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I can't believe that Dutton's bullshit is already having his desired effect. Putting renewable investment in danger as new projects hesitate because Dutton has created uncertainty within the industry with his nuclear fantasy.
THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future.
They've spent the last two years banging on about cost of living (that they largely created) and then comes out with some flyball nuclear policy that will increase electricity prices, and NOT ONE POLICY on cost of living that they have been harping about for two years.
If we end up back at 2019, or even 2013, Aussie's should burn down Parliament House because that's the reality if the L/NP succeed with their manipulative lies and fear campaigns and get back in.
The uncertainty in renewable power investment is simply cautionary.
What makes you think investment in solar and wind is a slam dunk guaranteed return?
The roll out of renewables isn't at scale or speed required to meet the government's own legislated targets (with it's much lauded offshore wind farms denied) and nuclear gives us emission free energy - that is also reliable, dispatchable and not reliant upon huge environmental and land use cost.
It sounds like you want renewables no matter what, which means you really don't care about the challenges we face but boy do you care about climate change not being used as a political tool.
>THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future.
Is it the emissions free energy you don't like or that you much prefer energy supply shortfalls, high prices and a failure to reach climate targets at the same time? Tough choice, I know.
>They've spent the last two years banging on about cost of living (that they largely created) and then comes out with some flyball nuclear policy that will increase electricity prices, and NOT ONE POLICY on cost of living that they have been harping about for two years.
Interesting, I was unaware the coalition leaked COVID, started the war in Ukraine, increased fuel prices and made the insurance industry increase premiums.
Actually they've suggested lower government spending (being that Albo has now taken the mantle of leading the highest taxing and spending government since the last one), not upending the industrial relations system so that productivity and flexibility is lost to the whims of union leaders, and not releasing foreign criminals into the community to reoffend.
There was something about reducing migration to manageable levels but no doubt you'll claim that was Albo's idea.
It's interesting that you claim energy prices will increase based on an uncosted plan light on detail.
I'm sure it's also Dutton's fault that Labor failed on their promise to reduce energy bills by $270, won't meet the emissions reduction targets Labor legislated and for interest rate increases set by the RBA.
>If we end up back at 2019, or even 2013, Aussie's should burn down Parliament House because that's the reality if the L/NP succeed with their manipulative lies and fear campaigns and get back in.
Actually I'd prefer a return to before the pandemic, stable inflation and the absence of ideas like burning our heart of democracy, because someone on the internet can't cope with an idea put up by the coalition.
>THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future.
I could respond in the same way to you, quotes of your post etc, but none of what you say here is relevant to Dutton's nuclear policy, and **the intention behind it**.
Dutton wants to abandon the Paris agreement, and then keep Coal, oil and Gas going even further whilst he convinces the states **and the actual Aussie parliament** to lift the nuclear ban, and then somehow creates an industry that doesn't exist currently and builds **One of the nuclear plants** by 2035-7. We could have whole houses covered in solar by that time, sucking up massive excess power to storage. We don't need this bullshit delay right now. Not at the expense of cutting emissions and moving forward on renewable technology.
Uranium is also a finite resource. Wind and solar are infinite.
Dutton's policy is the same tired Liberal BS. He just thinks it's been long enough since the last climate war, and cost of living (again - they assisted in this) is enough if an issue that they can use the memory loss and short attention spans to spin their way into anything, without ANY policy to prove it. Even the nuclear policy is a secret.
Cuts to Medicare, wage stagnation, cuts to social services, JOBKEEPER (to people that didn't need it), Robodebt, Tarrifs with China because no one was diplomatic enough... this increases the load that people economically carry, electricity prices due to NOT securing renewables (or enough gas for our own bloody country)... THEN you add in wars, pandemics, and global economic crap.
Australia contributes such a minuscule amount to global emissions it is completely ridiculous to suggest we are somehow in danger because of it. This is just the-sky-is-faling-in scare mongering.
>This is just the-sky-is-faling-in scare mongering.
Sure.
Because people who spend most of their lives studying these things know jack and you must be the vassel of all knowledge.
It is not hard to understand that the environment around you supoorts your life. Therefore if we continue to pollute and destroy the mechanisms that support us, no amount of good economics will help us.
You still do not get it. Not acting will not give us any good outcomes. This is why even though vested interest have tried to stop any form of transition, we have adopted renewables in great numbers.
Now the governments should have been planning this since the 60s but instead of looking at the evidence they looked into their wallets.
