Australia and the world are fast running out of time to limit negative impacts of climate change to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia

 

The United Nations website is very clear about what has been agreed at an international level concerning the global response required to limit the Earth’s global warming to an average 1.5°C, thereby limiting the negative impacts of climate change in intensity and time span – hopefully to spans of multiple generations rather than millennia.

The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015. It entered into force on 4 November 2016.

Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

Australia is a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, effective 4 November 2016.

However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.

That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030.

All those nations which entered into the Paris Agreement agreed to participate in the global attempt to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emission by establishing firm undertakings in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. Countries also communicate in their NDCs actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Australia submitted its first NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in 2015 and updated that version of the NDC in 2022. This update commits Australia to reducing its emissions to 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. It should be noted that in 2005 Australia’s total national greenhouse gas emissions of 559.1 million tonnes of carbon equivalent gases (MT CO²-e) was already 102.2% of its 1990 annual total of 515.9 MT CO²-e.

It could be said that even now our national reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is sluggish at best.

"For the year to June [2023], according to the preliminary numbers from the government’s latest national greenhouse gas inventory, emissions were 4.1 million tonnes above those for the corresponding period the previous year." [The Saturday Paper, 08.09.23]

 

In the year to December 2015 Australia’s “annual unadjusted” greenhouse gas emissions stood at 529.2 MT CO²-e. An artificially constructed figure because per government policy it excluded emissions from from land use, land use change and forestry. These excluded emissions would have possibly added more than 1.0 MT CO²-e bringing the national annual total to over 30 MT CO²-e in 2015.

By year to December 2022 Australia’s “actual annual” greenhouse gas emissions were recorded as 463.9 MT CO²-e. A figure arrived at by an alleged fall in emissions from land use, land use change and forestry of est. -13.6 MT CO²-e due to professed reductions in land clearing and native forest harvesting, increases in plantations and native vegetation, and improvements in soil carbon. NOTE: By year to December 2022 each person in Australia was estimated to be responsible for 17.8 tonnes CO²-e of that year’s greenhouse gas emissions total.

What Australian governments and industries has effected was a paltry national greenhouse gas emissions change of est.

-65.3 MT CO²-e spread over eight years – an average of 8.1. Or est. -95.2 MT CO²-e spread over 17 years – an average of 5.6 MT CO²-e per annum. And that change was to a significant degree on the back of the adoption of rooftop renewable energy by the general population which in the year to December 2022 was contributing to an electricity sector emissions reduction of 5.5 MT CO²-e, according to the Dept. of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

Either way, leaving Australia with an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least the promised -240.4 MT CO²-e within the next seven years. That’s roughly 34.3 MT CO²-e emissions we have to cease releasing into the air, waterways and oceans each and every year until 2030 to even have a chance at surviving as a nation and a functioning society beyond that year.

Creative accounting using offsets, hiding behind green washing propaganda, pushing hard decisions further down the track into the future, just won’t work. We need to immediately tighten polluting emissions regulations & abatement requirements, begin phasing out current unabated fossils greenhouse gas and, from this point in time where we stand right now, we must refuse all new or expanded proposals for fossil fuel extraction and use.

Australian industry and corporations both foreign and domestic are laughing in our faces and, federal & state governments appear all but frozen into inaction by the magnitude of the climate crisis before us. There will be no heroes coming down from the mountains to save us, no ships arriving to sail us all to as yet undiscovered safety, no divine miracles falling from the skies.

Australia’s estimated resident population stood at 26,268,359 men, women and children in December 2022 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 

An estimated 21,461,249 of the resident population in 2022 were individuals 15 years of age and older.

By default theirs is the burden of stopping that 240.4 MT CO²-e of additional pollution entering earth’s atmosphere over Australia by 2030. That’s an extra 11.2 tonnes CO²-e per person averaging 1.6 tonne of carbon equivalent a year.

So how do we each attempt to shoulder this terrible burden? 

"Key finding 4: global emissions are not in line with modelled global mitigation pathways consistent with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, and there is a rapidly narrowing window to raise ambition and implement existing commitments in order to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels." 

