Latest / The Front / Why the government is preaching climate doom

Transcript

Why the government is preaching climate doom · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamiot.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, September sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Just since Alan
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: says Victoria won't turn its back on China, the Victorian
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: premiere unveiled her plan to supercharge Chinese investment in the
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: state's public transport, clean energy and higher education sectors in
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a speech delivered in Beijing on Monday night. Hunters and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Collectors frontman Mark Seymour cut ties with his mother in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: his twenties, thinking it would be forever, but writing for
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: The Australian Today, he says they reconnected following her dementia diagnosis.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You can read his tribute right now at the Australian
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: dot com dot au. The Albanzi government has set the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: stage for its most ambitious emissions reductions targets ever. But
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: while the government is boosting renewable energy programs and ev incentives,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the trans position is proving much harder than anyone expected.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Today Political editor Jeff Chambers joins us to unpack the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: government's doomsday warning and what it does next.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: We are living climate change now. It's no longer forecast,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: a projection or prediction. It is I live reality, and
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: it's too late to avoid any impacts, but it's not
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: too late to avoid the worst of the impacts.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: This is Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen. On Monday, he
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: released a report that suggests our collective future is looking
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: pretty hairy if we don't take decisive action and fast.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It's called the National Climate Risk Assessment, and it says
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: no Australian community will be spared from potential catastrophe if
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: temperatures rise by just a couple of degrees in the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: coming decades.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: As report makes clear, the difference in terms of impact
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: between one point five and two degrees are warming littlone
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: three is very real for Australia, so hence our efforts
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: on mitigation must and will continue.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: According to The Australian's Political editor Jeff Chambers, it's less
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: science paper, more Hollywood blockbuster.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: I've described it as a bit of a doomsday report
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: and it reads like a script from a Hollywood natural
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: disaster movie.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: The report says natural disasters could increase hundreds of millions
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: of dollars could be wiped from property values, heat related
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: deaths could increase by more than four hundred percent. Industries
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: could crumble and supply chains could be obliterated. Insurers could
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: jack up premiums, social cohesion could fracture, and first nations
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: people will bear the brunt of it, and on and
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: on it goes.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: The National Climate Risk Is said basically compiles a bunch
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: of information from the Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian Bureau
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: of Statistics, Geoscience Australia and CIRO, and they set up
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: an independent body to actually do this work. So I
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: very much see this report as a cover a prelude
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: to the twenty thirty five target, telling all Australians that
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: if we don't strive for stronger action, these will be
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: the consequences. And one interesting takeout from this report For me,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I've got two young daughters and a lot of nieces
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: and nephews in high school, and I know for a
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: fact that already school children all the way up two
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: year twelve and then into university are very anxious about
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: the risk of climate because their whole lives they have
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: been warned that these really catastrophic situations will materialize in
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: their lifetimes. So you just wonder the duty of care
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: with a report like this. The flip side of that,
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: which the government would say is that this report outlines
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: the true scenarios and outcomes of doing nothing or not
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: doing enough on climate change.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So let's break this down. There are a number of
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: milestones referenced in the report. There's twenty thirty five and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: twenty fifty, which most people will have heard about in
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: debates and discussion about climate change. Those are the deadlines
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: that most governments around the world are working towards to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a view to preventing these
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: one point five to two degree temperature rises. But the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: National Climate Risk Assessment has introduced a new twenty ninety
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: milestone and a twenty one hundred milestone, and it goes
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: really hard on those milestones. Tell me a bit about that.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: What's the point of it?
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Look, I could only see the point of it as
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: being the further you look down the track, the more
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: extremes of a scenario that you are assuming is going
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: to make the situation look even scarier. And what does
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: that mean, Well, it means that the government should go
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: even harder than what they currently are doing. And it's
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: really interesting because we're seeing around the world, like minded
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Western democracies pulling back a little bit on some of
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: the hopes and aspirations that they had because obviously with
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: the biggest polluters in the well being China, India, in
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: the United States under their current governments, they're not interested
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: in targets. And then I saw last week in Canada
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: Mark Karney, who's forged a pretty close relationship with Anthony Alberinezi,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: and he was asked about Canada's twenty thirty and twenty
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: thirty five targets, and he talked down a firm commitment
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: to achieving those targets and said he was more focused
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: on results rather than objectives. My concern about some of
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: the numbers in this report is not only is it
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: looking at various scenarios out to twenty fifty, it also
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: introduces these new milestone dates, So it makes you think,
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: how on Earth can you reasonably model anything accurately that
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: is seventy five years away from now.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: The National Climate Risk Assessment was released in tandem with
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: a so called National Adaptation Plan. It's basically the blueprint
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: for how the government thinks it'll meet its various emissions
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: reductions targets, and it calls on households and the private
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: sector to walk in lockstep with all levels of government
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: on climate action, and.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: So the National Adaptation Plan is a framework for that
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: conversation about how to crowd in the funding, how to
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: ensure that we're all fulfilling our responsibilities, that we're working
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: together on that task.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: Adaptation that's all about getting the write infrastructure in place,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and obviously that means supporting that clean energy revolution to
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: try and lower Australia's emissions. But Australia is a pretty
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: wild and wooly country. We've been experiencing cyclones, storms, floodings, bushfires,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: heat waves for many centuries and there is a level
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: of adaptation that is already in place and the government
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: is obviously calling for that to be turbocharged, and I
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: think aligned with that push, we're seeing a lot of
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: alban easy government programs established by Chris Bowen. So that
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: might be your batteries at home, your solar panels at home,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: people taking up electric vehicles. So you're seeing a lot
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: of different programs which are costing taxpayers, which is ultimately
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Australian's a lot of money to fund. And the higher
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: we push up that ambition, the more expensive this mission becomes.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: We don't really know how much extra will all be
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: expected to pay for this. So I think it's about,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: I guess, changing the culture and the way that families live,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: households approach things. The problem I see in it. You've
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: got millions upon millions of people who have chosen to
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: live in these climate impact zones, who've been allowed to
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: live in these areas. How do you wind all that back?
