Australia’s most senior former public servants and scientists reveal their anger about climate policy failure: ABC

"For more than 30 years, Australian politics has been grappling with climate change and the nation's most senior public servants have been there through it all.   

Usually they keep their thoughts private, rarely making a foray into public debate, even in retirement.   

Now, after the devastating "black summer" fire season, the former heads of the Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of the Treasury, along with former chief scientists, have decided they can no longer stay silent. 

They believe there has been a colossal failure by politicians of all stripes to comprehensively tackle climate change.

These senior policy makers and scientific minds describe climate policy as perhaps the greatest public policy disappointment of their generation, and a story of power and personal ambition triumphing over the national interest.

Martin Parkinson, who served as secretary of the Department of Climate Change between 2007 and 2011, described politicians as "incapable of grappling with this".

"I don't know how many reports have been put in front of them," he said.

"No politician … has any grounds for saying, 'Oh well, we didn't see it coming'.""

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#jailclimatecriminals  #climateemergency   #climatechange

Cartoon by Mike Peters: See No Global Warming ....

Vote for your children's climate. Vote for your climate.

• Suddenly, many conservative politicians in Australia have 'backflipped'  and now publicly accept that we are living in an age of rapid climate change.... 

BUT

Vote for my future climate

• Many politicians still fail to grasp the catastrophic impacts of climate change all life on Earth will soon experience, therefore they are only 'greenwashing' their election campaigns.

• Most scientists believe we are very likely to heat the planet well beyond 2 degrees.

• The Liberal - National Party Coalition has loudly and publicly rebadged Tony Abbott's Direct Action funding, which inefficiently used your taxes to bribe polluters but has the proposed funding allocation by $200 million at the same time.

• Under the threat of an election defeat by a

The young want climate action

climate activist, Tony Abbott now says he believes in climate change.

• NSW has the biggest state economy yet it's contribution to planning for climate change and slowing global heating is pitiful.

• Yet some National Party and Liberal Party MPs still want to build new, subsidised, coal-powered energy generators even though renewable energy is cheaper and as reliable.

• The Federal Labor Party still supports the Queensland Labor Party's support of new, massive, coal mines. It has no plan to transition coal workers out of coal mining jobs.

• The above parties have no real planning for slowing and mitigating the effects of climate change. It is unlikely we will meet the Paris targets, (don't believe the false accounting of the the Liberal Party - National Party Coalition). 

• Only candidates promising a massive attack on the causes of climate change and promising real planning for more economic downturns, droughts, heat waves, bush fires, epidemics, food and water shortages, health epidemics, ocean acidification, animal extinctions, sea inundations, property devaluations and waves of climate refugee immigration deserve your first vote.

Vote for your children's climate.

Vote for your climate. 

Related: Will predicted sea rise inundation affect property values in Coffs Harbour NSW?

#climate change  #globalheating  #searise  #Liberal Party  #Labor Party
 

UK MPs debate climate after school strike – but only a handful turn up: The Guardian

 

A handful of MPs debate climate change in the House of Commons. Photograph: parliamentlive.tv

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 Read The Guardian article

Related: Out on its own: Australia the only country to use climate funding to upgrade coal-fired plants

Australia can meet Paris targets if government doesn't hinder progress, report claims

climate action now

ANU research suggests net cost of achieving Paris targets is zero because renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels

New research finds Australia is installing renewable energy faster than any other country, a trend that will allow Australia to meet its economy-wide Paris targets five years ahead of schedule if politics doesn’t derail the trend, according to new research from the Australian National University.

Read The Guardian article

BUT

"Dr Teske said ANU's research focussed on the energy market and not the entire sector.

"We also need to take into account our emissions and transport [and] if we want to electrify our transport system, we need to take into account that the electricity demand in Australia will roughly double," he said.

"Even if we meet our, let's say, 2025 or 2030 targets, we need a long term target and we don't have long term energy policies in place right now."  From ABC NEWS


Rolling Stone: What’s Another Way to Say ‘We’re F-cked’? One of the leading climate scientists of our time is warning of the horrifying possibility of 15-to-20 feet of sea-level rise

'He's coming home': Tim Flannery returns to Australian Museum

Professor Flannery

"While concerned about Australia's lack of action on climate, Professor Flannery said "you have to remain optimistic". 

"You’ve got to look at this problem over decades. It’s a problem that’s developed over two centuries and it’s not going to be solved tomorrow," he said.;

But he said Australia must do more and said neither side of politics was offering enough of a solution.

"Is any political party doing enough, given the current situation, to avoid two degrees of warming? It’s very unlikely. We’ve got to do more. Our targets need to be increased."

Read the SMH article 

#Professor Flannery,  #global heating  #climate action   # Australia  #  politicians

The Year That Climate Change Became a Kitchen-Table Issue: Nexus Media

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

"Not only are more Americans worried about climate change than ever before, for the first time, a significant portion of the electorate rates climate change as a top issue. In 2016, climate change was the sixth most important issue for liberal Democrats, according to Yale and George Mason University, while today it’s their fourth most important issue. It may be higher still. A recent Marist poll found that, among all Democrats, climate change is the second most important issue, trailing only health care. And it’s not just Democrats. In particularly vulnerable parts of the country, like Florida, Republicans are worried too."

Read the Nexus Media article 

#voters  #politicians  #climatechange #politics #USA #republicans  #democrats

Jay Inslee, the ‘Climate Candidate,’ Joins the 2020 Race : Rolling Stone

Jay Inslee (Ted S Warren/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

WASHINGTON — Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state, has entered the 2020 presidential race. And he’s betting his candidacy on the idea that Americans care enough about the existential threat of our time — climate change — to elect a president with a laser-like, almost singular focus on that issue.

The news does not come as much of a surprise. Last month, Inslee first spoke to Rolling Stone about the need for a Democratic candidate in 2020 who would put climate change at the forefront of his or her campaign — a role for which he refused to rule himself out. “I do think that it is absolutely imperative that the Democratic Party put forth a candidate who will make climate change a principal, front-burner issue, rather than some peripheral back burner,” he said. “I believe it’s a potentially winning issue to run on, and we need a candidate who will do that.” 

Read Rolling Stone article

See also The Guardian article: Risks of 'domino effect' of tipping points greater than thought, study says

#USA #climatecatastrophe #politicians #JayInslee 

"Politicians Discussing Global Warming" by Isaac Cordal, a statue in Berlin

"Politicians Discussing Global Warming" by Isaac Cordal, a statue in Berlin

See also: Billionaires are a leading cause of climate change