CoP out? Maybe you’re thinking about the wrong cop
While it might be that the CoPs are not delivering what most people hope for, and what many politicians have us believe they are supposed to deliver, for now it’s the main game in town. And if we want them to have greater impact, maybe we should be acknowledging the true nature of the CoP and throw the spotlight back onto what our own elected leaders are actually achieving. Someone has to set the pace and the rest might follow.
Revenge tourism – may the force be with you (cause it sure ain’t with Planet Earth)
“Travel is a force for good!” So reads the slogan of one of the world’s biggest tourism operations. But ‘good’ for who? Definitely good for individual travelers who are revitalized through exposure to amazing new places, people and experiences. Good for the global economy? Undoubtedly yes, but good for the planet itself? Not so much. And in the spaces between these tourism ‘goods’ and ‘bads’ we hear the seductive siren song of BAU (business as usual) and maybe begin to appreciate just how forceful BAU can be.
The great Global Nature Positive Summit: What do you say when you have nothing to show?
Australia has been a big backer of the idea of ‘Nature Positive’ with the aspiration of living in harmony with Nature by 2050. To be ‘positive’ and live in ‘harmony’ are such noble aspirations, but what do they actually mean in the brutal world of realpolitik? So far, not much, at least in Australia, where the government’s Nature Positive Plan reforms are either stalled in the Senate or deferred. Peter Burnett attended as a delegate to the Nature Positive Summit as a member of the Biodiversity Council, and came away disillusioned. Here he explains why.
Reef’s Outlook is bleak – and then it gets king hit
The latest Outlook for the world’s greatest coral reef – Australia’s own Great Barrier Reef – give politicians some wiggle room to foster hope that the dire condition of the Reef is improving. But this snapshot of Reef health was taken just before it was hit with a killer blow. This Reef may no longer have the resilience to get up off the floor. (Yet we still maintain it’s ‘the world’s best managed reef’)
Deal or no deal? Prospects for reforming environmental law before the election – wiggling through the political maze
Peter Burnett looks at the politics of a possible Senate deal on changes to the government’s draft Nature Positive reforms. Achieving good environmental policy outcomes is becoming increasingly difficult in this political maze.
Too big to fail? Who cares if there’s no accountability
Building big on big promises of endless clean energy ignores the limits of our institutions. It’s something rarely considered in the febrile, volatile environment of contemporary politics. We pull our leaders up on the smallest of inconsistencies but let them get away with the biggest of lies. When you next cast your vote, keep in mind that extraordinary promises require extraordinary accountability.
The Blue Mountains – towards nature positive with natural capital accounting
The Blue Mountains rise to the west of Sydney, NSW. In the year 2000 it was included on UNESCO’s World Heritage register for its representation of the evolutionary adaptation and diversification of eucalypts in post-Gondwanan Australia. Those eucalypts are rich in oil, filling the air with a distinctive blue haze that gives the region its name. Earlier this month, the many environmental organisations and community groups with connections to the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area came together for the Inaugural Blue Mountains World Heritage Conference. The meeting aimed to chart a way forward to ensure the protection and environmental stewardship of the globally significant landscape of the Blue Mountains. Michael Vardon was invited to speak at the conference on environmental accounting. Here he shares his personal perspectives on how the goodwill and enthusiasm generated at this meeting might translate into enduring environmental outcomes. Our governments chant a mantra of ‘nature positive’ but without a framework like natural capital accounting, it’s little more than empty rhetoric.
Environmental reform: the politics of consultation? Or just politics?
When ‘further consultation’ is code for ‘let’s kick the can down the road’
Would a ‘climate trigger’ fire silver bullets?
People have been calling for the creation of a ‘climate trigger’ for years, but to little avail. Why? Because things are complicated, and a climate trigger is not the only game in town. It’s no silver bullet, but a quick check on where Australia’s emissions are coming from suggests a climate trigger may have a role to play.
It’s not the end of the world… according to the sirens of BAU
The sirens of BAU (Business as Usual) are singing a seductive song that everything will be okay if we just apply a bit more technology, a bit more efficiency and a lot more optimism. Well, the wheels are starting to come off ‘spaceship Earth’ yet the siren song is still being sung, to great applause. Consider the latest offering: Hannah Ritchie’s ‘Not the End of the World: How We Can be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet’. It’s a Pollyanna potion we should think carefully about before taking.
The Bite
Key messages from our featured blog –
Out on a Limb: Why Urban Forests Keep Losing the Argument and Our Children Pay the Price
Michael Vardon on why urban forests keep losing the argument — and how a bit of accounting could change the odds. And he begins by looking at the loss of a much loved 80-year-old raintree in Cairns.
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