Dangerous climate change: Myths and reality (2)

Second in a 3-part series | Part 1 | Part 3

by David Spratt

Download report (16 pages)

Myth 3: Big tipping points are unlikely before 2°C

Tipping points, often an expression of non-linear events, are difficult to project. But if it is sometimes hard to see tipping points coming, it is also too late to be wise after the fact. Estimated tipping points around or below ~1.5ºC include: 

• West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Current conditions affecting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are sufficient to drive between 1.2 and 4 metres of sea rise, and these glaciers are now in "unstoppable" meltdown at global average warming of just 0.8ºC (NASA, 2014A; Rignot, Mouginot et al., 2014; Joughin, Smith et al., 2014). 

The why and how of radical emissions reductions (2): Corinne Le Quere

Second in a series | Part 1

On 10-11 December 2013, a Radical Emissions Reduction Conference was held at the Royal Society, London under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. In this blog, we look at a presentation by Professor Corinne Le Quere, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia on "The scientific case for radical emissions reductions".

Le Quere framed "radical emission reductions" as reductions consistent with a two-in-three chance of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius (°C), saying that there is no surety that 2°C is a safe threshold, but according to the geological record, there have been periods of up to 2°C warming during the past 800,000 years that did not trigger any "nasty or unexpected" feedbacks, though sea-levels were 5–10 metres higher than today.

The why and how of radical emissions reductions: (1) Kevin Anderson

Prof. Kevin Anderson

First in a series

On 10-11 December 2013, a Radical Emissions Reduction Conference was held at the Royal Society, London under the auspices of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia. The conference's purpose was described as:

Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option. Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference.

Naomi Klein: Radical GHG emissions policies need radical social movements to back them

by Gabriel Levy, People and Nature

Naomi Klein

Policies to counter global warming effectively “will only advance if accompanied by radical social movements”, socialist writer and activist Naomi Klein has told the Radical [greenhouse gas] Emissions Reduction conference in London. “Transformative policies…  must be backed by transformative politics.”

Advocates of radical action have to face the fact that pro-market ideology is dominant in mainstream political fora and that “we are the marginal ones”, Klein said yesterday, on a web link from Toronto, Canada.

“It’s not that our ideas [about cutting greenhouse gas emissions] are not popular. But they are not powerful, not dominant. They are not winning.” The movement needs to “turn the popular into the powerful” by creating a “radical, enabling environment in which these policies can flourish”, she said.

Is climate change already dangerous (5): Climate safety and an unavoidably radical future

by David Spratt

Fifth and last in a series

Climate safety

The research evidence and expert elicitations demonstrate that climate conditions are “dangerous” now – according to the generally accepted “safe boundary”, “five concerns” and “tipping point” metrics.

• The 350 ppm “safe boundary” for atmospheric CO2 has already been exceeded by 50 ppm.
• In 2007, at around +0.76ºC warming (equivalent to ~335 ppm CO2 at equilibrium), Arctic sea-ice passed its tipping point. The Greenland Ice Sheet may not be far behind, as the Arctic moves to sea-ice-free conditions in summer, triggering further tipping elements.
• Around +1.5ºC warming may be the tipping point for the Greenland Ice Sheet and for the large-scale release of Arctic carbon permafrost stores. At +1.5ºC, coral reefs would be reduced to remnant systems.
• The paleo-climate record shows that the current level of atmospheric CO2 at 400 ppm is enough to produce sea-level rises of 20–40 metres; is around the tipping point for large-scale release of Arctic carbon permafrost; and is sufficient to trigger powerful amplifying polar feedbacks.

Stop tailoring global warming scenarios to make them “politically palatable” says leading climate scientist

Note from CCR: Readers of this blog will be familiar with the work of Prof. Kevin Anderson, one of the world's most forthright climate scientists, including in 4 degrees hotter: an adaptation trap?, Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous, and Scientists call for war on climate change, but who on earth is listening?  Anderson's approach is reflected in the framing of the forthcoming Radical Emission Reduction Conference in December 2013. The conference rationale sums up our dilemma neatly: "Today, in 2013, we face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions: No longer is there a non-radical option (emphasis added). Moreover, low-carbon supply technologies cannot deliver the necessary rate of emission reductions – they need to be complemented with rapid, deep and early reductions in energy consumption – the rationale for this conference."  The following interview with Anderson was first published at People and Nature. 

