Climate
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FRANK JOTZO. Trump and Climate – but new opportunities for China.
The Trump Presidency is a fork in the road for climate action. While it may set back global climate efforts, an inward-looking US government that ignores climate change provides new opportunities for leadership elsewhere, Frank Jotzo writes. Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Turnbull leads attack on wind as Coalition readies carbon price backflip.
A rebadged carbon tax! In its review of its climate change policies, the government will try to dance its way through internal politics, the demands of the fossil fuel lobby and comparisons with Labor’s proposals. Turnbull and Frydenberg appear to have concluded that the best way to appease the far right rump of the Coalition Continue reading »
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VINCENT MAHON. China ready to step up and lead on climate change.
Vincent Mahon contends that China is poised to promote global leadership on climate change should the US under Trump walk away from its Paris commitments. Continue reading »
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CHRISTIAN DOWNIE. Why China and Europe should form the world’s most powerful ‘climate bloc’.
Filling the void created by Donald Trump! It seems almost certain that US President-elect Donald Trump will walk away from the Paris climate agreement next year. In the absence of US leadership, the question is: who will step up? Sadly this is not a new question, and history offers some important lessons. In 2001 Continue reading »
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SAM HURLEY, TRAVERS McLEOD, JOHN WISEMAN. Company directors can be held legally liable for ignoring the risks from climate change.
Company directors who don’t properly consider climate related risks could be liable for breaching their duty of due care and diligence, a new legal opinion has found. Although the alarm for business leaders has been sounding for some time, the release of the opinion by senior barristers and leading solicitors confirms the potential liability Continue reading »
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ROSS GARNAUT. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Part 2.
The Challenge of Globalisation. This is the second of a two-part series of extracts from an address which Professor Ross Garnaut gave to the Sydney Democracy Network, University of Sydney, 7 September 2016. The full text of his address can be found on his website. PART 2. RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBALISATION. Democratic capitalism’s return Continue reading »
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PETER CHRISTOFF. The Paris climate deal has come into force – what next for Australia?
The Paris climate agreement comes into legal force today, just 11 months after it was concluded and 30 days after it met its ratification threshold of 55 parties accounting for at least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the Kyoto Protocol, which this treaty now replaces, took more than 8 years to Continue reading »
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ROSS GARNAUT. The economics of the future energy system.
How can we provide a high degree of energy security in Australia at the lowest possible cost, while contributing our fair share to the global effort to contain the costs of climate change? I take as my starting point Prime Minister Turnbull’s admonition that we put ideology aside as we seek answers to this Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Coalition’s stunning hypocrisy – and ignorance – on renewable energy.
The Coalition appears to have abandoned all pretence that it supports renewable energy, now contradicting assurances by the grid owner and market operator – and now the biggest generator in the country – that the source of energy was not at fault for the massive blackout in South Australia last week. After Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Dumb politics means we may be stuck with an even dumber grid
It was just six years ago when Malcolm Turnbull, then deposed Liberal Party leader, attended the launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon plan for 2020, which suggested Australia should and could attain 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020. Turnbull, by all accounts, was an enthusiastic participant, and was particularly excited by solar towers Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Uhlmann’s bizarre prediction of “national blackout” if we pursue wind and solar
The ABC is supposed to have a ban on advertising. But even if it was allowed, money couldn’t buy the sort of advocacy the fossil fuel industry and incumbent energy interests are receiving this week from the network’s chief political correspondent, Chris Uhlmann. On Thursday, we took Uhlmann to task for the way he reported the Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Malcolm Turnbull – the last straw on climate change and renewables.
Let’s be clear. All the experts tell us that the power blackout in SA had nothing to do with the energy mix – coal, gas, solar or wind. They all tell us that the blackout was due to the collapse of the key distribution towers and lines. Yesterday, Malcolm Turnbull blamed the blackout on Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON. Coalition launches fierce attack against wind and solar after blackout.
The Coalition government launched a ferocious attack against wind and solar energy after the major South Australian blackout, even though energy minister Josh Frydenberg and the grid operators admit that the source of energy had nothing to do with catastrophic outage. Frydenberg, however, lined up with prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, Continue reading »
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DYLAN McCONNELL. Was the SA blackout caused by wind or wind turbines?
It has everything to do with wind – because that’s what blew over the transmission lines. But it has nothing to do with South Australia’s wind turbines. Transmission lines are large power lines that take electricity from generators to the smaller distribution lines that bring power to our homes. South Australia’s energy generation mix Continue reading »
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Anti-global backlash is realigning politics across the West.
In the WorldPost, Nouriel Roubini writes “Across the West establishment parties of the Right and the Left are being disrupted – if not destroyed from the inside. Within such parties, the losers from globalisation are finding champions of anti-globalisation that are challenging the formal mainstream orthodoxy.” Continue reading »
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JOHN TULLOH. Olympics and oil – a tale of two South American countries.
