Climate Council - thegoodwills.com

Climate Crisis on Election Back-burner

climate-crisis-election — Coal-fired power station in Germany – Catazul www.pixabay.com

My reading of election coverage (such as it is), is that both major parties have shuffled the climate crisis to the back burner. It must be crowded back there, with homeless people and refugees trying to stay warm.

What has been widely ridiculed as the ‘shouty’ debate (on Channel Nine) said nothing meaningful about the most important issue of all – the climate crisis. Such has been the pre-occupation with the election here, we haven’t seen much coverage of Canada’s wet, cold spring, India and Pakistan’s lethal heatwaves, or debate about whether our wet autumn is driven by climate change or something else.

People who deny climate change theory often dismiss it with ‘there’s always been climate change’. Well, yes, but it’s been accelerating since 1950 and in 2022 we have the technology to make material changes.

Andrew Wallace, Federal member for Fisher and Speaker of the House, recently told a public meeting in Montville he was not convinced that climate change was caused by emissions from human industry.

Sunshine Coast resident Gillian Pechey, who was at the meeting, wrote to the Glasshouse News after hearing this statement.

“I asked him (Wallace) whether he had worries about the predicted ocean level rise, loss of the sandy beaches which tourists flock to holiday on. He smiled! His position is predicted to lead to global temperature rise of 3-4 degrees. Parts of Queensland will become unliveable unless you’re wealthy enough to live and work in a solid air-conditioned building.

“It is frustrating to see the lead political party turning its back on climate science which predicts that over this century we will continue to have destructive bushfires, floods, eroded beaches and gradual loss of the Great Barrier Reef.”

FOMM’s observation is that Andrew Wallace, elected in 2019 with a 62.7% two-party preferred vote, is obviously going to stick to the LNP’s position on subsidising fossil fuel at the expense of investment in renewable energy. He persists with this line even when campaigning in the Green-friendly towns of the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Whatever politicians are saying (or not saying) about the climate crisis, there is evidence that the general population has been trying to self-educate. The ABC found a researcher who uncovered a 5,000% increase in the volume of climate questions on Google since 2019.

The data has been ‘normalised’, meaning interest has increased relative to that of other topics. The use of ‘big data’ to reach conclusions is called ‘culturomics’.

For the past 18 months, social researcher Rebecca Huntley has been conducting focus groups to understand climate change concerns among Australians.

Dr Huntley said the Google search data broadly aligns with the focus group results. Various other polls concur – the climate crisis is a hot-button issue. The ABC’s Vote Compass shows an overwhelming number of Australians want more action to reduce carbon emissions.

“The basic theory as to why this is happening now rather than, say, three years ago, is stuff builds up,” Dr Huntley said.

She told the ABC the 2019/20 Black Summer fires were not enough on their own to “shift the dial” on climate concern. But they were followed by two other major climate crisis events.

Australia was criticised for inaction on climate change at the November 2021 COP26 climate conference in Glasgow. Australia did present a net zero emissions plan, but it lacked detail and critics pointed this out.

The third event which may have tipped some Australians over the climate fence was the 2022 floods in Queensland and New South Wales. There’s no evidence yet to blame that individual weather event on climate change. But it was consistent with predictions of the type of epic natural disaster we can expect under global warming scenarios.

The ABC delved into the Google research to find that the top ‘searchers’ came from very small towns, which suggests the data may not be that reliable. A reporter asked Lawrence Springborg, Mayor of Goondiwindi Shire and president of the Queensland Liberal National Party, what he thought.

He suggested people were searching “because they don’t believe” climate change and wanted ammunition to disprove the science when the topic came up in conversation.

“I have absolutely no idea why they’re searching,” he added.

One of the common searches on Google is ‘when did climate change start’.

The latest research now suggests that atmospheric warming began in the early to mid-1800s, rather than the mid-20^th century. Until 1950, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had never been above 300 parts per million. Now the readings are over 400 ppm and rapidly increasing.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report says the current warming trend is unequivocally the result of human activity since the mid-20^th century.

“It is undeniable that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land and that widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, and biosphere have occurred.”

The Sydney Morning Herald said the Resolve Political Monitor found young voters (18-34) ranked climate change as the second-most important issue in this year’s election. Not surprisingly, the number one issue for young voters was keeping the cost of living low.

