Tag: Climate denial

Fusion energy, if you look too close… you’ll go blind – miracle technology or miserable mirage?

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By David Salt

Technology to the rescue!

Our profligate use of carbon-intense energy has enabled humanity to soar on an ever-growing wave of economic growth. It has also tipped the Earth system into a different way of behaving (welcome to the Anthropocene).

Climate scientists have been warning us of the consequences of this for roughly 50 years. Unfortunately, by and large, our political leaders have ignored these warnings through a mix of denial, obfuscation and delay. They have done this because the short-term pain society would experience as we transformed our energy systems comes with a high political cost; so high it’s easier just to kick the can down the road. What this has translated to has often been the claim that tomorrow’s technology will solve tomorrow’s problem (brought about by today’s inaction) so let’s keep burning oil like there’s no tomorrow.

Only thing is, tomorrow’s problem came down to roost this year. India had historic heatwaves, Pakistan unprecedented floods, the US was hit by killer wildfires, Europe copped devastating heatwaves, floods and drought (ditto China)… and the list goes on. It wasn’t a bad year, it was a catastrophic one in terms of climate disruption, and it’s only the entrée to what’s ahead – welcome to the Anthropocene.

Carbon emissions, largely associated with the way we use energy, lies at the heart of this disruption. So, it is with great enthusiasm that headlines everywhere in the dying days of this disastrous year have been hailing the recent breakthrough in ‘clean’ fusion energy (eg, Breakthrough in nuclear fusion could mean ‘near-limitless energy’).

The fusion breakthrough

Fusion, as most people know, is the process that powers our sun. It involves fusing together hydrogen atoms to release vast quantities of energy, but it only happens under conditions of extreme heat and pressure, conditions that exist in stars.

Scientists have been working on recreating these conditions by focusing high power lasers on hydrogen atoms held close together within intense magnetic fields. They’ve generated fusion energy on several occasions but, up until recently, it’s taken more energy to produce the fusion reaction than has been produced by that reaction.

The breakthrough that has just been announced was made by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It produced a fusion reaction that gave out more energy than was required to produce it. The lasers used to create the fusion used around 2 million joules of energy but the reaction emitted some 3 million joules; the first time a controlled fusion reaction has produced a net surplus of energy.

How cool is that? Humans are now capable of fusing atoms in temperatures and pressures 10 times higher than those at the centre of the Sun! Stand aside Prometheus, we’ll take it from here.

The fusion joke

But before you go ordering your own personal stellar power plant, keep in mind this technology has a few hurdles still to jump.

For starters, this ‘breakthrough’ is really a technical ‘proof of concept’ that fusion can be done in a controlled manner. The lasers may have used less energy than the fusion they produced, but the facility surrounding the lasers and the magnetic fields consumed around 300 million joules of energy to do the experiment. So, even in this experimental set up, the fusion reaction needs to generate 100 times more energy just to break even. (As it is, the net energy it generated in this experiment is about enough to boil a kettle, and could only be sustained for 100 trillionths of a second.)

Upscaling fusion to be a commercial reality has so many technical challenges that the running joke in the world of physics is that controlled fusion energy will take 50 years before it’s a reality. What’s more, scientists have been working on fusion for more than 50 years, yet that forecast of ‘it’s still 50 years away’ has never really changed.

Though, following this latest breakthrough, the Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Kim Budil, said on Radio National that she believed that operational fusion power plants might be possible in a mere two decades.

I think she’s dreaming – it’s the willfully naïve dream of the techno-optimist. Maybe the fabulous science being done at her lab will truly provide a guide for how fusion power plants might be built but the staggering – and I mean stupendously enormous – levels of resources (money, highly skilled people, land, infrastructure and, above all, political will) needed to build a fusion plant makes them projects bigger than any space race, and beyond the capacity of any single nation state. And how well have our big multi-state technological adventures gone so far? They exist, think International Space Station, massive radio telescopes and particle research facilities. However, none of these go even close to the resources that would be required by commercial fusion power.

As is often the case, a scientist, often a physicist, will make a breakthrough uncovering new realms of potential and say ‘problem solved’ (in this case, our energy needs will be met); claims which are then amplified and distorted by the media and political leaders to suit whatever ideological barrow they are pushing.

The fusion dream

The thing is, even if fusion power was a reality in 20 years, is it a solution we should be prioritizing?

Climate disruption is with us today and already tearing apart the fabric of our society.

We don’t have 20 years; we need to transition away from carbon-intensive energy now. We’ve literally wasted the last 20 years, and now the wheels are starting to come off project humanity.

To prioritize the ultra-expensive, highly risky idea of fusion energy as our salvation is really just one more form of climate denialism – we don’t need to change our ways because tomorrow’s technology will save us, so keep on consuming and polluting.

The irony here is that the real solution lies in natural fusion energy. That massive fusion reactor in the sky we call the Sun radiates a limitless supply of energy down on us every day. We’re starting to capture a tiny portion of that energy with photovoltaics (and wind turbines, wind is ultimately the result of solar radiation warming the atmosphere) but there needs to a massive switch from fossil fuels to renewables immediately. This is not happening.

Single fusion power plants are expected to cost between $20-65 billion dollars each and current research expenditures in the US alone are well over $500 million pa. Imagine what could be achieved if this level of funding was channeled into upscaling existing, relatively inexpensive and reliable solar technologies available today.

Or we could just continue to stare into the incandescent vision of endless ‘clean’ controlled fusion energy coming to our powerpoints sometime very soon. Just remember what happens when you stare into the Sun for too long.

Banner image: Image by 이룬 봉 from Pixabay

Why can’t we fix this? Because it’s complex

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By David Salt

If you could go back in a time machine some 20 years, what would you tell a younger version of yourself about climate change and how the world has responded to it in the last two decades?

Back from the future

“Well, young David, you know how many people are talking about climate change; and how scientists are forecasting horror weather, ecosystem collapse and mass climate disruption if we do nothing about our carbon emissions? Well, guess what? I’m from your future, from 2022, and you know what we did? We did nothing!

“And the scientists were right. We’re now experiencing horror weather, ecosystem collapse and mass climate disruption.

“Of course, it’s unfair of me to say we did completely nothing. In the past two decades there’s been heaps of talk, research and many agreements signed. And many of us now have photovoltaics on our rooftops.

“The scientific consensus on climate change has only firmed since the year 2000, and there have been efforts in various places on ways of reducing carbon emissions.

“However, by and large, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane have steadily, remorselessly, built up. (In 2000 we were around 370 parts per million CO2, in 2022 we’re over 412 ppm, over a 14% increase.)

“Here are few ‘milestones’ that you might want to reflect on from the past two decades (that’s the next 20 years from where you’re standing).

“As you know, there had been multiple international scientific consensus reports on the biophysical reality of climate change, most notably the IPCC reports of 1990, 1995 and 2001. These set out the very clear case for the scientific basis of the changes happening to the Earth system and what this meant for us, but they were quite ‘sciency’, bloated with technical jargon and largely discounted by the politicians.

“Then, in 2006, the UK released the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. It was significant because it was the largest and most authoritative report of its kind setting out the dire consequences for civil society. It found that climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, presenting a unique challenge for the world. The Review’s main conclusion was that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting.

“I’m telling you this, young David, because at this time (still six years in your future) it looked like all the political ducks were lining up for strong action on climate change.

“In 2007, Australia elected in a new government led by Kevin Rudd who declared that ‘climate change was the great moral challenge of our generation’ and proposed a comprehensive policy called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that would put a cap on Australia’s carbon emissions. It would have placed Australia at the vanguard of global climate action.

