Both the major parties in Australia support new gas projects

Greenpeace Gives Democratic Platform C+ on Climate, Calling for 'Action at the Scale That Science and Justice Demand':

Climate Criminals

"We know the Republicans have no plan," says the advocacy group. "But that doesn't mean the Democrats can take their feet off the gas."

Greenpeace USA announced Wednesday that the platform which Democrats are set to adopt this week earns only a C+ rating based on the scorecard process the group previously used to rank the climate policies of what was once a large field of the party's 2020 presidential primary candidates.

That C+ (52.5 points out of 100) is notably lower than the B+ (75.5/100) that Greenpeace gave to former Vice President Joe Biden, whom Democrats formally nominated as the party's candidate Tuesday night, or the B+ (77/100) the group gave to his former competitor and current running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

Although the soon-to-be-finalized 2020 Democratic platform received "decent marks for advancing renewable energy and environmental justice," Greenpeace determined that there are "critical policy gaps in addressing the power of the fossil fuel industry" and it makes "no mention of the Green New Deal."

The Green New Deal Is Cheap, Actually (excerpt): Rolling Stone

Green New Deal: Rolling Stone

By Tim Dickinson  April 6 2020

Decarbonizing will cost trillions of dollars, but it’s an investment that will have big return — for the economy and the environment

Opposition to the Green New Deal is often framed as a matter of cost. President Trump’s re-election campaign blasted the “radical” plan, claiming it would “cost trillions of dollars, wreck our economy, and decimate millions of energy jobs.” 

But science shows that the costs of unchecked global temperature rise are far higher than transitioning to clean energy — which will, in fact, boost the economy. 

“Everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you have to spend a huge amount of money,’” says Mark Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford University. “Well, yeah, there’s an upfront cost, but this is something that pays itself back.”

The coronavirus crisis is changing the world’s comfort levels with massive expenditures. Fresh on the heels of a $2.2 trillion economic rescue package, President Trump has begun calling for another $2 trillion infrastructure package to create jobs. Across the political spectrum, politicians are anticipating that the economy will need something approximating a New Deal to spring back to life after the pandemic subsides. And climate advocates are making the case that we can use this disaster response to invest in renewable energy, to ward off an even more dangerous crisis down the line.

The price of not acting on climate change is staggering. 

There is an answer to post Covid-19 economic chaos.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change was the significant factor looming to ruin unprepared economies. Now that world economies are in deep depression it is 'green new deals' that can provide jobs in the future.

When investors start to take notice of 'climate change'.

"The Climate Council’s report, ‘Compound Costs: How Climate Change is Damaging Australia’s Economy’, finds there are few forces affecting the Australian economy that can match the scale, persistence and systemic risk associated with climate change."

"As the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia noted, the risks that climate change poses to the Australian economy are “ first order” and have knock-on implications for macroeconomic policy (Debelle 2019)."

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy/

Climate Change is Real but Time is Running Out

 

"5. The severe costs of climate change outlined in this report are not inevitable. To avoid the costs of climate change increasing exponentially, greenhouse gas emissions must decline to net zero emissions before 2050. Investments in resilience and adaptation will be essential to reduce or prevent losses in the coming decades.

• Increasing resilience to extreme weather and climate change should become a key component of urban planning, infrastructure design and building standards.

• Buildings and infrastructure must be built to withstand future climate hazards and to facilitate the transition to a net zero emissions economy. 

• A credible national climate policy is needed to safeguard our economy by reducing the direct costs of climate change, and avoiding economic risks associated with a sudden, disruptive or disorderly transition to net zero emissions. "      https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy/

 

"3. The property market is expected to lose $571 billion in value by 2030 due to climate change and extreme weather, and will continue to lose value in the coming decades if emissions remain high.

• One in every 19 property owners face the prospect of insurance premiums that will be effectively unaffordable by 2030 (costing 1% or more of the property value per year). 

• Some Australians will be acutely and catastrophically affected. Low-lying properties near rivers and coastlines are particularly at risk, with flood risks increasing progressively and coastal inundation risks emerging as a major threat around 2050.

• Certain events which are likely to become more common because of climate change are not covered by commercial insurance, including coastal inundation and erosion. 

• More than $226 billion in commercial, industrial, road, rail, and residential assets will be at risk from sea level rise alone by 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at high levels. "   
     https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy

 

"Extreme events like droughts, heatwaves, cyclones and floods have an impact on agriculture and food production; this is already affecting Australia’s economy and will cost us much more in the future."

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy

“We will pay for climate breakdown one way or another, so it makes sense to spend the money now to reduce emissions rather than wait until later to pay a lot more for the consequences… It’s a cliché, but it’s true: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/06/20/climate-change-economy-impacts/

Climate Change will affect the poor the most.

