Australia a drag internationally, pitted against USA on carbon policy
Carbon policy pits Aus against US: Garnaut http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/double-climate-threat-to-our-economy-ceda/story-fni0xqi4-1226958415074 19 June 14 AAP AUSTRALIA is setting itself against the US and will become a drag on global climate change efforts with the repeal of the carbon tax, prominent economist Ross Garnaut says. THE former government adviser says China, Europe and the US are gearing up for another big effort to address climate change and by scrapping its detailed and sophisticated carbon laws, Australia is going against this.
“With our existing policies, we’re not ahead of any game yet but we’re part of the game. We will be doing our fair share,” Professor Garnaut said on Wednesday. “With the repeal of the carbon laws, and in the absence of anything in their place, then we won’t be doing our fair share.”We will be a drag on the international system.” He said the move was particularly puzzling when the world’s two big emitters, China and the US, whose inaction had previously been a problem, were committing themselves to very strong action.
“We have set ourselves against our ally the United States on a major question of policy in a way that we haven’t done since the Ottawa conference in 1931,” Prof Garnaut said.
The comments came at the release of a report by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) into the economic trouble Australia could face without an appropriate response to climate change.
The report says Australia faces the risk of growing repair bills from extreme weather and barriers to major project investment.
CEDA chief executive Stephen Martin said policy makers need to recognise climate change is an economic issue, not just an environmental issue. “Statistics show that the number of catastrophic weather events is increasing and the economic losses associated with these events are also trending up,” Prof Martin said. He said Cyclone Yasi, Black Saturday, the Queensland floods and other weather events have had a direct impact on industry and on most Australians’ hip pocket.
Professor Martin said the federal government needs to introduce a national risk register that includes strategies to manage risks of extreme weather. “Australia is reliant on foreign capital to fund major projects and new developments in international climate change policy are likely to impact international capital flow and investment decision making,” Prof Martin said.
Pacific leaders condemn Tony Abbott’s climate policies
Pacific presidents speak out against Australia’s stand on climate change Australia Network News, Fri 13 Jun 2014, Pacific leaders have criticised Australia’s moves to form a conservative international climate change alliance, saying it will only isolate Australia further in the Pacific.
The comments from the presidents of Kiribati and Marshall Islands came as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott met US President Barrack Obama for formal talks in Washington………
Kiribati’s President Anote Tong says climate change is an issue of survival for Pacific Island states, not just economics.
“We’re not talking about the growth GDP, we’re not talking about what it means in terms of profit and losses of the large corporations, we’re talking about our survival,” he told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat
Australia further isolated in Pacific
Mr Tong also says the Abbott-Harper strategy throws previous regional agreements to which Australia was a signatory into doubt. He says Australia’s stand is also likely to get “some, if not a lot” of attention at next month’s Pacific Island Forum leaders’ meeting in Palau.
Mr Tong says as far as Kiribati is concerned, it now doesn’t matter what Australia or any other country does because it is already too late.
“What will happen in terms of greenhouse gas emissions levels agreed to internationally will not affect us, because our future is already here… we will be underwater,” he said………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pacific-presidents/5521478
Tony Abbott’s plan for alliance to block climate action has already come to grief
Britain, New Zealand reject Tony Abbott’s idea for alliance to block action on climate change Age June 12, 2014 –Lisa Cox National political reporter The UK’s conservative climate and energy minister has rejected suggestions his government could form an alliance of “like-minded” nations with Australia to oppose carbon pricing.Greg Barker has put an end to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s dream that a group of five countries could be formed to undermine global moves to install carbon pricing and challenge a push by US President Barack Obama for stronger international regulation of climate change.In moves that show Australia is increasingly isolated on the subject, New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key has also said he was caught off-guard by the idea of an alliance and signalled his government has no intention of walking away from its emissions trading scheme.
The comments leave Canada, with its anti-carbon tax prime minister Stephen Harper as Australia’s only likely ally on the subject.
Mr Barker told British media on Wednesday that the UK would not be joining Australia to challenge international regulation of carbon emissions. ”I think you can take it the UK won’t be joining an alliance against regulation. We are engaged with Australia and New Zealand, encouraging them to take a responsible proactive part in seeking an ambitious global treaty on climate change,” he said……..
