- by Anna Pha
- The Guardian
- Issue #2110
Scientists at the Potsdam Institute estimate that the costs of inaction on climate change will be US$38 trillion a year by 2050, whereas climate action will cost less than a sixth of that. “Climate impacts have pushed down global food production and pushed up food prices and other costs of living,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell at a UN climate meeting last month. “[Hurricane] Beryl is yet more painful proof: every year, fossil-fuel driven climate costs are an economic wrecking ball hitting billions of households and small businesses.”
The wildfires raging in Canada and the US are a stark reminder of the extreme weather events being experienced. At the time of writing, firefighters in Canada are struggling to protect critical infrastructure, including a wastewater treatment plant, communications facilities, and the Trans Mountain Pipeline which can carry 890,000 barrels of oil per day from Edmonton to Vancouver. Thousands of people have been relocated. On the other side of the globe, typhoon Gaemi has made landfall in mainland China after sinking several large ships, including an oil tanker, and causing an oil spill affecting Taiwan and the Philippines.
“Beryl is yet more painful proof: every year, fossil-fuel driven climate costs are an economic wrecking ball hitting billions of households and small businesses. If governments everywhere don’t step up, every economy and eight billion people will be facing this blunt force trauma head on, on a continuous basis,” Stiell said.
On 25 July United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres criticised the world’s wealthiest countries for expanding fossil fuel production. “I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” Guterres said. “Countries must phase out fossil fuels – fast and fairly.” Under UN climate agreements, ‘fairly‘ means that the countries responsible for most fossil fuel emissions must bear the greatest responsibility for funding and cutting the production and use of fossil fuels. Guterres’ remarks came as part of a “call to action” on extreme heat at a press conference in New York, following the two hottest days on record and a series of deadly heatwaves and massive flooding across the world.
Guterres described extreme heat as one of the “symptoms” of a “disease” that is the “addiction” to fossil fuels. “I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world’s wealthiest countries,” he said. “In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licences, they are signing away our future. The leadership of those with the greatest capabilities and capacities is essential.”
Five Western countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Norway – have been singled out as significantly scaling up oil and gas licensing this year, despite their international climate commitments. The Albanese government is all talk when it comes to climate change. When it comes to action, Labor prefers to hide behind a phoney debate over nuclear power while accelerating new oil and gas projects well beyond 2050.
Every moment counts, and every voice counts.
Write to: PM Antony Albanese, Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Minister for Defence Richard Marles, Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Resources Madeleine King, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy Jenny McAllister, your local MP and Senators.
Demand the immediate phasing out of fossil fuels, no new projects or expansion of existing ones. Demand the rapid development of renewables by the public sector.