[United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake, Advance Version 8 September 2023, excerpt]

 

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

• UN., Climate Change, retrieved 8 September 2023
• U.N., The Paris Agreement
• U.N., Technical dialogue of the first global stocktake. Synthesis report by the co-facilitators on the technical dialogue, Advance Version 8 September 2023
• U.N., Nationally Determined Contributions Registry
• DCCEEW, Australia’s National Greenhouse Accounts, 1990 onwards
• DCCEEW, National Inventory Reports
• DCCEEW, National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: Quarterly updates 2009-2023
• ABS, Australia's Environment: Issues and Trends, 2002 onwards
• ABS, Year Book Australia, 2005
• Our Word In Data, C02 Emissions
• Nature, Food, Global food-miles account for nearly 20% of total food-systems emissions, 15 December 2022

Postscript:

Stocktaking our personal emissions level and, looking at ways of reducing that average per head of population average green house gas emission excessive budget of 17.8 tonnes CO²-e, may be something we can all attempt. 

For example: 

• the average vehicle in Australia is estimated to travel 12,100 km per year or 33.2 km per day, which represents around 2.1 tonne CO²-e annually; 

• while the average household across all power supply types is estimated to consume 5,818.6kw/h of electricity each year, which can be as high as 3 tonne CO²-e annually depending on the mix of supply types per household; and

• imported food or imported ingredients have food transport kilometres attached, which in Australia's case means food importation from the European Union represents est. 1.3 MT CO²-e annually or approx. 50 kg CO²-e per capita. A serve of deli sausage from Denmark travels est. 25,000 food kilometres to reach the supermarket counter. 

Time to get cracking and shame the devils who brought us to this catastrophic pass - even if the task appears impossible and we merely so many cursed children of a condemned Sisyphus.

And this week brought another Newspoll.....

 

On Saturday 15 July 2023 there was a federal by-election in the Queensland electorate of Fadden – a safe seat for the Coalition having been held at 16 out of the 17 federal elections since the electorate was created in 1977.

The by-election was caused by incumbent Stuart Robert, a former minister in the Morrison Government resigning in anticipation of being named in the Report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme.

As predicted the LNP candidate, Gold Coast City councillor Cameron Caldwell, won on the day with 49.06% of the first preference vote and 63.26% of the two-candidate preferred vote as at AEC recorded ballot count on 17 July.

Coincidentally, 14-15 July 2023 were the dates on which Newspoll conducted one of its national surveys of voter intentions.

This particular survey clearly indicated that if a general election had been held last Saturday, then MP for Dickson & Leader of the Liberal Party Peter Dutton & his Coalition cronies would remain on the Opposition benches.

IMAGES: The Australian, 17 July 2023

Click on graphs to enlarge

Here are the percentages revealed in this month’s survey.

Primary Vote

Labor – 36 (+2)

Coalition – 34 (-1.7)

Greens – 12 (+1)

One Nation – 7 (+1)

Others – 11 (+1)

Two-Party Preferred

Labor – 55 (+1)

Coalition – 45 (-1)

Performance Approval Rating

ALBANESE:

Satisfied – 52 (unchanged)

Dissatisfied – 41 (-1)

DUTTON:

Satisfied – 36 (-2)

Dissatisfied – 49 (unchanged)

BY 15 JULY 2023 LABOR'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 3.4% higher

Two Party Preferred: 1.9% higher

Better Prime Minister:

Albanese 54% - no change

BY 15 JULY 2023 COALITION'S SURVEY POSITION IN COMPARISON WITH ITS POSITION ON DAY OF 2022 FEDERAL ELECTION WAS:

Primary Vote: 1.7% lower

Two-Party Preferred: 2.9% lower

Better Prime Minister:

Dutton 29% - 1% higher.

In June 2023 Liberal-Nationals Coalition & Liberal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton still failing to breakthrough with the national electorate?

 

At the Saturday, 18 May 2019 Australian federal general election 15.8 million electors turned out to vote, with the vote result giving 77 seats in the House of Representatives to the Liberal-Nationals Coalition, 68 seats to the Labor Party and 6 seats to minor parties/independents.

Three years later the federal general election saw 15.4 million electors vote, with the vote result sending the Labor Party into government in the House of Representatives with 77 seats, the Liberal-Nationals Coalition forming the Opposition with 58 seats and minor parties/independents holding 16 seats.

Twelve months into the Albanese Government’s three-year term and there is a 10 point projected gap in TPP votes in its favour in the 4 June 2023 Newspoll. While there is a 27 point gap in Albanese’s favour when it comes to which leader is seen as better prime minister material.

The Coalition in June 2023 under Dutton is 8 points lower than the Coalition under Morrison in August 2019 (the first poll after the 2019 federal election) and, at 45 points, 2 points lower under Dutton than where the Coalition was placed on election day 2022. On the Newspoll continuum over the last twelve months Peter Dutton as party leader has never guided the Opposition to a poll score higher than 46 points.