Earlier this year, Mr Cameron said he believed that ”man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats that this country and this world faces”.And earlier this week, Mr Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said political leaders had to recognise that climate change was the number one priority for governments as the most significant issue the planet faces…..
Mr Abbott’s stance on climate action has also drawn criticism from retiring US politician Henry Waxman, who was at the forefront of clean energy bills in America.
Mr Waxman said Australia, along with Canada, risked being ”behind-the-scenes laggers” rather than leaders on climate policy.
Both nations risked being out of sync with Europe and the US. ”I hope Australia doesn’t turn its back on its leadership role and become a drag on what we need to all be doing around the world,” Mr Waxman told ABC’s 7.30 on Wednesday.
The retiring senior Democrat also criticised the Coalition government’s ”voluntary” direct action policy as ineffectual. ”That never worked anywhere,” he said. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/britain-new-zealand-reject-tony-abbotts-idea-for-alliance-to-block-action-on-climate-change-20140612-39yws.html#ixzz34Ya5sywb
Barack Obama and Tony Abbott at odds over climate change
Climate change gulf looms between Barack Obama and Tony Abbott, Guardian, 11 June 14, US president’s call for action in US TV interview stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Australian prime minister Climate change may be the most significant long-term challenge facing the planet, Barack Obama has said in a newly aired TV interview, emphasising the growing differences with Tony Abbott who insists it is certainly not the most important issue facing the world.
As Obama and Abbott prepare for their first formal meeting in Washington on Thursday, the differences between their positions on global warming are clearer than ever, and according to diplomatic sources the president will not seek to downplay them.
Obama’s remarks in an interview broadcast on US television on Tuesday night come as his administration increases its diplomatic push to achieve a successful new international agreement on greenhouse reduction efforts next year and unveils the detail of tough new rules to force reductions in emissions from US power stations……….
Abbott has downplayed the link between climate change and extreme weather events. For example during severe bushfires last year he said: “Climate change is real, as I’ve often said, and we should take strong action against it … but these fires are certainly not a function of climate change – they’re just a function of life in Australia.” When the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said the fires showed the world is “already paying the price of carbon”, Abbott said “the official in question is talking through her hat”……….
The Coalition’s Direct Action policy is designed to meet only the minimum target of a 5% reduction by 2020 – despite advice from the independent Climate Change Authority that preconditions for a higher target, which previously had bipartisan agreement, have been met. The Coalition has said it will participate in the Paris meeting but has not given any indication of what Australia’s post-2020 target will be, or how it will be determined.
Australia’s policy is entirely voluntary. Companies can choose to bid into a series of “reverse auctions” for government funding. The new US policy requires power generation to reduce emissions by 30%, with states determining the mechanism by which they achieve this. States such as California which have emissions trading schemes will use them to achieve the goal……..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/11/climate-change-gulf-looms-between-barack-obama-and-tony-abbott
Tony Abbott in Canada – setting up an Anti Action on Climate Change Alliance!
Tony Abbott seeks alliance to thwart President Obama on climate change policy Mark Kenny, The Age June 10, 2014 Tony Abbott is seeking a conservative alliance among “like-minded” countries, aiming to dismantle global moves to introduce carbon pricing, and undermine a push by US President Barack Obama to push the case for action through forums such as the G20.
Visiting Ottawa for a full day of talks with the conservative Canadian Prime Minister and close friend Stephen Harper, Mr Abbott flagged intentions to build a new centre-right alliance led by Canada, Britain and Australia along with India and New Zealand………
The combined front would attempt to counter recent moves by the Obama administration to lift the pace of climate change abatement via policies such as a carbon tax or state-based emissions trading……..
The uncompromising attitude of both leaders suggests neither is inclined to yield to pressure from the US to revive the issue of climate change ahead of next years’ climate summit, nor back any international coordination such as additional regulations or a trading scheme…….
US officials have also been pushing Australia – so far unsuccessfully – to include climate change on the agenda for November’s G20 meeting in Brisbane.
……..Opposition Leader Bill Shorten took aim at the Prime Minister’s ”flat-Earth views”, accusing him of being out of touch with Australians and world leaders such as Mr Obama. He told Fairfax Media that climate change was ”not just an environmental issue, it is a security issue and it is absolutely an economic issue”.
