Climate Change: Climate change concern helped Labor at 2019 election but Coalition won on economy – survey

Paul Karp

7-9 minutos - Source: The Guardian

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The proportion of voters nominating global warming and the environment as their top issue is at an all-time high, helping Labor win votes at the May 2019 election despite its shock loss.
That is the conclusion of the Australian National University’s election survey, released on Monday, explaining the result was caused instead by an erosion of Labor’s working class base and the Coalition’s perceived advantage on the economy and taxation.
Nevertheless the Australian election study – which used a nationally representative sample of 2,179 voters – found that narrow majorities approved of Labor’s individual tax policy measures to limit franking credit rebates and negative gearing.
The survey found that Scott Morrison was the most popular political leader since Kevin Rudd in 2007 while Bill Shorten was the least popular leader of any major political party since 1990, although most voters decided their vote on policies, not leaders.
The study confirms a trend of declining satisfaction with Australia’s democracy – down 27 points since 2007 to 59% – with most voters (56%) believing government is run for “a few big interests” rather than for “all the people” (12%).
The study found that two-thirds of voters (66%) primarily decided their vote based on policy issues, compared with 19% who voted based on the parties as a whole, 8% on local candidates and 7% on the party leaders (7%).
The most important policy issues for voters were management of the economy (24%), health (22%), taxation (12%), the environment (11%) and global warming (10%). One in five respondents nominating environmental issues as their top concern is a record, up from fewer than 10% of voters in 2016.
Voters preferred the Coalition to handle the management of the economy, taxation, and immigration, while Labor was preferred on education, health, and the environment.
On the economy, 47% of voters preferred the Coalition, 21% chose Labor and 17% saw no difference between the major parties.
On the environment and global warming, 40% of voters preferred Labor, about 20% nominated the Coalition and 22% saw no difference.
Despite the Coalition’s perceived advantage on the economy and tax, some 57% of voters supported “[limiting] property investors claiming tax deductions ie negative gearing”. Some 54% of all voters supported “[limiting] shareholders receiving a cash rebate on dividends ie franking credits”.
Researcher Jill Shephard said that the economy was a “key concern for voters … [that] tipped the balance in favour of the Coalition”.
“The study shows a clear rise in support for minor parties among voters, while 21% cent of Australians don’t align with any party at all,” she said.
The study found that while 41% of working class people vote for Labor compared with 29% of middle class voters, there is nevertheless a long-term decline in Labor’s working class base. In 1987, some 60% of the working class voted for Labor, down to 48% in 2016.
The Coalition was much more popular among men (48% of who supported the Coalition) than among women (38%), a change from the 1990s, when men were slightly more likely to vote Labor than women were. The Greens won 15% support among women and just 9% among men.
The 2019 election represented the lowest Liberal party vote on record for those under 35 (23%) and the highest ever vote for the Greens (28%).
The study suggests Australia is overwhelmingly progressive on social issues, with 80% support for recognition of Indigenous Australians in the constitution and 73% in favour of abortion being readily attainable, compared with 23% who would limit access to “special circumstances”.
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However, support for Australia becoming a republic has reached its lowest level on record, 49%.
On the leaders’ popularity, Morrison earned a score of 5.1 on a 10-point scale, behind Rudd in 2007 (6.3), John Howard, Kim Beazley and even John Hewson in 1993 (5.2). Shorten rated 4.0, behind Tony Abbott, Paul Keating, and just ahead of Andrew Peacock in 1990 (3.9).
Morrison beat Shorten as a “strong leader” (63% to 37%) and all other leadership characteristics except “compassion”, which was tied 50-50. Nevertheless, the majority of voters (74%) disapproved of the Liberal leadership change from Malcolm Turnbull to Morrison.
Just one in four Australians believe that people in government can be trusted to do the right thing, while three quarters believe that people in government are looking after themselves. Trust in government has declined by nearly 20% since 2007.
The lead researcher, Ian McAllister, said the results are “a wakeup call”.
“With faith in democracy taking major hits all over the globe, winning back the people’s trust and satisfaction would appear to be one of the most pressing and urgent challenges facing our political leaders and institutions,” he said.
The Labor election review, released in November, found that it lost because of weak strategy, with a suite of spending initiatives but little overarching narrative, poor adaptability and an unpopular leader.
The Liberal election review found that Morrison navigated the government through a “narrow” path to victory but was aided by Labor’s “many missteps” and a strong contrast with Shorten and Labor’s policies.
The joint standing committee on electoral matters is currently conducting a review of the 2019 election. It has heard from civil society groups calling for spending caps on elections, the Coalition calling for a shorter pre-poll period and Labor, which wants social media giants subjected to more scrutiny for failing to take down false material.