Related:    Prepare for more severe storms

Rewiring America says: "This real–world experience (WW3) illustrates the employment potential of a rapid transition to a clean energy economy. Probably the only viable project of the scale necessary to reignite economic growth and return to full employment is decarbonizing America’s energy system.This is equally true in many other countries in the world."  Rewiring America

"Increasing employment under the transition to a zero–carbon is driven by the requirement for more labor in manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of renewables than their counterpart fossil fuel technologies. 

It takes more people to install and keep a wind farm running than it does to drill a well and keep it pumping for the same amount of energy overtime. Renewables get their fuels for free, whereas fossil fuels cost money. It takes more labor and maintenance to access those free renewable fuels. This is a very desirable trade off in an economy with massive unemployment." 
Rewiring America
 

The Guardian

Related: Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage : The Guardian (excerpt)

 

Related: Is your local government body climate change ready?

#jailclimatecriminals   #gaolclimatecriminals   #climatescience   #economy  

#Australia, #cambio-climatico, #climateaction, #economy, #criminalesclimáticosdelacárcel, #fossilfuelcompanies, #greennewdeal, 

 

Seizing the moment: how Australia can build a green economy from the Covid-19 wreckage : The Guardian (excerpt)

Solar farm in Darling Downs, Queensland. The idea of helping jumpstart the economy by also tackling the climate crisis is gaining currency across the political spectrum. Photograph: AAP

"Detailed research by the Grattan Institute suggests an Australian green steel industry could create 25,000 jobs in regional areas that now rely on coalmining, offering a potential path ahead for workers likely to be hardest hit by international steps to cut emissions. 

Among the report’s conclusions: “Australian governments need to be honest with carbon workers: their attempts to protect carbon jobs from global forces will ultimately fail.”

In one of the most challenging areas to address, the faltering aluminium industry, Simon Holmes à Court, a senior adviser to the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne, is looking at how to give four large smelters, which use up to 15% of electricity from the national grid, a viable future in a renewable energy world. He says technology originally developed in Australia could give them the ability to rapidly dial up or down the amount of energy they consume, turning them into a “virtual battery” that helps stabilise the grid and provides an extra income stream to owners.

Garnaut says the economic crash only strengthens the case that he laid out late last year in his book Superpower – that Australia could have an affordable clean electricity system running at more than three times its existing capacity powering a transformed economy, including new minerals industries.

The former government climate adviser, now a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne, says entrenched low interest rates should increase the pace at which renewable energy replaces coal, as capital costs are down and the fuel used in clean power generation costs nothing. Among Garnaut’s messages is that governments should not fear taking on greater debt to fuel a low-carbon recovery that could include new or expanded clean industries in hydrogen, aluminium, steel, silicon and ammonia.
Wilder says there is cause to be optimistic. “Ironically, this crisis has pushed climate change to the fore in discussions of the economy around the globe,” he says.

“There is now significant acceptance that climate change is a threat to the economy. And there is an opportunity to rebuild in a way that makes the economy more resilient, if we choose to take it.' "

Go to The Guardian article 

Related:

Gas lobby seizes Covid moment, and declares war on Australia’s future: RenewEconomy

#cambio-climatico, #Australia, #climatechange, #greennewdeal, #greenrecovery, #jailclimatecriminals, steel industry, 

Prepare for even far more economic chaos than the depression caused by Covid-19

Graeme Mackay

"The Climate Council’s report, ‘Compound Costs: How Climate Change is Damaging Australia’s Economy’, finds there are few forces affecting the Australian economy that can match the scale, persistence and systemic risk associated with climate change."

Prepare for even far more economic chaos than the depression caused by Covid-19.

 

"As the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia noted, the risks that climate change poses to the Australian economy are “ first order” and have knock-on implications for macroeconomic policy (Debelle 2019)."

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy/

 

 

"5. The severe costs of climate change outlined in this report are not inevitable. To avoid the costs of climate change increasing exponentially, greenhouse gas emissions must decline to net zero emissions before 2050. Investments in resilience and adaptation will be essential to reduce or prevent losses in the coming decades.

• Increasing resilience to extreme weather and climate change should become a key component of urban planning, infrastructure design and building standards.
• Buildings and infrastructure must be built to withstand future climate hazards and to facilitate the transition to a net zero emissions economy.
• A credible national climate policy is needed to safeguard our economy by reducing the direct costs of climate change, and avoiding economic risks associated with a sudden, disruptive or disorderly transition to net zero emissions. "      https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy/

 

"3. The property market is expected to lose $571 billion in value by 2030 due to climate change and extreme weather, and will continue to lose value in the coming decades if emissions remain high.

