Submission to the House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy regarding the (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation Bill) 2020 and the related Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2020.

I support these bills for a number of reasons:

• I am a retired chemical engineer, with appropriate scientific training to understand the science of climate change, to appreciate the expertise of leading climate scientists and to acknowledge the existential climate crisis that is already happening across the globe. • I can see the indisputable evidence of exponential temperature increases and damage from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions • I am concerned for vulnerable communities who will suffer disproportionally from climate change, as well as future generations of Australians. • I have children and grandchildren, whom I wish to protect from catastrophic environmental damage attributable to the activities and lifestyles of my generation of baby boomers, as well as the widespread use of fossil fuels by earlier generations. • There is a clear and urgent need for strong action, to avoid the possibility of irreversible climate change, and so far there have been weak and uncoordinated Federal Government policies for adaptation and mitigation.

There are a number of points I would like to address:

1. The science is clear. Some of the earliest scientific studies of what is now known as global warming dates back to a classical experiment by amateur scientist Eunice Newton Foote in 1856. Using glass cylinders, each encasing a mercury thermometer, Foote found that the heating effect of the Sun was greater in moist air than dry air, and that it was highest of all in a cylinder containing carbon dioxide. 1 Her findings did not include the fact that water vapor and greenhouse gases raise Earth’s temperature not by absorbing incoming sunlight, but by absorbing heat radiated by the surface. They nevertheless her experiments appear to have led Foote to a remarkable insight about carbon dioxide and Earth’s past climate. Her work was presented to a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, by a male colleague reading the paper on her behalf. Other pioneering scientists advanced the understanding of the greenhouse gas effects in the 19th century, such as , and Thomas Chamberlin, and numerous other researchers have studied the changing climate and designed models for forecasting. Between 1965 and 1995, the number of articles published per year in atmospheric science journals tripled. 2 Other chemicals have been identified as greenhouse gases and the list frequently quoted includes carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water vapour and fluorinated gases The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 and, in 1998, as part of the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, and 186 participating countries were called on to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. In 2007 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change come to the conclusion that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.3

Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have enabled scientists to see the big picture about our planet and its climate on a global scale. Ice cores from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical mountain glaciers show the Earth’s climate responds to changes in greenhouse gas levels. Ancient evidence has also been found in tree rings, ocean sediments, coral reefs, and layers of sedimentary rocks. This ancient, or paleoclimate, evidence reveals that current warming is occurring roughly ten times faster than the average rate of ice-age-recovery warming. Carbon dioxide from human activity is increasing more than 250 times faster than it did from natural sources after the last Ice Age.4

1 ‘Happy 200th birthday to Eunice Foote, hidden climate science pioneer’ Amara Huddleston, NOAA Climate.gov July 17, 2019 2 Historical Overview of Climate Change Science Coordinating Lead Authors: Hervé Le Treut (France), Richard Somerville (USA), 2018 3 https://climate.nasa.gov/nasa_science/history/

4 Vostok ice core data; NOAA Mauna Loa CO2 record Gaffney, O.; Steffen, W. (2017). "The Anthropocene equation," The Anthropocene Review (Volume 4, Issue 1, April 2017), 53-61. 2 The evidence is strong

The Earth's climate has changed throughout history. In the last 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the abrupt end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in Earth’s orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives.5

The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95% probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over millennia.6

Global Temperature Rise The planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.14 degrees Celsius since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere.7 Most of the warming occurred in the past 40 years, with the six warmest years on record taking place since 2014. 8

Warming Ocean The ocean has absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 100 meters of ocean showing warming of more than 0.33 degrees Celsius since 1969.9 Shrinking Ice Sheets. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased in mass. Data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment show Greenland lost an average of 279 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2019, while Antarctica lost about 148 billion tons of ice per year.10 Glacial Retreat. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska, and Africa.11

5 https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ 6 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Summary for Policymakers B.D. Santer et.al., “A search for human influences on the thermal structure of the atmosphere,” Nature vol 382, 4 July 1996, 39-46 Gabriele C. Hegerl, “Detecting Greenhouse-Gas-Induced Climate Change with an Optimal Fingerprint Method,” Journal of Climate, v. 9, October 1996, 2281-2306 V. Ramaswamy et.al., “Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling,” Science 311 (24 February 2006), 1138-1141 B.D. Santer et.al., “Contributions of Anthropogenic and Natural Forcing to Recent Tropopause Height Changes,” Science vol. 301 (25 July 2003), 479-483.

