Bill McKibben of 350.org has been leading a campaign for divestment from the coal industry, firstly in the United States, a recalcitrant country as far as global action to reduce emissions is concerned, and recently in Australia where the government makes positive noises but allows the coal industry to expand for the export market.
Carbon Tracker and the economist Nicholas Stern have identified stranded assets of $27Bn invested in five times the amount of coal that if burnt would drive the climate so far past the safe point that a complete collapse of the organized human activity is on the card with positive feedbacks driving runaway climate change. It has happened before.
Such an event would affect the more than 7Bn people depend on the underpinning ecosystems that are determined by the climate. Those underpinning ecosystems will not be able to adapt rapidly enough to the changing circumstances..
Forbes, the business magazine, has flagged the need to divest as a prudent means of managing risk and as part of an investment managers fiduciary duty. And this is not just in simplistic terms of Return on Investment. The inherent risks involved in changes to the climate with extreme and intense storms, floods and heat waves; to sea level inundating coastal infrastructure such as ports, low lying states such as the Maldives, the Nile Delta and Bangladesh.
Then there is the collapse of fisheries, with the investment in fishing fleets, canneries, fish farms becoming valueless as oceans acidify and fisheries food chains collapse. On top of this the protein provided by fish will no longer be available.
Forbes are recommending serious risk management, not the window dressing we see here and in North America.
The philosopher Peter Singer puts the continuation of business as usual for the coal industry in context by defining it as immoral to destroy living systems and peoples future. “To develop new coal projects is unethical, and to invest in them is to be complicit in this unethical behaviour”
This is in contrast with the thought bubbles of the deeply conservative Liberal politician Abbott defining the Carbon emissions trading system as “the non delivery of an invisible substance to no one”
Abbott is like many politicians, a limited understanding of science and a limited ability to see beyond each election partly driven by a failure to understand science.
Some businesses have based their operations on renewable energy, but others less committed have varying levels of commitment to pricing Carbon emissions. Those who appear to understand the issues better are larger businesses, who seem to admit that the climate is changing, that the issue will need to be addressed and that will come at a cost.
However, there is one industry in Australia, the fossil fuel industry, which is in denial believing it is more important for them to have a bucket of money than all of us having a liveable climate.
The exact point may not be agreed by all, but many climate scientists know when you reach 400ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere sea level rises multiple metres. About 2040, given the current rate of CO2 emissions, the ‘safe’ point for the climate, recognized by the politically constrained Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, of 450ppmv will be passed. That’s an increase of 2dC.
3 million years ago atmospheric Carbon was around 450ppmv and sea level 24m above today’s mean sea level. Time may have to elapse, but as permafrost melts in the boreal zone, which it is as you read this, CO2 and methane are released. Both these are warming gases and they will force a positive feedback system making it not just difficult, but probably impossible, to stop continued heating even if we then reduce CO2 emissions.
The science can be denied but the measurable physical and chemical changes occurring in the atmosphere and ocean will not react to 3 word slogans or clever quips, the wishes of the investors in fossil fuel corporations or the desires of the ignorant for everything to remain the way it was.
Abbott’s Direct Action Plan will reverse the few gains made in addressing the climate emergency we are staring in the face. This so called Plan has at its core dismantling effective measures to transition the energy sector and thus reduce CO2 emissions. The only good thing about it is the spin in calling Hunt the spokesperson on Climate Action, because that is what we need right now.
A 30 to 40 year drag time before the CO2 emitted converts into a hotter atmosphere should tell us that we are only just starting to feel the effects of the maximum CO2 that some in the science community now see as a maximum safe limit, 350ppm.
In the year 1973 CO2 was at ~329ppm rising to ~343 in 1983 and reaching ~349ppm in 1987. That means we are feeling the impacts of below 350ppm right now. The full impacts of a level of CO2 of 350ppm between 2017 and 2027.
At current emission levels by 2027 we will be at about 435ppm. So there is a lot more heating to come. Even if magically worldwide emissions of CO2 stopped today there is still a lot more heating to come.
That means more intense storms, bigger floods, and longer droughts, more uncomfortably hot days and nights, even if the changes in sea level are slower to eventuate than the effects impacts of a hotter atmosphere on the climate.
Whilst Tasmania may be somewhat protected due to its below 40dS and maritime climate, Australia will have greater demands on the Commonwealth for funds to address mitigation, adaptation and disaster relief because the effects of the hotter climate will occur among the larger number of voters there.
It is therefore rational to combine generating economic growth and investing in meeting the future needs in Tasmania. For example, an electric car fleet and rail offsets the loss of a bulk power user or its energy needs can be addressed by a solar power industry.
Instead we have a focus on more of the same or the idea subsidising long term unemployed will create sustainable jobs whilst the barrier of export costs from Tasmania remains.
The competing interests of the Tasmanian economy may make change difficult to achieve, but whilst it remains in the too hard basket the opportunities to change will pass, as larger economies attract investment, attract the intellects and go beyond the clean and green brand to become central image makers.
As this happens the old ideas and the old guard combined with the quick buck mentality are likely to see the advantages we can build on further sacrificed. The Tasmanian devil, the Tarkine stand as examples.
The last marsupial carnivore and an accessible southern cool temperate rainforest, the sort of unique local natural attractions of the type the science tells us Cairns will loose as the impact of temperature rises forces nature to change there more quickly than here.
The elephant in the room is being avoided by every political party except the Greens. Our choice is between voting for a party that will care about and help keep the elephant from filling the room entirely or finding the elephant has filled the room and there is little we can do to remedy that regardless of our political views.
Divestment has been flagged as an action you can demand of your investment managers, even if you feel solar is not right for you now but it is only concerted community action that can change the trajectory to a disaster that the old parties have us on now.
Choose wisely.
phill Parsons
PS: Another oddity arrived in Saturday’s Advocate when Sean Ford gave an approving nod to the Greens policies on business and jobs ranking with the Coalition policies.
Readers should seek out Bob Ellis’s exposé on this week the Nielsen and Galaxy Tuesday to Thursday Polls for an insight into Murdoch biasing of the media in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of the election.
On Insiders [10AUG13] it was put that the News Ltd Editors meeting was called before Allen was dispatched here by Murdoch. Call me paranoid but Murdoch is going to flag his every move. Oh, please.
Coll Allen is far from finished with his dirty tricks
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/politics/the-nielsen-and-galaxy-polls/
Pic*: Bill McKibben at the National Press Club
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