Back in 2009, the International Olympic Committee made a bold decision. It decided the 2016 Games would be held for the first time in South America, a continent not noted for its political, economic or social stability. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil would be the host city even though the evaluation of three others Continue reading »
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JACQUELINE PEEL. Are the Coalition and Labor on the same page for emissions trading?
Climate change policy has been a noticeable absentee from political debate in the current Australian federal election campaign. Recent news reports, however, suggest this silence masks secret bipartisanship on the need for an emissions trading scheme – or ETS – to help bring down Australian’s emissions of greenhouse gases. Labor’s commitment to introduce an ETS Continue reading »
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CHRISTIAN DOWNIE, HOWARD BAMSEY. Election 2016: do we need to re-establish a department of climate change?
With a federal election looming, Australia’s top mandarins will once again be turning their minds to the incoming government briefs, the so-called blue book if the Coalition is returned and the red book if Labor is elected. High on the agenda will be the organisation of the bureaucracy and it won’t get any trickier than Continue reading »
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JOHN KEANE. Money, Capitalism and the Slow Death of Social Democracy.
In this article, John Keane speaks of the slow death of social democracy but suggests that there may be possibilities that social democracy could embrace Green movements, intellectuals and parties that have common interests. See extracts from article below and link to the full article in The Conversation. Continue reading »
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Warwick Elsche. If words were deeds.
If words were deeds – or even credible policies – Malcolm Turnbull might already have joined the company of Australia’s pre-eminent Prime Ministers. All three of Malcolm’s pre-politics callings, journalism, law and banking, have involved the extensive used of the words medium. But none of these also involved the commitment, the enduring exposure, or the Continue reading »
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Are conservatives better economic managers?
Are conservatives better economic managers? Part 1 In my blog of 3 May 2016, I queried the claim by Malcolm Turnbull and apparently supported by many media commentators and also by the public, that conservatives are better economic managers. The evidence and the record do not show that. In last week’s budget and in the Continue reading »
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John Austen and Luke Fraser. Urbane transport policy. Part 1 of 3.
Prime Minister Turnbull made a splash on urban transport recently. He sketched a vision of ‘30 minute cities’ where residents spend on average just one hour a day travelling to regular activities like work and shopping. He also considered mass transit solutions rather than just more motorways. This article is the first of three raising Continue reading »
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Bruce Duncan. Budget ignores growing inequality
Scott Morrison’s Commonwealth budget aims to be politically balanced but, like the Hockey budgets, neglects struggle street. The budget still labours under the neoliberal belief in minimal taxes, small government and maximum freedom for private enterprise. Morrison’s mantra is that cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy will increase investment, growth and jobs. The trouble Continue reading »
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Richard Eckersley. Wellbeing and sustainability: irreconcilable differences?
Better concepts and measures of quality of life and wellbeing make sustainable development more achievable. The debate about progress and development is converging and merging with that about sustainable development. My analysis of the flaws in equating progress with modernisation, discussed in my previous article, contributes to this debate because it shows the equation counts Continue reading »
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Richard Eckersley. The mismeasure of progress: Is the West really the best?
Western liberal democracies dominate the top rankings of progress indices. But are they the best models of development when their quality of life is, arguably, declining and unsustainable. The measures of human progress and development that we employ matter. Good measures are a prerequisite for good governance because they are how we judge its success. Continue reading »
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Carol Richards, Bree Devin. Supermarkets and food waste.
In this blog on 25 February, I noted that the French parliament has voted to ban large food stores from throwing food away. In the story below, Carol Richards and Bree Devin highlight the way powerful supermarkets in Australia push the cost of food waste onto suppliers and charities. John Menadue At a time when Continue reading »
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Will Steffen. CSIRO and climate change: Making policy based on myths
The recently announced cuts to CSIRO climate science have stunned the Australian research community and sent shockwaves through the international climate research system. Claims and counter-claims are flying around the media, the cybersphere, Senate estimates, and elsewhere. To cut through the claims that are being made in support of the CSIRO’s leadership to gut the Continue reading »
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Robert Manne. Why we have failed to address climate change.
In this article, published in the December The Monthly Essays, Robert Manne describes the major obstacles to addressing climate change. He refers to the unique nature of climate change and the difficulties that it has presented for scientists to persuade the world community about the problem and the need to take action. Robert Manne also Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Privatising Medicare’s payments system and the erosion of Commonwealth Public Service capability.
The government has apparently accepted the advice of the Commission of Audit that Medicare’s payments system should be reviewed with the possibility of privatisation. The payments system includes Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Aged Care Services and Veterans’ Affairs. It sounds like another expression of neo liberalism, that only the private sector can be efficient Continue reading »
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Frank Brennan. Meeting Pope Francis – the planet and markets.
41 years a Jesuit, I had never met a pope. Back in 1986, I was adviser to the Australian Catholic Bishops on Aboriginal land rights. Pope John Paul II came to Alice Springs, met with Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, and spoke strongly about the rights of Aborigines to retain title to their traditional lands. Continue reading »