Remind me how many economists were in the Federal Government?

The Age has just released a report showing the bargain that Cities for Climate Protection was compared to other highly fancied projects. Martin and I had to respond...

Dear Editor

Your front page of 15 Feb notes ‘Climate cash up in smoke’. There was certainly no smoke and no mirrors when it came to the highly successful and reputed Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program. CCP was an initiative of the internationally renowned ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability in the 1990s and was a worldwide program to secure the support and actions of cities and local governments.

In Australia the program started in 1997 and over a decade attracted the participation of 240 metropolitan and rural councils across the width and breadth of Australia covering over 85% of the population. CCP councils generated GHG reductions, financial savings and investments in low carbon programs and projects. The direct investment by the Federal Government in the CCP program was around $12m and not the $203m reported in The Age.

The difference can only be assumed to cover the Federal bureaucracy, funding of specific programs and projects sought by CCP councils and the cost no doubt of the plethora of reviews and evaluations of the program, each one indicating value for GHG reductions (18 m tonnes) and value for money through council investments in staff, programs and major projects.

The last (Wilkins 2008) review saw the demise of the program under the Rudd Labor Government which had became solely focused on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is ironic to those of us in the Local Government sector that the Howard Government supported such a voluntary and action-based initiative under successive Ministers starting with Robert Hill and concluding with Malcolm Turnbull.

Such have been the twists and turns of successive Federal Governments and their leaders that the CCP approach to building political and community support for addressing the causes of climate change through real and direct action went up in smoke along with the GHG reductions in July 2009!

Yours

Martin Brennan

Wayne Wescott

Getting around might have just got more expensive...

The floods across Eastern Australia have one clear consequence (among others): they have savagely reduced the transport infrastructure that has been put into place over the last decade or so - a catch up of the previous decade's lack of investment. Now what? The ABC reports:

The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) estimates the floods will cost councils in excess of $1 billion. In Queensland, 51 of the 73 council areas have been disaster declared.

The fine balance of local and global action

The conclusion of a report on a new co-operative venture between cities in Brazil, Mexico and California is well-put:

Research suggests that, while the growing experimentation with subnational climate-change responses is a result of a growing disillusionment with the international process, it is reliant on continued forms of international cooperation. For example, in the case of California, Chiapas and Acre, cooperation has been spurred by the emergence of carbon offsetting, carbon markets and the idea of REDD, all of which stem from the international arena and without which any subnational cooperation would be unthinkable. Ironically, then, subnational action on climate change is reliant on both the failure and the success of international cooperation, and it is likely that the fine balance between these two extremes will dictate the nature and extent of future subnational cooperation in this field.

If you set the bar low enough...

I appreciate where the comments of Martin Chavez (Executive Director of ICLEI in the USA) are coming from but I think it is just too much to have yet more absurdly optimistic views of what was achieved at Cancun.

Talking about "this year’s remarkable achievement" just distracts from the total failure of Copenhagen and onwards to develop a legally enforceable mechanism to reduce carbon. And please save us all from the notion that this sets the scene for "the prospects for further climate action during next year’s Climate Summit in Durban, South Africa"! Those of us who have been long-term travelers on the COP road have heard that one far too many times.


This is not to say that diplomacy does not inch forward or that the recognition of local governments in a new way is not of note. Great! We have been battling for that for many years! And so...well, frankly, he ends his piece with "We simply don’t have much time to waste". If I had a dollar for every time I have heard that phrase at the end of similarly over-spun COP summaries, then I would be a wealthy man.

So, what are we supposed to do with "indications of risk"?

An ABC report on a series of maps released by the Federal Government showing parts of Bass Coast Shire could be inundated if sea levels rise by 1.1 metres shows how this is always a scary exercise.

I am not sure about the spin that we then have to face from the council's planning and environment director, Hannah Duncan-Jones:

"It accords with what we expected and I guess that certainly when you look at them they can look quite dramatic and it's important to consider that what they're doing is providing a representation and that these are not maps that should be utilised for detailed planning purposes, they're to provide an indication of risk," she said

Thinking aloud on the screen

I like this type of simulation and can really see it prospering in the future...

Brand: new, old and plan B

Stewart Brand (one of my heroes) has an interesting interview in the Guardian today and the money quote:

Environmentalists have been thinking about global warming for longer than most and so we've got used to the idea that mitigation, cutting back on greenhouse gases, is taking way longer than expected and, in fact, may not occur at all for decades. And therefore there needs to be a plan B. If you go to some kind of climate engineering you don't want to do it half-baked, you want to know what you're doing – and that requires research at scale, which hasn't occurred yet.

New survey shows that lousy surveys are, well, lousy

Another poorly-designed survey (reported in Digital Journal) and so the results are as expected...

Two-thirds of US cities and counties consider the environment and energy conservation a priority, but far fewer have taken steps to address those issues. And four out of five people do not consider climate change to be a high priority.