Meanwhile, the LNP is sticking to its target of reducing emissions by at least 26% by 2030. Labor’s target is 43% although climate experts warn Australia must cut emissions 75% by 2030. Both major parties want to keep on exporting coal, despite the US Environmental Protection Agency stating that the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the largest single source of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Professor Stephen Bartos was recently commissioned by Farmers for Climate Action to prepare a report on the impact of climate change on food supply. Farmers for Climate action is part of the National Farmers Federation (which has 7,000 members).

Writing in The Conversation, Prof Bartos, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, explained his methodology. He reviewed research in this area, interviewed more than a dozen farmers, farmer representative bodies, and other participants in the food supply chain. Among the issues identified were the impact of drought, diseases and stress on livestock, the loss of food due to hotter weather, and shorter shelf lives.

“An unexpected finding was the degree to which everyone involved in the supply chain is affected by uncertainty caused by climate change. It is making future weather highly unpredictable, making planning harder for both farms and in transport networks.”

Climate change has made a further impact on lending and insurance, where unpredictability means higher costs for financial products. Some farmers reported that they were unable to insure due to climate risks. All these costs are passed on to consumers in the form of higher food prices.

This concurs with the Climate Council’s findings that one in 25 Australian properties would be ‘uninsurable’ by 2030. The Climate Council says this is directly due to the rising risk of extreme weather and the impact of climate change.

The Climate Council created at interactive map so households, businesses and farmers can assess the likely risk. Queensland is looking vulnerable.

Finally, though this report is five months old and I’ve mentioned it before, it should be remembered that Australia ranked last in a survey of 60 countries on climate change policy. The Climate Change Performance Index, published annually since 2005, gave Australia a zero for its policy response to the climate crisis, citing ‘a lack of ambition and action’.

As we post this, the Condamine River has risen so much overnight authorities are about to close the bridge into town. The Cunningham Highway to Brisbane is closed and the road to Toowoomba must surely be compromised.

Climate crisis? What climate crisis.

Extreme weather reminds us of Black Summer

black-summer-extreme-weather — Photo: View from our veranda, Yangan November 2019 (see after photo below). BW

As Australia Day passes by, is it safe yet to say the eastern seaboard of Australia has dodged a ‘Black Summer’ in 21/22? This typically runs from December to May in most parts of Australia. Too soon?

The 2020-2021 bushfire season so far is relatively subdued due to the effects of La Nina and the wet winter and spring it brought in many parts of Australia.

We’ve seen some freaky weather, though, including heat-waves, a cyclone and hail storms. Reports of bush fires from far away Western Australia this month may have sparked anxiety in those who suffered through Black Summer in 2019.

The WA coastal town of Onslow sweltered through a 50.7C day this month, equalling a 62-year-old record set in Oodnadatta. The ABC observed that if confirmed, this will be only the fourth day over 50C for an Australian location since reliable observations began.

It is apparent that climate change will rank among the top three issues debated in the upcoming Federal election.

There is concern at the top end of town, with a survey by Deloitte’s revealing that 77% of business executives think the world is at a “tipping point”. The global survey found that businesses are starting to take action, but the level of action often doesn’t match the scale and urgency of business and moral concerns expressed in the survey.

Whatever we as individuals think about how the Federal Government is handling climate change policy, the world has already judged us.

Australia’s latest climate policies are failing to “take advantage of its potential” and it ranks last among nations surveyed, according to the 2022 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI).

Advocacy group Germanwatch ranks the performance of 63 nations and the European Union on each country’s progress working towards goals in the Paris Agreement.

Australia slipped from 54^th place overall to 59^th, well below other developed countries. Australia was rated last on the climate policy table (64^th), the worst of the bottom 15 countries rated as “very poor”.

“The (Australian) government does not have any policies on phasing out coal or gas, but CCUS (carbon capture, utilisation and storage) and hydrogen are being promoted as low-emissions technologies,” the report said.

Experts consulting to the report said Australia’s international standing has been damaged by climate denialism by politicians. A “lack of ambition” and refusal to recommit to international green finance mechanisms. https://ccpi.org/

The Climate Council’s extreme Weather Communication Guide, available in 10 different languages, explains how cyclones, flooding, bush fires, heat waves, and poor air quality are being supercharged by climate change.

The Climate Council’s Nathan Hart said Australians were already paying the price for more frequent and severe extreme weather.

He cited floods in Maryborough, QLD, and the Top End, fuelled by ex-tropical cyclone Tiffany.

