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      I Feel Utterly Hopeless About American Climate Policy

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      In a column published in June 2021, I declared the coming year would be a “hinge in history” for American participation in the global effort to address the climate crisis. Having won the White House and control of the House and the Senate, Democrats had cracked open a rare window of political opportunity — their first chance since 2010 to pass major federal legislation to reduce our carbon emissions.But the window wasn’t very big, and it wouldn’t stay open long. President Biden had proposed setting a target of 2030 for the United States to cut carbon emissions to half of 2005 levels. He’d outlined hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in clean energy, public transit, electric vehicle infrastructure, severe weather preparedness and climate-related research and development. Now, in the face of united Republican opposition, and with midterm politicking rapidly approaching, could Democrats seize what I called “the country’s last best political opportunity” to address climate change and pass Biden’s plan?Well, a year has passed, and the answer is in: Nope.When Senator Joe Manchin pulled his support last week for even a significantly scaled-down version of Biden’s climate plan, America’s great window of opportunity all but slammed shut. Manchin’s decision was no surprise — he has been stringing his party along for more than a year — but for me it still packed a wallop.Was I thrown into a spiral of despair about the incapacity of our political system to take on urgent issues? Was I left feeling hopeless about the world’s efforts to avoid climate scientists’ worst-case scenarios? Did I wonder more than once what even was the point of Democrats running the show if they could not secure this plan? Yeah, maybe just a little.It is difficult to overstate the case for a huge federal effort on climate change. It’s popular — most Americans think Congress should address the causes and effects of climate change. And because there are new disasters brought about by a warming planet seemingly every week now, the issue will only grow more urgent. (About 100 million Americans are sweating through severe heat this week.)Biden’s plan also made economic sense: Regardless of whether America participates, a global transition to renewable fuels is already underway. China leads the United States (and the rest of the world) in growth in renewable power generation capacity and in solar panel manufacturing; because the Chinese government is investing heavily in renewables while we are not, we risk falling further behind in industries that will dominate the future.It has also rarely been clearer that our dependence on fossil fuels is doing us no national security favors. Biden was in Saudi Arabia last week when he conceded defeat on the climate bill. He was there to ask one brutal petromonarch for more oil because another brutal petromonarch is using his fossil fuel profits to finance an invasion of a sovereign neighbor. But despite an embarrassing fist bump with the Saudi crown prince, whose country Biden once aimed to sideline as a global “pariah,” the president hasn’t yet secured any guarantees for more oil. That may change at an upcoming meeting of the OPEC+ oil cartel — but shouldn’t we be striving for a future in which we wouldn’t have to bend to such characters because they happen to sit on a lot of dead plants and animals?It’s precisely the strength of the case for federal climate action that has left me feeling so down. Democrats seem headed toward losing their congressional majorities in the midterms, and Biden’s approval ratings are abysmal. It is difficult to imagine the party will get another shot at taking major climate action anytime soon. What will become of climate change as a political issue if Democrats are out in the political wilderness? Are we doomed to another decade of inaction?Climate experts told me not to abandon all hope. Alex Trembath, the deputy director of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research group, took issue last year with my characterization of Biden’s plan as a do-or-die moment for the American climate movement.“There isn’t a 12-year deadline or a one-year deadline,” Trembath told me this week. He argued that advocacy that leans on such deadlines is bound to provoke nihilism, and that a better way to talk about climate change is as a long-term issue that we will have to keep dealing with for as long as we live. More

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      in World Politics

      The Russia-Ukraine War Proves That We Must Define National Security Differently

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      How Can We Still Be Talking About Trump?

