Warming’s obvious out in the bush

Peter Boyer says the conversation about climate change is heating up in rural areas

NOT so long ago policy battles over climate change in Australia were a city thing: latte-sipping climate junkies versus old-school types who thought they should shut up.

Except for noisy politicians opposed to any climate action, regional Australia barely got a look-in. As a child of the bush, who sips coffee (not latte though), I find that odd. It’s plain as day climate change is most keenly felt and observed in the country.

Over the past few weeks former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce, former deputy Matt Canavan and others have been warning colleagues and anyone else who will listen that government commitment to a 2050 net-zero emissions target would kill Australia’s regional economy.

Deputy PM Michael McCormack does not directly oppose PM Scott Morrison’s preferred 2050 net-zero target, but did say last week he won’t “sign up to anything that’s going to mean massive job losses in regional Australia, and food prices … that can’t be afforded by families.”

There are signs emerging from the back blocks that what these self-styled champions of the bush keep repeating is out of step with the people they claim to represent. As bodies like the National Farmers Federation call for stronger policies, there’s a building unease in the regions about the climate. Once-private, scattered concerns are stated publicly and widely shared.

Last year was a turning point. By midyear, an intense drought was biting over vast stretches of eastern and southern Australia. Along with millions of trees and river fish, farms were dying. In towns forced to spend scarce money on water cartage, residents thought the unthinkable: they might have to pack up and go. As that arid year wore on, talk among firefighters, farmers and townsfolk about a rising fire threat drew little response from Scott Morrison, Michael McCormack and their senior colleagues. As fires erupted over spring the talk intensified. The nightmare came true.

All the catastrophe talk around Black Summer is true.

The biggest fire event in world history burnt 186,000 square km — nearly three Tasmanias in area — of bush and farm and town, killing 34 people. It consumed incalculable numbers of wild animals and plants: an ecological disaster. It destroyed livelihoods, hitting the national economy to the tune of over $100 billion.

The fires traumatised towns and districts. Images of flames and smoke shocked the world. Over that summer, inland Australia suffered weeks of 40C-plus temperatures. When rain came, benefits were patchy. Science coined the name “flash drought” for the heat’s rapid, devastating impact on soils and plants. A year on, in far-western NSW, centuries-old river trees and whole stretches of natural bush hardened to normal drought cycles are dying.

Nationals deputy leader David Littleproud is one of the smarter people in that party. Unlike some of his colleagues he has not written off backing Morrison’s target. “We’re open to it,” he said last week. “I’ll be part of the solution … as we move forward.”

Littleproud supports the involvement of the farm sector in increasing carbon take-up by soils, while preventing carbon loss and improving biodiversity through better farm practices. But the success of that, he said, depends on finding ways of quantifying the benefit.

That is interesting. In 2014 the Coalition abolished a carbon price scheme that was cutting coal emissions, and applied its own Direct Action policy requiring public money to be spent on private land carbon projects. In 2015 thenenvironment minister Greg Hunt asserted that in its first year the scheme cut emissions by 124 million tonnes.

Direct Action looked dodgy from the outset. Now, David Littleproud says we’re still figuring out how to measure such emissions. So we have it from the horse’s mouth that Hunt’s figures were, well, exaggerated.