Newspoll, 4 June 2023:

FEDERAL PRIMARY VOTE (FP)

Labor ALP — 38 (no change)

Coalition Lib/NP — 34 (no change)

Greens — 12 (+1)

One Nation — 6 (-1)

FEDERAL TWO-PARTY PREFERENTIAL VOTE (TPP)

Labor ALP — 55 (no change)

Coalition Lib/NP — 45 (no change)

BETTER PRIME MINISTER

Anthony Albanese — 55 (-1)

Peter Dutton — 28 (-1)

SUPPORT FOR THE INDIGENOUS & TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER VOICE TO PARLIAMENT REFERENDUM

YES — 46%

NO — 43%

UNDECIDED — 11%

Sources:

The Australian newspaper, Newspoll, 4 June 2023

Twitter @GhostWhoVotes, 4 June 2023

Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), 2019, 2022.

COVID-19 NSW 2023: Counting Dead People - Part 6

 

NSW Dept. of Health, @NSWHealth, 19 May 2023

In the 7 days up to 18 May 2023 the national COVID-19 death toll was in excess of 114 people.

Between Friday 12 May to Thursday 18 May 2023 61 of these confirmed COVID-19 deaths occurred in News South Wales.

There have been no 7-day reporting periods in 2023 where NSW deaths have been recorded in single digits – according to Covid Live weekly deaths over the last 20 NSW reporting periods have ranged from a low of 22 deaths (17, 24 March & 14 April 2023) to a high of 131 deaths (20 Jan 2023).

As NSW Dept. of Health no longer publishes the COVID-19 fourteen-day tables which include deaths by gender, age group and health district, there is now no way to break down current COVID-19 publicly available death data for the state or for the Northern Rivers region.

The last published table recording COVID-19 deaths by NSW local health district was for the week ending 22 April 2023 and the last published table including a Northern Rivers COVID-19 death was for week ending 15 April 2023.

From January 2023 to 15 April 2023 there have been est. 40 confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the Northern Rivers region.

All that can be stated from published tables from then on is that; as of 18 May there were 252 confirmed COVID-19 cases recorded that 7-day reporting period for the Northern NSW Local Health District, spread across all 7 local government areas and, that as of the preceding 6 May the health district was recording on a “Week To Date” and “Year To Date” basis more confirmed COVID-19 cases than confirmed Influenza and RSV cases combined.

The Australian Department of Health and Aged Care released the following information on 19 May 2023:

As at 8:00 am 18 May 2023 there are 3,132 active COVID-19 cases in 453 active outbreaks in residential aged care facilities across Australia. There have been 207 new outbreaks, 38 new resident deaths and 2,751 combined new resident and staff cases reported since 11 May 2023.

[my yellow highlighting]

New South Wales had the highest number of aged care facility COVID-19 outbreaks during 12-18 May period. As well as the highest number of aged care residents & staff with active COVID-19 infections. 

Sadly, compared to other states and territories New South Wales at 14 residential facilities also had the highest number of aged care facilities reporting COVID-19 deaths among their residents. Resulting in this state having possibly the highest number of residential aged care deaths* across all Australian states and territories.

Note: 

* The actual number of NSW aged care deaths in the 7 days to 18 May 2023 is problematic as the Dept. of Health for privacy reasons reported deaths in aged care facilities in blocs of “<6”. So deaths at the 14 individual facilities involved ranged from 1-5 elderly people per facility.

See: COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian residential aged care facilities: National snapshot, 19 May 2023, APPENDIX 1

COVID-19 NSW State Of Play 2023: Counting Dead People - Part 4

IMAGE: www1.racgp.org.au

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) Omicron variants of SARS-CoV-2 remain the currently circulating variants of concern.

By the end of February 2023 the SARS-CoV-2 sequences by variant pool found in Australia were estimated at 24.46% Omicron (BA 2.75), 1.09% Omicron (BA.5),13.59% Omicron (BQ.1), 3.26% Omicron (XBB), 26.63% Omicron (XBB1.5) and 30.98% recombinant variants. NOTE: Only a fraction of all cases are sequenced and Recently-discovered or actively-monitored variants may be overrepresented, as suspected cases of these variants are likely to be sequenced preferentially or faster than other cases [Our World Of Data, 5 March 2023].

In the 7 days up to 25 February 2023 in NSW South Wales a total of 48 people were recorded as having died from COVID-19.

Of these 26 were adult men and 22 were adult women.

Two of the dead were in the 40-49 year age group and the other 46 deceased individuals were aged between 70 years of age & 90+ years.