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      Gail Collins: Happy Independence Day, Bret! Want to celebrate by talking about the Supreme Court?Bret Stephens: I was sorta thinking of a cookout on the patio with a nice bottle of rosé, but fire away.Gail: We were in such accord, gnashing our teeth over the decisions on abortion and guns. How about their deep-sixing environmental regulation? You still gnashing with me?Bret: You are referring to the ruling that says the Environmental Protection Agency can’t unilaterally reinvent the entire energy economy with an expansive interpretation of the Clean Air Act that Congress did not intend when it wrote the bill? I’d say the decision was the best thing the court did this term.Guessing you … don’t see it quite the same way.Gail: Well, um … no.Congress gave the E.P.A. extensive power when it comes to regulating carbon emissions. That’s because carbon emissions are a threat to the environment and a trigger for global warming.If Congress feels the E.P.A. is going too far, it has the power to override said regulations at any time. That hasn’t happened because — gee, I guess the Congressional majority feels global warming is a big deal.Bret: The case hinges on an interpretation of the word “system.” The Clean Air Act requires power plants to adopt “the best system of emission reductions.” The court’s conservatives took “system” to mean emission-controlling technologies at the plants themselves, not a vast regulatory mechanism that puts the entire American coal industry on a swift path to extinction.Gail: I think I told you that my father worked for a utility company, and I remember the agony he went through trying to deal with both the government regulators and the folks we called “the coal barons” in West Virginia. I have sympathy for the folks in the middle here, but not so much for the barons.Bret: I grew up listening to my father’s complaints about the way the Mexican government did business with the private sector. In case you ever wonder about my worship of the works of Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Gary Becker and Ronald Coase.Gail: We obviously need to keep directing help to the working people in the mining industry, but the government’s top job is to protect the nation and future generations from global warming.Bret: If Congressional Democrats — whose majority happens to hinge on a certain senator from West Virginia — want to make a case that global warming is the country’s No. 1 priority, they should do so openly rather than sneak regulatory actions that they can’t get through Congress through the E.P.A. bureaucracy. I hold no particular brief for the coal industry per se. But Democrats need to figure out a set of climate-change policies that don’t threaten people’s wallets, jobs or businesses. Trying to put coal out of business is just a big fat political gift to Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy.Aside from the court, Gail, last week’s big news enchilada was Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the House committee investigating Jan. 6. Did we just have a “this changes everything” moment?Gail: Well, we certainly had some “Holy cow — did you hear what Donald Trump did?” moments. But I’ve sadly gotten used to the idea that he can do almost anything and still keep his very, very large fan club of voters.Bret: Truest words ever spoken by Trump: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”Gail: Yeah, sigh. And I just don’t think there’s an appetite for trying to prosecute a former president for stuff he did while he was still in office. Am I being too cynical?Bret: Until last week, no. But, to quote from “Only Murders in the Building,” Hutchinson’s testimony “sends the investigation in a whole new direction.”I don’t mean the stuff about Trump trying to grab the steering wheel of his limo, which Hutchinson acknowledges she heard secondhand. I mean her overhearing Trump at the Jan. 6 rally yelling that he didn’t care if people were armed because they weren’t there to hurt him. And also her report that Trump instructed Mark Meadows to get in touch with Roger Stone and Mike Flynn, who in turn were apparently in touch with some of the most violent protesters on Jan. 5. If it’s true, that just seems like a textbook case of seditious conspiracy.There’s still a big question of the overall wisdom of a prosecution, however well-justified. If, God forbid, Trump runs and wins in 2024, the first thing he’ll do is find any pretext to prosecute Joe Biden, and then it’s off to the races. If you were in Merrick Garland’s shoes, what would you do? More

