Australian tax-payers funding shonky climate economics with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre
So is this “methodology” the Abbott Government has spent $4million on any good?……
while cost-benefit analysis can be useful, it doesn’t work when you apply it to climate change policy.
How do you price, for example, the loss of a Pacific island nation and what that would mean for the cultures that have thrived there? What’s the price losing multiple species of flora and fauna or the Great Barrier Reef Jotzo adds:
Climate change is exceptional because it has all of these dimensions that go beyond the practical capability of cost benefit analysis.
Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian’s methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre Graham Readfearn, Guardian 23 Apr 15 Lomborg’s think tank methods underplay the impact of climate change and have ‘no academic credibility’ says leading climate economist. Danish political scientist and climate change contrarian Bjørn Lomborg says the poorest countries in the world need coal and climate change just isn’t as big a problem as some people make out.
Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott says “coal is good for humanity” and there are more pressing problems in the world than climate change, which he once described as “crap” but now says he accepts.
So it’s not surprising then that the latter should furnish the former with $4 million of taxpayer funds to start an Australian arm of Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre (CCC) at the University of Western Australia’s business school.
The CCC has consistently said that targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions are too expensive and money should be spent elsewhere
After a couple of weeks of doubt and confusion over the origins and the funding of the centre, latest reports suggest that the idea came from the Prime Minister’s office.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister told Fairfax media it was “the government’s decision to bring the Lomborg consensus methodology to Australia”.
More on this “methodology” and some pretty fundamental problems with it in a bit.
Students at UWA are gathering names on a petition and campaigning in protest, saying Lomborg’s appointment as an adjunct (unpaid) professor there damages the university’s reputation and is an embarrassment. The University’s Student Guild claimed that “students, staff and alumni” were outraged. Continue reading
“Australia now holds the fate of the world’s climate in its hands”.
The government has indicated it will take a ‘technology neutral’ approach, which explains why Australia is the only nation in the world to axe the (carbon) tax, and efforts to slash the Renewable Energy Target by more than half.
Last year, the federal government approved the world’s largest coal fields in Queensland’s Galilee Basin – resources which the Climate Council reports “can not be developed” because they are “inconsistent with tackling climate change”.
Collectively, the proposed mines would create more emissions than nations like Australia, the UK, Italy and South Africa.
Why The Fate Of The World’s Climate Is Largely In Australia’s Hands, New Matilda, By 
Thom Mitchell, 23 Apr We’re told Australia’s contribution to global warning is minimal. A report out today proves that’s a dangerous lie. Thom Mitchell explains.
As American academic Bob Massey put it, “Australia now holds the fate of the world’s climate in its hands”.
In its pursuit of a solution to the ‘budget emergency’ Australia is using up the ‘carbon budget’ at a rate incompatible with the global goal of limiting temperature rises to below two degrees, a Climate Council report out today has demonstrated.
While Australia is under increasing pressure to announce an ambitious target to limit emissions at home, the report makes clear that it is our reliance on fossil fuel exports that is doing the real damage.
By actively seeking to prolong the dying revenue stream, which has buoyed the economy through the past decade, the Australian government is doing massive damage to the remaining ‘carbon budget’.
At a recent talk in Sydney, Massey was blunt. “If your government and mining companies decide to develop all of the coal and gas currently planned, already on the books, our children will be forced to endure a world very different from what we know,” he said.
To avoid such a world, scientists have developed the ‘carbon budget’ which, put simply, is the amount of carbon dioxide humans can emit into the atmosphere before temperature rises reach two degrees above pre-industrial levels.
On that basis, if all of Australia’s coal were burnt, it would use up two thirds of the ‘carbon budget’. Effectively, 90 per cent of the continent’s coal must stay in the ground. Continue reading
Climate change damage makes compelling economic argument for renewable Energy
even without any damage from climate change itself, the argument of moving to renewables (given the position of the rest of the world) makes good economic sense. When you add the risk of damage from climate change the case is unassailable.
