Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Minerals Council of Australia has released a climate action plan which pleases nobody.
Minerals Council slammed for “woefully inadequate” Climate Action Plan
Some six months after being named on a list of the world’s top 10 most powerful climate policy opponents, the Minerals Council of Australia has unveiled its very own Climate Action Plan, in what it describes as part of an “ongoing commitment” to decarbonising Australia’s economy.
In a statement on Monday, the MCA said the plan outlined how the peak industry body and its members were taking action on climate change, and the minerals sector’s collective commitment to the Paris Agreement and its goal of net-zero emissions globally and in Australia.
The plan’s three core objectives, the MCA said, were to enable the potential of technology to decarbonise the minerals sector, to increase transparency in reporting from member companies, and to share practical knowledge on climate responses.
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And according to the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), the MCA’s failure to articulate any tangible steps for its Climate Action Plan suggests that nothing much has changed.
In a scathing review of the plan, the ACCR points to the lack of any firm commitment to carbon pricing or any broader policies to decarbonise; any tangible dates and milestones for full decarbonisation, specifically beyond operations and regarding Scope 3 emissions from their products; any detail regarding the emissions from coal mining, and; any mention of phasing out coal mining or coal-fired power.
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Read more: https://reneweconomy.com.au/minerals-council-slammed-for-woefully-inadequate-climate-action-plan-15333/
Investment groups are also unimpressed by the Minerals Council effort.
Big investors unimpressed by MCA’s climate pledge
James Fernyhough ReporterJun 22, 2020 – 1.40pm
A group of major investors have demanded the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) provide more information on how its members will reach net zero carbon emissions, saying the lobby group’s climate action plan was too vague.
The $878 billion UK giant Aberdeen Standard Investment questioned its reliance on carbon capture and storage technology, which it said was a last resort, and criticised the MCA’s failure to include scope 3 emissions in its net zero pledge.
“It doesn’t address scope 3, it doesn’t directly address lobbying, and there is quite a lot of talk of net zero, but it doesn’t seem from what I can see to have any steps to encourage members to become net zero carbon emitters,” said an Aberdeen executive, Danielle Welsh-Rose.
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Read more: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/minerals-council-adopts-net-zero-but-not-on-exports-20200622-p554wr
The original Minerals Council press release is available here.
I suspect this latest in a series of efforts to surrender to the climate activist community is not going to lead to a good outcome for Australia’s extractive industry. Greens smell blood in the water, they’re not going to be appeased by a few scraps and token gestures.
These continual attempts to appease the Greens cause damage in other areas also. ‘Climate Change’ was not what killed so many as 300 people in Victoria in 2009, or many more this last year again. It wasn’t even the arsonists. It was the unstoppable intensity of a bushfire, turbo-charged by huge quantities of ground fuel which had been allowed to accumulate over years of drought. It was caused by the power of green ideology and government appeasement of the Greens. Government failed to implement policies to reduce fuel hazards before a megafire erupts. Govenment also prevented landholders from clearing vegetation to protect themselves.
So many people need not have died so horribly. The warnings were there for a decade. If politicians are intent on whipping up a lynch mob to divert attention from their own culpability, it is not arsonists who should be hanging from lamp-posts but Green
Governments appeasing the Greens have ignored numerous State and Federal bushfire inquiries over the past decade, almost all of which have recommended increasing the practice of “prescribed burning”.also known as “hazard reduction”, This process would reduce the fuel load feeding the inevitable summer bushfires but the Greens oppose it fanatically.
nicholas tesdorf – June 22, 2020 at 10:43 pm
Australian landowners should getta clue from the “rioters, looters & burners” currently operating freely in the USA ……. and everyone in Auz should stage a yearly “burning protest” on the same day.
thank you
and now they plan to shot the brumbies that kept grounds cleaner and helped stop fires killing more native species
claims theres 5k of them in nsw/vic
its NOT factual and theyve done NO real headcounts since before drought
people living there report numbers are well down before the fires and some did die in the lowlands
this is greens and the native ” NOT owners”(its govvt parks working hard obbying n abc media supporting the culls.
Appeasement is never the solution with terrorists.
It just begets more terrorism in an endless cycle of evermore. Even just a little bit.
One of the Left’s most effective tools is in fact incrementalism. A little bit more each year towards their Marxism-UN/2030-NWO
It is impossible to please Progressives. Like any cancer they want to get bigger and bigger.
