Posts tagged 'deakins 2010'

For our final panel discussion we want to hear your thoughts on the politics of climate change.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Leave your question for our Innovating the Cities panel of David Owen, Melinda Dodson, Sue Holliday, Bruce Taper and Rob Adams.

We may not get to all questions.

Please leave your name so our moderator can identify your question.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Please include your name so our moderator can identify your question.

Due to volume of interest we may not get to all questions.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Please include your name so our moderator can identify your question.

Due to volume of interest we may not get to all questions.

Climate change is already having a bigger impact on developing nations as rising sea levels create climate change refugees and environmental disasters are on the rise.

Few Australian understand the issue as deeply as Tim Costello, CEO of World Vision. Last year he identified climate change as “our greatest challenge” at the One Just World forum. Six months after Copenhagen promised $30 billion to assist developing nations to limit their emissions, Costello is committed to making sure that money is spent effectively.

But Costello also believes climate change should begin at home, blogging recently prior to the Federal budget that “The federal government needs to recognise through its budget measures that climate change is a new, big problem and one that we cannot put aside. ”

Tim Costello delivers the keynote address at the Deakins lecture, Innovation, Energy and Climate Change in the Developing World.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Please include your name so our moderator can identify your question.

Due to volume of interest we may not get to all questions.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Please include your name so our moderator can identify your question.

Due to volume of interest we may not get to all questions.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Please include your name so our moderator can identify your question. Due to volume of interest we may not get to all questions.

Questions will be selected for panel discussion after the interval.

Or join us on twitter at #thedeakins

Saturday June 5th marks the 10th annual World Environment Day, a day when the UN looks at positive actions supporting protection and restoration of the world’s natural heritage.

This year’s score card is looking grim, according to environmental groups. Greenpeace have pointed to the running aground of coal ship Shen Neng 1 which meant “An area of reef more than 3km long and 250m wide was destroyed and marine life in the area [were] pulverised by the ship’s 100 tonne hull”.

More recently, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is closer to containment, but the environmental cost is yet to counted.

Deakin Series curator Tim Flannery has fired another at salvo at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the latest issue of the Monthly.

Flannery characterises Rudd’s policy move as “a funk in the truest sense of the word: a shirking of responsibility”. Flannery believes it is motivated by polls indicating that “the public is wearying of the issue”. But Flannery hasn’t quite given up on the PM as his article closes with the hope of “an honourable backflip by the prime minister on his decision to defer from Carbon Pollutions Reduction Scheme”.

This counter backflip, perhaps more properly a ‘frontflip’, makes even more sense in the context of BP’s environmental poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico and “the possibility that coal’s catastrophic equivalent could be the entire world.”

After the disappointment of Copenhagen, Bonn’s climate change talks have been called “a slow grind” by ABC Online.

Beginning on Monday, the Bonn talks are being watched closely by Pacific nations as they are already seeing the impact of global warming. The tiny nation of Tuvalu roared at Copenhagen by demanding legally binding agreements and tougher action to limit rising sea levels and climate change refugees, but their alternative agreement was dismissed.

The Solomon Island Times opened its coverage of the Bonn talks by highlighting the $30billion dollars promised by industrialised nations “to kick start climate action in developing countries.”

The Manila Bulletin was more upbeat because UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon mentioned the province of Albay as “among the first local governments which have already committed… to a two-year UN Campaign dubbed, ‘Making Cities Resilient’”. The campaign is aimed at disaster preparedness in the event of natural and climate change disaster.

The Fijian publication Islands Business however was more pessimistic, saying that not only would the Bonn talks yield no agreement, but talks later this year in Cancun would similarly not create a workable document. As they see it, China won’t even be looking at signing a binding international treaty until talks in South Africa which won’t be until late 2011.

One of the great hopes of carbon storage is biochar, because it could be used to generate electricity and fertilise soil. ABC’s Bush Telegraph looked at the substance they’re calling “the other black gold”.

