tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/climate-institute-18008/articlesClimate Institute – The Conversation2017-03-10T00:45:30Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/743602017-03-10T00:45:30Z2017-03-10T00:45:30ZSo long, Climate Institute – too sensible for the current policy soap opera<p>The Climate Institute, which was among the first Australian NGOs to focus solely on climate change, is to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/climate-institute-to-shut-%20down-citing-lack-of-funds-for-independent-research">shut down at the end of June</a> after 12 years.</p>
<p>It was born into an era when politicians and voters were finally waking up to the importance of climate policy. But now, its self-described “centrist, pragmatic advocacy” has run out of financial backing.</p>
<h2>Early years</h2>
<p>It’s easy to forget, given the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-years-of-backflips-over-emissions-trading-leave-climate-policy-in-the-lurch-69641">political theatrics we’ve witnessed over the past decade</a>, just how little attention was being paid to climate policy before the explosion of concern in late 2006. Life was bleak for environmental groups under the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14742831003603307">four Howard governments from 1996 to 2007</a>, with the <a href="http://www.tai.org.au/sites/defualt/files/DP68_8.pdf">partial and controversial exception of WWF</a>.</p>
<p>Climate change was simply not an issue that had traction with the federal government, and the business community had fought itself to a standstill on the topic of whether Australia should <a href="http://www.agsm.edu.au/bobm/teaching/EIA/kyoto/age13-3-%2003.html">ratify the Kyoto Protocol</a>, which John Howard resisted to the end.</p>
<p>Bob Carr, the then premier of New South Wales, had been trying to get carbon trading onto state and federal agendas with <a href="https://allouryesterdays.net/2017/02/16/feb-17-%201995-not-%20a-single-%20tonne-saved-%20by-national-greenhouse-response-%20strategy/">limited success</a>.</p>
<p>By 2004 attitudes were shifting, not least because of the ongoing Millennium Drought. In a 2015 interview <a href="http://clivehamilton.com/">Clive Hamilton</a>, a climate policy academic and inaugural board chair of the Climate Institute, noted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the early 2000s when the environment groups started to get serious about climate change, they adopted their standard tactics, which had run out of steam. The problem for environmentalism in Australia, as well as internationally, is that they had this glorious period of the 1980s and ‘90s, and then they became institutionalised; their tactics became stale. It wasn’t their fault – it’s just the world changed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hamilton explained that in 2005, Mark Wootton, director of the Poola Foundation, approached him saying that he had A$5 million and wanted to spend it on something that would “cut through” the stagnant climate change debate. Hamilton thought about it and proposed the Climate Institute, which he put together over the ensuing months. After chairing the board for its first year Hamilton returned to his duties at the Australia Institute.</p>
<p>Launching a tour of rural Australia the following year, Wootton told journalists:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People have to see there is a solution, that there is a way out… It’s about people moving on and not feeling that sense of despair, which I’ve genuinely felt, and that’s why we set this up.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The institute opened its doors in October 2005 and was soon in the headlines. Howard <a href="http://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-22009">attacked Carr</a>, declaring himself “amazed a former Labor premier should advocate that we should sign up to something that would export the jobs of Australian workers”.</p>
<p>A month later, the Climate Institute returned fire with an attack on the Howard government’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia-Pacific_Partnership_on_Clean_Development_and_Climate">Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate</a>, widely interpreted as a way for polluting nations to dodge Kyoto.</p>
<p>This pattern of well-timed reports and timely rebuttals has continued over the past 12 years. During this time the Climate Institute has challenged successive governments to do more, to create stronger policy and a more predictable investment environment – something that is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/australias-energy-%20policy-is-%20a-world-class-failure-and-abbott-wears-the-gold-medal-of-blame">sorely lacking to this day</a>.</p>
<p>The institute’s critics will claim it never escaped the neoliberal paradigm – the idea that the market can and will deliver as long as the right policy levers are pulled at the right time. In fairness, though, it never pledged to transcend free-market economics anyway, although it also tried along the way to expand the argument to include moral (and religious) values.</p>
<h2>Main achievements</h2>
<p>In the reporting on the <a href="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/articles/media-releases/chair-of-board-announces-closure-of-the-climate-institute-a.html">institute’s demise</a>, its main claims to fame are listed as helping to expand the renewable energy target in 2008, saving the Climate Change Authority from <a href="https://theconversation.com/ignored-by-the-government-shrunk-by-%20resignations-where-now-for-australias-climate-change-authority-47366">Tony Abbott’s axe in 2014</a>, and building bipartisan support for Australia to <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-to-ratify-the-paris-climate-deal-under-a-large-trump-shaped-shadow-68586">ratify the Paris climate agreement in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>But there was much else that the Climate Institute worked on, which is in danger of being forgotten. </p>
<p>It toured rural Australia to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2006-10-12/sale-hears-push-for-climate-change-strategy/1284712?pfm=ms">listen to farmers’ concerns</a>.</p>