More stupidity. How long will it be before they realise that you cannot appease this monster?
Australia already has net zero. This is one of the reasons why we don’t see any of the results from the OCO2 satellite. What it showed was net zero for the Australian continent, and most other places in the southern hemisphere. Apparently a new CO2 monitor is being installed on the ISS. No prizes for guessing why …
Australia is actually a net carbon sink.
Exactly!! And there is satellite proof too…
“Australia already has net zero. ”
“Australia is actually a net carbon sink.”
“WOWEEE”, …… satellite proof that there is no CO2 in the air over Australia.
And with all that ‘outback’ desert area down yonder, ….. just where is that “net carbon sink” sinking into?
Must be the satellite can only detect CO2 in the atmosphere iffen it is greater than the currently normal 416.42 ppm, ……. Right?
Don’t plant lives matter ?
Most warmunists are indistinguishable from vegetables.
only if they are black
You are NOT allowed to say ..
“green plants matter”
In Chicago, …….. black lives don’t matter, …… 103 didn’t this past weekend.
70% of them black on black.
Brendan Pearson, CEO of the MCA between 2014 and 2017 was a strong advocate for coal and nuclear energy. He was pushed out to make way for the greening of the MCA. Another institution fallen victim to the green zealots.
talking about appeasement:
22 Jun: Council of the European Union: EU-China Summit: Defending EU interests and values in a complex and vital partnership – Press release by President Michel and President von der Leyen
The European Union and China held their 22nd bilateral Summit via videoconference on 22 June 2020. President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accompanied by High Representative Josep Borrell, hold the Summit meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang followed by exchanges with Chinese President Xi Jinping…
President von der Leyen said: “The COVID-pandemic and a number of major bilateral and multilateral challenges show clearly the EU – China partnership is crucial, be it in terms of trade, climate, technology, and the defence of multilateralism. But for our relations to develop further, they must become more rules-based and reciprocal, in order to achieve a real level playing-field.”…
***Leaders had a substantive discussion on climate change. China is the EU’s partner under the Paris Agreement, but needs to commit to decisive and ambitious domestic action to reduce emissions in the short term and to set a goal of climate neutrality at the earliest possible date…
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU underlined the shared responsibility to participate in global efforts to stop the spread of the virus, boost research on treatments and vaccines, and support a green and inclusive global recovery…
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/06/22/eu-china-summit-defending-eu-interests-and-values-in-a-complex-and-vital-partnership/
They even got one of their own put in as CEO !
Tania constables previous bureaucratic position was CEO of Cooperative Research Ctr for Greenhouse Gas Technologies
Brendan Pearson, CEO of the MCA between 2014 and 2017 was a strong advocate for coal and nuclear energy. He was pushed out to make way for the greening of the MCA. Another institution fallen victim to the green zealots.
In the years before 2000 I was an active actor in representing mineral companies through Chambers of Mines in Australia as a part-time extra to my regular, positive work. Chambers represented industry only on matters that they said were OK and spoke for them only to the extent that they approved. Chambers did not assume any authority for decisions or statements that might harm their operations or autonomy. We formed such Chamber bodies to centralise some lines of communication on matters that bureaucrats wanted to discuss.
When it came to silly insignificant groups like greens demanding we act in certain ways, we dismissed them by showing that they were silly and insignificant.
I can recall no green suggestion or demand that was in any way useful or might lead to a better society. Most of what we dealt with was their envy of our incomes, with a splash of transparent special pleading for shadowy global communistic agitation groups.
These days I lament the loss of guts of some industry leaders too weak to do the same as we did. They seem not to have learned that appeasement fails and that incrementalism is on the agenda of all socialistic ratbags.
Those four or five decades before 2000 were the golden years for all here in Australia. We should be working harder to bring them back, by learning anew how easy and final it is to simply say “NO”. Geoff S
“Geoff Sherrington June 23, 2020 at 12:39 am
Those four or five decades before 2000 were the golden years for all here in Australia. We should be working harder to bring them back, by learning anew how easy and final it is to simply say “NO”.”
As you quite rightly state, they are long gone.
Geoff,
I suspect that if you asked any non-white or non-male Australians whether the 70’s and 80’s were golden
years you would get a very different answer. 1970’s Australia was extremely racist and sexist not to mention anti-intellectual. There was a reason why so many Australians during that period left.
Come back Charles Copeman of Peko Wallsend and Robe River. All is forgiven.
