Surprising precisely no-one, it turns out that the #DirtyEnergy industry has been polluting public discourse and policy development for even longer than previously thought, according to the latest historical research into the lobbying and PR efforts of the companies who openly publish business plans incompatible with a habitable planet.
What is Australia's fair share when it comes to financing the necessary climate transition?
In a headline today, the Australian government has pledged AU$150m in #ClimateFinance for Pacific nations.
Good news, right? Isn't this PM Anthony #Albanese "ending the #ClimateWars" by actually doing what #Australia ought to have done years ago? Let's consider that assumption.
Back in 2009 at the much hyped, but ultimately deeply disappointing international climate negotiations in #Copenhagen known as #COP15, one step forward that was agreed, even as more comprehensive or ambitious agreements slipped away was that the wealthy nations of the world (including #Australia) collectively pledged to be providing US$100b each year to help the poorer nations transition away from #FossilFuels (#ClimateMitigation) and develop in ways that help societies adapt to the warming that cannot be mitigated (#ClimateAdaptation).
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Anyone who thinks #FossilFuels are ever the 'cheaper'/'more affordable' option (a claim that hasn't been true for years, even within the very blinkered assumptions of conventional economic analysis), hasn't even begun to reckon with the true costs of #dirtyEnergy
A more clear-eyed analysis would see that continuing to burn ancient carbon to power our societies is largely a way to strip wealth from the poor and those not yet born and funnel the vast majority of it into the pockets of a tiny number of #plutocrats.
The time to end our reliance on #coal, #oil and #gas was decades ago, but today is better than tomorrow for taking the most ambitious steps imaginable that remain compatible with the avoidance of societal #collapse and a commitment to #justice.
Another world is not just possible, given #ClimateDisruption, it is inevitable. The degree to which that world is habitable, equitable or even slightly just is very much up for grabs.
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#Solidarity and #gratitude to the hundreds of people who used kayaks and their bodies to blockade the world's busiest #coal port for 32 hours this weekend, and to the thousands who supported them, and to the millions who cheered them on, and to the billions for whose sake they were acting. This was a taste of an unstoppable force of collective #courage, #care and #commitment
On Gadigal land, outside the office of Australia's federal Environment Minister @TanyaPlibersek's office, with a large group of school students and their allies, demanding the Australian government #EndFossilFuelSubsidies and commit to #NoNewFossilFuels. #SS4C
Stop repeating their talking points & narratives (not sure which commonly-repeated tropes are part of their decades-long #ClimateDisinformation campaign? Never too late to learn)
Consider the stakes: life as we know it is incompatible with the public business plans of the most powerful corporations on the planet. One/both of those realities will definitely change. Will you?
Listen to better stories (life-affirming, grounded in local realities, respectful of non-exploitative difference, centring the marginalised, acknowledging complex interdependence, subversively intersectional, incrementally transformational, with a horizon that is future-oriented, intergenerational and global)
Tell better stories
Resist dehumanising and evocidal tendecies wherever you find them
Reduce your dependence on #DirtyEnergy (to the extent possible), without succumbing to #BadFaith purity tests, and taking every opportunity to discover richer and more joyous alternatives:
"Five global north governments stand out as the biggest #ClimateHypocrites and most egregious #PlanetWreckers: the #UnitedStates, #Canada, #Australia, #Norway, and the #UnitedKingdom. Despite having the greatest economic means to rapidly phase out production, they are responsible for a majority (51%) of planned expansion from new #oil and #gas fields through 2050. New drilling in countries with high incomes, diversified economies and outsized historical responsibility for causing the #ClimateCrisis, while claiming to be #ClimateLeaders, is inexcusable. These countries must not only stop expansion immediately but also move first and fastest to phase out their production and pay their fair share to fund a just global #EnergyTransition.”
Headline quote says that the Australian #ALP government is "missing half the equation" when it comes to taking action to mitigate climate disruption.
While there is federal support for expanding cleaner forms of energy, the Australian government continues to approve new coal and gas projects, and even create new forms of indirect #DirtyEnergySubsidies (such as federal funding for the #MiddleArm industrial hub in #Darwin, representing a substantial gift to the #FossilGas industry). Hence, they are "missing half the equation".
But I would argue that they are missing most of the equation, because stopping the increase of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases from being emitted by winding down the #DirtyEnergy industry as rapidly and humanely as possible is the single biggest aspect of #ClimateAction. Doing so will require replacement forms of energy (and all kinds of shifts in how energy is used), yes, but this is actually a secondary goal required to achieve the main one: an end to humanity's dependence on dirty energy ASAP.
