Global warming

Dan Cass writes at Climate Spectator:

A recent poll confirms what I have come to believe after watching the global warming issue for 20 years; renewable energy is the only way to save the debate about saving the planet.

If the UN wants to make progress in the climate negotiations and closer to home, if Julia Gillard wants to win the next election, then the debate should be couched in terms of the tangible benefits of today’s solar and wind technologies.

A poll by Essential Research, conducted during Australia’s recent carbon price negotiations, shows overwhelming public support for investment in solar and wind, and that this support might just win the politics of a carbon price.

The poll shows that the public loves renewables, but that this sentiment is vulnerable to attacks from various clean energy detractors. Solar and wind have been politicised and companies need to step in and vigorously defend their interests.

Australia is sometimes criticised as having a "small island" mentality; despite spanning over 7 million kilometres and hosting a population of over 22 million people. Australian politics since the Howard era has been characterised by a reluctance to embrace change, a fear of Australia's ever-vulnerable borders being breached and a reluctance to let go of the coal-mining, land-dependent image of the Aussie battler.

Despite students and the unemployed emerging from the Global Financial Crisis with $900 worth of stimulating spending money and the rest of the continent left relatively unscathed, Australia hangs on to the "times are tough" mentality - responding with hysteria to pricing carbon, hysteria to asylum seekers travelling by boat and slowly shifting denial to the realities of climate change.

Globally, Australia is comparatively doing fine. We don't have thousands packed in protest in one of our busiest streets. Nor do we have unemployment at a devastating 9%. We don't have widespread unease and violence, nor do we have an immanent fresh water crisis with no long term solution.

My recent post about long-term CO2 targets was rather doom-and-gloom: I concluded that we must phase out fossil fuels to keep the climate in the range that humans have experienced. The good news is that action on this scale is not only possible but surprisingly feasible.

Last year, the University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute in conjunction with Beyond Zero Emissions produced the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan. The ZCA2020 Plan outlines an ambitious and inspiring vision: to power Australia with 100% renewable energy in ten years.

The report that has been released only covers emissions from Stationary Energy (though it does refer to electrifying transport). Five future reports are planned on how to eliminate emissions from other sectors (Transport, Buildings, Land Use and Agriculture, Industrial Processes, and Replacing Fossil Fuel Export Revenue).

How many wake up calls do we need? The latest International Energy Agency figures, published in today’s Guardian newspaper, show global carbon emissions are at their highest ever levels.

As IEA chief economist Fatih Birol notes “I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions. It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.”

Alongside recently released reports from Professor Ross Garnaut and the Climate Commission this is yet another resounding wake up call for Australians to focus our vision and energy on the nation building challenge of our time: designing and constructing a just and sustainable road to a post-carbon economy and society.

There are practical and effective ways for Australia to tackle the cause of climate change and its effects.

Many native-born Australians, and those born overseas who migrated to Australia in search of a better life, did not anticipate that our expectations might be prematurely curtailed by population growth, peak oil or climate change. A decade ago, when we celebrated the new millennium, such ideas were hardly on the radar.

Not on our radar, perhaps, but not entirely unexpected. A little thought would have told us that exponential growth in our use of natural resources is bound to end when those resources run out, or if damaging by-products compromise our environment.

In 1972 the Club of Rome's report, The Limits to Growth, warned of just such a scenario, and from 1990 onwards the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change drew attention to the risks of climate change.

Governments and corporations were well aware of these assessments. Some, including the Europeans, took notice. But successive Australian governments, under Hawke, Keating and Howard, took no heed: ''She'll be right''.

This week, the Labor government’s Multi-Party Climate Change Committee (MPCCC) agreed to a set of principles to guide the development of a national carbon-pricing model. While a carbon pricing legislation is a worthy pursuit that will make fossil fuels more expensive, we must not forget that a carbon price alone is not enough to deal with the climate crisis. The mechanism has several limitations that inhibit the deployment of clean energy infrastructure.

Radio Adelaide interview with Executive Director Matthew Wright from Beyond Zero Emissions, talking about the recent flooding in Queensland and its link to climate change.

For the audio of the radio interview, click here

Climate change is a wicked problem. It will take an unparalleled amount of human effort to address.

While it’s important for the public to be aware of the risks of runaway climate change, focusing narrowly on threats and evoking apocalyptic rhetoric, as Melbourne writer Doug Hendrie did yesterday, is not helpful. It might be good for scaring the general public senseless, but does not create the conditions needed to deliver action on climate change. For that we need a positive vision of our future.