From Canberra, Greenpeace head of campaigns Stephen Campbell sends this statement:

“We are in the midst of an extreme climate crisis and the Rudd Government’s first budget was an opportunity to show voters that they truly means business on climate change.

“Instead they have let Australia down by not delivering the climate solutions that are at their fingertips right now - renewable energy, such as wind, solar and geothermal.

“The government’s flagship renewable energy fund will not get a single cent over the next year whilst the clean coal scam will receive $31 million. Over the next three years, renewables will get half as much public money than wealthy coal companies pushing CCS. (more…)

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful, crisp Canberra morning to deliver the “Stop Fueling Climate Change” petition. Seven of us, all rugged up, constructed a wonderful wind-turbine on the steps of treasury which we then proceeded to stuff full of postcards signed by people from all over Australia. Over thirty thousand people have added their voice to the petition, asking Wayne Swan to use his first budget to stop subsidising the fossil fuel industry and start investing in renewable energy. For me it was a fantastic feeling to be involved in getting this message to treasury, to the people who could actually make this happen, but I was really disappointed that Wayne Swan didn’t make an appearance. With lots of television cameras to capture the moment, it was a shame not to directly present our request to the treasurer himself – particularly because it looked so damn cool!

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You have to hand it to the Greenhouse Mafia, aka the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN). In their submission to Professor Ross Garnaut, among their justifications for doing as little as possible to address climate change, they drop little pearlers such as: “leaving aside the moral dimension of the issue” and the “Interim Report’s initial views on equity are of concern”. To the AIGN, the issue is only about least-cost abatement and the economic impacts of an Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). They also took a swipe at the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) when they stated it had “features that should not be repeated” in an ETS. Their simple suggestion: leave it to the markets to discover the solutions.

It’s not that we would expect them to say any different. However, the worrying aspect is that this industry lobby group may have just as much clout in shaping policy under a Rudd Labor Government as they did under the climate sceptic-riddled Howard government. In their submission, AIGN suggest that the Productivity Commission be the official body responsible for examining which of the existing climate measures should be axed once an Emissions Trading Scheme commences, such as the MRET.

It was the Productivity Commission that attempted to discredit the 2006 Stern Review earlier this year. Among its claims, the Commission pointed to “value judgments and ethical perspectives” that distorted Stern’s analysis and said that Stern had “exaggerated” the likely impacts of increasing greenhouse emissions while giving “little attention to more optimistic views”. Further in the Commission’s critique was the claim that Stern’s Review was “as much an exercise in advocacy as it is an economic analysis of climate change”.
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Well, it’s undeniably true that the Stern Review stimulated and progressed public and policy debate on the imperative to address climate change. Even more recent scientific and economic analysis leads us to the conclusion that Stern was, if anything, too conservative. The Productivity Commission is in denial, even in the face of stronger scientific evidence, about the likely impacts of climate change and seems engaged in its own biased climate policy advocacy.

The Commission’s chairman Gary Banks recently also singled out the MRET in language remarkably similar to that of the Australian Greenhouse Industry Network. In his March speech Banks described the MRET as being inconsistent with an ETS and that the “apparent special status accorded the MRET needs to be rethought”. Banks argues that the MRET is expensive and that lower-cost abatement will be best delivered by an ETS.

Energy abatement does and will continue to provide important energy savings, however it does not provide baseload energy into the grid. Proven baseload technologies like wind and solar-thermal power will deliver clean energy into the national energy grid. Renewable energy industries rely on the long-term policy price signals that an MRET delivers to drive investment, while allowing those same industries to develop the economies of scale that will reduce their long-term overall costs.

Climate change is an economic, social and environmental issue. Focusing on economics alone is to suggest that the market can “sort it all out”. Clearly the market hasn’t, can’t and won’t sort it out. An integrated solution to climate change will require governmental and business investment additional to least-cost options and regulation to drive the deep emission cuts that are required to transition away from a carbon-based economy.

To deliver such profound changes, Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong will need to root out any remaining bureaucracies infected with climate sceptics - such as those in the Productivity Commission. Erasing these sad remnants of the Howard legacy will begin to diminish the Greenhouse Mafia’s influence over Australian climate policy. That will allow those who know what the real solutions to climate are to start delivering the emission reductions we need to see.

So the political Oscars that was the 2020 summit has come to an end. The issue I had my eye on over the weekend was one close to our hearts here at Greenpeace – climate change. And funnily enough, every time I tuned into the radio over the weekend, all I kept hearing about climate change was that it is, indeed, Australia’s greatest challenge.

So top billing on the challenge list, hey? Given that, one would expect that it would be top billing for debates about “new, exciting, out of the box solutions”. Big problems need big solutions right? It’s just that I really didn’t hear much talk of big solutions at all.

But did they have the right people at the table to come up with the big solutions?

Overrun by the greenhouse mafia

A quick look over the list of delegates shows that the industry representatives were heavily dominated by a bunch of folk who have a vested interest in making sure fossil fuels keep on burning: BHP, Xstrata, Australian Coal Association, Babcock and Brown Power Company and Shell. AKA the Greenhouse Mafia. Who on earth let them in?

Contrast that with a mere two representatives from the renewable energy industry who, along with NGO representatives, must have had their work cut out putting forward a positive agenda.

How is it that our biggest challenge is decarbonising Australia’s economy, yet they forget to invite some of the leading lights from the renewables industry? I mean, surely these are the people who can put solutions on the table? And we know that it’s not because they weren’t nominated –it’s because they weren’t accepted.

Where did the green ideas go?

