The canary in the coal mine is long dead
The end of coal is coming and the Australian Government needs to accept this fact. Before the UN Paris climate agreement and particularly after, coal prices and demand have been sliding significantly. Whilst the election of Trump in the US, and a brief uptick in coal prices has breathed a few moments of life back, the industry is still only headed in one direction, and it’s not up.
Yet here in Australia our federal government seems wilfully blind to this demise, unable to see past pigheaded ideology and beyond the dirty fossil fuel money that pours into their coffers.
Last month, the companies running Hazelwood, the dirtiest power station in the world, announced that the plant will close in 2017. That our politicians knew for decades the damage Hazelwood’s pollution was causing to the climate and communities nearby, yet came up with no transition plan for the hundreds of workers is unconscionable.
The winds of change are upon us, renewable energy prices are falling dramatically and innovation opportunities are abound, yet our government is sleepwalking into the new energy future.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Just yesterday, a Senate Inquiry into coal closure released a report outlining the steps needed to close down our polluting coal-fired power stations in an orderly manner. This is the first time an Australian parliamentary body has called for the closure of coal-fired power and a plan to transition to renewable energy.
The report called for a national approach that would see our polluting power stations closed in a way that is in line with the climate change science, but that gives communities the time they need to plan for a post-coal future.
A national transition plan that recognises the challenges Australia faces as we transition to clean energy with government support is not a radical proposal. We’ve seen countries around the world successfully begin the transition to renewables while minimising the cost to energy users and the impacts on communities impacted. Sadly, here in Australia, what is radical are the members in the Coalition continuing to peddle the myth that ‘coal is good for humanity’ and pretending that we can continue digging up and burning fossil fuels.
These far-right government elements are not just polluting the national debate on climate change. They are preventing companies that want to shift away from fossil fuels from doing so. In their submission to the Inquiry, Australia’s biggest climate polluter, AGL, pleaded with the government to provide policy signals that would allow for a transition away from coal:
“The transition to a decarbonised and modernised generation sector requires large scale investment, recent AGL analysis estimates this at $23 billion in renewables alone to achieve an emission reduction consistent with a 27% reduction in [greenhouse gas] emissions by 2030.
Such investment will be supported by policy that provides macro level certainty as to the timeframe and operating life of incumbent plant.”
The problem is that from a political sense, climate change is not often at the forefront of people’s minds when they vote. But climate change impacts here and around the world are now becoming startlingly clear. A new study out today shows that huge swathes of the Great Barrier Reef have died and will never recover from the most recent bleaching event. This is a Reef that has existed for half a million years and that could be dead within our lifetime because we can’t show the leadership needed to stop digging up and burning fossil fuels.
Our Reef is the canary in the coal mine, and it is telling us that climate change is reaching a critical point.
Yet still our federal and (some) state leaders a pushing to open up new coal mines — like the Adani mine in QLD that would be the largest coal mine in the world. If this mine is developed it will mean the end of the Great Barrier Reef. It will also mean the end of a safe climate future for the planet.
In the NSW’s Hunter Valley the state government has stripped communities such as Maules Creek, Bulga and Breeza of their rights to legally appeal new coal mines that are poisoning their health and destroying the planet. The small village of Wollar today opted to boycott the public hearing, feeling that no matter what evidence they present and how many community members speak against it, the NSW government has already made up its mind to approve the Wilpinjong coal mine that threatens their village.
Future generations will look back at the Turnbull and Abbott Governments in disgust. How could they know the science but chose to play dangerous political games with our climate to try appeal to fringe community elements and sell the lie of more jobs and economic growth in a dying industry?
But right now we can’t afford to let them abdicate leadership on an issue of such importance. We need to hold our rogue leaders — both political and business — who refuse to accept what we need to do to tackle climate change to account. We have to show them there is a different path.
Canada recently pledged to phase out coal by 2030. Finland has made a similar pledge. And a number of other countries around the world are taking similar meaningful steps. Even closer to home, South Australia is set to see 95% of its power come from renewable sources by 2025. This is remarkable.
Despite the Turnbull government’s rhetoric that the switch to renewable energy is dangerous, expensive and risky, the truth is, it’s inevitable. What’s lacking in Australia is leadership to help us navigate — as so many other countries are doing right now — how best to move from fossil fuel power toward clean energy.
It’s time that we and the communities that care about climate change step up and demand the leadership we need at every opportunity — every election, every Town Hall meeting, every media Q&A. Political parties are driven by electoral incentives, and only by demonstrating that Australians are fed up can we turn the winds of change into an unignorable howling gale.
