23 March 2016, The Age, 50 years after “The Lucky Country”, Australia’s sustainability challenge remains. More than 50 years ago Donald Horne, then working in an advertising agency, described Australia as “a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck”. The phrase “the lucky country” quickly became part of the language, though its message was often misrepresented. Horne’s 1964 book sounded three loud warnings about Australia’s future: the challenge of our geographical position, the need for “a revolution in economic priorities”, and the need for a discussion of what sort of country we want to become. Those warnings are even more urgent today after 50 years of inaction by our second-rate leaders. I’ve revisited Donald Horne’s ideas and updated them for the 21st century. An additional complication is the accumulating evidence that we are not living sustainably. Heading Backwards? The need for change was underlined by a 2015 UN report on sustainability. Australia ranks 18th of the 34 developed countries, below the UK, New Zealand and Canada, based on indicators covering economic, social and environmental progress. We are among the worst of the affluent countries on resource use, waste production, greenhouse gases released per unit of economic output, and our obesity rate. We are also well below average on social indicators such as education level, gender pay gap and proportion of women in parliament, as well as economic indicators such as the poverty rate and the degree of inequality. Interestingly, the top four countries were the Scandinavian nations of Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. The United States ranked 29th. It is a reminder that only ideologues with no concern for evidence could still be seeing the United States as a model to which we should aspire, rather than the much more successful Scandinavian approach. Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2016
23 March 2016, Renew Economy, Turnbull’s sleight of hand on clean energy investment. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has put his own stamp on clean energy investment in Australia, dumping Coalition plans to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, but announcing new plans to essentially de-fund the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and replace it with a new “Clean Energy Innovation Fund.” The retention of the CEFC will be welcome and signals a potential shift from the anti-renewable policy stance of the Abbott regime that preceded him. But the move to de-fund ARENA and create a “new” fund using money already allocated to the CEFC is nothing but a sleight of hand, and an elaborate ruse by Turnbull to save more than a $1.3 billion and get his new pet-word “innovation” included in a financing scheme. It may also be designed to meet Australia’s Paris commitment to invest “new money” in clean energy innovation. But the move may back-fire, because although the new set-up will continue to support near commercial projects, the technologies and ideas at the formative stage of the innovation process may be left stranded, without funding. According to the former chairman of ARENA, Greg Bourne, Australian innovation may move overseas to get the necessary support. So much for the innovation nation. The Turnbull government has been showing less interest in ARENA, and its cost to the budget, and over the last few months has allowed not renewed contracts for directors, and allowed it to narrow to a single director, the head of Greg Hunt’s environment department. ARENA will continue to manage its current projects, and complete its $100 million funding program for large scale solar projects. But after that its funding will be stopped and it will effectively be morphed – along with its staff – into an annexe of the CEFC and the new fund. Under the new plan hatched by Turnbull and Hunt, ARENA’s grants-based funding strategy will be replaced by “innovative” finance such as debt and equity funding – effectively lending money and buying shares in the investments. Read More here
22 March 2016, Reuters, Australia announces A$1 billion clean energy fund, in break with past. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday said the country would establish a A$1 billion ($761.60 million) clean-energy innovation fund, in a major departure from his predecessor’s much maligned approach to combating climate change. Conservative former Prime Minister Tony Abbott was criticized by environmental groups for lagging behind other advanced economies when he announced cuts to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions last year. Abbott, a climate change skeptic who was ousted in a party coup by Turnbull in September, also faced criticism for his strong support for the coal industry and for scrapping an ambitious carbon tax and emissions trading plan in 2014. Turnbull said the new fund would focus on investing in high-tech clean energy technologies. “What that is going to do is every year invest A$100 million in the smartest, most cutting edge Australian clean-energy technologies and businesses to ensure that we … play our part in cracking the very hard problems, the challenging technical difficulties that we face in terms of reducing emissions,” he told reporters. Abbott pledged that the world’s largest exporter of coal and iron ore would cut emissions by 26-28 percent of 2005 levels by 2030, a target he submitted as part of negotiations on a global climate deal in Paris last year. Abbott also sought and failed to scrap the country’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which Turnbull said on Wednesday would be retained. Australia is one of the largest carbon emitters on a per capita basis due to its reliance on coal-fired power plants, and critics say it has done little to match ambitious targets set by the United States and Europe. Read More here
19 March 2016, Climate News Network, Western Europe coasts face a pounding. Extreme weather caused by global warming could lead to more violent and more frequent storms devastating beaches on exposed Atlantic coastlines in Europe. The Atlantic seas could be getting rougher, with winter storms capable of causing dramatic changes to the beaches of Western Europe. And new research shows that the pounding delivered to the shorelines of the UK and France in the winter of 2013-2014 was the most violent since 1948. Gerd Masselink, professor of coastal geomorphology at Plymouth University School of Marine Science and Engineering, UK, and colleagues report in Geophysical Research Letters that they decided to switch focus from sea level rise resulting from global warming. Instead, they concentrated on the energy delivered by the rising waves as they crashed onto the beaches, dunes, shingle beds and rocky coasts, and on the consequent erosion of sediment. Rising levels For decades, climate scientists have predicted that rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases from the human combustion of fossil fuel could lead to global warming, and that warming would be accompanied by more frequent or more violent storms. That sea level rise inexorably means damage to coastlines has been repeatedly confirmed. And the fact that Atlantic waves have been getting higher was settled long ago. A study in 1991 revealed that wave heights − measured from a lightship and an ocean weather station − had been rising by 2% a year since 1950. ” “It should undoubtedly be considered in future coastal and sea defence planning along the Atlantic coast of Europe” The latest study examined open-coast sites across Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Portugal, Spain and Morocco. The researchers found that, along exposed coastlines in France and England, the beaches had taken a hammering. For every one metre strip of beach, there had been sand and shingle losses of up to 200 cubic metres. Read more here