“I have to say, young David, that up until this time I had begun to despair that any of our political leaders were going to do the right thing. And then Rudd stood up and said this was too important not to do something, we couldn’t abrogate our responsibility to future generations. I felt hope.

“But then the opposition conservative party decided to turn climate change into a divisive political battle, and the Greens said the CPRS wasn’t strong enough and voted against it… and the CPRS failed to pass through Parliament.

“And then Rudd said ‘Ah well, it’s too difficult to get through so we’ll park the CPRS and revisit it sometime down the line.’

“This moment is several years in your future, young David, but, mark my words, when you reach it your illusions that climate change is a tractable issue capable of being solved by good science and well-meaning people will be shattered. And it will be a significant moment in which you begin transforming into me, grumpy old David.

“Because you believed Rudd when he said this was the most important issue of our time. And you stopped believing him when he threw it to the side. (I note his party stopped believing in him after this, too.)

“And then I watched in horror as climate denialism started taking centre stage, populism trumped informed debate and the costs of acting were overhyped in order to prevent any meaningful action being taken. Stern’s mantra of ‘early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting’ were completely forgotten in the political shit storms that followed.

“And then the Great Barrier Reef started bleaching (2016), our forest biomes went up in flames (2019) and historic floods devastated the nation (2022). The most common adjective being rolled out in all these disaster stories is ‘unprecedented’ because the past is no longer a guide to what we can expect.

“In 2022 (the year in your future from which I return) the whole world is enduring ongoing climate catastrophes. India and Pakistan have just suffered their longest and most intense heat wave resulting in crop failures. Europe is reeling under the ‘unprecedented’ heat and the fires are expected soon. In the United States an ‘unprecedented’ drought is crippling the water supplies of their western cities. Many of our small island Pacific nations are facing an existential crisis as rising seawaters lap at their doors. And everyone everywhere is going a little bit crazy.

“And, young David, this is not ‘a new normal’. This is only the start of the warming that scientists were describing two decades (and more) ago, with some accuracy I might add. Yet still our political leaders allow today’s ‘sunk investments’ in fossil fuels to delay our actions.

“Oh, and speaking of investments, young David, one last thing before I’m back to the future; buy as much stock as you can in Apple and Facebook. But don’t tell anyone I told you, otherwise I’ll be in big trouble with the mechanic who runs the space-time continuum.”

It’s complex

So, what’s the point of this little thought exercise (above and beyond a reflection on my earlier poor investment choices)?

In recent weeks, Australia has been gripped by an energy crisis – not enough affordable energy to power the system at the beginning of a cold winter. Experts from across the energy spectrum have commented on the causes and solutions to this crisis, always noting they are complex and not quickly solved. In response, many people have accused the experts of obfuscating and hiding behind the idea of ‘complex’. Just tell us how to fix it, they cry.

But it’s true, I thought. It is complex. You can’t solve this energy crisis with simple and easy fixes. You increase energy supply here, and you throw out the system over there. Simple fixes to complex problems inevitably create bigger problems down the line or on the other side of the continent.

And the energy problem is only a small part of the bigger climate change issue, which is complex times complex. Greenhouse gas emissions are embedded in our energy, our food, our transport, in everything.

And yet, again, our political leaders tell us there is a simple solution, just vote for us. Anyone who acknowledges it is a complex problem with complex solution will be torn to shreds by the opposing party when they go for election. The costs to the present status quo (based on fossil fuel dependence) will outweigh calculations on future sustainability.

Stern’s claim that the “benefits of strong, early action on climate change far outweigh the costs of not acting” are valid, but completely lost in the complex world in which we live.

In some ways I’m feeling like it’s 2007 again. We have just elected a new government promising action on climate change and hopes are high. But I fear we’re still not engaging with the complexity of this challenge.

If I could turn back time, this is what I would be trying to tell our political leaders. Don’t treat climate change as a simple problem. It’s not. It’s complex. And complexity means you need to acknowledge connectivity between sectors, path dependency, non-linearity and threshold behaviour in key variables. All themes which I will discuss in up-coming blogs.

I titled this essay ‘Why can’t we fix this? Because it’s complex.’ Another way of framing that is encapsulated in the quote: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong,” (HL Mencken).

I believe climate change is a challenge that can be resolved, but only if we acknowledge that it really is a problem of complexity.

Banner image: Quick Young David, there’s not a moment to lose. The very future is at risk! (Image by Danny Springgay from Pixabay)

So, who actually does have the ‘duty of care’? Who is responsible for tomorrow?

By David Salt

The Federal Minister for the Environment does not have a duty of care to protect young people from the harms of climate change. This was the unanimous finding of the Federal Court earlier this week. It was a finding that left high school students crying, legal scholars frowning and Sussan Ley, the Federal Minister for the Environment, beaming.

Given this, the big question I want answered is, if not the Minister for the Environment, then where (and with whom) does the ‘duty of care’ lie?

Many reasons

Much has been made about the Court decision and why the judges overturned an earlier decision that the Minister did have a duty of care when approving fossil fuel developments. (And for one of the best analyses of the legal case around this issue I’d point you to the excellent Sustainability Bite Does a ‘duty of care’ to future children make any difference to environmental approvals? written by my colleague Peter Burnett; who, incidentally, predicted exactly this outcome.)

Another excellent summary of this decision can be found at The Conversation (Today’s disappointing federal court decision undoes 20 years of climate litigation progress in Australia) which neatly brings together the facts, history and findings surrounding this appeal.

At the end of the day the three judges each ruled in favour of the Environment Minister who, in her appeal against the original finding, contended that the stated duty should not be imposed on the Minister. However, each judge had their own reasoning for why this should be.

One judge said that climate change is a matter for government, not the courts. The ‘duty’ involves “questions of policy (scientific, economic, social, industrial and political) […] unsuitable for the Judicial branch to resolve”

Another said there wasn’t a direct link between minister’s power to approve the coal mine and the effect this would have on the children.

And the third said the EPBC Act (under which the fossil fuel development was being approved and which the Minister is responsible for) doesn’t create a duty-of-care relationship between the Minister and the children. He added that establishing a standard of care isn’t feasible and that it’s not currently foreseeable that approving the coal mine extension would cause the children personal injury, as the law is understood.

If not the Minister, then who?

All well and good, and I expect this makes much sense to all the lawyers out there. But, for me, it begs the question: if not the Minister, then who should hold the duty of care?

If we are allowing a development today that is harming the people of tomorrow, then shouldn’t someone be responsible for allowing this development to proceed?

Of course, the people of tomorrow include the youth of today. Some of these young people are profoundly worried about what they are seeing around them, about what the science is telling us.

For God’s sake, it’s not even being worried about gloomy forecasts; society is actually experiencing the horror of climate change as we speak. Climate enhanced flooding is wiping away families, businesses, hopes and histories up and down Australia’s east coast. Climate-enhanced wildfires are scorching communities, forest biomes and wildlife with a ferocity and at a scale never before witnessed. We’re losing our coral reefs, our wetlands and woodlands. We’re trashing our natural heritage and our prospects for the future.

Young people see this, they can connect the dots; and they despair at the denialism and prevarication being shown by government. Many are self-organizing and protesting on the streets calling for change (only to be rebuked by our Prime Minister).

Others are exploring different pathways to get the ‘grown ups’ to do the right thing for the future they will inherit; and one of these pathways involves testing our laws about who is taking responsibility for developments (like new coal mines and gas projects) that will only be adding to the already catastrophic level of carbon emissions our species are producing.

Where to look

I don’t appreciate the detail of the law on this but, like the students at the centre of this current court case, it seems to me that our political representative who has been made Minister for the Environment is a logical place to aim.

But, as the courts have ruled, this is a question of policy, not law! This is for the politicians to fix up.

What?

