Jonathan's Climate Change Blog

At its annual conference on Saturday, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW passed unanimously the following motions which I had moved on behalf of the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre (an NCC member group):

That the NCC take action on Climate Change by:

1. acknowledging that the climate crisis has reached the level of a state of emergency; and
2. directing its climate campaign to the goal of restoring a safe climate by publicly advocating emergency action to
   a. reduce greenhouse gas emissions to near zero as fast as humanly possible, and
   b. actively draw down atmospheric carbon to cool the planet.

This conference calls on the NCC to:

1. support Al Gore's challenge for the USA to reach 100% carbon free electricity within 10 years;
2. work with other Conservation Councils across the country to build a national campaign with similar "100% in 10 years" demands for Australia; and
3. advocate for this goal to be the "ask" for future Walk Against Warming events.

The NCC also adopted a new climate change policy (updating its1992 policy) with this as its first principle:

The world is facing a climate emergency and must respond with genuine emergency action to restore a safe climate for all generations and all species.

Jonathan Doig
Sutherland Climate Action Network
Sutherland Shire Environment Centre

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears,
It's a world of hopes and a world of fears;
There's so much that we share, that it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all.

When I was a child I was filled with hopes of a bright future for our world: a clean, green, just and peaceful world. I think such hopes are a fundamental part of the so-called innocence of childhood, which many people insist is a fundamental right to be preserved.

Since I reached adulthood however, I feel trends across the world have been relentlessly in the opposite direction.

Now global warming presents a nightmare scenario of the future, and it's easy to feel despair that this nightmare may already be inevitable. But paradoxically the urgent and undeniable need to avoid this future may provide the impetus to achieve the future of our childhood dreams, which hoping and well-wishing, and the actions that sprang from these feelings, could not achieve alone.

Responding to global warming will require us to phase out dirty, dangerous, polluting technologies like coal-fired power plants and internal combustion engines, in favour of wind and solar energy farms and electric vehicles. It will also require us to cut waste dramatically and in some cases return to simpler and more appropriate technologies and simple clean pleasures, like riding bikes and walking.

And because our atmosphere encircles the whole world without boundaries, all countries must cooperate to make these changes. It seems the only way to secure the cooperation of poorer countries in combating global warming will be to address the poverty gap and equalise wealth across all countries as part of the process, because it was generating the wealth of rich countries to date that created the problem of greenhouse gases.

These goals are all huge steps forward in themselves. Each one would be a leap towards the future of my—and I suspect everyone's—childhood dreams.

At last week's meeting someone observed that we really need a major advertising blitz to wake people up to the scale and urgency of the threat posed by climate change. Something along the lines of the Grim Reaper AIDS campaign.

Here's a rough draft—or a mockup or idea—for an advertisement advocating the target of zero emissions now.

I've no idea if this will go anywhere. I just felt I had to express myself, having read George Monbiot's latest post Giving up on 2 degrees today and seen the same terrible misinformation reflected in the terms of reference for the ALP's climate change enquiry:

The weight of scientific opinion that developed countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050 against 2000 emission levels, if global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are to be stabilised to between 450 and 550ppm by mid century.

The problem with this ALP target is that stabilising CO2e at 550ppm or even 450ppm would very likely tip the planet over 2 degrees of warming into dangerous climate change. See for example Part III of the Stern report (box 8.1 on page 195).

I'm really scared about the direction the world's politicians, and especially both major Australian parties, are heading on climate change. The science says the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere (about 430 ppm CO2e) may be enough to tip the planet over the 2ºC warming that will lead to catastrophe.

Any target that keeps adding more emissions until beyond 2050 will very likely take us beyond this tipping point. I fear that even The Greens have got it wrong with their recent upgrade to 30% below 1990 GHG levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050. Beyond Zero Emmissions, George Monbiot and even the Stern report (see Box 8.1 on page 195 in Part III) back this up.

This is a global emergency. We should be on a war footing to fight climate change. Our target should be zero emissions now. "Now" may translate to 2020, but we should keep saying "now" because we need to start today and go all-out.

I have summarised this in my article for the Sutherland Shire Environment Centre newsletter. Please tell me it ain't so!