<p>It tried to signal to politicians that voters cared. For example, before the “<a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09644010802065815">first climate change election</a>” in November 2007, it commissioned a poll of 877 voters in nine key marginal electorates. It found that 73% of voters thought climate change would have either a strong or a very strong influence on their vote at the election, an <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071114/full/450336a.html">increase from 62% in August</a>.</p>
<p>It also played a part in stitching together what political scientists call “<a href="https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/policy-concepts-in-1000-words-the-advocacy-coalition-framework%5D">advocacy coalitions</a>”. One notable example was its help in producing the <a href="http://www.arcworld.org/downloads/COMMON%20BELIEF%20%20Australian%20statements.pdf">Common belief: Australia’s faith communities on climate change</a> report, released in December 2006 with input from 16 Australian communities including Aboriginal Australians, Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Evangelicals, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and other denominations.</p>
<h2>Why it died and what next?</h2>
<p>The institute’s outgoing chief executive, John Connor, <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/climate-institute-to-close-doors-after-running-out-%20of-funds-43361">told Reneweconomy</a> that the decision ultimately comes down to funding:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We haven’t been able to plug the [funding] gap. Centrist, pragmatic advocacy is not sexy for many people who want to fund the fighters or pour funds into new technology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As such, the Climate Institute is another victim of the policy paralysis that has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2017/jan/20/australias-conservative-government-fiddles-on-climate-policy-while-the-country-burns">exasperated and bewildered commentators</a>.</p>
<p>It is indeed hard to justify the funding of calm, measured policy advice when the mere mention of the most economically tame of notions – an <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/emissions-intensity-scheme-another-act-in-tragic-comedy-of-errors-62142/">emissions intensity scheme</a> – causes <a href="https://marchudson.net/2016/12/11/last-week-in-australian-climate-politics-a-bluffers-guide/comment-page-1/">panic and retreat</a> in the federal government.</p>
<p>Climatologist and Climate Council member Will Steffen, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radio/canberra/programs/breakfast/reaction-to-the-climate-institute-closure-will-steffen/8338496">interviewed on the ABC</a>, suggested that over the past two or three years many organisations have begun to take climate change on board, and so the institute’s unique role was lessened.</p>
<p>But one piece of the furniture that urgently needs saving is the institute’s <a href="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/climate-of-the-nation-2016.html/section/2025">Climate of the Nation</a>, the longest trend survey of the attitudes of Australians to climate change and its solutions. Hopefully another organisation (I’m looking at you, <a href="https://www.acf.org.au/">Australian Conservation Foundation</a>) will pick this up.</p>
<p>The staff of the Climate Institute will hopefully find new roles within the now smaller ecosystem of environmental policy advice. With the impacts that the institute and others were warning about in 2005 arriving with depressing predictability, Australia desperately needs three things. </p>
<p>It needs <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-need-an-energy-landcare-to-tackle-rising-power-prices-73604">community energy programs</a>. It needs effective opposition to plans for yet more fossil fuel extraction. And most relevantly here, it needs a cacophony of well-informed and relentless voices advocating for the most useful policies to get the carbon out of our economy. </p>
<p>There’s a fourth thing, actually: luck. From here on we are going to need an enormous (and undeserved) amount of luck if the lost years of ignoring sensible climate policy advice are not to come back and haunt us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Hudson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>After 12 years, The Climate Institute is shutting down having failed to find financial backing for its brand of “centrist, pragmatic advocacy” on climate policy.Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/440072015-06-29T20:08:54Z2015-06-29T20:08:54ZAustralia’s ‘climate roundtable’ could unite old foes and end the carbon deadlock<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86675/original/image-20150629-9081-6xo6is.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C11%2C2629%2C1614&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Business, environmental, trade union and social groups all see advantages in looking beyond high-emission industries such as coal-fired power.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACSIRO_ScienceImage_9226_Eraring_Power_Station.jpg">Nick Pitsas/CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate policy is in the media yet again, but this time it might be different. The <a href="http://climateinstitute.org.au/australian-climate-roundtable.html">set of policy principles</a> released by the <a href="http://www.australianclimateroundtable.org.au/">Australian Climate Roundtable</a> yesterday are extraordinary for two reasons. </p>
<p>First, the principles themselves offer some calm common sense in an arena that has been dominated by ferocious partisan politics and dramatic policy reversals. They could therefore offer a way to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/29/australian-climate-policy-paralysis-has-to-end-business-roundtable-says">break the current policy deadlock</a> and re-establish a bipartisan approach to climate change.</p>
