A damning report on the state of the global climate released this week by the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change), tells us that the average global temperature is now 1.2 degrees higher and is set to rise to 1.5 degrees or higher by 2030. This would exceed the limit set in Paris in 2015 and agreed to by most of the world’s countries.
This seems to have concerned Scott Morrison so much that he went on national television today to assure us that, despite the dire predictions in this report, he was confident that we would be able to “fix it with technology”. He mentioned carbon geosequestration, electrification of transport and made a passing remark about “Snowy 2”, a pumped hydro scheme
that is years and years away, but there was no detail about the mysterious “technology” that is going to be the magic fix for our energy future.
He did not mention the items that would really make a difference such as removal of his “gas led recovery” that would drive already-high carbon pollution to extreme levels, or that his government would remove the subsidy from fossil fuels. He said that mines are making changes in the way they operate, but the only changes that I am aware of are that more and more coal is being mined for export, so that emissions that should be accredited to Australia are being accredited to China or India, or wherever it is that they are being burned.
I beg of you, Prime Minister, please take the predictions in this report seriously. If you act now, you can prepare and implement a plan to transition from coal to renewables. It is now imperative that you do so.
Trevor Scott
Castlemaine
