Why Nothing Has Changed In Australia's Surreal Climate Change Circus - Guardian
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One thing that can never be taken away, however, is the surrealist vision of climate campaigner and former US vice president Al Gore standing with Clive Palmer to endorse the fickle policy hopes of the latter - a man who wants to mine 40 million tonnes of coal from Queensland’s Galilee Basin and in so doing liberate an estimated 3,291 million tonnes of CO2-e into the atmosphere over 30 years.
You just couldn’t make it up. But if you’re desperate for a little sliver of stability from this climate policy fandango, then fear not. Because the phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” could just about define the last few months of Australia’s climate policy debate.
In real terms, nothing has actually changed at all, regardless of what happens in the coming days or over the course of me typing out this blog post. That’s because Australia’s target to cut emissions by the year 2020 remains at just five per cent based on their levels in 2000. When the statutory Climate Change Authority reviewed Australia’s current target, the group described it as “inadequate” and recommended it should be tripled.
This level of cuts would mean Australia’s entire budget for emitting greenhouse gases between 2013 and 2020 would stand at 4,193 tonnes of CO2-e (or to put it another way, a carbon budget eventually two thirds-swallowed by one proposed Palmer coal mine). Remember too, this is the same Climate Change Authority (CCA) now apparently supported by billionaire Clive Palmer – the man who emerged as a policy powerbroker thanks to the eponymous political party he created out of thin air and his personal mining fortune.
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http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/jul/14/why-nothing-has-really-changed-in-australias-surrealist-climate-policy-circus