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      in Elections

      Sorting Out Blame in the Ukraine War

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      More from our inbox:‘Heart-Wrenching Testimony,’ but a Doomed Gun BillU.S. Inaction on Climate ChangeAn Insult to Poll WorkersUkrainian fighters of the Odin Unit, including some foreign fighters, survey a destroyed Russian tank in Irpin, Ukraine, in March.Daniel Berehulak for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Helps Prolong Ukraine War” (Opinion guest essay, June 4):Christopher Caldwell essentially suggests that Russia has a claim to Crimea, that the U.S. should have let the Russians seize Ukraine to reduce destruction and loss of life, and that calling Vladimir Putin a war criminal made him commit more war crimes.This nonsensical self-flagellation ignores the prior Russian attacks on Georgia and the Donbas region of Ukraine, and the history of Mr. Putin’s desire to restore the U.S.S.R., at least geographically.Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for protection. Allowing the country to be ripped apart is morally corrupt and emboldens countries like Russia, and possibly China (regarding Taiwan) and others, by demonstrating that there are few real consequences to seizing territory.David J. MelvinChester, N.J.To the Editor:Christopher Caldwell is mistaken in blaming the United States for prolonging the war by sending advanced weapons to the Ukrainian military. The real responsibility for extending this conflict lies not with the U.S. but with the Ukrainians themselves.They have decided that it is better to suffer death and destruction than to succumb to a Russian effort to destroy their independence and freedom. In so doing, they have earned much of the world’s admiration while dealing a grievous blow to the cause of autocracies everywhere.Rather than “sleepwalking” into a conflict with Russia, America is enabling a brave people to take a stand against aggression now, making it less likely that the U.S. would have to face a far more costly war in the future.Steven R. DavidBaltimoreThe writer is a professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University.To the Editor:Christopher Caldwell writes most convincingly that prolonging the war in Ukraine is a recipe for disaster. With the United States fueling the war with weapons and logistics, Ukrainians are duped into thinking they can win.As Mr. Caldwell observes, U.S. policy has only resulted in thousands more deaths. If the Biden administration is to do the right thing, it will start by acknowledging the truths of Mr. Caldwell’s words.Jerome DonnellyWinter Park, Fla.‘Heart-Wrenching Testimony,’ but a Doomed Gun BillMiah Cerrillo, a fourth grader who survived the carnage in Uvalde by covering herself in a classmate’s blood and pretending to be dead, shared her ordeal in a prerecorded video.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “House Passes Bill to Impose Limits on Sales of Guns” (front page, June 9):So the House has passed a modest bill that seeks to stop ready access of weapons of war to people too young to drink, and it faces almost certain defeat in the Senate.It is my fervent hope that the doomed Senate vote is shown on prime-time television. Americans need to see how their senators vote; senators need to be held to account. Next time there is a mass shooting, and there will be a next time, we will know exactly who was complicit.Remember, America, we can change this. We are greater in number and influence than the N.R.A.Christine ThomaBasking Ridge, N.J.To the Editor:As I listened to the heart-wrenching testimony of the latest victims of gun violence, my thoughts turned to my energetic 21-month-old granddaughter. Not yet old enough for school, she has her whole life ahead of her, filled with birthdays, graduations, college, a career and, if she chooses, marriage and children.I’m 68 years old, and I’ll not likely live long enough to celebrate all of these milestones. My only question is: Will she?Robert D. RauchQueensTo the Editor:Re “Man With Pistol, Crowbar and Zip Ties Is Arrested Near Kavanaugh’s Home” (news article, June 9):The contrast is striking. A Supreme Court justice is threatened, but safe, and Mitch McConnell urges Congress to pass a bill to protect justices “before the sun sets today.”The same day, families of gun violence tell of personal tragedies that will never fade, children’s lives lost, and yet nothing but platitudes from the Republicans.Peter MandelsonBarrington, R.I.U.S. Inaction on Climate Change Ritzau Scanpix/Via ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s Policies Held Back U.S. in Climate Ranking” (news article, May 31):You report that the United States has moved from 15th to 101st place in the climate metrics used in the Environmental Performance Index, thanks to the refusal by Donald Trump and the Republicans to take action on climate change. Out of 177 nations we rank 101st.As a result we risk cities flooding, unprecedented heat waves, terrifying storms, widespread water shortages, the extinction of a million species of plants and animals, and severe food shortages.What is wrong with our country, our government leadership and our people? The window to avert catastrophic climate change is quickly closing. Look around you!Is it going to take huge amounts of human tragedy for us to act?Lena G. FrenchPasadena, Calif.An Insult to Poll WorkersElection workers in Philadelphia sorting through ballots the day after Election Day in 2020.Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Continuing Republican claims of widespread voter fraud are insults to the honest, hard-working poll workers and volunteers who know the procedures and observe the laws that ensure that ballots are valid and counted properly.Those insults should be met with outrage, not only from those workers but also from the American public at large.David M. BehrmanHouston More

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      Your Monday Briefing: Australia’s New Leader