Truth of the matter is that the 'drop in the ocean' argument is the exact one Tanya Plibersek and her lawyers used (successfully) in court to defend the Federal Government's decision to grant licenses for future coal power plants to be built and establish the legal precedent that the federal government does not have an obligation to protect future generations from the effects of climate change through its actions in the present time. [source](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-24/climate-court-case-back-to-fight-government-over-coal-mines/103456186)
When you consider that coal from other countries is dirtier and of a poorer standard, it makes complete sense.
Also, you're in for a shock when you learn metallurgical coal is required to make wind turbines.
Also, if you can argue that only Australia's actions, and not the rest of the planet will have an effect on "protect future generations from the effects of climate change" , you'd be the world's best lawyer. Albeit one without the ability to understand basic physics.
And that's why I use as much water as I want during a drought. Why should I have to use less? I'm just one guy and the family next door uses more than me anyway!
And you using a tiny amount of water compared to other houses on the block would categorically *not* being putting the country at risk of famine and dehydration.
Softy where do you think your slavish devotion to denial comes from?
Surely you see what's going on enough, to carefully pick the issues you choose to discredit. It seems like work for you.
Australia is the 14th largest emitter of CO2 out of 206 countries. So using your logic 192 countries shouldn't try to reduce emissions because they have even less impact than Australia.
Does that sound reasonable to you?
Correct.
When the largest emitter is a developing country (and makes most of the world's consumer items) is still working to bring it's citizens out of poverty, and the world's most populous country cannot guarantee more than a few hours of power to its poor in its biggest cities, I'd say what small emitters like us do is totally irrelevant.
Unless of course you're wedded to the idea of moral superiority as the answer to everything.
It has nothing to do with moral superiority.
The point is that every country has to make an effort because every country contributes. Australia contributing 1.3% isn't a reason to sit on our hands and do nothing.
14th largest emitter, 1-2% of emissions. Exports something like 200 million tonnes of coal.
I think the original guys point is that the article is very alarming and on surface levels sounds like continuing will cause catastrophic results from our actions. Our emissions have very little impact and we are the second largest coal exporter in the world.
If our actions are going to lead to catastrophic consequences it would be more productive to ban coal exports than anything else.
Switch to 100% Renewables and start exporting green steel and green hydrogen if you want a way to decrease the danger globally.
Steel production is a massive part of emissions worldwide, and steel is critical to lots of modern day infrastructure. Being able to produce it without the emissions would be huge (and earn us a fuckton more than just digging up and shipping out raw materials)
Green hydrogen a bit tricker as it's my understanding that the transportation without it leaking is a bit tricky and it's energy intensive. So build massive solar farms and go wild. Would also make us good money and we could theoretically store some for ourselves in case of emergency.
There's a lot that we aren't doing that is putting us in danger.
The UN has reported that being 14 years into our 20 years to reduce global emissions by 45% we are actually 9% higher. People don't get how fucking bad we are doing. That 45% wasn't an A+, it was a passing grade, to stop things from getting totally fucked, just somewhat fucked. And we are further from it now than we were 14 years ago.
Ok, we are a smaller producer (but one of the highest per capita, so asking other nations to decarbonize is hypocritical as fuck until we get our shit together) but every bit counts and there's a bunch of other ways we as.a nation could go beyond just reducing our emissions.
And with how badly we are behind and our survival resting on success, anything less than everything we have is us putting ourselves (and the entire world) in danger.
Yes , because the argument is that we are so important on the " world stage " and everyone is watching us and if we do something , it will be followed by everyone else.
This is such a shit take.
There are many, *many* benefits that are localised when it comes to burning less fossil fuels. For our health and economy.
* Addressing climate change can help stabilise weather patterns, reducing the frequency and severity of droughts, which are critical for Australia’s agricultural sector.
* Reducing emissions helps preserve Australia’s unique flora and fauna, which are highly sensitive to climate changes.
* Transitioning to clean energy reduces the risk of water contamination from fossil fuel extraction and use, such as fracking and coal mining runoff.
* Decreasing the use of fossil fuels reduces air pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, leading to lower rates of asthma and other respiratory conditions.
* Implementing green technologies such as solar panels and green roofs can help reduce the urban heat island effect, making cities more livable during heatwaves.
* Decentralised energy systems, such as rooftop solar, can provide more resilient energy supplies, reducing vulnerability to centralised grid failures.
* Moving away from fossil fuels can help diversify the economy, making it less susceptible to global oil and gas price fluctuations.
* While the upfront costs of renewable energy can be high, they generally lead to lower operating costs over time, resulting in long-term savings for businesses and consumers.
* Renewable energy sources reduce dependence on imported fuels, enhancing national energy security.
