Pearls and Irritations

Category: Climate

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Game changer.

    Malcolm Turnbull crows that his National Energy Guarantee is a game changer – and so it is, but that doesn’t mean much.  The energy game has been changing for well over the last decade, and in all likelihood will go on changing for the next ten years at least. The point, surely, is not to keep changing the game but to end it, delivering certainty, price stability, and above all political success. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee: can it work?

    The Commonwealth’s proposed National Energy Guarantee is vague and confusing, and is based on dated engineering and economic ideas. But it may allow an economically responsible government, if we elect one, to reshape it into a set of policies that honour our environmental responsibilities and modernise our energy sector. (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. The National Energy Guarantee – what do we make of it?

    After a progression of schemes, such as the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), The Carbon Pollution Tax (CPT), Direct Action, including the Renewable Energy Target (RET) as well as dabbling with the Emissions Intensity Scheme (EIS) and the Clean Energy Target (CET) we have now being presented by those proud parents, Malcolm Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg, with the latest addition to the energy policy family, the NEG, the National Energy Guarantee. Will it work and how; is it better or worse than its alternatives; and what are the key issues to address if it proceeds?   (more…)

  • JOHN QUIGGIN. Jobs bonanza? The Adani project is more like a railway to nowhere

    The dispute over the Adani Group’s proposed Carmichael mine and the associated port at Abbot Point has long been cast as a choice between jobs and the environment. Climate change is already well on the way to destroying the Great Barrier Reef, among many other things, and the development of the massive coal reserves of the Galilee Basin would make it almost impossible to stabilise the global climate. (more…)

  • KATE CHARLESWORTH and PETER SAINSBURY. The Devastating Health Costs of Coal.

    Amid all the debate about energy policy – about security, affordability, and carbon emissions –  there is one critical issue that has barely rated a mention: human health. Coal is hazardous to our health; renewables are not. In any discussion about energy, the human health costs of coal and the significant health benefits of switching to safe and healthy forms of energy must be considered as seriously as security, affordability and emissions.   (more…)

  • WE ARE ALSO READING AND LISTENING TO …

    Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading: (more…)

  • JULIAN CRIBB. Our Parliament: an unqualified failure for the future

    Australian politicians have next to no qualifications or skills when it comes to deciding the focal issues of our time. No wonder the decision making of recent years has been so poor. Julian Cribb argues that a continued political bias against science, technology and education risks placing Australia among the also-rans of the 21st Century. (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. Achieving Clean Energy

    The constant refrain from the Commonwealth of reliable, secure and affordable power appears to dismiss the other objective of clean energy. This is reinforced by the failure to endorse the Clean Energy Target recommendation of the Finkel report. However, clean energy is feasible, affordable and can be made secure and reliable and certainly is good for the environment and long-term health of people and the economy. (more…)

  • HYLDA ROLFE. A Sydney icon is under threat – the creeping commercialisation.

    In this blog on 20 September 2017 I (John Menadue) described how ‘the new squatters in our National Parks’ are being given commercial access to our ‘public commons’. In NSW and elsewhere National Parks are being deliberately under funded, resulting in park deterioration which will then be used as the pretext for sale or commercialisation.

    A former mayor of Woollahra and now Secretary of the Sydney Harbour Association, Hylda Rolfe, in a letter to the Minister for the Environment and Minister for Heritage, Gabrielle Upton, sets out the perils the South Head National Park faces and the unhelpful attitude of the NSW government.        (more…)

  • BOB DOUGLAS. How will we change the human story?

    What do we need to do to make it likely that our children and theirs will inherit a flourishing, rather than a collapsing human world? Our politicians must surely be starting to realise that large numbers of Australians are thoroughly fed up with the fact that the wellbeing of all (not just some) humans, and the health of the planet have become second order and neglected issues because of a widely shared ideology of endless, indiscriminate growth, unfettered markets, rampant individualism, small and impotent government and a key focus on competition. (more…)

  • IAN DUNLOP. The Coal and CSG Delusion

    Energy policy is the issue to trump them all.  We have already lost several Prime Ministers in its cause, and more will likely walk the plank before commonsense prevails.  But the last few weeks have set new standards for national stupidity . (more…)

  • OISÍN SWEENEY: Will the Coalition degazette the Murray Valley National Park and cement its anti- environment reputation?

    Up to now, Australian Governments of both sides have largely honoured national park declarations made by each other. However, it’s now official National Party policy to degazette the Murray Valley National Park which would be a low point in Australian conservation history. Given the success of The Nationals in dictating NSW environment policy in the last few years, and the degree to which the Coalition has regressed on environment protection, this is something we need to be worried about. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE The new squatters in our National Parks

     The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up as they were in the 19th Century to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately  underfunding National Parks commercial friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.  (more…)

  • JOHN BENSON. Biodiversity is threatened in New South Wales

    The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) was the first of its type in Australia. Established by a Liberal government, its lyrebird emblem became world-renowned. But the Service is not valued by the present Government and now faces grave uncertainty. (more…)

  • PETER FLINN. The brave new world of fire services in Victoria: is it go or woe?