But Mr Shorten said that Mr Obama, along with other world leaders, had clearly recognised that clean air, low pollution and new technologies would be good for the global economy and job creation. He said Mr Abbott ”shouldn’t shirk the issue when he meets President Obama later this week, and he shouldn’t shirk the issue at the G20 later this year”.
While mooted as a potential member of Mr Abbott’s new coalition, British Prime Minister David Cameron has been vocal about the need to tackle climate change, describing it in February as ”one of the most serious threats that the world faces”. Britain, through membership of the European Union, and New Zealand both have emissions trading schemes in place.: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-seeks-alliance-to-thwart-president-obama-on-climate-change-policy-20140609-39t93.html#ixzz34Ih3hcqc
Tony Abbott gets it wrong on international carbon policies
Tony Abbott missing signs of world’s switch to carbon trading, experts say, Tom Arup, Environment editor, The Age June 10, 2014 The world’s two largest economies – China and the US – are increasingly adopting carbon trading to cut greenhouse gas emissions, contrary to suggestions by Prime Minister Tony Abbott that other countries are not introducing schemes.
Speaking in Canada, Mr Abbott said carbon taxes and emissions trading were the wrong way to address climate change.
He said the debate was not about the existence of climate change, but the best approach to respond to it and he backed ”direct action measures” such as improving energy efficiency and planting more trees.
Asked if direct action was preferable to an international emissions trading scheme, Mr Abbott said: ”There is no sign – no sign – that trading schemes are increasingly being adopted. If anything trading schemes are being discarded, not adopted.”
Kobad Bhavnagri, Australian head at analysts Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said it was wrong to claim trading schemes were being discarded. He said China started six regional emissions trading schemes in the past year – building towards a national scheme expected to be in place this decade.
n the US, he said the recently announced emissions limits on coal-fired power plants – expressed as targets imposed on the states by the Environment Protection Agency – would likely lead to more states adopting emissions trading to deliver required cuts.
”Apart from Australia I don’t think any other country has plans to unwind an emissions trading scheme. That assertion they are being discarded is incorrect,” Mr Bhavnagri said.
”In the world’s two biggest economies – and the world’s two biggest emitters – we are seeing quite a deliberate move towards carbon pricing and emissions trading, not away.”………. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-missing-signs-of-worlds-switch-to-carbon-trading-experts-say-20140609-39t8q.html#ixzz34IeDi0Z9
Tony Abbott says ‘no carbon pricing, in any global climate agreement’
Abbott says climate not right for tax Sky News 9 June 14, Prime Minister Tony Abbott says any future global agreement on climate change won’t include carbon pricing.
Mr Abbott is the first Australian prime minister to visit Canada since John Howard in 2006, who arrived just months after Mr Harper’s conservative government was elected. The two prime ministers will meet on Monday, local time, when Mr Abbott will receive an official welcome with military honours in the Canadian capital Ottawa.
But speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Abbott said the re-elected Mr Harper had succeeded in convincing Canadian voters at the last national poll of the perils of carbon pricing. Stephen Harper and I are like-minded on this,’ Mr Abbott told reporters in Ottawa on Sunday……….
Mr Abbott will next head to New York where he is expected to meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and media baron Rupert Murdoch and hold further business and investment talks. http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2014/06/09/abbott-says-climate-not-right-for-tax.html#sthash.ieWrX2ff.dpuf
Tony Abbbott leads Australia’s retreat from international affairs
Tony Abbott’s global retreat, THE SATURDAY PAPER, 7 June 14 SOPHIE MORRIS As the PM sets off to meet world leaders, his government is withdrawing the nation from international affairs. en Tony Abbott meets Barack Obama in Washington late next week, the president of the United States of America will no doubt want to discuss his ambitious emissions reduction plans.
If the prime minister is being honest, he would have to concede that, from July, there is the real prospect that Australia may have no official legislated climate policy.
The new senate looks likely to abolish the carbon tax but there is no certainty it will endorse the Coalition’s proposed alternative, which has been criticised by economists and environmentalists. And it is not just on climate change that Australia is increasingly seen as being out of step with the international community. As Abbott tours the world, declaring Australia “open for business”, his government is pursuing a range of policies – on the environment, foreign aid and refugees – that see it retreating from an international approach.
This is no accident; there has been a conscious shift. Forget about global citizenship. Our foreign policy is now all about regional security and trade, rather than climate change and foreign aid. It’s about projecting national sovereignty and domestically oriented policy – stop the boats, axe the tax, end the debt – onto a global stage…….
