Australian climate politics in 2017: a guide for the perplexed
January 2, 2017 5.33am AEDT
If you thought the climate debate has been ugly, you haven’t seen anything yet. In 2017 Australia will review its climate policies, and the process is not off to a good start.
To recap: with the release of the climate review’s terms of reference at the end of 2016, the federal environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, appeared to place on the table an emissions intensity scheme (a widely supported form of carbon pricing). He then wisely went to Antarctica.
After its day in the sun, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull swiftly backtracked in part due to pressure from conservatives within the Coalition. By allowing a small group of politicians to take the most cost-effective policy off the table at the outset, Turnbull has made the coming year(s) that much harder to manage.
Will President Trump have taken the United States out of the Paris Agreement by then? Will the US pull out of the entire climate convention? Or will Trump settle for just sending the office junior to the negotiations, while gutting his Environmental Protection Authority?
Nobody knows, probably not even the president-elect himself. A recent ANU study points to Trump-style disaffection taking hold in Australian politics.
But with the facility already half finished, the US billionaire looks set to get paid.
Musk travelled to Jamestown, in SA’s mid-north, on Friday where construction of the 100-megawatt battery is well advanced. Construction of the battery was announced in July.
“To have that [construction] done in two months … you can’t remodel your kitchen in that period of time,” Musk told an audience in Jamestown.
The Tesla boss said the South Australian project was an example of how to replace fossil fuels with renewables.
“This is a great example to the rest of the world of what can be done,” he said.
“When this is done in just few months, it will be the largest battery installation by a factor of three.”
The SA battery will be paired to a neighbouring wind farm run by renewable energy company Neoen in Hornsdale to bring added reliability and stability to the state’s power supplies. Elon Musk: I can fix South Australia power network in 100 days or it's free Read more
It is thought to be costing taxpayers about $50m and forms part of the state government’s $550m energy plan.
Other elements of the energy plan include installing emergency generators at two sites in Adelaide, a push for more gas-fired power generation and a solar-thermal power plant near Port Augusta.
It was prompted by a series of power problems, including a statewide blackout when a freak storm brought down transmission lines a year ago and another event last summer when heavy demand and a lack of electricity flowing through the interconnector with Victoria cut services to thousands of properties.
While Trump's populist coal agenda brings small gains and a tornado of misinformation and lies.
"Since the fourth quarter of last year until most recently, we've added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector. In the month of May alone, almost 7,000 jobs."
— Scott Pruitt on Sunday, June 4th, 2017 in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press"
Are coal mining jobs up by 50,000 since last year? Not exactly
By Louis Jacobson on Monday, June 5th, 2017 at 4:36 p.m.
[...]
Our ruling
Pruitt said, "Since the fourth quarter of last year until most recently, we've added almost 50,000 jobs in the coal sector. In the month of May alone, almost 7,000 jobs."
The official Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows strikingly smaller increases than what Pruitt said, even when taking into account his comments on other Sunday shows. Meanwhile, there is evidence that coal production and shipment is higher this year compared to early 2016, but the rise actually began under Obama and it’s not clear that Trump policies have been the driving factor.
We rate the statement Mostly False.
--
Coal industry improves slightly as Trump rolls back regs
By Allison Colburn on Tuesday, August 29th, 2017 at 3:47 p.m.
[...]
A glance at more recent data indicates small improvement since Trump took office: 600 coal mining jobs have been created. (This is down from 800 jobs in May, and it's not nearly as many as the 45,000 new coal mining jobs that Trump falsely claimed in July.)
[...]
An April 2017 Columbia University study found that Obama-era environmental regulations were to blame for a 3.5 percent decline of coal production from 2011 to 2016. Coal production overall had declined 33 percent during that time period. This was mostly due to competition from natural gas, lower than expected electricity demand and the collapse of the Asian coal market.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
