Rising Tide Australia

This is a speech given by RT member Steve Phillips to a forum at the University of Sydney on March 2nd 2007, put on by the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism. The day-long conference was divided into four sections: "Political Economy Perspectives", "Geopolitical Perspectives", "Policy Perspectives", and "Community Perpectives". Steve spoke in the last section. Speakers included academics, business professionals, unionists, politicians, paid and unpaid activists. The conference asked the following questions:

Global warming focuses attention on energy supply. Can existing non-renewable energy sources be cleaned-up? Do we need to shift to renewables and how? Shouldn't we start with social and environmental justice? Or do we need a reduction in energy-use, and a broader shift from growth-dependence? This day-conference brings together speakers from non-government, corporate, party-political and academic contexts. It addresses economic challenges, international contexts, policy possibilities and community mobilisation.

The speech:

I want to talk about the strong grassroots climate action movement that is quickly developing in Australia, with particular reference to Newcastle, because that's where I'm from. I will try and answer some of the pertinent questions posed by this conference. I'll also some talk about some of the threats to the grassroots climate movement, including the massive spin campaign recently launched by the NSW Minerals Council and the CFMEU.

Firstly a little perspective, and the following question: can climate change be solved through diplomacy, party politics, the courts, or by peak environment groups? Or does there need to be a strong and vibrant movement from the grassroots, involving as many people and perspectives as possible.

The answer to that question can be revealed by digging a little deeper into the scale of the present climate crisis, and understanding the scale of action that is required to extricate the world from this emergency. Consider the following information.

 

climate change is already well underway, but it is not a linear phenomenon. Scientists consider that there is a threshold point of global warming, beyond which the impacts of climate change would become far more extreme, and it is likely that positive feedback loops would kick in and make further dramatic climate changes impossible to avoid. This point, usually called referred to as “dangerous climate change”, is thought to be somewhere very close to 2 degrees celcius. The world is currently locked in to about 1 and a half degrees celcius.

 

The scale of action required to avoid a global average warming of 2 degrees is formidable, to say the least. Based on today's levels of greenhouse pollution, global emissions need to be reduced by 80-90% by the year 2050, with the majority of this cut occuring in the next decade or two.

 

Australia doesn't get it so easy. A just solution to the global climate crisis requires the cumulative emissions from now until the middle of this century to be distributed on a global per capita basis, with per capita emissions converging at a sustainable level. Currently, Australia's per capita greenhouse emissions are among the highest in the world. In order for Australia to play its part in avoiding global climate catastrophe, our domestic greenhouse emissions need to be reduced by 95% from their current levels, by the year 2030. Most of these reductions need to take place in the next decade or so. Allowing any INCREASE in our national emissions is simply unacceptable.

 

It is a similar story with our coal exports which – although they are not counted in our official greenhouse footprint – are Australia's largest contribution to global climate change. By a long shot. The emissions from Australia's coal exports exceed our domestic greenhouse emissoins from all sources. For this reason , a just solution to the climate crisis requires Australia to reduc e our coal exports as hard and as fast as our domestic greenhouse pollution. At present, coal exports are rapidly increasing, and activists such as myself are being slammed for having the temerity to call for them so stay at existing levels for a moment.

 

There is not such thing as clean coal, and the idea that the world will ever be able to burn coal on the scale that we now do, without fuelling climate change, is ludicrous. I'm not going to spend any time on this not, but am happy to debate it with you later if you like.

So let's stop and think about all this for a moment. Australia's economy, as many of the enemies of sustianability like to point out – is built on resource exploitation. We are all – or most of us – currently riding a wave of economic prosperity due to the global resources boom and our country's ability to become the world's quarry. We've got an abundance of cheap electricity, we are used to using lots of it, and we are the world's biggest exporter of coal – for which international prices are now consistently sky-high. Coal mining companies have governments and even unions wrapped around their finger, and anybody who dares call for a contraction of the coal industry is publically caned as a dangerous extremist, as Bob Brown will attest to. It is in this economic and political climate that those of us who care for the ongoing sustainability of life on earth must now demand swift and radical contractions of the fossil fuel industries – cheifly coal – leading to a total phase out.