• One in every 19 property owners face the prospect of insurance premiums that will be effectively unaffordable by 2030 (costing 1% or more of the property value per year).
• Some Australians will be acutely and catastrophically affected. Low-lying properties near rivers and coastlines are particularly at risk, with flood risks increasing progressively and coastal inundation risks emerging as a major threat around 2050.
• Certain events which are likely to become more common because of climate change are not covered by commercial insurance, including coastal inundation and erosion.
• More than $226 billion in commercial, industrial, road, rail, and residential assets will be at risk from sea level rise alone by 2100, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at high levels. "        https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy

  ---

"Extreme events like droughts, heatwaves, cyclones and floods have an impact on agriculture and food production; this is already affecting Australia’s economy and will cost us much more in the future."

https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/compound-costs-how-climate-change-damages-australias-economy

“We will pay for climate breakdown one way or another, so it makes sense to spend the money now to reduce emissions rather than wait until later to pay a lot more for the consequences… It’s a cliché, but it’s true: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/06/20/climate-change-economy-impacts/

Related:    Prepare for more severe storms

It’s a Defining Moment in the Fight Against Climate Change | Time

Climate change fell out of the public eye as COVID-19 took over the world. But this year is likely to be the most pivotal yet in the fight against climate change.

From our vantage point today, 2020 looks like the year when an unknown virus spun out of control, killed hundreds of thousands and altered the way we live day to day. In the future, we may look back at 2020 as the year we decided to keep driving off the climate cliff–or to take the last exit. Taking the threat seriously would mean using the opportunity presented by this crisis to spend on solar panels and wind farms, push companies being bailed out to cut emissions and foster greener forms of transport in cities. If we instead choose to fund new coal-fired power plants and oil wells and thoughtlessly fire up factories to urge growth, we will lock in a pathway toward climate catastrophe. There’s a divide about which way to go.

In early April, as COVID-19 spread across the U.S. and doctors urgently warned that New York City might soon run out of ventilators and hospital beds, President Donald Trump gathered CEOs from some of the country’s biggest oil and gas companies for a closed-door meeting in the White House Cabinet Room. The industry faced its biggest disruption in decades, and Trump wanted to help the companies secure their place at the center of the 21st century American economy.

Everything was on the table, from a tariff on imports to the U.S. government itself purchasing excess oil. “We’ll work this out, and we’ll get our energy business back,” Trump told the CEOs. “I’m with you 1,000%.” A few days later, he announced he had brokered a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to cut oil production and rescue the industry.

Art by Jill Pelto for TIME

Later in April, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, in a video message from across the Atlantic, offered a different approach for the continent’s economic future. A European Green Deal, she said, would be the E.U.’s “motor for the recovery.”

“We can turn the crisis of this pandemic into an opportunity to rebuild our economies differently,” she said. On May 27, she pledged more than $800 billion to the initiative, promising to transform the way Europeans live.

For the past three years, the world outside the U.S. has largely tried to ignore Trump’s retrograde position on climate, hoping 2020 would usher in a new President with a new position, re-enabling the cooperation between nations needed to prevent the worst ravages of climate change. But there’s no more time to wait.

We’re standing at a climate crossroads: the world has already warmed 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution. If we pass 2°C, we risk hitting one or more major tipping points, where the effects of climate change go from advancing gradually to changing dramatically overnight, reshaping the planet. To ensure that we don’t pass that threshold, we need to cut emissions in half by 2030. Climate change has understandably fallen out of the public eye this year as the coronavirus pandemic rages. Nevertheless, this year, or perhaps this year and next, is likely to be the most pivotal yet in the fight against climate change. “We’ve run out of time to build new things in old ways,” says Rob Jackson, an earth system science professor at Stanford University and the chair of the Global Carbon Project. What we do now will define the fate of the planet–and human life on it–for decades.

— Read on time.com/5864692/climate-change-defining-moment/

#auspol #qldpol #ClimateCrisis #StopAdani demand #ClimateAction a #GreenNewDeal #TellTheTruth #TheDrum #QandA #insiders

John Pratt Climate Change, Stop Adani July 11, 2020 2 Minutes

 

Names and Locations of the Top 100 People Killing the Planet: The Decolonial Atlas

Names and Location of the Top 100 People Killing the Planet, 2019 – by Jordan Engel

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses.” – Utah Phillips

Just 100 companies are responsible for more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. The guys who run those companies – and they are mostly guys – have gotten rich on the backs of literally all life on Earth. Their business model relies on the destruction of the only home humanity has ever known. 