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      Plus President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Good morning. We’re covering a change of power in Australia, President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Anthony Albanese, the next prime minister of Australia.Jaimi Joy/ReutersAustralia’s incoming Labor leaderPrime Minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat to Anthony Albanese, the incoming Labor prime minister, ending nine years of conservative leadership.The opposition Labor party made the election a referendum on Morrison’s conduct. Albanese, whose campaign was gaffe-prone and light on policy, promised a more decent form of politics, running as a modest Mr. Fix-It who promised to seek “renewal, not revolution.”Voters were most focused on cost-of-living issues, but the election was also about climate change, Damien Cave, our bureau chief in Sydney, writes in an analysis. Australians rejected Morrison’s deny-and-delay approach, which has made the country a global laggard on emission cuts, for Albanese’s vision of a future built on renewable energy.Details: In Australia, where mandatory voting means unusually high turnout, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who demanded more action on climate change — a shift away from major party dominance.Food: Elections in Australia come with a side of “democracy sausage” hot off the barbecue, a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local groups and makes the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel less like a chore and more like a block party.President Biden being greeted by Park Jin, South Korea’s foreign minister.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden visits Asian alliesOn his first trip to Asia as president, Joe Biden attempted to strengthen ties with allies rattled by Donald Trump’s erratic diplomacy and wary of Beijing’s growing influence.In Seoul on Saturday, he met with President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was inaugurated 11 days prior, and criticized Trump’s attempts to cozy up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s dictator. Biden and Yoon will explore ways to expand joint military exercises that Trump sought to curtail in a concession to Kim. Today in Tokyo, Biden will unveil an updated trade agreement that seeks to coordinate policies but without the market access or tariff reductions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump abandoned five years ago. The less sweeping framework has some in the region skeptical about its value.Context: Russia’s war in Ukraine snarled Biden’s original strategy of pivoting foreign policy attention to Asia. The trip is an effort to reaffirm that commitment and demonstrate a focus on countering China.Heavy rainfall flooded streets in Bangalore, India, on Friday.Jagadeesh Nv/EPA, via ShutterstockHeavy floods in India, BangladeshMore than 60 people were killed, and millions more were rendered homeless as heavy pre-monsoon rains washed away train stations, towns and villages.Extreme weather is growing more common across South Asia, which has recently suffered devastating heat waves, as the effects of climate change intensify.This year, parts of northern and central India recorded their highest average temperatures for April. Last year, extreme rainfall and landslides washed away sprawling Rohingya refugee camps overnight in Bangladesh, and in 2020, torrential rains submerged at least a quarter of the country.Context: India and Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. The tropical waters are increasingly experiencing heat waves, which have led to dry conditions in some places and “a significant increase in rainfall” in others, according to a recent study.Details: The Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest rivers, has inundated vast areas of agricultural land, villages and towns in India’s remote, hard-hit northeast.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaThe Taliban have also urged women to stay home unless they have a compelling reason to go out.Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesThe Taliban are aggressively pushing women to wear burqas and crushing rare public protests against the order.Protests continue in Sri Lanka, as citizens demonstrate against a president they blame for crashing the economy.The U.N.’s top human rights official will visit Xinjiang, where Beijing has cracked down on the Uyghur minority, and other parts of China this week. Activists say the trip holds significant risks for the credibility of her office.Some Chinese people are looking to emigrate as pandemic controls drag into their third year.The WarRussian forces attempted to breach Sievierodonetsk’s defenses from four directions but were repelled, a Ukrainian official said.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHere are live updates.Russia renewed its attack on Sievierodonetsk, one of Ukraine’s main strongholds in the Donbas region. Its forces are also trying to cross a river in the region despite having suffered a major blow there this month.In a rare acknowledgment, a Kremlin minister said that sanctions have “practically broken” the country’s logistics.Profile: The Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion.Atrocities: The Times is documenting evidence of potential war crimes, like killings in Bucha, some carried out by a notorious Russian brigade. A Times visual investigation shows how Russian soldiers executed people there.World NewsThe U.S. has surpassed one million Covid deaths, according to The Times’s database.The coalition that replaced Benjamin Netanyahu is crumbling — potentially leading to new Israeli elections that could return him to power.Iran is cracking down on its filmmakers, arresting leading artists in what analysts see as a warning to the general population amid mounting discontent.Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson and Aidy Bryant are leaving “Saturday Night Live.”Tornadoes in western Germany killed one person and injured dozens more, while an unusual heat wave struck parts of Spain and France.A Morning ReadResty Zilmar recently had to return to a more urban area for work.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesFor decades, young Filipinos have left rural areas in pursuit of economic success, leading to overcrowded cities. The pandemic temporarily reversed that pattern, and many enjoy rural life. If the government makes good on stated efforts to reinvigorate the hinterlands, the shift may stick.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      in Elections

