Foreign Minister Penny Wong has taken Australian policy a modest step towards embracing recognition of a Palestine state ahead of a two-state solution, as a pathway to a lasting Middle East peace.

In a Tuesday speech to an Australian National University national security conference dinner, Wong said the international community was “now considering the question of Palestinian statehood as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution”.

She quoted British Foreign Secretary David Cameron saying the United Kingdom “will look at the issue of recognising a Palestinian state, including at the United Nations”. Cameron said this could make a two-state solution irreversible.

“There are always those who claim recognition is rewarding an enemy,” Wong said. But she said this was wrong on two counts.

“First, because Israel’s own security depends on a two-state solution.

“There is no long-term security for Israel unless it is recognised by the countries of its region.

“But the normalisation agenda that was being pursued before [the] October 7 [Hamas attacks] cannot proceed without progress on Palestinian statehood,” she said.

Australian government considering recognising Palestinian statehood | ABC News Video

“Second, because there is no role for Hamas in a future Palestinian state. Hamas is a terrorist organisation which has the explicit intent of the destruction of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”

Wong said recognising a Palestinian state, which could only exist beside a secure Israel, did not just offer the Palestinians “an opportunity to realise their aspirations”, but also “strengthens the forces for peace, and undermines extremism”. The extremists included Hamas, Iran and Iran’s other proxies in the region.

“A two-state solution is the only hope to break the endless cycle of violence,” she said.

The Albanese government’s policy has been for a two-state solution, but it has not embraced recognising a Palestinian state ahead of that. The Labor Party’s 2023 national platform goes further. It says Labor:

• supports the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist as two states within secure and recognised borders

• calls on the Australian government to recognise Palestine as a state.

In her speech Wong said Israel “must make major and immediate changes” to its military operations, in order to protect civilians, journalists and aid workers.

Earlier this week, the government appointed a former chief of the Australian Defence Force, Mark Binskin, to probe Israel’s investigation of its attack on a World Central Kitchen’s aid convoy in Gaza. Seven people, including Australian Zomi Frankcom, were killed.

Wong said Israel “must comply with the binding orders of the International Court of Justice, including to enable the provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance at scale”.

The foreign minister also expressed dismay at the local divisions the conflict is causing.

“It is disheartening to witness the number of Australians that increasingly struggle to discuss this conflict without condemning their fellow citizens. This imperils our democracy. We have to keep listening to each other; respecting each other.

“But I have heard language demonstrating that people are losing respect for each other’s humanity. Blatant antisemitism and Islamophobia.”

She condemned politicians who were “manipulating legitimate and heartfelt community concern for their own ends.

“The Greens political party is willing to purposely amplify disinformation, exploiting distress in a blatant and cynical play for votes. With no regard for the social disharmony they are fuelling. This is not some game. There are consequences.

“At the same time, [Opposition Leader Peter] Dutton reflexively dismisses concern for Palestinians as ‘Hamas sympathising’. On this, and in his approach to the world, Mr Dutton needs to decide if he wants to be a leader in difficult times – or if he wants to continue being a wrecking ball, making those times even more difficult.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

This milestone is important, since it was reached entirely with rooftop solar on residential and business edifices rather than with industrial-scale solar farms, of which South Australia has some 300 MW worth. Some observers had questioned whether rooftop solar could supply 100% of an electricity grid, arguing that since it is a distributed system it is inherently unstable and would cause blackouts. It turns out that rooftop solar can be made stable, with superfast computer adjustments of feed inputs, with batteries, and other technology.

“South Australia. By TUBS – Own work This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Adobe Illustrator. This file was uploaded with Commonist. This vector image includes elements that have been taken or adapted from this file: Australia location map.svg (by NordNordWest)., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16876418.

South Australia at one point supplied 114% of its electricity consumption on Saturday, such that some power inputs had to be switched off or the excess exported, or stored in the state’s 150 megawatt mega-battery.

As of early July 2023, 379,860 rooftop solar systems had been installed across South Australia, with a capacity to generate 2.186 gigawatts of electricity. That is roughly the output of two small nuclear reactors. Except the rooftop panels will never melt down or threaten anyone with radiation or become strategic targets in a war (as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has become in Ukraine).

Australia as a whole puts up about 3.25 gigawatts worth of new rooftop solar up every year.