Climate Change: The Massive Cost of Not Adapting to Climate Change

By Eric Roston

8-11 minutes - Source: Bloomberg

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Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg

Slowing the planetary march toward climate catastrophe—and the multitrillion-dollar investment required to do it—has become a central issue of global and national debate. But there’s the equally expensive matter of dealing with the here and now: From historic wildfires to unprecedented hurricanes, global warming has reshaped the lives of millions, with increasingly tragic consequences. 

While humans must pay to end the burning of fossil fuels, they must also pay to change how they live, invest and build in a climate-changed world. On Monday, an international commission of government and private-sector officials told countries and corporations that they have 15 months to jump-start reforms aimed at adapting to that changing environment. In 2020, the five-year anniversary of the Paris climate accord, signatories are scheduled to update their national commitments to the United Nations pact.
The Global Commission on Adaptation was formed to help ensure that social and economic systems are hardened to withstand the consequences of climate change. But it was also given the job of publicizing the financial and economic incentives in doing so, namely that there are trillions of dollars to be saved.
In a new report, the 34-member group, led by Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates, former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva, concluded that $1.8 trillion in investment by 2030 concentrated in five categories—weather warning systems, infrastructure, dry-land farming, mangrove protection and water management—would yield $7.1 trillion in benefits.
Chief among them are avoiding the costs of waiting too long.

Icebergs float along the eastern cost of Greenland near Kulusuk.
Photographer: Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

Since the 19th century, the world has warmed about one degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit). The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change set an aspirational upper bound to human-driven global heating of 2 degrees Celsius, with ambition toward limiting it to 1.5 degrees. Four years later, most experts predict global heating will exceed both thresholds.
“Every tenth of a degree rise in temperature matters as impacts scale quickly, even exponentially,” the authors write. “At higher temperature increases such as 3-4 degrees Celsius, it becomes almost certain that we will cross tipping points, or irreversible changes in ecosystems or climate patterns, which will limit our ability to adapt.”
The commission’s proposals address many categories of climate risk, and how different geographic regions will be individually affected. It calls for relatively low-budget improvements, such as early-warning systems for storms, to larger scale construction projects.
For example, disseminating reliable storm information just one day in advance can cut resulting damage by 30%, according to the report; an investment of $800 million might avoid up to $16 billion in annual costs.
Meanwhile, initiatives such as providing small farms with drought-resistant seeds have already increased yields in vulnerable nations like Zimbabwe. And in urban centers such as London, climate-friendly infrastructure has led to enormous economic growth. The primary job of London’s Thames Barrier is to protect 1.3 million people from flooding, the report noted. Without its construction, flood risk would have prevented investments that allowed Canary Wharf to flourish.
“Governments and businesses need to radically rethink how they make decisions,” Ban Ki-moon said at a press conference Monday. “We need a revolution in understanding, planning and financing that makes climate risk visible.”