Wasn’t this the weekend for sharing big new ideas? Like how we can most quickly, fairly and smoothly become a nation powered by renewable energy and provide tens of thousands of green jobs along the way?

Make no mistake; the fossil fuel lobby did its job over the weekend. While it’s obvious to most of us and to the majority of the delegates at the Summit, that building new coal fired power stations is completely ludicrous given the carbon reductions needed in the next 12 years, the Greenhouse Mafia made sure they blocked consensus to include this in the report. It wasn’t even a particularly radical proposal that was put forward: that no new coal-fired power stations be built in Australia until carbon capture and sequestration is commercially available, proven, safe and efficient.

So the fossil fuel sector is OK with wilfully continuing to pollute? That’s certainly how it seems and why are we not surprised?

Yes sir, we have a political problem

Perhaps Tony Windsor, Independent MP for New England, who was “disappointed” with the climate change debate, especially around renewable energy, summed it up best when he said: “I think there’s this little bit of a political problem between clean coal and the renewables into the future and I think we probably could have gone a bit further on that”.

Beautifully understated Mr Windsor. There certainly is a “political problem”. One that is about vested interests and large profits, and an industry that doesn’t want to take responsibility for the global environmental damage it has helped create. One that is about maintaining the status quo so that those who reap the profits from polluting can continue to do so unabated.

Meanwhile many of the industries that want to be part of the solution don’t even get a seat at the table. Yes sir, we have a political problem.

Wakey, wakey

Well it’s time to wake up folks. The party’s over. We don’t want any more of your polluting coal-fired power stations. We want genuinely clean renewable energy – sun, wind, geothermal, however it comes. And we need a government that is prepared to engage with those who can deliver real long-term solutions.

In the meantime, our thanks go to those who did attend to the Summit to fight for the clean energy revolution and who sent a message to the PM that we need tough decisions on coal now. Job well done.

Helen Oakey, Head of Political Unit, Greenpeace Australia Pacific

In case it has slipped anyone’s minds, let me recap why the environment movement campaigns on climate change. We have a few years left to get emissions falling dramatically and in Australia, we need to be looking at at least 40% reductions below 1990 levels by the year 2020. This is if we want to prevent climate change getting completely out of hand. OK, I was just checking.

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This morning, the Greenpeace hot-air balloon paid a visit to a major source of Australia’s greenhouse pollution, flying over some of the Hunter Valley’s biggest coal-fired power stations. We came here to deliver a vital message to the government: there is no future in coal.

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It’s 12:31am of Saturday 5 April 2008. The Bangkok climate change talks were to have ended yesterday. This was to be a first meeting after Bali to discuss the work plan for the next 2 yrs which will deliver a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol by Copenhagen in 2009. The plenary has just reconvened to discuss draft text which was wraggledover till around 1am  and all of yesterday. This is just the process to agree to a workplan. Imagine when the negotiations start on the real a issues like targets, emissions reductions, etc???

A few govt delegates have left to take flights back home. The media is present here in a good show of strength.

The NGO comunity is here in a good show of strength. After last night’s talks deadlocked due to Japan’s bad playing tactics, the NGOs raised bad publicity in Tokyo and we saw some compromise being reached today.

So, it was great to see the power of the media as a agent to bring about positive change.

I will end here because I am dozing off to sleep here at my desk. The talks continue with views being expressed by government delegates. Goodbye for now from Bangkok.

It is 1am of Friday 4th April here at the UNESCAP Centre here in Bangkok. A team of NGO lobbyists just saw the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long Term Cooperation (govt delegates) walk out of the room. It had been a Greenpeace tag team effort since 5pm waiting for the outcomes of negotiations and drafting that was to have taken place last evening. The delegates have come out and basically, the negotiations are deadlocked. Japan blames the G77; the G77 blames Japan for continuing to push hard on the issue of “sectoral approaches” that the G77 isn’t happy with. This means that the drafting of a text is far from starting. The parties will meet again at 10am today to negotiate further, hopefully come to some agreement and then draft some text that they will all accept and head home for the end of round one.

This is the 1st meeting since the Bali talks last Dec. The parties are starting to thrash out the framework and workplan to deliver a 2nd comitment period under the Kyoto Protocol by 2009. There are about 1,000 or so delegates present here in Bangkok, a much smaller number than there was in Bali. Despite the much smaller number here, nothing much has changed. The game continues to be dominated by the big oil-industry backed nations. The discussions/negotiations are going in circles wherby, the countries who wish to stall the process continue to call for more workshops, more presentations by the IPCC and more studies. Studies of what? presentations on what? For small island nations and least developed countries, the reality of climate change is seen daily and they are adapting as best as they can. What other studies are needed and what purpose would it serve? The only purpose this serves is to stall and delay the process further. It is sad that even though Australia has ratified the Kyoto Protocol, its negotiators are quite slow in truly delivering on this commitment by providing stronger and better leadership in this process. The USA, as usual, is being a bastard and it is insulting to the livelihoods of those at the forefront of the impacts of climate change that this country sends its negotiators to hijack such a process when they have not even ratified the protocol. If Katrina was not a wake up call for the US, I don’t know what will? Already, the least developed countries and small island states are becoming less vocal, is it because they feel it is falling on deaf ears? Is it acceptance at some level that this process is about what suits the bigger, 1st world countries at the end of the day?

Day three of the Bangkok climate talks saw the Australian delegate turn her back on binding commitments and reaffirm the rhetoric of the Howard era by announcing Australia’s support for the USA’s goal of ‘aspiration emission targets’. (more…)