<p>Second, the principles are the product of a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-29/australian-climate-roundtable-business-unions-policy-alliance/6579106">highly unusual alliance</a> of ten organisations, representing business, unions, environmentalists, and the community. It is unusual that such disparate groups can sit down together to talk, and downright extraordinary that they can agree on a common set of principles. So what is going on here?</p>
<h2>A principled approach to policy?</h2>
<p>On the first point, the principles state that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Our overarching aim is for Australia to play its fair part in international efforts to achieve this while maintaining and increasing its prosperity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Roundtable’s ideal policy would lead to “deep reductions in Australia’s net emissions”, using policy instruments that are well targeted, well designed, based on sound risk assessments, internationally linked, operate at least cost, and are efficient.</p>
<p>On the environmental side, there is a demand for net zero emissions in the long run, an acceptance that there are market failures that need to be fixed, and a call for long-term planning based on climate change scenarios.</p>
<p>On the economic side, there are statements about achieving reductions at the lowest cost, avoiding regulatory burdens, ensuring no loss of competitiveness for trade-exposed industries, and the need for a smooth transition to a low-carbon economy, without undue shocks for investors.</p>
<p>Finally, on the social side are concerns about providing decent work opportunities, protecting the most vulnerable people, and helping communities to make the necessary transition.</p>
<p>While there is apparently something here for everyone, the contentious issues are avoided. There is no mention of the government’s Direct Action <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction-fund">Emissions Reduction Fund</a>, the former government’s <a href="http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acci.asn.au%2FFiles%2FGovernment-Carbon-Tax-Plan&ei=xMWQVd_pDIa7mQWZ743gCQ&usg=AFQjCNGxrjjKVMKvRHZ4PKUl5SXIzlwHQA&sig2=-bNkkOJ_WxNIayZBHgxj6w&bvm=bv.96783405,d.dGY&cad=rja">price on carbon</a>, or the recently reduced <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/renewable-energy-target-scheme">Renewable Energy Target</a>. This is clever politics, as it allows for the establishment of a broad consensus without the need to quibble over policy detail. </p>
<h2>An unlikely alliance</h2>
<p>The roundtable’s membership is remarkably diverse: the <a href="http://aluminium.org.au/">Australian Aluminium Council</a>; the <a href="http://www.bca.com.au/">Business Council of Australia</a>; the <a href="http://www.aigroup.com.au/">Australian Industry Group</a>; the <a href="http://www.esaa.com.au/">Energy Supply Association of Australia</a>; the <a href="http://www.igcc.org.au/">Investor Group on Climate Change</a>; the <a href="http://www.climateinstitute.org.au">Climate Institute</a>; <a href="http://www.wwf.org.au/">WWF Australia</a>; the <a href="http://www.acfonline.org.au/">Australian Conservation Foundation</a>; the <a href="http://www.actu.org.au/">Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)</a>; and the <a href="http://www.acoss.org.au/">Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS)</a>. How and why did these disparate groups form such an alliance?</p>
<p>It is clear from the principles themselves that all the member groups want some policy consistency that will survive regardless of who is in government. The last thing they want is for the recent cycle of major policy changes to continue. </p>
<p>Such reversals impose waves of new compliance costs on industry and create uncertainty for investors, which is why business is so heavily represented in the Roundtable. Policy changes also make it difficult to consolidate significant emissions reductions, which is where the environmentalists come in. Finally, policy uncertainty has implications for employment options and the cost of living, which is why the ACTU and ACOSS are also on board. </p>
<p>There are also some specific strategic advantages to being involved in the Roundtable for each of the participants. </p>
<p>Business groups that have been getting bad publicity about their contributions to climate change might use the Roundtable to improve their image and frame the future policy debate in a way that suits them (for instance, by calling for a strong focus on costs and competitiveness). </p>
<p>Environmentalists, who have effectively been sidelined by the Abbott government on climate change, might see this is a way to deal themselves back into the policy game and make some progress in reducing emissions.</p>
<p>Unions concerned about their members’ future employment might see this as a way to manage the transition by creating new “green-collar” jobs that will offset the loss of employment opportunities in the older polluting industries.</p>
<p>Finally, ACOSS is clearly worried about the impact of climate polices on low-income households, and being part of the Roundtable ensures that their concerns are heard.</p>
<h2>A precedent for influencing policy?</h2>
<p>While unusual, alliances such as the Australian Climate Roundtable are not unknown in Australian environmental policy. Sometimes they have led to the creation of effective long-term polices; other times they have fizzled out, leaving little more than rhetoric.</p>
<p>One positive example is that of <a href="http://www.nrm.gov.au/">Landcare</a>. In 1989 the Australian Conservation Foundation and the National Farmers’ Federation proposed a grant scheme that would empower communities to rehabilitate their local environment. More than a quarter of century later, Landcare is still going strong with the support of all four leading political parties.</p>
<p>On the negative side, an extensive consultation process involving all levels of government, business, unions and environmentalists led to the creation of the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/about-us/esd/publications/national-esd-strategy">National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development</a> in 1992. It is still on the books and referred to by <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/epbc">current legislation</a>, yet we don’t appear to be much closer to sustainability.</p>
