It is Monday 14^th April 2014, and I wake up to the alarm clock on ABC radio AM 630 morning news at 6:30 am, for an hour with a barely awake brain, before I catch up on some further sleep. The only I content I remember is the voice of Christine Milne, of the Australian Greens, with words to the effect that "the IPCC reports again show climate change is a dire problem, we (Australia) need to cut our carbon emissions now, and there should be no new coal mines."

This is the only part that sticks. Christine, as always in her few allowed public sound bytes, is incisive with her tone, choice of words, and relevence of topic. Right now, about 4 hours later, there is no other record of this broadcast on the internet, so I cannot tell for sure if I was not really dreaming.

"No new coal mines" has been a slogan of the greens for several years, and the Greens have been pressing for action on IPCC reports and Australian carbon emissions for longer than this. Christine's statement is a re-iteration and re-affirmation, its not really news. Equally long, going back decades, has been the response of business powers that be, the Australian Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Australia. Their response has always been that we have to wait for the rest of the world to do something, before Australia will take action.

Government told to chill on climate change

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/05/23/3224340.htm

Greg Evans says Australia needs to wait to see what the rest of the world is doing about carbon emissions before making a move.

"We [produce] only a little over 1 per cent of global emissions so I would suggest to the Climate Commission that they take their road show to India and China," he said. [ Another way of saying go jump in the lake. Guess who supplies India and China with coal, so that we have vested interest in their increased energy consumption. ] - [ Iwill keep putting my comments inside the square brackets ]

Sad to say, listening to news bulletins later in morning, on the same station, there is no repeat of Christine's voice statements. Other, more trivial items about the weather, sport and the coming federal budget take up the air time. A cyclone is tracking down the top of the Queensland coast, and is fading to category one storm. Sports personalities get to talk about their injury, or prospects for the next event, repeating easily forgotten variants of common themes and tropes.

At last at about 11:15 am, an ABC radio news report of several minutes is about the IPCC report. The IPCC are calling for large global greenhouse gas emission reductions. The problems of population growth, increased consumption and usage of coal are mentioned as drivers. All growing sectors of the economy are to blame. Broad and wide ranging changes are needed to reduce emissions. The energy supply sector requires the deepest cuts, and is also the sector with the greatest potential for a technology switch to zero carbon energy.

I found up to date news on emerging IPCC reports and climate change using a Google News search on "climate change". On the global scale, the same dichotomy between calls for action and business representatives finding excuses for no action is found. Here is a listing of reports from the "alarmists" and the "calmists". The depth and content of the IPCC report is large, so each news article finds some different coverage and emphasis.

UN calls for drastic action to stop climate change.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-calls-for-drastic-action-to-stop-climate-change-20140413-36lbc.html

Here the economic sector contribution graph is shown, as the SMH and Age reports were good enough to include this.

The need for low carbon electricity supply is mentioned. The projected global climate warming is now so high, the atmosphere carbon dioxide overshoot is now so high, avoidance of global disaster requires active measures to extract carbon from the atmosphere. We now have a need BECCS technology, 'bio-energy with carbon capture and storage'. This involves growing plant species as "bio-carbon", which are burnt for fuel, and the carbon emissions compressed and buried underground.

The calmist position is unfortunately represented by our current government.

"Environment Minister Greg Hunt said Australia would reduce its emissions by five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020, and would consider further action next year in light of other action by major economies and trading partners and the progress of a new global climate agreement."

At last there is mention of the Greens position.

"Greens leader Christine Milne said the IPCC report showed the Abbott government could no longer pretend "business as usual" on emissions was possible, and it should retain or increase the ambition of Australia's climate change laws, including the carbon price and renewable energy target."

Finally the IPCC report covers possibilities that are still rather remote for real Australian political action.

• Nuclear energy could make an increasing contribution to low-carbon energy production, though there were barriers and risks to this approach. [ Cannot see this happening in Australia ]

• More high-density urban planning, more high speed rail and support for cities designed around cycling and walking can have a big effect on future carbon emissions. [ Current planning legislation for Australia, still supports urban expansion and massive expensive road/motorway/tunnel projects. These are based on private investor profit, to the extent of government corruption, and encourage private car transport, continue the patterns of previous decades, and do not support a lower energy / lower carbon emissions result. ]

• There is a lot of potential in switching to low-carbon fuels for vehicles, such as methane, electricity or hydrogen. [ A renewable electricity sector would be required first ]

• Having regulations such as energy efficiency standards for consumables may have a benefit, but sometimes higher efficiency can lead to greater consumption. [ More efficient coal power  stations leads to more coal power stations ]

• Countries must get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels (countries including India and Indonesia subsidise fuel purchases). [ Ending large amounts of subsidy of mining corporations is not on the current govenments agenda]

• Due to political and administrative problems, it seems more effective to target carbon-reduction policies in particular sectors rather than over an entire economy. [ A price on carbon can make it work across an entire economy, but the government has a large policial problem, in that the government is controlled by vested interests, and is particularly a tool of the fossil fuel industry lobby.]

Conclusions

Amidst the babble of news, sport, personalities and politics, there is a huge drive towards making climate change a number one global priority. If business and "calmist" interests really wanted an indication of what the entire human conomic world should be doing now, they have it in spades. There should be no more "waiting". No more "next year" we will think about taking some more action. With this sort of pre-varication, procrastination, and sometimes outright perfidy, the "calmists" promise nothing but delaying action until the worse consequences are unavoidable. The world has spoken. Drastic action is required now. Otherwise "Carbon Emission Reduction Dreams" will continue to be just dreams.

The current stance of the Australian Government in promising highly restricted forms of carbon emissions reduction, and highly expensive fossil fuel industry subsidy and protection, are opposed to the recommendations of the UN IPCC reports, and the recommendations of many better informed Australian and global experts. The reluctance of the Australian government to take action is because their major clientele are the really rich beneficeries of the status quo.

There are many possible conclusions to draw, and the clearest one is that without starting a reversal of atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation, our human civilization will conclude in the near term future with a long catastrophe. The most unpalatable conclusion is that this phase of exponential population and economic growth must end now. "Alarmists" would be better called "optimists" , and "calmists" are better termed as "pessimists". Our hope is that a better continuity of life and civilization can be sustained by appropriate actions now, and this is a choice that we still do have now, and all benefits are much larger than economic costs now.

No-hoper and pessimist Minister Greg Hunt and the Abbott Government continue to say they wait for the world to take action. Their pessimism is that they believe their actions to have no benefit without letting the rest of the world act first, and disadvantage a few rich people who benefit from the status quo and unquestioned capitalist and free market ideology. Their current plans involve only a tiny token bit of action.  We optimists demand that they take lots of action now. The lead time from action to effect is such that there is great benefit from starting early, perhaps by starting at least a few decades ago.