Daily Archives: February 7, 2015

Australia’s hottest year on record would not have happened without climate change, according to a new report. The country experienced its hottest day, month, season and calendar year in 2013, registering a mean temperature 1.2C above the 1961-90 average.

The Climate Council says recent studies show those heat events would have occurred only once every 12,300 years without greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.

‘In fact, we can say the 2013 record year was virtually impossible without climate change; it wouldn’t have happened,’ Will Steffen, the author of Quantifying the Strong Influence of Climate Change on Extreme Heat in Australia, told AAP.’I mean, no one would bet on odds of one in nearly 13,000.

‘Based on analyses of data and model outputs, the report says climate change triples the odds that heatwaves of the 2012-13 Australian summer will happen as frequently as they do.It also doubles the chances of them being as intense.

‘We’re looking at pretty hard numbers on the odds of those things happening without the underlying warming trend due to greenhouse gases,’ Mr Steffen said.’In my view, it’s extremely powerful, conclusive evidence that not only is there a link between climate change and extreme heat, climate change is the main driver of it.

‘Mr Steffen found record hot days have doubled in Australia the last 50 years, and that during the past decade heat weather records were set three times more often than cold ones.The report also claims heatwaves across Australia are becoming hotter, lasting longer, occurring more often and starting earlier.

Climate Council co-founder Tim Flannery said the research strengthened the case for immediate action on climate change.’Australians are already feeling the impact of climate change making Australia hotter,’ he said.’Carbon emissions must be reduced rapidly and deeply if the worst of extreme heat in the second half of the century is to be avoided.’

source:skynews.com.au

A Julie Bishop-Malcolm Turnbull team would enable a more constructive dialgoue over climate change. Photo: Glen McCurtayne

Back in 2013 not long after he was elected prime minister, Tony Abbott made the following remarks about his political opponents in an interview with The Washington Post.

The former Labor government was, he said, “a circus”.

“It was an embarrassing spectacle and I think Australians are relieved they are gone,” he told the Post in the first flush of his election as prime minister.

Fifteen months later, foreign diplomats in Canberra observing the shenanigans of recent weeks, including calls for a leadership spill, might be asking themselves whether they are observing another version of Circus Oz.

One three-ringed circus has given way to another, it might be said.

These diplomats, whose lives in the bush capital are comfortable but hardly exciting, can’t believe that at last they have something of interest to report back to their chancelleries.

If there is a consensus among those contacted it is that it would not be the end of the world if Australia’s friends and allies woke up next Wednesday morning to find there had been an in-house putsch.

We are not talking about tanks in the streets; at least, we hope not.

If the alternative to Abbott were a duumvirate of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop, or a combination thereof, this would be just fine as far as most diplomats are concerned, and if the status quo were maintained, that would be OK too.

Narrowing our focus to countries that really matter to Australia, including the United States, China, Japan, India, and Indonesia, and Britain, New Zealand and Canada (representing the “five eyes” who share intelligence in the case of our allies) disruption to relations would be minimal, and in some respects interaction would be better.

A Turnbull-Bishop or Bishop-Turnbull configuration with a leavening of Scott Morrison or Andrew Robb as Treasurer would enable a more constructive participation in dialogue over issues relating to climate change leading up to the Paris conference later this year.

Australia would inevitably draw closer to the US and Britain on these issues, Turnbull’s conversion to direct action he once derided as “bullshit” notwithstanding.

The Turnbull formula for dealing with the vexed climate change issue as an impediment to his ambitions to resume his place as leader of the Liberal Party is to fudge.

Under a rehearsed formula, first unveiled on Q&A last year, Turnbull now contends that “emissions trading schemes have worked better in theory than in practice”.

“If there is a global agreement that requires larger cuts in emissions – and I think that would be good – then obviously Australia would play its part,” he said.

Tunbull’s demeanour – and Bishop’s for that matter – since speculation about the leadership blew up has been instructive. Neither has given sign of contrition despite their respective behind-the-scenes roles.

To the contrary, Turnbull has evinced the appearance of not simply swallowing the canary, but the cage as well. Bishop has cultivated a studied smiling ambiguity that fools no one.

Diplomats have been studying a speech given by Turnbull on January 31 to the US/Australia Dialogue, Assessing the Future of the Asia-Pacific. This was a thoughtful speech about challenges facing high-wage high-cost countries like Australia.

But given recent developments, those noting the Turnbull speech could not avoid being struck by the following paragraph:

“Leaders,” he said, “must be decisionmakers, but they must also be, above all, explainers and advocates, unravelling complex issues in clear language that explains why things have to change and why the government cannot solve every problem.”

Turnbull was not to know that even as he crafted his speech a series of events, including a catastrophic outcome for the Coalition in Queensland, would cast doubt on Abbott’s longevity, and enable a baton-twirling Turnbull to join the Grand Parade along with Bishop, whose ability to survive various leadership putsches would seem to qualify her as a trapeze artiste on the high wire.

None of this should be read as either advocating or predicting a change of leadership. Matters will take their course. But from a national interest perspective, persistent leadership instability is bad for the country and bad for Australia’s international profile.

Compare us, for example, with the grown-ups who are in control in New Zealand. John Key has increased his vote at three consecutive elections. Why? He is both competent and a smart politician who happens to have had a real job in the outside world.

As Liberal members of Parliament contemplate the week ahead, they might ask themselves what are the costs to the country of continued leadership instability, both economic and reputational. In Canberra’s diplomatic chanceries the Abbott government has become a soap opera. And yes, a circus.

Tony Walker is the AFR’s international editor

source:afr.com