The idea that politicians will enforce this sort of action themselves is clearly silly. Similarly, environment groups do not have a fraction of the clout needed to achieve these outcomes on their own. A strong grassroots movement, leading to broad public mobilisation , is our only hope of survival. This is especially the case if you believe, as I do, that your average Australian high-energy consumer lifestyle is part of the problem, and must change. In order for Australia to play it's required role in the solution to climate change, it is not just fossil fuel company executives but Ms and Mister Average Australian that are going to have to make sacrafices.

This is a message that even environment groups, not to mention politicians, find it hard to find the courage to say. Friends of the Earth Australia are a notable exception.

So, we need a strong grassroots movement, and broad public mobilisation.

I am from a grassroots climate action group called Rising Tide Newcastle. I was one of three founding members of the group in 2004, at which time there was virtually zero grassroots momentum on this issue in Australia. In the three years since, there has been an explosion of activity in NSW and Victoria, and to a lesser degree in the rest of the country. This explosion has both contribuited to and been fed by an exponential growth in public awareness and concern with climate change, and opposition to its causes. Newcastle, I reckon, has been at the leading edge of this movement, and the changes in public attitudes there are remarkable.

2 years ago, I would stand on a street stall in Newcastle and talk to people about coal exports. I would tell people that Newcastle was the world's biggest coal port, a fact that most people had not yet realised. I would tell them about this thing called climate change, a phenomenon that a worryingly high number of people at the time knew very little about. Not many people thought much about Newcastle coal exports that didn't have a direct involvement in the industry. Today, that has all been turned on its head. I don't want to get too cocky, and I would never suggest that it was all our doing, but our little grassroots action group – employing techniques as diverse as street stalls to reactive media releases, to public meetings, to graffiti and posters, to organising mass public events and demonstrations, to carrying out hardcore direct action with a handful of people, have played a significant role in bringing the issue to the fore in Newcastle. Having Greenpeace throw their weight in has, of course, helped a lot.

Nowadays, the issues of coal exports and climate change are raging in Newcastle, and are in the regional media just about every day. Everybody knows we are the biggest coal port in the world, and that that is an issue with climate change. Everybody has an opinion on it, usually a strong one. Rising Tide is not the only grassroots climate group around, which is great. On the fourth of November last year, nearly 1000 people braved the pouring rain in a thunderstorm to spell out the words “BEYOND COAL” with their bodies on Newcastle's iconic Nobbys Beach. In February this year, over 500 people descended on Newcastle Harbour for the People's Occupation of the World's Biggest Coal Port – the second event of its kind and certainly not the last. 200 of these people disobeyed police orders and floated out into the shipping channel, on some on kayaks, some on tyre-tubes, some just swimming freestyle. A few people from Rising Tide went out on home-made plywood pirate ship.

Less than half of people surveyed in the Hunter in 2006 believe that the benefits of the coal industry outweigh its negative impacts, which was not the case just one year prior. A good chunk of the remainder are undecided on the issue, but the shift in attitudes is still remarkable. In the Upper Hunter, where all of the coal mines are, the public is polarised. With slightly less than half believing that the industry is worth it, and about the same number who think it isn't it.

These figures, when they were released recently, where a boost for those of us working for a sustainable future for the Hunter Region and the world. But to the coal corporations, they must have rung some very loud warning bells, because since then they have launched an unprecedented public relations campaign with the slogan “Life: Brought to you by mining.” Worried that an increasing number of Hunter residents see no future in coal mining, the coal lobby is spending a fortune convincing us that we can't live without it.

Which brings me to my final topic: threats to the grassroots climate movement.

In Newcastle, it's been pretty easy so far. The coal industry is even more visible and tangible in the Hunter than the effects of climate change are becoming everyday, and the work of community activists has been cut out for us. People have been receptive to our message, and the media has given us a good run. But I fear the honeymoon is coming to an end.