      Australia’s ‘Climate Election’ Finally Arrived. Will It Be Enough?

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      Voters rejected the deny-and-delay approach that has made Australia a global laggard on emission cuts. But how far the new government will go remains to be seen.SYDNEY, Australia — A few minutes after taking the stage to declare victory in Australia’s election on Saturday, Anthony Albanese, the incoming Labor prime minister, promised to transform climate change from a source of political conflict into a generator of economic growth.“Together we can end the climate wars,” he told his supporters, who cheered for several seconds. “Together we can take advantage of the opportunity for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower.”With that comment and his win — along with a surge of votes for candidates outside the two-party system who made combating global warming a priority — the likelihood of a significant shift in Australia’s climate policy has suddenly increased.How far the country goes will depend on the final tallies, which are still being counted. But for voters, activists and scientists who spent years in despair, lamenting the fossil fuel industry’s hold on the conservatives who have run Australia for most of the past three decades, Saturday’s results amount to an extraordinary reversal.A country known as a global climate laggard, with minimal 2030 targets for cuts to carbon emissions, has finally tossed aside a deny-and-delay approach to climate change that most Australians, in polls, have said they no longer want.“This is the long-overdue climate election Australia has been waiting for,” said Joëlle Gergis, an award-winning climate scientist and writer from the Australian National University. “It was a defining moment in our nation’s history.”Yet it remains to be seen whether the factors that led to that shift can be as powerful and persuasive as the countervailing forces which are so entrenched.The Abbot Point coal terminal in Queensland. Australia spends billions each year on subsidies for fossil fuel industries.David Maurice Smith for The New York TimesIn Australia, as in the United States, ending or altering many decades’ worth of traditional energy habits will be difficult.In the last fiscal year alone, Australian federal, state and territory governments provided about 11.6 billion Australian dollars ($8.2 billion) worth of subsidies to coal and other fossil fuel industries.An additional 55.3 billion Australian dollars ($39 billion) has already been committed to subsidizing gas and oil extraction, coal-fired power, coal railways, ports and carbon capture and storage (even though most carbon capture projects fail).As Dr. Gergis pointed out in a recent essay, “That is 10 times more than the Emergency Response Fund, and over 50 times the budget of the National Recovery and Resilience Agency.”In other words, Australia still spends far more money to bolster the companies causing the planet to warm than it does helping people deal with the costs tied to the greenhouse gases they emit.Over the past few years, there has been a buildup in renewable energy investment, too, but nothing on the same scale. And during the campaign, Mr. Albanese’s Labor party tried to avoid directly tackling that mismatch.On Election Day in Singleton, a bustling town in northwest New South Wales, where over 20 percent of residents work in mining, Labor banners reading “Send a miner to Canberra” hung next to signs from the National Party, part of the departing conservative coalition, that read “Protect local mining jobs.” And both parties’ candidates were upbeat about the region’s mining future.Labor supporters in Sydney on Saturday. Mr. Albanese will face pressure to do more to cut emissions.Lukas Coch/EPA, via Shutterstock“While people are buying our coal we’ll definitely be selling it,” said Dan Repacholi, a former miner who won the seat for Labor.The coal mining industry is thriving in the area, but so is private investment in renewables, especially hydrogen. “We’re going to have a massive boom here through both of those