The Politics Of Drought

Big Issue Australia
Monday 12/3/2007 Page: 14

Jake Avila asks: who stands to gain from John Howard's fossil-fuelled approach to climate change?

Welcome to John Howard's sunburnt country: a land of black-roofed houses sucking in heat like sponges while millions of air-conditioners fight to cool them down. A land with vast reserves of planet-warming coal funnelled into the gaping maw of obsolete power stations and shipped off to fuel the world's addiction to dirty cheap energy. A land of ever-increasing drought where the ludicrous contention that climate is somehow divorced from rainfall is promoted as 'realism.' A land blessed with the most abundant renewable energy resources on earth shunned in favour of big energy corporations making billions out of greenhouse-polluting fuels.

It may appear naive, some might say fanatical, to blame this situation on one man elected by the people. But the Prime Minister's indifferent response to reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, confirming global warming is man-made and worsening, proves beyond all doubt just how shackled his government is to the dogma of economy before environment - as if the two could possibly be inimical.

Forget Howard's recent climate-change `conversion,' his diversionary and far-off promise of "clean, green" nuclear and carbon sequestration schemes, and his belated acceptance of a national carbon-trading system. For the last 10 years, the PM has systematically betrayed the real Australian national interest - our future on this planet - and he shows no sign of stopping.

It's a weighty charge, but consider the mountain of historical evidence. Months into its first term - amid growing global disquiet on climate change leading up to the 1997 Kyoto summit - his government abolished the Energy Research and Development Corporation (the major funding body for renewable energy research). Many of Australia's top climate scientists went overseas or left the field altogether. There was to be no holding back from Australia's reserves of cheap coal. As the then Environment Minister, Robert Hill, acknowledged in April 2000: "One of our competitive advantages is the cost of coal. We are very reluctant to sacrifice that."

What Senator Hill was prepared to sacrifice at Kyoto was Australia's reputation as a good global citizen. While the PM sowed discord at home (spreading the essential contradiction that the national interest lay in "protecting Australian jobs and industry while ensuring that Australia plays her part in the worldwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions"), Hill won an eleventh-hour concession for Australia to actually increase emissions by promising to decrease land clearing.

It was later revealed the `Australia clause' was granted out of fear that this country would jeopardise the entire Protocol. In hindsight, such a fear was justified. Over the next three years, the Howard Government opposed caps on carbon-dioxide sink credits (the Kyoto Protocol allows the use of CO2 reservoirs such as oceans and forests as a form of carbon offset) and pushed for ridiculous definitions to further widen loopholes. At one stage, Australia even tried to classify any plant over one metre tall as a tree. The shenanigans continued until 2002, when the Prime Minister refused to ratify the treaty on the grounds that it was flawed, unfair and would never work.

What Howard has consistently failed to acknowledge is that the Kyoto Protocol was never meant to be a final solution to climate change. It was conceived as a vital first step - putting the onus on developed countries to reduce emissions and develop new technologies so the developing world could avoid making the same mistakes for the good of everyone.

So much for common sense and humanity. In the wasted years since then, the developing world has embraced dirty cheap fuel just like the West did during the Industrial Revolution. Of course, we all share the one atmosphere: while the need for emission reductions grows all the more pressing, booming superpower China is constructing traditional coal-fired power plants at the rate of one a month.

By not ratifying Kyoto, the Howard Government and its big energy mates have effectively had their cake and gobbled it all up - using the Protocol to claim Australia's greenhouse targets are still being met while simultaneously disavowing responsibility for this course of action because other countries will not sign.

It's a well-known fact the Prime Minister keeps a finger on the pulse of public opinion. Early policy initiatives such as the Australian Greenhouse Office (AGO) were trotted out to ease public disquiet over Kyoto. Designed to encourage voluntary greenhouse gas emissions from the Government's industry mates, the AGO is a white elephant, relegated to a section of the Department of the Environment and Water Resources (formerly Department of Environment and Heritage). In the eight years since it was established, the AGO has under-spent its budget by $362 million and, in 2004, the Australian National Audit Office concluded that there was no evidence to suggest that the AGO was meeting targets to reduce emissions.

In the same vein, the 1997 Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRT) - committing electricity retailers to source 2% of their electricity from the renewable energy sector - has become a pathetic joke. As a result of rapid growth in demand, the proportion of electricity supplied by renewable generators has fallen and, in the absence of a change in the policy, is expected to fall further by 2020. Meanwhile, the Federal Government's oft-repeated claim that renewables can't provide `base load power' (ie, they can't meet steady year-round electricity demand) is patently false. Just ask Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has welcomed the Australian company Solar Heat and Power with open arms. This is the same company that has developed solar thermal technology that could power the nation.

The Government's latest PR stunt is the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (AP6) - a loose association of the world's worst greenhouse gas emitters. Its charter seems to be: `Bugger Kyoto, let's create our own rubber stamp.' US Senator John McCain has described the partnership as "nothing more than a nice little public-relations ploy...