Meanwhile, we misdirect our outrage at our neighbors, friends, and family for using plastic straws or not recycling. If there is anyone who deserves the outrage of all 7.5 billion of us, it’s these 100 people right here. Combined, they control the majority of the world’s mineral rights – the “right” to exploit the remaining unextracted oil, gas, and coal. They need to know that we won’t leave them alone until they agree to Keep It In The Ground. Not just their companies, but them. Now it’s personal.

Houston tops this list as home to 7 of the 100 top ecocidal planet killers, followed by Jakarta, Calgary, Moscow, and Beijing. The richest person on the list is Russian oil magnate Vagit Alekperov, who is currently worth $20.7 billion.

The map is in the form of a cartogram which represents the size of countries by their cumulative carbon dioxide emissions since industrialization.

This map is a response to the pervasive myth that we can stop climate change if we just modify our personal behavior and buy more green products. Whether or not we separate our recycling, these corporations will go on trashing the planet unless we stop them. The key decision-makers at these companies have the privilege of relative anonymity, and with this map, we’re trying to pull back that veil and call them out. These guys should feel the same personal responsibility for saving the planet that we all feel.

  

Closeup of the top 32 North Americans killing the planet.

  

Closeup of the top 18 Europeans killing the planet.

Update, September 2019:

Writer Adam Weymouth contacted every person on this list asking for an interview to discuss their thoughts on climate change. In the course of his research, he found a few CEOs have now changed. 

They are:

Suncor – CEO Mark Little;

 

Kiewit – CEO Bruce Grewcock;

 

NACCO – CEO J C Butler Jr;

 

Console Energy – CEO James A Brock;

 

Alpha Natural Resources no longer exists. Bought by Contura Energy. CEO Kevin S Crutchfield;

 

Polska Grupa  Górnicza – CEO Tomasz Rogala;

 

OKD – CEO Michal Heřman;

 

EGPC – CEO Abed Ezz El-Regal;

 

Nigerian National Petroleum – CEO Mele Kyari;

 

DTEK – CEO Maxim Timchenko (Rinat Akhmetov is the owner);

 

CNOOC – CEO Yuan Guangyu;

 

INPEX – CEO Takayuki Ueda;

 

Berau Coal Energy – CEO Iskak Indra Wahyudi;

 

Indika Energy – CEO Agus Lasmono

 

“Names and Location of the Top 100 People Killing the Planet, 2019” was made by Jordan Engel. It can be reused under the Decolonial Media License 0.1.

Sources: 2017 Carbon Majors Report WRI Climate Analysis Indicators Tool via The Carbon Map The Forbes List of Richest People in the World

Deep ocean waters warming at faster pace, new study finds: CBS News

 

The absorption of carbon dioxide by the planet’s oceans is increasing, with consequences for both marine species and for human economies that depend upon them. For World Oceans Day (June 8), “Sunday Morning” producer Sara Kugel talks with Oceana’s Jacqueline Savitz about how climate change affects our oceans, and with University of Queensland researcher Issac Brito-Morales, whose new study finds deep waters are warming at a faster pace than the ocean’s surface.Jun 8, 2020

World has six months to avert climate crisis, says energy expert : The Guardian

Climate Change is Real

The world has only six months in which to change the course of the climate crisis and prevent a post-lockdown rebound in greenhouse gas emissions that would overwhelm efforts to stave off climate catastrophe, one of the world’s foremost energy experts has warned.

“This year is the last time we have, if we are not to see a carbon rebound,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency.

Governments are planning to spend $9tn (£7.2tn) globally in the next few months on rescuing their economies from the coronavirus crisis, the IEA has calculated. The stimulus packages created this year will determine the shape of the global economy for the next three years, according to Birol, and within that time emissions must start to fall sharply and permanently, or climate targets will be out of reach.

“The next three years will determine the course of the next 30 years and beyond,” Birol told the Guardian. “If we do not [take action] we will surely see a rebound in emissions. If emissions rebound, it is very difficult to see how they will be brought down in future. This is why we are urging governments to have sustainable recovery packages.”

Read The Guardian article

Europe’s Recovery Plan Has Green Strings Attached: Bloomberg

By

Ewa Krukowska

and

Laura Millan Lombrana

Covid-19

May 28, 2020

• Green Deal to become motor for growth in EU recovery effort
• Access to EU funds will require alignment with green goals
   

Meeting the climate-neutrality goal is a key pillar of a 750 billion-euro ($824 billion) economic recovery plan unveiled by the European Commission, one of the Brussels-based executive’s top officials said.

Read more at Bloomberg