump profit and growth.

At some stage, someone must ”draw first” – someone, somewhere has to decide that the welfare of our planet, and by implication the life that depends upon it, are more important than profit and growth.