Gillard on climate action: “It was done. And … we can do it again in the future”: RenewEconomy

Vote for my future climate

Former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard has expressed optimism that Australia will eventually embrace strong climate policy while defending her government’s carbon price policy as one of the most effective measures introduced in Australia to cut emissions.

Speaking during a web forum organised by the Australia Institute, Gillard said that the evidence was clear that the carbon price introduced by her government successfully worked to cut Australia’s emissions without being a burden on the Australian economy.

Talk of Australia’s climate policy failures often focuses on Kevin Rudd’s CPRS, rejected by the Coalition after Tony Abbott emerged as their leader. Somehow, the Greens are blamed for this failure but it is often forgotten that the Greens worked with Labor to deliver the carbon price, along with ARENA and the CEFC.

Marking ten years since Gillard became prime minister, the former Labor leader was asked to reflect on the performance of the carbon price, which ultimately proved to be politically damaging, despite being effective policy.

“Australia’s emissions were going up; our carbon price came into effect, they went down. Then, it was repealed by the Abbott government and there they go, back up. So we would be in a different and better place on climate had that scheme endured,” Gillard said.

Read more in the original Renew Economy article 

Related:

Does Australia's government take climate change seriously: Sky News UK

British carbon tax leads to 93% drop in coal-fired electricity: UCL News

"A tax on carbon dioxide emissions in Great Britain, introduced in 2013, has led to the proportion of electricity generated from coal falling from 40% to 3% over six years, according to research led by UCL.


British electricity generated from coal fell from 13.1 TWh (terawatt hours) in 2013 to 0.97 TWh in September 2019, and was replaced by other less emission-heavy forms of generation such as gas. The decline in coal generation accelerated substantially after the tax was increased in 2015."

Read the UCL article

See also:

Morrison now demands we 'adapt' to climate change catastrophes: IA

Power prices would be lower under emissions trading scheme, outgoing public service head Martin Parkinson says: ABC News

The outgoing head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet says power prices would be lower now if an emissions trading scheme had been implemented over a decade ago.

"Whatever else you do, Renewable Energy Target, or anything else, they can be no cheaper than putting an explicit price on carbon," Martin Parkinson told 7.30.

"The difference is where's the cost in an emissions trading scheme (ETS)? The cost is quite visible. It's there, it's the price of the permit.

"In the case of the Renewable Energy Target or any other intervention, then often that price is hidden from the view of the consumer. But ultimately the consumer's paying because it's built into the price of power.

"At the moment what we've got is a lot of burden falling on energy prices.

"If we had an ETS it would have smeared that cost across all parts of the economy."

Read the ABC News article 

Related: Can planting trees save our climate?

Meeting Paris Agreement Targets Would Create 24 Million Jobs Globally: Nexus Media

Photo by Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash

"A rapid transition to clean energy would create, not eliminate, jobs."

"The study, which appears in the journal International Labour Review, found that accelerating the transition to clean energy could add 24 million jobs globally by 2030. In reaching their conclusions, Montt and his colleagues developed a model of the world economy to reflect how it would look with widespread adoption of renewables and enhanced energy efficiency. They found the impact in the renewables sector will ripple across other industries, such as construction and manufacturing."

Read the Nexus Media article 

#jobs  #renewableenergy  # cleanenergy  #industries  #manufacturing  #construction  #climatechange

The Guardian: The Guardian view on COP24: while climate talks continue, there is hope

"The first thing to say about the compromise struck at climate talks in Poland at the weekend is that it came as a relief. Ever since President Trump’s announcement in 2017 that the US would withdraw from the Paris agreement, the question has been whether the UN process could continue to work. Much like the communique that came out of the recent G20, the agreement on a set of rules to implement promises made in Paris shows that while multilateralism has been damaged, it is not dead. Flawed and inadequate though it is, the process that has developed since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in Rio in 1992 is still the best hope we have of staving off the most terrifying impacts of global warming. 

The sticking point of carbon credits, with new demands from Brazil regarding the treatment of forests, was pushed back to next year. But the agreement on how governments will measure and report on emissions cuts is important. The dynamic that previously pitted developing against developed countries has significantly shifted."

Read The Guardian article 

See also

UN climate accord 'inadequate' and lacks urgency, experts warn

#summitinPoland #carbonprice #forests #greenhousegaspollution #climatedeniers #carbon #unitednationsclimatetalks

Video: What you can do about climate change

Henrik Kniberg

Published on Apr 8, 2017

This video is a short, sweet, and pragmatic summary of climate change - what the problem is, why, and what you can actually do about it.

Rolling Stone: Big Oil Kills Carbon Initiative in Washington State

Out-of-state fossil-fuel money drowns out local support for key climate policy

Last night in Washington state, Big Oil bought another election and pushed the world a little deeper into climate chaos. What else is new?

Labor's timid energy plan continues to protect coal from carbon price: Bandt

Greens climate change and energy spokesperson Adam Bandt MP said Labor’s energy policy announced today fails to tackle coal and is another capitulation to Tony Abbott by dumping a carbon price in favour of a policy scavenged from the Liberals’ rubbish bin.

Bloomberg Opinion: Big Oil Doesn’t Like EV Subsidies, Just Its Own Giant Subsidy

The lack of a penalty for carbon emissions is the single biggest obstacle to a level playing field.

By

Liam Denning

November 20, 2018

"A far-more efficient method is to put a price on the stuff you want less of and then let capitalism do its thing, pushing consumption away from the undesirables and investment toward innovative alternatives. Indeed, all these letters demand government officials stand back and let the market do its thing — except their version of the market leaves out one essential element. 

Greenhouse gases and the threat they pose are everyone’s problem, but the individual generating them at any given moment doesn’t pay toward dealing with that. Dump your garbage on your neighbor’s lawn and you’ll wind up paying to have it removed and probably a fine, too. Release 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning a gallon of gasoline, and it’s a freebie.

This is an enormous effective subsidy for fossil fuels and makes a mockery of market piety. Using Yale economist and recent Nobel-prize winner William Nordhaus’s $31-per-tonne estimate of the social cost of carbon, it amounted last year to $107 billion for energy-related emissions from oil and natural gas in the U.S. Within that, emissions from transportation — the biggest source in the U.S. and the only one still growing — enjoyed a free ride worth $59 billion."

Read complete Bloomberg Opinion article

ABC: Australia's biggest oil and gas producer Woodside is now calling for a carbon price.

Photo Woodside Petroleum CEO Peter Coleman says action on climate change is needed "to make our children and grandchildren proud"

Supplied: Woodside

Key points:

• Woodside boss Peter Coleman says the time for Australia to act on climate change is now
• Woodside has joined other resource giants BHP and Rio Tinto in calling for change
• Mr Coleman says individual companies may help change broader corporate resistance to a carbon price 

Speaking on the ABC's The Business, chief executive Peter Coleman said the time to act on climate change was now.
"We need a price on carbon, we need to ensure that the most effective energy gets into the system," he said. 

Go to ABC story