Demonstrators hold signs during the U.S. Youth Climate Strike in New York on March 15.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg

Critical to the 15-month window between now and next year’s UN talks is what the report calls a “year of action.” It plans to set up pilot adaptation projects to demonstrate how “de-risking” infrastructure plans will both help avert losses and contribute to revenue generation, said Shemara Wikramanayake, a commission member and managing director and CEO of Australian financial services giant Macquarie Group.
“Investment is required in adaptation, given that climate change is on us,” Wikramanayake said. “What we’re keen to do is now use that awareness-building to move on to the next step, which is developing solutions to address the challenges.”
Ginning up projects and financing with official institutions is a crucial goal over the next year, she said, adding that “then we can catalyze greater private investment.”
The new report is meant to bring urgency to incorporating climate risk into virtually everything governments and companies do.
In the Paris accord, each country submitted “nationally determined contributions” stating the cuts they’re willing to make in greenhouse gas emissions, largely through carbon pricing and renewable energy. Much less famously, the pact also pushed nations to set policies governing how they will adapt to changing conditions as the planet continues to warm.
The adaptation commission, managed by the World Resources Institute and the Global Center on Adaptation, was created in 2018 to keep that issue on national agendas.
Readying the world for a new climate reality, however, is in some ways more challenging than slowing global warming itself. Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy anywhere in the world will help slow global warming. But the best way to adapt to its effects depends on where you live.
“There is no single metric, like a price on carbon for climate mitigation, that applies to all sectors and countries,” the authors write. “Many climate risks are local, so perils and prices will differ by location.”

People tend to vegetables as emission rises from cooling towers at a coal-fired power station in Tongling, China.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Heads of state, national agencies and private-sector leaders make up the 34 adaptation commissioners from 20 countries, including developed nations such as the U.K., Canada and Denmark, and developing nations including India, China and Uzbekistan. The U.S., which under President Donald Trump backed out of the Paris accord, isn’t represented.
“Bear in mind that we the developing states are the least responsible for the causes of climate change, but we are the very first victims of it,” said Simon Stiell, minister of climate resilience in Grenada, one of the commission’s convening nations.
On Monday, the commission called for a sweeping readjustment of the global economy.
“Financial resources for adaptation investments will have to come in a coordinated manner from across the entire financial system,” they write.
Productive examples already abound. Two Danish asset managers are working with local communities in 15 climate-sensitive countries in need of adaptation strategies, but with no access to financial services. In Fiji, a 10% tax on the wealthy as well as major luxury items raised almost $120 million for clean energy, disaster relief, reforestation, research and infrastructure in that Pacific island nation. In the U.S., Miami voters in November 2017 approved a $400 million “Miami Forever Bond” program that has already begun funding resilience projects.
Over the next 15 months, the commissioners will seek funding for “action tracks” they said are necessary to prepare people for a Climate Adaptation Summit in the Netherlands in October 2020 and the subsequent UN negotiations. Among the simplest proposals are also the most potent: “Make risk visible.” Once economic actors understand challenges more explicitly, “the public and private sectors can work together to more explicitly price risk in both economic and financial decision-making.”
That’s the hard part, said Andrew Steer, CEO and president of World Resources Institute. “Simply assessing risk doesn’t mean that you will solve the problem,” he said.

'The beginning of great change': Greta Thunberg hails school climate strikes

Jonathan Watts

10-12 minutes

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Greta Thunberg is hopeful the student climate strike on Friday can bring about positive change, as young people in more and more countries join the protest movement she started last summer as a lone campaigner outside the Swedish parliament.
The 16-year-old welcomed the huge mobilisation planned in the UK, which follows demonstrations by tens of thousands of school and university students in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Japan and more than a dozen other countries.
“I think it’s great that England is joining the school strike in a major way this week. There has been a number of real heroes on school strike, for instance in Scotland and Ireland, for some time now. Such as Holly Gillibrand and the ones in Cork with the epic sign saying ‘the emperor is naked’,” she told the Guardian.
With an even bigger global mobilisation planned for 15 March, she feels the momentum is now building.
“I think enough people have realised just how absurd the situation is. We are in the middle of the biggest crisis in human history and basically nothing is being done to prevent it. I think what we are seeing is the beginning of great changes and that is very hopeful,” she wrote.
Thunberg has risen rapidly in prominence and influence. In December, she spoke at the United Nations climate conference, berating world leaders for behaving like irresponsible children.
Last month, she had similarly harsh words for the global business elite at Davos. She said: “Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular, have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. And I think many of you here today belong to that group of people.”
The movement she started has morphed and grown around the world , and, at times, linked up with older groups, including Extinction Rebellion, 350.org and Greenpeace.
Next week she will take the train – having decided not to fly due to the high carbon emissions of aviation – to speak at an event alongside Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, in Brussels, and then on to Paris to join the school strikes now expanding in France.