7 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/indicators.php https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/ http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp

8 https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20170118/ 9 https://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/index3.html Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go? Earth System Science Data (Volume 12, Issue 3, 07 September 2020), 2013-2041. 10 Continuity of ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica from the GRACE and GRACE Follow‐On missions. Geophysical Research Letters (Volume 47, Issue 8, 28 April 2020, e2020GL087291. 11 National Snow and Ice Data Center Decreased Snow Cover. Satellite observations reveal that the amount of spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and the snow is melting earlier.12

Sea Level Rise. Global sea level rose about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in the last century. The rate in the last two decades is nearly double that of the last century and accelerating slightly every year.13 Declining Arctic Sea Ice. Both the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice has declined rapidly over the last several decades.14 Extreme Weather Events. These contribute to shifts in the distribution of plant and animal species, decreases in crop yields and more frequent wildfires, severe tropical cyclones and flooding. Ocean Acidification. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30%.15 This increase is the result of humans emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hence more being absorbed into the ocean. The ocean has absorbed between 20% and 30% of total anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions in recent decades (7.2 to 10.8 billion metric tons per year).16 Feedback loops.17 Self-amplifying mechanisms, for instance • the melting snow and ice which reduces the reflectivity of solar radiation at the surface, • drying of soil leading to less evaporative cooling in the interior of continents and • thawing of the Northern Hemisphere tundra region, releasing methane to the atmosphere which, in turn, leads to further global warming.

World Glacier Monitoring Service

12 National Snow and Ice Data Center Robinson, D. A., D. K. Hall, and T. L. Mote. 2014. MEaSUREs Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Snow Cover Extent Daily 25km EASE-Grid 2.0, Version 1. [Indicate subset used]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. doi: https://doi.org/10.5067/MEASURES/CRYOSPHERE/nsidc-0530.001. [Accessed 9/21/18]. http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/snow_extent.html Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, Data History Accessed September 21, 2018.

13 R. S. Nerem, B. D. Beckley, J. T. Fasullo, B. D. Hamlington, D. Masters and G. T. Mitchum. "Climate-change–driven accelerated sea-level rise detected in the altimeter era." PNAS, 2018 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1717312115 14 https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/sotc/sea_ice.html Pan-Arctic Ice Ocean Modeling and Assimilation System (PIOMAS, Zhang and Rothrock, 2003) http://psc.apl.washington.edu/research/projects/arctic-sea-ice-volume-anomaly/ http://psc.apl.uw.edu/research/projects/projections-of-an-ice-diminished-arctic-ocean/ 15 http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/What+is+Ocean+Acidification%3F 16 C. L. Sabine et.al., “The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2,” Science vol. 305 (16 July 2004), 367-371 Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, Technical Summary, Chapter TS.5, Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems, and Dependent Communities, Section 5.2.2.3. https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/chapter/technical-summary/ 17 https://climaterealityproject.org/blog/how-feedback-loops-are-making-climate-crisis-worse