    The Country Fire Authority (CFA)in Victoria has long been recognised as one of the world’s leading volunteer fire-fighting organisations, but its boundaries with Melbourne’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB),which  comprises career fire-fighters, have not changed since 1945. (more…)

  • BRIAN TOOHEY. PM walks with energy dinosaurs

    The person known as Malcolm Turnbull who took over as Prime Minister is gone. That’s the one who declared immediately after getting the job that Australians have a wonderfully exciting future provided they recognise “change is our friend, if we are agile and smart enough to take advantage of it”. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. An energy emergency after ten years!

    Malcolm Turnbull assures us that he is concentrating on energy and its three pillars – cost, security and environment. Well, at least the first two; it must be said that the environment has not had much of a look in during the last frenzied week.   (more…)

  • IAN DUNLOP. Hostage to myopic self-interest: climate science is watered down under political scrutiny

    Scientific reticence allows politicians to neglect the real dangers we face. But waiting for perfect information means it will be too late to act. (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. Australia’s electricity markets policy: The shambles continues.

    Over the last week we have been treated to the depressing spectacle of the Prime Minister and his government reacting in a knee jerk, wrong-headed manner to two sensible and useful reports that have been released by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).  This highlights the folly of not having a national plan for transitioning the National Electricity Market towards an increasingly renewable energy system. (more…)

  • BRUCE THOM. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, and their implications for Australia

     Massive losses in Texas, Florida and across the Caribbean in recent days reminds us again of the capacity of tropical cyclones to wreak havoc. (more…)

  • ALAN KOHLER. Coalition’s retreat back to coal-fired power stations and the loony fog

    In 2015 Australia’s businesses made the mistake of thinking the Coalition government was serious about tackling climate change, and solemnly lined up to support it….There won’t be any new coal power stations and the lives of existing ones won’d be extended unless the government bizarrely and unnecessarily pays for it. If that happened,it would bring about the final divorce of business and the Coalition and the final retreat by Malcolm Turnbull into the loony fog inhabited by Donald Trump and the coal dancers on the Coalition’s right. (more…)

  • GILES PARKINSON. AGL bought Liddell for nothing – what will it cost Turnbull?

    One of the late billionaire Kerry Packer’s famous quotes about business was that you only get one Alan Bond in your lifetime, a reference to his ability to sell the Nine Network to the late entrepreneur for a small fortune and then buy it back at a fraction of the price. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Abbott and Turnbull are the real culprits on the energy policy mess. (repost)

    This is a repost of an article that was originally posted on 14 June 2017. I have reposted this in light of current controversy on  extending the life of coal fired generators.

    In his journal, The Constant Investor, Alan Kohler sheeted blame very directly to the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull. He said

    Those crises have now arrived in the form of blackouts, and they are not caused by too much renewable energy… it’s due to a lack of investment, in turn due to a lack of policy certainty and clarity. This is entirely the Liberal Party’s fault — not just Malcolm Turnbull’s, although he is a rather pathetic figure now. If he didn’t go along with the hoax, he’d be sacked and another PM would. By taking the low road in 2009 instead of the high road, and deciding to mislead Australians about the true cost of energy, the Liberal Party condemned the country to a decade of confusion and stasis on energy policy. That reached a nadir of absurdity last week with the Treasurer’s coal stunt. The rest of Australia’s leaders, in particular the CEOs of our largest companies, should declare now that enough is enough, and pull these idiots into line.   (more…)

  • GILES PARKINSON. Turnbull’s abject capitulation to the coal lobby is now complete

    The kindest thing to say about prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s absurd proposal to extend the life of the country’s oldest coal generator is that he is playing politics. (more…)

  • GILES PARKINSON. AEMO says fossil fuel failures, renewable delays biggest threat to grid

    The Australian Energy Market Operator has cited climate change, and the potential for large fossil fuel generators to fail in the summer heat-wave as the biggest threat to Australia’s electricity supplies in the coming years.  (more…)

  • EMMA CARMODY. Murray, Darling, what’s all this 4 Corners fuss about?

    This article examines the contents of a recently aired 4 Corners episode, Pumped, which included allegations of water theft, corruption and regulatory capture in the Murray-Darling Basin. (more…)

  • GILES PARKINSON. Super cheap solar – and why that’s good for Australia’s mining sector

    Australia’s most pre-eminent solar researcher, Dr Martin Green, says the cost of solar PV technology will fall substantially in coming years, and while bad for the country’s thermal coal industry it will spell good news for other Australian mineral and materials exports.’ Any loss in thermal coal sales due to strong solar PV uptake will be offset 5 times over by increased demand for more valuable resources- coking coal,iron ore,alumina and copper’ (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. The shambles of Australia’s national electricity policy.

    Australia has rich energy resources, both fossil and renewable, and a well considered electricity market design, as evidenced by the National Electricity Market (NEM), so why is our electricity market policy overall in such a shambolic state?  Successive national governments have failed to address the core policy issues that are fundamental if the ‘trilemma’ of current challenges are to be resolved. (more…)

  • BOB DOUGLAS An algal industry ready to bloom

    A high level Roundtable held in Canberra in November 2017 concluded that  algal technology can help to  protect the Great Barrier Reef and create new jobs and growth  for regional areas. (more…)

  • DAVID KING AND PETER BROOKS. Coal is the new tobacco.

    Coal is the new tobacco in terms of the harms it has on our health.  No hospital would think of lending its logo to support the marketing of cigarettes or allowing any of its key decision makers to have strong links to cigarette companies.  Yet, such an extraordinary situation has arisen around the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. (more…)