The reality about the greenhouse gas emissions cuts needed to avoid dangerous global warming is obscured in UK government scenarios, according to Prof. Kevin Anderson. Anderson told a Campaign Against Climate Change conference in London on 8 June that the most important measurements, of total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, are pushed into the background and scientists are pressured to tailor their arguments to fit “politically palatable” scenarios.

A sober assessment of our situation (3)

by David Spratt

[Final of a 3-part series]

The first part in this series described some characteristics of the climate debate and the climate action advocacy movement in Australia. Part two explored some of the forces which have moulded the shape of climate politics in Australia today.

• Read Part 1: Where we are
• Read Part 2: How we got to here
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014)

3. Challenges  

3.1 The “possible” and the necessary

Our goal is to achieve a desirable future, not to just reduce the misery, because the alternative is really awful, and failure is not an option. Current global greenhouse gas mitigation commitments will result in global warming of  4 degrees Celsius plus by 2100. Fatih Birol of the International Energy Agency says that “with the current policies in place, the world is perfectly on track to six degrees Celsius increasing the temperature, which is very bad news. And everybody, even school children, know this will have catastrophic implications for all of us.”

The void at the heart of Anthony Giddens climate politics

by David Spratt.  This review first appeared in Social Alternatives

Anthony Giddens, 2011, The Politics of Climate Change. (2nd edn.): Cambridge: Polity, 264 pp, ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-4692-3 

Anthony Giddens, the architect of New Labour’s "Third Way" in the UK, turns his attention to “The Politics of Climate Change”, now in a new, post-Copenhagen edition of the book first published in 2009.
     Recognising that unchecked climate change “constitutes an existential threat to our civilisation”, Giddens poses two questions. Why do most people act as though this threat can be ignored?
     And what political innovations have to be made to limit global warming impacts? I found the answers to both questions unsatisfactory, because Giddens systematically underestimates the urgency of the problem, and the political challenges.

Bright-siding: The consequences of failure

by David Spratt / Part 4 of a 5-part series

"Political reality must be grounded in physical reality or it's completely useless."
– Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute

PDF download IN THIS SERIES... “Always look on the bright side of life”: Bright-siding climate advocacy and its consequences Part 1: Introduction Part 2: What bright-siding climate advocacy looks like Part 3: Is all “good news” and no “bad news” a good strategy? Part 4: The consequences of failure Part 5: Rethinking climate communication and engagement

If you avoid including an honest assessment of climate science and impacts in your narrative, its pretty difficult to give people a grasp about where the climate system is heading and what needs to be done to create the conditions for living in climate safety, rather than increasing and eventually catastrophic harm. But that’s how the big climate advocacy organisations have generally chosen to operate, and it represents a strategic failure to communicate.
     Climate policy in Australia is trapped in a culture of failure and low expectation. The reason given for advocating solutions that would still result in dangerous climate change is that what really needs to be done is "too big” to message effectively.The Australian Conservation Foundation, for example, adopted a 350 policy several years ago, but never made in part of their advocacy because (unofficially) “the comms people couldn’t find a way to message it”.
     Ken Ward, a former deputy-director of Greenpeace (USA), identifies "a consensual public policy hallucination that abrupt climate change can be addressed without great conflict". Everybody from the UN Secretary-General to business commentator Alan Kohler now calls climate an emergency, but it is still a non-no for most climate campaigning organisations.

What Australia can learn from the world’s best de-carbonisation policies

A Post-Carbon Pathways crosspost

by John Wiseman and Taegen Edwards

Around the world an increasing number of detailed policy road maps are demonstrating the possibility, necessity and urgency of a rapid transition to a just and sustainable post carbon future. The key barriers to this transition are social and political, not technological and financial.
     The Post Carbon Pathways report, published by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne and the Centre for Policy Development has reviewed 18 of the most comprehensive and rigorous post carbon economy transition strategies.
As Australia enters the next phase of the climate change policy debate, this report will provide vital information on how other jurisdictions are designing and implementing large-scale plans to remove carbon from their economies.

Hot Earth: Science and anti-science at the AAAS

A Radio Ecoshock Show cross-post

http://bit.ly/w1bCQY Listen to presentations by NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and best-selling author and science writer Cris Mooney at 2012 AAAS.