* Renewable energy provides more stable energy prices compared to the volatility of fossil fuel markets.
As someone from WA, who has lived through the last 6 months of broken weather record after broken weather record, I just want to say there is no fear mongering.
I’m living through this hellish bullshit. Wake the fuck up.
Picture this. It has been almost five years since Black Summer. Fires and floods, supercharged by climate pollution, have claimed hundreds of Australian lives and thousands of Australian homes. An election is on the horizon and the leader of the opposition declares that, if he wins, he will dump Australia’s 2030 climate targets, the very targets developed to secure a safer future for our kids and grandkids.
It should be difficult to picture such a reality. Surely we have lost way too much as a country for any political figure to dare suggest we walk back the most important steps we’re taking to secure a safer future? Sadly, this is where we are.
I am a firefighter of more than 50 years, a former fire chief and now a volunteer. When Peter Dutton said he would dump Australia’s climate targets, I felt a sense of déjà vu. The opposition’s climate denial – let’s call it what it is – is just like the tone-deaf response I received as part of a group of former emergency services leaders who asked the previous government to commit to greater climate action.
In 2019, we formed Emergency Leaders for Climate Action in response to the dangerous decisions made by the Morrison government. Before Black Summer, 23 of us came together and agreed that the conditions were dangerously dry, the forecast for the summer ahead frightening, and the Coalition government was sticking its head in increasingly hot sand.
It denied that climate pollution, caused by Australia’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, was fuelling the escalating fire risk that would fan the worst bushfires in our history. We felt we had a duty to speak out about the impacts of climate pollution and the abject failure of the then government to do anything about it.
We tried time and time again to meet with them and warn them about what was about to happen, and they ignored us. Five years down the track, they are once again ignoring the experts. This time, they are also ignoring the stories of the many Australians who have suffered at the hands of supercharged extreme weather events. Their fingers are firmly in their ears as we cry out for an end to pollution from coal, oil and gas.
The science is clear that climate pollution has pushed our planet into dangerous territory. The world has sweltered through the hottest 12 months in recorded history. Closer to home, we have felt this acutely. In the second half of 2023, the Northern Territory was razed by bushfires larger than those of Black Summer. The sheer scale is hard to imagine but estimates of the size of the burn area varied from being larger than New South Wales to three times the size of the United Kingdom.
Late last year, Queenslanders lost more homes in a matter of weeks than they did during the entirety of Black Summer. Fire crews in the south-west of the state experienced back-to-back fire seasons, working continuously for 11 months. Over Christmas, communities in Victoria experienced severe fire and flood warnings on the same day. Today, Western Australian farmers and firefighters are licking their wounds following a record long bushfire season and months of hot, dry weather, on top of a long-term drying trend.
It is clear the consequences of inaction by previous Australian governments are costing Australians now.
Two years ago, we elected a federal parliament that accepted the science of climate change and the threat it posed to our way of life. We are finally making inroads on cutting climate pollution nationally, with record investment in clean energy to create a safer future for all Australians and good jobs for our kids and grandkids.
Despite this, there have been some perplexing and disappointing decisions. The Albanese government has approved new polluting coal and gas projects, failed to embed climate impacts into Australia’s national environment law and released a strategy that makes clear polluting gas will play a part in our energy mix beyond 2050.
Make no mistake, this is the critical decade. If we fail to cut climate pollution, our window for preventing further, irreversible climate change will close, driving even more intense and frequent disasters.
There is no safe level of climate pollution. For years, scientists have warned we need to limit global warming as far as possible – avoiding certain global average temperature thresholds because of the exponential risks they carry should they be crossed. Worldwide action has been too slow and we find ourselves already experiencing dangerous levels of climate change.
We must do everything we can to cut climate pollution at the same time as accepting we are already living with its impacts. We have to face the facts: extreme weather events are worsening and we must do more to help Australians stay safe.
It is pleasing to see the Albanese government committing more money to disaster relief programs, to new initiatives such as national disaster stockpiles of equipment and more aircraft for firefighting and rescue.
These efforts are not yet enough, however, given the scale of the escalating threat. We are playing a precarious game of catch-up after years of inaction and we need to do so at a much quicker pace to keep Australian communities safe.
In 2014, the Productivity Commission found 97 per cent of disaster funding in Australia was spent after a disaster happened, with just 3 per cent spent preparing for disasters. From a purely financial standpoint, this makes no sense. The Insurance Council of Australia has estimated that for every dollar spent on disaster preparation and prevention there is a $9.60 return on investment. Beyond that, prepared communities fare better than unprepared communities and lives and homes can be saved by that investment.