industries going up and up and up,” Mr. Repacholi said.During the campaign, Mr. Albanese positioned himself as a “both-and” candidate, pledging support for new coal mines as well as renewables — in large part, to hold on to blue-collar areas like Singleton.But now he will face a lot of pressure to go further on climate, faster.The great swing against the conservative coalition on Saturday included a groundswell for the Australian Greens, who could end up being needed by Labor to form a minority government.Adam Bandt, the Greens’ leader, has said that a ban on new coal and gas projects would be the party’s top priority in any power-sharing agreement.Several new independent lawmakers, who campaigned on demands for Australia to increase its 2030 target for carbon emission cuts to 60 percent below 2005 levels — far beyond Labor’s 43 percent commitment — will also be pressuring Mr. Albanese and his opposition.“Both sides of politics are going to have to reorient themselves,” said Saul Griffith, an energy policy expert who advocates policies that would make it easier for people to power their cars and heat their homes with electricity. “This is a very clear message on climate.”More than one in four homes in Australia now have solar panels, more than in any other major economy.Faye Sakura for The New York TimesLike many other experts, Mr. Griffith said he was not particularly interested in bold official promises to end coal mining, which he expects to fade on its own through economic pressure.New gas projects present a bigger problem. An immense extraction effort being planned for the gas fields of the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory could produce enough carbon emissions to destroy any hope of Australia’s meeting reduction targets on par with those of other developed nations.Climate action advocates are mostly hoping to start with legislation like the bill introduced by Zali Steggall, an independent, which would set up a framework for setting stricter emissions targets and working toward them through rigorous science and research.Robyn Eckersley, an expert on the politics of climate change at the University of Melbourne, warned that Labor, the Greens and independents needed to “play a long game,” keeping in mind that a carbon tax caused a backlash that set Australian climate policy back by nearly a decade.Fixating on a single number or a single idea, she said, would impede progress and momentum.“It’s important to get something in and build a consensus around it,” Professor Eckersley said. “Having debates about how to improve it is better than swinging back and forth between something and nothing.”Mr. Griffith said Australia had a shot at becoming a global model for the energy transition that climate change requires by leveraging its record-breaking uptake of rooftop solar. More than one in four homes in Australia now have solar panels, outpacing every other major economy; they provide electricity for about one-fifth of what it costs through the traditional grid.New South Wales in February 2020. Australia has yet to recover fully from that year’s record-breaking bush fires.Matthew Abbott for The New York Times“The real action on climate has got to be community-led,” Mr. Griffith said. He argued that the election results were encouraging because they showed the issue resonating with a wider range of the electorate.“It’s a less divisive set of politics, it’s coming from the center,” he said. “It’s a middle-class uprising, and so the climate action isn’t as partisan.”Sadly, it’s taken a lot of suffering to get there. Australia has yet to recover fully from the record-breaking bush fires of 2020, which were followed by two years of widespread flooding.The Great Barrier Reef also just experienced its sixth year of bleaching — disturbingly, the first during a La Niña climate pattern, when cooler temperatures typically prevent overheating.“People no longer need to use their imaginations to try and understand what climate change looks like in this country,” Dr. Gergis said. “Australians have been living the consequences of inaction.”Yan Zhuang More