Thousands of UK students strike over climate change – video

Veteran climate campaigners are astonished by what has been achieved in such a short time. “The movement that Greta launched is one of the most hopeful things in my 30 years of working on the climate question. It throws the generational challenge of global warming into its sharpest relief, and challenges adults to prove they are, actually, adults. So many thanks to all the young people who are stepping up,” said Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org.
Around the world, so many student strikes are now taking place or planned that it is becoming hard to keep up. On Twitter, a supporter who posts under the name The Dormouse That Roared, has compiled a Google map that pins all the reported or announced locations, stretching from Abuja and Bugoloobi to Sacramento and Medellín. “This is not perfect by any means. It’s an emergency after all,” the online campaigner told the Guardian.
The most recent version shows thick clusters of activity, particularly in the UK and northern Europe. “#climatestrike. The house is on fire. Just wow!” wrote @dormouseroared, who is also collecting the different terms for “climate strike” in different languages.
In reply, people on Twitter have written, “I’ve been dreaming of this”, “Power to the children”, “beautiful” and simply “hope”.
Australia was one of the first countries to mobilise. Last November, organisers estimate 15,000 students went on strike. Last Friday, students lobbied outside the offices of the opposition party. On 1 March, they will target the federal treasurer’s office. Two weeks later, they will join the global strike.
They are demanding immediate political action to stop the Adani coalmine in Queensland, and a switch from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy.
On Thursday, three student activists from Castlemaine in Australia – Callum Bridgefoot, 11; Harriet O’Shea Carre, 14 and Milou Albrechy,14 – spoke with the leader of the opposition in the federal parliament. “It’s a good sign that he is willing to meet,” they said. “The prime minister condemned the strike.”
The resources minister Matt Canavan was still more hostile, saying students would be better off learning about mining and science. “These are the type of things that excite young children and we should be great at it as a nation,” he told a local radio station. “The best thing you’ll learn about going to a protest is how to join the dole queue.”
In Belgium, there have been strikes by thousands of students for at least four consecutive weeks, with one now-famous placard – addressed to politicians and policymakers – reading: “I’ll do my homework when you do yours.”
More than 3,000 scientists have given their backing to the strikes. The Belgian government is clearly feeling the pressure. The environment minister was forced to resign after falsely claiming the country’s intelligence services held evidence that the striking children were being directed by unnamed powers. The allegation was quickly contradicted by intelligence chiefs.
Switzerland has seen some of the biggest actions. Local activists said 23,000 joined the strike on 18 January, followed by 65,000 on 2 February. They too are preparing for the global demonstration on 15 March. They want the government to immediately declare a climate state of emergency, implement policies to be zero-carbon by 2030 without geo-engineering, and if necessary move away from the current economic system.
Activists said they want to make clear that the problem is systematic rather than a matter of individual lifestyle choices. They have been criticised by right-wing politicians, but local governments have met student delegations to discuss short-term steps, such as a ban on any school trip that involves a flight. One regional authority has declared its support for the student movement. In an election year, state leaders have also expressed guarded support.
“For the moment, the government has reacted in a very paternalistic way. They say that it’s a good sign that the youth is demonstrating for its future but they don’t really do anything about it,” said Thomas Bruchez, a 20-year-old student at the University of Geneva. In two weeks, he said the organisers will prepare for the next nationwide strike, when they will consider how to involve workers and try to define more precise claims, such as free public transport financed by highly progressive taxes.
In Germany, activists told the Guardian there are mobilisations every week. Last Friday, there were 20,000 students striking in 50 cities. On 18 January, there were 30,000. And there will be another strike this Friday in at least 30 cities.
The global strike on 15 March is expected to be the biggest yet with mobilisations in 150 cities. “It is not acceptable that grown-ups are destroying the future right now,” said Jakob Blasel, a high-school student. “Our goal to stop coal power in Germany and fossil energy everywhere.” He said politicians have expressed admiration for their campaign, but this has not translated into action. “This is not acceptable. We won’t stop until they start acting.”
Until now 75% of the participants have been schoolchildren but increasing numbers of university students are joining. Luisa Neubauer, a 22-year-old, was among those invited to talk to senior cabinet officials. She told the German minister of economy that he was part of the problem because he was working for industry, rather than for people or the planet.
“What we need our politicians and our government to understand is that everything they do today comes at a price for future generations,” she said. “We are not doing this for fun, but because we don’t have a choice.”

