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The Reef, the Election, and How to Break Our Standstill on Climate Action

A few elections ago, Australia was talking about carbon pricing schemes and solar subsidies. We've gone backwards, but there's a way to get moving.

On Tuesday we published a video looking at Australia's efforts save the Great Barrier Reef. As a warming planet is the number-one threat to reefs, we concluded that conservation work can only do so much if we're politically unwilling to curb CO2 emissions. So let's talk at that elephant in the room—carbon—and why we're at a standstill.

The argument against Australia taking action on climate change is often based on the idea that it won't make any difference, that big polluters, such as the US and China, aren't taking responsibility for their fair share of emissions. However, research from a host of NGOs (most recently Greenpeace) shows that when emissions from exported coal is included in our tally, Australia's footprint is one of the largest on the planet.

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Right now, we're emitting almost 600 megatons of carbon dioxide every year . That's more than every country in the United Kingdom is releasing, combined. And it's up 30 percent on what we were clocking in 1990, according to the WWF. Right now of all 34 nations involved in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Australia is the worst polluter on a per capita basis.

A few years ago, Australia was talking about carbon pricing schemes, solar subsidies, and emission trading schemes. Today, neither major party has a climate policy brave enough to meet targets set out during the 2015 Paris climate talks .

Those in power: Shorten, Turnbull, Ellen Degeneres. Illustrations by Ben Thomson and Ashley Goodall

So Are We Just Doing Nothing?

Not quite. What we have is an Emissions Reductions Fund (ERF), which is billed as "the centrepiece of the Australian Government's policy suite to reduce emissions." However, AIG estimates that in order to effectively make the transition to completely clean and renewable energy sources, Australia's energy infrastructure needs an injection of between $100-250 billion of taxpayer money. That's a massive increase on the $2.55 billion currently allocated in the ERF.

Then there's the Coalition's "safeguard mechanism "—a system put in place to charge businesses that exceed emission caps. A few companies have been fined since the program was introduced, yet our carbon dioxide output has risen by one percent .

Despite these shortfalls, Australia actually is actually closer to making our federal emissions target. Even if this is only happening because the government lowered the targets—in spite of recommendations from the Climate Change Authority—in order to make them easier to achieve.

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So while Australia inches closer to making a target that won't help, and incrementally increases emissions, we find ourselves at a standstill. Both Labor and the Liberals claim meaningful action comes at a cost to economic growth (you can either have one or the other) so what of the clean energy economy we used to hear so much about? Is it crazy to think that we could live in a country that produces 100 percent clean, renewable energy, without slaughtering our GDP? Canada doesn't think so.

Canada's Plan to Run on 100 Percent Renewable Energy

The Leap Manifesto is a list of 15 demands, which outline what Canada must do to get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2050. It's a document put together by those campaigning for social and political change—groups like Greenpeace Canada, Miningwatch, the Toronto Environmental Alliance, and the Canadian Environmental Law Association. It lays out a plan for what Canada needs to do, based on research from Canadian universities and environmental organisations.

Destinations at risk

Australia's Leap Manifesto

If there was an Australian version of the Leap Manifesto, it would be the Homegrown Power Plan (HPP). By 2030, the HPP argues the country could run on clean power, although this ramp-up in ambition could be its political weakness.

Miriam Lyons, one of the authors of the HPP, argues "it's one hundred per cent do-able," according to The Guardian . As she reinforced, "We're pretty much at a consensus that Australia is heading towards a zero emissions sector."

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The HPP calls for a range of actions, but their cornerstone argument is that Australia needs to overhaul its electrical grid. According to the plan, Australia's grid "is becoming one of the biggest roadblocks" to establishing a renewable energy economy. Electricity network companies, it explains, "were not set up to connect millions of small generators, let alone dozens of wind or solar farms."

The plan highlights that many countries around the world undertook these upgrades decades ago, including Germany which gave renewables priority access to its grid since the 1990s. And while it would be expensive, the HPP argues that the money we save by getting rid of carbon fuels will fund the transition with money to spare.

The plan also outlines the economic benefits of switching to clean energy, explaining that Australia will get an $800 billion slice of the global renewable investments boom, save $9 billion per year on power sector fuel costs and $11 billion a year on transport fuel costs.

So we get a new electrical grid that rewards users to use renewable power, while installing their own solar panels to feed into the grid. Yes, this will come at a large cost, but it will be offset by savings. Particularly what we'll save by not dealing with the worst of climate change.

But will renewable energy create jobs and growth?

The Economic Cost of Not Taking Action

We're often told about the impacts of not taking action on climate change in terms of rising sea levels, worsening droughts, a dying Great Barrier Reef. But if we are to just focus in on the economic implications, the picture isn't any less disastrous.

The Great Barrier Reef generates over $5 billion in tourism revenue each year. Yet we're allowing rising sea temperatures and ocean acidification from CO2 to threaten its existence . Bushfires cost the Australian economy $77 million a year, a figure that will only rise as summers become hotter and drier. As will the cost of drought, the worst of which already set Australia back upwards of $5 billion .

Looking at climate change from a strictly economic sense, it seems obvious that Australia should make the switch to renewable energy. The impact of natural disasters and the possibility that we'll just run out of coal eventually mean we need to take action sooner rather than later.

And then there's a less tangible argument for urgent action on climate change. That is, we'd just like to keep the reef.

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