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      Will Australia’s Election Be a Reckoning for Morrison on Climate?

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      Australia is a land of portent for the many dangers posed by climate change. The fires, storms, heat waves and other catastrophes that climatologists predict for the planet are already routine here. They also loom over national elections on May 21.Not for the first time. Two of the country’s last three elections hinged in some measure on the climate-versus-jobs debate, with Mother Nature losing out. But recently the political temperature has changed. The rising toll exacted by extreme weather — particularly mega-fires in 2019 and 2020 — is resonating with the public.That’s bad news for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Climate inaction helped to propel Mr. Morrison to the leadership of the conservative Liberal-National coalition in 2018, but he’s in a tough fight now. Polls this week showed the opposition Labor Party with 51 percent of votes, to 49 percent for the coalition. If that bears out, Australia may serve not merely as a preview of climate peril, but of the risks faced by politicians who shrug it off.Ignoring climate concerns wasn’t always a weak point for Mr. Morrison. The coalition government that he now leads was first elected in 2013 in part on a promise to rescind attempts at carbon pricing by the previous Labor government. This policy won support from the mining lobby and voters who were fed fearful rhetoric about environmentalism’s relentless creep on local industry and jobs. It was an effective strategy in a country that is a major exporter of fossil fuels and home of the world’s largest coal port. A belt of parliamentary seats runs through communities where well-paid jobs in mines represent rare and precious economic opportunity and carry enough weight to influence elections.Mr. Morrison became prime minister in an internal party coup. The moderate policy ambitions of his more liberal colleague and predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, which included action on climate, fatally alienated him from caucus allies to his right, especially those with links to the fossil fuel lobby. Mr. Morrison stared down pro-climate caucus rivals and vaulted into office.Australians didn’t know much about Mr. Morrison when he contested his first election as prime minister in May 2019. He’d only been in office nine months. But he had provided ample clues, scolding students who protested his government’s climate inaction to leave it to the grown-ups, suggesting electric vehicles posed a threat to fun weekends, and brandishing a lump of coal in Parliament like a beloved pet rock in 2017 when he was treasurer.Lagging behind Labor for most of that campaign, Mr. Morrison was saved when an ill-conceived convoy of well-funded environmentalists traveled to mining towns already struggling with high unemployment to campaign against a major coal project. Mr. Morrison reframed anti-climate politics as pro-jobs, won the mining towns and held onto power by one seat.Politically rewarded, he has relentlessly maintained his anti-climate brand, balking at defining a path toward net-zero targets, and embracing coal mines.But the great fires that swept across Australia soon after Mr. Morrison’s victory changed the country. From July 2019, dry conditions and high heat — local symptoms of climate change — kindled mega-fires across the island continent. Bone-dry pastures, riverbeds and forests offered no resistance.Landscapes disappeared under red skies, yellow smoke and a stench of ash that clung to everything. At least 60 million acres — about the size of the United Kingdom — were torched, nearly three billion animals perished or were displaced, and 34 people were killed. Smoke pollution was linked to hundreds more deaths. Damage was estimated at $100 billion. More

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      How Climate Change Fits in the Australian Elections

