As Earth records hottest year, Coalition digs in against climate action and renewables

The science is in. The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service has overnight confirmed that 2023 was the earth’s warmest year on record: 0.16°C warmer than the previous record year (2016); 0.6°C warmer than the 1991-2020 average; 1.48°C warmer than the pre-industrial period.

The report from Copernicus notes that each month from June to December in 2023 was warmer than the corresponding month in any previous year, with July and August the warmest two months on record.

“2023 marks the first time on record that every day within a year has exceeded 1°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial level for that time of year,” the report says.

“Close to 50% of days were more than 1.5°C warmer than the 1850-1900 level, and two days in November were, for the first time, more than 2°C warmer.”

Furthermore, it is likely that a 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 will exceed 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level – the threshold climate scientists had hoped to limit global warming to through the sort of emissions reduction policies and actions they have been calling for for decades.

Around the world, the changing climate manifested itself in extreme heat waves in southern Europe, North America and China, devastating wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, record-breaking sea surface temperatures and record low sea ice extent around Antarctica.

Australia, remarkably, was the only continent that did not see large areas register record temperatures. But the impacts of global warming are no less evident.

Far North Queensland is picking up the pieces following a devastating cyclone and floods, while large parts of Victoria remain on flood watch after some regions experienced rainfall “higher than their 100-year rates” over 48 hours, according to the BOM. In Western Australia, a searing heatwave is on the cards.

“It’s not surprising, unfortunately,” prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday from Queensland, where he announced a $50 million federal support package for people affected by the state’s most recent extreme weather events.

“All of this is a reminder that the science told us that climate change would mean there would be more extreme weather events and they would be more intense. And unfortunately, we’re seeing that play out with the number of events that we’re having to deal with right around Australia.”

Climate Council research director Simon Bradshaw says the most alarming thing about the news from Copernicus is that 2023 broke heat records by such a considerable margin, with 2024 projected to be even hotter.

“We’re seeing how much more extreme our climate becomes as we approach the 1.5°C warming threshold,” he said on Wednesday.

“This is why we must limit future warming as much as possible by getting our emissions down fast by rapidly phasing out the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. We can’t keep stoking the fire if we want the room to cool down.”

But as the reality sinks in that 2023 shattered annual heat records and that the world looks like sailing past the safe climate zone hoped for by scientists, the federal Coalition has set to work walking back national emissions targets, railing against renewables and still – still! – banging on about nuclear.

On Wednesday, reports emerged that a majority of Liberal and National Party MPs will oppose taking a 2035 emissions reduction target to the 2025 election, arguing it will worsen the cost-of-living crisis for regional and vulnerable Australians.

A survey by The Australian has found most Liberal MPs are privately opposed to any sort of 2035 target and didn’t see any point in putting a number to the Australian people.

Nationals MPs were more forthcoming with their views on the matter, with Barnaby Joyce, Colin Boyce, Keith Pitt, Matt Canavan and Bridget McKenzie on the record as rejecting “any target” or expressing serious reservations about adopting one, the Australian reports.

“There is also a smaller rump within the Nationals, including Senator Canavan and Mr Boyce, who want the Coalition to drop the current policy of net zero emissions by 2050,” the paper says.

The context to this is that the latest climate science says 2050 net zero targets are now not enough to rein in global warming at the rate required to keep the planet safe and liveable. It has also been argued that such a distant target allows governments to take their time on policy – time they do not have.

Recent modelling by Monash University’s Climateworks Centre found Australia must move its net-zero emissions target forward by a decade to 2040 and cut national emissions by 68 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 in order to have any hope of limiting warming to 1.5°C.

Federal Labor – which wants to get to 82 per cent renewables by 2030 – is under pressure to adopt a 2035 emissions target of more than 70 per cent, and is in consultation on the size of the interim target it has promised to bring to the 2025 election.

But the LNP is having none of it, preferring to believe that its constituents are unable to make the mental leap that “cost of living” might be intrinsically linked with the social, environmental and economic costs of ever increasing extreme weather events.

“I’m not confident the Labor Party’s current targets, let alone anything more ambitious, can be achieved without significant social and economic detriment to the nine million of us that don’t live in capital cities,” said McKenzie.

“Their slavish rejection of all technologies being put on the table makes their current position unjustifiable,” McKenzie added in a nod to the Coalition’s blinkered obsession with nuclear power.

“The people who are paying are the ones who can least afford it. They’re our people,” said Pitt.

Another unnamed MP told The Australian that there was another view in the party that it was better to continue putting pressure on Labor’s energy “mess” rather than shine a light on Coalition climate policy – or the space where it should be.

Busy heading up that challenge has been Barnaby Joyce, who last year made himself commander-in-chief in charge of mobilising protests against all sorts of renewables, batteries and transmission lines, and this year continues that work.

A National Rally Against Reckless Renewables is on the calendar for February 6 – federal parliament’s first sitting day for 2024 – with the Facebook page for the event promising “lots of great speakers,” including Joyce, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, David Gillespie MP, Senator Gerard Rennick, Senator Malcolm Roberts, and old mate Matt Canavan.

“Not here, not there, not anywhere,” says the promotional flyer for the event.

But not all of the Coalition’s “people,” as Pitt claims regional Australians to be, are drinking this particular brand of Kool Aid.

“The impact of climate change on our communities is immediate and devastating,” said Major General Peter Dunn, a member of Emergency Leaders for Climate Action and former Commissioner for the ACT’s Emergency Services Authority on Wednesday.

“The urgency to stop relying on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, which only worsen this crisis, has never been greater. The time has come for Australia to decisively move away from these harmful pollutants.”

Peter Lake, a northern NSW farmer and member of Farmers for Climate Action says the ongoing drought his farm is experiencing shows how climate change is continuing to make farming “unpredictable.”

“The sooner we get serious about reducing our burning of fossil fuels and start to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide going into our atmosphere the better,” he said on Wednesday.

For federal Labor’s part, it is now imperative that they move faster and with more ambition in the opposite direction to the Coalition and hold their nerve against what is bound to be a ramping up of anti-renewables propaganda.

“As I’ve indicated, we will be outlining our 2035 target well before the next election,” said federal energy minister Chris Bowen on Wednesday.

“I’ve begun the process for setting it by writing to the Climate Change Authority requesting their advice. It will be one of the key inputs to the cabinet,” he said, not mentioning any particular numbers.

“Our 2035 target will be ambitious and achievable. …There’s no point setting a target which the country can’t meet, nor is there any point setting a target which isn’t a step up in activity.”

On the Coalition’s stance, Bowen had this to say:

“[Either] they intend to have a 2035 target but not tell the Australian people what it is, to be dishonest. Or, secondly… they don’t intend to have a 2035 target and leave the Paris Accord and join Yemen, Libya, and Iran.

“Which is it, Mr Dutton? Which is it? Up to him to explain.”