Page 1615 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 June 2021
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make so many new jobs. There are twice as many jobs in renewable energy than there are in fossil fuel projects. That is a story that runs right through the economy.
One thing that really struck me when I was reading up about this treaty is the argument that giant local corporations are not going to voluntarily give up their business models with the speed that we need to save ourselves and the planet. Nation states with fossil fuel gas, oil, and coal reserves will not walk away either. If we want change—the right kind of change—we have to make this happen.
There is an old concept in law and economics that is known as the tragedy of the commons and it runs like this. If you have a common good, like a piece of land that can be used by everyone, there is a risk that it will get overused. We should share, and in a perfect world we would. But people are not perfect. Someone looks at the village green and decides to get as much grass as they can for their cows and make a profit. This leads to overgrazing. Others see this and they worry that the grass is running out. What do they do? They do not fence off the village green; they add their own cows, and they make sure that they get the grass before it runs out. Everyone knows that overgrazing will kill the grass, but no one wants to be the first to pull out, and soon there is no more village green.
We are seeing this play out with fossil fuel. We know about climate change. We understand what fossil fuels are doing. We all agree that we need to stop mining, refining, selling and using fossil fuel, but no one wants to be the first to close their rig. It is time to fence off the village green and lock the gate. It is time to leave that fossil fuel in the ground.
Australia, for years, has been a shameless player in this tragic game. We have heard a lot of arguments at the federal level. We have heard the drug-dealer defence: “Someone else will supply the coal if we don’t.” We have heard the sibling defence: “I won’t stop unless China stops first.” We have heard the energy-poverty defence: “What about remote villages and poor communities who need cheap power?” This last one makes me really angry because those communities would benefit far more from small-scale, locally owned renewables. They would manage and control their own power and they would get out of poverty. The last thing they need is foreign fossil fuel exports from a nation that charges more than they can afford, or from some billionaire who puts profit ahead of people. Give them some green tech and some independence, and watch them make a better world.
It would be funny to watch this high school debate play out on our national stage if it were not a matter of life and death. I mean that quite literally. We have already seen fatal climate change right here in Canberra. Thirty-one people died during the “smokepocalypse” last year. We had the worst air quality of any city in the world. I remember reading about a woman who stepped off a plane at the Canberra Airport and died on the airstrip. That smoke was caused by the uncontrollable bushfires that come with climate change. We knew that we would get more fires with climate change. We also knew that we would get more hail, more storms, more floods, more droughts and more heatwaves. We have known all this for decades. But it is one thing to know something, and it is another to taste it and feel it and know that you, or someone you love, may die from it next time around.
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