7 News Australia: “Self-sufficient William Creek powered entirely by solar | 7NEWS”

South Australia only a decade ago was mainly dependent on dirty coal for its electricity. On Saturday, coal use fell to a new low, as did fossil gas use. A small amount of fossil gas capacity has been kept in order to stabilize the grid, but it may now be phased out as unnecessary. South Australia is on track to get 100% of its electricity from solar and wind by 2027. So Saturday’s extraordinary statistic is four years away from being an ordinary fact of life.

South Australia, with an area as big as Texas, has a population of about 1,854,000 — more than three-fourths of which lives in Adelaide down on the coast. I had noted earlier, “Adelaide was originally populated by the aboriginal Kaurna people, who called it Tarndanyangga. It is now about as populous as San Diego. It was settled by free British immigrants, unlike the rest of Australia, which was a penal colony. In the nineteenth century, “Afghans” were brought in as camel drivers. It has the oldest continuously functioning mosque in Australia, constructed in 1889, and the state is known for its dedication to religious freedom.”

The United States has many areas that are just as suited to rooftop solar as South Australia, but often Republican politicians working for Big Coal and Gas have put in punitive charges to discourage consumers from adopting them.

(The Conversation) – Australia’s minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, has announced Australia will return to use of the term “occupied Palestinian territories”.

The Australian government will use this phrase to describe the territories in the West Bank and Gaza that Israel occupied in 1967.

Australian officials have generally avoided the use of “occupied” and “occupation” in relation to Palestine since 2014.

This move by Australia is an important means of signalling condemnation of Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. It reorients Australia towards the orthodox position on the occupation under international law.

It has been reported that some at the upcoming Labor national conference will agitate for the government to recognise Palestinian statehood.

Former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans argues the time is right for the government to make such a move. He notes that 138 of the UN’s 193 member states have already done so.

There is no legal bar to Australia recognising Palestine as a state. Rather, it would be a political decision for the government of the day, aimed at promoting the long called-for two-state solution.

The position under international law

Since the United Nations (UN) was established in 1945, the status of Palestine has been a perennial question of modern international law. The UN General Assembly and Security Council have resolved that Israel violates the prohibition on the use of force through its occupation of Palestinian territories. Palestine has held the special status of “non-member observer state” in the UN since 2012.

Photo by Ahmed Abu Hameeda on Unsplash

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) gave an advisory opinion on the implications of Israel’s construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territories. The ICJ concluded the wall served to protect illegal settlements, shore up annexation of Palestinian lands and deny self-determination for the Palestinian people.

The UN’s longstanding condemnation of Israel’s occupation was reasserted in a General Assembly resolution on December 30 2022. The resolution noted Israel’s obligations, as the occupying power, to:

• comply with the Geneva Conventions on the protection of civilians during war

• cease violating the human rights of the Palestinian people

• cease efforts to modify Palestinian territory through illegal settlements, and bring an end to the occupation

• stop construction and dismantle the wall it has been constructing in the occupied territories

• respect the right to self-determination of the people of Palestine and the territorial unity of the occupied territories

• end the blockade of the Gaza strip and other onerous limitations on freedom of movement for people and goods.

The General Assembly also took the significant step of requesting a new advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legal implications of Israel’s continuing occupation. In January 2023 the UN secretary-general submitted the following questions to the ICJ:

1. What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?

2. How do the policies and practices of Israel […] affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?

Image by helen35 from Pixabay

The ICJ is now reviewing submissions by UN member states on these questions. It is likely some submissions will explicitly raise the question of whether Israel’s policies and practices in Palestine amount to the crime of apartheid.

What happens now?

The ICJ’s eventual advisory opinion will not be a binding decision on Israel. However, it will be an authoritative view by the world court. Based on extensive precedent in international law and practice, the ICJ will surely conclude that Israel remains in illegal occupation of Palestine.

The Australian government’s reorientation on the status of Palestine is aligned with international law and state practice. Australia, along with all UN member states, is obliged to promote respect for international law and universal human rights.

Amy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In a historic ruling today, a Queensland court has said the massive Clive Palmer-owned Galilee Basin coal project should not go ahead because of its contribution to climate change, its environmental impacts, and because it would erode human rights.

