[roenxi]

> The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW 2016, Begg 2007) has estimated that about 3000 deaths (equivalent to about 28,000 years of life lost) are attributable to urban air pollution in Australia each year (Figure ATM29). [0]

Ouch. That is bad. It does require a response. However it is close enough to normal that it wouldn't change any rational decisions about our energy mix. This crisis is small enough that we only need to respond to the threats directly, without winding in a decarbonisation scheme that doesn't actually do anything.

[0] https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/ambient-air-quality/top...

[yassam]

> ...without winding in a decarbonisation scheme that doesn't actually do anything

I take issue with this. Australia's contribution to GHG emissions does contribute to warming. Even if it's only 1.3% (greater if you take exports into account [0]) it has an effect.

Also, more than 20% of global emissions are emitted by countries with lower overall emissions than us [1]. If they all used our excuse [2], do you think that would be acceptable?

We also have among the highest per capita emissions in the world [3].

And I haven't even talked about historic cumulative emissions, which have to be taken into account for an equitable solution.

Australia is already suffering from the effects of a climate emergency, with conditions predicted to get orders of magnitude worse this century. We should be taking a lead in the decarbonisation effort so we can urge the rest of the world to do the same, for our sakes, as well as theirs.

Instead, our government sabotaged negotiations at COP25 [4], and is acting for the short-term benefit of a few fossil fuel miners, even to the point of wanting to make secondary boycotts illegal [5]. They are criminally negligent at best, and an absolute disgrace.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/08/fossil-f... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous... [2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-01/australia-called-a-fr... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di... [4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-16/australia-climate-car... [5] https://reneweconomy.com.au/morrisons-crackdown-on-climate-p...

[roenxi]

> Also, more than 20% of global emissions are emitted by countries with lower overall emissions than us [1]. If they all used our excuse [2], do you think that would be acceptable?

The compliment of 20% is 80%. Those countries could all drop their emissions to 0 and any problem from emissions would still be 80% there and so still be about as bad as it ever was. So yes everyone smaller than us can use the same excuse. What matters policy-wise is the leadership in China & the United States.

> We also have among the highest per capita emissions in the world [3].

Yeah. We don't have any nuclear plants. Puts us a bit behind the 8 ball. We should fix that up too and build some. Labor needs to be more vocal about supporting nuclear energy.

There is a link between counties that make heavy use of nuclear energy and countries that have low emissions and air free of coal dust.

> Australia is already suffering from the effects of a climate emergency, with conditions predicted to get orders of magnitude worse this century. We should be taking a lead in the decarbonisation effort so we can urge the rest of the world to do the same, for our sakes, as well as theirs.

Germany already did that, it didn't impress very many people; it looked expensive and didn't actually help their emissions much. We should restrict ourselves to trying things that are likely to work and actually address the issues we are facing, which decarbonisation does not. There isn't anyone here who can seriously argue that Australia decarbonising would have had any impact on these bushfires. If Australia were completely decarbonised and had stopped exporting coal they would still have happened.

A positive actions in anyone's book happens to be just waiting another decade until it becomes economic to build photovoltaic solar; according to the Finkel report.