In a speech to the Westpoint military academy last week, President Obama said a “spirit of co-operation must energise the global effort to combat climate change”, describing it as a “creeping national security crisis” that would lead to refugee flows, natural disasters, and conflicts over water and food. “That’s why, next year, I intend to make sure America is out front in a global framework to preserve our planet,” he said.
Unless Obama is very persuasive when he meets Abbott, it seems likely Australia will not be joining him at the front of this global effort. More likely, we will be bringing up the rear. http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/06/07/tony-abbotts-global-retreat/1402063200#.U5ZrZHJdWil
Tony Abbott shows Australia ‘out of touch’ as he excludes Climate Change from G20 summit in November
Australia should come in from the cold June 6, 2014 The Age As Tony Abbott heads towards the northern hemisphere summer on the next stage of his 12-day round-the-world trip, he might have cause to feel a distinct chilliness, particularly from his hosts in Europe and the United States. The reason is simple: the more the Australian government downplays the critical importance of acknowledging and controlling climate change, the more behind we will be with world opinion and action.
Just look at what has happened over the past week or so…….
as The Age has said, without carbon pricing, the nation lacks a credible policy outline to adapt to and match even modest accelerations in global emission cuts.
Sadly, the Prime Minister’s glib attitude to climate change is entirely predictable. But this does not excuse his consignment to the political freezer of anything that threatens to add to what should be a reasoned and far-reaching debate on what is a world problem.
The latest thing to be popped into the Australian government’s icebox is the potential inclusion of climate change on the agenda at the G20 leaders’ summit in Brisbane in November. ”The focus … will overwhelmingly be our economic security, our financial stabilisation, the importance of private-sector growth,” Mr Abbott said this week, adding that there are other international forums for climate change discussions. Yes, but not ones attended by those world leaders who regard the unchecked progress of global emissions as detrimental to our economic security and financial stability. To restrict, or possibly exclude, climate change from the G20 discussions is short-sighted and counter-productive. Again, it makes Australia look retrograde and out of touch with reality…….http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/australia-should-come-in-from-the-cold-20140605-39lq4.html
Abbott unable to censor Climate Change from G20 and from talks with Obama?
Barack Obama’s climate change moves put heat on Tony Abbott The Age, June 3,Mark Kenny Chief political correspondent A dramatic acceleration of America’s response to climate change, including strong caps on coal-fired pollution threatens to expose Australia’s humble 5 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020 as too low and out of step with the rest of the world.
The US move may overshadow the first bilateral talks between Prime Minister Tony Abbott and President Barack Obama to take place in Washington next week. Those talks will cover trade, economic and strategic issues but with climate change again dominating the US political cycle, the environmental challenge is likely to arise.
And that may see Mr Abbott under direct presidential pressure to re-include climate change as a key economic issue on the agenda of the G20 when Australia hosts the premier international economic forum later this year.…….http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/barack-obamas-climate-change-moves-put-heat-on-tony-abbott-20140602-39f0s.html#ixzz33djzH13e
Pacific Island Delegates urge Australia to change climate change policy
Pacific nations urge climate change action, ask Australia for help http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-27/pacific-countries-make-climate-change-appeal/5481050 Australian Network political editor Catherine McGrath 27 May 2014 Songs of the Pacific have been heard at Parliament House as islanders from countries likely to be most at threat from rising sea levels braved the Canberra winter to highlight the issue of climate change.
In traditional dress, the group performed a cultural dance and spoke about their concerns.
When it comes to high tide you can see the tide everywhere it seeps through the whole island. It kills the crops – it kills our traditional root crops.
Maina Talia
The delegates, from Kiribati, Tuvalu and Papua New Guinea, are meeting federal politicians and officials representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop and Environment Minister Greg Hunt.
They are seeking a cut in carbon emissions and more assistance for their countries’ climate change mitigation.
Kiribati, which is only about two to three metres above sea level, and Tuvalu, at four metres above sea level, are already battling rising sea levels and crop losses.
The delegate from Wewak in PNG says her region in the East Sepik province is also in danger.
