Climate crisis

A small but spirited group of protesters braved driving wind and rain outside Fremantle’s Notre Dame University on the evening of June 30 to express their opposition to the university playing host to British climate change denier Christopher Monckton. Earlier that day, Perth's daily newspaper The West Australian had obligingly provided free publicity for Monckton’s impending speech in an article occupying most of its front page.

The Socialist Alliance adopted a coal seam gas policy at its June 26 National Council meeting. The policy appears below. * * * The gas industry is rapidly increasing its scope in the Australian energy market. Gas is talked up by some as a clean energy source, or as a “transition fuel”, while we develop renewable energies. But gas is a fossil fuel. Burning it creates carbon emissions. For a safe climate, we need to cut net emissions almost totally within the next decade. In fact, we then have to move below zero net emissions: to draw down more carbon than we produce.

Feeling the heat from opposition leader Tony Abbott’s scare campaign against the government’s planned carbon price, PM Julia Gillard told ABC radio’s AM on June 24 that she “never meant to mislead anybody during the last election campaign about carbon pricing”. This was a reference to her promise — made days before the 2010 election — that a Labor government would not set up a carbon tax.

The public wants meaningful action to address climate change. The 2010 annual Lowy poll found that 86% of Australians support climate action. Forty-six percent said they supported strong action and a further 40% supported gradual steps.

About 150 protesters rallied at a mining expo in Toowoomba on June 22 to protest the expansion of coal and coal seam gas mining in the Darling Downs region. They confronted state mining minister Stirling Hinchliffe to demand that other areas in Queensland should be exempted from coal seam gas mining — similar to the recent rejection of a mining permit in Toowoomba, the June 23 Brisbane Courier Mail said.

It wouldn’t be okay for Amnesty to take donations from military dictators or for Animal Liberation to accept abattoir-owners as sponsors. Such scenarios are so unlikely they just sound bizarre. So why should we accept that it’s okay for Australian environmental groups to take money from fossil fuel corporations? Surely it’s the ultimate conflict of interest. How can groups set up to stop climate change accept cash from companies that make millions from polluting the planet?

A magistrate dismissed charges against 49 climate activists on June 16. The protesters had committed non-violent civil disobedience at a climate camp against a new coal-fired power station being built in the Hunter Valley. The charges related to an action on December 6 at the NSW climate camp near the Bayswater Power Station in the Hunter Valley — Australia’s single largest source of carbon pollution. The ruling means they have no conviction recorded, no criminal record and their fines dropped.

Ninety-one percent of Australians think the government should take more action to roll out renewable energy and create green jobs and 86% say the government should develop a plan to get to 100% renewables. These were some of the outcomes of one of Australia’s biggest ever polls on climate change and climate policy, which was released by the 100% Renewable Energy Campaign on June 14.

Australian climate scientists and researchers are subject to a rising level of hate mail, abuse and death threats from climate change deniers. More than 30 researchers told the June 4 Canberra Times “they are receiving a stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members”.

The recent figures on CO₂ emissions are sobering. Despite the fact that the world has suffered a terrible recession, emissions are still rising. In essence, all the efforts to tackle climate change have simply slowed the rise a little rather than reverse it. The problem is that the solutions to climate change put forward at international conferences like Copenhagen and Cancun dare not deal with the real root cause of climate change — our current economic system.

About 5000 people walked across Canberra’s Commonwealth Bridge and rallied in front of Parliament House on June 5, calling for real action on climate change now. Up to 45,000 people rallied nationwide. Speakers at the Canberra rally included former Liberals Leader John Hewson, Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute, 2010 Greens Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds and Bishop Pat Power. Hewson said we needed to respond to climate change with a greater sense of urgency and in a way that recognised the magnitude of the problem.

Under the guidance of the NSW Coal and Coal Seam Gas Strategy, the CSG industry is set to grow. Economic growth and the move towards a low-carbon economy are suggested as a just cause for its expansion. In spite of this, a swell of media reports, documentaries and scientific studies have revealed that CSG’s growth will come with substantial socio-economic and environmental costs.