Seven Reasons to Tackle Climate Change Fast

I just wrote my eighth letter to our dear Prime Minister on the subject of climate change.  I haven't had a sensible reply to the previous seven (one spin letter in response to the first, one brief acknowledgement of my praise of the Government's handling of COVID in the fifth which fails to mention the actual subject of the letter) but that's not the point.  The point is that he and his minions hear, repeatedly, that there are Australians who are not happy with inaction on climate change.

For this eighth letter I have widened the audience.  Along with the original to the PM I have sent a version to all Queensland Senators, my local Commonwealth member and the Minister for Emissions Reduction (sic.), and to my State and Local Government representatives.  This is the main content of the letter, without the opening bits which were tailored to each audience.

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As we roll out the COVID 19 vaccines and we can see the containment of the virus approaching, all of us are turning our attention to what will happen next.  Since the beginning of the crisis our national government, urged on by the COVID Commission, has been touting a ‘gas-fired recovery’.  Yet the Australian Energy Market Operator says we need less gas, not more.  What can we do?

Australia is in the climate change slow lane.  To be fair, it’s a fairly crowded lane, which is possibly why it’s going so slow, but we are particularly slow given that we are a wealthy nation with enormous resources of sun and wind, our per capita emissions are currently sky high and we are a major exporter of the fossil fuels which are doing all the damage.  

We often hear this issue framed in negative terms.  Climate activists point to the ecological and human disaster that will visit us if we don’t quickly reduce our emissions.  Skeptics tell us climate action will cost too much and damage our economy, losing people’s jobs.  It’s warring catastrophes – economic catastrophe now, or ecological catastrophe later.

This is an unhelpful and rather absurd way of framing the question.  The truth is there are massive benefits to reducing our greenhouse gases right now, and doing it quickly and aggressively.  Here are seven of them.

Reason 1: We will save money.

The investments we make in reducing emissions will pay off not just in a better environment but in our hip pockets.  In electricity, for instance, which accounts for about half our emissions, wind and solar power are now easily the cheapest sources on the market, even when you include the cost of backups like batteries or pumped hydro.  Of course they are – the fuel is free!  The more our institutions invest in renewables now, the faster we will all get these savings.

Housing accounts for about 25% or our emissions.  Currently the Building Code requires new housing to score at least six out of ten on the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NaTHERS).  If we upped this to eight or nine we would have housing that is a little more expensive to build and much cheaper to run.  If we extended this to house refits, putting stimulus money into financing climate-friendly improvements in our existing housing (which currently rates an average of around two) then we could all benefit from lower energy bills and more comfortable homes.

In transport, which accounts for about 15% of emissions, it is much cheaper to walk or ride your bike somewhere, or to catch the bus or train, than it is to drive and park.  The reason more of us don’t do this is because the infrastructure is poor – buses don’t come often enough and are overcrowded, we are forced to ride our bikes on roads full of cars and trucks that can kill us.  So we don’t just need each of us making good individual choices, we need our State and local governments to put their money into good bike and walking paths and high quality, frequent public transport instead of more and wider roads.  And if we do this, we won’t need to spend as much on roads!

Reason 2: We will make money.

Plenty of people have pointed out that the rapid spread of renewable electricity can be a catalyst for the renewal of Australian manufacturing.  The combination of our abundant capacity to produce wind and solar power and our high levels of technical capability means that we can export power from Northern Australia via connectors to Indonesia and South-East Asia, use our excess capacity to make hydrogen for export or domestic use, and use this abundant energy to revitalize our manufacturing sector.  Even Andrew Forrest is pinning his future on massive investments in net zero technology.  If we put our stimulus dollars into the rapid roll-out of renewables we will not only create construction jobs, we will speed the growth of these opportunities.

But more than this, there are massive possibilities for widening the distribution of wealth.  Wind and solar generators come in all sizes, from ones you can put on the roof of your house to ones that cover acres of ground.  We don’t have to just re-create the model of large mega-corporations owning massive generators.  Local communities can co-invest in mid-scale facilities near their home, while struggling farmers can be paid rent to host wind turbines or solar panels on their farms.  We can distribute the assets and profits around the community, particularly in regional communities that struggle economically.  Climate mitigation is not a cost, it is an investment.

Reason 3: We will make ourselves healthier and safer.

