As the global scientific community gathers in Paris for a four-day climate conference – a pre-COP21 meeting that will focus on moving from present knowledge to future solutions – scientists in Australia are stuck dealing with a federal government which is still questioning the basics of global warming science.
A group of 13 Australian scientists have offered to meet with the two Liberal members behind the retrograde push – Denis Jensen MP and Senator Chris Back, both from WA – to brief them on the latest science on climate change and gently remind them that they are, well, simply wrong.
But they are rapidly losing patience with these increasingly fringe views, particularly from the likes of politicians like Jensen who, despite a background in physics, and a desire to be Science Minister, has been stubbournly opposing climate action since the time of the Howard government.
To Professor Leslie Hughes, a climate ecologist and one of those scientists offering to bring Jensen up to date, it’s a frustrating and frightening situation.
“It’s a little bit like we’re all on a bus accelerating downhill towards a cliff and there’s one person on the bus that says, well look we need to understand the physics of gravity before we put the brakes on the bus,” she told ABC Radio in an interview on Tuesday morning.
“We’ve understood the physics of the greenhouse effect since 1824, we’ve understood the relationship between burning fossil fuels and the earth’s temperatures since 1896 – and we’ve had an awful lot of science since then,” Hughes said.
“The rest of the world stop debating this issue a long time ago, and it’s about time we did too.
“We’re in a bus hurtling towards the precipice, and the scientists and many other people around the world are trying to avoid us going off the cliff. it’s about time we put the brakes on.”
But as Hughes also concedes, there is little point trying to convince the Jensens of this world. As fellow Australian scientist and Nobel laureate Peter Doherty put it recently:
“All scientists are comfortable with skepticism. But the difference between skepticism and denial is that the skeptic engages. If you are a skeptic, you talk to other researchers, you look at the data. If you’re in denial, you simply reject everything that’s being published.”
Meanwhile, a new report from a collective of global leaders and economic experts has stressed the economic importance of acting on climate change, arguing that greater policy ambition will be as much an economic boon as a vital foundation for future lower-carbon growth.
The report, released by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate on Tuesday, identifies 10 specific areas where international climate policy cooperation could “drive further economic growth,” including developing carbon pricing and supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency – just two of the policy areas where the Abbott government has taken Australia backwards over the past three years.
“Momentum is building towards the inevitable clean economic transition, and 2015 offers an unprecedented opportunity for business and governments to seize the opportunities this creates,” the report says.
“Crucial investments will be made over the next 15 years in the world’s cities, land use and energy systems. They have the potential to generate multiple benefits for economic growth, human development and the environment; or they could lock countries into high-carbon pathways, with severe economic and climatic consequences.”
In Canada on Sunday, more than 10,000 people – including representatives of labour unions, First Nations, anti-poverty and faith groups, health workers and immigration rights activists – gathered in Toronto in a protest calling for a paradigm-shift in how climate change is addressed – namely, to treat it as the emergency it is.
And in the UK, HRH Prince Charles called for “profound changes” to the world’s financial systems, warning the business-as-usual approach was failing to step up to the challenge of tackling climate change.
Speaking at the release of a report by the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainable Leadership (CISL) – Rewiring the Economy: Ten tasks, ten years – the heir to the British throne warned that the “irresistible power” of business-as-usual has so far “defeated every attempt to ‘rewire’ our economic system in ways that will deliver what we so urgently need”.