The case was mounted in 2020 by a First Nations-led group of young people aged 13 to 30 called Youth Verdict. It was the first time human rights arguments were used in a climate change case in Australia.

The link between human rights and climate change is being increasingly recognised overseas. In September this year, for example, a United Nations committee decided that by failing to adequately address the climate crisis, Australia’s Coalition government violated the human rights of Torres Strait Islanders.

Youth Verdict’s success today builds on this momentum. It heralds a new era for climate change cases in Australia by youth activists, who have been frustrated with the absence of meaningful federal government policy.

Via Pixabay.

1.58 billion tonnes of emissions

The Waratah Coal mine operation proposes to extract up to 40 million tonnes of coal from the Galilee Basin each year, over the next 25 years. This would produce 1.58 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, and is four times more coal extraction than Adani’s operation.

While the project has already received approval at the federal government level, it also needs a state government mining lease and environmental authority to go ahead. Today, Queensland land court President Fleur Kingham has recommended to the state government that both entitlements be refused.

In making this recommendation, Kingham reflected on how the global landscape has changed since the Paris Agreement in 2015, and since the last major challenge to a mine in Queensland in 2016: Adani’s Carmichael mine.

She drew a clear link between the mining of this coal, its ultimate burning by a third party overseas, and the project’s material contribution to global emissions. She concluded that the project poses “unacceptable” climate change risks to people and property in Queensland.

The Queensland Human Rights Act requires a decision-maker to weigh up whether there is any justifiable reason for limiting a human right, which could incorporate a consideration of new jobs. Kingham decided the importance of preserving the human rights outweighed the potential A$2.5 billion of economic benefits of the proposed mine.

From a legal perspective, I believe there are four reasons in particular this case is so significant.

1. Rejecting an entrenched assumption

A major barrier to climate change litigation in Queensland has been the “market substitution assumption”, also known as the “perfect substitution argument”. This is the assertion that a particular mine’s contribution to climate change is net zero, because if that mine doesn’t supply coal, then another will.

Kingham rejected this argument. She noted that the economic benefits of the proposed project are uncertain with long-term global demand for thermal coal set to decline. She observed that there’s a real prospect the mine might not be viable for its projected life, rebutting the market substitution assumption.

This is an enormous victory for environmental litigants as this was a previously entrenched argument in Australia’s legal system and policy debate.

2. Evidence from First Nations people

It was also the first time the court took on-Country evidence from First Nations people in accordance with their traditional protocols. Kingham and legal counsel travelled to Gimuy (around Cairns) and Traditional Owners showed how climate change has directly harmed their Country.

As Youth Verdict co-director and First Nations lead Murrawah Johnson put it:

We are taking this case against Clive Palmer’s Waratah Coal mine because climate change threatens all of our futures. For First Nations peoples, climate change is taking away our connection to Country and robbing us of our cultures which are grounded in our relationship to our homelands.

Climate change will prevent us from educating our young people in their responsibilities to protect Country and deny them their birth rights to their cultures, law, lands and waters.

This decision reflects the court’s deep engagement with First Nations’ arguments, in considering the impacts of climate change on First Nations people.

3. The human rights implications

In yet another Australian first, the court heard submissions on the human rights implications of the mine.

The Land Court of Queensland has a unique jurisdiction in these matters, because it makes a recommendation, rather than a final judgment. This recommendation must be taken into account by the final decision-makers – in this case, the Queensland resources minister, and the state Department of Environment and Science.

In an earlier proceeding, Kingham found the land court itself is subject to obligations under Queensland’s Human Rights Act. This means she must properly consider whether a decision to approve the mine would limit human rights and if so, whether limits to those human rights can be demonstrably justified.

Kingham found approving the mine would contribute to climate change impacts, which would limit:

• the right to life
• the cultural rights of First Nations peoples
• the rights of children
• the right to property and to privacy and home
• the right to enjoy human rights equally.

Internationally, there are clear links made between climate change and human rights. For example, climate change is worsening heatwaves, risking a greater number of deaths, thereby affecting the right to life.

4. A victory for a nature refuge

Kingham also considered the environmental impacts of the proposed mine on the Bimblebox Nature Refuge – 8,000 hectares semi-arid woodland, home to a recorded 176 bird species, in the Galilee Basin.

She deemed these impacts unacceptable, as “the ecological values of Bimblebox [could be] seriously and possibly irreversibly damaged”.