It has almost no meaning. They aren't even committing money to the effort, much less enacting rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Sweep aside the smoke and mirrors and it is clear that Howard's dogmatic dismissal of climate science and the concerns of the Australian public has allowed the fossil-fuel industry to rampage unchecked.

In 2004, ABC TV's Four Corners programme revealed how the self-titled `Greenhouse Mafia' - a cabal of 12 companies including Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Origin Energy - not only briefed Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane, but actually helped write the Government's 2004 Energy White Paper, downplaying the effects of climate change and the potential of renewable energy. Four Corners also revealed that high-profile CSIRO climate director Dr Graeme Pearman had been muzzled and ultimately dismissed for publicly contradicting Howard Government policy.

Underlining the Federal Government's stance is the fact that it has spent far more on political advertising than climate change over its tenure, and that it has allocated just $500 million over 15 years to develop low greenhouse gas emission technology (while every year spending $790 million on aviation fuel concessions and $1 billion on fringe-benefit tax concessions for company cars).

Howard's mantra that he takes climate change "seriously" - almost as seriously as Australian coalmining jobs - has little to do with what he plans do about it. His entrenched intransigence on climate change is best summed up by Barry Naughten, a former economist at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Writing in New Matilda, Naughten offered this damning appraisal of the Howard Government's methods: "A combination of demonising the notion of a 'carbon tax'; vague gestures toward pricing carbon (and only if carbon capture and storage is proved viable); vague talk of how technology will save the day; pro-nuclear rhetoric ignoring risks and the fact it is only a minor part of greenhouse gas mitigation; and refusal to accept binding targets on emissions until developing economies (with much lower per-capita incomes and emission levels) do so too."

According to the recent, much-publicised Stern report (the British Government's 2006 findings on climate change), each tonne of CO2 emitted causes damage worth at least $110 per tonne. Australia exports 230 million tonnes of coal that produces almost 600 million tonnes of CO2, which damages the global economy by $65 billion. black coal is Australia's largest commodity export, worth $24.5 billion in 2005-06, which pales into insignificance when compared with its true cost.

According to Naughten, this is the real reason John Howard ignores the world's scientists and the will of the people. "Australia's policy under the Howard Government has been to attempt sabotage, not just of Kyoto, but of any international climate change treaty or protocol that `works' - to the extent that such an arrangement adopted globally would reduce the profits of Australia's export coal industry," Naughten says.

Clearly, Howard has put the fossil-fuel industry before all else.

Yet, as `Greenhouse Mafia' whistleblower Guy Pearse told Four Corners: "I can't understand why an industry that generates 2% of our employment has got the keys to the greenhouse policy car." It's a good point. But will it be enough to see Howard removed from office in the coming election? Last October, 60% of Coalition voters rated the Government's efforts on climate change as insufficient; we can only hope they now rate climate change more seriously than they did in 2004.


1996 Howard Government elected.

1997 The launch of Safeguarding Australia's Future package, Australian Greenhouse Office and Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets. Australia signs Kyoto Protocol in exchange for being allowed to boost greenhouse emissions.

1998 It's revealed that the Australian Cabinet secretly decided not to sign Kyoto unless the US did so.

2000 A Senate inquiry report estimates direct fossil-fuel subsidies to be $2 billion per year, but with an extra $4 billion in "tax incentives, start-up grants, preferential purchasing agreements for oil, and biased market structures."

2001 The US refuses to agree to binding greenhouse emission cuts by failing to ratify Kyoto Protocol.

2002 On World Environment Day, John Howard announces Australia will join the US in refusing to ratify Kyoto Protocol.

2004 A Freedom of Information request reveals the Howard Government offered Southern Pacific Petroleum $36 million in subsidies if the mining company sued Greenpeace for hindering a proposed Queensland oil venture.

Securing Australia's Energy Future White Paper is released, including a $500-million fund for low emissions (not renewable) technology. Four Corners reveals the `Greenhouse Mafia' - a cabal of fossil-fuel industry lobby groups - helped to write it.

Greenhouse emissions rise 25% between 1990 and 2004 (land-use changes excluded). Australia still has world's highest per-capita greenhouse emissions.

2005 The Kyoto Protocol ratified as Russia signs agreement.

2006 Australia, US, China, India, South Korea and Japan launch Asia-Pacific climate pact. The Howard Government is found to have spent $1.5 billion on advertising, but only $670 million on climate change programmes.

Britain's Stern report on climate change is released.

Howard tells his party not to be "mesmerised by one report." Lowy Institute poll finds 68% of Australians believe climate change is a "critical threat."

2007 Howard labels ALP "climate change fanatics." Within a week, it's revealed that Treasury has made no detailed assessment of the economic impact of climate change, believing there is no urgent need to do so.