Deakins keynote speaker Johannes Lehmann has long been an advocate of Biochar. Lehmann told Beyond Zero Emissions “There are extremely exciting opportunities to produce such [a] charcoal-like substance, we call this substance these days actually biochar because it is produced for the purpose of soil amendment, not primarily to put on your BBQ.”

The challenge for biochar, wind power and other alternative energy science is how it can keep pace with out growing need for more electricity.

We’ve just released a limited amount of new seats for the Deakin Lecture series keynote address this Sunday with Tim Flannery.

Flannery has long been at the vanguard of Australia’s environmental thinking with his book The Weather Makers called “a tour de force” by the Washington Post. He recently made headlines for changing his position not just on geosequestration but also on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

His opening keynote for the week-long Deakins Lecture series promises to be so good that we had to find a few more seats.

The media buzzed with news that Deakins Series curator Tim Flannery has switched his position on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and on carbon capturing.

The Australian reported from Flannery’s speech yesterday to green business that in terms of climate change Australia was “one of the wooden spooners”. Flannery came out strongly critical of Rudd. He told the Australian “Politics is all about trust. The only thing a politician’s really got to sell is his trust.” Flannery also mentioned that he was “unlikely” to vote for Rudd at this year’s election.

ABC Online thought Flannery “blasts [the] PM over ‘breach of faith’” while the Advertiser took it more personally as “Flannery accuses Rudd of climate betrayal of trust”. It may have something to do with the Moomba Carbon Storage facility planned for northeastern South Australia.

The Sydney Morning Herald focused on Flannery’s change of tack on carbon capture – the idea that carbon should be buried under the earth to prevent further damage.

It represents a real shift in Flannery’s thinking because he’s previously been an advocate of the controversial technology. ‘'I have been a great proponent of carbon capture and storage because I believed it was just essential particularly in places like China. But … the idea that coal is the future is a big problem for us.’'

Not everyone agrees on climate change. Quadrant Online’s Doomed Planet questions global warming publishing Andrew Gilkson’s argument that there is a “widening gulf between scientific observations around the globe and public perceptions of the nature and origin of climate change”. They’ve wagged a finger at the Deakin Lecture Series for the event’s lack of climate change skeptics.

We think they’ve missed the point. The Deakin Lecture series in 2010 is not about debating climate science – there are plenty of bloggers already discussing that. Rather the Deakins are taking on board one of the pressing issues of our time and considering the impact that discussion is having on different spheres of modern life, from business and industry to our cities and farms.

Our speakers have been chosen for their track record of working within the context of the present debate, not because of any fixed political position on that debate. Speakers like Prasad Menon who heads up India’s largest power company are difficult to pidgeonhole as warmist. Engineer Stephen Joseph is looking at ways of re-tooling farms and industry for the future. And while speakers like Baroness Valerie Amos may upset Gerard Hendserson, they come to climate change with an international perspective on how Australia measures up.

Local readers might be all too familiar with our curator from the wealth of books Tim Flannery has written – most notably his seminal and influential climate change work The Weather Makers. Based on this book, the Sydney Morning Herald said “Flannery is passionate about educating us about global warming in the hope of disrupting our – and key decision makers' – lethal complacency”.

But several of our other speakers have also put their climate change views to print. Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth was hailed by the Guardian as at the vanguard of a new ideal. ‘A new economic movement is emerging, and this superbly written book should be the first stop for anyone wanting a manifesto.’

Peter Singer has written extensively about ethics, our society and animal rights. His groundbreaking The Life You Can Save looks at how our individual morality needs to shift to make real change. The New York Times concluded their review of the book with “When it comes to living the so-called "good” life, one’s moral omissions count more than ever."

Working as Head of Programming for the Wheeler Centre has brought its surprises, its challenges and its learning curves, but perhaps none as pronounced as working on the 2010 Alfred Deakin Lecture series. Under the guidance of Curator Tim Flannery and Strategic Director Nick Rowley, I’ve been introduced to a whole (dare I say it brave) new world of people working to improve their work practices, their businesses and their ways of life in the face of climate change.