She also observed that the costs of climate change to people in Queensland have not been fully accounted for, nor have the costs of mining on the Bimblebox Nature Refuge. Further, she found the mine would violate Bimblebox Alliance’s right to family and home.

Via Pixabay.

Making history

This case has made legal history. It is the first time a Queensland court has recommended refusal of a coal mine on climate change grounds, and the first case linking human rights and climate change in Australia. As Kingham concluded:

Approving the application would risk disproportionate burdens for future generations, which does not give effect to the goal of intergenerational equity.

The future of the project remains unclear. But in a year marked by climate-related disasters, the land court’s decision offers a ray of hope that Queensland may start to leave coal in the ground.

Justine Bell-James, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

She said, “This reverses the Morrison Government’s recognition of West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” She later added, “I regret that Mr Morrison’s decision to play politics resulted in Australia’s shifting position, and the distress these shifts have caused to many people in the Australian community who care deeply about this issue.”

Former PM Scott Morrison, a right-wing leader of the “Liberal” Party (which in Australia means arch-conservative), had violated decades of Australian commitment to the rule of law and a two-state solution. The Australian “Liberals” are obsessed with a supposed immigration threat to Australia and clearly see themselves as settler colonialists who would lose out if the Aboriginals and immigrants gained full rights. Perhaps Morrison and his colleagues sympathized with Israel as another settler colonial state with an unresolved problem of indigenous people. Until the early 1970s Canberra had a policy of “White Australia,” intended to keep out Asian immigrants.

Wong continued, “Today the Government has reaffirmed Australia’s previous and longstanding position that Jerusalem is a final status issue that should be resolved as part of any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian people.”

What she means by “final status issue” is that Jerusalem is a contested city. It was never awarded to Israel by any international legal authority. Even the unfairly pro-Israel 1947 partition proposal of the UN General Assembly retained international control over Jerusalem. (I call it a “proposal” rather than a “plan” because it was never endorsed by the executive, the UN Security Council, and so lacked the force of law.)

Neither Israeli leaders nor Palestinian ones accepted the partition proposal, although Israel apologists constantly allege that Israel did. Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, noted in his diary that Israel had accepted no permanent borders, clearly envisaging that the state would expand beyond both what the UNGA proposed for it and beyond its initial 1947-48 conquests, including the Negev, which had not been included by the UNGA in Israeli territory. During that war, Israeli troops took West Jerusalem, but not the majority-Palestinian East Jerusalem. Then in 1967, after hatching many plots to do so for over a decade, the Israeli army used the chaos of the 1967 war that it launched on Egypt and Syria to seize East Jerusalem as well.

Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem and surrounding areas from the Palestinian West Bank — also not proposed for Israel by the UNGA — which is illegal by dint of the UN Charter, to which Israel is a signatory. As of 1945 you can’t acquire territory from your neighbor by aggressive warfare. The rule was an attempt to forestall war crimes of WW II, such as Mussolini’s annexation of the city of Nice from France. Israel then flooded the illegally annexed area of East Jerusalem and its surroundings with Israeli citizens. That is also illegal, by the 4th Geneva Convention of 1948. The rule was enacted in an attempt to prevent further episodes such as the German attempt to Germanize occupied Poland by flooding it with Germans while expelling Poles during WW II.

In international law, despite the right wing Israeli government’s conviction that Jerusalem will forever be an undivided Israeli city — ignoring the 380,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem and environs — Jerusalem’s disposition can only be decided by final status negotiations between Israel and the State of Palestine, to the establishment of which Israel committed itself in the 1993 Oslo peace accords.

Israel has a problem with its international legal commitments, ignoring the UN Charter and a raft of UN Security Council resolutions rebuking its attempt to annex a neighbor’s territory, and ignoring the Oslo treaty, to all of which it gave free assent and the signatures of its lawful representatives.

The Labor government in Australia is renewing the country’s commitment to international law in taking this step. Minister Wong said, “The Albanese Government recommits Australia to international efforts in the responsible pursuit of progress towards a just and enduring two-state solution.”

The Albanese government has been more principled than the Biden administration, which has declined to reverse Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. Although the State Department maintains that this move does not change US policy in supporting a two-state solution, it is hard to see it in any other light than as an acquiescence in Israel’s lawless behavior.