3. The forecasts are dire

In his address to the UN General Assembly in 2018, Secretary-General António Guterres quoted World Meteorological Organization (WMO) data showing that the past two decades have included eighteen of the twenty warmest years since record-keeping began in 1850. “Climate change is moving faster than we are,” said Secretary-General Guterres. “We must listen to the Earth’s best scientists,” he added. One month later the IPCC presented the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC, based on the assessment of around 6,000 peer-review publications, most of them published in the last few years.18 A subsequent report from the UN Environment Program19 warned that under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the world is heading for a 3.2 degrees Celsius global temperature rise over pre- industrial levels, leading to even wider-ranging and more destructive impacts. If the world warms by more than 1.5 degrees, we will see more frequent, and intense, climate impacts such as the heatwaves and storms witnessed in recent years. This IPCC Special Report uses a number of ‘pathways’ to explore different possibilities for limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It states that pathways that overshoot 1.5°C run a greater risk of passing through ‘tipping points’, thresholds beyond which certain impacts can no longer be avoided even if temperatures are brought back down later on. The collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets on the time scale of centuries and millennia is one example of a tipping point. A powerful illustration of dangerous ‘tipping points’, as well as a recent overview of the climate situation, has been provided by Emeritus Professor Will Steffen.20 The annual Emissions Gap Report shows that emissions need to fall by 7.6 per cent each year over the next decade, if the world is to get back on track towards the goal of limiting temperature rises to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius. “Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions”, said Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director.

18 https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SR15_Summary_Volume_High_Res.pdf

19 UN emissions report: World on course for more than 3 degree spike, even if climate commitments are met, 26 November 2019, https://www.unenvironment.org/resources/emissions-gap-report-201

20 Emeritus Professor Will Steffen (ANU) , April 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x94fcoIG9GQ 4. Beyond politics

Any discussion of climate change in Australia would be incomplete without acknowledgment of the overwhelming impact of political polarisation, which has effectively ruled out meaningful progress with policies to address climate impact and mitigation. With the political influence of large fossil fuel mining and energy companies, Australia has lost at least 10 years of opportunity to develop robust climate and energy policy. There is no doubt that the Australian economy has benefitted significantly from domestic usage and exports of fossil fuels – particularly thermal coal and, in more recent years, coal seam gas – but the world’s climate crisis is demanding a reduction or exit from these activities. Calls for reducing Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels are now coming from many sources, including some of the major mining and energy companies themselves, from shareholders, financial institutions and superannuation funds, as well as climate scientists and environmental activists. Even schoolchildren are calling for change, from the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg to – as Christiana Figueres cites – the young children of the CEO of one of the “major, major oil and gas companies” who come home every night and ask ‘Dad, what are you doing about my future?’ 21 It is now time to move past the political intransigence that has frustrated progress on climate policy in Australia and it is not an unrealistic expectation. Past leaders – of all political persuasions – have clearly articulated the challenge, for example:

Former PM John Howard: “Being among the first movers on carbon trading in this region will bring new opportunities and we intend to grasp them. The Government will examine how to ensure that Australia becomes a carbon trading hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Of course, an emissions trading scheme is only one part of a comprehensive long-term climate change policy framework.”22

Former PM Kevin Rudd: “It is the one of the greatest scientific, economic, and moral challenges of our time.”23

Former Coalition Leader, John Hewson: “Those who claim to be "agnostic" on climate change are rejecting the scientific consensus no less than outright climate-change deniers. As financial institutions and others begin to respond to the threat of global warming, those who refuse to recognize the dangers will be left out in the cold.”24

21 Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN convention on climate change https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/reasons-to-be-optimistic-about-climate- change-action/12675130

22 Howard Commits To Emissions Trading Scheme, Jul 17 2007 https://australianpolitics.com/2007/07/17/howard-commits-to-emissions-trading-scheme.html

23 Kevin Rudd, PM Transcripts, 28 October 2009 https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript- 16882

24 John Hewson: “No Agnostics in the Climate Foxhole” https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/australia-climate-change-agnostic- krauthammer-by-john-hewson-2015-07?barrier=accesspaylog

Former PM Malcolm Turnbull: “Climate change is a global problem. The planet is warming because of the growing level of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. If this trend continues, truly catastrophic consequences are likely to ensue from rising sea levels, to reduced water availability, to more heatwaves and fires.”25

Ministers of conservative State Governments have also articulated the challenge, and taken bold policy initiatives, for example:

NSW Minister for Energy and Environment, Matt Kean: “The release of the Australia Institute’s Climate of the Nation Report 2020 should put an end to the pointless, backward-looking arguments about taking action on climate change. Eighty per cent of Australians think we are already experiencing the impact of climate change, and they are right.

And 83 per cent of Australians support an orderly transition from coal-fired power stations to renewables, while 82 per cent are concerned that climate change will result in more bushfires – exactly the sort of events that scientists have been warning us about for decades.

