Flannery for Environmental Sustainability & Fast-tracking CPRS

Panasonic is funding environmental research and public education with the appointment of the newly-created Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University, Professor Tim Flannery. The former Australian of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery told delegates at the Climate Adaptation Futures conference on Queensland’s Gold Coast that it is vital a carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) is introduced.

By Russell Varley on ABC News (30 June 2010):

Former Australian of the Year, Professor Tim Flannery, has told delegates at the Climate Adaptation Futures conference on Queensland’s Gold Coast that it is vital a carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS) is introduced.

Federal Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has called for scientists to help build a consensus for a price on carbon but Professor Flannery says the Government must also argue the case.

“The Government can’t have its policy formed in my view by a rump of an Opposition,” he said.

“I mean this is a Howard government policy for a start – it was supported by the Opposition for a long time and now the Liberal Party is in the hands of people who are on Mars as far as climate change goes.

“We shouldn’t let that put us off.”

Professor Flannery says the Greens helped defeat the CPRS legislation and do not seem to understand it would have delivered a 26 per cent reduction in admissions over a decade.

“So that’s a quarter, imagine cutting your own emissions by a quarter,” he said.

“It gives you a sense of how big that job is so it was an ambitious scheme.

“Sure the Government mishandled it – it probably gave away too much taxpayers’ money.

“But that shouldn’t blind us to the fact that that won’t affect at all the power of this scheme to reduce emissions.”

He says the Federal Government should campaign with the CPRS during the next election.

He says he doubts adaptation measures can work effectively without a CPRS.

“If we don’t get the CPRS in place there is a risk that adaptation will become just unmanageable,” he said.

“The changes will be so big we won’t be able to adapt.

“That’s really the bottom line – we need both but we definitely need that price on carbon sooner rather than later.”

Source: www.abc.net.au

By Ty Pendlebury on Cnet (25 June 2010):

Panasonic has announced today it will be funding environmental research and public education with the appointment of the newly-created Panasonic Chair in Environmental Sustainability at Macquarie University, Professor Tim Flannery.

Panasonic Australia has pledged AU$690,000 over three years to support the initiative, which is part of what the company calls the “Green Revolution”.

“There has never been a more pressing need for cutting-edge environmental research and education, and we are pleased to be able to lend our support to Macquarie University,” said Steve Rust, managing director of Panasonic Australia.

Professor Flannery will be tasked with presenting a whitepaper to Panasonic executives in Japan on emerging consumer attitudes towards environmental products later this year.

“For me, the advantage of working with a company like Panasonic is that their ambitions are in the right place and they’re trying to work towards ever-more-efficient goods,” Flannery said.

Flannery is a scientist, broadcaster and author who recently worked as the chairman of Copenhagen Climate Council aimed at reducing global greenhouse emissions.

Source: www.cnet.com.au

“Almost Inevitably” World Sea Level Rises on the Up and Up

The world’s peak climate-change scientific body will ”almost inevitably” make a large increase in its predictions of world sea-level rises due to global warming when it releases its next landmark report in, says the vice-chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dr Jean–Pascal van Ypersele.

Tom Arup for Sydney Morning Herald (30 June 2010):

The world’s peak climate-change scientific body will ”almost inevitably” make a large increase in its predictions of world sea-level rises due to global warming when it releases its next landmark report in four years, says the vice-chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In an interview with the Herald, Dr Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the IPCC’s vice-chairman, said recent satellite observations showed extensive melting in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

That will have to be considered in the next IPCC assessment report on climate-change science – regarded by governments and scientific organisations as the world’s pre-eminent scientific document on climate change – when it is released in 2014 and should lead to the increase in predictions of sea-level rises, he said.

Dr van Ypersele said the sea-level rises estimated in the panel’s last assessment report in 2007 were now known to be on the low side.

The fourth assessment report estimates sea-level rises of 18 to 59 centimetres on 1990 levels by the end of century.

Panel members, including Dr van Ypersele, met in Kuala Lumpur last week to discuss the consideration of the new Greenland and Antarctic data for the next report. Analysis of the reduction of the two major ice sheets will be a main focus of the next report.

”The reason there was a workshop in KL is that the IPCC knows very well this is an area that needs particular attention and where a lot of progress has been made,” Dr van Ypersele said.

”There are a lot of satellite data that was not available for the fourth assessment report that will be available for [report] five … which are starting to show, but are quite convincing I must say, that both the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet are losing net mass, not on the margins, but as an ice sheet [as a whole].”

