13 December 2018

Disappointments


It's unfair to the ANU and its excellent gatherings concerning Climate change but I was disappointed. They run a range of events. This one was entitled "Australia's prospects for a credible energy and climate change policy?" Note the question mark. It's a measure of our lack of success over the years, back since Keating. It's become a culture war issue so I hear the ABC (another culture war issue) can't even get the Federal Environment Minister to speak from the major international forum (Katowice Climate Change Conference, Dec 2018). But the LNP has problems with cc and she's ex-coal industry. So much for Katowice and the future of humanity. I guess I would just be ridiculed after such a statement (I was just recently) but I'm conservative enough to accept our Enlightenment institutions, like science. It's the deniers who are off with the fairies and into conspiracies. But despite the ANU convening this event, I was disappointed because that very issue of survival of civilisation, of the future, was absent. Admittedly, it was a discussion elsewhere, of the possibilities of a deranged politics, but only on the last question did someone ask about the cost of doing nothing, or too little. It is immense, of course, but the economist - again ANU and impressive - could only come at mechanics, as necessary as that is, without the balance of short- and long-term costs. They must be there, they are there, but I didn't hear them. And the woman from the BCA who was all pro-market, pro-cc-response, but forgetful of their quite recent history. Weren't they with Abbott against Gillard and carbon costs? The one who did impress with some expression of urgency and awareness of the existential menace of it all and its earlier-than-expected arrival, was Tony Wood of the Grattan Institute. The GI had arranged the event with ANU. Suitably, the moderator, ANU Energy Change Institute Director Ken Baldwin, also displayed some of this awareness, or perhaps we should read "fear". As in "approaching the climate change point of no return" / Jerzy Duszyński, President, Polish Academy of Sciences, or "When it comes to climate change, we're faced with a physical, moral, and philosophical crisis" / Patricia Espinosa, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, or "Avoiding the worst impacts of climate change will require rapid and deep decarbonization in all sectors, within a very short timeframe" / Laurence Tubiana, CEO, European Climate Foundation, or "the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon" / David Attenborough, or the Parties’ commitments under the Paris Agreement represent “one third of what is needed", and further, "We are running out of time. To waste this opportunity would compromise our last best chance to stop runaway climate change. It would not only be immoral, it would be suicidal." / Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General. There's more of course. Australia as 55th in 58 (Climate Change Performance Index**) countries for responding to cc; Trump as questioning the science because the weather was chilly that week. So what did our presenters discuss? CC at heart a political challenge ("we're not short of policies"); this mess has many parents; cc as a surrogate for politics in the LNP; what have Labor/Greens/business learned; where to go now ... await the election. Discussions on targets, business support, pricing carbon, narratives by pollies to the public, equity, "profit through confusion", technology as a rescue. I could only sit stunned as AMP was offered as an example of success in a discussion on carbon financialisation (think Banking Royal Commission). But oddly there was expressed some optimism "despite ... the childish silliness of the last 10 years". I'll believe it when I see it.

Australia’s prospects for a credible energy and climate change policy? was convened by the Grattan Institute at the National Library with moderator Ken Baldwin (ANU) and speakers Tony Wood (Grattan Institute), Jessica Wilson (BCA) and Warwick McKibbin (ANU).

  • **Climate Change Performance Index
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