IMAGE BY LESLIN LIU FROM PIXABAY
Shanghai at night. Zero emissions by 2060 might seem a stretch but if any country can do it it’s China, says Malcolm Turnbull
system and ability to turn things around and mobilise capital and people
want to go out of business despite the better, safer alternative path for
without peer.”
the planet.
Mark Carney told the Summit it is “hard to overemphasise just how
“Some newspapers spout ‘[Fossil fuels are] not so bad, there are
much financiers are factoring in climate change into the mainstream,
no alternatives… they are unaffordable’, but it’s ridiculous – fatuous
there is lots of money for renewable’s and a huge focus on companies in
propaganda. The Murdoch media empire is the last bastion of this.”
the energy chain and where they are at in the transition.” There will be expectations on banks, funds, asset managers, and
The climate damage is so great and the opportunities so good for the zero carbon alternatives and Australia has so many solutions for a green
pension and superannuation providers to communicate their policies to
hydrogen economy and other clever things, it is happening but not fast
investors.
enough, he said because of the destructive influence of US President
“Governments need to recognise that there is a transition and it’s coming and some fuels that are important today will be less important over time and consider how to manage that and then consider what is on the rise and assess competitive advantages,” Carney told the Summit. World leading sustainability professional Jeffrey Sachs followed up with some sobering messages on decarbonisation and cleaning the power sector. The trajectory is accelerating with EVs and needs to be followed with all-electric larger trucks, heating commercial and residential buildings and beyond – ocean shipping and aviation. The Director, Centre for Sustainable Development Columbia University cited some problems in the industrial transition but these are far from comparable to the ambition of reaching the moon in an eight year period. Or sequencing the human genome. “There are no profound technological or economic barriers to decarbonisation and we have the solutions. It is just the politics of fossil fuels in ten or so countries – Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US, Iran, China, India, Australia, Indonesia and Canada – that are holding us back. They represent 90 per cent of the difficulty.”
Trump, we have Exxon Mobil, we have gas-prone Putin and confusion. “The ability of just a few people to damage the world is unfortunate and part of human history. The politics has to be different, if Joe Biden is elected US President, by 2050 the US will have phased out of fossil fuels. The world will start to look different and we’ll work on specific timelines.” he said six weeks before the election. “Then we have a clear shot to a solution.” Sachs concluded his powerful address by complimenting Australia on its management of one other crisis – the pandemic. Also speaking from the US and concurring with Sachs, environmentalist Bill McKibben did not hold back on blaming the conduct of the powerful and deceptive fossil fuel sector for the climate disaster, saying the US and Australia face the same far right and vested interests to stop action on climate change. “It’s a fight about money and power. Money translates to political power,” he said. “The fossil fuel industry has huge amounts of money and they are good at using it for buying political power – the only way for the small and many to stand up to the mighty and few is to build movements, and they are having an effect.”
“The ability of just a few people to damage the world”
“I can’t breathe”
“The drama is the politics of existing incumbent fossil fuel companies
President-elect Joe Biden as a key thinker, influencer and advisor says
that make money, employ people and keep regions going and don’t
there is “No longer any room for delay”.
14 SUMMER 2020
The founder of environmental group 350.org and a man credited by
