A goal new world

PROGRESS RETORT

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says 90% of the world’s economy is now working towards net zero, The Guardian reports. The host — who described himself as “cautiously optimistic” — made the comments as the Glasgow climate summit wrapped up for the day. There were some positive steps forward: more than 100 leaders — who head up countries with 85% of the world’s forests — have committed to end global deforestation by the end of the decade, the BBC reports. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has committed to net zero emissions by 2070 — 10 years after China’s goal of 2060 — pledging that half the country’s grid would go renewable by 2030, as The Times of India reports (India is the world’s third-largest emitter, behind China and the US). Prime Minister Scott Morrison used his speech to grandstand about how Australia will cut emissions by 35% by 2030, though didn’t mention our unchanged target of 26-28%, the SMH adds.

And yet Guardian Australia reports this morning that the Australian government has 116 fossil fuel projects in the pipeline, which together would see our emissions increase by almost 30%. Analysis by the Australia Institute found 72 coal and 44 gas and oil projects with the potential to be developed — including the Beetaloo Basin gas field in the NT, which has been funded by the government to the tune of $224 million — all part of our “gas-fired recovery” from the pandemic. The company reportedly hung up on traditional owners and ignored their questions at their AGM, the National Indigenous Times reports.

[free_worm]

AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT

South Australia’s deputy premier Vickie Chapman is under investigation after saying no to a development near a plot of land she owns, The Islander reports. Here’s the background: Chapman, as attorney-general and planning minister, refused a development application for a $40 million port on Kangaroo Island even though her department had greenlit it. But, as The Advertiser ($) writes, the development application — from the Kangaroo Island Plantations Timber company — would have meant trucks rumbling through the forest opposite Chapman’s long-held family plot of land.

The inquiry is looking at two things, as ABC reports: did she have a conflict of interest, and did she mislead parliament? That second part relates to a question in parliament in August — Chapman was asked whether she, or her family, owned land in an area impacted by the project, and she replied, “in short, no”. The inquiry heard yesterday that Chapman told the company they’d picked the wrong location, which they found unusual, and also that the then-boss had no idea she owned that land. The inquiry is just a fact-finding mission, however — it can’t dole out punishment. You’d think an independent integrity body would be a better fit, but South Australian MPs unanimously voted to strip it of powers in September.

FOLAU-ING THE RULES

A bill allowing religious organisations to discriminate against staff on the basis of religion, and allowing health staff to refuse to give treatment if they object, is the Coalition’s current hot potato. Attorney-General Michaelia Cash is holding urgent meetings to get it across the line before parliament returns, Guardian Australia reports. Also in the bill is a Folau clause — which protects someone legally if they express a statement of belief. You might remember Israel Folau posting on Instagram that unrepentant gays were going to hell? Not exactly a love-thy-neighbour message, is it? The Christian Lobby’s Martyn Iles boasted that the lobby was behind the Folau clause in an interview that has since been scrubbed from the internet, as the SMH reports.

Anyway — this is the third version of the controversial draft legislation, known as the religious discrimination bill. It received a whopping 6000 submissions during the consultation process before being revised — but Liberal MP Warren Entsch says he is still troubled by it, finding the Folau clause a “major concern” and continuing that he can’t support a bill that “reimposed” discrimination, Guardian Australia continues.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Is this the era of eros? Described as a feeling of pure passion, desire, and even a little confusion, it’s one of a cocktail of emotions the post-lockdown world is feeling — for Guardian Australia’s Brigid Delaney at least. She writes that she felt a blast of it when crossing the street mid-last year in Melbourne, an early morning during one of the city’s brief months of freedom between lockdowns. The object of her affection wasn’t a cartoonish Harlequin romance Adonis, however — he was your average tradie. “Every cell was lit up,” she recalls upon seeing him. “If it had been possible to just do it in the middle of the road with this yellow-vest stranger, I would have”.

Delaney says she has long wondered about that rush, and it wasn’t until Sydney reopened again last week that she felt it again. But this time, it wasn’t from one person — eros was all around, “a general joy and playfulness that seemed sprinkled like stardust on opening weekend”. At the pub, everyone was embracing each other. One of her friends picked her up and spun her around, squeezing so hard “that my entire spine cracked like a book being opened for the first time”. Then, casually walking down the street on the weekend, a man stopped to tell her she had beautiful eyes. She told him he did too. “We both started laughing, said goodbye and walked away grinning”, she writes.

Hope you feel the warmth on this Spring day too, folks.

SAY WHAT?

The only way you can get your 30% by 2030 reduction in methane on 2020 levels would be to go and grab a rifle, go out and start shooting your cattle because it’s just not possible.

Barnaby Joyce

The mouthy acting PM reckons mass extermination of cows is the only way to slash methane emissions. That didn’t stop nearly 90 countries voting to decrease them by 30% by 2030 yesterday, however. Australia wasn’t one of them — but Brazil, one of the big five emitters, signed the pledge. Methane, from cows and the oil and gas industries, is 80 times more potent in warming the earth than carbon dioxide.

CRIKEY RECAP

With friends like these… How Scott Morrison manages to piss off the world

Kishor Napier-Raman

Nov 02, 2021

35

“The weeks since the announcement of the AUKUS deal in September have encapsulated the tactlessness which has characterised the Morrison government’s approach to foreign policy. Now French President Emmanuel Macron has called him a liar.

