Scott Morrison blasted by Pacific heat while trying to project calm on climate
Things are not under control when it comes to Australia meeting our
Paris target, even if Scott Morrison wants us to believe that.
We’ll get to climate, and the rumble in the Pacific,
but I want to begin closer to home. It’s been a busy news week, so you
might have missed an excellent story from my colleague Adam Morton on
Tuesday revealing that a coalmine in Queensland has nearly doubled its greenhouse gas emissions in two years without penalty under a Morrison government mechanism that is supposed to impose limits on industrial pollution.
According to documents released under freedom of information laws,
mining company Anglo American was given the green light under the
safeguards mechanism to increase its emissions by about 1m tonnes at its
Moranbah North mine, in central Queensland. The case study matters, because it helps us separate spin from substance.
Read the excellent The Guardian article
"What
does the first-ever catastrophic fire warning in Queensland look like?
This is what's left of rainforest at Eungella, in tropical north
Queensland near Mackay.
Climate damage, here, now."
 |
| Cate Faehrmann MLC |
Here is a letter I have sent to the Queensland Premier calling on her
to stop approving coal mines if she is serious about responding to the
horrific fires devastating the state right now.
- - - - -
Dear Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk MP,
I heard you on ABC radio this morning talking about the catastrophic
fire conditions that Queensland is facing. “Unprecedented” was the word
you used.
You told listeners across the country that temperatures
had broken records by 5 or 10 degrees and that the lack of normally
humid conditions in that part of Queensland was making the situation
worse.
You’ve previously acknowledged that climate change is real and climate change is happening.
Just two months ago your government released a report warning of the
increased risk of extreme floods and fires as a result of climate
change.
So I just want to check that you’re aware of the link between burning coal and climate change?