Just back from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science annual conference 2012, this is Alex Smith. I've recorded two of the best speechs of the weekend gathering of thousands of scientists, held this year in Vancouver, Canada.

Beyond the carbon price, a Faustian bargain

by David Spratt, a Crikey cross-post

The carbon tax starts on July 1 this year, so there’s some tidying up to do around the edges -- appointments, financing, regulations -- and then a big tick next to the climate policy box on the cabinet whiteboard. Minister Greg Combet has already taken on the additional portfolios of industry and innovation.
     If only. A barely reported new study on Earth’s energy imbalance from NASA climate chief James Hansen and his research team contends that, far from answering the climate challenge, we have constructed "a Faustian bargain".

Why emissions need to drop off a cliff

How quickly do global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop to get back to a safe climate?  It’s a pertinent question when the Australian government is making great claims for its 2011 carbon legislation, but its aim is to reduce emissions by only five per cent by 2020. And even that is an illusion, because a significant share will come from buying offsets in the international market.
     And when proposed new and expanded coal mines in Australia are tallied up, they will add about 1.75 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually – about eleven times what the Australian government estimates will be saved by the carbon tax legislation. By 2020 or soon thereafter, Australia will be exporting nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as is Saudi Arabia today, as Guy Pearce explains.

Professor Kevin Anderson - Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous

This is the best presentation we have seen all year. It's a must watch!

Professor Kevin Anderson - Climate Change: Going Beyond Dangerous

View another webinar from DFID

Commission's call for carbon budget beyond political belief

David Spratt

First published in Crikey, 23 May 2011

The Critical Decade report released today by the Climate Commission calls for a "fresh approach" to setting emission reduction targets, in particular by using a global "carbon budget".

But what does that mean for Australia? The answer, grounded in peer-reviewed science, is beyond political belief.

The "carbon budget" approach was first outlined in early 2009, and described in "Humanity's carbon budget set at one trillion tonnes" and "How The '2 Degrees Celsius Target' Can Be Reached".

Two peer-reviewed articles asked the question: how many more tonnes of carbon can humans pour into the air until 2050 before a 2-degree temperature increase is the result? A commentary by both sets of authors was published in "Nature" as "The exit strategy".

The Long View: communicating the science honestly

First published in Crikey on 9 March 2011

It’s the Gillard versus Abbott drawcard event. The debate over carbon price legislation is a decisive battle in Australia’s climate policy war. Lines have been drawn; only one contestant will survive.

If Labor goes down, so do the prospects of further action. The Greens would be badly battered and Australia would remain a polluters’ paradise. But if legislation establishes an effective carbon price relatively free of rorts, all will be well. Or will it?

Given the centrality of scientific research to understanding the impacts of global warning, and Australians’ recent experience of extreme weather events, it is startling that this debate has been cast almost exclusively in economic terms.

For the major players, including environment NGOs, it’s about a big new tax or pricing pollution, utility prices and compensation, employment impacts and clean jobs, investment and business certainty. Reduced to a slanging match between Tea Party Tony fanning fear about power bills, and the government rationalising that a carbon price will bring investment certainty to the electricity sector and keep bills lower, Abbott will likely win. It suits a Coalition wanting to avoid focus on the science of global warming, on which there is sharp disagreement within both conservative parties.

Putting politics before science is a dumb strategy

David Spratt

On the "Rooted" blog today, Tim Hollo asked: Is an ETS automatically more ambitious than a tax?

This debate is urgent, as a grouping of large NGOs enters the public arena to advocate for politically-based climate targets. It's disturbing to see that the Climate Institute and the Southern Cross Climate Coalition (SCCC) are it again, pitching for climate policy targets that fall well short of what the climate science requires.

[It is interesting that the SCCC sees the ACTU still linking with the Climate Institute, which was founded with philanthropic support, but is now financially dependent on big business, including GE, Westpac, KPMG, OgilvyEarth, PacHydro, AGL and Jemena!  This seems an usual relationship for the ACTU to be engaged in.]

The SCCC says a policy foundation is that "Australia’s domestic pollution levels are declining by 2013 and are able to be reduced by at least 25 percent by 2020 (from 1990 levels) as our contribution to an ambitious international climate agreement."

This blog has previously looked at how a number of large environment and NGOs went minesweeping for Labor's crook emissions trading scheme, and what's up with emisions reductions of 25-40% by 2020.