The independent, not-for-profit Climate Council was launched not long after incoming Prime Minister Tony Abbott scrapped the Australian Climate Commission in September 2013.

The Climate Council’s chief councillor is Professor Tim Flannery, who also chaired the ACC. Prof Flannery and Climate Council councillor Greg Mullins (former Commissioner, Fire and Rescue NSW) are the faces behind an award-winning documentary, Burning.

The climate change documentary was first shown at the COP26 conference in Glasgow and was released on Prime Video and distributed to 260 countries.

The documentary about Australia’s devastating Black Summer was directed by Australian film-maker Eva Orner. The film recaps the Black Summer bush fires that scorched Australia in 2019-20. More than 450 Australians were killed, either directly by the fires or from the toxic air that covered three of Australia’s major cities for weeks. The fires burnt over 18 million hectares, destroyed 3,113 homes and killed 3 billion animals. Former Fire Commissioner Greg Mullins features in the film.

“I’ve never seen fires like it and I hope I never will again,” he said. “Sadly though, we are going to see more Black Summers – and even worse. Despite the extreme danger we face, the federal government refuses to ramp up emissions cuts this decade or to embrace Australia’s incredible renewable potential.

“Not long after the flames had settled, the COVID-19 pandemic rolled in and the world moved on. But for survivors, fire-fighters, business owners and mental health workers, the road to recovery was only just beginning.”

In some small way we count ourselves among the millions of Australians who suffered physical and mental anguish during the Black Summer fires.

I recall going to see a GP in late 2019 about some unrelated complaint. He scrolled through my records and asked if my asthma was worse than usual. A Monash University study found there were 6% more weekly emergency department presentations for respiratory disease and 10% more cardiovascular presentations compared to the previous two fire seasons. The study was the first to look at the impact of bush fires on actual ED attendance numbers.

In Australia, during the 2019-20 season, the density of particulate matter in the air peaked on 14 January – at fourteen times more than the historically highest level previously recorded. According to Monash’s Professor Yuming Guo, it is known that PM1.0, PM 2.5 – the two most common particle-sized matter in smoke – can cause respiratory disease, chronic obstructive disease, pulmonary disease and asthma.

“The results indicate that the unprecedented bush fires led to a huge health burden, showing a higher risk in regions with lower socio-economic areas and more bush fires,” Professor Guo said.

Hence my GP asking about asthma. At the time we were living at Yangan, 18 kms from Warwick in the foothills of the Dividing Range. Long-burning bush fires in the hills shrouded the valley in smoke most days. On occasions, it was so bad it drifted into town (Warwick). Asthma aside, the constant pall of smoke, the visible fires (at night) and the unpredictability of bush fires made us anxious.

The University of Western Australia conducted a survey of professional and volunteer fire-fighters after Black Summer which reveals the extent of mental anguish among those who battled the blazes.

The survey identified a third of volunteers and a quarter of employees had felt there was a time when their life was threatened by the fires. Some 4.6% of volunteers and 5.5% of employees had since shown very high psychological distress indicative of serious mental illness.

A study published last October found the physical and mental impacts of exposure to smoke from the black summer fires was likely greatly underestimated by official health statistics.

Prof Iain Walker of the Australian National University surveyed 2,084 adults affected by the bush fires close to Canberra.

“Virtually all of them – 97% – said they had experienced at least one physical symptom attributed to the smoke. Half of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, as well as sleep loss.

“Only one in five people sought medical attention for their symptoms, suggesting the breadth of health impacts was far greater than the number of cases officially recognised by the health system,” Walker said.

“A much wider segment of the population was exposed to bushfire smoke than bush fires directly.”

Yes, and how we still remember that late afternoon in 2019 singing Christmas carols in Warwick’s main intersection. A sudden change of wind brought clouds of bushfire smoke rolling into town like a London fog. We all ran for our cars, forced to put the lights on to drive home.

But then, after some rain…

FOMM back pages

Clean Jobs Plan Tackles Climate Change

climate-clean-jobs — Image by enriquelopezgarre, Pixabay

Three big topics of 2021 – Covid-19, Climate Change and Job Creation, are inextricably linked to the future of the planet.

The official climate report is in for 2020, with global temperatures tying with 2016 as the hottest ever recorded.

Although Australians sweltered through an early November heatwave, the summer so far has not been too hard to endure.(except SA,Victoria and NSW are likely to see temperatures exceeding 40C this weekend. Ed

The data cited by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service seemed at odds with images of Madrid enduring its worst snowfall in 50 years. The mercury in Madrid plunged to -10, compared with the January average of 3 degrees.