Our political leaders are refusing to engage with climate change on any meaningful level. They’re happy to fight about over-the-horizon net zero targets that they will never be responsible for. They pay lip service to the mounting scientific evidence while happily turning a blind eye to the growing pile of misinformation and corporate malfeasance seeking to distract us from any measure to constrain (or reduce) our carbon economy.

If not the Environment Minister, then who? Our Prime Minister or the Minister for Emissions? Their track record for lies and integrity is even worse than our Environment Minister’s.

Is it the responsibility of our corporate leaders and billionaires? Seems their short-term interests are tied to unbounded economic growth, so I doubt we’ll see much effort here.

Or should we look to the world government to impose effective and just sustainability limits on us all. Sorry, I forgot; there’s no such thing as a world government (though conspiracy theorists like to pretend that one exists).

There are, of course, international agreements that sovereign nations can enter into on how we care for the environment and the future. Think Ramsar Convention, Convention on Biological Diversity, Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement; Australia has signed up to all of them, and then failed to meet our commitments on any of them, just like all other nations.

At the end of the day, whether you’re thinking (or acting) globally or locally, no-one is actually responsible for tomorrow. ‘Duty of care’ for tomorrow is more a ‘vibe*’ than an ‘actionable’ item.

If duty of care on climate change is a question of policy more than a question of law then our whole polity is failing us and is in need of transformation. Who’s up for some serious reform?

*‘Vibe’ is a particularly Australian term arising from the cult classic 1999 movie The Castle in which a lawyer, Dennis Denuto, struggles to articulate to the judge why his clients, the Kerrigans, should be allowed to keep their home and not be compulsorily acquired for an airport development. Denuto says: “In summing up: it’s the Constitution, it’s Mabo, it’s the vibe and… no, that’s it. It’s the vibe.”

Banner image by byrev @ Pixabay

A billion-dollar bad idea is no escape clause for the Great Barrier Reef

A big pledge for a big problem is no solution without integrity

By David Salt

“So, Minister, how exactly did you arrive at this one-billion-dollar price tag for saving the Great Barrier Reef?” asked the newly appointed Director of Government Probity.

“Well Ms DGP, as you will see from the extensive paperwork we’ve submitted, the figure of a billion dollars is based on extensive scientific, social and economic research compiled by the good officers of our well-resourced Department for the Environment.

“It’s a lot of money but what price do you put on saving a priceless piece of World Heritage; not to mention the economic return derived from people enjoying the Reef.

“Our scientists have pin pointed exactly the threats assailing this coral wonderland; our economists have worked up a precise list of actions we need to take to address these threats – costed down to the last dollar; and our social scientists have undertaken rigorous process of community engagement to ensure that the people on and around the Reef know what the situation is, and are ready to put their backs to the wheel to ensure the Great Barrier Reef will be there in all its glory for them, their children and grandchildren.

“It all brings a tear to your eye,” said the Minister (and, indeed, her eyes were tearing up). “But with something this important, it’s worth all the effort. It is, of course, simply the Australian Way!”

“Yes, thank you Minister,” responded the DGP. “Well done. It seems you and your Department have really done the due diligence on this one. The Reef is in good hands! The world thanks you.”

The Australian Way

Of course, there’s nothing much real in the above exchange. There is no Director (or agency) of Government Probity; the Department of Environment (subsumed into the bigger Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment) is underfunded and overworked; and scientists do know what is killing the Great Barrier Reef – it’s climate change – but the Government is not listening to them. Our Prime Minister has described this approach to climate change as “the Australian Way”; but the world is not thanking Australia for adopting this path.

For all that, the Federal Coalition Government has pledged $1 billion dollars towards saving the Great Barrier Reef, one of the single biggest investments on an ecosystem in Australia’s history; surely, even if it’s only been done as a sweetener in the run up to a Federal election – that’s a good thing, right?

Let’s consider what a billion dollar buys you

For starters, it’s not an up-front payment but a promise to commit $1 billion dollars to reef-related programs over the next nine years – if the Coalition gets re-elected.

Most of that money ($579.9m) won’t go on the Reef itself but will be dedicated to water quality projects on land, the adjoining catchments from which water runs off onto the reef. Declining water quality has long been identified as a major threat to reef health. In 2016 the Queensland Government contracted economists to estimate how much it would cost to meet water quality targets through actions such as changing land management, improving irrigation and repairing erosion. Their best estimate was that it would cost $8.2billion over 10 years (that’s $820 million per year).

The Government’s promise of $570 million over 9 years (or an average of $63.3 million per year) suddenly doesn’t look so grand.

The next largest slice of the billion dollars – $252.9m – will go towards reef management and conservation. Again, split that over 9 years and multiple institutions caring for the Reef and it’s not the boon the headline number suggests.

But it doesn’t really matter anyway because the best science says the reef is cooked if we don’t do anything about rising carbon emissions.

Indeed, the science on this is firming. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that 1.5°C of global warming would cause between 70 and 90% of the world’s coral reefs to disappear. In research just out, it’s been found that with 1.5°C of warming, which the world is predicted to reach in the early 2030s without drastic action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, 99% of the world’s reefs will experience heatwaves that are too frequent for them to recover.

None of the billion dollars promised to ‘fix’ the Reef is going towards reducing emissions. Analysts say Australia’s approach is aligned with heating closer to 3°C. The Australian Government is not introducing any new policies to tackle carbon emissions in the near term and claims that new (unspecified) technologies will deliver net zero emissions in 30 years’ time. Prime Minister Morrison describes this as the Australian Way.

A billion dollars of cover

At the same time, the Government is trumpeting its billion-dollar investment on saving the Reef to UNESCO in a bid to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the World Heritage ‘in-danger’ list. A fortnight ago the Government released a report on why the Reef should be kept off this list.

The Morrison government argued every single World Heritage site can be considered in danger from climate change, and the Great Barrier Reef shouldn’t be singled out for a UNESCO status downgrade.

On the release of that report, Environment Minister Sussan Ley puzzlingly observed: “Reefs around the world are under pressure from warming oceans and in the face of that the Morrison government’s leadership in reef management and reef science is second to none.”

So, what are we to make of that? The Government acknowledges that climate change and warming oceans are killing our coral reefs – everywhere, not just around Australia – but chooses to do very little about it.

At the same time they are happy to commit a billion dollars to a cause they know is futile; maybe that’s why they don’t really care that this level of investment is patently inadequate to achieve even the outcomes on water quality they are targeting.

It’s enough to make you blush with embarrassment (and shed a tear of shame).

The real problem

The real problem at the heart of this treacherous affair is a total lack of probity. There is no transparency or accountability around these decisions; no connection between science, economics and funding pledges; no integrity behind government claims and action.

This is a billion-dollar bad idea but the greatest shame in this whole affair is that there is no mechanism (no independent office of government integrity) to hold our political leaders to account.

No, Minister. The Reef is not in good hands! And the world will not be thanking you now or in the future.

Banner image: The Great Barrier Reef is in big trouble. Will a big billion dollars make a difference? Not with an absence of probity. (Image by Sarah_Ackerman under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)

The existential toll of climate change on wetlands – maybe we should go with the flow.

By David Salt

Every February we’re encouraged to think about wetlands as we celebrate World Wetlands Day. While society has come a long way in changing its mind about the value of wetlands – once they were smelly swamps, now they are precious, life-sustaining ecosystems – these days we’re stuck in a form of denialism about their prospects as climate change radically threatens their very existence.

The sad truth is, climate change modifies water levels, and the best protected wetland in the world ceases to be a wetland without water. Too much water, in the form of rising sea levels, will have the same outcome. If we can’t protect our wetlands in the space they exist today, do we need to make more effort to let our wetlands move with the flow?

