Yahoo Finance The Coalition isn't being honest about the climate crisis. But neither is Labor
On the weekend I flew up to Sydney to attend a conference held by the Chifley Research Centre, the ALP’s thinktank. As the plane approached Sydney, the site of the fire front in the Blue Mountains was stomach-churning. And then I got to experience the air quality of Sydney that has become news around the world.
Upon returning to Canberra, I discovered a wind change had meant the nation’s capital was now enveloped in a haze of smoke – and expected to be so for the rest of the week.
This, I need not tell you, is not normal.
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Because of climate change, areas of south-eastern Australia are going to be drier and hotter, the times for doing preventative hazard reduction burning will shrink, and as a result our fire seasons will become longer, and the fires will become more intense.
This is due to one thing – climate change.
The only way to prevent this is to reduce our emissions and to pressure the rest of the world to reduce emissions as well.
We are not doing either of those things.
Last week the latest emissions projection figures came out. They show that, even with some pretty courageous hopes for electricity generation, we will still be 13% above the minimum target set by the LNP to meet our Paris objective:
And remember, those targets work off a 2005 base year that includes land use, which makes them largely a joke – as much of a joke as our Kyoto target, which also included land use and worked off the base year of 1990.
If we exclude land use (which is essentially land-clearing and planting of trees), our emissions in 2030 are currently projected to be the same as our 2005 levels – not 26% below, let alone the ALP’s target of 45%.
Little wonder that the rest of the world are currently trying to prevent Australia from using “carryover credits” from our Kyoto commitment to count towards our Paris target.
This matters because the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has argued that to ensure temperatures don’t rise by 1.5C we need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030.
That is real emissions, not fake emissions using dodgy land use accounting and carryover credits.
We are not even close to achieving that.
It is a failure that should shame the LNP, and yet ...
Here’s a dirty secret – there are two reasons the LNP has a joke of a climate change policy: they are full of climate change deniers, and secondly there is zero pressure from the ALP for them to develop one.
The ALP remains far more worried about looking like it is attacking people who work in coalmines than getting on the front foot on climate change.
It is 2019 and the leader of the ALP is now repeating lines about our exports of coals that Tony Abbott used.
It is 2019 and the ALP acts as if putting a price on carbon is the most radical and politically horrific idea ever conceived (and never shows any pride that the carbon price introduced under Gillard was one the biggest economic reforms of the past 40 years).
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Ask yourself who in the ALP – even some young backbencher or senator – is pushing so hard on climate change policy that the leaders are wishing he or she might tone it down a little? Who is pushing so hard that young people are cheering when they see she or he at a climate change rally?
Much easier is to find one who tells us we need to worry about coal exports and coalminers.
The ALP cannot afford to play games on this issue. You can’t say climate change is real and then ensure your messaging is about protecting coal.
Voters can tell straight away you’re only trying to look like you think climate change is real, and why should they vote for that? They might as well vote for the party that is at least upfront about its denial.
Because if climate change is real, then what the hell are you talking about? Don’t come at me with “oh, but our coal is cleaner” unless you want to sound like a coal-company spruiker, and to be honest I’d prefer you wait until you leave parliament and take up that role officially than do it while still being an actual MP.
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Of course we do need to think about those who will be affected by mine closures, but cripes, there is no pressure, no impetus and no real commitment from the ALP right now on an issue that is causing children and elderly to have to stay inside because of worries about air quality.
What are they waiting for?
I suspect they are waiting for the fires to end and the smoke to blow away so that people stop worrying about the issue, because too many in the ALP have taken the position that climate change is a vote loser.
Instead it should be a rallying call.
We have real evidence, real concern, and we have the Liberal party with the most pathetic policy imaginable.
If the ALP can’t make this a winner, then what hope is there for it?
At this point I’ll just pause to show you some graphs. I realise these will not convince many that climate change is real, but I’ll still put the facts out there.
This year will be the second hottest on record, the past five years contain the five hottest on record, the past 10 years contain eight of the hottest year on record, the past 20 years (ie every year this century) contain 19 of the hottest 20 years:
I have always tried to come up with ways to display the data so that people can grasp it personally. One way is to look at it from the perspective of your own age. (The ABC has also done some excellent work using this method).
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If you were born in 1946 (ie the first lot of baby boomers), only around 40% of the first 16 years of your life was a childhood with above-average temperatures. If you were a Gen Xer like me born in 1972, then 78% of your first 16 years was a world with above-average temperatures.
If you were a child of Gen Xers, like my 16-year-old daughter, 100% of your life has been in the world with above-average temperatures:
If we use the linear trend of the past 16 years, it means we will hit 2C above pre-industrial levels in 2052. If we use the more likely exponential trend, my daughter will get to experience 2C when she is 38 years old:
I guess I could try to tell her that the climate in her life has been an aberration, but because she is not stupid she will tell me I am lying – much like politicians who say we need to act but without urgency, or that we can do it in a manner that won’t cause too much disruption.
This is a crisis. Be honest about what that means.
2041 is not science-fiction levels of futurism. It is closer to us than the election of the Howard government in 1996 was to now.
Time moves fast, but unfortunately our climate-change policy is not moving at all.
• Greg Jericho writes on economics for Guardian Australia
