This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report. It's a synthesis of the latest scientific understandings of climate change, put together and carefully vetted by a group of several hundred climate scientists.
The news is not good.
The earth has already warmed by 1.09 degrees Celsius on average. Australia has warmed by 1.4.
Scientists are more certain than ever that it's caused by humans (us, and particularly the wealthy oligarchs who are blocking action).
They are also much more certain than they were last report about the direct link between climate change and natural disasters. Remember those bushfires, and the ones sweeping Europe right now, right after the floods that swept Europe? There'll be more.
Sea levels are rising. It's hard to say by how much because it's hard to model how major ice sheets will melt. But higher than now. Some Pacific nations are at risk of disappearing.
This is not the future, this is now.
Meanwhile our Prime Minister babbles on about 'technology not taxes' and how China is to blame even though China is already doing more than us to cut emissions despite being much poorer.
Scott seems to forget that we have fantastic technologies which work right now - renewable energy, electric vehicles, green hydrogen etc - which his government has blocked at every turn in the hope of that magical technology which will keep his fossil fuel company donors in business.
So of course I wrote him a letter - not my usual tome, but a a brief, urgent message posted via his web page.
The IPCC just released its latest scientific assessment of climate change. You know this. You also know that the news is bad. The planet is warming. Australia is warming. Extreme climate events are a direct result of this. It will get worse if we take quick action to cut emissions. If we don't take quick action it will get much, much worse. This is not something that will happen to future generations. It is happening right now.
Given that you know all this, I wonder how in good conscience you can front a press conference with Minister Taylor at which you refuse to consider increasing our emissions reduction targets, talk blithely about technology as your government fails to implement the technologies we have which can move us to a solution, and blame other countries. You try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear by claiming that we are doing more than comparable countries but this is a flat-out lie.
For the sake of our children, our communities, our Pacific neighbours and God's good creation, we need to bring a stop to the destruction, reduce our emissions urgently, stop pretending we can go on opening up new fossil fuel projects and put the transition into overdrive. Nothing else will do. There are no half measures. The planet doesn't understand accounting tricks and buck-passing.
The time has passed for playing political games with this issue and pandering to fossil fuel companies, no matter how much they donate to you and how full your office is with their alumni (yes, I see you, people). The time has come to get serious.
Jon
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Where, you might ask, is our loyal opposition in this hour of need? Well, it turns out, trying to straddle the barbed wire fence of being loyal to their fossil fuel donors while simultaneously acknowledging that climate change is serious. Promising that if we elect them they will do something. Exactly what, they are not saying. So I also wrote a letter to their leader, Anthony Albanese (remember him?) with a cc to my local Labor MP, asking them to get serious.
Dear Mr Albanese
The IPCC just released its latest scientific assessment of climate change. You know this. You also know that the news is bad. The planet is warming. Australia is warming. Extreme climate events are a direct result of this. It will get worse if we take quick action to cut emissions. If we don't take quick action it will get much, much worse. This is not something that will happen to future generations. It is happening right now.
I sent the Prime Minister a message, urging him to end his inaction and disinformation. I have little faith he will respond positively. What I want to know is, if we elect your party to government at the forthcoming election, will it be any better?
You say it will, but I confess that at the moment it is hard to have any faith that it will be so. Your stated climate policies are meagre. You have walked back from the commitments of the 2018 election and have yet to make any significant new ones. We don’t know what you would take to COP26 if you were Prime Minister. We hear little talk about the end of fossil fuels – indeed, you vie with the Prime Minister in talking up the future prospects of coal and gas even though it is absolutely clear that we must stop digging these up and burning them pronto. Your State counterparts here in Queensland recently celebrated the progress on a new mine near Moranbah which will still be operating in 2050. What hope is there for Labor to present us with a serious response to climate change? At the moment, I’m not seeing anything that would give me this hope.
It’s time to stop playing this double game. It’s time to get serious about the transition out of fossil fuels and into zero-emissions technologies. 2050 will be too slow, too late. Every year of delay is another percentage point on the warming graph. Please do the right thing by our communities, our children, our Pacific neighbours and God’s good earth. It’s time to start pulling our global weight instead of waiting for other nations to drag us along. It’s time to start building the new economy and making a fair and just transition. There’s no time to waste.
Jon
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Not expecting much from either of them, but better than keeping silent.
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