I was privileged to quiz the NSW Minister for the Office of Environment and Heritage, Mr Robert Stokes MP, on issues relating policy on climate change, and the Maules Creek coal mine, for about 10-15 minutes at a “community cabinet” meeting in Parramatta.

Question:

The NSW greens have produced a bill for Moving towards 100% renewable energy in NSW, improving energy efficiency and phasing out of Coal Power stations. Will the LNP (Liberal-Nation party) support this?

Minister:

We already have a target, of 20% renewable energy, or more, by 2020 in NSW.

Reality:

Other nations have bigger targets. Its rather disappointing for Australia, having a highest global per capita carbon dioxide emissions, and abundant solar resources, to settle for such a mediocre target. The LNP have a published renewable energy action plan, online since September 2013, to guide NSW’s renewable energy development, and to support the national target of 20%. If the national target gets scrapped or changed by the federal government, then the NSW plan will need to be revised. The very real lesson about a renewable energy transition, as modelled by BZE (Beyond Zero Emissions), and others, is that marginal costs decrease, and benefits increase, according to the scale of the effort. As funding agencies for renewable energy projectss set up by the last federal government have been dropped, it is questionable how far the NSW state government will now push their renewable energy plan.

The LNP plan makes no mention of a rapid phase out coal and fossil gas power stations. Without this the goal of further climate change mitigation is stalled. A lot of the renewable energy target has been gained by NSW residents taking up solar PV. This is a threat to the income of grid suppliers, as it applies pressure to hold down retail price and grid demand. The minister stated that there is aready a surplus of energy capacity in NSW. Solar PV has reduced the average and peak grid electricity demand. I am told that the LNP will not support penalties for solar PV panel owners that are connected to the grid, such that retailers and power utilities would like to charge as additional to cover their business losses. Despite an abundance of supply potential, requiring a boost in grid transmission capacity which was not needed after all, means that grid transmission owners are trying pay off bank loans by imposing additional transmission costs.

Many wind farm projects in NSW are stalled because they cannot get funding, or a guarantee of price and minimum quantity for electricity sale, or are stalled in approval stages. The quickest way to create a bigger demand for renewable energy, is to plan the earlier shutdown of coal and fossil gas power stations, and create more jobs and growth in renewable energy sector. The existing capacity of fossil fuel electricity power is the biggest impediment to renewable energy transition. Without a phaseout of fossil fuel power, and a long term ambitious target, the LNP plan is not an effective plan. Since the LNP is opposed to “market” intervention of this nature, a renewable energy transition is stalled.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Question:

How has Whitehaven Coal been given permission to break a significant approval condition, namely not carrying out forest clearing operations in Winter?

Minister:

Expert advice was taken, and variation of planning permission was approved, from within the OEH (Office of Environment and Heritage). The clearing process is carefully identify “habitat” trees, and leave them standing, or push them over “gently”.

Reality:

The bulldozing of the forest is being observed by activists in the forest. It is brutal. There is no government or ecological oversight to ensure that this fig-leaf condition of clearing is observed, even if it were in theory a realistic life saving measure for the animals. There is absolutely no evidence that it would help, or is a significant amelioration of species kill. There is no standard procedure or process for identification of habitat trees. NSW government oversite and regulation of this mine is a joke. The bulldozing plan was entirely made up by Whitehaven coal and the NSW government “working together”.

 

Question:

What is the NSW state government doing about the lack of Environmental Offsets for the Maules Creek Coal Mine?

Minister:

NSW government is aware of the problem and are "working with Whitehaven Coal" to ensure that Whitehaven coal comes up with some meaningful environmental offsets. To prevent this sort of problem in future, approval process legislation has been changed so that proposed environmental offsets have to be matched to the ecosystem area being destroyed. The minister has no power to disapprove an existing approval, once it has been granted. If the mine were disapproved, lots of compensation money would have to paid to the company.

Reality:

Equivalence of environmental offsets for endangered species is an oxymoron. We are talking about the last signficant stand of this kind of forest in NSW. There are no offsets for an entire ecosystem, because all other better examples have already been destroyed by agriculture and other development. Killing the Leard forest is going to cause extinction of several species. It is a rather sad evidence of the NSW and Federal governments dishonesty in creating a fake environmental impact approval process, in which it ignored obvious ecological principles, and then approved it. Again the key phrase is “working together”.