Dr van Ypersele is visiting Australia for the world’s first climate-change adaptation conference, being held on the Gold Coast.

Source: www.theage.com.au

Lucky Last – Does the PM need a new consensus on climate change?

Julia Gillard ought to be wary of climate change. Climate change has certainly lost some of its urgency in the minds of the Australian public. However, the new Prime Minister should not diminish its importance. According to the Lowy poll, 86% of Australians still believe that climate change is an issue that needs addressing, more than half of those believe it is urgent. If that’s not consensus, I’m not sure what is. Sara Phillips on ABC Environment has her say. Read More

By Sara Phillips on ABC Environment (25 June 2010):

Julia Gillard ought to be wary of climate change. Not because it might wash away coastline or dry up our farms – although it might – but because it has claimed the scalps of three party leaders in Australian politics. If she does not treat the issue carefully, there is every evidence that hers could be next.

In 2008, Kevin Rudd was our newly elected Prime Minister. He was positively shining in the opinion polls. His opponent at that time was the earring-studded Brendan Nelson, whose performance in the same polls could best be described as woeful.

Rudd, at that time, wanted to get up and running with an emissions trading scheme by 2010. He had been elected partially because of his stance on climate change. John Howard also wanted an emissions trading scheme, but wanted to introduce it in 2011. Rudd, emphasising the importance of the issue, said that this wasn’t soon enough.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was just a twinkle in Penny Wong’s eye at that stage. Professor Garnaut was busy with his team working on the investigations into how such a scheme could work.

But when Nelson was attempting to demonstrate to the Australian people that he was every bit as charming, intelligent and electable as Mr Rudd, he stumbled on climate change.

Writing in The Australian, Nelson was the echo of Mr Howard when he said, “we will proceed cautiously and responsibly, and in a way that does not undermine our international competitiveness and economic prosperity for no net environmental benefit.”

It was not, apparently what Australians wanted to hear. With his popularity languishing at an all time low, it was a matter of time before Malcolm Turnbull, previously Environment Minister under Howard stalked and staked his man.

Turnbull was more magnanimous on climate change. He emphasised its importance and the need for a good emissions trading scheme. But by this stage, the CPRS was taking shape in all its much-maligned glory.

Even the architect of the CPRS, Ross Garnaut, looked at the compromise job the government had done on his blueprint and recoiled in repulsion.

Turnbull, backed by his party, refused to pass the thing.

When, at last, more concessions were made, more compromises added and more nips and tucks sutured in, Turnbull at last made ready to pass the CPRS.

And then Abbott jumped him.

Tony “climate change is crap” Abbott promised no emissions trading shenanigans and Rudd’s CPRS was left like an unwanted child on a doorstep.

The opinion polls charted Rudd’s demise from when he announced his “delay” of the unloved CPRS on April 27. Between April 18 and May 2, the Labor Party’s popularity dropped from 43 per cent to 35 per cent. Unloved it may have been, but it was Rudd’s only real measure to address the problem.

With a “growing sense of concern” about these horrible figures and the Tony Abbott scenario they represented, Gillard made her move.

However, thus far, Gillard appears not to have learned from the lessons of her predecessors. In her first speech as Prime Minister, Ms Gillard was assured and articulate. But on climate change she said was not clear about her direction. “It’s my intention to lead a government that does more to harness the wind and the sun and the new emerging technologies,” she said, but did not reveal any concrete details at this early stage.

When asked by Kerry O’Brien on The 7.30 Report last night to clarify her position in regards to climate change, she responded again with the commitment to make the most of Australia’s “great renewable resources of this land – solar and wind.” She seemed to suggest that the government would not be revisiting the emissions trading scheme before the next election.

“I also believe that if we are to have a price on carbon and do all the things necessary for our economy and our society to adjust we need a deep and lasting community consensus about that. We don’t have it now.

“That’s why I said today if elected as Prime Minister at the forthcoming election then I will take the time to reprosecute the case with the Australian community to develop that deep and lasting consensus”.

Climate change has certainly lost some of its urgency in the minds of the Australian public. However Gillard should not diminish its importance. According to the Lowy poll, 86 per cent of Australians still believe that climate change is an issue that needs addressing, more than half of those believe it is urgent. If that’s not consensus, I’m not sure what is.

Climate change is an issue that Gillard needs to be seen to be active and decisive on. She fumbles this one at her peril.

Source: www.abc.net.au/environment/