The Israelis summoned the Australian ambassador over the decision. But then claim jumpers in the Old West were also upset if the sheriff intervened on the side of the rightful owner of the land.

When the new federal parliament opened last week, a record number of female politicians took their seats: 38% in the House of Representatives and 57% in the Senate. This changing of the guard, with women at the forefront, brings an opportunity to accelerate Australia’s efforts on climate change.

The major parties were virtually silent on the issues of gender equity and climate change throughout the 2022 election campaign. Yet, both issues proved to be turning points for the Australian electorate.

Climate change – one of the key platforms on which the teal candidates successfully campaigned – is central to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s parliamentary agenda. A bill to enshrine a climate target into Australian law was among the first introduced to parliament last week.

Women are on the front line of climate change impacts, which makes our experiences and leadership critical at decision-making tables. From Barbados to Finland, we’ve seen women’s leadership on climate bring fair, innovative and ambitious policies. We hope a new era in Australian climate policy is upon us, too.

Women and climate change

Women around the world are disproportionately impacted by climate change due to existing systemic inequalities. For example in Africa, when disaster strikes, women may find it more difficult to evacuate their homes as primary caregivers, be unable to read written warnings, or be overlooked in rescue attempts in favour of men.

Australia’s experience is no exception. For example, researchers note sharp surges in domestic violence in the wake of disasters, such as bushfires.

Women also have a critical role to play in achieving ambitious and innovative climate action. As the Women’s Leadership statement at last year’s Glasgow climate summit noted:

Despite increased vulnerability to climate impacts, we recognise that women and girls have been creating and leading innovative climate solutions at all levels.

There are scores of examples of female climate leadership and the benefits that follow when women and girls are afforded the opportunity to take a lead on climate action, throughout recent history.

Notable examples include Christiana Figueres, who steered international climate negotiations to a successful outcome in 2015, with the adoption of the Paris Agreement.

Greta Thunberg’s vigil to sit outside the Swedish Parliament every Friday protesting inadequate climate action inspired a youth climate protest movement.

Other young women such as National Director of Seed Mob Amelia Telford in Australia, and Pacific Climate Warriors founding member Brianna Fruean are at the forefront of First Nations’ climate advocacy efforts.

UN Environment Program: “Prime Minister Mia Mottley 2021 Champion of the Earth – Policy Leadership”

An OECD Working Paper released this year notes that women’s participation in decision-making often leads to the development of comparatively strong and sustainable climate policies and goals.

Case in point, Finland, under leadership of progressive Prime Minister Sanna Marin, recently committed to one of the most ambitious climate targets, legislating net zero by 2035 and carbon negative by 2040.

Meanwhile, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley aims to phase out fossil fuels by 2030 and is a passionate advocate for developing nations vulnerable to climate change.

In the private sector, women’s participation is also crucial. The OECD cites evidence that when women occupy at least 30% of board seats they bring about change to climate governance within companies.

An end to Australia’s climate wars?

The Australian government’s sharp focus on climate change is a far cry from the “climate wars” that have been a roadblock to meaningful climate policy in this country for the past decade.

But Australia wasn’t always a problem country in international climate negotiations. At times, we’ve been a climate leader.

Under Julia Gillard’s Labor government, for example, Australia was one of the first countries to introduce a national legislated carbon price in 2011. This changed in 2013, when the newly elected Prime Minister Tony Abbott swiftly repealed this landmark law. Almost a decade of inaction on climate change by the federal government followed.

Signs of progress on climate change began to take shape at the 2019 federal election, when conservative but green Independent MP Zali Steggall ousted Tony Abbott from his long-held seat of Warringah.

The May election then brought a teal wave of female independents, along with gains for Greens and Labor women candidates. These women – such as Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniels, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender – are set to play a transformative role in our politics and society.

They campaigned on a climate and integrity platform, calling for stronger 2030 climate targets, increased renewable energy generation and passing a Climate Change Act to legislate and lock in emissions reduction targets.

Labor’s Climate Change Bill was one of the first pieces of legislation to be introduced to the new parliament, and negotiations are now well underway between Labor, the Greens and the female independents to pass it.

An early success borne from these negotiations has been establishing that Labor’s current target – 43% emissions reduction by 2030 – is a floor, not a ceiling, for ambition.