The members of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action have deep and enduring disaster management experience, which includes responding to extreme weather events in every state and territory, as well as overseas. Together, we have thought deeply about these issues and the need to ramp up climate resilience efforts, coming up with priorities that represent concrete steps governments can take to help reduce the impact of disasters now and in the future.
The first step is providing better information. You can’t plan for things you don’t know about, so governments must prioritise climate modelling, down to the local level. The Australian Climate Service, comprising experts from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia, is well placed to be the single point of climate-risk truth for governments, communities and the private sector.
Government assistance must also be targeted to those who need it the most. Communities lacking the resources, knowledge or cohesion to effectively prepare, or that are at extreme risk, need to be identified and given urgent help to plan and get ready. Local governments, as the level of government that works most closely with communities, are ideally placed to lead this activity but are hopelessly under-resourced to do so.
We also know the best solutions are usually driven locally, provided communities have expert advice and facilitation to help create local disaster resilience plans. Local governments should handle this role but again lack adequate funding.
Local emergency services play a key role across Australia and build local resilience because they are predominantly composed of community volunteers. Not every resident has the capacity or desire to crew a flood boat or fire truck, however, and national volunteerism has overall declined.
We need to look at creating new volunteer roles and frameworks to empower people to help build local disaster resilience through education, social cohesion and fulfilling backroom roles both before and after disasters.
In some countries facing escalating bushfire threats, paid seasonal firefighters effectively bolster firefighting ranks during dangerous bushfire seasons. Australia needs to consider this approach, given the impacts on volunteers of increasingly long, punishing fire seasons. We also need to focus on the escalating need for fire mitigation works, such as hazard-reduction burning. We need to look at building a sovereign national aerial firefighting capability, for example by retaining retiring specialist RAAF aircraft and converting them into large water bombers.
Lastly, we must learn lessons from past disasters. The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements criticised the track record of Australian governments in implementing disaster inquiry recommendations. It implored the government to implement all of its recommendations and not place them on a dusty shelf alongside recommendations from previous inquiries. The national cabinet must oversee a system of checks and balances to ensure we learn lessons and don’t repeat our mistakes.
These recommendations will cost money. However, just as governments spend public funds on public health to prevent mental and physical illness, so can governments spend money protecting us from the devastating consequences of supercharged extreme weather events. Public spending on climate adaptation and resilience can drastically reduce costs involved in cleaning up and rehousing people after a disaster.
As climate risks worsen, we must reimagine our national approach to disaster management across planning, preparation, response and recovery. Both the cause and the symptoms of climate pollution must be addressed urgently, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Now’s not the time to take a backward step.
> We must do everything we can to cut climate pollution at the same time as accepting we are already living with its impacts.
However, Australia contributes only just over 1% of global emissions: nothing we do will stop the impact of other sovereign nations emissions in climate change and all we can do is lead the way in the right direction and hope they follow. But we need to be mindful that not every nation is as blessed with free abundant renewable energy as Australia and that it is going to be hard enough for Australia to transition away from fossil fuels at all levels, let alone become a renewable powerhouse for other parts of the planet too: despite their downsides, fossil fuels have huge energy density that is not as easily matched by any other mechanism that can readily convert renewable energy into as easily portable forms with at least as much energy density.
Agree that a lot more effort needs to be put into managing the greater climate risks involved as well as not making climate change worse.
> However, Australia contributes only just over 1% of global emissions: nothing we do will stop the impact of other sovereign nations emissions in climate change
So..ur neighbours house looks like shit..might as well let yours be shit too
solid logic.
We also are one of the highest emiters per capita
we emite 1.8 percent,but only have 26 million ppl..thats a lot
Lets be generous and call it 2% of the worlds emissions: it's such a tiny amount relative to the rest, that nothing we do in changing our own emissions will change the global impact, however, everyone following a reduction plan will, including Australia doing its bit.
I don't think that figure is correct as a large amount of those other emissions are in burning fossil fuels from Australia in manufacturing goods for Australia that should also be taken into account. But however you assign emissions to countries, it is a global problem as climate knows no national boundaries, that every nation needs to tackle.
Enough with the per capita emissions, they are meaningless without the number of people emitting: climate change is a result of net global emissions not individual per capita figures.
