AUDIO: Tony Abbott wants Climate Change OFF the G20 Agenda. Will Barack Obama agree?
AUDIO Obama expected to ask Abbott to put climate change back on G20 agenda, ABC Radio The World Today 3 June 14, ELEANOR HALL: The Prime Minister Tony Abbot will meet the US president in Washington next week, and politics watchers in the US say there is virtually no chance that the issue of climate change and the new targets that the president announced today won’t be raised.
The Australian Prime Minister is also likely to come under more pressure from Barack Obama to put climate change back on the agenda of the G20 meeting that Australia is to host in November.
David Waskow is climate analyst from the World Resources Institute.
He spoke to me from Washington a short time ago.
DAVID WASKOW: This is a major step forward in US climate policy. This is one of, if not the most significant steps that the US can take in terms of regulating carbon emissions……..http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2014/s4017645.htm
Victoria’s anti-wind energy Premier Napthine decides that gas is “renewable” energy
Napthine government wants gas included in renewable energy target June 3, 201 Tom Arup Environment editor, The Age Australia’s renewable energy target would include gas-fired power – derived from fossil fuels – under a controversial proposal by the Victorian government.
The state also suggests the target should also be scaled back to reflect falling demand for power……….
Greens Leader Greg Barber said including gas in the target would be “a huge hit to the earth …….”If Premier Denis Napthine has convinced himself that gas is a renewable energy source, then he is confused,” he said. “Adding gas to the renewable energy target means it is no longer about renewable energy.”
The Victorian opposition said the government should be fighting to maintain the target in current form.
Labor energy spokeswoman Lily D’Ambrosio said: “As it stands, the [target] provides investment in new industries and will create thousands of jobs for Victorians. We wholeheartedly support that – Denis Napthine should too.”……..
The Victorian submission puts it at odds with renewable energy firms and NSW, which supports the target as it stands but wants the timeframe to achieve it pushed out…….
Environment Victoria campaigner Nick Aberle said keeping the target would allow Victoria to tap into billions of dollars of clean energy investment, creating skilled jobs in regional areas. “There is also good evidence that keeping the target will ultimately lead to lower electricity prices for consumers,” Dr Aberle said.
In a separate submission, the City of Melbourne strongly backs the retention of the target as it stands. It says the policy is pushing down wholesale electricity prices, benefiting consumers including manufacturers in the city.
The Melbourne City Council submission also says the advent of renewable energy technology, such as rooftop solar panels, has strengthened the resilience of the energy grid and both put curbs on demand and lowered prices during extreme heatwaves.http://www.theage.com.au/environment/energy-smart/napthine-government-wants-gas-included-in-renewable-energy-target-20140603-39gs0.html
Australian govt to open up nuclear weapons test site to Aboriginal people, AND to uranium mining!
Traditional Maralinga Tjaruta people gain unrestricted access to rehabilitated land where nuclear testing occurred news.com.au 3 June 14 The federal government will on Wednesday announce 1782 square km in area will be formally excised from the Woomera Prohibited Area at the request of the Maralinga Tjaruta people……..
Maralinga Tjarutja general manager Richard Preece said the decision would enable the traditional owners to enter section 400 without seeking approval from the Defence Department.
“We didn’t think it’s sensible to have within the range something that would probably be the last place in Australia you’d want to drop bombs on,’’ Mr Preece said…….
Nuclear testing was conducted by the British government in Australia between 1952 and 1963.
Maralinga was officially closed in 1967.
The federal government hopes a bill opening the Woomera Prohibited Area for exploration and mining will be passed by Parliament during its winter sittings. Up to $35 billion worth of iron ore, gold and uranium is believed to lie beneath the ground in the prohibited area.
If the bill becomes law, it will create a new access regime for non-Defence users.
The State Government and federal Labor MPs have been pushing for the bill to be passed as soon as possible, arguing it will create new economic opportunities for South Australia, which could help offset the impact of the Holden closure. http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/traditional-maralinga-tjaruta-people-gain-unrestricted-access-to-rehabilitated-land-where-nuclear-testing-occurred/story-fnii5yv4-1226942188796
Growing international movement of sanity to shut down nuclear weapons
Nuclear Crisis: Can the Sane prevail in Time? OpEd News, By Jim McCluskey (about the author) 3 June 14, “….Supporting Sanity In my previous article, ‘Nuclear Weapons: Hope At Last,’ I pointed to the international meetings in Oslo and Mexico at which the non-nuclear states determined to take matters into their own hands and protect themselves and the planet by bypassing the madness of the nuclear states. The conferences focus on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use and the nightmarish consequences. Dates have now been fixed for the third of these conferences. It will take place in Austria on 8-9 December in Vienna. It is expected that the Vienna conference will take the matter of a Nuclear Weapons Treaty much further forward. The treaty would ban the existence of nuclear weapons. Moreover, after Vienna, South Africa has mentioned the possibility of hosting a fourth conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. If the combined efforts of the non-nuclear states are successful in achieving an international ban on the existence and use of nuclear weapons then the nuclear-armed states will be under great pressure to follow suit. Continue reading
Spying by people employed by coal companies to infiltrate activist groups
Australian Coal Companies Used Spies To Infiltrate Group Of Activists Climate Progress, BY WILL FREEMAN ON JUNE 3, 2014 Two Australian coal companies have been exposed for hiring former soldiers and intelligence officers to spy on anti-coal protests in New South Wales, according to revelations published by the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday.