Still, as Kate Chaney put it in her first speech, “we need to go further”. This includes addressing questions about accountability for achieving the target, and a mechanism to ensure future governments continue to lift their ambition.

Towards a positive climate future

The success of the teal independents represents the enormous groundswell of anger and frustration felt by many people who might have, in the past, voted for the Coalition government.

This immense transformation points to the need for Australia to place gender equity, climate action and integrity at the centre of our decision-making.

As our national climate laws and policies take shape, we watch with anticipation to see how Albanese will navigate two houses occupied by women with strong, clear climate objectives and unprecedented support from their electorates.

Jacqueline Peel, Director, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne; Annabelle Workman, Research Fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne; Kathryn Bowen, Professor – Environment, Climate and Global Health at Melbourne Climate Futures and Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, The University of Melbourne, and Rebekkah Markey-Towler, PhD Candidate, Melbourne Law School, and Research fellow, Melbourne Climate Futures, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Black Summer bushfires devastated parts of the Eurobodalla region in New South Wales. Then earlier this year, the area was hit by floods. As climate change threatens to bring more severe and frequent extreme weather events, how can we help future-proof such communities?

One way is to build electricity systems that can withstand natural disasters. That was the starting point of a three-year project we’re undertaking. The project has just reached a milestone: selecting eight sites where microgrids – small, self-sufficient energy systems – might help boost disaster resilience.

Smart site selection for new technologies is crucial. Too often, projects have been parachuted into communities without enough consideration, leading to poor outcomes for both project operators and residents.

The climate and environmental crises demand innovations in our everyday infrastructures. If these changes are to be accepted and adopted en masse, we must find the right fit between communities and infrastructure. Here, we share what we’ve learnt so far, in the hope other regional communities might benefit.

A model community

Microgrids are small-scale electricity networks that can be used as part of, or separate to, the main electricity grid. They usually involve a range of local electricity sources, and can supply power when communities are cut off from the main network – such as during a storm or fire.

H/t Pixabay

But the form that microgrids should take is unclear and contested. A microgrid could be limited to servicing a handful of essential shops during disasters, or it could power the whole community all year round – protecting it from electricity market volatility as well as disasters.

The Eurobodalla Shire is a picturesque coastal region with a growing population.
During the Black Summer fires, power supplies were lost across large parts region and the outage lasted several days.

Our project is working with Eurobodalla communities to determine if microgrids are right for them. We aim to model using microgrids coupled with renewable energy – including household, commercial and community solar, and small- and medium-scale batteries.

Context is everything

Under the previous federal government, Australia’s approach to emissions reduction was narrow and technology-centred.

The new Labor government – elected on the promise of climate action – has the opportunity to move to a community-based approach. This should ensure any new infrastructure integrates with people’s lives, values, and aspirations.

Such an approach requires proponents and funding bodies (both government and private) to genuinely listen to communities’ needs – right from the early design stage.

If local circumstances are not considered, a trial can be plagued with problems. These include:

• technical systems that do not address the community’s real problem, such as power outages at crucial times
• confusion and cost overruns for local installers and supply chains
• disgruntled trial participants who rightly reject or abandon the new technology.

Listening to local voices

So how did we decide which communities to work with? One guiding principle was to elevate local voices in the decision-making process.

For the selection of sites we held discussions with organisations including the local electricity network company, a prominent community group focused on sustainability and the Eurobodalla Shire Council.

People at the beach in New South Wales, h/t Pixabay.

Based on our initial discussions and a literature review, we compiled a set of indicators to help identify which communities would most benefit from the resilience boost that microgrids offer. The indicators include:

• population size, age and income
• rates of people with disability
• cultural and ethnic diversity
• the frequency and duration of past power outages
• layout of the town and electricity network
• a community’s visions for its future.

In the case of the Eurobodalla region, we also considered communities’ past experience of traumatic disasters, and subsequent “consultation fatigue” following the many investigations into the Black Summer fires.

While our assessment was project specific, we’ve made our framework freely available here so it might inform future technology trials.

From these indicators, we selected eight communities ranging from small hamlets of less than 100 residents to larger towns with more than 2,000 residents.

All were found to be vulnerable to natural disaster – for example, they may have had high residential occupancy rates (as opposed to holiday lettings), or lots of elderly people and those with disability. These communities also had high rates of rooftop solar installation.

