Climate Policy, Greenhouse and Governance Disconnections

Phill Parsons

FT has become so full of itself it is announces its own continuation of the Pulpmill Wood Supply Agreement whilst across town the Premier is declaring the agreement will need to show “good commercial reasons” for an extension beyond the 30th of November to be granted. Bartlett is lining up against powerful interests of the type that saw the popular Doug Lowe replaced with Harry Holgate, Robin Gray was then elected Premier, Labor painted as failing its constituents, history to tell the story more clearly later when the cosy club of cheap power and dear cement worked together to empty the taxpayers pockets… …Moving from a colonial attitude to resource exploitation to that of a mature nation cherishing its heritage and sustaining its productivity across the spectrum of services to ensure a benefit to the whole has not yet become the modus operandi of Australia. Such a step is the next one on the path to real nationhood, a recognition of the value of our natural and cultural assets as being more important than short term accumulation.

THE national government has failed to connect its actions with the rhetoric it has on climate change and we will see more disconnection and dissonance from all levels of government as the Green Paper on Emissions Trading edges toward a White paper on industry subsidization as the national contribution to costing us our planet.

Carbon Stores continue to be expended as a prize for the lowest bidder.

Australia continues large scale industrial logging, some for the first time, and other clearing of important ecosystems, the degradation of the forest causing massive release of carbon and drying of water resources, even as the government promotes forest protection internationally to combat climate change and expends funds in an attempt to restore flows to the Murray Darling system.

“It is preposterous to impose massive costs upon society for a new carbon trading market while ignoring how industrial logging of forests in Australia is a primary driver of climate change. This activities can, and should, be discontinued. The Australian government ignores their own University science that logging damages carbon stores, funding yet further rounds of “sustainable forestry” aid overseas while continuing to log our own forests, at great peril for the climate and ecological sustainability.” [1]

In Tasmania the government has a plan to sell off Tasmania’s forests at a low cost and apparently no return from its government business failure, Forestry Tasmania.

FT has become so full of itself it is announces its own continuation of the Pulpmill Wood Supply Agreement whilst across town the Premier is declaring the agreement will need to show “good commercial reasons” for an extension beyond the 30th of November to be granted.

Bartlett is lining up against powerful interests of the type that saw the popular Doug Lowe replaced with Harry Holgate, Robin Gray was then elected Premier, Labor painted as failing its constituents, history to tell the story more clearly later when the cosy club of cheap power and dear cement worked together to empty the taxpayers pockets.

Has FT gone feral, will the casualties be big as direction the forest industries take without government’s unrestricted support drives Tasmania from a low value resource exporter to an economy where the local resources are transformed to high value product for a discerning global market.

FT is owned by all Tasmanians, its directors being the government. It cannot be left to make poor commercial decisions that benefit vested interests time and again. The old Hydro Electric Commission was restructured to alter its hold over the State. Ft needs to loose its stranglehold too.

No rocket science is needed to see that a carbon constrained world is a different one. The old carbon intensive heavy weight product will have a penalty attached to it driving economies far from markets to consider what they produce; low weight, low volume high value.

The State also has a separate plan to offset its carbon emissions from its officer’s travel and work by paying to revegetate bits of Tasmania.

Worthy in itself, it shows a disconnect, where we sacrifice the carbon stored in our forests whilst funding revegetation that we should have done years ago, to protect the natural services that degraded landscapes can only supply less and less of as the climate looses stability, driven in part by sacrificing the forest carbon stores.

Those carbon stores, if they are to be partly sacrificed, should fund the building of low carbon emission energy systems. There is no point to digging a deeper hole if the ladder of escape is not lengthened and strengthened. That’s a grave.

Moving from a colonial attitude to resource exploitation to that of a mature nation cherishing its heritage and sustaining its productivity across the spectrum of services to ensure a benefit to the whole has not yet become the modus operandi of Australia.

Such a step is the next one on the path to real nationhood, a recognition of the value of our natural and cultural assets as being more important than short term accumulation.