In interviews with Fairfax Media, the undercover agents revealed they were employed by the Centre for Intelligence and Risk Management (CIRM), a private intelligence firm run by Tony Groves, a former Australian military intelligence officer. The Idemitsu mining company openly admits it contracted CIRM in order to gather information about protesters. For five months, the firm’s undercover operatives pretended they were anti-coal activists and used fake names, secretly sending detailed field reports back to CIRM relaying sensitive information about protest leaders and plans of action.
The spying “could fall foul of provisions in the corporations, consumer and privacy laws,” Barbara MacDonald, a law professor at Sydney University, told the Sydney Morning Herald, particularly if “someone had acted on the deception to the material detriment” of those being spied on. Given the information that has recently come to light, Idemitsu and Whitehaven Coal could be charged with seriously violating Australian law.
Both the Boggabri and Maules Creek mines have stirred up considerable controversy among locals and international environmental groups alike, who claim the large scale mining projects will exacerbate already intense effects of climate change in Australia. The past few years have seen record high temperatures and several extreme weather events in the nation, such as droughts and increasingly severe wildfires in the Australian bush.
Despite these warning signs, the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott has dismantled much of the country’s progressive environmental legislation and, as leader of the G20 summit, argued that climate change should be excluded from the meeting’s agenda. Greg Hunt, Abbott’s Minister of the Environment since 2013, gave the green light to Whitehaven Coal to proceed with construction of the Maules Creek mine despite mounting evidence that the coal industry is endangering public health.
If the Maules Creek mine is finished, it will release nearly 20 thousand tons of dust into the surrounding area, causing severe health problems and destroying fields of crops.
A coalition of local farmers and aboriginal groups, concerned that the Maules Creek mine will bring a similarly devastating tide of environmental degradation to their communities, have actively resisted the construction project for over six months. Farmers fear the impact of drought on their livelihood, as the mine threatens to drain up to seven meters from the water table in the area. The Gomeroi people, an aboriginal group and the traditional owners of the land, will see destruction of sacred sites and historical artifacts if the mine is completed.
Over the months, a group of doctors and medical students, dubbed Medics Against Coal, and religious leaders from several faiths joined in the protests as well. Since December, police have made over 120 arrests, even detaining a 92-year-old World War Two veteran for his participation in the protests. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/03/3443822/australia-coal-spies/
Abbott government cuts Aboriginal funding, and promotes discrimination
Budget cuts stir Aboriginal anger in Australia Ft.com By Jamie Smyth in Sydney, 3 June 14, “……This is our land. They have pulled our houses down and want to replace them with student accommodation and shops,” says the 66-year-old, who has lived for a half century in Redfern, seen by many Aboriginals as their spiritual home in Sydney.
This battle for social housing is just one of the many struggles Aboriginal communities face as they strive to emerge from two centuries of discrimination and grinding poverty.
The Redfern protest – timed to coincide with National Reconciliation Week – is taking place against the backdrop of a A$500m cut in Aboriginal funding programmes in the federal budget, which includes A$160m in health services alone. It also comes as Canberra proposes a watering down of the racial discrimination act, which was introduced in 1975 following a long and bitter political battle.
The government changes are alarming Aboriginal leaders, who were told by Tony Abbott when he was elected in September 2013 he would be a “prime minister for Aboriginal affairs”. Critics say it is a broken promise by Mr Abbott, who has been accused of backtracking on several key election commitments since May’s budget – the toughest in Australia for almost two decades.
“What beggars belief is they are saying they support freedom of speech while at the same time they are taking away money from [Aboriginal] advocacy bodies,” says Thomas Calma, an Aboriginal elder from Darwin and former race discrimination commissioner
The coalition wants to repeal a section of the race discrimination act, which makes it unlawful to “offend, insult or humiliate” another person because of their “race, colour or national or ethnic origin”.
“People do have a right to be bigots,” said George Brandis, Australia’s attorney-general, when he proposed the changes to parliament as a way to bolster free speech.
“With this budget the government is really moving back to the discriminatory policies we saw in the past. It is back to the future in Australia.” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5d031d70-eab5-11e3-80fb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz33hiLRfqj
Huge opposition to uranium mining in Slovakia
Slovakia tightens regulation on uranium mining, Global Post, BRATISLAVA, June 3 (Xinhua) –– As of June 15, uranium mining in Slovakia will be possible only if the inhabitants of the affected municipalities allow it in a referendum, according to an amendment to the Geological Act approved by Parliament on Tuesday…….Wave of resistance against uranium mining in Jahodna has emerged in Slovakia in last two years, with more than 100,000 people signing a petition to that effect.
According to the new legislation, any company interested in mining will have to ask the six affected municipalities to hold a referendum…..http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140603/slovakia-tightens-regulation-uranium-mining
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 