The project team will now speak to residents and businesses in each community about their future energy needs, and whether microgrids might have a role. We’ll ask questions such as:

• what, if any, microgrid designs appeal to you – ranging from backup power for community shelters to large systems servicing an entire community?

• what, if any, business models do you support, ranging from current market structures to more active roles for the local council or citizens?

By the end of the project, we hope to have identified which, if any, communities wish to move forward with microgrids. For those that do, our project will provide the initial social research and technical feasibility studies on which to build proposals and potentially apply for federal funding.

Looking to a clean energy future

As the climate emergency worsens, there is too much at stake to adopt the “decide, announce, defend” method of technology roll-out. Community-based approaches will better build the widespread support needed to accelerate climate action.

And the recent energy crisis on east coast showed natural disasters aren’t the only threats to electricity supplies. As the national electricity market grapples with a perfect storm of challenges, technology to help communities become energy self-sufficient makes even more sense.

Bjorn Sturmberg, Research Leader, Battery Storage & Grid Integration Program, Australian National University; Hedda Ransan-Cooper, Research Fellow, College of Engineering and Computer Science, Australian National University; Johannes Hendriks, Research Fellow in the Battery Storage and Grid Integration Program, Australian National University, and Pierrick Chalaye, Research Fellow, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australians will bear yet another blow to our cost of living in July when electricity prices will surge up to 18.3%, which amounts to over A$250 per year in some cases.

This is partly due to geopolitical tensions driving up the cost of generating electricity from coal and gas – costs that are increasingly volatile – leading the Australian Energy Regulator to increase its so-called “default market offers” for electricity retailers in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland.

If the Albanese government ever needed another reason to turbocharge its efforts on renewable energy and storage, this is it.

Investing in renewables, energy storage, electric vehicles and other clean industries will not only lower power prices, but will also lower emissions, increase our self-sufficiency, create new jobs, and protect us from international price shocks like we’re seeing now.

Fortunately, the Albanese government has a strong mandate for game-changing climate action this decade. The government aims for renewable energy to make up over 80% of Australia’s electricity mix by 2030, but its pledge of $20 billion for new transmission infrastructure means we can aim higher and go faster.

Holding us back, however, is continued investment in the coal industry. Indeed, doubling down on fossil fuels right now would be extraordinarily reckless from a security perspective – as the United Nations climate envoy pointed out this month, “no one owns the wind or the sun”.

So how can Australia transform into a renewable energy powerhouse? Here are three important ways the Albanese government can meet its ambition swiftly and justly.

1. Energy justice with community energy

Communities must be placed at the heart of the energy transition if we’re to see energy justice in Australia.
Energy justice is when all members of society are granted access to clean energy, particularly disadvantaged communities such as those without housing security.

One way to make this happen is with community-owned renewable energy and storage, such as wind energy co-operatives. For example, the Hepburn Wind Co-operative is a 4.1 megawatt wind farm owned by more than 2,000 community shareholders. Another example is community-owned social enterprise electricity retailers such as Enova, which has more than 1,600 community shareholders.

Labor has made a great start. Its Powering Australia plan pledges to install 400 community batteries and develop shared solar banks to give renters, people in apartments, and people who can’t afford upfront installation costs access to solar energy.

The next step should be a rapid roll out of a federal community solar scheme, similar to a program in the United States. The US Community Solar scheme is backed by legislation to create a third-party market for communities. It allows communities to own solar panels or a portion of a solar project, or to buy renewable energy with a subscription.

This means lower socio-economic households can benefit from clean, reliable and cheaper electricity from solar when they’re not able to put panels on their rooftop.

Australia needs a dedicated national policy or government body that builds on the work of other bodies, such as the Coalition for Community Energy, to govern community-based energy and enshrine the principles of energy justice.

2. Rapid uptake of offshore wind

Offshore wind farms represent a key opportunity for Australia’s decarbonisation – the combined capacity of all proposed offshore wind projects would be greater than all Australia’s coal-fired power plants.

But Australia’s offshore wind industry is only in its infancy. And while Labor’s Powering Australia plan targets manufacturing wind turbine components, it lacks policy ambition for offshore wind.

Renewable Energy Zones (a bit like the renewables equivalent of a power station) are currently being rolled out Australia wide. These should encompass offshore wind zones to encourage the rapid uptake of this vast energy source.