Why would a nation like India waste money on taking poles and wires to every remote village and spending billions on coal power stations and metering when solar panels make more sense? They do not provide power continuously, but they are so much cheaper.
We should invest in renewable energy SMH, April 24, 2015 Crispin Hull “……..storms like the ones this week – which scientists say will become more frequent with global warming – should give cause for reflection. The extent and cost of the potential damage is so high that prudence demands action.
But there is another more significant point. Governments can fix most things, but they will not be able to fix climate change. They will not be able to refreeze the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and make the rising seas fall – a bit like King Canute. The damage will be irreversible for thousands or even millions of years.
But governments can force changes to stop the melt in the first place.
There are several reasons why people see no need for any action at all or no need for urgency. We have always had bad weather events.
Change is imperceptible. The science is not conclusive so we can wait before taking action. Damage is a long time off.
If we see real evidence of climate change we can act then to fix it. Australia is just one nation and can do little on its own.
Because so many people think like this, governments have been able to get away with doing so little. Continue reading
Bjorn Lomborg’s climate contrarianism: where his money comes from
many of the earlier donors to Lomborg’s US think tank have been linked to the
conservative side of politics, some with links to the billionaire Koch brothers.
There’s nothing “smart” about spending $4 million of taxpayer cash on a highly questionable methodology that by design downgrades climate change.
Australian taxpayers funding climate contrarian’s methods with $4m Bjørn Lomborg centre Graham Readfearn, Guardian 23 Apr 15 Lomborg’s funding“………Exactly how and where Bjorn Lomborg’s think tank has gathered its cash over the years has been a tough story to get the bottom of.
When the Danish Government’s funding of the CCC ran out in 2012, Lomborg had already registered the US arm of the think tank four years earlier.
Since 2008, the US tax records of the Copenhagen Consensus Center show it has gathered about $5million in income, more than half of which had come in 2012 and 2013 (the most recent years for which records are available).
Lomborg himself was paid $975,000 via the think tank in those two years.
Yet much of the think tank’s income is not disclosed Continue reading
1919 – ANZAC Sermon – To Right the Wrongs
‘The Anzac sermon was preached by an army chaplain;
it was a glorification of the Australians, with some humorous sidelights.
It had none of the dignity and impressiveness that one would have thought the occasion demanded,
and offered no comfort to those present who had lost relatives at Gallipoli and on other battlefields.
He denied absolutely the oft-repeated statement that the Australian soldiers were undisciplined.
They were splendidly disciplined, he said, but their disciplined conduct had no trace of servility.
He spoke feelingly of the social conditions that had killed soldiers before they entered the trenches.
The evidence in the trenches of the terrible results of those social conditions
had roused many men to the sense of their duty to their fellows,
and made them resolve that when they returned to civil life they would
do all in their power to right the wrongs under which their comrades had lived.’
Woman Voter 7 August 1919 State Library of Victoria
First World War Women working for peace 1914-1919
womensweb.com.au
Daphne Marlatt 2001
Pro nuclear vested interests predominate in submissions to Nuclear Royal Commission
Dennis Matthews 24 Apr 15 In 2011 The Chief Executive, Prof. Stephen Martin, of the influential Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) wrote in an article on nuclear power calling for “a rational debate, not one based on vested interests” (The Australian, 10/11/11).
Less than four years later, at least 14 of the submissions to the draft terms of reference for the inquiry into the nuclear industry are from individuals, companies or organisations with a clear vested interest in the nuclear industry.
The SA Government and the inquiry commissioner have constantly assured us that the inquiry will be objective and rational.
This raises the question “why have so many pro-nuclear vested interests felt emboldened to try to influence the inquiry’s terms of reference?”
This is a question that only the SA Government can answer.
In the meantime, for an objective, rational debate it is incumbent on the commissioner to either ignore or heavily discount the views of vested interests.