NSW, dirty black coal matches the dirty politics

The failure of the bid to sell the NSW coal fired power generators is a classic example of disconnection from the reality of climate change.

Here was an opportunity for NSW to divest itself of this business and thus act as honest brokers in the regulation of energy supply in NSW.

The NSW Labor government, now the Liberal opposition has played the short term election win card, will sell the retail arms, ensuring power in NSW will be bought cheap and sold dear by a private operator, costing each householder.

This will leave NSW with the old coal fired power stations that will cost to convert to Carbon Capture and Storage systems, if that technology ever gets off the ground.

Along with that, a $12B investment is needed to ensure the power generation system has enough new capacity to meet demand.

Unbelievably short sighted, this impost will blight NSW for decades, as government has to fund hospitals and schools as well as power generation whether it is Liberal or Labor, but it does not need to retain the ownership of dated technology that requires a huge investment to modernize that is coal fired power generation

A clever State government would, having divested itself of the old, invest in cogeneration, the combined heat and power sources located near use points driving down transmission costs [losses of energy] and providing the trigeneration capacity that these local plants allow.

They can be used to feed air conditioning systems, the way we will have to address global heating in the existing buildings, as well as supply energy.

The Woking example and now that of London are showing savings in carbon emissions and in costs. Woking was the result of a one off grant by their Council. After that it was and remains self funding.

New public buildings should be designed to passively heat and cool to reduce the size of the combined heat, cooling and power plant contained within it. Will these modern efficiencies by contained in the new below sea level hospital in Hobart or will the design be as dumb as the Tamar valley pulpmill proposal for a dirty mill polluting Bass Strait

Dams damned to be empty

Tasmanian dam levels are rising [22.3% on the 25th] back to 77.7% empty. October is usually the high point the decline in storage levels flowing through to autumn lows, although this year it was mid-winter as a cash strapped Hydro sought to offset the costs of dirty, dirty brown coal.

The storage data since 2002 is on the web. Have a look and see the low and high points of the storage decline gracefully over the last 6 years.

The climate models, although not so finely scaled to allow for great accuracy, predict a decline in rainfall in Tasmania and like the models of ice melt the on ground performance appears to be running decades ahead of the models.

Sell the dams now. Build thermal solar power stations, convert to trigeneration, ensure new houses supply power to the grid, fund retrofits for existing housing stock.

Continuing to depend on energy systems that are exhibiting failure without using the opportunity they offer to build a system that would allow them to refill and ensure supply whilst reducing emissions beyond the levels of fossil fuel burning is a failure to comprehend the urgency of reducing carbon pollution.

Change the ground rules Premier, you could see it was necessary for the perception of governance and corruption, why not for the climate and ensuring energy supply as well.

Brown Coal, so dirty Victoria needs special compensation for burning it

Victoria is seeking compensation for relocating its coastal towns as sea level rises whilst building a brown coal fired power station complete with a unit to make the brown coal as dirty as the black, ie a reduction of 33% on brown coals current emissions.

What about all the existing stations, where is the requirement to dry their coal.

Alcoa at Portland are bright enough to see the need to reduce carbon emissions, if only to avoid the costs of emissions trading, having reduced emissions by 25% on 1990 levels 5 years ago, well ahead of their 2010 target. I bet they made money on it too.

Nearby will be a major new gas fired power plant at Orford. If this supplies power to Portland Aluminium its carbon emissions will drop further.

Victoria cannot be taken seriously on climate policy whilst it continues to use dirty, dirty coal as fuel for power plants yet fails to maximize energy efficiency in this interim period of start up in converting to a low emissions economy.

The slow death of the Murray Darling system

In the Murray Darling system the delays, dithering and pandering to special interests since at least 1996 are seeing the Coorong lakes critically threatened and now, as a result of the drought, the wetlands of the headwaters of the Darling and parts of the Murray are acidifying. [The Australian 30AUG2008]

Earlier this year the same newspaper exposed the toxic conditions at Bottle Bend in NSW, where pH levels equivalent to car battery sulphuric acid have been recorded. You know, eats through cloth. Now all states in the MDB system are facing wetland acidification.