Fifty-one years of Ramsar

Fifty-one years ago, on the 2nd of February 1971, one of the world’s most important international environmental conventions came into being with the adoption of the Convention of Wetlands. It’s important because it was the first international treaty for wetland and waterbird conservation, and one of the world’s most enduring and significant international agreements on the environment. It’s been responsible for establishing the world’s largest network of protected areas – being declared a Ramsar Wetland is akin to being listed as a World Heritage area – and the treaty has been used as a basis for other international conservation policies and national wetland laws.

The adoption ceremony for the Convention was held in the Iranian city of Ramsar, on the shores of the Caspian Sea, and most people know this Convention as the Ramsar Convention. To mark the day of the treaty’s creation, the Ramsar Secretariat has promoted the 2nd of February as World Wetlands Day, and it’s been run on this date every year since 1997.

The Ramsar Convention together with World Wetlands Day have transformed the way humans engage with wetlands. They’ve gone from ‘swamps’ only fit for draining and development, to critical land and water scapes that provide humans with a range of valuable ecosystem services in addition to being critical habitat for biodiversity conservation. Wetlands, in all their forms, are now recognised as precious and irreplaceable.

However, our efforts to increase awareness about the state and value of our wetlands have also revealed they are in serious trouble. The Ramsar Secretariat’s Global Wetland Outlook (newly revised this year) tells us that over a third of the planet’s wetlands have been lost since the Convention was enacted. Indeed, wetlands are our most threatened ecosystem, disappearing three times faster than forests. Land-use change is the biggest driver of degradation to inland wetlands since 1970. Agriculture, the most wide-spread form of land-use change, has damaged more than half of the Wetlands of International Importance (often referred to as Ramsar Wetlands). Climate impacts to wetlands are happening faster than anticipated. Rising sea-levels, coral bleaching and changing hydrology are all accelerating, with arctic and montane wetlands most at risk of degradation and loss.

Land locked and lost (or drowned)

And here’s an irony the Treaty’s designers probably never envisaged: The city of Ramsar, the place that gave the treaty its name, is rapidly becoming land locked as the Caspian Sea shrinks under climate change and water extraction. Its surrounding wetlands will be gone within decades.

The Caspian Sea is actually a landlocked lake with a surface that is already around 28 metres below sea level. And it’s dropping by 7 centimetres every year. As temperatures rise with global warming, evaporation will accelerate this decline. The Caspian Sea will be nine to 18 metres lower by the end of the century and lose a quarter of its size. How do you sustain a wetland that can no longer be kept wet? Researchers believe the unfurling crisis will result in an ecocide as devastating as the one in the Aral Sea, a few hundred kilometres to the east.

Falling water levels are challenging many other major landlocked lakes and seas (consider the Aral Sea and Lake Chad) but most coastal wetland systems face the opposite problem – rising sea levels associated with warming oceans, another consequence of climate change. Sea levels are currently rising by between 3-4 mm per year but this is expected to accelerate in the coming decades. This could lead to the submergence of 20–78% of worldwide coastal wetlands by 2100!

Whether water levels are rising, falling or doing major damage through extreme weather events (think of this season’s unprecedented flooding all around the world), the prospects for the planet’s precious wetlands are darkening with every year. World Wetlands Day (and the Ramsar Convention) have played a valuable role in highlighting the importance of these watery ecosystems, as well as identifying wetlands of particular significance; but as climate change bites we need to face the grim reality that changing water levels mean that many, possibly most, wetlands cannot be protected by surrounding them in strong laws, good signage and a more receptive society. The sad truth is that shifting water levels mean many wetlands cannot be protected in their current spaces.

Just as the city Ramsar heralds this grim reality, the history of the Caspian Sea upon which it lies, may hold a possible solution. The Caspian Sea has a history of rises and falls. Around 10,000 years ago the sea was about 100 metres lower. A few thousand years before that it was about 50 metres higher than today’s level. Yet people who lived beside the sea were able to move with the fluctuating sea level. Back then, no large human infrastructure was around to be destroyed, and people moved (adapted) as required. The same applied to animal and plant species. Ecosystems simply moved up and down as the sea level shifted, as they had done over the past 2 million years or so.

In today’s world, with massive city infrastructure and property rights attached to specific locations, moving with a changing water level presents enormous challenges. And yet, doing nothing (ie, not moving) is not an option either. Roughly a tenth of the world’s population and assets are based less than 10 metres above sea level. Sea level rise means land currently home to 300 million people will be vulnerable to annual flooding by 2050.

Water is the messenger

Jay Famiglietti, Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, recently observed that “Water is the messenger that delivers the bad news about climate change to your town, to your neighborhood, and to your front door.” Our first response, unfortunately, is usually to deny the message as we have so much invested in ‘sustaining’ the status quo. Economists would say we worry too much protecting ‘sunk investments’.

We’d rather reinforce and armour our shores against the rising tides, than consider moving to adapt to rising (or falling) water levels. Not only is this expensive and fails to address the underlying problem – sea level rise is predicted to accelerate, not stabilise – it makes us more vulnerable to the multiple threats being generated by climate change (eg, more intense storms and extreme rainfall).

In many ways, we’re doing the same with our wetland reserves. We’re managing them for the proximate dangers that threaten their natural values such as guarding against pollution, overexploitation and development. But, as with our cities and towns, we’re ignoring the consequences of changing water levels in a time of climate change. The places where we find wetlands today may not sustain wetlands into the future.

In some cases, wetlands have the capacity to move (migrate) with the water level as it changes. Some research is suggesting that sea levels could rise faster than a wetland’s natural migration rate. Other studies have shown their capacity to move is limited by how land is being used around existing wetlands.

The challenge of sustaining our precious wetlands in a time of climate change and changing water levels is enormous. The first step in meeting this challenge is getting beyond denial. Seas are rising. Lakes in many places are shrinking. We can see it happen, and there is a strong scientific consensus it’s only going to get worse. Given this reality, we need to extend the tool box of policy measures to conserve these vital ecosystems. It’s not enough to increase our protection of existing wetlands. We need to start planning on how we can facilitate their ability to move with changing water levels – to go with the flow.

Research is happening in many places around the world to explore what’s possible. For example, Australian scientists are developing the idea of “rolling covenants” to protect coastal ecosystems in the face of sea-level rise. These are conditions on land titles that permit productive use of land in the short term, while ensuring land use can shift over time to allow for coastal ecosystem migration in the medium to long term.

Of course, such provisions require considerable funding and a change in mindset on what is an appropriate way to use (and set aside future uses) of land. But such change is possible when society gets beyond denying what climate change means and works with the change rather than attempting to control it.

‘Making room’ for water

One of the best examples of this is the response of the Netherlands to the threat of rising sea levels and increased flood risk. The Netherlands is both flat and low lying, and has always been prone to flooding. More than half of the Netherlands is located on flood-prone land. Following two particularly horrifying floods in the 1990s, requiring the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, the Netherland’s government adopted a new paradigm in water management.

Rather than building bigger dykes and dams to control the floods, they adopted an approach called making “Room for the Rivers” in which floods were better accommodated by the landscape. Many farms were converted to wetlands (proving a boon for bird life), land around rivers was dedicated to allow for flooding, and cities and towns were adapted to cope with flood waters.

The approach cost billions of dollars, many land holders were required to give up their homes and their farm land, and the whole community needed to change the way they dealt with flooding.

The result? Dutch rivers can now absorb about 25% more water than they could in 1995, and the recent episode of historic floods that devasted parts of Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland, left the Netherlands relatively unscathed.

If the Netherlands can make room for their rivers and demonstrate the value of this approach to flood control, what would it take for the world community to ‘make room’ for our wetlands?