35 people attended Kevin Scarce’s Nuclear Royal Commission Forum at Mt Gambier
Royal Commission (presumably Kevin Scarce + unknowns) held public forum at Mt Gambier on April 20. 35 people attended. Then Commissioner talked with “business leaders” . – a lot of secrecy about who’s involved in this Royal Commission.
Dennis Matthews on the agendas and style of submissions to the draft ToR of the Nuclear Royal Commission
Dennis Matthews, 23 Apr 15 I have just finished reading submissions to the draft terms of reference of the inquiry into the so-called “nuclear fuel cycle”. I was struck by the fawning attitude of many submissions from those who have a vested interest in the nuclear industry, and by the derogatory language used to describe those who oppose the nuclear industry.
One submission from an organisation with an apparent vested interest offered to help the commission with “independent” experts, whilst another claimed to be neither “pro nor anti-nuclear”.
Concerns about the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters were dismissed as based on ideology.
Pro-nuclear submissions referred to “every anti-nuke zombie” “lurching out of their coffins”, to “an ignorant and anti-scientific audience”, to “fear mongers”, to the “anti-nuclear lobby fear industry”, to “anti-nuclear propaganda”, and to “emotive arguments”.
The confidence with which supporters of the nuclear industry addressed their inappropriate remarks to the inquiry does nothing to allay fears that there is a strong pro-nuclear undercurrent to the inquiry.
International nuclear lobby pleased with Abbott’s gift to climate contrarian Lomborg
Nuclear lobby backs Abbott’s $4m gift to climate contrarian Lomborg, Independent Australia Giles Parkinson 23 April 2015, When push comes to shove to act on global warming, Big Mining will wheel in nuclear as a ploy to stall the take up of renewables. Is pro-nuclear Bjorn Lomborg’s thinktank in WA just a cynical move by Abbott to kill the clean energy industry? RenewEconomy’s Giles Parkinson runs the ruler over the nuclear option. THE PRO-NUCLEAR lobby has welcomed the decision by the Abbott government to award $4 million to Bjorn Lomborg, a climate “contrarian” who favours nuclear energy and opposes deployment of renewable energy.
Michael Schellenberger, president of the US-based Breakthrough Institute, a pro-nuclear think tank, tweeted over the weekend that the Australian government’s granting of funds to Lomborg was no different to the German government’s funding of an environmental think tank that favours renewable energy.
The difference may be that the Energiewende, or energy transition, is official bipartisan government policy in Germany. But Australia does not – at least officially, although its actions suggest otherwise – embrace climate obstructionism and nuclear technology. And it has defunded independent climate analysis such as that from the Climate Commission.
The tweet from the Breakthrough Institute might be unremarkable, but for that institution’s recent alliance with the pro-nuclear lobby in Australia, and the joint release of an “EcoModernist Manifesto” last week that says present day renewables are incapable of providing zero carbon energy, and that nuclear fission is the only technology capable of meeting most, if not all, the energy demands of a modern economy.
This, it would appear, seems to concur with the not-so-subtle secret agenda of Australian Coalition government policy. Continue reading
Australia breaches international law in evicting remote Aboriginal communities
In 2011, Barnett’s government displayed a brutality in the community of Oombulgurri which the other homelands can expect. “First, the government closed the services,” wrote Tammy Solonec of Amnesty International:
It closed the shop, so people could not buy food and essentials. It closed the clinic, so the sick and the elderly had to move, and the school, so families with children had to leave, or face having their children taken away from them. The police station was the last service to close, then eventually the electricity and water were turned off. Finally, the 10 residents who resolutely stayed to the end were forcibly evicted [leaving behind] personal possessions. [Then] the bulldozers rolled into Oombulgurri. The WA government has literally dug a hole and in it buried the rubble of people’s homes and personal belongings.
In South Australia, the state and federal governments launched a similar attack on the 60 remote Indigenous communities.