“US President Joe Biden threw him under a bus. Our Pacific neighbours don’t take Australia’s net zero target seriously, and the less said about the China relationship the better. Here’s a look at how Morrison has soured relations with allies, and whether he has any friends left.”

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Rennick’s vaccine pivot shows how anti-vaxxers reward those who play their song

Cam Wilson

Nov 02, 2021

3

Unlocked

“So, has Rennick tapped into a vessel of unheard voters with vaccine concerns who will vote below the line for him at the next election? It’s impossible to know for sure, but the important thing about social media engagement is that it’s international. So it’s likely some (if not a lot) of this newfound audience is outside Queensland.

“Increasingly, the internet is organised around individuals and communities who act in concert. Hyper-engaged anti-vaccine communities on spaces like Telegram or Facebook groups will mobilise when they see a public figure supporting their cause, flooding them with positive engagement. But just as easily as the attention comes, it goes.”

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In defence of Gladys: a fool in love is but a fool; a pork-barrelling pollie is still in office

Madonna King

Nov 02, 2021

60

“Is giving funds to your boyfriend’s electorate any worse than than giving it to an electorate so you stay in power? One post-2019 election analysis found that marginal seats received funding at a rate almost three-and-a-half times greater than safer seats.

“Wasn’t that to keep individuals from a particular party in power? What individuals? Who made those decisions? Did anyone benefit personally from them? Should they be put on a stand and grilled too? When the sun sets on this latest inquiry, questions need to be asked about the performance of ICAC … its performance is patchy at best.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Ethiopia declares nationwide state of emergency (Al Jazeera)

Justice dept. sues Penguin Random House over Simon & Schuster deal (The New York Times)

Low Māori vaccination areas to be targeted following High Court ruling (NZ Herald)

Afghanistan: Deadly blasts, gunfire hit Kabul military hospital (Al Jazeera)

India’s billionaire vaccine prince held the key to ending the pandemic. His plans went awry (CNN)

Shutting down historical debate, China makes it a crime to mock heroes (The New York Times)

Bosnia is in danger of breaking up, warns top international official (The Guardian)

Beach handball players celebrate end of ‘archaic’ rule mandating bikini bottoms (SBS)

Israel’s energy minister shut out of COP26 as venue wasn’t wheelchair accessible (SBS)

Chinese urged to stockpile amid ongoing COVID outbreak (The Guardian)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Decarbonisation offers Australia immense opportunities. We just need leadership — Greg Combet (Guardian Australia): “Ten years ago, as Australia’s minister for climate change and the architect of the ‘carbon tax’, I frequently had to withstand verbal abuse and threats of physical assault whenever I stepped outside. On one occasion a shopkeeper was compelled to call the police while I was buying groceries. My partner experienced pressure at work because of her association with me. Abbott and his media cheer squad had whipped up such extreme fear, hate and hysteria.

“But Australia’s position can be turned around. There is cause for hope … It’s all staring us in the face. Decarbonisation of the global economy presents immense economic opportunities for Australia. We have the resources and capabilities to grasp them. But it requires political leadership. The failure to lead on climate action risks an indelible stain on the reputation of the Liberal and National parties. Scott Morrison faces a derisory legacy preserved on social media, after gleefully waving a lump of coal around in parliament.”

We Should All Know Less About Each Other — Michelle Goldberg (The New York Times): “It turns out that in a country as large and diverse as [the US], a certain amount of benign neglect of other people’s odd folkways is more conducive to social peace than a constant, in-your-face awareness of clashing sensibilities. Little is gained when people in my corner of Brooklyn gawk at viral images of Christmas cards featuring families armed to the teeth. And people in conservative communities don’t need to hear about it every time San Francisco considers renaming a public school …

“But it turns out there’s nothing intrinsically good about connection, especially online. On the internet, exposure to people unlike us often makes us hate them, and that hatred increasingly structures our politics … Right-wing politics has come to revolve around infuriating imagined liberal observers. It’s as if angry conservatives live with hectoring progressives in their heads all the time. Social media may not have created this mentality, but it badly exacerbates it. After all, there’s no point owning the libs if none are watching.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Australia

• Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss, disability advocate El Gibbs, and Wilcannia River Radio’s Brendon Adams are among speakers at a webinar exploring the inequalities of Australia’s pandemic response.

• Musician Clare Bowditch and author Clementine Ford will be in conversation about the latter’s new book, How We Love, held online.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• The Sydney Film Festival kicks off, with loads of screenings and events to check out for the next couple of weeks — peruse the program here. Tonight The Card Counter screens at the Ritz Randwick, from the director of Taxi Driver and starring Oscar Isaac.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• France’s Ambassador to Australia Jean-Pierre Thebault will speak to the National Press Club.

Muwinina Country (also known as Hobart)

• Australia Institute Tasmania’s Eloise Carr, vice chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Mark Howden, and Tasmanian Minister for Climate Change Roger Jaensch are among the speakers at a public meeting about how Tasmania can be a climate leader.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Author Trent Dalton launches his new book, Love Stories, at the Brisbane City Hall.