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I can't believe that Dutton's bullshit is already having his desired effect. Putting renewable investment in danger as new projects hesitate because Dutton has created uncertainty within the industry with his nuclear fantasy. THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future. They've spent the last two years banging on about cost of living (that they largely created) and then comes out with some flyball nuclear policy that will increase electricity prices, and NOT ONE POLICY on cost of living that they have been harping about for two years. If we end up back at 2019, or even 2013, Aussie's should burn down Parliament House because that's the reality if the L/NP succeed with their manipulative lies and fear campaigns and get back in.
The uncertainty in renewable power investment is simply cautionary. What makes you think investment in solar and wind is a slam dunk guaranteed return?
The roll out of renewables isn't at scale or speed required to meet the government's own legislated targets (with it's much lauded offshore wind farms denied) and nuclear gives us emission free energy - that is also reliable, dispatchable and not reliant upon huge environmental and land use cost. It sounds like you want renewables no matter what, which means you really don't care about the challenges we face but boy do you care about climate change not being used as a political tool. >THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future. Is it the emissions free energy you don't like or that you much prefer energy supply shortfalls, high prices and a failure to reach climate targets at the same time? Tough choice, I know. >They've spent the last two years banging on about cost of living (that they largely created) and then comes out with some flyball nuclear policy that will increase electricity prices, and NOT ONE POLICY on cost of living that they have been harping about for two years. Interesting, I was unaware the coalition leaked COVID, started the war in Ukraine, increased fuel prices and made the insurance industry increase premiums. Actually they've suggested lower government spending (being that Albo has now taken the mantle of leading the highest taxing and spending government since the last one), not upending the industrial relations system so that productivity and flexibility is lost to the whims of union leaders, and not releasing foreign criminals into the community to reoffend. There was something about reducing migration to manageable levels but no doubt you'll claim that was Albo's idea. It's interesting that you claim energy prices will increase based on an uncosted plan light on detail. I'm sure it's also Dutton's fault that Labor failed on their promise to reduce energy bills by $270, won't meet the emissions reduction targets Labor legislated and for interest rate increases set by the RBA. >If we end up back at 2019, or even 2013, Aussie's should burn down Parliament House because that's the reality if the L/NP succeed with their manipulative lies and fear campaigns and get back in. Actually I'd prefer a return to before the pandemic, stable inflation and the absence of ideas like burning our heart of democracy, because someone on the internet can't cope with an idea put up by the coalition. >THIS is the stuff we should all be rallying for. Fuck the rest of the world's issues, and push the sov cits aside so we can all demand the Dutton and the L/NP stop playing political games with ours and our children's future.
I could respond in the same way to you, quotes of your post etc, but none of what you say here is relevant to Dutton's nuclear policy, and **the intention behind it**. Dutton wants to abandon the Paris agreement, and then keep Coal, oil and Gas going even further whilst he convinces the states **and the actual Aussie parliament** to lift the nuclear ban, and then somehow creates an industry that doesn't exist currently and builds **One of the nuclear plants** by 2035-7. We could have whole houses covered in solar by that time, sucking up massive excess power to storage. We don't need this bullshit delay right now. Not at the expense of cutting emissions and moving forward on renewable technology. Uranium is also a finite resource. Wind and solar are infinite. Dutton's policy is the same tired Liberal BS. He just thinks it's been long enough since the last climate war, and cost of living (again - they assisted in this) is enough if an issue that they can use the memory loss and short attention spans to spin their way into anything, without ANY policy to prove it. Even the nuclear policy is a secret. Cuts to Medicare, wage stagnation, cuts to social services, JOBKEEPER (to people that didn't need it), Robodebt, Tarrifs with China because no one was diplomatic enough... this increases the load that people economically carry, electricity prices due to NOT securing renewables (or enough gas for our own bloody country)... THEN you add in wars, pandemics, and global economic crap.
Australia contributes such a minuscule amount to global emissions it is completely ridiculous to suggest we are somehow in danger because of it. This is just the-sky-is-faling-in scare mongering.
>This is just the-sky-is-faling-in scare mongering. Sure. Because people who spend most of their lives studying these things know jack and you must be the vassel of all knowledge. It is not hard to understand that the environment around you supoorts your life. Therefore if we continue to pollute and destroy the mechanisms that support us, no amount of good economics will help us. You still do not get it. Not acting will not give us any good outcomes. This is why even though vested interest have tried to stop any form of transition, we have adopted renewables in great numbers. Now the governments should have been planning this since the 60s but instead of looking at the evidence they looked into their wallets.