Apisaloma Tawati, 19, from Kiribati says the group is taking its campaign to the world.”I am here today to make everyone aware of our hardship and to convince you that we need your help and … you can help us,” he said. “As a youth I am afraid of climate change. I see our land is becoming thinner and thinner. “We live near the coast and we see a lot of things. We saw coastal erosion, the land has been eroded away, sea walls have broken.
“I come to Australia to tell the world of our hardship and our stories back in Kiribati.”Kiribati is enduring a lot of problems due to climate change.”
Delegates urge Australia to change climate change policy
Maina Talia, 29, from Tuvalu wants Australia to rethink its climate change policy. “We are the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable countries,” he said. “Since we don’t have any mountains or rivers, for us to adapt is very difficult. It is a burden to the people of Tuvalu as to how they can adapt. “Now when it comes to high tide you can see the tide everywhere it seeps through the whole island. “It kills the crops – it kills our traditional root crops. “It (the rising sea levels) are just there and we don’t know how that happens but we believe it is climate change.”
Mr Talia says it is important to keep campaigning because people from Tuvalu feel so vulnerable. “It is difficult to determine who is listening and who is not listening,” he said.”I believe they have heard our message so many times but we keep on pushing and advocating for Tuvalu and Kiribati and low lying atolls [so] that leaders of Australia and other industrialised countries will continue to hear our voice.”
Australian uranium companies strongly part of the callous exploitation of poverty-stricken African nations
THE SCRAMBLE FOR URANIUM IN AFRICA http://www.phantomreport.com/the-scramble-for-uranium-in-africa 19 May 14, Africa’s resources are extracted by outsiders, with benefits only reaching the involved non-African mining companies and non-African end-users of the commodity. Africa is the next frontier to meet energy needs. Oil and gas are being exploited as never before, exacerbating conflict in Darfur and Nigeria, social inequality in Angola, and environmental damage in Chad.
At the same time, renewed demand for uranium is being explored on the continent more than at any other time in history.
Yet the continent’s huge potential for renewable energy is not fully being realised. The government of Malawi granted a uranium mining licence to an Australian uranium mining company without having any legislation on the mining, handling and transportation of radioactive materials. Malawi is now home to twelve potential uranium mines.
In Niger mining companies from Australia, Canada, France and other parts of the world are scrambling for licences to explore uranium in a country which is already the world’s sixth producer of uranium. In the Central African Republic (CAR) there is a scramble amongst Chinese, American and French companies which are all interested in mining the Bakouma region.
In Tanzania the Australian Omega Corp obtained the Mkuju River concessions through its subsidiary, Mantra Resources. Other Australian juniors are represented in Tanzania, including Sabre Resources, Goldstream Mining, Uranex and Deep Yellow.
In Zambia, the Australian Energy Ventures through its subsidiary Africa Energy Resources started drilling the Kariba Valley in May 2008. Another Australian enterprise, Albion Ltd,, is also undertaking exploration.
Australian uranium mining company arousing concern in Greenland
The prospect of a relatively unknown Australian company exploiting massive untapped resources in Greenland deserves a robust public and political debate. It has thus far received nothing in Australia, and little in Denmark and Greenland. In an age of worsening climate change, mining uranium is an arguably unsafe and potentially explosive answer to the problem.
Australian uranium mining in Greenland is tearing the country in half http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/15/australian-uranium-mining-in-greenland-is-tearing-the-country-in-half After Greenland’s prime minister repealed a law on uranium mining, Australian firms are staking out the country for exploitation. Local political opposition is heating up
Antony Loewenstein This is a story about an Australian company you’ve never heard of, operating in a nation that rarely enters the global media: Greenland. It’s a story about the intense search for energy sources in a world that’smoving away from the dirtiest fossil fuels.
>Aleqa Hammond, the prime minister of Greenland, is the first woman to lead this autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark. She also welcomes the financial opportunities from climate change and a melting Arctic Circle.
“I simply refuse to be the victimised people of climate change”, she toldBusiness Week this month. “This time we have other options than just hunting. We have the right now to our own underground.”