<p>So will this be a Landcare moment or not? Only time will tell.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44007/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Howes received funding from the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility 2012-13.</span></em></p>The Australian Climate Roundtable unites business, environmental and social groups in calling for a strong climate policy. This unprecedented show of unity might even break down Canberra’s climate stalemate.Michael Howes, Associate Professor, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/435552015-06-19T08:53:21Z2015-06-19T08:53:21ZAbbott has papal disconnect on fossil fuels, renewables<p>Tony Abbott gets some lucky breaks. Imagine if Pope Francis had issued <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">this week’s encyclical</a> – with its clarion call for the world to address climate change – last year in the run up to the G20 hosted by Australia.</p>
<p>Then, the government was trying to limit the extent to which the issue became a major focus during the Brisbane summit.</p>
<p>As things turned out, the effort was considerably stymied by <a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-protect-barrier-reef-from-climate-change-34278">Barack Obama’s speech</a> coinciding with the meeting. That was bad enough for the government – words from the Pope would have been extremely awkward.</p>
<p>The encyclical, in which Pope Francis casts the climate challenge as universal and pressing, with a moral overlay, comes as countries are releasing the post-2020 emission reduction targets they will take to the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris late this year.</p>
<p>Given his status, Pope Francis’ strong views will be a significant input to the international debate, although the document stresses “the church does not presume to settle scientific questions”.</p>
<p>The climate sceptics who try to discredit those arguing the need for robust action will have to make an assault on a formidable figure.</p>
<p>“A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climate system,” the encyclical says.</p>
<p>“A number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases … released mainly as a result of human activity…</p>
<p>"If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us…</p>
<p>"There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.”</p>
<p>Tony Abbott, a devout Catholic, is out of step with his pope on the urgency of addressing climate change, and the relative merits of fossil fuels and renewable energy.</p>
<p>Abbott talks up coal, and talks down renewables. Recently he let fly about the ugliness of wind farms. Now the government is proposing a wind farm commissioner who would pass on complaints to the relevant authorities.</p>
<p>Given Abbott’s lack of enthusiasm for anything but minimalism on climate, Environment Minister Greg Hunt and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (who is responsible for the climate issue internationally) work around him to the extent they can. Australia has yet to release its targets for Paris – that will be the government’s next test.</p>
<p>Beyond Paris, the Coalition is looking to put Labor on the defensive over climate policy for next year’s election.</p>
<p>Bill Shorten has said the ALP policy will be based on an emissions trading scheme. But we don’t know the detail nor how much of the economy would be covered or what accompanying policies there may be.</p>
<p>We can be sure Labor will try to keep the scheme modest and unthreatening and perhaps rely on other measures to go on the offensive. Even so, the opposition will be vulnerable to a Coalition fear campaign that says an ALP government would bring back a “great big tax”. And we’re seeing, in the issue of citizenship, how ferociously Abbott can whip up a scare.</p>
<p>The encyclical is potentially helpful to Labor, in the sense of contributing positively to the general context in which the debate will take place.</p>
<p>Polling suggests the public is engaging more with the climate issue. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australians-very-fearful-of-islamic-state-and-terrorism-lowy-poll-finds-43279">Lowy Institute’s annual poll</a>, released this week, showed the third consecutive rise in people’s concern about global warming. One in two (50%) agree that it is a “serious and pressing problem” and “we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs”. This is an increase of five points since 2014 and 14 points since 2012, although it is well under the 68% of 2006.</p>
<p>The Climate Institute’s John Connor doesn’t over-estimate the Pope’s intervention but sees it as one element in what could be a gathering “perfect storm”, the way John Howard has described the 2006 combination of events, attitudes and overseas voices that led him to switch to an activist policy for political reasons – and helped Kevin Rudd to power in 2007.</p>
<p>Apart from a re-emerging public interest, Connor says the pools of private capital are beginning to become “much more aware of the risks of carbon assets” and “a number of companies are quite concerned at the poverty of policy tools here. There is a feeling that there needs to be a restatement of the direction of climate policy in Australia as well as a smarter policy toolbox than that in direct action.”</p>
<p>The earlier perfect storm abated under the pressures of the global financial crisis and the disappointment of Copenhagen. The success or otherwise of Paris will influence how the winds are blowing at election time.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://michellegrattan.podbean.com/e/sarah-hanson-young-1434357637/">Listen to the latest Politics with Michelle Grattan podcast, with guest, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, here or on iTunes.</a></strong></p>
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Tony Abbott gets some lucky breaks. Imagine if Pope Francis had issued [this week’s encyclical - with its clarion call for the world to address climate change - last year in the run up to the G20 hosted by Australia.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.