Leaders will be shocked into climate action (Jonathon Porritt)

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Leaders will be shocked into climate action

Even today’s climate optimists acknowledge that there are going to have to be some traumatic ‘shocks to the system’, induced by accelerated climate change, to jolt politicians the world over to move up a gear (well, several gears).

These shocks will come, and from the perspective of our long-term prospects, they need to come as rapidly as possible. And to be as traumatic as possible – otherwise, politicians and their electorates will rapidly revert to the current mix of non-specific anxiety and inertia.

Post-Katrina, for instance, public opinion in the US provided the best example of this phenomenon. It took just two years for Fox News and other right-wing shock-jocks to straighten out deviant US citizens who’d started to think that it really might be time for the US to get stuck in on climate change.

But Australia provides an even more compelling story. Over the last few years, it’s had more than its fair share of traumatic shocks. Earlier this year, Melbourne broke its record February temperature by a full 3°C to hit 46.8°C. This was also the day of Australia’s worst ever bush fires, with 173 people killed and 2000 homes destroyed. The Murray-Darling Basin (Australia’s food bowl, with nearly 40% of Australia’s agricultural production based around its waters) has been in so-called ‘drought’ since 2002. Flow levels are now down to 5% of their long-term average. As a result, it’s now assumed that the globally significant wetlands and lake system at the river’s mouth will face ecological collapse over the next few years.

And now there’s a new report out in Australia, featured in the Guardian on Wednesday, (‘Managing Our Coastal Zones in a Changing Climate’) which reveals that more than £80 billion of property is at risk from rising sea levels and more frequent storms – and that’s going to send a bit of a shock wave down the backbones of the 80% of Australian citizens who live along the coastline! The report’s principle policy proposal is that there should be a ban on any further development at beach level.

So what’s been the net impact of all these shocks on Australian politics? The victory of Kevin Rudd over John Howard in the most recent general election in Australia was attributed in part to his relatively progressive stance on climate change. But since then, there’s been one set back after another in terms of introducing appropriate policy interventions, with Australia’s mining and coal industries in full-on defensive mode, and its equivalent of the CBI acting exactly like our CBI did under the Neanderthal leadership of Digby Jones a few years ago.

The outcome of which is that Australia is still doing very little on climate change, and has no chance whatsoever of meeting its Kyoto targets. It still pursues its dreams of unbridled affluence, California-style, and is about as far from adopting a leadership role as it is possible to get.

Clearly the shocks to their systems just haven’t been bad enough – which gives us some sense of just how bad future climate shocks are going to have to be to drive any serious transformation.

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on October 30, 2009 4:02 PM | Permalink

Comments (5)

The problem as I understand it is that by the time a really serious and unequivocable climate system shock comes along, it might already be too late to do anything

Posted by Paul Roberts | November 11, 2009 2:01 AM

I look at the map of Australia and I cannot understand why they have not invested in solar thermal power plant. In the west especially the desert areas are eminently suitable and are not that far away from what the Australians would call 'large centres of population' Solar thermal has been demonstrated in the US and Spain and there are grandiose plans for massive developments in north africa (see DESERTEC web site) Australia has no political problems at all whihc would stop them just going ahead. In the long term, solar thermal power could be used to produce hydrogen which could be exported and replace their coal industry. Jonathon should get on to the likes of Rio Tinto Zinc to persuade them to invest in the technology.

Posted by David Pollard | November 25, 2009 8:47 AM

I have just heard you mention on TV population as an important factor when considering Global Warming. It would appear this is a taboo subject by its absence in most analysis. If population continues to grow as some predict I think CO2 and sea levels will be the least of our problems, food, water, land and wars over these scarce resources may be the end of humanity. Certainly it will be the end for many species with nobody else to blame but us.

Population must begiven a much higher profile.

Posted by Brian Lomas | December 3, 2009 1:54 PM

Jonathon

What qualifications do you have as a scientist?

Posted by Tony Cowell | December 4, 2009 10:28 AM

There is a Chinese bilingual website translated and published this article.
You can find it at: http://www.envirofortune.com/news_chs.asp?id=153
Their main Page: http://www.envirofortune.com

Posted by Shen | December 12, 2009 6:32 AM

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