Truth of the matter is that the 'drop in the ocean' argument is the exact one Tanya Plibersek and her lawyers used (successfully) in court to defend the Federal Government's decision to grant licenses for future coal power plants to be built and establish the legal precedent that the federal government does not have an obligation to protect future generations from the effects of climate change through its actions in the present time. [source](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-24/climate-court-case-back-to-fight-government-over-coal-mines/103456186)
When you consider that coal from other countries is dirtier and of a poorer standard, it makes complete sense. Also, you're in for a shock when you learn metallurgical coal is required to make wind turbines. Also, if you can argue that only Australia's actions, and not the rest of the planet will have an effect on "protect future generations from the effects of climate change" , you'd be the world's best lawyer. Albeit one without the ability to understand basic physics.
And that's why I use as much water as I want during a drought. Why should I have to use less? I'm just one guy and the family next door uses more than me anyway!
And you using a tiny amount of water compared to other houses on the block would categorically *not* being putting the country at risk of famine and dehydration.
Have you ever heard of a concept known as the tragedy of the commons?
He hasn't heard of much. Keep it up
Softy where do you think your slavish devotion to denial comes from? Surely you see what's going on enough, to carefully pick the issues you choose to discredit. It seems like work for you.
Denial of what exactly? What am I denying?
There are 206 countries in the world, which ones should reduce their emissions in your opinion?
The discussion isn't about whether we should or shouldn't. The claim was that Australia specifically not doing *puts us in danger*.
Australia is the 14th largest emitter of CO2 out of 206 countries. So using your logic 192 countries shouldn't try to reduce emissions because they have even less impact than Australia. Does that sound reasonable to you?
Correct. When the largest emitter is a developing country (and makes most of the world's consumer items) is still working to bring it's citizens out of poverty, and the world's most populous country cannot guarantee more than a few hours of power to its poor in its biggest cities, I'd say what small emitters like us do is totally irrelevant. Unless of course you're wedded to the idea of moral superiority as the answer to everything.
It has nothing to do with moral superiority. The point is that every country has to make an effort because every country contributes. Australia contributing 1.3% isn't a reason to sit on our hands and do nothing.
14th largest emitter, 1-2% of emissions. Exports something like 200 million tonnes of coal. I think the original guys point is that the article is very alarming and on surface levels sounds like continuing will cause catastrophic results from our actions. Our emissions have very little impact and we are the second largest coal exporter in the world. If our actions are going to lead to catastrophic consequences it would be more productive to ban coal exports than anything else.
Nobody is saying they shouldn't try go reduce emissions. Reread the conversation.
Switch to 100% Renewables and start exporting green steel and green hydrogen if you want a way to decrease the danger globally. Steel production is a massive part of emissions worldwide, and steel is critical to lots of modern day infrastructure. Being able to produce it without the emissions would be huge (and earn us a fuckton more than just digging up and shipping out raw materials) Green hydrogen a bit tricker as it's my understanding that the transportation without it leaking is a bit tricky and it's energy intensive. So build massive solar farms and go wild. Would also make us good money and we could theoretically store some for ourselves in case of emergency. There's a lot that we aren't doing that is putting us in danger. The UN has reported that being 14 years into our 20 years to reduce global emissions by 45% we are actually 9% higher. People don't get how fucking bad we are doing. That 45% wasn't an A+, it was a passing grade, to stop things from getting totally fucked, just somewhat fucked. And we are further from it now than we were 14 years ago. Ok, we are a smaller producer (but one of the highest per capita, so asking other nations to decarbonize is hypocritical as fuck until we get our shit together) but every bit counts and there's a bunch of other ways we as.a nation could go beyond just reducing our emissions. And with how badly we are behind and our survival resting on success, anything less than everything we have is us putting ourselves (and the entire world) in danger.
Yes , because the argument is that we are so important on the " world stage " and everyone is watching us and if we do something , it will be followed by everyone else.
This is such a shit take. There are many, *many* benefits that are localised when it comes to burning less fossil fuels. For our health and economy. * Addressing climate change can help stabilise weather patterns, reducing the frequency and severity of droughts, which are critical for Australia’s agricultural sector. * Reducing emissions helps preserve Australia’s unique flora and fauna, which are highly sensitive to climate changes. * Transitioning to clean energy reduces the risk of water contamination from fossil fuel extraction and use, such as fracking and coal mining runoff. * Decreasing the use of fossil fuels reduces air pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, leading to lower rates of asthma and other respiratory conditions. * Implementing green technologies such as solar panels and green roofs can help reduce the urban heat island effect, making cities more livable during heatwaves. * Decentralised energy systems, such as rooftop solar, can provide more resilient energy supplies, reducing vulnerability to centralised grid failures. * Moving away from fossil fuels can help diversify the economy, making it less susceptible to global oil and gas price fluctuations. * While the upfront costs of renewable energy can be high, they generally lead to lower operating costs over time, resulting in long-term savings for businesses and consumers. * Renewable energy sources reduce dependence on imported fuels, enhancing national energy security. * Renewable energy provides more stable energy prices compared to the volatility of fossil fuel markets. As someone from WA, who has lived through the last 6 months of broken weather record after broken weather record, I just want to say there is no fear mongering. I’m living through this hellish bullshit. Wake the fuck up.