BJ,
Charles Copeman, bless his soul, was my boss at relevant times. A Rhodes Scholar, a gentleman and a deep, logical thinker. Geoff S
Geoff.
How lucky you were to have such a great boss. His handling of the Robe River situation was a lesson to all who have to deal with intransigent unions. We could do with CC here in UK right now.
I was a bit lucky too at the same time – working for Gary Pemberton at Brambles in Sydney – another great boss.
Bj.
I remember being able to have my own opinion in school in Australia in the 70s and 80s, and having my right to have an opinion which was different to everyone else respected.
Nowadays if you are a student at the mercy of the wrong teacher in the wrong school god help you if you express an idea which isn’t on the approved list, like tell your class you are a climate skeptic, or tell someone you believe people have a right to defend themselves from physical assault.
Australia was what it was back then because of;
A). “Non-white” and/or “non-male” people.
B). Invasion/migration.
So many people left Aus in the 70’s? Not sure where you get your history from.
Socialists believe they are entitled to their own facts.
You mean the 1870’s and 80’s right ?
“…1970’s Australia was extremely racist and sexist not to mention anti-intellectual…”
In whose estimation Izaak? That’s not my recollection at all and it’s not a sentiment I hear any rational person echoing.
To find someone uttering such nonsense as that I’d need to tag along with a BLM ‘protest’ or attend a support group chaired by Van Badham. In both cases, one would probably find some individuals in agreement with your opinion but in support of a single-issue dogmatic position, useful idiots will say what ever it takes. Which doesn’t make hand-waving claims like this any less false.
On ‘so many people left Australia’, the population of Australia has swollen from around 15 million when I was in School in the late 1970s, early 1980s to around 25 million now; what’s this unreported story about an exodus of people out of Australia of which you speak?
https://www.populationpyramid.net/australia/1980/
I suspect that human brutishness is reasonably constant. Its expression, however, becomes much greater when rotten leadership shouts names such as “racist” and “sexist” at its enemies, and unleashes its tribe of self-righteous Gletkins on them.
Hey Izaak, nice hijack attempt. Troll, much?
It’s not like he capable of honest debate.
Mr. Walton: Ever see the results when you do an internet search, where it says you got a zillion hits in .23 seconds? Bet your research on the Australian exodus you made up took even less time.
Every socialist that I’ve ever met has declared that opposition to their plans is by definition, racist, sexist, etc.
They also define themselves as the intellectual, and anyone who disagrees is by definition anti-intellectual.
And now it’s completely intolerant in a different way
So much progress
Izaac,
In the 1970-80 era a lot of my Chamber work was on aboriginal affairs. I hired top anthropologists (corporately, not vis the Chamber) and visted many places in the Top End of the NT and some in tropical WA. Some in Cape York.
The story was much the same everywhere. In brief, academic anthropologists re-wrote many legends and stories of oppression of white on black in hstory. They incited rebellion of black against white among the remaining tribal blacks. meanwhile, the larger number of town black had quietly integrated well into normal socirty and were happy and not a major proble.
The summary I reached at the end of the 1980s holds now, equally correct.Although there are many important exceptions to this summary, an independent ob server would reach the same conclusions about the bad eggs.
The bad eggs in the black ‘tribal’ people are a bunch of propaganda-affected, lazy, ungrateful, alcoholic, women-beating supplicants on whom huge amounts of taxpayer money has been spent with next to no result. Bureaucrats have run out of new methods to cure the problem. The problem is that the victims have been told for the last couple of generations that, because they were here when whiteys came to settle in 1788, they are privileged, they do not have to follow the rules and laws of the host nation that is now in power, they can bludge, extort, threaten, kill others under exemption if they use tribal law, expect cargo cult incomes for no work done by them. Poor fellas, they have been misled by experts from academia and government.
Now, Izaak, what do you suggest to recover from this position? Remember, I actually contributed to betterment. I have a strong distaste for people living and acting like this and an urge to correct it. My Chamber reports at the time were read by the Federal Aboriginal Affairs Minister at relevant times.
What did you do to help?
Geoff S
not even the destruction of the power grid appeases the climate mob.
unfortunately, this is behind paywall, but the public who are subsidising solar are none too happy, especially as similar situations exist in other States:
Mass blackout risk sparks solar switch-off bid
Adelaide Advertiser – 18 Jun 2020
South Australia’s leading uptake of rooftop solar systems leaves the state
risk of mass blackouts, a new report says, triggering a multimillion-dollar push for the power to cut them off as needed…
All Activists could Decarbonise their personal economy. Nobody will stop them. So why don’t they. Don’t they love this planet?