This World Wetland Day, we all need to consider how we can better go with the flow.

This blog originally appeared on The Global Water Forum

Banner image: Climate change is moving water levels. Moving water levels means wetlands also need to move. We need to ‘make room’ for our wetlands. (Image by David Salt)

The lies of the land – “I don’t think, I know!” – Who suffers when truth lies bleeding?

By David Salt

CoP26 has just concluded. Many are crying our leaders have lied to us; they’re not being ‘fair dinkum*’ when it comes to climate change.

And the Australian Government has just released its modelling behind their “Plan to Deliver Net Zero” emissions by 2050 (releasing it on the final scheduled day of the CoP, late on a Friday, guaranteed to minimise timely efforts to scrutinise it).

But you don’t even have to study it to see something’s amiss. Before you even interrogate the assumptions in the modelling (assumptions described as ‘wild’ by many experts) it becomes clear it doesn’t even meet it owns objective. Fifteen per cent of the reductions is based on unspecified future technology (with a further 10-20% is achieved through carbon offsets) so it’s actually a plan for 85% emissions reductions at best. Does this mean the Government is lying?

Lies all the way down

The business of ‘telling lies’ is dominating the news cycle at the moment with the very integrity of our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, being put under the spotlight following the French President Macron saying “I don’t think, I know” when asked if he thought our Prime Minister Morrison had lied to him over the breaking of $90billion contract for submarines. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull endorsed this sentiment by observing: “Scott has always had a reputation for telling lies.”

Following this, Morrison was asked on radio if he had ever told a lie in public life. He replied: “I don’t believe I have, no. No.”

But, if he’s a liar, he would say that, wouldn’t he? The fact is, he’s been caught out on many occasions. News group Crikey, as just one example, has published a list of 42 lies Morrison has made in recent years with the evidence to prove it.

Some might say lying is merely a politician’s stock in trade, they all do it; and we have elections to enable voters to make a judgement on where lies the truth (or what ‘lies’ they are prepared to accept). But is this good enough with an existential threat like climate change coming at us like a runaway freight train? Lies might win votes but they don’t redefine the way the earth system functions. They might grease your way to an election win but they don’t deliver a sustainable future.

A world of lies

There are lies and there are lies; and, if we’re going to be honest, we all tell them.

The most obvious lie is the untrue statement told to deceive, often referred to as a lie of commission. It seems our ‘plan to deliver net zero’ is full of these.

Then there are the lies of omission, where we distort meaning by not including appropriate information in our pronouncements. In our ‘plan’, the biggest omission is a failure to model what happens if we don’t take action. That’s an omission big enough to drive a planet through.

Or there are lies of fabrication where we make stuff up; lies of minimisation where we underplay aspects of the situation we are describing; or lies of exaggeration in which we overstate things. The ‘plan’ is overflowing with each of these.

So many ways to lie. There are white lies, often told to comfort people; greay lies, in which we’re not sure who benefits; black lies where there’s no confusion, you’re clearly doing it for self-gain; and red lies, told out of spite to damage someone else.

Indeed, it’s easy to find any number of typologies to categorise lies (eg, the 5 types of lies) and liars (eg, the 3 type of liars). However, if you believe lying is ultimately wrong and damaging, possibly the more important questions to pose are:
-is it on the increase (and why)? and
-what’s the consequence of allowing ‘lying’ to become the new normal?

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Morrison has been caught out many times lying but few leaders can hold a candle to the mendacity displayed by President Trump. The Washington Post tallied up Trumps lies at a staggering 30,573 over the four years he was in office.

But Trump is hardly alone when it comes to outrageous lying. Whether its Brazil’s Bolsonaro, the Philippine’s Duterte, the UK’s Johnson or Russia’s Putin, lying seems to be a standard tool of the trade, and it’s being wielded all the time. The strong impression is that more world leaders are lying more and more often; but how do you prove such a subjective assessment? Measuring the aggregate load of lies and how it changes over time is no easy task.

There are attempts by various groups to measure trends in transparency, corruption and good governance, all good surrogates for the lies of the land. But making meaningful, representative and repeatable comparisons is devilishly difficult.

Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index didn’t make any grand general statements like the world has declined overall or improved; but it did find that countries with strong democratic governance managed better, equitable and effective responses to COVID-19. Countries that performed well on the index invested more in health care, are better able to provide universal health coverage and are less likely to violate democratic norms and institutions or the rule of law. Countries with higher levels of corruption tend to be the worst perpetrators of rule of law and democratic breaches while managing the COVID-19 crisis.

On this index, Australia comes in 11th place (of 180 countries), scoring 77 points on the 100-point scale. Australia’s score has dropped 8 points since its peak in 2012 so even on a coarse index like this it seems our integrity is on the decline.

Another NGO studying governance trends around the world, the Global State of Democracy, found that populist parties are on the rise everywhere, nearly doubling in number over the last 15 years.

The Global State of Democracy contends that the recent growth of electoral support for populist political actors around the world is rooted in several interacting trends: economic and cultural globalization, weakening nation state policy/autonomy, societal change, a polarized digital public sphere and a decline in support for mainstream political parties. The rise of populist parties, movements and politicians opposing established political elites can be seen as a reaction to the perceived underperformance of democracies and as a sign of crisis among mainstream political parties.

My interpretation of this is that when mainstream parties lie they erode confidence and trust in the electorate driving voters to populist parties, who usually lie even more. It’s a slippery slope.

Every lie hurts

Some lies start wars. The Gulf of Tonkin lie played an important role in escalating the Vietnam War. The Weapons of Mass Destruction lie was instrumental in kicking off the Iraq War. Hundreds of thousands of people died in each of these wars.

Some lies are just seen as business as usual be it denial over the health risks of tobacco smoking to denial that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. These lies have the potential to kill millions.

There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence demonstrating that lying by our political leaders is becoming more prevalent. And every lie erodes the trust bank of social capital, the keystone of our society’s resilience to deal with the growing environmental challenges coming at us with greater frequency.

Morrison is a liar. His Government’s response to climate change and the CoP26 is tantamount to a lie. The Government’s calculation is that this doesn’t matter, that the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef and our forest biome (as just two examples of the impacts of climate change) is a matter for future governments and generations, and that lying about this won’t cost them the next election.

But what is the cost if they do win the next election based on a lie? What is the cost of political leaders pulling down the blinds on transparency, junking accountability and dismissing integrity because it’s simply easier to get by with a lie? Incalculable.

*’fair dinkum’: to be true, authentic and to not lie (Australian synonym: passes the pub test). None of this applies to our current Prime Minister.

Banner image by Pixabay

Entering the Absurdicene as the Anthropocene loses its relevance

By David Salt

Forget the Anthropocene – Australia’s ‘bold plan’ for net zero by 2050 marks the beginning of an amazing new geological epoch: The Absurdicene, the age where the ridiculous and the self-serving trumps evidence and science. As our children are discovering, it’s not a great time for hope.

Goodbye Anthropocene

The much-discussed Anthropocene was one of the shortest geological epochs of the modern era. It began on the 16 July 1945 and ended on the 26 October 2021.

Why these dates?

Well, the 16 July 1945 was the day of the first atomic bomb test, a few weeks before Hiroshima was obliterated by the world’s first atomic attack. That first test left trace (but measurable) fission products in soil strata around the world. 1945 marked the end of World War Two and the beginning of the Great Acceleration, a time of unparalleled economic growth that has continued to this day.

From that time, humans have literally transformed the Earth System: slaughtering our biodiversity, modifying our climate, and polluting our land, sea and air. Earth systems scientists believe humans have become the dominant force on our planet, and that this warrants labelling this time as a new geological epoch – the age of humans or the Anthropocene.