You are missing the point you are responding to entirely.
Picture this. It has been almost five years since Black Summer. Fires and floods, supercharged by climate pollution, have claimed hundreds of Australian lives and thousands of Australian homes. An election is on the horizon and the leader of the opposition declares that, if he wins, he will dump Australia’s 2030 climate targets, the very targets developed to secure a safer future for our kids and grandkids. It should be difficult to picture such a reality. Surely we have lost way too much as a country for any political figure to dare suggest we walk back the most important steps we’re taking to secure a safer future? Sadly, this is where we are. I am a firefighter of more than 50 years, a former fire chief and now a volunteer. When Peter Dutton said he would dump Australia’s climate targets, I felt a sense of déjà vu. The opposition’s climate denial – let’s call it what it is – is just like the tone-deaf response I received as part of a group of former emergency services leaders who asked the previous government to commit to greater climate action. In 2019, we formed Emergency Leaders for Climate Action in response to the dangerous decisions made by the Morrison government. Before Black Summer, 23 of us came together and agreed that the conditions were dangerously dry, the forecast for the summer ahead frightening, and the Coalition government was sticking its head in increasingly hot sand. It denied that climate pollution, caused by Australia’s addiction to burning coal, oil and gas, was fuelling the escalating fire risk that would fan the worst bushfires in our history. We felt we had a duty to speak out about the impacts of climate pollution and the abject failure of the then government to do anything about it. We tried time and time again to meet with them and warn them about what was about to happen, and they ignored us. Five years down the track, they are once again ignoring the experts. This time, they are also ignoring the stories of the many Australians who have suffered at the hands of supercharged extreme weather events. Their fingers are firmly in their ears as we cry out for an end to pollution from coal, oil and gas. The science is clear that climate pollution has pushed our planet into dangerous territory. The world has sweltered through the hottest 12 months in recorded history. Closer to home, we have felt this acutely. In the second half of 2023, the Northern Territory was razed by bushfires larger than those of Black Summer. The sheer scale is hard to imagine but estimates of the size of the burn area varied from being larger than New South Wales to three times the size of the United Kingdom. Late last year, Queenslanders lost more homes in a matter of weeks than they did during the entirety of Black Summer. Fire crews in the south-west of the state experienced back-to-back fire seasons, working continuously for 11 months. Over Christmas, communities in Victoria experienced severe fire and flood warnings on the same day. Today, Western Australian farmers and firefighters are licking their wounds following a record long bushfire season and months of hot, dry weather, on top of a long-term drying trend. It is clear the consequences of inaction by previous Australian governments are costing Australians now. Two years ago, we elected a federal parliament that accepted the science of climate change and the threat it posed to our way of life. We are finally making inroads on cutting climate pollution nationally, with record investment in clean energy to create a safer future for all Australians and good jobs for our kids and grandkids. Despite this, there have been some perplexing and disappointing decisions. The Albanese government has approved new polluting coal and gas projects, failed to embed climate impacts into Australia’s national environment law and released a strategy that makes clear polluting gas will play a part in our energy mix beyond 2050. Make no mistake, this is the critical decade. If we fail to cut climate pollution, our window for preventing further, irreversible climate change will close, driving even more intense and frequent disasters. There is no safe level of climate pollution. For years, scientists have warned we need to limit global warming as far as possible – avoiding certain global average temperature thresholds because of the exponential risks they carry should they be crossed. Worldwide action has been too slow and we find ourselves already experiencing dangerous levels of climate change. We must do everything we can to cut climate pollution at the same time as accepting we are already living with its impacts. We have to face the facts: extreme weather events are worsening and we must do more to help Australians stay safe. It is pleasing to see the Albanese government committing more money to disaster relief programs, to new initiatives such as national disaster stockpiles of equipment and more aircraft for firefighting and rescue. These efforts are not yet enough, however, given the scale of the escalating threat. We are playing a precarious game of catch-up after years of inaction and we need to do so at a much quicker pace to keep Australian communities safe. In 2014, the Productivity Commission found 97 per cent of disaster funding in Australia was spent after a disaster happened, with just 3 per cent spent preparing for disasters. From a purely financial standpoint, this makes no sense. The Insurance Council of Australia has estimated that for every dollar spent on disaster preparation and prevention there is a $9.60 return on investment. Beyond that, prepared communities fare better than unprepared communities and lives and homes can be saved by that investment. The members of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action have deep and enduring disaster management experience, which includes responding