6 December 2016, The Conversation, Australia’s political elites are fiddling while Rome burns. Australians are used to the vulgar antics and empty point-scoring that pass for debate in federal parliament. But little could have prepared them for the current descent into pure farce. Politics divorced from political reality The US has been engulfed by a political tsunami few predicted and many are struggling to comprehend. Much of Europe is still weathering the storm of an unprecedented influx of refugees at a time of high unemployment and little prospect of economic growth. Financial markets, climate change negotiations and great power relations are precariously poised. Amid this turbulence, federal parliament’s last sitting week for 2016 was devoted to the backpacker tax, legislation to bring back the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and the political future of Attorney-General George Brandis. There has never been a time when the disconnect between political elites and the public interest was greater than it is today. The major parties seem uninterested or unable to respond to a drastically transformed political agenda. And so the disconnect grows wider by the day – and the contradictions ever sharper.Read More here
Category Archives: Australian Response
6 December 2016, The Guardian, Australia’s energy transmission industry calls for carbon trading. Emissions intensity scheme is the least costly way of reducing greenhouse gases, Energy Networks Australia and CSIRO say. Australia’s electricity and gas transmission industry is calling on the Turnbull government to implement a form of carbon trading in the national electricity market by 2022 and review the scope for economy-wide carbon pricing by 2027. EnergyNetworks Australia warns in a new report examining how to achieve zero net carbon emissions by 2050 that policy stability and regulatory certainty are the key to delivering lower power prices and reliable electricity supply. While Tony Abbott once characterised carbon pricing as a wrecking ball through the Australian economy, the new report, backed by CSIRO, says adopting an emissions intensity scheme is the least costly way of reducing emissions, and could actually save customers $200 a year by 2030. The forceful intervention by the industry on Tuesday follows the Turnbull government on Monday flagging an emissions intensity trading scheme for the electricity sector as part of its scheduled review of its Direct Action climate policy. Some stakeholders also believe the Finkel review into energy security and Australia’s climate commitments may also float the desirability of an emissions intensity scheme for the electricity sector when it presents its preliminary fundings to Friday’s Coag meeting of the prime minister and premiers. But the difficulties for the government emerged immediately after the baseline and credit scheme was flagged by the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, on Monday when the chairman of the Coalition’s backbench committee, Craig Kelly, warned carbon trading was not Coalition policy and would not be accepted by the party room. Energy Networks Australia has been working for two years on what it calls a policy roadmap to achieve zero emissions by 2050. A report to be released on Tuesday argues that the goal can be achieved but only with an integrated policy approach.The report recommends that the government adopt an emissions intensity baseline and credit scheme for the electricity sector by 2022, and set a light-vehicle emissions standard policy to provide incentives for electric vehicle uptake. Read More here
5 December 2016, The Guardian, Australia is blowing its carbon budget, projections reveal. Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising despite global reduction efforts, according to detailed projections made by the consultants NDEVR Environmental. Australia’s emissions jumped by 2.56m tonnes in the three months to September, putting them 1.55m tonnes off-track compared with commitments made in Paris, and 4.06m tonnes over levels demanded by scientifically based targets set by the government’s Climate Change Authority. Emissions for the year to September are above those for the year to September 2015. The results mean Australia has emitted about twice what is allowed by the CCA’s carbon budget since 2013. In the three years and nine months to September 2016, the country emitted 19.8% of its share of what the world can emit between 2013 and 2050 if it intends to maintain a good chance of keeping warming to below 2C. If Australia continues to emit carbon pollution at the average rate of the past year, it will spend its entire carbon budget by 2031. Projected to the current second, the graphic shows how much of the carbon budget has been spent. Read More here
5 December 2016, Renew Economy, Turnbull leads attack on wind as Coalition readies carbon price backflip. Malcolm Turnbull’s Coalition government appears ready to throw the medium and long-term future of Australia’s large-scale renewable energy market under a bus, as the price to be paid for a back-flip on a carbon price for the electricity sector. Turnbull joined with The Australian and right-wing climate denying bloggers Andrew Bolt and Jo Nova on Friday in somehow connecting last week’s network fault in Victoria with the growth of renewable energy. Turnbull told a local radio station that the outage was the “fault” of the South Australian government. On Monday, a clearer picture of what the Coalition is up to emerged with the release of the terms of reference for the climate policy review in 2017. Importantly, this review is no longer a “sit rep” – situation report – flagged by energy minister Josh Frydenberg when he first took office. It will, in fact, consider a range of new policy mechanisms, such as an emissions intensity baseline and credit scheme for the electricity sector (effectively a carbon price), a sure sign that the Coalition now realises what Turnbull knew all along – that Direct Action is a fraud and a fig leaf for serious action on climate change. But to try to dance its way through internal politics, the demands of the fossil fuel lobby and comparisons with Labor’s own proposals, Turnbull and Frydenberg appear to have concluded that the best way to appease the far-right rump of the Coalition is to abandon direct support for renewables, help open up the Galilee Basin coal resource and push for more coal seam gas. Reports emerged on the weekend that the Coalition is considering offering a $1 billion concessional loan to help build a rail link between the Galilee Basin coal projects and the port at Abbot’s Point. The idea has appalled environment groups. It also comes as emergency talks are held in Melbourne about the “gas supply crisis”, and as the Coalition readies to receive the Finkel review of the National Electricity Market and prepares to again badger the states on the individual renewable targets at the COAG conference this Friday. The conflicting strategies comes as yet another report highlights the parlous state of the country’s climate efforts, noting that Australia is on track to use up its entire “carbon budget” under the Paris agreement in little more than a decade.Read More here