What has AOC done to Decarbonise her life?
Take the Amish as an example on how to live Green. On the other hand, the Amish are having difficulties holding on to their 200 year hiatus in progress.
Soon Australians will take over and surpass the Amish ideal by going 200 years negative progress.
found an article on the AEMO report, which includes some ABC spin:
19 Jun: ABC: Power granted to switch off household solar in SA to prevent statewide blackout
By Nick Harmsen
Electricity grid operators will seize the power to remotely switch off new solar panels in South Australia amid warnings the state’s solar boom is putting the grid at risk of another statewide blackout.
The State Government will also underwrite an urgent $10 million investment to manage voltage in the state’s power grid, after the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) warned that a voltage disturbance near Adelaide could see up to half South Australia’s photovoltaic cells simultaneously switch off.
A similar mass switch-off event involving wind farms during a storm was identified as a root cause of the 2016 statewide blackout.
The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) is taking legal action against the owners of those wind farms for allegedly failing to notify regulators of the possibility that could happen…READ ON
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-19/solar-boom-puts-sa-at-risk-of-another-statewide-blackout/12372558
Much like a lightbulb powered by sustainably sourced and socially responsible minerals (polluting rare earth mines populated by child slave labor) after 9pm, the Woke Crowd doesn’t really care about what they say they fight for (seething with hypocrisy), they just want Chaos. If not, they would forego their hypocrisy AND forego any fossil sources energy supply or potential petrochemical sourced products.
The Vivid scare should teach them that fossil fuel legislation is unnecessary. They’re such a large percentage of society that, if they stopped using the products, prices would fall making the commodity uneconomic
Vivid = COVID
Standard fill in the blank headline:
“________ Fails to Appease Climate Activists”
The Green Blob is never satisfied.
“….the Minerals Council of Australia has unveiled its very own Climate Action Plan, in what it describes as part of an “ongoing commitment” to decarbonising Australia’s economy.”
I know this is probably nitpicking, but it irritates me. The anti-fossil fuel greenie activists keep using the world “decarbonize” as though carbon was the bane of humanity. If they actually mean CO2, they should say CO2…they should say their goal is to eliminate CO2 emissions instead of using the word “decarbonize.” It’s misleading as heck.
Is not carbon the basis for all life on this planet, including we humans? I had no idea that we humans and all plant and animal life is pollution based…..I’m shocked. Maybe that is why the greenie movement hates humanity, if indeed they do.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-biology/chapter/carbon/
In my mind, the environmental movement is doing things bass ackwards. They are trying to eliminate fossil fuels when the alternate electricity/energy generation technologies that can replace fossil fuels (save for nuclear) do not yet exists–and forget wind and solar. The horse and buggy were not replaced until the automobile was invented. Train travel did not fall from grace (in the U.S. anyway, less so in Europe) in the 20th century until the airplane came into being and the commercial airline industry started up. Etc…etc…
New replaces old, the old doesn’t go away until the viable new tech is in place and ready to go.
I wish politicians would muster the intestinal fortitude to admit to this and tell the greenies to go take a flying leap rather than pandering to them like the Aussie Minerals Council is trying to do in this post. My guess however is that doing so is way too politically risky for them, so I will not be holding my breathe waiting for it to happen. Frustrating.
Don’t even bother to appease these clowns. They are the same as the nutcases tearing down statues in the U.S. They couldn’t care less about the environment….they are simply Marxists and it’s time to call them that.
“..An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last..”
–Winston Churchill
+1 And with the help of the bought MSM they control the narrative …. on just about anything.
An interesting political development-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/labor-moves-to-end-decade-long-energy-wars/ar-BB15T24c
Why should idiots need appeasing?
Feel free to check this out
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-major-errors-made-by-scientists-in-approaching-a-climate-change-problem
The ACCR know the world is getting colder. Net Zero means zero celcius, freezing, real cold etc etc. Ever wondered why so many people are flocking to the snowfields – they are getting ready!
“determination: we must seize the opportunity to make the COVID-19 recovery a defining moment in tackling the climate crisis. We say to the Government: “act courageously – it’s there for the taking””
All this talk about NET zero first the UK and now the OZ must be what is driving the carbon credits market these days. Prices are going up.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/09/30/cer/