It’s been five years since Pope Francis’s encyclical, Laudato Si’: On care for our common home, was promulgated on 24 May 2015. The timing of the commemorative global “Laudato Si’ Week” (16–24 May) couldn’t be more fitting for those of us promoting an economic recovery from COVID-19 that tackles unemployment, rebuilds a resilient economy and addresses climate change, all at the same time. The reminder of this historic encyclical adds Francis’s moral authority to the case made by concerned Australian economists regarding how this practically can be done.
The anniversary comes on the heels of another Australian School Strike 4 Climate on 15 May (online this time). No doubt Francis would be pleased about that, given his frequent praise of Greta Thunberg and the school strikers more generally. With his usual talent for pithy messaging, Francis said in his Earth Day message in April, “still it will be necessary for our children to take to the streets to teach us the obvious: we have no future if we destroy the very environment that sustains us.”
In his encyclical, Francis was uncompromising on what it will take to protect our children’s future:
There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.
Regarding the challenge of investing in the more sustainable use of resources, he wrote:
If we look at the larger picture, we can see that more diversified and innovative forms of production which impact less on the environment can prove very profitable. It is a matter of openness to different possibilities …
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When Laudato Si’ was written, prevailing opinion held that working to protect the environment meant sacrificing economic goals, at least in the short-term. While Francis’s emphasis was on the moral argument for caring about the environment generally and climate change in particular, long-term, the research was already showing that the economic costs of acting to mitigate climate change would be far, far less than the costs of dealing with cascading climate breakdown. The evidence for this only grows stronger.
However, it now also makes economic sense to act on climate change in the short-term. The economics of low-carbon technologies has shifted remarkably in the last five years. Investors are more aware of climate risk and more often exclude fossil fuel-intensive companies in their portfolios. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investments have been increasingly delivering equal or better returns than conventional stocks. Even in the COVID-19 downturn, ESG investments have been holding up better.
Coal mining is the third fastest declining industry globally, and oil and gas exploration are together the fourth fastest declining industries. With the collapse in oil and gas prices they are less profitable than ever before. Increasingly efficient and competitively priced renewable technologies mean it has become simply uneconomic to build new coal-fired power stations.
Can we hope for a new solidarity?
The pandemic has afforded us all a pause in business-as-usual. Here in Australia, it has been encouraging to witness the strength of people’s care for each other at the grassroots level and, at a government level, the prioritising of people’s health and well-being over budget surpluses and economic growth. In a crisis, thankfully it has been recognised that our nation needs well-resourced government leadership more so that mindless “market forces.”
Likewise, the new bipartisanship in decision-making processes between Labor and the Coalition has been a breath of fresh air. As Rod Mitchell, from the Citizens Climate Lobby, says, “It signified a truce or at least a ceasefire in the culture war — a recognition that we are all in this together, that the virus and its economic effects can take us all down.”
The nation needs this spirit of collaboration when facing the climate crisis as it accelerates. This bipartisanship should begin now as decisions are being made on how to direct economic stimulus packages for the recovery from COVID-19 lockdown.
What of our newfound respect for science?
In Laudato Si’, Francis praised environmental organisations but bemoaned the many impediments to their efficacy:
Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions. We require a new and universal solidarity.
Of course, these obstructionist attitudes have stymied real progress towards sound national policy on climate and energy in Australia. They are no doubt determinedly fostered by lobbyists and “mates” from extractive industries.
The federal government’s official assurances of acceptance of climate science and commitment to meet Paris targets are mere fig leaves. Data from the national greenhouse gas inventory don’t lie. Nor are they compensated for by dubiously acquired carry-over credits from the Kyoto Protocol which are not recognised, at any rate, under the Paris Accord. Objective international analysts at Carbon Tracker rate our national performance as “insufficient”. If all countries had our level of ambition, the world would scarcely stay under a 3°C increase. Add to this poor record on carbon mitigation the fact that Australia is the largest exporter of coal and the largest exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), and Australia frankly begins to look like vandals rather than laggards — not least because gas is not less polluting than coal, as was once thought.
Our moral responsibility for the greenhouse pollution created overseas when our exports are burned is not obviated by the fact that, under the Paris Accord, fossil fuels burned overseas are not counted in the exporting nation’s total.
Yet perhaps now there is reason to hope. The federal government has clearly acted on the science regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps this new respect for science can be applied to the slower moving, but nonetheless life-threatening catastrophe that is the escalating climate crisis. If it was the threat to human health that created the difference, let it be noted that climate disruption is the biggest threat to health that humanity faces.
The overwhelming majority of climate scientists have been sounding the alarm with greater urgency by the year, that the health and safety of large parts of the population are at serious risk, — both in Australia and around the world. Countless species and, within ten years, entire ecosystems are likely to be lost if we remain on this current trajectory.
The human community now has contemporaneous experience of how a crisis plays out when science is not properly heeded. Is it too much to hope that those charged with the duty to protect our health and well-being will begin to respond to climate science too?
The scale of solution must match the scale of the problem
“We have sinned against the earth,” Pope Francis said in April. He warned that harming the earth put human life at risk. Along with other religious leaders, he is particularly concerned about those who are already vulnerable, and about today’s younger generations, who stand to lose the most as the stability of the climate breaks down. “There is a Spanish saying that is very clear about this,” he said:
It goes: “God always forgives; we humans sometimes forgive, and sometimes not; the earth never forgives.” The earth does not forgive: if we have despoiled the earth, its response will be very ugly.
The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C , released in September 2018, showed how the world is lagging dangerously far behind the targets needed to avoid catastrophic levels of climate disruption. The super-storms being experienced today, the droughts, bushfires, bleaching of coral reefs, food insecurity and sea level rise are set to worsen, even if we are able to limit warming to 1.5°C.