But she too noted a new direction in the national discussion. “There is a debate now about climate and the environment, which is good. People for the first time in years are not talking about refugees but talking about the environment.”

Source: The Guardian

David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon I Climate Change

Damian Carrington

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The collapse of civilisation and the natural world is on the horizon, Sir David Attenborough has told the UN climate change summit in Poland.
The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality.
As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative, messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday. “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
“Do you not see what is going on around you?” asks one young man in a video message played as part of a montage to the delegates. “We are already seeing increased impacts of climate change in China,” says a young woman. Another woman, standing outside a building burned down by a wildfire, says: “This used to be my home.”
Attenborough said: “The world’s people have spoken. Time is running out. They want you, the decision-makers, to act now. Leaders of the world, you must lead. The continuation of civilisations and the natural world upon which we depend is in your hands.”
Attenborough urged everyone to use the UN’s new ActNow chatbot, designed to give people the power and knowledge to take personal action against climate change.
Recent studies show the 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years, and the top four in the past four years. Climate action must be increased fivefold to limit warming to the 1.5C scientists advise, according to the UN.
The COP24 summit was also addressed by António Guterres, the UN secretary general. “Climate change is running faster than we are and we must catch up sooner rather than later before it is too late,” he said. “For many, people, regions and even countries this is already a matter of life or death.”
Guterres said the two-week summit was the most important since Paris and that it must deliver firm funding commitments. “We have a collective responsibility to invest in averting global climate chaos,” he said.
He highlighted the opportunities of the green economy: “Climate action offers a compelling path to transform our world for the better. Governments and investors need to bet on the green economy, not the grey.”
Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, spoke at the opening ceremony, saying the use of “efficient” coal technology was not contradictory to taking climate action. Poland generates 80% of its electricity from coal but has cut its carbon emissions by 30% since 1988 through better energy efficiency.
Friends of the Earth International said the sponsorship of the summit by a Polish coal company “raises the middle finger to the climate”.
A major goal for the Polish government at the summit is to promote a “just transition” for workers in fossil fuel industries into other jobs. “Safeguarding and creating sustainable employment and decent work are crucial to ensure public support for long-term emission reductions,” says a declaration that may be adopted at the summit and is supported by the EU.
In the run-up to the summit, Donald Trump expressed denial about climate change, while there were attacks on the UN process from Brazil’s incoming administration under Jair Bolsonaro.
Ricardo Navarro, of Friends of the Earth in El Salvador, said: “We must build an alternative future based on a just energy transformation. We face the threat of rightwing populist and climate-denying leaders further undermining climate protection and racing to exploit fossil fuels. We must resist.”
Another goal of the summit is for nations to increase their pledges to cut carbon emissions; currently they are on target for a disastrous 3C of warming. The prime minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, who led the 2017 UN climate summit, said his country had raised its ambitions. He told the summit: “If we can do it, you can do it.”

Why climate change planning fails I Climate Change I The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com

By Aron Chang October 22 

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Benny Hobson, 69, sits in his recliner after losing the front wall of his house in Panama City, Florida, during Hurricane Michael. Oct. 11, 2018 (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Aron Chang is an urban designer and founding member of the Water Collaborative of Greater New Orleans. He also co-founded Ripple Effect to promote water literacy in schools. 

