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What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.
by edflsafoiewq 7y ago
What do you expect them to actually do? The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change.
- eeh 7y agoIf every country acted that way, we'd make no progress. Every country needs to do its fair share, and Australia is not: http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-but-it-was-more-a-three-inch-putt-than-a-hole-in-one-44731 http://theconversation.com/australia-hit-its-kyoto-target-bu...
- shard972 7y agoAnd this will convince china and india to also lower how?
- jamesbfb 7y agoAbsolutely. Anthony Albanese (opposition leader for Labor here in Aus) said exactly this today on ABC. Whilst there is negligible correlation between the fires and our action (or inaction) to climate change as a country, the rhetoric of “well, we output so little compared of other developed nations” should not apply. Oh, and our elected Prime Minister brought a lump of coal into parliament, which says as much.
- mceoin 7y agoAlso important to recognize that Australia's carbon contribution is not solely limited to domestic output but also our coal industry. Australia is the largest exporter of coal in the world and this is not properly accounted for in our emissions accounting. On a per-person basis, our output is among the highest in the world and the inaction of others does not absolve us from having a moral responsibility to clean up our own mess at the very least.
- eeh 7y agoCounting exports would lead to double counting: once for the exporter, once for the user. All that matters is countries having fair targets, and meeting those targets. Countries are free to meet their emissions reductions targets how they like, including buying cheap coal from Australia, planes from US, and cars from Germany.
- apexalpha 7y agoIt would double count emissions but it does mean that Australia could do more than just eliminate their own emissions, they could limit other countries' as well by stopping export.
- eeh 7y agoLet's walk before we can run. It's difficulty enough to get countries to reduce their own emissions. Asking them to compromise their exports to reduce others' emissions is simply not viable at the moment.
- mceoin 7y agoWhy shouldn't a citizenry decide to limit exports of certain goods when it is in their own interest to do so? We certainly do this with uranium already. Likewise with weapons technology and all manner of harmful trade vectors. Australia's coal industry provides few jobs, is heavily government subsidized (either explicitly or through direct infrastructure funding), pays little to no tax, and creates environmental harm that the majority of the electorate disagree with. [Sorry HN: I know I should be supporting this with annotations but am time pressed today.]
- eeh 7y agoOne of Queensland's few industries is the coal industry, and so it grips on to it. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/08/coal-comfort-queensland-budget-to-benefit-from-surging-mining-royalties https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/08/coal-... Regional Queenslanders don't want to end up like the old coal mining towns of the UK, which still have not recovered from the mine closures in 1980s. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/26/blighted-coalfields-village-life-pit-village-people-starving-horden-co-durham https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/26/blighted-coa... I'm not saying coal is morally defensible, but this is democracy in action.
- adventured 7y ago> The entire CO2 output of Australia could drop to zero with negligible effect on climate change That's not quite true. You're not including Australia's extraction economy in that equation, only their local emissions. A similar miscalculation happens when people pretend Norway is a low CO2 output & impact nation by ignoring its extreme fossil fuel extraction per capita. The obvious answer is to stop feeding China's emissions engine, which is dramatically larger than anybody else when it comes to CO2 emissions (and they're building a very large number of new coal plants). Unfortunately that probably wouldn't help much for very long, as China is de facto occupying Africa for resource extraction purposes.
- bjowen 7y agoAlso it’d probably help if we stopped outsourcing our emissions to China by sending a bunch of manufacturing there.
- arcticbull 7y agoNo definitely, the same is true of every single region on earth. But by our powers combined...
- boulos 7y agoFor those that don’t know the reference, it’s from Captain Planet: https://youtu.be/WtUF1nEQ_2c https://youtu.be/WtUF1nEQ_2c
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoExport less to the bigger emitters. Campaign to the world using the bushfires as an example of how normal historic occurrences (bushfires) are intensified - which will probably strike a chord, although unnecessarily, in California. Use Australia's phenomenal natural gifts of empty expenses of land and abundant sunshine to generate electricity, to use directly or create portable hydrogen, or any other such pursuit requiring large amounts of electricity.
- pnako 7y agoThe world predominantly doesn't care. Global warming alarmism is a hobby mostly enjoyed by left-wing people in wealthy Western countries, i.e. about 5% of the world population. Very fitting that they picked a high-school dropout from Sweden as their moral authority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_opinion_by_country#/media/File:Climate_change_concern_by_country_2008-2009.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_opinion_by_coun...
- djrobstep 7y agoEach serial killer has a miniscule effect on the overall crime rate, so it's stupid to have any kind of moral expectation for them to stop!
- edflsafoiewq 7y agoYes, if I were in charge of reducing the crime rate, that is probably the stupidest way I could go about it.
- jdnenej 7y agoThe solution is obviously to punish and prevent all crimes even if none of them individually have much of an impact.
- desdiv 7y agoAustralia produced 19.6 tonnes of coal _per person_ in 2018. That's the highest in the world. I don't think it's in any position to be pointing fingers. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_prod... 481.3 million tonnes of coal / 24.6 million people
- nomercy400 7y agoIt's a bit strange to use the population density of Australia to make a point, as the population density of Australia is one of the lowest in the world (3). You're basically saying we should tackle Australia's 481 before China's 3523 or India's 716 or US' 702. Maybe we should tackle China first, as it is producing 45% of the world's coal, compared to 6% of Australia. Now if you were to say that Australia is the 5th biggest producer of coal in the world, that'd be a more convincing argument. I'm also surprised by Indonesia (6th). And the fact that Germany and Poland contribute 60% of the EU's (4th) coal production.
- pjc50 7y agoMuch of Australia's coal is burned in China. Germany is a literal "black spot" in that the coal industry still has political muscle there, despite Germany's otherwise relatively strong (but still very much minority) green movement.
- daemin 7y agoThey [Germany] got rid of their environmentally friendly nuclear reactors in favour of burning more coal after Fukishima. They're doing a bit of solar but are burning ever more and more coal.
- pjc50 7y agoYeah, this was in my opinion an overreaction. The calculus for building a new reactor (expensive, time consuming) versus keeping an existing one going is very different. On the other hand, Germany had already experienced the Chernobyl cloud.
- phs318u 7y agoAustralia did not fight with the Allies against the Axis powers in WWII because our contribution would make a difference either way. We fought because it was the right thing to do. And in the cause of this global emergency we chose to contribute our fair share and to back our principled beliefs with principled actions.
- jmg2 7y agoAs someone whose relatives were reconnected thanks to the veterans associations of the western world, my family having wholesale emigrated and married after the last war, the integrating and supporting values that were made in those years are not discounted. Events like this are the kind that should renew ties and associations. It's a opportunity to seize.
- mceoin 7y agoI think Australia had more than pure idealism in mind during the war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Sydney_Harbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Sydney_Harbour
- hulahoof 7y agoAustralia was already at war from '39 and against Japan since '41.
- Scarblac 7y agoAustralia actually mines a lot of coal and exports it. It has more power to do something than most.