Hi there!
Welcome to another edition of Living In A Greenhouse! I am going to start this week’s edition with a little anecdote.
The year was 2015. I was walking into a class that I had signed up for during my Master’s degree in Public Policy. I found the name of the class a little puzzling and had pored through the coursework and recommended readings to make sense of it.
After a few minutes of mental gymnastics, I had resigned myself to the idea that my Professor will help me make sense of it.
The class in question, ‘The Politics and Economics of Climate Change’
What yours truly was mentally wrestling, what even is politics of climate change?
Up until that point (when I had seen the earth go around the sun 24 times and then some), I was familiar with the science of climate change and that industrialisation since the 1800s put a lot of emissions in the atmosphere, and that was bad. I also knew the ones that put it were refusing to pay to fix it.
It seemed simple enough. Negotiate harder. Allocate the winnings of successful negotiations effectively. Job done.
My Professor had stitched together nearly 5 months worth of coursework around something that seemed obvious to my naive self.
I was naive then. And I am naive now.
Climate politics is as much national, as it is international.
And no other country shows me the dreaded naiveté mirror than Australia.
In December 2019, Australia was ablaze with fires that over several months and across six states burned over 17 million hectares (about the size of Florida), destroying over 3,500 homes, killing 33 people and an estimated 1 billion animals, and belching over 700 million tons of carbon dioxide (130 percent of its usual emissions) into the atmosphere in thick clouds of smoke that traveled around the planet.
Since February 2022, the east coast of Australia has been hit by waves of catastrophic flood and rivers are rising to biblical-levels.
Scott Morrison is the incumbent Prime Minister, leader of the coalition government and the head of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Scott Morrison, when he was the Treasurer back in 2017 in the Malcolm Turnbull government, infamously brought a lump of coal to the National Parliament, attempting to ridicule the Opposition’s commitment to renewable energy.
Here’s the man in action.
This was at the back of the Turnbull government announcement that Australia ought to build a new-generation of coal-fired power plants.
Morrison in a Morrison Government vs Morrison in a Turnbull Government?
No prizes for guessing. No better, and very possibly worse.
To give you a quick illustration of Morrison at the height of his anti-climate action avatar — after a delay until possibly before the COP26 was kicking off in Glasgow, Scott Morrison announced that Australia would reach net-zero by 2050.
It would have been acceptable or at least on-par with the rest of the nations, but for this inclusion in the announcement
Australia will not introduce a legislation for emissions cut, and leave it to consumers and companies to drive the initiative voluntarily.
Here’s a quick run-down of climate action in Australia for the last few years:
And might I remind you, this was when the country was *literally* on fire.
Surely, the opposition must be better at climate action?
This week Labor leader Anthony Albanese committed to supporting new fossil fuel projects as long as there is international demand for exports, keeping it in line with the government, which is campaigning on its support for a gas-fired recovery. .
Either party’s efforts or commitment to support new fossil-fuel infrastructure, which clearly seems to be the popular choice, is out of step with net-zero pathways.
The country is going into federal elections later this month on the 21st of May.
Say a prayer for Australia. And pin your hopes on the Independents and the Australian Greens (unrelated to the Baggy Green).
P.S. Here are a couple of quick reads on why this election is pivotal to Australia, and more importantly, the very, very vulnerable Pacific Islands.
1 — The Diplomat: This is Australia’s Climate Change Election
2 — The Guardian: Australia Election — Climate and Cost of Living in focus as Leaders stumble
Bonus
Not related to Climate Change …
… but this should be taught in schools. I mean, look at that!
New Climate School at Stanford
John Doerr, possibly one of the few people who didn’t get burned in the CleanTech 1.0 wave, (also the co-author of Speed & Scale) just set up a new Climate School at Stanford