There's an irony in the rushed construction of a new security fence around the Hazelwood power station, in anticipation of a community protest planned for next weekend. The government, it seems, is more interested in protecting Hazelwood power station from protestors than protecting our future climate from Hazelwood.by David Spratt

New South Wales will later this week reach a window of opportunity to scale down coal burning power stations and take the path to real CO2 reduction in Australia. The Labor state government, led by the State Treasurer Michael Costa, is trying to gain parliamentary approval for a sale (privatization) of the states electricity power grid (from generating power stations to retail distribution and billing authorities). Enough members of the government are ready to vote against the government to stop this if the Liberal Party opposition is willing to vote against it.

Coal power stations need to be, one at a time, closed as wastage is reduced and other generation systems are brought on line. There will be no significant carbon capture in the next twenty years, except by planting trees & biomass. Corporations that buy today’s coal power stations or build new versions of the same are going to lose most of their multi-billion dollar investment. They will be left to go broke like the builders of road tunnels that people don’t want to pay to use. Malcolm Turnbull knows the details on this but seems controlled by the UIC. A Liberal Party opposition that actually cares about business stability will not support a sell-off that will end in tragedy with the Australian public demanding coal power close down and business clinging to a costly investment.

This week Barry O’Farrell, the Liberal state leader, has the chance to rock a bad government and to prove that the “business party” can plan for a greener future. He could protect business from short-term-greed-long-term-pain and open a political front to a younger greener electorate that is so tired of Labor’s short term thinking. In just one week Barry, supported by Malcolm, could rewrite politics in Australia and reveal all the inadequacies in Labor’s response to Climate Change. It just takes one vote, Barry.

From outside of America it is obvious that the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is a bad thing because it is economic insanity to spend ten times more than is “needed” for defense. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked what have we got these weapons for if we don’t use them. To make the MIC richer, to create giant profits, that’s the main reason. Wars are just the excuse to justify the money flow.

In Australia (& Britain) we think we’re smarter than that but both our progressive governments ask what have we got this coal for if we don’t use it. Coal made Britain great and it’s making Australia very rich and inside both countries there is a powerful web of union, political, financial & industrial groups that have grown rich and are committed to keeping the coal power economy going. Power as a metaphor for power. In both countries this web is at the centre of the “Union Industrial Complex” (UIC) that runs the countries. Anglo-Australian companies like BHP are in there with their $15 billion profit. UIC leaders like Michael Costa want to prove Climate Change is false by making a new 40 year commitment to coal.

But there are also nice, reasonable people, like Penny Wong (Minster for Climate Change), who say we must find a carbon capture solution because the world is going to burn more coal (5th Aug 08). Read that again. False logic. A safe cheap method of massive carbon capture may be scientifically impossible (especially in the short term) but, like the MIC, the Union Industrial Complex doesn’t care about results - it just wants huge profits and it’s in control.

The Australian Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong was in Sydney speaking to a full house of 400-500 avoiding the elephant in the room. Penny signed Kyoto, for which the audience gave her great applause. Then she began defending the coal industry, saying we have to create a market price for CO2 emissions, spend most of our research money on "Clean Coal" and trust the market to come up with a solution. It won't, Penny.

George Monbiot yesterday gave the crucial figures that need repeating. Capturing (+ burying) carbon from existing coal plants (if it works) will cost A$151-259 per tonne of CO2 whereas the Australian Govt is talking about A$20 per tonne initial price for CO2 emissions. The coal burning power stations will always choose to pay $20 or $50 or $100 per tonne rather than install carbon capture systems that will cost $150-250 per tonne.

Dr Ben McNeil, ARC QEII Research Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre UNSW, gave the crucial evidence. He was chosen by Penny to give the big picture of the science. At one point he asked "why, if the car industry spends 4-5% on research, why does the mining resources industry spend only 0.3%". Because they know carbon capture is not going to work, Ben. Because even if a technological miracle makes it possible it will cost at least an extra A$150-250 per tonne, doubling or tripling the current retail price and that will be more expensive than existing solar, wind, hydro technology.

This is the elephant that Penny Wong and most Australian and British government members are furiously avoiding, planning and announcing new coal burning stations - the British in Kingsnorth and the Australians in Latrobe - even though their scientists are telling them it will always be too expensive to make them clean. It's like they've entered into an international pact with Coal. This is madness and Penny with her calm, reasonable argument is in the middle of it.

Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - or the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity. The industrial revolution has gone into reverse.

It is not because of polar bears that I will be joining the climate camp outside the coal plant at Kingsnorth. It is not because of butterflies or frogs or penguins or rainforests, much as I love them all. It is because everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for - food, clean water, shelter, security - is jeopardised by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it. [More]

Australian federal and state governments are supporting the unproven and expensive "clean coal" technology as part of the plan to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions, rather than funding renewable energy sources.

The Australian Labor government, that’s claiming to be green responsible, has saved $50 million by cutting solar panel rebates and given $500 million to the coal industry for research into carbon capture and sequestration and Peter Garrett, the Environment Minister, is going along with it. If it was real the coal industry would use its own money. The latest issue of The Monthly has a lead article written by John Birmingham which details the juggernaut that is Big Coal and the mammoth task in competing against it.

Reading it can give you a sense of hopelessness, a sense of powerlessness that is very similar to the experience people feel after talking to Peter Garrett’s office. People in the solar cell industry, people with “illegal” e-bikes who send in submissions that are never even acknowledged and writers like myself have all felt this. We know that real change needs micro steps as well as macro plans but Labor “environmentalists” are so glued to “the big picture” they can’t see how they are not only going backwards and disappointing us but also taking incentive away from real people to give to big corporations who will not deliver anything but profits to themselves. As the Oils once sang “Brave faces… fall silent… got those tears in their eyes”. Does it make sense to you, Peter?