Some Anthropocene scholars have nominated the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as the true beginning of this epoch (18th Century); others have nominated the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution (some 10,000 years ago). The Earth System scientists I follow, however, reckon the Great Acceleration is a better starting point as it’s really when human activity began distorting the Earth System and we can exactly measure the transition with that first atomic test.

Nominating an end date is even more contentious, and doubling down with the declaration of a new geological epoch called the Absurdicene requires a degree of hubris rarely seen in the academic literature (and yet quite characteristic of many of my columns).

Hello Absurdicene

The 26 October 2021 was the ‘proud’ day the Australian Government launched a plan to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. So ridiculous, hollow and surreal was the plan – so full of assumptions, half-truths and outright lies – that academics would look back on the launch of this plan as the day humanity lost its marbles and officially entered the geological period known as the Absurdicene. (I’m using Australia as a case study reflecting the absurdity of the wider world.)

Frankly, given the parlous and deteriorating state of the Australian environment (bleaching coral reefs and burning forest biomes being two of the most recent and horrific examples), and the impact this is causing to the Australian society, I feel it is simply inadequate to label the Government’s efforts to address this situation as even remotely acceptable or reasonable.

Indeed, not only does the Government fail to take effective action, it is, as I write this, undermining international efforts to address climate change at the COP26 in Glasgow. It is a part of a cabal of nations trying to change a crucial scientific report on how to tackle climate change. A leak has revealed that Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are among countries asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.

At the same time, Australia is considering more than 100 fossil fuel projects that could produce 5% of global industrial emissions.

And while this is happening, our Government tells us they have a plan for net zero emissions by 2050 that is based on taking no proactive action now and leaving the heavy lifting to future generations using yet to be developed technology.

This is more than just ‘inadequate’, it is so perverse that it no longer makes sense; it’s surreal, it is positively absurd.

Acknowledging the absurd

Which leads me to conclude that human interference with the Earth system has now gone beyond disturbing our biophysical systems to polluting our very social systems. Calling it the Anthropocene is simply inadequate because the human response to the global change that humans have caused is no longer rational.

The best science tells us our species is not sustainable. The evidence of this truth is mounting, and the impacts are being felt but our government’s response is one of denial and obfuscation while actually claiming they follow the science.

I regard the Anthropocene as a term that suggests that humans are acknowledging what we are doing to the Earth system and attempting to minimise the adverse impacts we are seeing around us. The Anthropocene is an age of human potency and amazing scientific insight. We have seen further, risen faster and influenced the very nature of things in ways that inspire awe, generate wealth and have transformed the very functioning of our planet.

The wealthiest have grown super wealthy, most of humanity have improved their quality of life, and everyone has unparalleled access to information (and the thoughts of everyone else).

But all these advances have come at the cost of declining natural capital, rising seas and a warming climate.

In the Anthropocene, we studied these changes, modelled their trajectories and discussed in meaningful ways what we needed to do to sustain humanity. We acted rationally, we believed in our leaders (many of them, anyway, and a few of them made a difference).

But, as the failure of COP26 (and the farce of Australia’s plan) is showing, this is no longer happening.

The world’s wealthiest 1% of people produce double the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50% but these elite refuse to take responsibility for it. Evidence is disputed and denied; the super-rich refuse to sacrifice a scintilla of their privilege (though there are some notable exceptions); and governments appear to be working against the best interests of their own people.

Lies, misinformation and prejudice clog our social media; paranoia, fundamentalism and vested interest drive our politics; and fear and disillusionment overshadow the hopes of our younger generations.

So, if you accept that humanity is now acting in an absurd way (ie, you accept the premise of the Absurdicene) then maybe we need to be honest about the prospects of a rational process towards sustainability. Maybe we need to focus on why this absurdity prevails, and what we need to do to short circuit it.

Maybe the answer is not more or a better set of scientific evidence. What more evidence do we require?

Rather, we need a greater priority placed on those things that prevent absurdity from dominating, namely: greater integrity of our institutions, more robust accountability, transparency and a reason to trust our leaders – morality anyone?

Image by Jean-Louis SERVAIS from Pixabay

Climate polarity – when it comes to carbon emissions it’s the super-rich versus the world

By David Salt

On the one hand we have Australia’s richest woman telling the privileged students of one of Australia’s most exclusive schools that global warming is not caused by humans.

On the other, we have the NGO Save the Children releasing an extensively researched (and independently reviewed) report pointing out global warming is caused by humans and the consequences of this are that children worldwide will suffer.

There is somewhat of a cosmic gulf between these two positions.

Unfortunately, when it comes to government action on climate change, it seems the beliefs of Australia’s richest woman are more important than the suffering of coming generations.

“Be very careful about information spread on an emotional basis or tied to money”

Australia’s richest woman, if you’re in any doubt, is the iron ore billionaire Gina Rhinehart; and she made her comments denying the link between human activity and climate change in an address to students at St Hilda’s in Perth, her old school.

In her speech she said humans do not cause global warming and warned against climate change ‘propaganda’. She said the girls should consider influences such as the sun’s orbit, volcanoes and “other scientific facts that I had the benefit of learning when I was at school.” (Note, these are standard red herrings put forward by the ‘Church of Climate Denial’.)

She believes people are being “overwhelmed by media and propaganda” regarding climate change and urged St Hilda’s students to “research for the facts.”

Gina Rhinehart is on old world climate denier with deep investments in the coal industry and a major supporter of the National Party, the political party that has effectively blocked national action on climate change in Australia for most of the last decade.

Her most breathtaking statement in her speech to her old, privileged school was: “Please be very careful about information spread on an emotional basis, or tied to money, or egos or power-seekers.” Breathtaking for its irony, lack of reflection and hypocrisy. And so sad for the truth it enfolds – that the money, egos and power-seeking of the super-rich trump the sustainable future of civil society itself; the ‘truth’ is that the power that the super-rich wield to protect their investments (against the interests of everyone else) is more potent than the democratic processes we established to steward the common good.

Over time, this blog, Sustainability Bites, has discussed the many reports that document the parlous state and degrading trends of our environment (think bleaching coral systems, burning forest biomes, extreme weather and collapsing biodiversity). We’ve also noted the growing chorus of appeals for action from government from all corners of society (think emergency workers, doctors, economists, academics and lawyers); all largely ignored by our national government.

All of this came to mind as I read Rhinehart’s message to her old school, and all of it I’m sure she would have simply discounted as emotional, biased and fear mongering being driven by people with vested interests.

What about the children?

About the same time as Rhinehart was delivering her world view on the state of the world, I saw a report from Save the Children painting a stark future for the children of the world. The report, titled Born into the climate crisis, reveals the devastating impact the climate crisis will have on children and their rights if nations do not work together to limit warming to 1.5C as a matter of the greatest urgency. Launched ahead of global climate talks in Glasgow, the report is based on new modelling led by researchers at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

The report reveals that even if nations meet their Paris Agreement pledges, a child born in 2020 will experience on average: twice as many bushfires; almost three times as many crop failures; two and half times as many droughts; three times as many river floods; and seven times more heatwaves in their lifetime compared to what Baby Boomers have lived with (Rhinehart, I note, was born in 1954; right in the middle of the Baby Boomers).

In Australia, children born in 2020 can expect to experience four times as many heatwaves, three times as many droughts, as well as 1.5 times as many bushfires and river floods, under the current trajectory of global emissions.

This is not an isolated or ‘out there’ conclusion. It’s in keeping with predictions from a range of different sources attempting to understand and manage the consequences of climate change. The World Health Organization, as one other recent example, has just released a report confirming that climate change is the most pressing concern and threat to people’s health saying rising temperatures threaten to undo the past 50 years of improving global health!

