One of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal global response to the escalating climate crisis has been the preparedness of financial market regulators to force their regulated institutions to face up to the implications of climate risk. In so doing, they have been acutely aware of the lessons…
Category: Economics
The Net Zero Emission Illusion
As the need for serious action to prevent runaway global warming becomes critical, it is not surprising that efforts from the denialist lobby to prevent that action intensify, albeit in more subtle form than the blanket refusal of yesteryear to even accept that a climate problem existed. Around the world,…
Earth Day 2021: Australia falls further out of line with the world
It is entirely appropriate that President Biden launches his global climate summit on Earth Day 2021. Earth Day began in the US in 1970, triggered by massive pollution across the country, and the need to fundamentally change concepts of industrial development if society was to prosper, rapidly leading by the…
Net zero emissions by 2050: Leadership or climate colonialism ?
Floods – Funafati Tuvalu How fast does Australia need to reduce greenhouse emissions to play its fair part in responding to the global climate emergency?One answer jumps out: “Net-zero emissions by 2050”. Suddenly almost everybody is clambering aboard this train: State governments, big business, investors, mining companies such as BHP,…
In a 3-degree warmer world, Australia will be utterly transformed. The Prime Minister knows, but refuses to say so.
By David Spratt and Ian Dunlop The first duty of a government is to protect the people. There is no greater threat than climate disruption as the world heads to 3 degrees Celsius (3°C) or more warming, possibly by mid-century, yet the Prime Minister is unwilling to explain the implications….
Have we a government fit for purpose, or the greatest danger to our national security?
The current bushfires are unprecedented in terms of their extent, intensity, fire season length, economic and social impact. They are, without doubt, intensified by human-induced climate change. However, they are not unexpected; this is what the climate science has been telling us for years. Likewise with the drought. The fact…
Submission to the Western Australia EPA on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment Guidance
Contents: • Preamble • Climate Change: the global context • Climate Change Impact • Existential Risk Management • Political & Corporate Attitudes • Community Response • Legal Implications • Conclusions and recommendations on Greenhouse Gas Assessment Guidance Preamble Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to the Western…
A Parliament Without Trust or Legitimacy Must Go
The insults hurled by David Leyonhjelm at Sarah Hanson-Young recently put parliamentary discourse in the gutter. Leyonhjelm was roundly condemned, but not by our leaders. A limp rap across the knuckles from Turnbull and Shorten, then on to more pressing matters, hoping it will all go away. But not so…
Climate Change
Continue Reading
Climate Change: The Fiduciary Responsibility of Politicians & Bureaucrats in the Era of Existential Climate Risks
“Fiduciary: a person to whom power is entrusted for the benefit of another” “Power is reposed in members of Parliament by the public for exercise in the interests of the public and not primarily for the interests of members or the parties to which they belong. The cry ‘whatever it…
Climate & Energy – Appeasement Does Not Work
The current chaos around climate and energy policy brings to mind George Santayana’s caution that: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. That is exactly what we are witnessing, albeit with far more profound implications even than the advent of the Second World War. In November…