The New York Times said the heavy snowstorm presented complications for the Spanish government, still struggling with a rising Coronavirus caseload, more than 499,000 in Madrid alone. Spain’s Covid-19 death toll, more than 51,000, is one of the highest in Europe. The government warned residents to stay home, well aware of the temptation for people to venture outdoors.

That’s the nature of climate change, however; extremes in summer and winter and shifting weather patterns in the autumn and spring.

Spain is also struggling with the impact of Covid-19 on its workforce. More than one million jobs were lost during the worst months of the pandemic. Despite short-time work schemes and a third quarter rebound, Spain’s unemployment rate is still around 13%.

Youth unemployment (under 25’s) is 40%.

While Australia’s latest unemployment rate of 6.6% (December) looks good by comparison, the short-term nature of Spain’s jobs policy sounds depressingly familiar.

The International Monetary Fund estimated that in April and May up to a fifth of Spain’s workers were on short-term contracts. Possibly in an attempt to sway the government towards ‘green’ job creation, the IMF revealed that Spain’s housing sector is one of the most energy inefficient in the EU. It accounts for about 16% of Spain’s Emissions Trading System emissions.

“Residential housing would benefit from labor-intensive, climate-compatible public investment,” an IMF report said.

As the IMF observes, a focus on green buildings can provide a demand boost to support recovery, while closing gaps in green infrastructure and human capital.

“This will accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and strengthen the economy,” the IMF’s report on Spain said.

It’s no different Down Under, with the built environment said to account for 25% of Australia’s CO2 emissions. Attempts to regulate the building industry to make buildings more energy efficient have been inadequate.

The Climate Council listed energy efficient buildings and urban green spaces as part of its ‘Clean Jobs’ policy paper.

The Climate Council commissioned AlphaBeta, a consultancy specialising in advanced data analysis, resulting in a plan to create 76,000 ‘clean’ jobs.

The 68-page document (with four pages of references), sets out 12 opportunities to put Australians back to work, restart the economy and tackle climate change. The jobs include 15,000 installing utility-scale renewable energy (solar and wind farms, transmission infrastructure and utility-scale batteries). The plan also includes 12,000 jobs in targeted ecosystem restoration, and 12,000 in public and active transport constructions. Another 37,000 jobs are projected to be created in other projects across Australia, including in organic waste, energy efficiency in buildings, urban green spaces and community-scale storage.

This alternative solution to the 840,000 jobs lost to Covid-19 requires less than 0.5% of GDP. Every dollar of public spending is estimated to attract $1.10 in private investment.

The Climate Council’s paper was widely reported in alternative energy circles, but few mainstream media outlets covered the story. This is despite the Climate Council claims it would help people and industries that have been hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis, especially in regional Australia.

“One in three job openings would require minimal training, meaning that displaced workers, from hospitality workers in Victoria to tourism operators in Cairns, could be rapidly employed.”

The Climate Council ran Clean Jobs briefing sessions with State government representatives after its launch in July. A spokeswoman told FOMM that meaningful actions were taken and worked into State budget announcements.

“We are in the midst of strategising for how we will revitalise the report for 2021, ensuring maximum impact and continuing on its success.”

The latest Australian employment data released yesterday shows an improvement in both the unemployment rate (down -0.2%) and the labour participation rate. Nevertheless, youth unemployment is still up 2.3% for the calendar year, at 13.9%.

Youth unemployment is as high as 25% in some parts of regional Australia. While the under-25’s are being propped up by the Jobseeker scheme, which effectively doubled the NewStart payment, this funding will end on March 21.

An ACTU submission to the Jobs for the future in Regional Australia Inquiry canvassed Australia’s rate of underemployment (8.5% from 9.4% in November). This far outstrips the OECD average, with ANZ describing the underemployment crisis as “widespread” throughout the country.

“Precarious work is increasingly becoming the norm, which makes it more difficult for workers to argue for fair pay and conditions.”

Underemployed workers are more likely to exhibit lower job satisfaction, higher job turnover, poorer mental and physical health and persistently lower income.

The Climate Council’s Clean Jobs paper reminds us that the Australian economy is vulnerable to escalating climate risks.

Property prices are liable to fall up to $571 billion and agricultural and labour productivity by $19 billion in the next decade. Flow-on effects will be felt across the country, and will worsen unless emissions are lowered.