Tiny pieces of semi-combusted petrol, microscopic specks of charred timber from a fireplace, minute scraps of coal ash, little flecks of tyre rubber, miniature particles of a gum tree lit now to avoid burning later: all this and more is particulate matter. Stuff small enough to float on the breeze for a while.
And some of it is small enough to flit through your nasal hairs, to sidestep the phlegm lining your trachea, to find a home deep in the alveoli of your lungs, indeed, so titchy it can cross into your bloodstream, travelling along your arterial highways and byways into heart, belly and brain.
Our bodies can handle a bit of this. A bit.
But not much. Not of the really tiny stuff.
Particulate matter is one of the most harmful forms of #AirPollution, contributing to many millions of premature deaths each year, and compromising the health and wellbeing of billions. Particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter are the most dangerous (a human hair is about 75 microns wide). These are called PM2.5.
The World Health Organisation updated its guidelines in 2021.
Chronic exposure to PM2.5 ought to be kept below a concentration of 5 micrograms per cubic metre.
Acute exposure (no more than a handful of times annually) should be kept below 15.
All the smoke around Sydney this week is from hazard reduction burns. i.e. controlled burns conducted by the rural fire service to mitigate this summer's bushfire's risk, which has been assessed as particularly high, after three very wet La Ninã years and with a likely El Niño developing.
The #RFS is way behind schedule on this due to all the rain and other complicating factors causing many delays. With temperatures topping 30ºC this weekend, they are rushing to get as much done as they can before the window closes.
Speaking of which, make sure all your windows are closed.
It's a nasty trade-off: to reduce the risk of a climate disaster hitting hard this summer, we conduct an activity with its own risk of air quality for five million people dropping into the toilet for a week. These days of bad air (and even worse nights) will result in premature deaths, increased hospitalisations, and some long-term damage to everyone's respiratory health (esp children).
Once more, given the direct impacts on air quality and the long-term global worsening of #wildfire risk, this moment is another salutary reminder that #DirtyEnergy sends our future up in smoke.
After giving a climate talk to a community group the other day, one guy came up to me to "give feedback" (i.e. complain that I didn't focus enough on telling people how to cut their personal #CarbonFootprint - to use the phrase that #BP really wants us to focus on).
This led into a discussion about why individual consumer choices always have the system stacked against them. As part of that point, I mentioned the enormous scale of #DirtyEnergySubsidies (>$7t globally each year, though I focused on $11b annually in Australia, which is a widely cited figure based on a narrower definition of subsidy; he seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't care as much if I wasn't talking about his country.)
Upon hearing of these subsidies (which were apparently news to him), he said "yeah, but how much tax do they contribute?"
How much tax #DirtyEnergy companies pay is largely irrelevant to the question we were discussing, since a company that is both taxed and receives significant subsidies will do better than a competitor (e.g. a renewable energy company) that is taxed and doesn't receive those subsidies. I probably should have said something like that. (I could also have made a point about government funds not being derived from taxation, but I really didn't get the vibe that that was going to be particularly fruitful approach for this gentleman.)
Instead I replied that dirty energy companies pay relatively little tax due to exploiting tax loopholes (that they also lobby to put in). He scoffed in disbelief and changed the subject.
With that context, now you'll understand how embarrassed I was to have just stumbled across this table for 2020–21 and realise I was wrong.
Of the twenty-four largest dirty energy companies in Australia, only one of them paid “relatively little” income tax that year.
Australia's top journalism awards were founded and are sponsored by a huge oil & gas company. Today a bunch of cartoonists all took a stand and withdrew their entries as a result, rather than be complicit in this greenwashing. Congratulations to them for taking a stand. Greg Jericho has also noped out as well. https://www.kudelka.com.au/2023/08/why-im-not-entering-the-walkleys-this-year/
@swearyanthony I was actually just thinking a few hours before seeing this: "if I were a #billionaire#DirtyEnergy#plutocrat and I wanted to pollute public discourse, wouldn't I want to set up various awards to give my corporate megaphone (#MurdochPress etc) a veneer of 'quality journalism'? Hmmm,I wonder what the history and funding of the Walkleys is?"
The usual line from the #DirtyEnergy spokespeople elected to parliament is that Australia is too small a player for Oz energy policy to make any significant contribution to #ClimateDisruption.
It's always been a lie. Australia has always punched above its weight when it comes to climate responsibility, having the largest fossil fuel resources per capita in the world.
For years, courts have even largely accepted the government's 'drug dealer' defence when it comes to approving new coal and gas projects ("if we don't sell it, someone else will, who doesn't even have our standards!").
But if you want to see the lie laid bare, check this story. The mere possibility of temporary industrial action at a single Australian dirty energy company is already having global impacts on gas markets.