This one was from the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in the USA, which is usually a fabulous resource. But one look at the actual pdf shows that the old garbage in, garbage out still applies. Surveys like this are worse than worthless, as they mislead and provide poor information for decision-makers.

The slow train crash...

Jonathon Porrit keeps an eye on how the new UK Government is going - and in particular the Lib Dems via a speech by their leader to the Party - and worries about the lack of focus (let alone anything) about climate change:

We’re just a few weeks away from the next big climate change conference in Cancun in Mexico (the near-inevitable failure of which will essentially result in the demise of the Kyoto Treaty post-2012, representing a massive set back in terms of addressing climate change), and the Deputy Prime Minister has got diddly-squat to say.

First a baby will be born in one, then a baby will be conceived and born...

(AP) BEIJING -- A massive traffic jam in north China that stretches for dozens of miles and hit its 10-day mark on Tuesday stems from road construction in Beijing that won't be finished until the middle of next month, an official said.

Bumper-to-bumper gridlock spanning for 60 miles (100 kilometers) with vehicles moving little more than a half-mile (one kilometer) a day at one point has improved since this weekend, said Zhang Minghai, director of Zhangjiakou city's Traffic Management Bureau general office.

Some drivers have been stuck in the jam for five days, China Central Television reported Tuesday. But Zhang said he wasn't sure when the situation along the Beijing-Zhangjiakou highway would return to normal.

The traffic jam started Aug. 14 on a stretch of the highway that is frequently congested, especially after large coalfields were discovered in Inner Mongolia, Zhang said. Traffic volume has increased 40 percent every year.

New technologies - cement trials

From the ABC:

Council workers will build a footpath in Toowoomba on Queensland's Darling Downs this morning using a new environmentally-friendly form of concrete. Local firm Wagners has developed the material using waste from coal-fired power stations and iron production and says the footpath is the first commercial trial of the product.

Project manager Tom Glasby says every tonne of traditional cement needed for concrete production produces a tonne of carbon emissions. He says the new concrete produces 90 per cent less carbon emissions than traditional forms of the building material. "We take these two mineral by-product waste materials, being ground-up slag and fly-ash, and we actually use them as the cementing agent in our concrete," he said. "It is also a very low energy product."

A bit more than a blow I would have thought

From the ABC:

Geraldton Greenough's image as an environmentally sustainable city has been dealt a blow after the local council put plans to introduce kerbside recycling on ice.

The council has spent nearly $390,000 on investigative works but this week voted not to proceed with the initiative.
...As a result of the decision, the council will forfeit nearly $600,000 in State Government funding.

 But they haven't yet told the people who do their web-site....

There are a limited number of recycling options available within the City at the moment. In the near future, the City is planning to introduce Kerbside Recycling.

Interesting China focus on cities

From The People's Daily Online:

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) launched a national low-carbon province and low-carbon city experimental project in Beijing on Aug. 18. The project will be implemented in five provinces, namely Guangdong, Liaoning, Hubei, Shaanxi and Yunnan, and in eight cities, namely Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Guiyang and Baoding.

Relevant government officials of those provinces and cities have promised to research and develop a low-carbon development plan, accelerate the establishment of an industry structure featuring low carbon emissions and actively promote low-carbon lifestyles and consumption patterns in order to help tackle global climate change.

Not mad just opportunistic

 ABC NEWS reports on a new urban event and picks an angle that was so expected:

Tasmania's workplace safety authority is seeking guarantees yesterday's wind turbine failure in central Hobart will not happen again.

Less than a month after installation, wind turbines on Hobart's Marine Board building were shut down yesterday after they started spinning out of control in strong winds. Police closed streets surrounding the building amid concerns the blades were coming loose. A spokesman for the company which installed the turbines, Rob Manson, says the incident was caused by a brake failure and there was no threat to public safety.

Roy Ormerod from Workplace Standards says some questions need to be answered. "We'll be in contact with the building owners and we'll be asking them for information on what caused the failure," he said. Mr Manson says the company will conduct an internal investigation.

Hobart alderman Darlene Haigh says wind turbines should never have been erected in the city centre.
Alderman Haigh opposed their installation on heritage and public safety grounds She says concerns were raised on an environmental website. "[It] said that they were safe out further from the city but not where there was high populations of people nearby because of the possibility of a blade dislodging and I do recall at the time that a lot of people thought I was quite mad," Alderman Haigh said.

"Everyone else is doing stuff with all the new technology, so why shouldn't they?"

Perhaps not the rationale... and that notion of embracing "the technological age"?

THE Tweed Shire Council is gearing up to embrace the technological age, with the launch of a smart phone application to allow ratepayers access to key council information.
The software, developed in collaboration with a private mobile phone technology firm, will be launched at the weekend to coincide with Local Government Week celebrations and a technological overhaul of the shire council's e-planning system.