Copenhagen reality check: 25% by 2020 isn't in the ball park

First published in Crikey, 4 November 2009

Climate policy analyst David Spratt writes:

Columnist David Roberts sees the Copenhagen climate change conference negotiating process so far as akin to "an aquarium full of hamsters connected to rudimentary motors. There's a lot of frantic running, a lot of sweat and heat, but in the end, very little light".

The dim light that does exists flickers on a target for Australia and the developed economies of reducing emissions by 2020 to 25% below the level of 1990.

In Bali two years ago, the European Union proposed a framework that included global emissions peaking in 10–15 years and for developed countries to achieve emissions levels 20–40% below 1990 levels by 2020. The United States, supported by Australia and others, strongly opposed this.

In a flood of tears and acrimony, the final Bali session sat through the night to produce a compromise that mandates "deep cuts in global emissions", with footnote references to the 2007 IPCC report which talks about the developed economies needing to reduce emissions 25 to 40% below 1990 levels to have a reasonable chance of holding warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

The Garnaut report quietly dropped the 40% end of the range and mischievously took 25% by 2020 as being a 2-degree target. The Rudd government followed in these footsteps and went for a 25% target, with highly conditional qualifications, in the revised CPRS in May, abetted by the ACTU-led Southern Cross Climate Coalition.

Now 2 degrees isn't the sort of target anyone with grandkids should aspire to. The research tells us that a 2-degree warming will initiate large climate feedbacks on land and in the oceans, on sea-ice and mountain glaciers and on the tundra, taking the Earth well past significant tipping points.

Likely impacts include large-scale disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice-sheets; sea- level rises; the extinction of an estimated 15 to 40 per cent of plant and animal species; dangerous ocean acidification and widespread drought, desertification and malnutrition in Africa, Australia, Mediterranean Europe, and the western USA.

You can bet your house that Copenhagen will not conclude with a 25% mandatory target for all the developed economies, but is it what we need to do, or is the whole of the Copenhagen process wrapped in an enormous delusion?

In September, researchers from Oxford and Germany's Potsdam Institute, produced figures on a carbon budget to 2050. In essence, they estimated how much carbon in total can be put in the air to 2050 if the aim is to not exceed 2 degrees.

From there it's not too hard to work out what each country needs to do, and that what's the Potsdam Institute Director Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber did in his recent presentation to the "4 Degrees and Beyond" conference in Oxford.

Assume the present population, and divide it into the total carbon budget and you get a budget per person to 2050. [This is based in the assumption that each citizen of the planet has an equal right to the budget, a proposition disputed by many in the developing world who rightly point to the historic carbon debt on which the developed world built their economies].



Nevertheless, by taking the per capita allocation to 2050 and comparing it to a nation's current annual emissions per person, you get a clear picture of national responsibilities, and that's what Schellnhuber did in a single chart.

Australia, like the USA, is top of the pops for per capita emissions.

If we maintain that rate, our carbon budget to 2050 runs out in five years. Five years!! Or put in another way, as the chart illustrates, Australia and the USA would need to be at zero emissions by 2020. Just follow the black line.

Not 25% by 2020, but 100% by 2020 for Australia. That's the science, unadorned. God forbid the politics.

Forget about 2050, we're blowing the carbon budget right now

by David Spratt

Sick of hearing about greenhouse emission reduction targets for 2020 or 2030 or 2050? Now there's a new way to think about what we need to do in Australia, and its a million miles from the Canberra debate: The carbon budget for Australians to 2050 for a 2-degree target runs out in five and a bit years!

Focusing on targets decades ahead has a bad side to it, because it transfers responsibility for action to the future, rather than the here and now. Perhaps that's why the 10:10 campaign in the UK has picked up such a groundswell of support so quickly, because its action time horizon is the next year.

As the world head towards COP15 in Copenhagen this December, the question about how far / how fast emissions need to be reduced is always lurking. The mainstream public debate is still focused on the Kyoto Annex 1 (advanced industrial economies) reducing emissions by 25-40% compared to a 1990 baseline by 2020. But that is the wrong target and the Australian governments proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme won't reduce Australia's actual emissions below the 1990 level for another quarter of a century.

And there are some startling new figures about what we need to do, right now. Earlier this year this blog looked at two new research papers published this week in Nature on emissions targets.