If we rapidly shift electricity generation from coal and gas to renewables, we will have cleaner air.  Instead of toxic gases and particulates we will emit nothing.  If we follow this up by electrifying our mechanized transport (cars, buses and trucks) our cities and towns will no longer be choked with petrol and diesel fumes.  We will literally be able to breathe easier.  In addition, if we shift from driving our cars round to cycling or walking on safe paths we will get fitter and healthier, lose weight, improve our cardio-vascular function and become stronger.  What’s more, if we shift more of our trips to public or active transport we will have fewer road accidents, less stress and more social contact.  If we catch the train or bus not only will we walk more to get to and from the station, we will be far safer and we will be able to relax, read, watch the scenery or talk to our fellow passengers while well-trained professional drivers take us safely to our destination.  All this has immense benefits for our mental and physical health.

Other changes can help us too.  For instance, reducing our meat intake, or shifting from beef to chicken or kangaroo, both shifts the market to less emitting and destructive animals and reduces our fat intake, reducing obesity.  Changes that make our homes more climate friendly also make them more healthy to live in, with better temperature control and less mould.  And as we become mentally healthier we will see that we don’t need to be so obsessed with the endless round of extraction and consumption and be able to live more simply, reducing our stress and our impact on the earth.

Reason 4: We will make the world a more beautiful place.

One of the ways we can reduce our climate impact is to move from deforestation to reforestation – instead of removing trees and releasing their carbon into the air we would grow more than we cut down, capturing carbon in the process.  If we do this through middle or large scale native forestry we will create expanded habitats for wildlife and places of beauty for ourselves.  If we plant more trees in urban environments we do the same in a different way, providing havens for birds, insects, reptiles and mammals as well as making our environments shadier and cooler.  The result is that we will be better able to connect to the natural world and enjoy it – and other species will benefit too.

Reason 5: We will stop the boats.

In the past decade or so we have expended a lot of political capital – and billions of dollars - on stopping boat-loads of asylum seekers coming to Australia, ‘stopping the boats’ and ‘breaking the people smugglers’ business model’.  Of course people smugglers have not been sitting around for eight years waiting for our government to relent.  Like all entrepreneurs they are adaptable and they have rerouted their boats to other destinations while sending customers to Australia by plane.  

The core problem – the global refugee crisis, in which something like seventy million people are displaced from their homes – is getting worse and climate stress is a key factor in this.  The more the climate changes the more people will be displaced, and the more civil unrest will lead to civil war and displacement.  Climate change has already been a key contributor to the war in Syria, and to the ongoing movement of people from South and Central America north towards the USA.  A key part of reaching a genuine solution to this problem will be to limit further climate change and contribute to global efforts to build climate resilience in poor communities.

Reason 6: We will avoid accelerating cycles of disaster.

We have always had cycles of flood and drought, but climate change has been accelerating and intensifying them.  The more the overall climate warms, the more frequent will be our extreme weather events – our droughts, fires, floods and heatwaves.  Each of these disasters brings a cost – the cost of rebuilding, the loss of assets and income, the rising cost of insurance, the increased mental health stress as traumas multiply.  The only way to avoid this is to take quick action to limit climate change by reducing and then eliminating our emissions of greenhouse gases. 

Reason 7: We will reduce the number of toxic corporations in our political environment.

Over the past quarter of a century we have allowed the fossil fuel industry free play in our political system, letting them set the agenda to extend their profits at the expense of the environment and everyone else.  A spin-off from this is that political representatives on both sides have found themselves having to downplay the importance of tackling climate change and talk up the prospects of the coal and gas industries.  This habit of untruthfulness has bled into other areas of our civic life, undermining confidence in our political system in general.  All our major party politicians know that they won’t get into government if they upset the coal and gas industry.

Once we get serious about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out coal and gas these corporations will lose their hold over us.  Our politicians will not miraculously become saints as a result but there will be one less cause of corruption in our system.  They will be better able to represent their communities (us!) and to do what is right for their constituents, their country and their planet.

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Zali Steggall has provided our political leaders with an opportunity to build a consensus on tackling climate change.  I’m not a particular supporter of hers, but her bill provides a solid framework for tackling climate change with a set of principles, an overall target, a set of structures to oversee it and a process to keep our climate mitigation on track.  If both sides of parliament got behind this bill we might finally see an end to the deadlock which has crippled our climate change efforts for the past two decades.  If our parliamentarians don’t pass this bill, they will have to pass something else like it.  

I’m not frightened of climate action.  I’m excited by it and impatient to begin.  It contains so many possibilities, so many ways to improve our lives.  Let’s get on with it and enjoy the ride.