NEW ORLEANS — When Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle nearly two weeks ago, it was the latest reminder that many cities and communities near the ocean are unprepared for the effects of climate change. As communities from the Carolinas to Hawaii face the tough decision of how to rebuild and invest in climate adaptation measures, the experience of New Orleans offers two critical lessons for the rest of the country.

The first is that communities starting to erect levees, flood gates and pump stations should do so only after consideration of the long-term consequences of such structures. In New Orleans, fossil fuel-dependent adaptations have created a false sense of security, heightened long-term risk and exacted significant ecological and economic costs. Over the past 120 years, the city has invested billions of dollars in creating pumping systems and perimeter levees intended to protect residents from water, but the sinking of large parts of the city below sea level is a direct consequence of those decisions.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a newly-invented pump allowed the city to move storm water rapidly out of the city whenever it rained and to drain and develop the swampland that surrounded the historic core of the city. In 1965, after Hurricane Betsy flooded large parts of New Orleans, the federal government responded by building a comprehensive ring of levees and flood walls to protect New Orleans’s residents from storm surge. Four decades later, those same levees and flood walls failed with the arrival of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since then, we have invested another $14.5 billion in strengthening that protective system. But is the city safer and more resilient than it was over a hundred years ago?

Probably not. Nearly 50 percent of New Orleans’s land now sits below sea level, and entire neighborhoods continue to sink as we pump storm water out of the city with each rain storm. All that piping and pumping costs over $50 million annually. And yet the city still often floods when it rains, even without a hurricane. Meanwhile, the city’s coastal fortifications, along with the rest of the Louisiana coast, are sinking as the sea level rises. Our well-intentioned engineering solutions often do work within the framework set forth by their designers. But as we now know in New Orleans, each narrow-purposed solution — stopping storm surges and removing storm water — has caused harm and increased long-term risk in the environments and the communities they are meant to protect.

The second lesson from New Orleans is that successfully implementing climate adaptation and resilience plans requires community buy-in. In Louisiana, for example, the Coastal Master Plan, the science and engineering-based document that guides coastal protection and restoration efforts, will cost $50 billion. But it has no long-term sources of funding. In greater New Orleans, the 2013 Urban Water Plan, for transforming existing infrastructure and urban landscapes to “live with water” (which I worked on as a design team lead), has a price tag of $6.2 billion. It also has no local sources of funding or defined implementation pathways.

These plans are far-reaching and require the buy-in of whole communities — citizens who support the plans and who will vote to tax themselves to fund their implementation, as well as public agencies that will radically reshape the environment. That kind of buy-in does not exist, despite the urgency of taking action.

The lack of buy-in is rooted in how we go about planning for resilience and climate adaptation. Community engagement is often secondary to planning, and professional planners, designers and engineers often do not reflect the demographics of the population at large. Neither do they share a common language with the wider community. Terms like “recurrence intervals” or “non-structural mitigation” stop conversations rather than sustain them. The solution isn’t to dismiss technical expertise, however, but to invest in environmental education and community-based planning.

Strengthening environmental education means incorporating environmental literacy and design into STEM and social sciences curriculums, as well as after-school and recreational programs. It means reconnecting citizens to the ecology, geography and environmental history of the places where they live. It means building a broad base of environmental literacy and stewardship so that the whole community can be meaningfully involved in climate adaptation.

For that to happen, the city must develop tools, processes and forums that support citizens in becoming the co-authors of climate adaptation plans. It must rebalance power by shifting professional consultants and planners to a supportive role. Technical experts and citizens alike should be at one table, engaging in fierce debate over the plans that will shape the future of their communities.

Where will the funding for all this come from? Today’s climate adaptation and resilience projects typically dedicate 2 to 5 percent of the budget to community engagement, nothing to environmental education, and the rest to consulting, administration and construction costs. The city should instead dedicate 40 to 50 percent toward environmental education and community-based planning processes.

We must spend more on empowering people, especially our youth, and less on the seawalls and pump stations that cost too much in the end to even implement. If we do that, we might be able to act with the urgency, speed and collective purpose that is necessary to protect our cities from climate change.

This was produced by The WorldPost, a partnership of the Berggruen Institute and The Washington Post.

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