The closure of Indigenous homelands breaches Article 5 of the International Convention for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Evicting Indigenous Australians from their homelands is a declaration of war John Pilger, Guardian 23 Apr 15 Australia occasionally interrupts its ‘normal’ mistreatment of Aboriginal people to deliver a frontal assault, like the closure of Western Australia’s homelands
Australia has again declared war on its Indigenous people, reminiscent of the brutality that brought universal condemnation on apartheid South Africa. Aboriginal people are to be driven from homelands where their communities have lived for thousands of years. In Western Australia, where mining companies make billion dollar profits exploiting Aboriginal land, the state government says it can no longer afford to “support” the homelands.
Vulnerable populations, already denied the basic services most Australians take for granted, are on notice of dispossession without consultation, and eviction at gunpoint. Aboriginal leaders have warned of “a new generation of displaced people” and “cultural genocide”.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, has revived this assault on a people who represent Australia’s singular uniqueness. Soon after coming to office, the federal government cut $534m in Indigenous social programs, including $160m from the Indigenous health budget and $13.4m from Indigenous legal aid. …….
In announcing that the Australian government would no longer honour the longstanding commitment to Aboriginal homelands, Abbott sneered, “It’s not the job of the taxpayers to subsidise lifestyle choices.” Continue reading
Flinders Island to be Asia Pacific benchmark for renewable energy-powered remote communities
Renewable energy and potable water for Flinders Island community
ABC Rural By Rosemary Grant 22 Apr 15 The Bass Strait community of Flinders Island says two major projects to deliver clean water and electricity represent the future for remote settlements.
Over the 18 months, $25 million will be spent; half on a renewable energy scheme, and the rest on potable water for the main towns of Whitemark and Lady Barron.
Flinders Mayor Carol Cox said replacing old fossil fuel power stations with a new lower carbon energy source was a global aim.
Mrs Cox said it was the third time the council had tried to get a reliable renewable electricity system, and the funding commitment would make Flinders Island the benchmark for remote communities………
Mrs Cox said existing wind power would be integrated with a new wind energy generator, solar energy panels at the airport and a new solar energy field around the power station.
Hydro Tasmania will design and install the new $12.9 million multi-source renewable electricity system on Flinders Island.
Project manager Simon Gamble said it was an exciting prototype that would be the benchmark for remote communities in the Pacific and Asia. Continue reading
Bjorn Lomborg’s climate views have no credibility in the scientific community
“UWA was approached by the federal government” [ to host Bjorn Borg’s Centre, with govt funding]
In an email to supporters of the Climate Council on Friday, former Australian of the Year Tim Flannery said it was “extraordinary” that the government had abolished the Climate Commission “which was composed of Australia’s best climate scientists, economists and energy experts” on the basis of lack of funding only to find the money to “import a politically-motivated think tank to work in the same space.”
“Mr Lomborg’s views have no credibility in the scientific community,” Professor Flannery wrote.
Bjorn Lomborg centre: leaked documents cast doubt on Abbott government claims, The Age April 23, 2015 Lisa Cox, Matthew Knott It was the Abbott government’s original idea for the University of Western Australia to host a think tank created by the “sceptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg, according to leaked talking points.
The government will provide $4 million over four years to bring Dr Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Centre methodology to Australia at a new centre within the University of Western Australia (UWA) business school. Continue reading
Climate Change Authority (CCA) warns on need for big cuts in carbon emissions beyond 2020
Climate Change Authority recommends Australia makes aggressive cuts to emissions beyond 2020, ABC News 22 Apr 15 By National Environment Reporter Jake Sturmer and Lisa Main The Climate Change Authority (CCA) has recommended aggressive cuts in emissions beyond 2020 to ensure Australia does its fair share to combat climate change.
A CCA report recommends cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2025 based on Australia’s emissions from the year 2000. This would require significant emissions cuts beyond the current 2020 target of 5 per cent. Australia’s emissions are less than 1.5 per cent of global emissions, but per capita Australia is the biggest emitter of all developed nations.
