In The Daily Fix, Crikey taps into the wisdom of experts and community leaders to find solutions to problems. This week: climate change.
The first thing: put a ban on all new fossil fuel development of any kind. Just ban them. So that includes unconventional gas, coal, conventional gas.
It doesn’t matter if it’s domestic or export, just ban every new fossil fuel development, that’s the only way we can possibly get the climate system back under control.
Then the next thing, over the next 20 to 25 years, is to phase out the ones that do exist, to give yourself time to replace them with renewables and put in place new transport systems and things like that.
But the first thing we must do, today, is stop all new developments.
Will Steffen is a Climate Councillor and ANU emeritus professor.
Agreed. No argument.
How?
Exactly Graeski. Those proposing stopping, or reducing fossil fuel production have the right idea but in the same breath,need to suggest HOW it can happen.
ALP – this means you. The Greens also need further specific transition ideas and pragmatic steps.
There is a helluva amount of hard work and consultations to be done by political parties before they have credibility. This will take political guts – are they up to it?
Transition steps, workforce retraining, renewable industry incentives, proposed Regional hubs or regional manufacturing centres, , Defined energy policy promoting renewables, etc. etc.
Without a communicated planned transition , workers currently in the fossil fuel industry are rightly anxious about their jobs, and easily scared. The failure of car industry workers over 45 to find a job is a recent example.
I’m really not sure about this new section of daily fixes. They seem to be thought bubbles with little practical application. Yesterday Peter Singer claimed people were switching to plant based diets so fast we might get limits placed on agriculture emissions. Really? Today, on fossil fuels, ‘Just ban them’.
Now I notice this is a direct contradiction to the first daily fix, which advocated for a step change, sensibly managed.
I think I’d rather have sporadic thoughtful fix suggestions than these daily pot shots. They’re attention thieves.
I agree with depository’s comment. If you’re going to have a daily fix, it needs to be something simple and practical.
I don’t blame the contributors – there is no way their message can be distilled into a few sentences. If you’re going to include ‘fixes’ like plant-based diets or abolish fossil fuels, then there needs to be a link to the more in-depth argument.
We need a better thought out plan than just banning fossil fuels. We need to transition to new fuels, like hydrogen and we need to do so asap with backing from government.
But the signs are not good, even though we have this ‘hydrogen strategy’ its just about putting a green coat on the dirty fossil industry. There are no plans to produce hydrogen from renewables.
The 2 future energy lanes for hydrogen according to Dr Finkel are hydrogen from coal and hydrogen from gas … essentially pegging the price of hydrogen to fossil fuels and keeping the fossil industry alive and kicking. There is no future lane way predicted for hydrogen from renewables according to Dr Finkel
Not looking great in the EU either with deal to spend €29 billion on 32 major gas infrastructure projects that will lock Europe into burning fossil fuels for generations. And of course in the USA we are stuck with Trump. And we export much of our CO2 and pollution to China so they can make our shit cheaply. It’s not looking good there either.
The poison breathing fossil industry isn’t going anywhere currently.
It is true that a vital early step to zero emissions by say 2050 is stopping new FF developments.
Anywhere around the world if a country isn’t targeting (at least net) zero carbon emissions by 2050 or earlier they are only pretending to meet their Paris goals.
If they don’t have a “no new FF developments” policy, they are being deceptive and will be very unlikely to reach zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Currently I believe many more countries have neither target or policy than countries that have both. Limiting temperature rise to 2C requires a big turnaround with this figure.
It’s the first rule, isn’t it. When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
It’s so plainly axiomatic that most people can’t see it.