These claims are corroborated by the Reserve Bank of Australia, which has stated that more severe, persistent climate-related shocks could threaten the stability of the Australian economy. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has labelled climate change a “systemic risk” and the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has said the financial risks of climate change are “foreseeable, material and actionable now”.

While Australia’s unemployment rate is trending down after hitting 7.5% in July, we should remember that a third of the labour force works less than 40 hours a week. The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows the share of part-time employment rose to 32.1% for the year to December (4.149 million).

The Federal Government is pinning its hopes on improving the lot of young Australians through its JobMaker subsidy.

The JobMaker Hiring Credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months for eligible young people aged 16 to 35. The scheme started on October 7, 2020, with eligible employers able to claim $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire (aged 16 to 29) and $100 a week for employees aged 30 to 35.

Much noise has been made by and on behalf of the over-35 cohort, arguing discrimination, predicting the JobMaker scheme will further marginalise the long-term unemployed.

Ah well, at least young people who are hired on this basis will be able to afford a portable air conditioner. And here’s hoping everyone, including those hired under JobMaker, will be able to take paid sick leave if they are ill or are quarantining owing to Covid-19 testing

The budget that forgot climate change

climate-change-power-station — power station image by Benita Welter from Pixabay

‘The budget that forgot climate change’ may be a slightly misleading headline, even though Greens Leader Richard Di Natale essentially said as much when interviewed on 2GB. He was elaborating on a press release issued on Budget night which castigated the Federal Coalition for virtually ignoring climate change.

“(Treasurer) Josh Frydenberg said in his speech that we owe our children budget discipline,” Di Natale said. We owe our children a plan for their future, and that should mean tackling climate change through a managed transition away from fossil fuels to a clean, green, jobs-rich renewable economy. By any measure this budget fails to do that.”

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) was blunter still, describing it as a “nightmare” budget.

“Scott Morrison’s government has given us budget that sets more money aside for a ring road in Cairns than for dealing with climate change – the biggest social and environmental crisis facing our generation,” the AYCC said.

“The LNP intends to set aside just $189 million over the next four years to deliver their so-called climate action plan – which, by the way, fails to so much as mention a transition away from coal and gas”.

To be fair, climate change did get two mentions in a Budget loaded with tax cuts to woo the nation’s middle-income earners (and an ‘oops we forgot the poor people’ moment, when the energy supplement was later extended to include NewStart recipients).

You know the old adage about shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted? The Coalition’s idea of dealing with climate change is to create a $3.9 billion Emergency Response Fund which will be used to mop up after severe storms, floods, bushfires and cyclones. The fund will grow to $5 billion over the next decade, the Treasurer said.

The Australian Financial Review’s Queensland Bureau chief Mark Ludlow outlined where the government had found the money for the Emergency Response Fund.

“The fund, which will need to be passed in legislation, will be created from the leftover allocations from the former Labor government’s Education Investment Fund as well as money that had previously been allocated to the National Disability Insurance Scheme which is no longer needed.”

One ought to mention, as Ludlow did, the government already picks up the tab for post-disaster funding under the existing Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements. The NDRRA comes into play once State or Territory funding has been exhausted.

More promisingly, the government announced a $3.9 billion Future Drought Fund, which at least acknowledges that Australia needs to plan on the assumption that drought will continue to plague the outback, if not the entire eastern seaboard.

The Climate Council took to Twitter on Budget night to spell out its disappointment.

“The divide between the parties when it comes to Coalition’s focus on tax and surpluses, and Labor’s focus on climate policy, might come down to this: would you rather leave your children with a smaller federal debt or a worldwide climate crisis.”

The tweet was linked to a University of Melbourne Budget analysis which said Australia was not on track to meet its Paris Climate commitment of a 26% to 28% reduction in emissions off 2005 levels.

“We are projected to achieve a 7% reduction, and the budget on Tuesday night offered little to suggest we can change course.”

The Climate Action Tracker (CAT) rates Australia’s position on climate change as “insufficient”, which is the same rating given in 2011. CAT is an independent scientific analysis produced by three research organisations tracking climate action since 2009. CAT tracks progress towards the globally agreed aim of holding warming well below 2°C, and pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.

The Climate Action Tracker’s latest verdict (December 2018) notes that Australia’s climate policy has further deteriorated in the past year, “as it focusses on propping up the coal industry and ditches efforts to reduce emissions”.

