According to their website…

“Starting in July 2009, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists fielded an eight-country team of reporters to uncover the special interests attempting to influence negotiations on a global climate change treaty. Relying on more than 200 interviews, lobbying and campaign contribution records in a half-dozen countries, and on-the-ground reporting from Beijing to Brussels, our team pieced together the story of a far-reaching, multinational backlash by fossil fuel industries and other heavy carbon emitters aimed at slowing progress on control of greenhouse gas emissions. Employing thousands of lobbyists, millions in political contributions, and widespread fear tactics, entrenched interests worldwide are thwarting the steps that scientists say are needed to stave off a looming environmental calamity, the investigation found.”

It is no surprise that this is going on. Guy Pearse, Clive Hamilton and others have been raising these issue for many years. But the more exposing of this kind of political influence the better, and it’ll be interesting to see what they have managed to pin down.

When I first became interested in the relationship between the big polluters and politicians, the first place I looked was at political donations.  Interestingly, most of the really big polluters (Xstrata, BHP etc) don’t need to make big political donations – they have influence and access by virtue of royalty payments and their sheer size. It tends to be the smaller fry that need to pay for influence – property developers and the like.  The NSW Greens do good work in this area through www.democracy4sale.org

Stay tuned for the story tomorrow – and check out the global climate change lobby.

Endangered marine life? Pah. Big explosions?! Now you’re talking!

It’s an unfortunate reality: science doesn’t sell; sex (and other big bangs) does.

But what’s the lesson in all this for the environmental community? Do greenies need to suck up their pride to find a sexy, sell-able angle to their causes for the greater good? Or with a bit more persistence, can journalists (and the public) be won over with “worthiness”?

UPDATE: Reader and journalist Anastasia Joyce has let me know about her new site Wotwaste, which attempts to do this in a really constructive way by finding interesting angles to the issue of waste and pollution with articles like “What’s waste got to do with organic chemistry and Queen Victoria’s mauve dress?” and “Is human hair really used in pizzas and bakeries?”

Perhaps there is a happy medium to be found between tabloid twists and uber-dry science spiels after all.

There is a lot at stake. Arguably it is the future of the planet. Some countries are literally fighting for their survival while other countries are fighting to defend the status quo. The divisions between the rich countries that have largely caused global warming, and the poorer countries who in many cases will be the most affected, could not be more stark. So far the talks have been proceeding slowly but as the deadline for an agreement draws nearer, the tensions are starting to show.

Yesterday (last night Australian time), the talks were brought to a halt by the African group of countries who are demanding that rich countries commit to higher targets. They named the elephant in the room.

A ‘trust building’ lunch between the Umbrella group (chaired by Australia) and African nations ended with African nations walking out saying we’re dying and you’re not doing enough. Africans told them specifically that people were dying by the minute, ambitious reduction is not negotiable because the survival of millions of people depends on it, and if they
weren’t here to talk about numbers then it wasn’t the right place to be.

It must have a been a great lunch. You can imagine the head of the US and Australian delegations chowing down on big fat juicy steaks, while everybody else sat around waiting for their food to arrive. And the airconditioner was probably stuck on hot, with people gradually sticking to those awful plastic chairs you find in conference centers. And then, just as the Australian delegate was cackling hysterically at a US joke about starving children, the African delegates decided that the future was actually important, and got up and walked out.

Well, maybe it wasn’t quite like that, but the outcome was the same. At the G77 press conference, the Africa group put it bluntly: “When asked why they are not willing to put the number s on the table…they say its politically and economically difficult ….for us it is a questions of life and death, people are dying in Africa because of the actions of people in the west.”

And then they lanced the boil that has been plaguing negotiations for months. “ We are not ready to give annex 1 countries a blank check through LULUCF rules and the flexible mechanisms before they give us their aggregate numbers and individual numbers”.

Rich countries have put weak (or no) targets on the table and have been focusing on fixing the rules of the new treaty so that they can have as many loopholes as possible to allow them to continue with business as usual. They won’t put forward targets until they know how they’ll be able to squirm out of them.

Australia is a classic. First Kevin Rudd put out a target that was so low (5-15%) that it was only just enough to stop us being kicked out in disgrace, and then when it became clear that our low ambition had dealt us out of any influence, increased it to a highly conditional 5-25%. This is still far below what a rich country like Australia should be committing to and what African countries and the science demands :– 40% or more by 2020.

Australia is doing as much as anyone (apart from a couple of rogue states) to undermine prospects for a strong global climate treaty through our low ambition and relentless push for loopholes. It is remarkable that Kevin Rudd has somehow managed to position himself as a leader on climate change in spite of the reality of our negotiating position. Its not hard to look good on climate when you are compared to the US or to the Federal Coalition, but climate change can’t just be about spin or about public relations. There is far too much at stake, and we are rapidly running out of time.