I consider myself an engaged and well-informed person, one with a social conscience who is passionate about campaigning for a range of issues from human rights to the environment. From time to time I would even have referred to myself as an activist in those areas. But if I’m being completely honest, I’d have to admit that I know very little about climate change. I believe in it. I believe it’s the most serious problem confronting the human race. So I… I recycle and turn off lights when I leave rooms. I am guilty of the very thing it infuriates me to hear the government hide behind: climate change fatigue. Because let’s face it, with a problem this big, nearing a saturation point of endless talk and discussion and reportage, it’s hard to know where to start. My brain has been as switched off as my electrical appliances. I care, but what of it?

As we’ve gathered the speakers together for the intensive week of Deakins 2010, I’ve begun to learn and listen again. I’m unlikely to be working in high-end finance, but reading essays by Denny Ellerman or John Daley has opened my eyes to the ways in which big business shouldn’t be hiding behind the cost of things, the ways business could be overhauled to respond to the new world order. I’m probably never going to have to do extensive agricultural work, but Johannes Lehmann’s thoughts on what could be done with soils have already helped make me see the world differently.

I can say geo-sequestration without giggling, so that feels like some kind of personal growth. Overcoming my own fatigue has been about feeling better informed and better armed with the individual changes we can be lobbying our government and our businesses for. I can’t wait for the conversation to begin on June 6. I still have a lot to learn.

Michael Williams is the Head of Programming at the Wheeler Centre.

Cold climates dwellers have been smugly thinking global warming will bring sunnier weather. The Guardian's review of Turned Out Nice, Britain will become more like the Mediterranean. London will be “an urban heat island” with later sunsets encouraging strolls “sultry summer evenings the royal parks”. Except “grass in the parks will be scorched and dry” and “blighted areas will be occupied by climate refugees who work as servants”. So a sunny future for some as Britons have become less concerned about climate change.

And who will those climate change refugees be? Bob Geldof was in Melbourne last week just long enough to tell Australians they will become “the boat people” of Asia as global warming dramatically changes our island. Geldof told the Age “You’ll be the boat people… Whatever is going to happen with climate change, it is happening. You can disagree on the science, but it is happening.”

Closer to home the future of wind farms around Melbourne seems more certain. More than 110 turbines will whirl into action at Moorabool Wind Farm and Minister for Planning Justin Madden has backed another 14 turbines at Yaloak South. Locals fear a possible fire hazard and possible threats to the wedge-tailed eagle.

Earlier this week, the US National Research Council released three reports on climate change calling for decisive action to limit carbon emissions.

Originally commissioned by Congress in 2008, the documents push for a greenhouse gas emissions “budget” limiting overall emissions with a measurable goal for government and industry. It stops short of a specific target but the New York Times said “advocates of climate and energy legislation embraced the reports.”

The New York Times piece points to the reports as clear evidence of the human impact on the planet. It contends that “climate change is a reality and is driven mostly by human activity” – a point that environmentalists have been making for decades.

Both Tim Flannery and Nick Rowley come to the Deakin Lectures as veterans of last year’s Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. After the disappointing outcome of that conference we asked both presenters, why sign up for more talk on climate change?

Series Moderator Rowley sees the lectures as a chance to continue the debate. “At a time when the public debate is confused, the politics a mess, but the risks only more clear, we need to hear from those with deep understanding and experience of what it takes to meaningfully address the climate change. More than bold words from the stage, each Deakins lecture will challenge the audience and allow us to question what it will take to address this most wicked of problems."

For Series Curator Tim Flannery it’s about action shifting from the political to the personal. “Accepting we have a problem, and doing something about it, are two different things. As we move towards taking action we need to hear from leaders who have changed things, in their business, political party or community: innovators who have succeeded in addressing an aspect of the climate problem.”

“You may not have heard of some of them, but in their spheres they’re global champions. That’s why this year’s Deakins are so important. They give us the chance to learn from the world’s most successful game-changers in the climate arena, and so to lift our own game.”