“The Federal government is ignoring the record uptake of solar PV and storage and other climate action at State level.

“The Australian government has turned its back on global climate action by dismissing the findings of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C and announcing it would no longer provide funds to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).”

The 2019 Budget confirmed that Australia’s contributions to the UN’s major fund would end in December, with a final contribution of $19.2 million. Australia has given $187 million to the fund, which finances developing world projects that cut emissions or promote resilience to climate impacts.

You may recall when John Howard belatedly made a pre-election commitment in 2007 to establishing a national Emissions Trading Scheme, starting no later than 2012.

Dubbed the Climate Change Fund, it promised that revenue from emissions trading was to be re-invested into climate change initiatives.oward made

I mention this only to point out that Tuesday’s announcement was just a rebadged Climate Change Fund – a new name for the same objectives.

The Morrison Government pre-committed $2 billion to the ‘Climate Solutions Fund’, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the economy. It does so by (continuing) to purchase low-cost abatement through the existing Emissions Reduction Fund. Already there are claims that the government plans to use ‘Kyoto carryover credits’ to reduce our greenhouse gas pollution, even though comparable countries have ruled out doing this.

Ah well, at least we signed up for the Paris agreement, well after incoming Prime Minister Kevin Rudd honoured a pre-election promise and ratified the Kyoto protocol in 2007.

Some 195 member countries including Australia agreed to the Paris agreement in late 2015. The agreement’s long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, and to limit the increase to 1.5 °C.

So it has been a long journey from the first Australian greenhouse gas emissions reduction proposal 30 years ago. In 1989, Senator Graham Richardson, who must have had an inkling of what lay ahead, made a Cabinet submission for a 20% reduction in 1988 Australian greenhouse gas emissions levels by 2005.

So what does the future hold after the budget that forgot climate change, some six weeks out from a crucial Federal election where the Opposition Labor Party offers a mixed bag of policies, including a big commitment to renewable energy and climate change mitigation?

A book delivered to my mailbox yesterday delivers an unpalatable verdict. Author Anna Skarbik says Australia can be a carbon-neutral country by 2050 – “if we just get on with it”.

Skarbik is a contributor to Advancing Australia – ideas for a better country, just published by The Conversation through Melbourne University Press.

She states that the Federal Coalition’s current emissions reduction target of 26% to 28% by 2030 is not enough to meet the zero target by 2050. Federal Labor will also have to boost its promise of a 45% reduction in carbon emissions to meet this target.

“Australia would need to cut emissions by 55% below 2005 levels by 2030 to get there without undue economic disruption,” Skarbik wrote.

As she observes: “Lack of consensus on climate policy over the last two decades has cost us dearly.”

Recommended viewing:

Y dig up coal? Maleny’s contribution to the Stop Adani campaign:

Renewable energy vs climate sceptics

Have you ever noticed, after giving your dog a bath, how it will head straight for the nearest patch of renewable energy? Ours has a favourite sunny spot next to the dining room table where he will happily bask, while our solar-powered camping lamp, calculator and torches are recharging on the window sill.

Free sunshine – what’s not to like? As it happens, we have been preparing our little caravan for a weekend music festival in the bush. The 160 watt portable solar panel slides snugly under the bed. At $159, this has proved to be a worthy investment for our outback and bush music weekend adventures. It means you can keep topping up the caravan’s battery (if the sun is shining) and go to bed early if it’s not.

We are not expecting rain. No-one is expecting rain.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed the winter just past was the hottest since records began in 1910. It was also the 9^th driest winter on record. The average maximum temperature was almost 2 degrees above the long-term average.

Meanwhile, Texas is suffering unprecedented flooding courtesy of Hurricane Harvey, the reporting of which has somewhat overshadowed devastating monsoon flooding in South East Asia. So far, in the latter disaster area, 1,200 people have been killed and almost two million children were unable to get to school.

As we ironically say in the privacy of our own home – “Just as well there’s no such thing as climate change, then!”

Now all, some of, or only a small part of these extreme weather events could be ascribed to global warming/climate change, which, 97% of scientists agree, is mostly caused by human activity.

Despite this consensus on behalf of an apparently overwhelming majority of scientists, sceptics disagree. I happened to read that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott is set to deliver a speech, “Daring to Doubt,” at an annual climate sceptics group meeting in London on October 9.