All governments are to blame, the frank and fearless having failed in their duty the permanent government should apologize to the people for its failure and each old party seek forgiveness from the electorate, South Australia excepted.

The farm and water buybacks will see some water enter the system, but it appears biblical scale intervention or a big stack of cash to save some refuges throughout the system in the hope that intervention comes along one year.

Even with schemes to preserve refuges such as the one put forward by Dr David Payton rainfall will continue to be erratic. The MDB and much of Australia will suffer degradation under an human induced climate instability. It is much better to limit it if we can.

The key is action to seriously reduce Carbon pollution in the short term. It’s the best chance we have of creating a normality where climate stability returns and the drier parts of settled Australia have some chance of avoiding desertification.

Ralph’s Bay and new RHH and the tidal power of Venice

Here we have a Kanute like faith in the level of the sea. The ice melt in the Arctic was at its second greatest extent, probably since the Holocene. The Inuit, have no legends in their oral history that reference the melt at the North Pole.

There is nothing to stop the ice continuing to melt except a return to lower temperatures and this will take a very long time because the greenhouse gases already released will still be reaching their heating potential 3 to 4 decades from now

And what of the place that supposedly has a strong relationship with Antarctic research. To match the below sea level hosipital a below sea level canal development for below sea level housing. Haven’t they noticed the results from the research the City of Hobart wishes to be seen as a service centre for.

One should send a delegation from the Hobart City Council to Venice during a king tide. These events are submerging more and more of this city more often.

San Marco’s square, a tourist icon [the Doge’s Palace], has boardwalks sited for regular placement so the tourists can avoid wading in the water of the most polluted part of the Mediterranean, the Adriatic.

The taxpayers of tomorrow will be called on to save the houses of the fools who buy in this canal development, the corporation promoting it smart enough to walk before sea level becomes a legal matter between the owners and it.

Government Doesn’t Get It

The climate is becoming unstable, the warnings from the natural systems are clear. When combined with the science it is undeniable.

Change to our habits of over consumption, of energy prolificacy and abuse of natural systems are absolutes.

If there is a future, those countries that lead the changes necessary will have upfront costs which, if they can convince other countries to act, may be followed by a basic reward, survival.

Whilst government is responsible for the protection of the national interest it has a higher duty and that is the protection of the lives of its people.

The immutable laws of chemistry and physics are passing sentences on our behavior each and every moment we continue with Carbon pollution.

Already we have to suffer the loss of farm production [$70Bpa], the failure of natural systems [unquantifiable], the threats to coastal settlements, the failure of the Hydro system [$100mpa plus the cost of the new gas power plant] among other costs such as the additional cooling costs addressing a 1dC rise in average temperature

Business has lost it

By going into a special pleading model without taking a global position that the second level countries in the next Kyoto round include the Trade Exposed Emissions Intensive industries in their emissions trading scheme, thus removing the relocation scaremongering from the debate, these industries show an interest in one thing and it isn’t the climate outcome.

Playing national governments off against one another and then moving to wherever the best deal was won isn’t beyond these supposed Australian industries, there location driven by the bottom line rather than some sense of nation

For those at the leading edge technologically there may even be returns to shareholders to show on the balance sheet but for old industries it is better to manage the conversion rather than become a danger to society and like all such dangers be closed.

2009 will be a critical year for Australia as a game between aspirations and expectations of the polity who supported Rudd are played off against the confusion and insecurity of the middle by the shortsighted and venal.

We have seen that approach taken in NSW by the Liberals desperate for the Treasury benches. Federally they remain powerful through the Senate making the depth of changes necessary more difficult as they try to use the special sectoral interests to return to government.

Phill Parsons

[1] Green Carbon:The role of natural forests in carbon storage, 2008, Australian National University E Press, Brendan G. Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra L. Berry and David B. Lindenmayer. See:
http://cos.anu.edu.au/News/2008/GreenCarbonBook_d3.pdf