In October last year, Hammond pushed legislation through Greenland’s parliament to overturn a 25 year old ban on the extraction of radioactive materials, including uranium, despite countless leading environmental NGOs urging otherwise. It attracted global interest from the rare earth and uranium industries, including from China. Concerns were also raised about Greenland’s ability to manage a toxic substance in the wake of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
The company Greenland Minerals and Energy Limited (GMEL) is based in Perth, Western Australia. This year GMEL announced a major step forward in their plan to open one of the world’s largest uranium mines in southern Greenland, at Kvanefjeld. The mine will also produce fluoride, thorium and other rare earths.There is still significant opposition to the Kvanefjeld project. The Ecological Council, a Danish NGO, organised a conference to discussthe potential contamination risks in March, noting that the mine poses serious risks for the inhabitants of the nearby village, Narsaq. Many locals told the BBC that they worried about pollution and challenges to traditional ways of life if GMEL moved ahead with its plans. Unsurprisingly, Danish green groups have pushed for a continued ban on uranium mining. They claim that rare earth elements can be extracted without uranium mining in Greenland.
This would have been an important but fairly typical contest over resources, but after issues surrounding the ownership and status of Perth-based GMEL were raised in the Greenlandic parliament, the prospects of the Australian firm may be in jeopardy.Late last year, Greenland MP Sara Olsvig (tipped by some as a future prime minister) wrote to the country’s minister of industry and minerals, Jens-Erik Kirkegaard. She demanded details about any and all of GMEL’s shareholders, after Australian media outlets had raised allegations about both the company back in 2009 (here and here) and mining prospector Mihran Shemesian, also known as “Mick Many Names“.
In 2009, Fairfax media claimed that Shemesian controlled more than 20% of GMEL stock. Range Resources, another company tied to Shemesian, had earlier been accused of paying the disputed government of the Puntland State of Somalia, linked to Somali rebels, more than $US6m ($A9.3m) for resource rights to the region. Since then, there have been very few stories about him.
Kirkegaard responded that the government dismissed any concerns about GMEL – “the alleged events all occurred outside Greenland’s jurisdiction” – and claimed that the company didn’t own an exploration license anyway, so there was nothing to worry about. This isn’t quite the case: Greenland Minerals and Energy A/S (GME), the firm granted the licence, is the wholly-owned Greenlandic subsidiary of GMEL.So is “Mick Many Names” Shemesian involved with GMEL? John Mair, the company’s executive director, told me he isn’t “registered as a shareholder”. But he would not guarantee that Shemesian has no involvement with GMEL.
Mair is proud of the Kvanefjed project, where “risks can be appropriately mitigated”. GMEL was “working with Greenland to help establish a secure and viable economy that will help sustain their increasing political independence,” he told me, adding that he was “optimistic” GMEL would be granted a mining license in the foreseeable future because “we have much local community support in Greenland”.A key shareholder in GMEL is Perth-based geologist Greg Barnes, founder and CEO of Tanbreez. He told me by phone from Singapore that he has personally invested $40m towards mining possibilities in Greenland. He says he has known Shemesian for 30 years and “has heard that he has a 50% share in GMEL and I’ve heard that he has 0%. I have no relationship with him.”
But in December last year he told Grønlandsposten, a Greenlandic newspaper that, “he and Shemesian could probably fire GMEL’s board if they wanted to”. He told me that this referred to the make-up of GMEL many years ago – not today.
“[Greenland] is the size of Western Australia but it has no mines”, he said. “In Western Australia an application for mining would take three months but in Greenland it takes years.” A vast part of Greenland has been “staked out by a number of Perth companies.” Barnes isn’t concerned about climate change “because it didn’t really show up in places like Greenland apart from some ice sheets reducing”.
There is another view. Niels Henrik Hooge is a Danish consultant who works with green NGOs. He’s been at the forefront of the campaign against uranium mining in Greenland. He says to me that the people of Greenland are “split down the middle regarding the repeal of the [uranium] ban.”
Hooge explains that the “mineral authorities” have fed the public disinformation over the last years but the tide may be turning, with growing concerns over environmental effects and the leftist party Inuit Ataqatigiit pledging to roll back the repeal if it wins back power.
The prospect of a relatively unknown Australian company exploiting massive untapped resources in Greenland deserves a robust public and political debate. It has thus far received nothing in Australia, and little in Denmark and Greenland. In an age of worsening climate change, mining uranium is an arguably unsafe and potentially explosive answer to the problem.
Marshall Islands deplores Australia’s backward steps on climate change
Australia risks ‘going backwards’ on climate change and straining Pacific ties Marshall Islands foreign minister says ‘it is as if our big brother doesn’t understand us’ theguardian.com, Monday 5 May 2014 17 John Vidal Australia risks going “backwards” on climate change, straining relations with small Pacific island states that are being hit by unusually powerful storms, floods, droughts and massive tides, according to the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands.
