Climate

How a great big tax on fossil fuel profits could fix Australia’s energy crisis

roman August 17, 2022

Jim Regan writes (17 August 2022):
A leading environmental and economic think tank is calling for urgent fossil fuel industry tax reforms that could add hundreds of billions of dollars to government coffers, accelerate decarbonisation on a national level, and even help to fix the current energy market crisis.

The report, by Climate Energy Finance, offers a scathing review of how everyday Australians lose out due to the favourable financial treatment of coal and gas companies.

It says that closing Australia’s tax loopholes for multinational corporations, introducing export levies and overhauling longstanding fossil fuel subsidy and rebate schemes could raise $322 billion in tax and royalty income over the coming decade.

Hyper-inflated fossil fuel commodity prices and large profits being reported by the companies that produce them has led to widespread calls in Australia for reforms to force corporations to pay billions of dollars more in annual taxes and forego hefty rebates.

“It beggars belief that companies that say they are the backbone of Australia’s budget revenue cry wolf to secure handouts,” said CEF director and senior market analyst Tim Buckley.

The report points to existing tax structures that have allowed the top 20 fossil fuel multinationals to generate $113 billion in revenue but pay only $1.3 billion in corporate tax last year, labeling them “no longer fit for purpose” and failing to deliver projected government returns.
— see full article at reneweconomy.com.au

Climate, Old_Notes

The Workers on the Frontline of Climate Impacts

roman August 17, 2022

Aug 14, 2022

The Climate Impacts at Work report details that workers are already heavily impacted by climate change – from poorly ventilated kitchens, to accessible housing in heated-surburbia. Anna Langford writes for Chain Reaction #142.

In 2022, we’re already seeing how the impacts of the climate crisis are wreaking havoc on communities. And while a new band of tech billionaires are quick to make pronouncements about broad-sweeping fixes, tackling the climate crisis in a socially just way means putting workers’ rights at the core of solutions.

To ensure this happens, workers need to be a key part of the conversation about what solutions we will embrace to rapidly lower emissions and respond to the climate change impacts that are already locked in. But to open this conversation, we first need to ask the question: What does climate change look like for workers across Victoria?

In October 2021, Friends of the Earth launched the Climate Impacts at Work project with RMIT University and six Victorian unions. Its aim is to conduct pioneering research into the ways that climate impacts are already affecting workers in different industries.

While we may not be able to speak about every aspect of the climate crisis with the detail of those who study it, what we are equipped with are our own stories. With climate change already hitting us here and now, we can speak to it from experiences in our daily lives – like in our workplaces.

With this understanding, the Climate Impacts at Work survey has sought to draw out workers’ local knowledge of climate impacts, and gather their ideas for the climate solutions they want to see. The research will give a picture of how climate change on the ground looks different for transport workers compared with health workers, or for people in Northern Victoria compared with Gippsland or Melbourne.

Clean Futures, Climate, Old_Notes

Relief as ministers reset energy future

roman August 17, 2022

State and federal energy ministers were in a celebratory mood [last] Friday, hailing the most productive and consequential meeting that any of them can remember. And the relief felt throughout the industry was immense too. “It’s a complete reset,” said one industry leader. “It’s transformational,” said another.

The three big decisions taken at Friday’s lengthy meeting in Canberra reflect both the urgency to act and the frustration of a “lost decade” under the Coalition government, and they provide renewed hope that Australia’s green energy transition can, in fact, match the science rather than incumbent business plans.

Key among them […] is the decision to put environment and emissions reduction into the National Electricity Objective, more than two decades after it was dropped by the Howard government under pressure from the fossil fuel lobby.

This is a critically important move because it sweeps away the sham of the Coalition’s “technology neutral” approach – a complete nonsense if the goal is to cut emissions – and it will avoid a repeat of some of the frankly crazy decisions made by regulators and rule makers when the environment is ignored.

Federal energy minister Chris Bowen pointed to one of them on Sunday, the proposed replacement of two ageing diesel generators in Broken Hill with more diesel generators rather than storage, which he described as “bizarre, ridiculous …. silly and perverse.”

But the impacts went far beyond that and the lack on an environmental objective in key regulatory decisions hamstrung billion-dollar investments in transmission lines and other infrastructure.

“Finally they (the regulators and the rule makers) will accept the reality of climate …. so it is a big difference,” Bowen told the ABC Insiders program. “We’re sending a message to the world that we are open for investment, in renewables, in transmissions and storage.”

Clean Futures, Climate, Old_Notes

Zoom talks Mon June 20: Jeremy Miller about adaptation to climate change

roman June 15, 2022

Jeremy Miller from AdaptWest talks about adaptation to climate change.

“I’ll aim to give an overview of what is happening across the regional climate partnerships and then focus on the heat mapping as a collaborative project that we have leveraged into different settings.
I’ll also talk to scenario planning and adaptation pathways and how these represent decisions in time.”

Zoom details:

Topic: FoE meeting
Time: Monday June 20, 2022 6:00pm Adelaide / 6:30 Melbourne

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83397402251?pwd=VzdNdU1PMVAzS3BvR1NaRzIwSkRzdz09

Meeting ID: 833 9740 2251
Passcode: FoE

Climate, FoE

Greens demands for supporting a minority Labor government…

roman May 18, 2022

Greens leader Adam Bandt, released a $173bn balance-of-power wishlist at the party’s campaign launch on Monday night, outlining seven key concessions it wants from Labor in the event of a minority government.

The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has ruled out doing any deals with the Greens to form government, while Bandt has said the party will not support the Liberals under any circumstance.

But the Greens are preparing their list of key demands for Labor in the event that it falls short of the 76 seats it needs to form majority government, with the party confident of winning at least one seat in Queensland to give it two lower house MPs.

The party’s seven key demands are: no new coal and gas; dental and mental health into Medicare; building 1m affordable homes and better renters’ rights; free childcare; wiping student debt; lifting income support; and progress on all elements of the Uluru statement from the heart.

More details: “Adam Bandt outlines seven demands for Labor in Greens’ balance-of-power wishlist”, Sarah Martin, The Guardian.

Climate, Old_Notes