The UK’s Met Office has produced this interactive map showing just how dramatically Earth could change in our lifetime if urgent action isn’t taken to curb this grim forecast.

Nope, the all powerful cabal in this equation, according to Peter Walsh’s retiring presidential address to the Lavoisier Group and published in The Australian’s opinion pages, is the Greens.

Peter Walsh served as minister for resources and energy from 1983 to 1984 and finance minister from 1984 to 1990 in the Hawke government. His take on the CPRS?

The driving force behind this campaign to decarbonise Australia has been the Greens.

Don’t think there’d be any argument there. But Walsh continues:

Although they are small in terms of numbers they are extraordinarily influential.

Not influential enough to have the controlling vote in the Senate, mind you, but Walsh continues:

Their influence is derived from the support they have in the media – notably the ABC and the Fairfax media – but also because they are well off with secure jobs and they live in the best suburbs.

Malcolm Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth, which is probably the richest seat per capita in all of Australia, is a prime example of this wealth and influence.

Notwithstanding their personal prosperity the Greens seek to reduce the standard of living of other Australians (often in states far from Sydney and Melbourne, such as Western Australia) through measures that will reduce our productivity and progress.

Never mind that the Greens failed to secure the vote there in the last election (key words here: Turnbull’s seat). A mere trifle. There’s more to this conspiracy theory:

The extreme Left realised early on that a regime that controlled emissions of carbon dioxide would enable them to control in great detail the lives of every Australian.

…At the heart of this campaign is the creation of a powerful rent-receiving and rent-seeking alliance of banks and other financial institutions that will make billions from trading the emissions permits and that, once the emissions trading scheme is established, will be able to spend hundred of millions in ensuring, as best they can, that repeal is politically impossible.

…It is an extraordinary thing that the Left has become a willing accomplice in this racket.

The government is facing one of the greatest policy challenges in recent times, so how about some thoughtful, insightful and informed commentary from the national broadsheet instead of stuff straight from the grassy knoll?

Cue the Stonecutters tune …

What rhymes with Bob Brown?

They say that everyone who finally gets it about climate change has an “Oh, shit” moment–an instant when the full scientific implications become clear and they suddenly realize what a horrifically dangerous situation humanity has created for itself.

It’s especially alarming when people who, ahem, know their shit, speak about their own personal “Oh Shit” moment.

Take Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chair of an advisory council known by its German acronym, WBGU, and a physicist whose specialty is chaos theory.

Speaking in July at an invitation only conference in New Mexico, Schellnhuber divulged the findings of a study so new he had not yet briefed Chancellor Angela Merkel about it.

Schellnhuber and his WBGU colleagues’ study states that the United States must cut emissions 100 percent by 2020. Yep, that means quit carbon completely within ten years. Germany, Italy and other industrial nations must do the same by 2025 to 2030. China only has until 2035.

The world as a whole must be carbon-free by 2050.

This kind of timetable is lightyears from what the IPCC is proposing, and failing to get agreement on.

But even this “brutal” timeline of the WBGU study, Schellnhuber admitted, wouldn’t guarantee staying within the 2C target. It would merely give humanity a two-out-of-three chance of doing so–”worse odds than Russian roulette …But it is the best we can do.”

To have a three-out-of-four chance, countries would have to quit carbon even sooner.

“I myself was terrified when I saw these numbers,” Schellnhuber said. Hans’ suggestion to push past that rising “Oh Shit” feeling and avert paralysis? “War-time mobilisation.”

So, time to share: what’s produced your latest “Oh Shit” moment? Or have you, like many of the Australians polled in the latest Lowy Institute survey, managed to ignore the bad news and pushed climate change down the list of your concerns, to, oh, seventh — just behind job security, the economy, terrorism and the threat of nuclear weapons?

Oh, shit.

Is it about trading emissions permits? Is it about technology policy? Surely it’s not about arguing over who can support polluters more! Is it even about reducing emissions, then?

While you can mount arguments for all of these, fundamentally, in my opinion, the goal is none of these.

Fundamentally, the goal must be to make sure we can pass on a safe climate to our children, and our children’s children. If our legislative action doesn’t play a key role  in delivering that safe climate outcome, then it’s not really climate action.

With that in mind, the Greens have spent the last many months putting together a legislative package entitled the Safe Climate Bill which, taken together, would see Australia play its responsible role in delivering a safe climate.