For example, in February, the Renewable Energy Zone in the Hunter-Central Coast region had seven offshore wind proposals and attracted over $100 billion in investment. Potential renewable energy projects in this region represent over 100,000 gigawatt hours of energy – the same as the annual output of ten coal-fired power stations.

The federal government should also set an offshore wind target to accelerate uptake. Victoria, for instance, recently announced a target of 2 gigawatts installed by 2032, 4 gigawatts by 2035, and 9 gigawatts by 2040.

Similarly, the United Kingdom recently increased its offshore wind target to 50 gigawatts by 2030 – the equivalent to powering every household in the nation, according to the UK government.

Despite its potential, Australia only introduced federal legislative framework for offshore wind last year – and it needs work. For example, the legislation doesn’t incorporate marine spatial planning, which is a process of coordinating sectors that rely on the ocean, such as marine conservation, the fishing industry, and the government.

3. Just transitions for coal communities

The Australian Energy Market Operator says the National Electricity Market could be 100% powered by renewables by 2025. Further closures of aging and unreliable coal-fired power stations are inevitable.

The government must not leave carbon-intensive regions behind in the transition to new clean industries. If we do this right, generations of Australians could be working in renewable energy, clean manufacturing, renewable hydrogen, and the extraction of critical minerals.

Creating a national coal commission could help produce a roadmap away from fossil fuels, and seize on the opportunity to create clean jobs. This is being done in Germany, where a government-appointed coal commission consulted unions, coal regions, local communities and more to develop a pathway to transition the coal industry by 2038.

We can also see this in Canada, which is developing legislation with principles of a just transition by establishing a body to provide advice on strategies supporting workers and communities.

Strong climate and energy policy will take hard work – let’s hope this truly marks the end of the climate wars and the start of Australia’s turbocharged energy transition.

Madeline Taylor, Senior Lecturer, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Morrison’s rival, victorious Labor Party leader Anthony Albanese, proclaimed that Australia could become a “renewable energy superpower.” He also said, that there is now an opportunity to end the culture wars over climate change. He added, “Australian business know that good action on climate change is good for jobs and good for our economy, and I want to join the global effort.”

Morrison was blithely nonchalant about the climate emergency and very dedicated to Australia’s coal industry. If you count the coal they export, the 25 million Australians have one of the highest per capita carbon dioxide emission rates in the world.

From October of 2019 through March of 2020 (an Australian summer), the country experienced unusually high temperatures, setting the stage for an unprecedentedly catastrophic bush fire season.

Morrison did not seem particularly upset about the raging fires, which licked at Sidney suburbs, did a billion and a half US dollars in property damage, and killed or displaced an estimated three billion animals, leaving the iconic koala bear on the doorstep of extinction.

Like an antipodean Ted Cruz, Morrison packed his family into a jetliner and went off on holiday in Hawaii after the bush fires had begun raging. The outcry forced him to apologize and to admit that human-fueled climate change contributed to the calamity. Increasing surface temperatures have dried Australia out, making massive bush fires more likely. Critics said that Morrison just never understood the urgency of action on the climate.

A poll of 15,000 Australians conducted by YouGov this past January found high levels of public anxiety about Morrison’s lackadaisical pace in addressing the climate emergency.

Some 60% of respondents had doubts about whether Morrison’s vague commitment to reach net carbon zero by 2050 is enough. And 41% of those polled were positively convinced that net zero by 2050 was “too little, too late.” Not to mention that the measures Morrison was willing to take could not have resulted in net zero by 2050 anyway.

Not only did a big majority of the country think Morisson wasn’t doing nearly enough on climate, 70% believe that there are great economic benefits to be had by Australia if it goes green.

This sentiment hurt the Liberal-National coalition badly in this week’s election, which shrank dramatically in the Lower House to only 55 seats. Some coalition members of parliament defected and ran as independents, with a climate friendly platform. The Green Party won only a single seat in 2018, but this year it looks to have four seats in the lower house,

It is not clear that Labor Party can reach the requisite 76 seats in the Lower House needed to form a government on its own. If it falls short, it will have to seek allies, either among the pro-environment Liberal-National defectors who ran as independents, or among the Greens.That could give the anti-climate-change agenda a pivotal importance for the government of incoming Prime Minister Albanese.