One paper looked at how much carbon "budget" was left to 2050 to keep warming to 2 degrees. Now 2 degrees is not a good idea, but the results were sharp. They found that almost a third of that budget had been used in the first 8 years! From that work, a number of conclusions can be drawn:

• If emissions keep growing at 3.5 per cent a year, then the carbon budget for 2 degrees runs out in 2021. That is, after that time, emissions would need to drop to zero immediately to have a 75 per cent chance of not passing 2 degrees.
• If global emissions reduce 2 per cent a year from now, the carbon budget will run out in 2030 for 2C, and
• With a 4 per cent annual reduction in global emissions, it will run out in 2040.

And in would take a miracle for COP15 in Copenhagen to produce a result that would even stabilise global emissions at their current level by 2020, in which case COP15 will blow the carbon budget to 2050 for 2 degrees in less than 20 year from now.

And that for a target that will that initiate large climate feedbacks in the oceans, on ice-sheets, and on the tundra, taking the Earth well past significant tipping points. Likely impacts include large-scale disintegration of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice-sheet; the extinction of an estimated 15– 40 per cent of plant and animal species; dangerous ocean acidification; increasing methane release; substantial soil and ocean carbon-cycle feedbacks; and widespread drought and desertification in Africa, Australia, Mediterranean Europe, and the western USA.

Now there's an even more compelling way to look at the issue, thanks to Potsdam Institute Director Hans Joachim Schellnhuber in The Guardian of 10 September: Developed countries are 'carbon insolvent'.

Applying his logic to Australia...

1. The total carbon budget 2050 to have a 2-in-3 chance staying below a 2-degree temperature increase is 750 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2).
2. If you take the world population now at 6.9 billion people (and assume no population increase!) and...
3. Then assume that the world's population has an equal right to emit carbon (a starting point which ignores historic carbon debt and responsibility), then...
4. The carbon budget per person to 2050 is 110 tonnes CO2 (750 divided by 6.9). Of course if you allow for increasing population (estimated at 9 billion by 2050), that figure is lower.
5. We know that Australia emissions today are 20.58 tonnes CO2 per person per year, the world's highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions from energy use.
6. Divide that budget of 110 tonnes by the yearly figure of 20.58 and the result is that:
7. The carbon budget for Australians to 2050 for a 2-degree target runs out in 5 and a bit years!

Or do we reckon that we have some inherent right to pour more CO2 into the air that the billions in the developing world who lack the infrastructure and standard of living that our historically high emissions have bought us?

SEE also discussion in Sydney Morning Herald: Lost opportunities from the crisis.

The CPRS aftermath

CPRS emissions will be higher than baseline till 2035

Since the CPRS was defeated in the Senate last week, there has been a vigorous debate amongst activists and on a number of grassroots climate e-lists about this event, what it means, whether the decision of the climate action movement to oppose the CPRS as presented was wise, whether we will now get an "even worse" scheme with Liberal support, and whether a better scheme was possible with Green-Labor negotiations.

[On the last point, Senator Milne's office has indicated that the government has been totally unwilling, on numerous occasions, to seriously discuss the Greens' proposals to improve the CPRS.]

So would the CPRS, even in its current appalling form, be something we should support because at least in moves Australia "in the right direction" (one of ACF's Don Henry's favourite phrases) and start to reduce emissions?

The evidence is clearly to the contrary. The attached chart is drawn from the published summary of Treasury modelling for the CPRS (page 26). I have added the red line which is the 1990 level of Australian emissions (also roughly 2000 level due to drop in land clearing emissions).



The green line is the theoretical drop in Australian emissions, but when we look at the purchase of (cheap, scam) permits from overseas (light blue), we see that actual emissions (mid-blue) are above the 1990 baseline till after 2035!!! And the government has said that if the target is increased to 15 or 25%, then the number of permits imported will be increased, even to the point of the government buying them out of the federal budget to protect the big polluters (in addition to the windfall profits those big polluters are currently gaining from the allocation of free permits).So almost 30 years from now under the CPRS, emissions will be as high as the 1990 baseline!!!!

And would a "slightly better" CPRS means anything other than purchasing even more credits from rainforests not chopped down or some other equally dubious "emissions reduction" scam?