It’s just not fair

According to the Oxfam, the world’s wealthiest 1% of people produce double the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%. Thing about that.

The wealthiest 5% alone – the so-called “polluter elite” – contributed 37% of emissions growth between 1990 and 2015.

The world’s richest enjoy the fruits of economic growth. The world’s poorest, pay for it.

Oxfam makes a very strong connection between inequity and climate change. It says: “The fight against inequality and the fight for climate justice are the same fight.”

Further, it says governments everywhere need to end subsidies for fossil fuels (according to the IMF, the fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of $11m every minute!) and stop mining and burning coal. It’s fairly explicit about this: “Nowhere in the world should governments allow the construction of a single new coal-fired power station, the public health and climate costs of which are borne by the poorest and most marginalized communities worldwide.” Against this background it is to be noted that the Australian Government has just last week signed off on four new coal mines to proceed.

And, as Oxfam points out, climate impacts hit the poorest hardest. What’s more, climate change is pushing more people into poverty. The World Bank estimates that an additional 68 to 135 million people could be pushed into poverty by 2030 because of climate change.

Is it any wonder the super wealthy would rather not reflect on the many inconvenient truths associated with climate change?

Let them eat cake

It’s reputed that in the 1789 during an awful famine in France, the plight of the peasants was brought to attention of the queen, Marie Antoinette. They are starving and have no bread, she was told; to which she replied: “Let them eat cake.”

The queen was not popular with the people, seen as profligate and out of touch. The massive inequities present in France at the time precipitated the French Revolution, which led to the annihilation of the royal family. Marie Antoinette lost her head on the guillotine in 1793. Maybe she should have shown a little more concern and empathy for the poor of her nation.

Gina Rhinehart is a member of our planet’s super elite. Her outrageous fortune is based on minerals extraction and fossil fuel. She rejects the science underpinning our understanding of anthropogenic climate change, encourages others to do the same, and shows little regard for the plight of a growing number of people on this planet (including coming generations).

She has the right to her own beliefs but when those beliefs shore up the recalcitrant National Party causing our nation to turn our back on an effective climate change response, people have the right to call her out.

It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if she were to respond with “Let them eat cake.”

Banner image: Anthropogenic climate change is an inconvenient (and oft discounted) truth in the eyes of the super-rich. (Image by Tumisu from Pixabay)

Passing the buck – the rights and responsibilities of fossil fuel divestment

What happens when the ‘Big Australian’ sees the writing on the wall

By David Salt

Heard the news? BHP, one of our biggest miners (and biggest emitters), is going ‘green’! Indeed this big news from the company that once promoted itself as the ‘Big Australian’. It began selling off its coal assets a couple of years ago and now it it’s dumping its oil and gas assets. It looks like it’s getting out of fossil fuels (such a dirty business), focussing instead on its profitable iron ore and buying up potash mines (so you can grow healthier plants, potash being an essential potassium plant fertiliser).

With carbon emitting fossil fuels so on the nose, it’s great to see our big corporates finally pulling their weight…

…until you look at the detail and realise it’s just ‘business as usual’ – profits before people and smoke and mirrors with a little greenwashing to tick the corporate responsibility box.

Better do something

As everyone is now noting, our planet is suffering under climate change (this week it’s Louisiana’s turn) and our very future is increasingly uncertain. The science, now half a century strong, is being borne out and the underlying problem is the carbon emissions from how we do business.

Coal, being a dirty (carbon intense) source of energy, is particularly smelly. In recent years many sections of society (for example institutions in law, economics and science) have been trying hard to stop our use of coal and this has led to coal assets falling in value.

Companies everywhere are divesting themselves of fossil fuels but coal is particularly problematic, and even coal companies are now divesting from coal. Consider, for example, BHP’s Mt Arthur, in NSW’s Hunter Valley. Two years ago the mine was worth $2bn. Now it’s a $200m liability that BHP is struggling to off load!

Regarding its oil and gas assets, BHP is giving Woodside all of them in exchange for shares in Woodside meaning BHP shareholders will own 48% of Woodside. Which sounds like a sleight of hand to me in which BHP can claim it doesn’t own them because the assets are actually owned by BHP shareholders. This means, according to the Guardian, that shareholders will be able to sell their shares if they want to reduce their exposure to fossil fuel assets.

Meanwhile, Green groups are saying Woodside doesn’t have a good record on managing fossil fuel assets after it sold a floating oil rig, Northern Endeavour, for a nominal amount to a company that collapsed three years later without paying decommissioning costs estimated at between $200m and $1bn. Woodside claimed the sale was all above board.

Passing the buck

Which raises the big and complex issue of what is to become of all these ‘stranded’ fossil fuel assets. Will big companies simply off load them for whatever they can get and let some other hapless soul deal with the repercussions?

And does getting rid of these assets mean they’ll stop producing carbon emissions?

Political philosopher Jeremy Moss believes BHP (along with other companies) is banking the profits from their failing assets, while washing their hands of the responsibility to do something about their past and ongoing contribution to climate change. Instead of selling these assets, he says, companies should retire the assets and wear the costs.

In a recent Conversation editorial, Professor Moss reckons that if fossil fuel producers are truly serious about their climate responsibilities then two things need to happen: Fossil fuel producers should retire their mines or wells instead of selling them and they should pay for the cost of restoring mined land. Governments also need to step up to the plate and establish a national inventory of liabilities and an independent body to monitor safety of former mine and well sites.

Sounds reasonable and logical, just not doable. Based on past performance (eg, decades of climate denial and effective lobbying to prevent proactive climate policy), I think it’s safe to say the big fossil fuel miners think it’s cheaper to manipulate government than be true to their rhetoric on social responsibility.

Having said that, fossil fuel miners are now being hard hit by the divestment movement. Financial institutions around the world have adopted divestment policies aiming to end or reduce their involvement in the carbon economy and it does appear that new investments in oil, gas and coal are drying up. Which is likely why BHP is quarantining its fossil fuel assets in this joint venture with Woodside.

The non-fossil fuel BHP entity (which gave away its oil and gas assets) is no longer a target of the divestment movement and can once again access international capital. The exclusive fossil-fuel BHP/Woodside entity will carry on emitting because of the enormous injection of assets from BHP, possibly the only way it could develop given the divestment movement is depriving it of traditional forms of capital and insurance.

And then the music stops…

It’s a win-win for the corporates (and their shareholders), and a lose-lose for the planet (and its inhabitants).

Of course, one day the music will stop and the corporates betting their profits on stranded fossil fuel assets will find there’s no chair for them to sit on. The Bank for International Settlements has suggested that when this happens there could be a collapse in asset prices of fossil fuel industries that could lead to a wider economic collapse along the lines of the GFC.

What might a win-win look like? That’s a win for corporates and a win for society. Based on a realistic costing of the impacts of climate change in coming years* and being realistic about the tiny chance that the big corporates play fair (ie, be true to their social responsibility and not interfere with governmental policy), I think the best we could hope for might be governments stepping in and buying out the whole fossil fuel sector at some cut (heavily-discounted) rate based on their falling asset value.

Corporates will always pass the buck. But governments are elected to protect society. So why not accept the situation and get our governments to actually accept the buck on our behalf?

Haven’t we already spent trillions coping with the corona pandemic (and misbegotten adventures in Afghanistan). Why not draw down the debt a bit further and buy all the stranded fossil fuel assets? We can then restore the minesites (a few good jobs there, I reckon), repurpose the assets we’ve picked up to maximise their social utility (oil rigs make excellent platforms for hotels) and wear the cost?

Yes, I know this will have me labelled as a pixie in cloud cuckoo land (and a communist to boot) but do the maths yourselves. The cost to us of buying these stranded assets versus the cost of allowing them to continue functioning (ie, destroying the planet after taking out the economy) surely makes it a rational thing to do.

