In Australia, It’s ‘Long Live King Coal’

[maestrob]

The country has fallen behind other developed nations in its commitment to slashing carbon emissions. Neither fires nor international pressure has pushed it away from coal and other fossil fuels.


By Damien Cave
Oct. 21, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET

SYDNEY, Australia — At a time when climate change and those who fight it demand that coal be treated like tobacco, as a danger everywhere it is burned, Australia is increasingly seen as the guy at the end of the bar selling cheap cigarettes and promising to bring more tomorrow.

Along with koalas, kangaroos and beaches, the country — the world’s third-largest exporter of fossil fuels — is becoming known for refusing to clean up its act.

With just days to go before a major U.N. climate conference in Scotland, Australia is one of the last holdouts among developed nations in committing to net zero emissions by 2050, and it has refused to strengthen its 2030 target or make plans for transitioning away from its deep investment in fossil fuel production.

The country’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, only recently agreed to attend the climate summit after criticism from Queen Elizabeth II and a crowd-funded billboard in Times Square that mocked his reluctance to address climate change, calling him “Coal-o-phile Dundee.”

“The government and the opposition are captured by the coal and gas industries,” said Adam Bandt, the leader of the Australian Greens and a member of Parliament from Melbourne. “It’s a version of a petro-state.”


Australia’s inertia points to a pressing challenge for the world: how to get places that profit from a dangerous product to transition before it becomes too late. With the threat of even more damaging storms and fires looming if temperatures keep rising, a combine-and-conquer approach is required — fossil fuel users and producers both need to kick the habit.

The kings of carbon are not in a rush. A U.N. report released on Wednesday found that coal, oil and gas production will keep growing at least until 2040, reaching levels more than double what is needed to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures.

Australia is a major contributor to the problem. In energy terms, the continent is essentially a bigger version of West Virginia: Coal is still king, natural gas is celebrated and the conservative government has a lot in common with Senator Joe Manchin III, who has blocked President Biden’s sweeping plan to shift the country toward renewable energy.

Progress seems to be glacial in many places, but the momentum in Australia is not just slow. The country’s leaders are still actively heading in the wrong direction. The Great Barrier Reef may be bleaching from the heat and acidity caused by climate change; towns and families burned out by the Black Summer fires of 2019 and 2020 have yet to fully recover. Yet Australia’s leaders continue to invest in what they know, defying their own constituents and increasingly the world.

American, British and U.N. officials, along with Australia’s vulnerable Pacific island neighbors, have repeatedly given the same message to the Australian government: More must be done.


Expanding What Should be Curtailed

In May, the International Energy Agency released a detailed overview of what it would take to cut carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 and keep the average global temperature from increasing by 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels — the threshold beyond which the Earth faces irreversible damage.

Near the top of the list: end investment in new sources of fossil fuels.

Australia’s response? Yeah, nah.

The federal government still revels in Australia’s role as the world’s largest coal exporter. A report from the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources last month used a medal icon in denoting the country status as the world’s coal leader, expected to ship out 439 million tons this year, up from 400 million tons last year.

In the last month alone, three new coal mining projects have been approved. In New South Wales, a production hub for the thermal coal burned in power plants — some of the biggest contributors to global emissions — proposals for 20 new coal mines are under review. And that does not include a giant project in the state of Queensland, where the Indian industrial giant Adani is trying to build the largest coal mine in the world.


Nor does it include Australia’s expansion of natural gas. The government plans to open at least five new gas fields, including the giant Beetaloo Basin project in the Northern Territory, which has been granted subsidies of around $170 million. The tax breaks given to the fossil fuel industry last year alone were worth more than what Australia spends on its army — and the federal resources minister, Keith Pitt, said this month that the government should spend even more to protect coal and gas.

Critics argue that it’s all the product of a warped political and media culture that has spent decades doing the industry’s bidding while deceiving the public, exaggerating coal employment and understating the need to reverse course. Federal elections are often won or lost in the coal areas of Queensland, and with another contest due next year, the coalition government’s junior partner, the National Party, which represents regional areas, is playing a familiar hand.

“For at least 10 years, they’ve been telling people that climate change is rubbish, that it doesn’t exist, that we can continue digging up and burning coal forever and a day,” said Zali Steggall, an independent member of Parliament who unseated a former prime minister, Tony Abbott, in 2019 with a campaign focused on climate. “They have a difficult job now in turning around to those communities and saying we were wrong or misleading you and we need to do this.”

Richie Merzian, the climate and energy director at the Australia Institute, a progressive research organization, said the task was made more difficult by “the very strong connection between the fossil fuel lobby and Australia’s government.”


To illustrate the point, he cited Brendan Pearson. As the chief executive of Australia’s Minerals Council, Mr. Pearson oversaw a series of ads in 2015 declaring that “coal is amazing.” He also famously supplied Mr. Morrison with a lump of coal that he held up in Parliament two years later, declaring: “This is coal. Don’t be afraid.”

Mr. Pearson is now Australia’s ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Mr. Morrison appointed him last month.

The Backlash Gathers Strength

Until the devastating bush fires of two years ago, Australians might not have blinked at their government’s continued support for fossil fuels. The country is responsible for less than 2 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions.

But the Australian public has become increasingly concerned. Polls show that a strong majority of Australians want climate action even if the costs are significant, and want the government to stop approving new coal mines.

“It’s just so frustrating,” said Dan Illic, a comedian and podcast host who raised more than $100,000 for the Times Square billboard. “It’s like all of Australia can see what needs to happen except the people who are getting fossil fuel donations.”


