Re: Action on global warming

Dear Mr. Albanese,

Today, 19th September 2024, as I complete my eighth decade of life, I fear for my grandchildren, and their grandchildren. We are now too likely to bequeath them a world far less hospitable than the world you and I have been blessed with.

I am dismayed that your Government seems intent on making global warming worse, despite some actions that help us to transition away from burning fossil fuels. Your actions are inconsistent with the weight of scientific advice and with the wishes of the majority of voters. Do you understand that we are now at serious and imminent risk of tipping irreversibly into a hellish future?

At best your apparent lack of understanding seems to be a failure of your duty to be well informed and to protect the security of your citizens.

I wonder what scientific advice you are getting, or listening to? The vast majority of climate scientists are concerned that we are not doing nearly enough, fast enough, to avoid the worst of global warming. Many are alarmed by recent unprecedented gyrations of the atmosphere-ocean-climate system. They fear we are close to tipping into unstoppable global warming, or even that the system is already tipping. The consequences for our children and coming generations are likely to be dire – collapse of the global industrial system, difficulties feeding our population, plagues, pandemics and even a substantial drop in the human population. The recent Quarterly Essay by Joëlle Gergis is an accessible and authoritative account.

Given such potentially catastrophic consequences of human actions, it is mystifying that your Government continues to approve new fossil fuel extraction projects, continues subsidies of over $10 billion per year for fossil fuel burning in Australia, and even adds to those subsidies, for example for the Middle Arm gas project in the Northern Territory. (And let’s be clear, if the latter is powered by gas it is not ‘sustainable development’.)

This is despite a clear warning from the International Energy Agency that there must be no new extraction projects and subsidies should be terminated. Your claim, that you will maintain Australian exports of fossil fuels until the market signals that other countries cease to need them, is disingenuous, because ‘the market’ is tilted heavily in favour of fossil fuels: globally the subsidies are $2 trillion or more. Also the continuation of abundant supply only discourages serious efforts to transition, in effect supporting the addiction.

The planet does not care about your political manoeuvring, manipulations and (I’m sorry) excuses. It runs by the laws of physics: more greenhouse gas emissions, hotter Earth.

It is difficult not to conclude that you and your government have been captured by the international fossil fuel industry that keeps you in a bubble and feeds you nonsense: the nonsense that the world cannot do without fossil fuels and that the risks from global warming are not very large, nor very imminent.

If you think that is an unfair conclusion then you need to demonstrate otherwise to your citizens by abiding by the best scientific advice: stop the subsidies, stop approving new extraction projects, and make a much bigger effort to transition us to clean energy.

The latter task is more feasible than indicated by mainstream opinion (dominated as it is by the vested interests). With wind, solar and off-river pumped hydro storage we can move to 100% clean energy, faster and more cheaply than alternatives, and then go further and electrify everything. We need other big shifts too, for example in agriculture and forestry, but clean electrification would give us a little room to tackle the harder cases. And by the way, 2050 will be far too late.

So there is a path forward that allows some hope we might avoid the very worst of global warming. Will you seize the day? Or do we have to continue with the slower, messy process of prying the old parties out of power and replacing you with people who will represent us and serve our needs?

Sincerely,

Geoff Davies

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Dr. Geoff Davies is a scientist, commentator and author.  He is an internationally honoured geophysicist retired from the Australian National University and the author of A New Australia: Discarding Delusions and Organising for the Wellbeing of All (2023, https://betternaturebooks.net/my-books/regenoz/). He blogs at Thrival Economics https://thrivaleconomics.blog/.

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Notes (these are very brief: there is a great deal of information and help out there if you should choose to pay attention)

Highway to Hell, Joëlle Gergis, https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2024/06/highway-to-hell 

The Big Switch, Saul Griffith, https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/big-switch

Batteries of gravity and water, Andrew Blakers and others, https://theconversation.com/batteries-of-gravity-and-water-we-found-1-500-new-pumped-hydro-sites-next-to-existing-reservoirs-194330 

Wind, solar and pumped hydro are all we need, Geoff Davies, https://johnmenadue.com/the-cut-through-message-wind-solar-and-pumped-hydro-are-all-we-need-and-cheaper/

Climate Council report: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/inot-game-over-game-on-why-2024-inflection-point-for-climate-crisis/ . The news is alarming because the planet seems to be warming even faster than expected, and some indicators have moved well outside previous variations, essentially into unknown territory (e.g, polar sea ice extents, mean ocean and air temperatures, North Atlantic ocean temperature).