*There are many robust estimates of the cost of climate change in the coming years from many respected institutions. They are all scary and they have all been ignored by the Australian Government. Here’s one:
Lack of climate action over 50 years will cost Australian economy $3.4tn and 880,000 jobs

Banner image: Stranded assets? Maybe with a lick of paint they’d make nice floating hotels. (Image by Elise Aldram from Pixabay)

The wicked problem of complexity on the Great Barrier Reef

The inconvenient truth of an ‘in danger’ listing isn’t going to save this precious Reef

By David Salt

The Great Barrier Reef looks like being moved onto the ‘in danger’ list of World Heritage estates and the Australian Government is not happy about the change one little bit. Why? Because they don’t think the listing process is fair and they still reckon the Great Barrier Reef is the best managed reef in the world. They also suspect China is out to get us.

The saga of the listing of the Great Barrier Reef has now been covered every which way by various media commentators. The science is crystal clear; the Reef is in serious and growing trouble. It’s hard to see how the Australian Government can escape the claim of gross negligence and mismanagement yet in this post-truth, hyper-partisan age it seems anything goes. The Government’s gripes with UNESCO of the in-danger list are not based on biophysical reality but on perceptions of procedural unfairness (and China has absolutely nothing to do with the UNESCO World Heritage committee’s decision).

Rather than focus at the minutiae of this ‘in danger’ listing, I’d like to reflect on the bigger lessons provided by how we’re dealing with the decline of the Great Barrier Reef, and what this means for all our precious ecosystems.

1. It’s not about how well the marine park itself is managed

Part of the Government’s defence this week has been that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is the best managed coral reef ecosystem in the world. Maybe that’s true in terms of resources committed to running the marine park. But it ignores that the biggest threat facing the reef comes from outside of this ‘well managed’ park.

The scientific consensus is clear, rising temperatures mean the Great Barrier Reef will not exist in the future. It doesn’t matter what band aids and grants are applied to the park itself. Unless we as a species reduce our carbon emissions (that lie behind climate warming) all coral reefs will be lost as they exist today.

Claiming that you are caring for a patch of nature while ignoring how that patch is connected and impacted by what happens beyond the patch is simply dishonest.

2. It’s also about water quality

The Government’s line on climate change is that this is a global problem. Australia by itself can’t solve global warming so therefore it’s not an issue that should be tied to the condition of the Reef itself.

Ignoring the fact that Australia is trailing the world on climate action (in many ways slowing an effective global response), what is it that Australia does take responsibility for? The answer is water quality on the reef.

Water quality refers to the levels of chemicals, nutrients and sediments ending up in Reef waters along the coast of Queensland. These ‘contaminants’ largely originate from land-based activities such as sugar cane, bananas and pastoralism. Declining water quality has been an issue for the Reef for much of the last three decades.

Poor water quality is a problem because it alters the balance of the Reef ecosystem – promotes outbreaks of coral eating Crown of Thorn Starfish (which eat coral), encourages algae to colonise spaces previously occupied by corals and generally lowers the Reef’s resilience.

Given the government’s impotence in the face of climate change, the strategy it has elected to follow is to focus on aspects it claims it can influence. In other words, clean up water quality by changing land management. We can’t force other countries to behave differently (in respect to climate change) but we do, in theory, have power over how we manage our own landscapes.

The belief is that if water quality can be improved, this will contribute to overall reef health which, in turn, means the reef should recover faster whatever disturbance hits (including climate-related episodes of bleaching and super-charged cyclones).

The Government has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars on improving water quality. While water quality has slightly improved on some measures it’s unlikely any of the ambitious targets set will be met and overall marine condition remains poor.

So, even if we ignore climate change (exposing the moral void of our environmental stewardship), the strategy nominated by the government to protect the reef – improve water quality – is also failing to achieve much. And this is not an isolated statement, there have been many reports in recent years showing government action is not working in improving water quality.

Why is it so hard to fix water quality? Because it’s very expensive (though a lot less expensive than taking on climate change). The government’s own costing on what is required is $8.2 billion over 10 years, and so far it hasn’t even stumped up a tenth of this.

But it’s more than just money. Fixing water quality requires massive change to land management over a big area. A former NRM Chief said “We’re trying to get transformational change to an area twice the size of Germany with 10,000 farms on it. This is no small undertaking.”

Big and very complex.

3. Scale is the GBR’s Achilles heel

The size of the Great Barrier Reef makes it hard to comprehend; it’s over 2000 km long. But the time frames we’re dealing with also problematic when it comes to the politics.

One of the arguments the Government used when faced with an impending ‘in danger’ listing last week was that UNESCO hadn’t done its due diligence. UNESCO’s conclusions were based on a ‘desk top review’. They need to come out to the reef and see it for themselves, said the Australian Government, see the great work being done to fix it being undertaken by Indigenous people, school kids, tour operators and other worthy stakeholders. They need to take into consideration the ‘gee whiz’ science being done on finding heat-tolerant corals and efforts to shade the reef, thereby creating possible pathways of restoration (actions most reef scientists simply cannot work at scale).

Of course, whenever someone cries ‘the Reef is dying’, you’ll also find a ratbag politician prepared to point (and sometimes rip out) a piece of coral and say: ‘looks healthy to me, what’s the problem?’

The problem is a lack of science; the problem the politicians capacity to cherry pick the evidence that suits their claim (by focussing on part of the Reef that’s looks good while ignoring the overall trend of decline). The problem is a failure to acknowledge a healthy reef now is irrelevant against the prospect of intermittent catastrophic bleaching events in the future.

It’s great that bits of the reef are recovering from the last bleaching event in 2020 (and the events in 2016 and 2017) but it takes many years for full recovery and with forecasts for bleachings every second year within the next decade, the GBR’s days are numbered.

So, while the Australian Government says ‘look at this bit of healthy reef’ or ‘the reef is recovering this year’, it entirely ignores the scales of time and space over which this massive ecosystem functions.

4. An inconvenient truth

Science often refers to climate change as an ‘inconvenient truth’. But when dealing with complexity it’s easy to worm your way around the issue. Politicians can easily slide around biophysical reality because the ecosystems we are dealing with are big, complicated and complex. The scales of time and space these systems are operating at are not aligned with the 3-5 year political cycles in which inflation rates and the cost of housing dominate debates.

It’s too easy for the (Australian) politicians to claim “we’re the best reef managers in the world” while all the evidence says otherwise.

Big ecosystems (think the GBR, the MDB and our east coast forests) are complex and difficult to understand. They are connected to other systems and influenced by what’s happening at other scales. And climate change is only part of the problem.

Our politicians will encourage you to only look at the bits that are in accord with their ideology (eg, the park is well managed, don’t look beyond the park), and to only think about the problem in the scale of their political cycle (eg, the good work being done by well-meaning volunteers gives them hope that their efforts make a difference, which makes them feel good; don’t think about the next bleaching event beyond the political horizon).

So the inconvenient truth for me is that our complex ecosystems are in trouble but our systems of governance don’t seem to be able to do anything about it.

The challenge then is not to better define the biophysical truth and expect politicians to change but to reform our governance such that it responds appropriately to ecosystem decline and collapse. For this to happen we need demonstrate to voters why that biophysical truth is important to the values they help dear and why they must hold our politicians to account.

The evidence is that our current management of the Reef, the Murray Darling Basin and our forests is unsustainable. If we wait for this ‘truth’ to become real then our ‘victory’ will be empty as the loss of these ecosystems will be irreversible. That’s an inconvenient truth we all need to acknowledge.

Image: Coming up for air on the Great Barrier Reef (Photo by David Salt)