You might remember Tony Abbott – his reign as PM at one year and 361 days (cumulative terms), was longer than that of Harold Holt and Billy McMahon, but not by much. Abbott the Climate Change Sceptic is infamous in some quarters as the man who canned the government-funded Climate Commission as part of a Budget cost-cutting exercise.

The Climate Commission bounced back as the privately-funded Climate Council. A new report by the Climate Council concludes that the individual States are going their own way, with mixed results.

South Australia is a clear leader in the renewable energy field, the stakes raised by the government’s decision to replace ageing coal-fired power stations with a 150 megawatt solar thermal power plant.

FOMM foreshadowed this in 2014, when the SA government was trying to negotiate the future of the coal mine which fed its Port Augusta power stations. Now, after five years of lobbying and debate, the SA government is aiming to invest $650 million in renewable energy.

It hardly seems worth mentioning that 1,900 kilometres away, the Queensland Government, in a contrarian move, remains committed to the country’s largest Greenfield export coal mine. The Carmichael mine, which includes a dedicated railway line to take coal north to Abbott Point, is deeply unpopular among environmental groups because of the potential damage it could cause to the Great Barrier Reef, both by the number of ships traversing the narrow channels, and through coral bleaching as a result of human-induced temperature increases.

On the other hand, Queenslanders’ love affair with domestic solar panels is demonstrated by the fact that 32% of households are covered in 2017. Lobby group Solar Citizens (almost 100,000 members), welcomed last week’s decision by the Queensland Government to increase the regional feed-in tariff (FiT) program. This will allow solar systems up to 30kW to receive 10.1c per kWh – six times more than what was previously agreed.

Solar Citizens has an ambitious target of one million solar roofs by 2020.

“Queenslanders know a sensible idea when they see it – with 520,000 solar homes, our State has the highest rooftop solar uptake in the country,” a spokeswoman said.

However, critics of domestic solar energy say the flaw is that those who can afford to become self-sufficient do so, and those who cannot end up paying disproportionately more for energy.)

This week, the Climate Council presented its annual ‘state of the States’ renewable energy report. CEO Amanda McKenzie said the State survey showed a major step up from last year. All States and Territories (apart from WA), have strong renewable energy or net zero emissions targets. South Australia is building the world’s largest lithium ion battery storage facility, and over 30 large scale wind and solar projects are under construction across Australia in 2017.

“The good news is that many States are surging ahead and doing the heavy lifting for the (Federal) government.”

Last week, the Victorian government flagged new legislation which would increase its renewable energy target to 40% by 2025. There is also an intermediate plan to lift Victoria’s clean energy target to 25% by 2020.

So yes, it does seem as if individual States (and Councils) are setting their own renewable energy policies, in the absence of clear leadership at a national level.

Noosa Mayor Tony Wellington did not miss an opportunity to talk up his region’s commitment to solar panels. Noosa Shire, which de-merged from the larger Sunshine Coast Regional Council (SCRC), claims 9,000 households in Noosa Shire have solar installations, which is better than the State average. Cr Wellington told the Sunshine Coast Daily Noosa’s goal was to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2050.

Not to be overshadowed, the SCRC opened a 15 megawatt solar farm in July. The SCRC was the first local government in Australia to offset 100% of its electricity consumption with energy from a renewable source.

But what can humble citizens do, as pro-coal lobbyists clash swords with the solar and wind farm warriors? The go-it-alone mentality arises from a failure on the part of our Federal Government to stimulate investment in the renewable sector. Australia has already promised, under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% on 2005 levels by 2030. But Tony Abbott’s call as PM to reduce the renewable energy target (and now he advocates scrapping it altogether), was unhelpful.

Whatever way you judge it, a former PM addressing the Global Warming Policy Foundation is not a good look. The last Australian PM to do so was John Howard in 2013 (when he claimed global warming had stalled and was sceptical about the possibilities of an international agreement on climate change).

There have already been reports in the UK media which seized on old quotes by Mr Abbott referring to climate science as ‘bullshit’ and recycling his coal is ‘good for humanity’ comment.

As readers will know, we spent a week out at Carnarvon Gorge in July, a time of year when it is common for the temperature to dip below zero at night. We packed accordingly, then spent four nights kicking off the doona and keeping each other awake as the mercury stayed above 15.

It should be cool at night for the Neurum Creek Folk Festival, but I packed my shortie pyjamas, just in case there is such a thing as climate change.