I’m very conscious of not simply using Rooted as an outlet for spruiking the Greens and our initiatives, but given that the mainstream media gave our Safe Climate Bill, which we launched yesterday, diddly squat coverage, it needs every opportunity to get an airing through other media. We need to find some way of holding the Government to account for their climate failure, if the MSM won’t do it (and the Opposition clearly won’t). We need to show Australians that there is an alternative if they want serious, meaningful climate action.

You can read all about the bill at www.safeclimatebill.org.au or via the text links in the post, but in summary it is a collection of 12 linked bills based on the pillars of a safe climate target, renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean transport and protecting green carbon, supported by a real polluter pays emissions trading scheme.

The 12 bills are:

The Safe Climate (Emissions Trading Scheme) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Renewable Energy Electricity) Amendment Bill 2009 [Renewable Energy Target]

The Safe Climate (Renewable Electricity Feed-in Tariff) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Renewable Energy Infrastructure) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Energy Efficiency Access and Savings Initiative) Bill 2009 [The EASI household energy efficiency scheme]

The Safe Climate (Energy Efficiency in Non-Residential Buildings) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Energy Efficiency Opportunities) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Energy Efficiency Target) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Sustainable Transport Infrastructure) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Fringe Benefits and Fuel Credit Restrictions) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Native Forest Carbon and Biodiversity Protection) Bill 2009

The Safe Climate (Green Carbon) Bill 2009

You can download them from our website.

The Safe Climate Bill is intended, in its parts and its whole, to be an exposure draft and we strongly invite public comment and discussion. We’ll be developing it further over time and plan to campaign strongly around it as a counter to the Rudd Government’s claim that its CPRS is a reasonable response to the climate crisis. [By the way, did everyone hear Prof Garnaut refer to it last night as "has been one of the worst examples of policy-making we have seen on major issues in Australia"? Yet somehow he still reckons it's worth supporting.]

As I’ve written here recently, climate campaigning has been damn hard recently because it has had to be so negative, that being the only responsible way to react to policy failure that is the CPRS. We very much hope that the Safe Climate Bill can give us all a boost with something positive to rally around!

Please read the detailed briefings, download the bills and give us your feedback!

Don’t underestimate the sense of disillusionment and even anger among some young Australians, who don’t see this as an environmental issue but one of survival. The protests will become less peaceful, the actions more extreme and more disruptive, the longer politicians treat climate change as a playground for intra- and inter-party political games.

Keane pointed to actions to halt production at coal mines in the Illawarra (and we’ve already seen protests like this in Newcastle and the LaTrobe Valley in Victoria) as a sign that things are getting increasingly desperate. But for those of you who are really, truly, genuinely concerned about your future and you’re willing to back your concerns with direct action, there is an alternative available to you that should prove to be much more effective than just blockading a few trucks on the way to the coal mine.

You need to take this man out of the political picture.

Here’s a quote from Senator Steve Fielding today in response to the Greens’ proposed amendments to the government’s CPRS:

“I don’t know what planet the Greens are on, but by the look of their ‘Safe Climate Bill’ they look like they’re lost in space…

“If [Greens leader] Bob Brown and his hippy friends really believed in their cause, they’d ride their bikes to Parliament House instead of using the Commonwealth’s petrol-guzzling V8s.

“If we did what the Greens propose, Australia would no longer exist because there’d be no industries left to drive our economy.”

Another series of searingly insightful political statements from the man who once stood in the middle of a busy intersection in his jocks in order to drive home a point.

So kids, if you’re really serious about climate change, don’t tie yourselves to the nearest coal fired power station, tie this bloke to it instead.

For any chance of promoting meaningful dialogue, and subsequent action –  fast — on climate change in Canberra, this sausage has to be excluded from the conversation. Preferably before hell freezes over.

In terms of return on investment, it makes sense for them to spend a few million on an ad campaign if they stand to avoid paying up $8 – $14 billion in carbon costs (depending on who you believe) over the next decade.

A little bit of fear mongering goes a long way. Which is probably why various creative people have taken it upon themselves to give the ad a good makeover. I’ve seen two crackers so far.

One of them is from the Hungry Beast. The other is a youtube special. Both very funny.

Check em out.

The department of planning this week released documents outlining plans for a new coal or gas plant at Mt Piper (near the Blue Mountains) and Bayswater in the Hunter valley.

The option of either coal or gas is still open, however given the cost of gas, and likely future increases in gas prices, it is unlikely that large scale, baseload gas power stations will be built. And the CPRS isn’t going to make enough difference to tip the balance.

Al Gore has been encouraging people to engage in civil disobedience to stop new coal power stations being built. NASA’s James Hansen has supported this view. I reckon a lot of people in this country are feeling the same way too.

With an election in early 2011, the NSW Government might be biting off more than they bargained for.