Turnbull’s climate policy deceptions – cut climate funds, then announce new policies
Tricky Turnbull’s climate strategy: When less is more!, Independent Australia Giles Parkinson 28 April 2016, Turnbull promises to be trickier than Howard as he tries to put one over the public with his “less is more” climate strategy! RenewEconomy‘s Giles Parkinson does his own FactCheck.
THE COALITION government under Malcolm Turnbull has a rapidly evolving strategy on climate change and clean energy — announce new jobs and investments, but only after cutting even more jobs and investments.
Those were the allegations levelled at the Turnbull government on Tuesday after the CSIRO announced a new climate change research centre in what appears to be a patch-up job by innovation minister Christopher Pyne and environment minister Greg Hunt, and Hunt’s announcement of an “extra” $50 million for the Great Barrier Reef.
The CSIRO cuts are particularly galling for the science community. A new division to be based in Hobart, combining with elements of the Bureau of Meteorology, will employ 40 climate scientists. But CSIRO chief Larry Marshall, intent on converting the CSIRO from focusing on the public good to revenue opportunities with business, says 75 jobs will still be lost from the climate division, albeit down from 110.
CSIRO climate scientists dismiss this as a “con” job. Professor Dave Griggs, a former director of Monash Sustainability Institute at Monash University said it was like “trying to put a sticking plaster over a gaping wound.”
Similarly, Hunt on Tuesday announced $50 million of “new” funding for the Great Barrier Reef, which the government has finally realised is under grave threat following the worst bleaching event on record, which has touched more than 90 per cent of the reef.
The Greens said: Not so fast, arguing that the funds simply replace monies cut in the past two years — $40 million from the Reef Water Quality Program in 2014, and $10 million from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science.
The recycled funding follows a similar pattern on clean energy. Hunt has used the proposed start of construction on a wind farm in northern NSW as proof that the government has brought clarity and stability to the industry. Instead, the Coalition’s policies have brought the industry to a standstill.
And last month, when the Turnbull government announced the creation of a “new” Clean Energy Innovation Fund, it did so only after shifting funds already allocated to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and announcing it would seek to rescind the $1.3 billion budget legislated for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.
On climate, numbers are juggled in a different way. Hunt insists that Australia is on track to deliver its Kyoto target for 2020, which is true, because it is largely a book-keeping exercise borne out of a highly favourable agreement for Australia reached a decade ago.
The climate target that really matters – the one signed in New York last Friday under the Paris agreement – is more problematic. Australia’s target is well short of what is considered its fair share by every assessment bar the Coalition’s, which continues to rely on a “per capita” reduction calculation that places Australia at the bottom of the world ladder, along with the oil-guzzling Saudis.
Australia’s own data actually shows an increase in emissions in the coming decade, bar some as-yet unannounced policy measure. And while the Coalition may be relying on another fortunate piece of accounting, the Paris deal calls for the “decarbonisation” of the global economy. That means replacing fossil fuels with clean energy………
the Australian economy, which continues to focus on commodities and to prostrate itself at the feet of the fossil fuel industry, with a clouded future.
The government, you would hope, is smart enough to see what is coming. It just doesn’t have the fortitude to share that view with the public, or tell the hard right ideologues to stop kidding themselves.https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/tricky-turnbulls-climate-strategy-when-less-is-more,8929
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