The first of three threats to the grassroots movement I would like to mention is exemplified by the new mining industry spin campaign in NSW, focussing on the Hunter: the threat that the companies who are presently making a mozza in the fossil fuel business will spare no expense in the battle for the hearts and minds of the public. This fact is a constant, of course, but it reaches fever pitch when the companies' feel threatened, as they are evidently starting to feel in the Hunter now.

The Minerals Council of NSW – which is the peak lobby group for mining companies in this state, launched their new campaign just last week. It was launched by the Minerals Council chief spin doctor, Nikki Williams, alongside the CEO of Centennial Coal, proponents of the high profile Anvil Hill coal mine proposal, and Tony Maher, president of the mining division of the CFMEU. The campaign includes massive billboards, TV advertisements, and daily colour ads in the Newcaslte Herald, as though it is not enough to have the paper reprint your media releases every day.

Personally, I regard the coal lobby's new spin campaign as a bit of a milestone. It's a good sign that the campaign against the massive expansion of Newcastle coal exports is getting somewhere, that these coal companies, who until now have tried to keep out of the news as much as possible, are now pouring major resources into winning the public back. Their campaign is such blatant spin that I hope most people will see straight through it. And the billboards are begging for it. But perhaps I am being too optimistic, and the companies primary messages will be well received. These messages can be summarised into the following five points:

1)You love consuming, don't you? You love mobile phones, and cars, and cheap electricity, which is all brought to you by the mining industry. The greenies want to take away your affluent lifestyle. This part of their message, I must admit, I have some sympathy for,

2)The greenies want to shut down the export coal industry over night. This is not the case. The campaign in NSW at the moment is for the planned doubling of Newcastle exports to be stopped, and for a plan to be put in place for a just transition for the Hunter region away from coal and into sustainable alternatives. For the coal lobby to accuse us of wanting it shut down overnight, while they plan a massive expansion, is truly deceptive.

3)There are no jobs without coal. I don't know where to start with this argument, so I won't. Take it up with me later if you want.

4)The greenies are so emotive and loose with the truth, whereas we just want to give you the facts and inject some balance into the debate. Hence their massive advertising budget, informing us that life itself is brought to us by mining.

5)The coal industry recognises that climate change is a pressing problem, and that is why we are spending so much money on researching and developing clean coal technologies. Which brings me to the second threat to the movement that I would like to catalogue:

FALSE SOLUTIONS being accepted by a public that is eager to rest easy again. Dealing with climate change requires some major social change. The way we produce energy, and the rate at which we consume it, need to change pretty fundamentally. It's not easy. So, when somebody comes along to you and says: “guess what! I've found an easy way out, that doesn't require very much change at all”, most people are inclined to believe them. A few false solutions to climate change that are on the ascendency in Australia are:

1)clean coal, which does not exist, and probably never will

2)nuclear power, which I believe is a distraction from the real issues, and incapable of solving the problem for various reasons which I won't now go in to.

3)Carbon offsets. For a small fee, you can go on consuming the same amount of energy that you've grown used to. Go ahead, take that flight to America, and we'll plant a few trees to make it all okay. It sounds too good to be true, and for a very good reason.

The third threat to the grassroots movement that I will touch on only briefly is despair. Not only amongst the broader public that we are attempting to win over, but amongst ourselves. The more one becomes involved in climate change activism, the clearer it becomes just how deep is the shit we are in. We're talking about dismantling the fossil fuel economy, and trying to do it fast. When you understand the scale of action required, and what is at stake if that action is not taken – in a word, everything – it is easy to lose hope. We all fight this everyday. No matter how fast we see the movement developing, and it is developing at an exciting rate, the feeling that it may already be too late is always in the back of your mind.

These are all real threats to the movement, but I remain hopeful they will be overcome. Every new climate demonstration draws more and more people, and every new opinion poll shows more and more people supportive of the real actions that need to be taken. If the grassroots movement continues to grow for the next 10 and 20 years as fast as it has grown in the last 2 years, then we may just get out of this alive after all.