The damage which was wrought by just 1°C global temperature rise remains visceral for our farmers who are still suffering the effects of the unprecedented drought, and for those who lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods in the bushfires. These kinds of impacts can reasonably be expected to intensify, as the world is presently on track for around 3°C of warming, a level that would put the very future of civilisation in jeopardy.
Limiting warming to 1.5oC will require the very rapid decarbonisation of the global economy. For Australia, this means no new coal or gas mining, a shift to 100 per cent renewable energy as soon as possible, and reaching net zero emissions well before mid-century. Every delay will cost lives and livelihoods, especially for those already in poverty.
The benefits of investment in low-carbon technologies
Contrast this story of looming catastrophe with the benefits of investing in climate-conserving technologies, and idea of an economic stimulus based on the old formulae sounds insane. The benefits of a green economy have only grown since Pope Francis strongly advocated for the take-up of these technologies in 2015:
- Climate-conserving technologies are deployment ready. Amazing efficiencies have been achieved and prices have dropped to such an extent that many are deployment-ready — indeed, they are being deployed at escalating rates globally.
- Deployment of climate-conserving technologies employ more people. Given the primary goal of stimulus spending for a COVID-19 recovery will be job-creation, governments would do well to note that, dollar-for-dollar, low-carbon technologies create many more jobs than coal and gas mining. For the same amount of money, indeed around three times the number of jobs are created in renewable energy and energy efficiency than are created by coal and gas mining. The truth is that extractive industry spokespersons and their supporters in the media over-claim the contribution of coal and gas mining to job creation. While it would be unfair that workers suffer the brunt of an economic transition away from coal and gas, regional communities are not actually served well by the propping up of old, declining industries.
- Deployment of climate-conserving technologies will protect precious water. Investing in renewables leaves more water for farmers, people and nature. The Australian Conservation Foundation (AFC) recently released research that shows coal mines and coal-fired power stations in NSW and Queensland consume 383 billion litres of water every year. That’s a conservative estimate. This is as much as the annual domestic water use of 5.2 million Australians, or every household in Queensland. At the same time, emissions from exported coal burned overseas contributes to climate change and therefore the desertification of our already dry continent.
- Deployment of climate-conserving technologies would lead to better health outcomes. Investing in low-carbon solutions would mean reduced pollution which in turn would lead to better health outcomes. An Environmental Justice Australia study of NSW coal-fired power stations concluded that fine particulate pollution from the plants cause at least 279 premature deaths per year in NSW alone, in addition to causing asthma, low birth weight, type-2 diabetes and so on. In the long-term, a warmer world is a sicker world. A collective failure to bring emissions down will mean a warming world, leading to heat-related deaths, food scarcity (because of droughts, unpredictable rainfall, floods), more smoke from more frequent and intense bushfires and tropical diseases moving further from the equator. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause 250,000deaths per year. The majority of them will be among people in developing countries.
- Deployment of climate-conserving technologies would be fairer to young people. Younger generations are among those most disadvantaged as we collectively make noble efforts to minimise mortality from a disease which more often hits those who are older. The young are having their all-important education disrupted; they are more likely to be in casual employment and to lose their jobs, more likely to be renting, in shared accommodation; they will bear the brunt of the predicted long-term recession. Younger generations are making sacrifices today largely to protect the health of older people and they will be called upon in future to pay off the debts we incur in the fight against this pandemic. At the same time, they face a terrible climate-disrupted future which they have not created themselves. It is only fair that today’s older generation, particularly decision-makers, takes responsibility to limit climate change. Taking this lead, Chairman of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Martijn Wilder, has noted, “New Zealand policymakers have taken the view that since they are borrowing money [for stimulus] from future generations the manner in which it is spent has to serve those generations.”
- Deployment of climate-conserving technologies would respect Aboriginal land rights. A further benefit to investing in renewables is greater fairness to Aboriginal traditional owners. Mining companies have taken a “divide and conquer” approach to seeking Aboriginal consent, sidelining those Aboriginal people who seek to protect their Country from further invasion. Even those agreements that are made with Aboriginal communities fall far short of the “free, prior and informed consent” requirement as defined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Some of us dare to dream that non-Aboriginal Australians could instead learn from how Aboriginal peoples cared for the land we now call Australia. Pope Francis dares to dream it. He held up the knowledge of indigenous communities as an example of an alternative way of interacting with the planet:
They teach us that we cannot heal the earth unless we love and respect it. They have the wisdom of “living well,” not in the sense of having a good time, no, but of living in harmony with the earth. They call this harmony “living well.”
The real ethical challenge facing governments
If there is every ethical and practical reason to use economic stimulus spending on climate-conserving technologies, why does it remain difficult? In his encyclical, Pope Francis reserved his strongest criticisms for companies “obsessed with maximising profits.” He also challenged political leaders to be more “far-sighted” in reining in the excesses of the private sector. He was naming the crux of the problem.
Both in Australia and overseas, we know that genuine action to address climate change is not held back for any rational or ethical reason. The real problem is: money talks. Climate action is largely frustrated by the disproportionate political influence of extractive industries, through their donations to political parties, gifts, advertising, paid lobbyists and access to decision-makers. Lobbyists of these industries, who in Australia are dominated by foreign interests, overstate their contribution to the economy and use their wealth to distort democratic processes. For economic stimulus spending to be directed truly in the public interest, our political leaders will need to face their biggest ethical challenge yet: distancing themselves from their long-time connections with extractive industries.
The stakes could not be higher. Which is it to be: commitment to wealthy, profit-seeking mates in the resources sector; or commitment to the health, well-being and genuine prosperity of the Australian people?
Thea Ormerod is President of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC), a retired social worker, grandmother and long-time social justice advocate.