{"id":6499,"date":"2015-11-20T07:24:33","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T07:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6499"},"modified":"2015-11-20T07:24:33","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T07:24:33","slug":"make-mine-a-moritorium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/11\/20\/make-mine-a-moritorium\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Mine a Moritorium"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I noted<\/a>\u00a0a few days ago, I went to listen to an I-SEE seminar by Richard Denniss. \u00a0It was an enjoyable event,\u00a0delivered with some style, although I thought that we were reminded once too often that Australia was a continent. \u00a0But the size of the place means that coal (and other) mines, even gynormous ones, are not only out of sight but, for\u00a0much of civic society, out of mind as well.<\/p>\n

The message of the seminar was that if there is no moratorium on new coal mines, we can kiss goodbye to an effective COP21 agreement, and all the hopes that hang on this. \u00a0This is because new mines will mean much more cheap coal flooding onto the market, thus making other forms of electricity generation less competitive and likely \u2013 not to mention all that CO2<\/p>\n

All such new mines will not be in Australia, but the ones there will be big. \u00a0The proposed Carmichael<\/a> mine in the Galliee Basin in Queensland has 4bn tonnes of coal in it, and the corporate plan, it seems, is to extract 2bn of that. Despite the fall in the global coal price, this will be profitable because of the subsidies provided by the generous ever-Australian taxpayer. These include a free rail link and a new (no cost) port that is rather close to the Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

Richard Denniss\u00a0said that those who matter in Australia want COP21 to fail to achieve anything significant so that its extractive industries can continue as if there is no tomorrow, but it is widely reckoned that 80% of proven coal reserves will have to be left alone if the battle against global warming is to be won \u2013 or at least fought out to a draw.<\/p>\n

Global coal production has increased by 50% since 1990, despite all the talk of climate change, and Denniss invoked the green paradox <\/em>to explain this: that sometimes problems are caused by talk of solutions. \u00a0In other words, all the chatter about climate change\u00a0has alerted coal conglomerates to the need to sell the stuff as quickly as possible even if the profit is lower than optimal.<\/p>\n

President Tong of Kiribati<\/a> is urging a global moritorium on new coal mines, and has the support of 12 pacific island countries, not to mention the likes of Stern, Klein and Figuerres (and probably Bono, et al.). \"Make mine a moratorium<\/em>\u201d says Ross Gittins<\/a> of the Sydney Morning Herald, showing that not everyone in Australia things like a coal owner \u2013 See also NoMoreCoal<\/a>. \u00a0Ironically, a moritorium on new mines might drive a wedge between old mine-owners and new ones, which would be good for the hard-pressed old mine companies such as Peabody and Glencore, whose business could then carry on (regardless) \u2013 producing coal.<\/p>\n

Denniss said that support for a moratorium from the UK and others would be devastating to the Australian government, but will the UK do that? \u00a0Probably not. \u00a0Ow will the sclerotic and dysfunctional EU? \u00a0Doubtful, given the\u00a0dependence of key member states on the black rock\u00a0for power. \u00a0Anyway who would police it? \u00a0The UN? \u00a0UNESCO? \u00a0The Vatican? \u00a0Bono's band?<\/p>\n

I came away even gloomier than usual about the future. \u00a0By the way, if\u00a0 you planning that trip of a lifetime to Kiribati, best to get there asap before the sea rises even higher.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I noted\u00a0a few days ago, I went to listen to an I-SEE seminar by Richard Denniss. \u00a0It was an enjoyable event,\u00a0delivered with some style, although I thought that we were reminded once too often that Australia was a continent....<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-talks-and-presentations"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}