Mary Robinson on climate change: ‘Feeling “This is too big for me” is no use to anybody’

On the morning that the world’s leading climate scientists warn that the planet has until 2030 to avert a global warming catastrophe, Mary Robinson appears suitably sombre. She wears black shoes, black trousers and a black sweater and perches at the end of a long table at her climate justice foundation, headquartered in an austere, imposing Georgian building opposite Trinity College Dublin. The only dash of brightness is a multicoloured brooch on her lapel. “It symbolises the sustainable development goals,” she says. “It’s the one good emblem that the United Nations has produced, so I like to wear it.”

 ‘Human rights has always been a struggle’ ...
Mary Robinson in her office in Dublin.

There seems little reason for cheer on this Monday. The landmark report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just warned that urgent, unprecedented changes are needed to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C; even half a degree beyond this will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people. Donald Trump, rejecter of the Paris climate agreement, is riding high on the back of Brett Kavanaugh’s elevation to the US supreme court. Britain and the EU are consumed by Brexit. Brazil is on course to elect a president who wants to open the Amazon to agribusiness. Closer to home, the Irish government is flunking its climate policy goals. Now, climate scientists warn that the clock ticks ever closer to midnight.

Read the story from The Guardian by Rory Carroll - “Mary Robinson on climate change: ‘Feeling “This is too big for me” is no use to anybody’.”

Bill Shorten: 'We've got to end the climate change war'

Bill Shorten has signalled Labor will keep the national energy guarantee and maintain subsidies for households and businesses to install small-scale renewable energy until 2030, as the shadow cabinet prepares to deliberate on energy policy.

 Bill Shorten says he is doing the things he entered politics to
achieve by ‘trying to improve the things that need improving’.

In a wide-ranging interview marking five years as opposition leader, Shorten also revealed Labor was in talks with the Australian Medical Association about conditions on Nauru, and indicated announcements were coming imminently on what he termed “progressive trade policy”. Some leftwing unions are in open revolt about the party’s decision to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

Shorten all but confirmed Labor would keep the Neg, telling Guardian Australia “we would like to keep that and make it work”. The Coalition has abandoned the energy policy for the electricity sector it championed for months, rendering the prospect of bipartisan agreement highly unlikely, but Shorten said if Labor was blocked in trying to revive the Neg, “we’ll look at other solutions”.

Read Katharine Murphy’s story from The Guardian - “Bill Shorten: 'We've got to end the climate change war’.”