There is some momentum at the local level. Several states, including New South Wales, have committed to net zero by 2050 and more immediate emission reductions that go beyond the 26 to 28 percent cut that Australia promised with the Paris climate agreement.

Thanks also to changes in farming practices and solar panels on people’s homes, Australia’s emissions are now projected to fall by around 34 percent by the end of this decade compared to 2005 levels. But that decline is still weak by international standards, with the United States promising cuts of 50 to 52 percent by 2030, Britain agreeing to a 78 percent decline by 2035, and Japan pledging a reduction of 46 percent by 2030.

More galling for many as they watch their leaders waffle and argue, Australia has enormous potential to lead the energy transition, with some of the best wind and solar resources in the world, not to mention a mining industry rich in nickel, lithium and other materials that go into batteries and other green technologies.

Even Greg Williamson, the mayor of Mackay, a city in north Queensland where coal ships can be seen off the coast, said Mr. Morrison’s coalition was stuck in “old thinking” — maintaining the addiction to fossil fuels while failing to seize new opportunities.

“We are all worried about the future, but we need leadership,” he said. “We need solutions.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/worl ... rld%20News

[Belle]

Australia must be punished because it is rich!! That age-old thing called envy. The complaints about us and our insistence that we 'get on board' (with our miserable 1.3% global emissions) is akin to saying that if we hadn't joined forces with the USA and Europe to fight world war two Hitler would have prevailed!!!!!

Climate change is the new secular religion for people who've abandoned the traditional one from circa 2,000 years ago. The similarities are stark. We know that human beings are hard-wired to contemplate themselves and their universe and religion has partially and historically 'explained' that. This is an excellent comment I've just read recently and found below-the-line in our national newspaper, with just an allusion to Old Testament fire and brimstone. That 'piece of work' Dr. Jordan Peterson suggested some time ago that 'the problem' is too complex and, when solved, would probably be achieved through technological change.

Anyway, here's the comment:

One of the tools/weapons that anti-thinkers use is the put-down; it’s a complex problem. I worked with a maths prof who joined our group and solved in days what the other six profs spent years trying to solve. Many problems have many variables. Deterministically difficult to solve. But only a few variables ever dominate. We know that intuitively when our car breaks down. We only ever expect one fault....

Lomborg, Koonin all say models over-predict. And they have, all of them. Notice how all climate catastrophists try to ban you from thinking. “Don’t listen to your own sense but to others, the experts”. They demand you have faith. And don’t be a heretic.

[jserraglio]

The complaints about us and our insistence that we 'get on board' (with our miserable 1.3% global emissions) is akin to saying that if we hadn't joined forces with the USA and Europe to fight world war two Hitler would have prevailed!!!!!

No disputing you on that point — what Australia does (population barely exceeding Taiwan’s) is inconsequential in the global arena. So we can rest assured, your climate denying will melt no glaciers.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea5bOaPkZpc

[Belle]

As I wrote above, the tools of the anti-thinker are personal abuse and attack. Standard tactics of the Left in the absence of absolutely anything else. Lacking sociological imagination and economic progressiveness this cohort remains trapped on their ideological rails.

My analogy stands; you would still have won World War 2 in Europe if Australia hadn't been there.

But who is the REAL denialist? The USA, China and India are the biggest polluters and we're very happy for you all to install windmills. You have our full permission; in fact, we insist upon it. You can be the guinea pigs.

As long as China and India demand our high-quality coal we'll continue to sell it and sustain our very high standard of living. What have you got to sell? Apart from being a nation of self-confessed racists, precious little as far as I can see.

Close to where I live a VACANT 1.5 acre block of land in a rural/regional area 2 hours north of Sydney has just sold slightly short of $1M - with no reticulated natural gas. The owners of this land will put homes on that for up to a million dollars - or more. I live in "coal country" and it's a great place to be - among ordinary, friendly Australians for whom making money and aspiration are not bad terms.

[jserraglio]

As I wrote above, the tools of the anti-thinker are personal abuse and attack.

Once again, you spin the ancient yarn of the blackened little sister-pot calling out her big brother, the kettle.

My analogy stands; you would still have won World War 2 in Europe if Australia hadn't been there.

As I said, I completely agree — then and now, what Australia does or does not do makes little difference one way or the other to the rest of the world.

Close to where I live a VACANT 1.5 acre block of land in a rural/regional area 2 hours north of Sydney has just sold slightly short of $1M

So, habitable land in your country (whose area in square miles nearly equals that of the Lower Forty-eight) is in such short supply that it sells for a premium.

What have you got to sell?

Off the top of my head, we sell submarines that do not burn the obsolescent black bolus your ScoMo hauled onto the floor of parliament.

And it would become you to show more gratitude; after all, we are helping you prevent China from colonizing the pricey area you live in and boast of. Imagine, if you can, how your land values would plummet in that eventuality.

[Belle]

Racists are not in a position to lecture anybody. Clean up your own house first or, as Dr. Peterson says, "clean up your damn room". Sermons and soda water the day after.

[jserraglio]

Dr. JORDAN Peterson, I presume. Where have I run across the name of that snake oil salesman before?

[Belle]

He speaks about your racism. It's so bad!!

[jserraglio]

Racists are not in a position to lecture anybody. Clean up your own house first . . .

Does this ring a Belle?

2016 cartoon for The Australian by Bill Leak.

That cartoon is absolutely brilliant.