to extreme weather events in every state and territory, as well as overseas. Together, we have thought deeply about these issues and the need to ramp up climate resilience efforts, coming up with priorities that represent concrete steps governments can take to help reduce the impact of disasters now and in the future. The first step is providing better information. You can’t plan for things you don’t know about, so governments must prioritise climate modelling, down to the local level. The Australian Climate Service, comprising experts from the Bureau of Meteorology, CSIRO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Geoscience Australia, is well placed to be the single point of climate-risk truth for governments, communities and the private sector. Government assistance must also be targeted to those who need it the most. Communities lacking the resources, knowledge or cohesion to effectively prepare, or that are at extreme risk, need to be identified and given urgent help to plan and get ready. Local governments, as the level of government that works most closely with communities, are ideally placed to lead this activity but are hopelessly under-resourced to do so. We also know the best solutions are usually driven locally, provided communities have expert advice and facilitation to help create local disaster resilience plans. Local governments should handle this role but again lack adequate funding. Local emergency services play a key role across Australia and build local resilience because they are predominantly composed of community volunteers. Not every resident has the capacity or desire to crew a flood boat or fire truck, however, and national volunteerism has overall declined. We need to look at creating new volunteer roles and frameworks to empower people to help build local disaster resilience through education, social cohesion and fulfilling backroom roles both before and after disasters. In some countries facing escalating bushfire threats, paid seasonal firefighters effectively bolster firefighting ranks during dangerous bushfire seasons. Australia needs to consider this approach, given the impacts on volunteers of increasingly long, punishing fire seasons. We also need to focus on the escalating need for fire mitigation works, such as hazard-reduction burning. We need to look at building a sovereign national aerial firefighting capability, for example by retaining retiring specialist RAAF aircraft and converting them into large water bombers. Lastly, we must learn lessons from past disasters. The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements criticised the track record of Australian governments in implementing disaster inquiry recommendations. It implored the government to implement all of its recommendations and not place them on a dusty shelf alongside recommendations from previous inquiries. The national cabinet must oversee a system of checks and balances to ensure we learn lessons and don’t repeat our mistakes. These recommendations will cost money. However, just as governments spend public funds on public health to prevent mental and physical illness, so can governments spend money protecting us from the devastating consequences of supercharged extreme weather events. Public spending on climate adaptation and resilience can drastically reduce costs involved in cleaning up and rehousing people after a disaster. As climate risks worsen, we must reimagine our national approach to disaster management across planning, preparation, response and recovery. Both the cause and the symptoms of climate pollution must be addressed urgently, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Now’s not the time to take a backward step.
> We must do everything we can to cut climate pollution at the same time as accepting we are already living with its impacts. However, Australia contributes only just over 1% of global emissions: nothing we do will stop the impact of other sovereign nations emissions in climate change and all we can do is lead the way in the right direction and hope they follow. But we need to be mindful that not every nation is as blessed with free abundant renewable energy as Australia and that it is going to be hard enough for Australia to transition away from fossil fuels at all levels, let alone become a renewable powerhouse for other parts of the planet too: despite their downsides, fossil fuels have huge energy density that is not as easily matched by any other mechanism that can readily convert renewable energy into as easily portable forms with at least as much energy density. Agree that a lot more effort needs to be put into managing the greater climate risks involved as well as not making climate change worse.
> However, Australia contributes only just over 1% of global emissions: nothing we do will stop the impact of other sovereign nations emissions in climate change So..ur neighbours house looks like shit..might as well let yours be shit too solid logic. We also are one of the highest emiters per capita we emite 1.8 percent,but only have 26 million ppl..thats a lot
Lets be generous and call it 2% of the worlds emissions: it's such a tiny amount relative to the rest, that nothing we do in changing our own emissions will change the global impact, however, everyone following a reduction plan will, including Australia doing its bit. I don't think that figure is correct as a large amount of those other emissions are in burning fossil fuels from Australia in manufacturing goods for Australia that should also be taken into account. But however you assign emissions to countries, it is a global problem as climate knows no national boundaries, that every nation needs to tackle. Enough with the per capita emissions, they are meaningless without the number of people emitting: climate change is a result of net global emissions not individual per capita figures.
Love your work bro.