Question:

The Maules Creek coal mine will leave a dirty great big hole in the ground, and drop the regions water table by about 10 metres, affecting local agriculture.

Minister:

Well, you know that coal mines are big, messy, dirty intrusive things. This sort of thing cannot really be avoided.

Reality:

The mine did not have to be approved, if it was going to be this bad. Externalities like permanent damage from health, water, climate change from coal mining and burning mean that the external monetary costs of carbon per tonne is at least $200 a tonne. The minister is happy for other people to pay the costs collectively, such as NSW taxpayers, and let wealthy shareholders stuff cash in their pockets, with NSW government content to take about 7% of the market price, currently about $84 Australian dollars a tonne for thermal coal. The coal industry is a net loss in direct money terms for NSW residents. But what about how we use “coal energy” to do stuff, with electricity and steel? All these uses can now be replaced by utilizing cheaper renewable energy. Of course this will take time, and given our dire global predictaments, it needs to be done as number one priority.

Question:

 

Given that the NSW Liberal-National Party beleives in free markets, and they are short of revenue from the Federal Government, why don’t they implement a state carbon tax?

Minister:

Climate Change “mitigation” is a federal government issue, and “adaptation” is a state issue. Different charges in different states always causes problems for interstate corporations and doing business.

Reality:

“Model” legislation, made by federal governments, and adopted by state governments, has been used to get around federal-state responsibility issues, eg for workplace safety legislation. Global climate warming litigation should be is everyone’s responsibility, given our species won’t be around much longer, since its not working yet, as global carbon emissions are still growing. But where there is no will, there is no way. The possibility of mitigation is currently being politically sabotaged in Australia, and adaptation is practically non-existent, or is counterproductive, for example growth in air-conditioning as adaptation for hot summers causing more carbon emissions.

Question:

Global climate warming is accelarating, and we need to be rapidly reduce our carbon emissions, and reduce our exports of coal. How does the NSW government feel about that?

Minister:

The reality is that coal will be being used for energy for a long time to come.

Reality:

If this continues to be common political answer then the human race and most of the bigger lifeforms on this planet are really “F*#ked”. More or Less. Reasons for this can found all around. A “runaway climate change” is justly feared. As ice sheet melt and methane release tipping points are still beginning, an irreversible, deadly global climate warming and extinction event , might still be avoidable. The science is sufficently uncertain as to maximum duration and severity, but the omens on past mass extinctions involving climate change are not good. The published science and the scientists are now telling us to revolt against the governments that sit on their fat business as usual policies and do nothing.

Examples of NSW government “working together” with coal mines.

• The NSW government combining with big mining giant Rio Tinto to appeal against an environmental court decision awarded to the township of Bulga, who were fighting off a coal mine extension that would destroy their town. The fact that Rio Tinto had approvals and signed agreements from a decade earlier that stipulated that the town would be spared, had no signficance to the NSW government whatsover. The appeal failed, but NSW government is “working together” with Rio Tinto to change NSW legislation so that their can be no environmental court appeals by NSW people.
• The NSW government stripped the Environmental Defenders Office of significant amounts of funding, and would abolish it altogether if it could.
• NSW Police are being employed in extra numbers around Maules Creek Coal mine to protect the company from non-violent activist protestors. The constant restrictions on freedom of movement and police checks are annoying the local residents.
• Bail conditions on arrested protestors include staying away outside a wide exclusion zone around the Maules Creek Coal mine.
• It seems that the bulldozing of the Leard State Forest, ongoing now in winter, is designed as a “provocation” to non-violent direct action protestors, in the hope that it will cause them to take some esculated tactics that would give the NSW government a chance to invoke heavier legal and police response, which they have no doubt been planning for, to shut them down entirely.

There is pressure from the Minerals Council of Australia, to make mass protest actions, such as “divestment campaign” and “divestment from banks that fund coal mining” illegal.

References I like