1/7 This week in parliament Scott Morrison told @AdamBandt that Australia’s emissions have fallen by 20% since 2005 (theoretically getting us three quarters of the way to meeting our Paris target). Here's why this claim is super misleading.... 🧵
2/7 Australia’s overall emissions did decline between 2005 and 2020. But looking at this graph it can be seen that this is not distributed evenly across the economy, but confined to two sectors: Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (we'll call it the land sector) & agriculture.
3/7 The land sector is different from other sectors (which emit carbon) in that it can store carbon through trees and soil. What happened from 2005 is that we stopped clearing trees & we had a drought from 2017-19. Basically trees grew, there was less methane from livestock.
4/7 These drops had nothing to do with climate policy. The easiest way to test whether Australia is reducing emissions in a meaningful way is to exclude the land sector & the impacts of the drought from our inventory. Let’s see what that looks like...oh it doesn’t look very good.
5/7 If we put aside one-off historical (ie not indicative of structural decarbonisation) drops in emissions then we can see that Australia’s emissions are actually going up. They’ve increased by 7% since 2005 and we're doing a lot worse than other countries.
6/7 Technically the govt *can* say Australia’s emissions have dropped. It’s within the rules of UNFCCC accounting. But other countries don’t really do it. It's generally accepted that land sector reductions are variable and hard to measure. The Norwegian ambassador sums it up:
7/7 My colleagues at @TheAusInstitute@RichieMerzian & @RDNS_TAI have already pointed this dodgy accounting out several times this week, but the govt is not going to stop so neither are we.
The Australian Government's carbon neutral certification scheme, Climate Active, is entirely representative of Australia's broader framework of state-sponsored greenwash: promoting fossil fuels, lack of regulation & tricky accounting. #climate #auspol
🧵 afr.com/politics/feder…
The government 'certifies' organisations who pay a licence fee to Climate Active. This includes fossil companies and retailers such as Ampol, Energy Australia, Telstra and Origin Energy as having 'cancelled out' their greenhouse gas emissions. 1/ climateactive.org.au/sites/default/…
APPEA's submission to the senate inquiry into greenwashing is THE most perfect demonstration of why we need a senate inquiry into greenwashing. *chef's kiss*
#auspol #climate
APPEA is sad that activists don't face the same level of accountability that fossil fuel companies face. They're right - activists are intimidated, fined & jailed while the CEOs of fossil companies are lovingly nurtured in Australia's system of state capture. #auspol #climate
Fiji is calling for a 'Fossil Fuel-free Pacific'. It has also entered carbon offset trading deal with Australia. If Aus gas companies deliver $$$ to Fiji when they buy offsets, will it ultimately silence Fiji's calls to end fossil fuels? #auspol#climate
The NT Government suggesting that gas expansion is helping transition away from fossil fuels in its enthusiastic announcement that fracking will proceed in the Beetaloo.
We truly are living in a post-truth world. #climate#auspol@NatashaFylesMLA@NicoleManison
Apparently fracking the Beetaloo will somehow:
Lower energy costs for Territorians
Fund schools and hospitals
Create jobs
Create energy security
Reduce emissions
Displace coal-fired power....
None of this is true. @NicoleManison@NatashaFylesMLA #climate#auspol
@NatashaFylesMLA@NicoleManison Thank you to the Darwin journalists who are ignoring the Deputy Chief Minister's patronising eye rolls and are trying to clarify whether the government has implemented recommendation 9.8 of the Pepper Inquiry. It absolutely hasn't. #climate#auspol
Tourism in Antarctica is one of the most carbon-intensive forms of tourism. It also actively increases snow melt & damages the ecosystems of an already fragile and rapidly degrading environment. @paulkelly@BenQuilty@Jennifer__Byrne would you reconsider? #climate#auspol
"The pragmatism of continual failure...In the face of failure, carbon experts embraced pragmatism within the rather abstract, even constructed, realm of carbon market policy as an experiment."
The parallels with Australia are striking. #climate#auspol rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
I don't think there is a full appreciation for how deeply emotional carbon markets are.