Reuters reports that debate on reducing carbon emissions is in “legislative limbo”. A draft proposal of almost 1000 pages was issued last week, but little has been done to get it on the US Senate’s agenda.

Senator John Kerry highlighted the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill which “should also drive a serious national dialogue and a debate on legislation this year to advance our nation’s clean energy future.”

But others in the Senate are skeptical of the bill even getting discussed in 2010. Senator Carl Levin told Reuters “My feeling is it’s not going to be coming up this year, but if it does I will dig into it at great depth.”

Green lobbyists are speculating that the overly complicated 1000-page proposal was tailor made for filibustering – the Senate’s means of preventing legislation ever being passed by excessive debates.

Tony Abbott has done a lot to impress Malcolm Turnbull with his new-found praise for Coalition policy on climate change.

Back in December 2009 Turnbull’s blog entry scolded “Mr Abbott apparently knows what he is against, but not what he is for.” Turnbull pointed to Abbott’s lack of financial thinking about replacing coal-fired power stations, but this week Abbott’s ideas were “superior to the Rudd government’s climate change policy vacuum”.

Turnbull’s blog entry was a call for real leadership on climate change. “Now politics is about conviction and a commitment to carry out those convictions.”

Malcolm Turnbull is on the panel for Politics of Climate Change.

Science magazine this month features an article on the extinction of lizards, attributing their demise to global warming. Up to a fifth of the world’s lizards could disappear by 2080 with a horrific ripple effect across the food chain as birds and insect numbers will be impacted.

ABC Science pointed out that although cold-blooded reptiles should thrive in a warmer climate, increased temperatures will be too hot even for lizards because the heat will reduce their activity “including limiting their efforts to find food”.

Biologists' models project 6% falls in lizard populations by 2050 and 20% by 2080.

As the cleanup continues in the Gulf of Mexico, reports of underwater “mushroom clouds… [that] portend more dangerous long-term fallout for the Gulf of Mexico’s wildlife and economy". Experts say that a deep water spill will destroy the ecosystem of the gulf because oil “dispersants themselves are toxic” with over 2.1 million litres of chemicals used.

President Obama has expressed his “anger and frustration” both at the cleanup and the way BP, Haliburton and other companies have shifted blame for the spill. The US ABC news saw the sacking of Chris Oynes, an Obama government official in charge of overseeing offshore oil as a political casualty of Obama’s anger.

Closer to our own shores, Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has announced 31 new offshore petroleum exploration zones despite a recent spill near the Barrier Reef.

As Britain meets its new power-sharing leaders, climate change policy is caught in the middle, according to The Independent.

Pre-election slogans from the Conservative party to “vote blue, go green” have been muddied by the Liberal-Democrats who disagree with their new political bedfellows on several key issues. Already the new Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne (a Lib-Dem cabinet appointee) has surrendered nuclear energy policy to his Conservative deputy, Charles Hendry.

Not only do the parties disagree on nuclear power, but substantial rifts exist on renewable energy and offshore drilling. Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has announced, however, that his will be “the greenest government ever” with ministerial departments will drop their carbon by 10%.

Andrew Weldon’s cartoon goes head-to-head with Hummers.

For the real Flannery check out the Deakin Lecture Series.

Over the weekend, Australia’s political commentators gave their diagnosis for the Rudd Government’s policy go slow on climate change.

In The Australian, Paul Kelly damned Rudd saying the retreat “leaves his credibility in serious doubt and Australia’s policy in untenable suspension”.

Over at New Matilda, Jason Wilson saw some blue sky with Rudd showing “some virtue… by accepting responsibility for things which are essentially not his fault, in the broader interest of ensuring the next election result”.

Meanwhile the Herald Sun, Laurie Oakes gave up on Kevin and called “Abbott to abandon the budgie smugglers or the bike, but it is time he put his head down and produce some serious policy”.

To take the pulse of the ETS, the Deakin Lectures features Emissions Trading: Dead or Alive with energy economist Denny Ellerman and Martin Parkinson, Secretary of Australia’s Department of Climate Change.