If nothing else, the 6th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report should put an end to the nonsense from Canberra’s political journalists that “net zero by 2050” is in some way a meaningful benchmark of effective climate action.
The world now faces reaching 1.5 degrees of warming well before 2040 under all scenarios modelled by the IPCC working group, and two degrees between 2041-60 under three of them. Even under the second best scenario, we’re headed toward two degrees by the end of the century. For a country that, like so many others, is already suffering dramatic consequences from global heating, that’s a frightening prospect that bodes poorly for Australians’ living standards and health.
As has been clear from the significant lifting of commitments this year by countries uncorrupted by fossil fuel corporations, what we do between now and 2030 is crucial to locking in the least worst scenario modelled by the IPCC — in which the world briefly rises above 1.5 degrees but then slowly comes back down to just below it. The consequences of even that relatively limited rise in temperatures will play out for centuries and millennia.
But Australia remains among the climate denialists with its 2030 target — a meagre 26-28% on 2005 greenhouse gas levels, and we won’t come close to meeting that, however much Scott Morrison lies that we will. Far more dramatic action is required from one of the world’s most carbon-addicted economies — at least the 45% cut that Labor took to the 2019 election and has now abandoned.
We’re now left with the task of dramatically curbing emissions in a single decade, with the attendant economic and political consequences. In another world, we could have been looking at a full decade of the operation of the Gillard government’s efficient and effective carbon pricing mechanism that began reducing emissions with minimal impact on consumers and business. Instead we’ve wasted a decade as fossil fuel interests and the people they own in the Coalition, Labor, the union movement and the media have stymied action.
What makes our inaction all the more appalling is that the policy tools and the technological tools have all been available throughout that lost decade. Worse, our failure has come at a high opportunity cost. Former Liberal senator and businesswoman Sue Boyce, who crossed the floor with Judith Troeth to vote for the Kevin Rudd-Malcolm Turnbull version of an emissions trading scheme in 2009, argued succinctly back then that there were commercial advantages to moving early on climate action. Even the fossil fuel-aligned International Energy Agency has shown how a rapid take-up of renewables and phasing out of coal-fired power will still generate huge numbers of jobs.
The government’s response to the IPCC report was a mockery of the science. Scott Morrison said nothing in the wake of the report’s release. It was left to scandal-plagued Energy Minister Angus Taylor — currently working to force consumers to subsidise coal-fired power stations — to issue a contemptuous statement. “When it comes to emissions reduction, our record is one of delivery and achievement that Australians can be proud of. Our technology-led approach to reducing emissions will see Australia continue to play its part in the global effort to combat climate change without compromising our economy or jobs.”
Taylor and Morrison aren’t directly responsible for our lost decade. But they happily voted to repeal a highly effective carbon pricing scheme in 2014 and rose to senior positions in the years of inaction that followed — and which became, after Malcolm Turnbull’s ouster, a policy to support fossil fuels, written and purchased by big fossil fuel companies in a corrupt political system.
This half wit is MIA on every important issue. Did he really come home from Hawaii.
This fools actions are the gold standard of doing SFA and the list gets longer.
Fires, vaccines, women, Porter, Climate Change, water, dedicated
Covid19 quarantine centres and allowing our laws to appropriate First Nations culture. Please add to list.
This half wit is a traitor
He’s also criminally irresponsible, and should be tried and found guilty accordingly for being prepared to sacrifice future generations to lives of utter misery through to his, and his government’s inaction when it is so blatantly obvious he’s failed to address the issue, and has squandered all those opportunities we should have been benefitting from for decades.
Half? How do you figure that much?
There’s only one thing left to do… Everyone vote Green at the next election.
No! Both Green and Labor set aside their aspirational political obsessions and . . . Put OUR, Nation’s democracy FIRST. Both can revert to political games later. After Morrison’s LNP discarded. It’s all or ‘nothing’ this next election.
Agree. Vote Green at every available opportunity. The more Greens MPs we have in Canberra the less opportunity Liberal or Labor have of further screwing up this country and the planet. Both major parties have been ‘bought’ by the fossil fuel industries and are hamstrung as a result. We need to end the political donation system which is crippling and corrupting our democracy.
Ahh.. Greens primarily garner their new votes from disaffected Labor voters.
The election will again be won by the LNP.
If that’s you desired outcome go ahead.
I would advise that you vote Labor and preference the Greens.
The Greens will likely hold the balance of power in both houses, and the LNP would be put to the sword.
You seem not to understand how preferential voting functions so – “…vote the Greens
Laborand preference Laborthe Greens…” TFIFY.Frigid comfort, but the only good news is that in the years to come Morrison will be remembered for the corrupt politician that he and his is – that he’ll be remembered for “what not to do” – if too late.
And let’s not forget Angus Taylor- a corrupt liar, an entitled cheat, lining he and his family’s pockets at every opportunity wearing a mask of conservative prudence. Puh-lease—-
When you’re told what to do by your masters, (the fossil fuel lobby) you do what they want or they find someone who will.
Prime minister Joel anyone?
You make it sound so nasty, cheap and dirty, like “The Scott Morrison government turning ‘whatever’ tricks for their fossilised johns”?
And your objection is…?
Purely rhetorical.
I am hoping that the twin crises of Climate and Covid will be the end of this government, and the replacement team, once they have survived the election onslaught of Murdoch, Palmer and the usual suspects, might feel they have enough of a mandate to start acting in the country’s (and world’s) long term interests.