Three of the dead were from the Northern Rivers region, which in that 7 day period had seen 223 local residents recorded as newly infected with COVID-19.

In the 7 days up to 2 March 2023 an est. 213 Northern Rivers residents were recorded as newly infected with COVID-19. 

NOTE: NSW COVID-19 data is held at multiple points on the NSW Government’s online public access health data site/s. For reasons best known to itself these sites rarely use identical time periods for their published summaries. This means there is a 2 day overlap in the two 7 day periods for the Northern Rivers which renders the infection number for 2 March an estimate. As yet no deaths have been published for local health district for these particular 7 days.

Over the 12 days from 19 February to 2 March 2023 multiple confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in the following Northern Rivers local government areas:

• Tweed Shire – postcodes 2484, 2485, 2486, 2487, 2488, 2489;

• Kyogle Shire – postcodes 2474;

• Ballina Shire – postcodes 2477, 2478;

• Byron Shire – postcodes 2479, 2480, 2481, 2482, 2483;

• Lismore City – postcodes 2472, 2480;

• Richmond Valley – postcodes 2469, 2470, 2471, 2473, ; and

• Clarence Valley – postcodes 2460, 2462, 2463, 2464, 2465, 2466.

State-wide in NSW in the 7 days up to 2 March 2023 a total of 7,163 new cases of COVID-19 infection were recorded With 800 infected people hospitalised and a total of 29 deaths recorded.

At that point in time (2 March 2023) the total number of COVID-19 cases recorded in NSW since the pandemic began in January-February 2020 had reached est. 3,907,940 people infected, of which 6,493 have been recorded as dying as a result of contracting the viral infection.

By 3 March 2023 the cumulative total of COVID-19 deaths Australia-wide had reached est. 19,459 men, women and children.

The recorded cumulative number of people infected with the virus, as well as those dying as a result of infection, continues to rise in what is now the fourth year of uncontrolled viral infection spread in the general populace.

Sources:

NSW Health

Data NSW

covidlive.com.au

Our World In Data

WHO

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before 25 March election day

 

Roy Morgan Research, media release, excerpt, 21 February 2023:

Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine says the latest Roy Morgan Poll into NSW voting intention shows the election is still ‘up for grabs’ just over a month before election day in late March with the ALP holding a narrow two-party preferred lead over the Liberal-National Coalition:

“The latest Roy Morgan Poll of NSW voting intention shows the ALP on 52% narrowly ahead of the Liberal-National Coalition on 48% on a two-party preferred basis. This result is a reverse of the 2019 New South Wales election when the L-NP won a majority of 48 seats in the 93 seat lower house.

“The primary voting intention shows an almost three way split between the Coalition on 35% ahead of the ALP on 32.5% and another 32.5% supporting other parties and independents. This result is very similar to last year’s Federal Election when the ALP won Government despite receiving only 32.6% of the primary vote, even less than the L-NP on 35.7%.

“The low primary vote for the major parties increases the importance of preferences from minor parties and independents. Around half of the support for this group is flowing to two minor parties on either side of politics – the left-wing Greens on 9.5% and right-wing One Nation on 6.5%.

“Greens support traditionally flows strongly to the ALP via preferences at a rate of around 85% while One Nation support flows via preferences at a rate of around 65% to the Coalition. However, the optional preferential voting (OPV) used in NSW means voters need not direct their preferences to any party beyond their first choice.

“The OPV system allows voters to simply number their ballot paper with a ‘1’ for their preferred candidate to register a valid vote. Analysis of prior NSW State elections shows around 50% of voters direct preferences to exhaustion while the other 50% of voters don’t.

“The OPV system therefore makes it harder for parties finishing second, or even third, in the primary vote to overtake the leading party on preferences – favouring the party with the highest primary vote. Not since the 1995 NSW State election has a party won government despite receiving a lower primary vote.

“One interesting result from this month’s voting intention results in NSW is that support for One Nation increased 2% points to 6.5% - the highest level of support for the party since the 1999 NSW State Election over 20 years ago when the party scored 7.5% of the vote.

“One reason for the rise in support for One Nation may have been the recruitment of former Labour MP Tania Mihailuk during January. Mihailuk has represented the seat of Bankstown in the western suburbs since 2011 before resigning from the ALP in 2022 and joining One Nation in mid-January.

“Upon joining One Nation Mihailuk became the first One Nation MP to represent a lower house seat in the NSW Parliament and will run for the Legislative Council in second place behind NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham – a former Federal ALP Leader.”