The CCA warned if the Government sat on the sidelines based on Australia’s global share of emissions being small, it would be “more self-serving than credible”. “To maintain that posture in the light of 
increasing international actions to reduce emissions – by developed and developing, big and small countries – makes it even less credible,” CCA chair Bernie Fraser said.
The fact is that Australia stands to be massively affected by global warming whatever its share of global emissions.”While the CCA conceded these were “challenging” targets, its report said many other countries were promising similar levels of emissions reductions.
The CCA previously suggested cuts of between 40–60 per cent by 2030.
But what would such cuts look like in reality? ‘Economy can look pretty similar’ Not-for-profit think tank ClimateWorks and the Australian National University conducted a study to look at such a future.
“Our economy can look pretty similar to the way it does today even when we’ve transitioned to low-carbon energy sources,” chief of ClimateWorks Anna Skarbek said. “We would still have a strong mining sector, a strong manufacturing sector, our household activities such as driving and flying would continue as they are. “The difference would be that we would use equipment that’s powered with low-carbon energy.”…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/cca-recommends-aggressive-cuts-to-emissions/6410666
France’s involvement in South Australia’s Nuclear Royal Commission
This Nuclear Royal Commission is becoming a bigger farce with each passing day!
We already knew that the Royal Commission was seeking help from Canada- notorious for the corruption in its nuclear industry
The Advertiser (South Australia’s voice for the nuclear industry) has informed us , apparently with joy and delight, that:
“The French want to sell the state their world-leading uranium enrichment and electricity-generating nuclear technology.”
“Suggestions proposed by the French have already been incorporated into its terms of reference”
“the French Ambassador, Christophe Lecourtier, also briefed Mr Weatherill on the transformation of the regional economy of Normandy, as host to significant sectors of French’s nuclear industry.
The ambassador argued parallels could be found with the South Australian economy if it were to become the home of a fledgling Australian uranium enrichment and nuclear energy industry.
Normandy has the French government’s most modern and main export reactor design, the so-called European pressurised reactor (EPR), which is currently under construction.”
It all sounds so very fine and dandy.
EXCEPT for:
1 France’s Nuclear Financial Crisis France’s State owned nuclear company AREVA now a costly burden France’s nuclear corporation AREVA in deep financial trouble – needs tax-payer bailout.
2. France’s Nuclear Safety Crisis UK nuclear strategy faces meltdown as faults are found in identical French project. Future of the entire Flamanville-3 project in doubt, with more problems at EPR nuclear reactor
Rio Tinto and ERA passing the buck to each other on who pays for Ranger uranium clean-up
As Ranger approaches its end of mine life the stark question of which company bears responsibility for the costly, complex and technically challenging rehabilitation effort is increasingly being asked. ERA says it doesn’t have the funding capacity and Rio Tinto claim it hasn’t the legal responsibility.
Rio Tinto and ERA are playing a game of corporate convenience and the stakes are very high as the miners are required by law to bring the former mineral lease to a standard whereby it can be incorporated into the surrounding Kakadu National Park.
Rio Tinto and Energy Resources of Australia: Uranium Uncertainty and Radioactive Responsibility, Environment Centre NT 22 Apr 15 “The fate of Energy Resources Australia hangs in precarious balance with majority-owner Rio Tinto growing increasingly uncertain about the competitive economics and investment risk of a life-sustaining underground expansion” Financial Review, April 2015
Rio Tinto owns 68 per cent and is the parent company of Energy Resources of Australia, an Australian-listed uranium miner who’s only operating asset is the troubled Ranger mine in Kakadu – a 30-year-old mine with a long history of accidents, spills and security breaches.
Mining at Ranger’s open pit ceased over two years ago and production is currently sustained by processing stockpiles. All mining and mineral processing at the site must end in January 2021, to be followed by a mandated five year rehabilitation period.
But as the window on mining at Ranger closes there is growing concern that Rio Tinto may seek to avoid its near $700 million rehabilitation responsibilities and leave a lasting radioactive hole in the heart of Kakadu National Park.
RIO HOLDING THE REINS AT RANGER Continue reading
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