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Coming up? We've seen the opening Act, Now get ready
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for the big show. The timing of the National Climate
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Risk Assessment released by Chris Bowen on Monday is no coincidence.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: The Climate Change Minister will make his final recommendations for
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the government's greenhouse gas emissions reductions target to the Prime
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Minister and Cabinet any day now more.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: When will we know soon?
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: I received it on Friday afternoon. I'm working through it.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I'm giving it due and proper regard. You won't be
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: the first to know what my recommendation is. The Cabinet
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: will be the first to know. You'll be the second.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Tonight.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Here's Jeff Chambers.
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: So the government has pushed this process out as far
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: as they possibly can. As we know, there's already twenty
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: thirty targets forty three percent reduction on two thousand and
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: five levels by the end of the decade and eighty
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: two percent of renewables in the grid. Now, on both
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: of those fronts, the Albanese government is already struggling to
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: achieve those. On current trajectory levels, they won't achieve those,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: but under the Paris Agreement u N rules, by the
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: end of this month, Australia has to lodge its new
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: nationally determined contribution. The headline of that is the twenty
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: thirty five targets. We're expecting the Prime Minister and mister
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: Bowen to unveil that new target by the end of
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: this week. I believe that both men, certainly the Prime
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Minister is heading to New York for his first United
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: Nations General Assembly, and they will be selling to the
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: world what we're doing, because obviously they are still trying
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: to land the un COP thirty one summit, which is
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: notionally slated to be held in Adelaide next year, co
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: hosted with Pacific Nations, and I'm sure that the Prime
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Minister and Chris Bowen will be trying to use that
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: twenty thirty five target to try and make that final
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: push to land the summit. I believe that the government,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: while only officially receiving the advice on Friday, would have
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: had a pretty clear idea of which way that they
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: were going to look. I understand that it'll be a range,
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: and I'm expecting that will probably be in the sixties.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Some of the more conservative types in the labor movement
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: and some in the business community believe, to be realistic,
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: we should be close to where Canada is and be
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: in the fifties, potentially in the late fifties. But there
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: is a lot of internal pressure and pressure from Greens
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: and labor voters and stakeholders that at the very least
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: the government doesn't go under what the Climate Change Authority
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: has been consulting on in that sixty five to seventy
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: five range, so you know, you might see something that
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: looks like, say sixty three to sixty five. They've got
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: to strike a balance there because there is a lot
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: of challenges coming down the line in terms of not
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: building enough renewables, not getting transmission up and running quick enough,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: and not seeing evs being adopted quick enough. So if
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: you have this really ambitious twenty thirty five target, it
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: carries a lot of political risks if you are too ambitious,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: and obviously for Labor it carries some risks from their
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: left flank if they are not ambitious enough.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Just lastly, you mentioned there that the Coalition is
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: kind of at war with itself over net zero. There
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: are factions of the Liberal and National Parties who want
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Susan Lee to abandon that policy entirely, and then there
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: are others who want her to stay the course, whatever
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that course may be. At this point, how does the
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: coalition navigate this issue going forward?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: I don't think they've actually worked that out, and I
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: think for Susan Lee and her supporters they hoped that
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: they could have time. They thought it was such a
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: devastating loss that surely people will give them the space
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: and time to work out coherent policies and try and
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: put themselves in a bit of a more competitive position.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: And ultimately, as we always see with the coalition, elements
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: inside both the Nats and the Liberal Party have a
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: clash of ideology when it comes to things like net
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: zero and emissions targets, and we're starting to see that
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: bear out very publicly. It's not a news story for
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: the Coalition and really has become an existential problem.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's Political editor. You can read
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: his full analysis of the National Climate Change Assessment right
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: now at the Australian dot com dot au