Compare this outcome to the work by Malte Meinshausen from Potsdam Institute for limiting warming to 2C (yes, 2C is a stupid target because it means no Arctic sea-ice, probably Greenland and Himalayas past their tipping points, a third of the Amazon gone, multi-metre sea-levels rises, a global water and food crisis, etc etc) published as: Meinshausen et al. "Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2C" in Nature 458:1158-62. In a supplementary Q&A, he says:

Having a good chance of staying below 2C requires limiting our overall CO2 emissions. Our study indicates that we have an emission budget of a trillion tonnes CO2 during the first 50 years of this century. Of that budget, we already used up a third in the first nine years (234 GtCO2 up to 2006 and more than 36 GtCO2/yr since then). At present rates of emissions, we will use up the remaining two-thirds in another 20 years, by around 2030. We will consume this 2000 to 2050 budget even earlier, if emissions continue to increase according to the "business-as-usual" scenarios.

In that context, the CPRS locks in an emissions trajectory for Australia that ensures by 2030 emissions as high as they are today, when even for a too-high target of 2C they need to be zero!

We are all frustrated, I suspect because the debate in Australia and elsewhere is deeply delusional and getting worse. As the evidence becomes more overwhelming that we are heading for a climate apocalypse if we go on as we are for even another 5 years, the level of cognitive dissonance increases in proportion. Sometimes it drives us crazy too.

The political elite hang even more neurotically to the view that their current policies (clean coal, CPRS, appease the big polluters etc) can solve the problem when in fact they ensure catastrophic failure. They will cling even more stubbornly to these delusions because the other choice -- actually solving the problem -- frightens the crap out of them because it requires a great over-turning of political and economic priorities, transformative leadership, and the re-allocation on at least 5% of global GDP (IMHO, perhaps much more) for decades.

That is the message that we have to hammer. Incremental improvements and "broad but shallow" advocacy that has dominated the climate scene for the past 10 years will not get us there. Yes, we have to drop an "awe and thunder" climate bomb on the political elite (as we tried to do with Climate Code Red) and talk about what really needs to be done and how to get here.The climate movement can't expect politicians and 'the system' in general to break out of failure-inducing incrementalism for as long as we in the movement are locked into the same model. The only way we can break out is to commit to pursuing goals that would actually produce a safe climate in time and then we work like crazy to figure out ways to make these goals bite politically. We can only find these solutions by doggedly and creatively pursuing non-watered down goals.

Part of what we must do is launch psychological warfare on the power elite (because it is also an illusion that they will respond to well-considered rational argument, as we have seen), make in personal and tell them their grandkids and great grandkids will (metaphorically) burn in a climate hell, that even bags of money won't buy oneself a safe place to hide in a world at 3 or 4 or 5 degrees, that now is the hour to make moral choices, and that not to do so will condemn the rest of their careers to irrelevancy and their souls to pergatory.

Of course that is not all we need to do, but it is important. Copenhagen will be awful and we must plan through (and not just up to) COP15 and into next year. We have a chance in the election lead-up to hit some MPs and candidates hard with the full message, to cause sitting members real political pain and get commitments that are less delusionary that the present policy debate. That means carefully selecting the target seats and candidates, coordinating our actions and making sure there is real capacity to make it happen, re-allocating and raising funds to put organisers on the ground in key areas. To some extent, the larger eNGOs have a choice as to whether they will allocate their resources to campaigns and actions that will badge and promote their brands, or whether resources (and mailing lists in particular electorates, etc etc) will be pooled and shared so there is real and effective local organisation and capacity.

The NGOs gathered around the Southern Cross Climate Coalition (ACF, ACOSS, ACTU and Climate Institute) will undoubtedly run cover for Labor. The CI CEO John Connor has said that CI's role is to act as a "minesweeper" (i.e. clearing obstacles) for Labor, and when you put CI in a coalition with Labor luminaries such as the ACTU's Sharon Burrows and ACOSS CEO Clare Martin (former Labour chief minister in the NT) you can only expect pro-Labor twaddle. How ACF will survive being squeezed again by this mob of Labor heavy hitters (as they were on the CPRS, and it cost them very dearly) is another issue.

But we can be certain that cheer-leading for Labor won't help. Adrian Whitehead says politicians generally don't listen until you inflict real political pain on them first. He's basically right, and election year gives us that opportunity. To me, that's more important than tearing our hair out over a CPRS than locks in utter failure.