Clive Hamilton is a peddler of unvarnished truths; politically unpopular in the moment, they are often accepted in the fullness of time. His 2018– about Chinese influence in Australian politics – was dumped at the last moment by a jittery publisher. Today, its findings are broadly accepted with the political wind blowing in the opposite direction.Hamilton has teamed up with energy policy heavyweight George Wilkenfeld.
The aftermath of the 2011 flash flood in Grantham. Almost the entire town has relocated to higher ground.explains that having squandered the opportunity for climate leadership, any material contribution to emissions reduction by Australia is proportionally insubstantial. Mitigation is now a domestic decision for the big polluters: China, the United States, India and Europe.
Like population size, accepting the inevitable ravages of climate change is an uncomfortable subject. It concedes some degree of defeat, conceding that the world will irrevocably change, when it seems only yesterday that Australia agreed there was a problem. While the case for adaptation is slowly gaining traction, activists fear that any refocus will soften commitment to targets if consequences can simply be managed away. But, of course, they cannot. Adaptation assumes substantial loss, but the fossil-fuel lobby has proven it will exploit any opportunity to delay. Still, adaptation is a necessary conversation. It is no longer a question of if the world will change, but by how much.
The authors’ rejection of Garnaut’s ideas might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Garnaut’s championing of green exports is highly ambitious but well-grounded in the fact that Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels. Transforming not only our domestic energy generation but becoming a global leader in transitioning trading partnerships could impact global emissions well beyond our domestic share.