Antinuclear

Twelve years ago, economist Ross Garnaut led an independent study of the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy.

The Garnaut Climate Change Review’s final report said projections of fire weather “suggest that fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense”.

“This effect increases over time, but should be directly observable by 2020.”

Broadly, the report stated, “the weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change”.

“The risk can be substantially reduced by strong, effective and early action by all major economies. Australia will need to play its full proportionate part in global action. As one of the developed countries, its full part will be relatively large, and involve major early changes to established economic structure.”

One of the report’s key recommendations was the implementation of an emissions trading scheme.

Conditions ‘will keep on getting worse’

On Monday, SBS News asked Mr Garnaut his reaction to the current conditions, in light of the 2008 report.

“It’s one of sadness, that I was ineffective. Having been given the opportunity to talk to Australians on this issue, that I was ineffective in persuading Australians that it was in our national interest to play a positive role in a global effort to mitigate the effects of climate change,” he said.

However, Mr Garnaut said, “although things are bad, they will keep on getting worse if the concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere keep increasing”.

The report said there could be a 300 per cent increase in the number of days with extreme fire weather by 2067.

“It’s in the interest of the whole of humanity that we move promptly towards zero net emissions,” he said.

However, Mr Garnaut said, “although things are bad, they will keep on getting worse if the concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere keep increasing”.

The report said there could be a 300 per cent increase in the number of days with extreme fire weather by 2067.

“It’s in the interest of the whole of humanity that we move promptly towards zero net emissions,” he said.

‘What will our government do?’

Over the weekend, a number of social media users in Australia started sharing the bushfire passage of the 2008 report, as fires raged across the country. …..

‘What will our government do?’

Over the weekend, a number of social media users in Australia started sharing the bushfire passage of the 2008 report, as fires raged across the country.

The Rudd government accepted a number of key findings of the report including, “that a fair and effective global agreement delivering deep cuts in emissions consistent with stabilising concentrations of greenhouse gases at around 450 parts per million or lower would be in Australia’s interests”.

But climate change policy went on to become both a divisive and defining issue in Australian politics in the years ahead.

Mr Rudd tried but failed to pass an emissions trading scheme. A carbon tax was passed under his successor Julia Gillard but it was later overturned by then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

Australia committed to the Paris Agreement under Mr Abbott but the Coalition has seen sustained criticism that it is not doing enough to curb climate change.

Fri 3 Jan 2020  I had goosebumps watching surreal footage of the mass evacuation of people stranded on the south-east Australian coast.

Once again, catastrophic bushfire conditions are bearing down on communities during increasingly horrific summers in Australia. It has been an unprecedented continuation of the horrendous bushfires that started as early as spring in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales.

As I write this, the Australian navy is evacuating over 800 people from the bushfire ravaged town of Mallacoota in eastern Victoria. Holiday makers are being forced to abandon their cars, complete with kids’ bikes strapped to the roof racks, ice melting in Eskies. People hoping for a carefree break over the new year are instead faced with the extraordinary position of having to flee for their lives.

Currently, there are tens of thousands of people in coastal NSW and Victoria stranded in towns where the highways are closed, supermarkets are running out of food, and queues for petrol snake down the streets of devastated towns. The scenes experienced by those caught up in the ordeal are being described as apocalyptic – rightly so.

Meanwhile, the locals face the infinitely more serious situation of returning to find their homes completely incinerated. Cars melted, pets killed, beloved landscapes destroyed. A lifetime of memories razed to the ground. As Australia’s climate continues to warm, the most intimate places of human safety – our very homes – are being threatened in an increasingly dangerous world.

It’s confronting to see military evacuations, usually reserved for developing regions of the world following natural disasters, happening right here in 21st-century Australia. The sheer scale and severity of the emergency has actually overwhelmed our capacity as a nation to deal with the unfolding events. Not just in one area following a single event, but across multiple disasters occurring simultaneously in every state and territory of our nation.

To avoid sounding like a broken record, instead I will say that as a lead  author on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Sixth Assessment report of the global climate due out next year, I can assure you that the planetary situation is extremely dire. Continue reading →