“Australia has always been our friend but the change in their government last year has resulted in problems,” said Tony de Brum on a visit to London to address British and other countries’ economic and political leaders about the physical plight that Pacific states such as the Marshall Islands find themselves in.
“We are having difficulty understanding Australia’s climate change policies and their new environmental regime. We don’t understand what they are thinking. We worry that the change in their policy may result in movement backwards.”
Australia’s Coalition government is trying to repeal carbon pricing in favour of a grants system for businesses to lower their emissions. Repeated independent analysis has shown its Direct Action plan is unlikely to achieve its target of a 5% cut on emissions by 2020, based on 2000 levels.
The Coalition has also set about abolishing climate change agencies, slashed staff numbers at the Department of the Environment and declined to send a minister to international climate talks.
Small island states around the Pacific are sending Australia the same message about climate change, according to De Brum. “Australia has always been generous,” he said. “But it is as if our big brother doesn’t understand us. The same message is going to Australia from other countries in the Pacific forum. Little brother is saying, ‘Big brother should get up and smell the flowers.’ ”
Scattered across 2m square kilometres of ocean, the Marshalls have all experienced extremes linked to climate change in the past year, he said. “We have had major drought in the north, floods in the south, seawater intrusion of groundwater, and thousands of people displaced by a king tide. That is the reality. What does Australia not understand?”
Pacific states including Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshalls are suffering at the present level of emissions, he said, making the prospect of future sea level rises and more powerful cyclones frightening.
“Some islands and atolls are already disappearing. One, called Enebok … is now underwater. Yet 20 years ago it had coconut palms and houses. At the moment we are [able to move] people around the islands. But any prudent leader would always have evacuation at the back of their mind.”
Climate change and the lack of cash to invest in renewable energy technologies, such as ocean thermal energy conversion, is now putting a brake on development, he said…… http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/05/australia-risks-going-backwards-on-climate-change-and-straining-pacific-ties
Australia deliberately prevented a nuclear-free Pacific treaty, to obey USA’s interests
Declassified documents from the National Archives of Australia, including the 1985 Cabinet minute about the SPNFZ Treaty, show clearly that Australia designed the treaty to protect US interests in the Pacific, including the deployment of nuclear-armed warships and the testing of nuclear missiles.
International legal experts, including Don Rothwell, professor of international law at the Australian National University, have raised concerns that uranium sales to India would breach Australia’s obligations under the treaty. Rothwell has prepared a legal opinion stating that the SPNFZ Treaty prohibits members from selling uranium to countries that do not accept full-scope nuclear safeguards under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
This is consistent with past Australian government policy.
Delaying The Nuclear-Free Zone In The Pacific http://concernedyapcitizens.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/pacific-islands-report-delaying-the-nuclear-free-zone-in-the-pacific/ By Nic Maclellan At the height of the nuclear arms race between the United States and Soviet Union, a treaty to create a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone, or SPNFZ, was opened for signature on Hiroshima Day, 6 August 1985, at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Rarotonga.
Twenty-eight years after it was signed on that day by Australia, New Zealand and island nations, the United States still hasn’t ratified its protocols, in spite of a request from president Barack Obama to the US Senate more than two years ago.
Next week, as Forum leaders gather in the Marshall Islands – site of sixty-seven US nuclear tests at Bikini and Enewetak Atolls – the US government will be eager to keep nuclear issues off the agenda, as it has been since the Treaty was first mooted. Declassified documents from the National Archives of Australia, and US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, highlight longstanding opposition in Canberra and Washington to a comprehensive nuclear-free zone that might hamper US nuclear deployments in the Pacific.
The Forum meeting, and the US Senate’s continued stalling, coincide with on-going concerns that Australia’s decision to sell uranium to India threatens to breach Australian treaty obligations. As Conservative Australian governments in the 1960s debated the acquisition of nuclear weapons and purchased aircraft capable of delivering nuclear strikes in Southeast Asia, the labour movement across the region proposed a nuclear free zone designed to ban the bomb in this part of the world. The SPNFZ Treaty was finally negotiated in the 1980s after decades of campaigning by unions, Pacific churches and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement. Continue reading
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