In fact, it was NSW's former chief scientist, Mary O’Kane, who said climate change clearly played a role in creating the conditions that led to last year’s catastrophic bushfires…Australians are, in my experience, hard-headed, pragmatic people. They know the rest of the world is moving on climate change.”26

While the history of climate policy in Australia has been fraught with difficulties, and failed attempts, the well-documented risks of catastrophic climate change are now far too great for parties and MPs to continue with petty politics and point-scoring. Rather, they should individually and collectively dig deep to find the goodwill to work collaboratively for a strong bipartisan solution.

25 Transcript of Malcolm Turnbull's Speech to the House of Representatives on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bills 2010, Feb 8 2010. 26 Matt Kean, “Australians have spoken on climate, so there's no excuse to look backwards” October 28, 2020 https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/australians-have- spoken-on-climate-so-there-s-no-excuse-to-look-backwards-matt-kean-20201028-p569i6.html

5. The Climate Emergency - a serious and urgent issue.

Like the Coronavirus pandemic, climate change poses an existential threat for everyone on the planet. And like Coronavirus in 2020, it knows no borders, or differences for race, gender or age. Climate change is deadly serious. While it is impossible to attribute any specific death to climate change, there is no doubt that climate change has already been the major contributing factor in many deaths of elderly people from record heat-waves in Europe, of firefighters and residents during the catastrophic bushfires in the most recent summers in Australia and the USA, and deaths from record-breaking tropical cyclones in South-East Asia and the Pacific. Medical researchers and governments are confident that new vaccines and treatments for the Coronavirus will be available in the near future, which presumably will see limits to the number of cases and deaths from the virus. However, as outlined in earlier sections, the mitigation of climate change impacts will take years, probably decades, and there is the distinct possibility that we will pass so-called tipping points and some of the climate damage will be irreversible.

It is widely recognised that Australia has done well in managing the Covid 19 pandemic, because our governments have “listened to the scientists” and this mantra – “listen to the climate science” - must be the key principle for Australia’s approach to climate change.

Conclusion - Please support the Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation and Mitigation) Bill 2020.

The Climate Change Act, which this Bill foreshadows, offers a responsible planning and reporting framework for Australia to tackle, in a truly bi-partisan way, the ‘wicked problem’ of climate change.

• It is not controversial, but it will be both a practical and symbolic first serious step towards a comprehensive and co-ordinated response to the challenges of climate change. • As a framework, the Bill is not prescriptive regarding solutions; it simply opens the way for appropriate structures and systems to be established. • The Bill does formalise the ‘NetZero by 2050’ goal, which is becoming the benchmark for many governments around the world, and for many State and local governments withing Australia. • The Bill provides for 5-yearly reviews of the NetZero target, as well as 5-year emissions budgets and reduction plans. • Importantly the Bill includes the establishment of an independent Climate Change Commission, to advise the Minister for the preparation of emissions budgets, emissions reduction plans, progress towards meeting budgets and the Target, preparation of climate risk assessments and low emissions technology, preparation of reports on the implementation of adaption plans and to conduct [related] reviews. • The Bill makes good sense, and because it incorporates a suite of “Guiding Principles”, it reflects what could be regarded as best practice in modern corporate management and governance. The Bill and the related bill covering consequential and transitional provisions are comprehensive, well drafted and self-explanatory. With the creation of this Bill, the Parliament now has a tangible document for consideration. Given the difficult history of the climate debate this will pose a challenge for each and every MP. For many members of parliament, it is possible that climate action will be the most challenging and far-reaching issue that they face in their careers. It will test each MP’s integrity and commitment to making the hard decisions on behalf of both their constituents and the nation. I appeal to the members of the Committee on the Environment and Energy to follow their consciences when considering the Bill and reporting on their findings. In particular, I appeal to the Prime Minister (i) to permit a conscience vote on this Bill in each chamber of the Parliament, and (ii) to provide his full support and leadership to ensure the successful passage of the Bill and its enactment into legislation.

Rob Firth Sydney 27 November 2020