Category Archives: The Mitigation Battle

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9 October 2017, The Conversation, After the storm: how political attacks on renewables elevates attention paid to climate change. This time last year, Australia was getting over a media storm about renewables, energy policy and climate change. The media storm was caused by a physical storm: a mid-latitude cyclone that hit South Australia on September 29 and set in train a series of events that is still playing itself out. The events include:

In one sense, the Finkel Review was a response to the government’s concerns about “energy security”. But it also managed to successfully respond to the way energy policy had become a political plaything, as exemplified by the attacks on South Australia. New research on the media coverage that framed the energy debate that has ensued over the past year reveals some interesting turning points in how Australia’s media report on climate change. Read More here

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4 October 2017, The Conversation, Why are we still pursuing the Adani Carmichael mine? Why, if Adani’s gigantic Carmichael coal project is so on-the-nose for the banks and so environmentally destructive, are the federal and Queensland governments so avid in their support of it? Once again the absurdity of building the world’s biggest new thermal coal mine was put in stark relief on Monday evening via an ABC Four Corners investigation, Digging into Adani. Where the ABC broke new ground was in exposing the sheer breadth of corruption by this Indian energy conglomerate. And its power too. The TV crew was detained and questioned in an Indian hotel for five hours by police. It has long been the subject of high controversy that the Australian government, via the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF)that is still contemplating a A$1 billion subsidy for Adani’s rail line, a proposal to freight the coal from the Galilee Basin to Adani’s port at Abbot Point on the Great Barrier Reef. But more alarming still, and Four Corners touched on this, is that the federal government is also considering using taxpayer money to finance the mine itself, not just the railway. No investors in sight As private banks have walked away from the project, the only way Carmichael can get finance is with the government providing guarantees to a private banking syndicate, effectively putting taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in project finance. The prospect is met with the same incredulity in India as it is here in Australia: Read More here

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4 October 2017, The Conversation, Australia’s $1 billion loan to Adani is ripe for a High Court challenge. Indian mining giant Adani’s proposal to build Australia’s largest coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has been the source of sharp national controversy, because of its potential economic, health,  evironmental and cultural risks. These concerns were amplified this week when India’s former environment minister Jairam Ramesh told the ABC’s Four Corners: My message to the Australian government would certainly be: please demonstrate that you have done more homework than has been the case so far. It’s a valid warning, considering that a Commonwealth investment board is considering loaning Adani A$1 billion in federal money to assist the development of mining infrastructure. The loan, expected to be announced any day now, will no doubt agitate further political controversy. It is also likely to pave the way for yet more court challenges against Adani’s proposal. Read More here

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3 October 2017, The Guardian, Voters back fracking bans despite pressure on states to drop them. Despite the Turnbull government’s insistence that state-based restrictions on unconventional gas extraction are putting Australia’s ­energy security at risk, twice as many voters support the bans as oppose them. A new poll, conducted by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute, has found 49% of Australians support a moratorium on fracking for gas in their own state, while just 24% oppose it. It also found 74% of Australians support an increased renewable energy target in their own state, demonstrating support for state-based renewable energy targets is largely unchanged since March 2016. The Australia Institute survey of 1,421 Australians took place between 17 and 26 September. It asked voters if they supported or opposed their state governments implementing a moratorium on fracking for gas and an increased renewable energy target. The poll ended last week just as the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, wrote to the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, and the Northern Territory chief minister, Michael Gunner, asking them to lift their “blanket moratoriums” on new gas production and warning they were putting Australia’s ­energy security and industries at risk. Read More here