Grow a spine Berejikilans climate action is falling short

August 11, 2021 â€" 6.00am

For the past 18 months, we’ve been lectured ad nauseam by our political leaders to follow the scientific advice when it comes to dealing with COVID-19.

For some reason that wisdom doesn’t extend to climate change. As we were reminded yet again this week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, our planet is heating up, energising the weather in ways that make extremes like heatwaves and deluges more likely almost everywhere.

Cleaning up after the big floods in the Hawkesbury Region in March this year.Credit:Dean Sewell

NSW residents, who have lately endured severe drought, record urban temperatures, flash floods and, of course, the Black Summer bushfires, shouldn’t need much convincing that climate change is underway.

They might also accept the IPCC’s conclusion that curbing greenhouse gas emissions in a dramatic and lasting fashion is the only way to avoid worse calamities in the future.

But if we look to our political leaders, they find nothing like the necessary transformation of our economy is in train. Setting aside the paltry efforts by the Commonwealth government, including many policies that subsidise fossil fuel industries, the track record of the Berejiklian government is not yet that much better.

While NSW Energy and Environment Minister Matt Kean deserves credit for his determination to press for greater climate action even he admits the state’s policies still fall far short.

“We in NSW are leading the nation when it comes to decarbonisation,” Kean told ABC Radio Sydney on Tuesday. “We have to do a lot better and that’s exactly what we’re working to achieve.”

He has his work cut out, particularly if he gets only tepid support from like-minded colleagues who lack Kean’s willingness to promote carbon reduction as both inevitable but also an opportunity.

Take Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, who yet again failed to include any mention of climate in his annual budget speech to Parliament. Yes, the Treasurer signed off on a $500 million plan to promote electric vehicles and has provided support for the state’s renewable energy zones that promise to attract billions of dollars of investment to ensure solar and wind farms can fill the electricity gap when coal plants close.

But NSW is coming from a long way back. In 2020, NSW still trailed only Queensland among the states in terms of the proportion of electricity sources from clean energy. Its 21 per cent share, which takes in the giant Snowy Hydro scheme, compares with 27.7 per cent for Victoria, 59.7 per cent for South Australia and Tasmania’s 99.2 per cent.

Matt Kean, NSW’s Energy and Environment Minister, during a visit to the Sapphire Wind Farm near Uralla.

If we are really going to ditch fossil gas in our factories and homes, and electrify our transport, NSW’s renewables industry needs to expand massively and rapidly.

Two other actions reveal how far we are from a “whole-of-government response” to emissions.

This week in the NSW Land and Environment Court, Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action are taking on the state’s Environment Protection Authority to force the agency to start regulating greenhouse gases in what could be a landmark case for other jurisdictions in the country.

The Environmental Defenders Office, acting for the survivors group, is arguing the EPA’s legislated duty is to develop policies and guidelines to ensure the environment is protected.

“The agency has the power to issue licenses to control pollution, as well as putting caps and prices on substances which are harmful to the environment,” the EDO says. “The EPA is an agency with teeth, and it is in a unique position. There is no federal EPA, and no independent federal agency has the same powers.”

And it seems, the government is more than content to ensure there are more emissions to regulate by approving new coal mines and gas fields. That’s even though the International Energy Agency and others have stated that such projects are incompatible with keeping global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees.

Janet Walk, a spokeswoman for the Rylstone Region Coal-Free Community, is gearing up for a long battle to prevent new coal mines gouging thousands of hectares for land in her region near Mudgee.

Her region, near the coal release areas of Ganguddy-Kelgoola, Hawkins and Rumker, had endured six years of drought and the mega Gospers Mountain Fire that burnt so much of the nearby Wollemi wilderness area.

“It’s farmers who are on the front of the fight to defend against runaway climate change,” Walk, a horse stud operator, says.

“If little farmers with no power like us stand up, what’s so hard?” she adds. “These politicians have got to grow a spine.”

Peter Hannam writes on environment issues for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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