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      The country has been hit hard by wildfires and other climate disasters, but it’s also making tons of money from fossil fuels.What do you do when your country feels some of the worst calamities of climate change but also enriches itself from the very fossil fuels that are responsible for climate change?Few face that question more acutely than Australians.They faced it when they went to the polls three years ago. They’re facing it again now. National elections are scheduled a week from Saturday, on May 21.What’s changed? I asked my colleague, The Times Sydney bureau chief, Damien Cave. Here’s an edited version of our conversation.Hi Damien. I hear Australians are looking for answers on climate change on Google in the run-up to these elections. What do you make of that?Well, it’s been a tough three years. The intense, overwhelming bush fires of 2020. Two years of La Niña rains. Another round of bleaching for the Great Barrier Reef.Australians are probably Googling for solutions because they’re seeing more examples of climate change in their lives and wondering: When and how are we supposed to deal with this? They’re Googling inflation more often, though.Compared to other issues, how much does climate matter to voters? Polls show that climate is not necessarily the top issue for most voters. But it does seem like a low-level and constant source of anxiety, not just because of all the extreme weather we’ve been having, but also because Australians fear that they are losing out on an economic opportunity.Last year, for example, I did a big article on Australia’s richest man, a mining baron named Andrew Forrest, making a big push into hydrogen. I spent a lot of time talking to iron ore miners for that article and what I heard again and again was: “Australia needs to change fast, or else we’re going to lose out.”Many Australians can see that — in a country full of minerals, with some of the best solar and wind potential in the world — not making climate change a priority means risking the loss of good paying jobs to other countries with a clearer plan for the future. Australia is currently the third-largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, but it can be a renewable energy superpower if it decides to be, and a growing number of Australians seem to recognize that.What’s the current government’s stance on climate?It has done very little to suggest that it recognizes climate change as a clear and immediate danger in need of a major shift in policy. Last year, just before the international climate talks in Glasgow, it reluctantly agreed to a net-zero-by-2050 target, meaning that it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and make up for what it couldn’t remove with things like tree planting projects. It’s little more than a pledge. There’s not really a plan on how to get there.That’s out of touch with most Australians. Polls show a majority would like to see their government tackle climate change more aggressively.Is the governing conservative coalition still banking on coal?Yes, and the opposition isn’t far behind. Anthony Albanese, the Labor leader fighting to become prime minister, said last month that a Labor government would support new coal mines, matching the pro-mining stance of the conservative Liberal-National coalition that’s now in power. It’s partly an effort to keep the support of blue-collar workers, but it’s also an attempt to avoid a repeat of what happened in the 2019 election when Labor lost over its apparent opposition to a big new coal mine in the state of Queensland. You wrote about that. It’s owned by the Indian conglomerate Adani, and that mine has since started exporting coal.Coal is still king in many of the districts needed to win Australia’s election.A handful of independents ran on climate issues in 2019. I met some of them when I went to Australia in the run-up to the last elections. What’s different now?Well, there are more independents running. Around 25 of them. Most are professional women — lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs — who have been recruited by community groups eager to break the two-party gridlock on climate change.They’re a loosely affiliated group, though they’re getting more coordinated. There’s more money coming their way from groups like Climate 200, which is essentially an Australian version of a political action committee. And there’s more energy. Some of their campaigns have thousands of volunteers, far more than the major party incumbents.The question, of course, is still whether they have enough support to win more than a seat or two.If the election is close, as is expected, the independents may be kingmakers. They may be the ones who decide whether to form a government with Labor or the Liberal-National coalition.That could change Australian climate policy very quickly.I’m puzzled by one thing: If climate risk isn’t a top election issue in a country as vulnerable as Australia, can it be a top election issue anywhere?One of the lessons from Australia, I think, is that climate change can be a very important political issue even if it doesn’t end up at the top of voters’ most urgent concerns. Here, it’s a constant, a low-level hum just below the political shouting.What we’ve seen over the past few years is that if the major parties don’t tackle climate change, there’s going to be a backlash that could threaten their own hold on power. The independents are the big story of this year’s campaign. I have an article coming soon about their efforts, but whether they win or lose, they’ve put both parties on edge. They’ve changed the conversation because they are the public face of a grass-roots movement that is trying to pull the country back to the political center and focus on pragmatic solutions to big problems. Chief among them is the problem of climate change.Damien and the rest of our team in Australia will be following the final days of the campaign and next week’s vote result. You can get news and analysis here.Flares burning in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in 2021.Sunday Alamba/Associated PressEssential news from The TimesMessy business: Some oil giants, in an effort to meet climate pledges, are transferring their dirtiest wells to smaller operations with even fewer climate safeguards.Hurricane facts: A new study explains how air pollution has led to more hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, but fewer in the Pacific.Rapid research: Scientists say global warming played a role in the deadly floods that hit South Africa last month.Offshore drilling: The Biden administration has canceled oil drilling lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.Righting wrongs: U.S. officials have announced a series of policies intended to elevate environmental justice efforts.Book review: Stacy McAnulty’s “Save the People!” uses humor to call middle grade readers to action.From outside The TimesMillions in California depend on a key delta for water, but they can’t agree on managing it. That could become one of America’s biggest water disasters, The New Yorker writes.Oregon has adopted a new law to protect farm workers from extreme heat and wildfire smoke, according to Civil Eats.From National Geographic: The Democratic Republic of Congo is awash in plastic waste. Artists are transforming it into sculptures with a dystopian twist.Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning wood pellets to make energy, Mongabay reports. Because of a loophole, that could lead to an undercounting of their emissions.Wild plants have always been an important source of food in rural India. Now, Whetstone Magazine writes, foraging is becoming more common in the country’s cities.Pinterest said it will would take down any content posted on its platform that denies climate change and its impacts, MSN.com reported.Before you go: Calculate your personal inflation ratePrices are rising at the highest pace in four decades, but not everyone experiences the effects of inflation in the same way. It depends on a range of individual circumstances. So, our colleagues on the Times business desk created an interactive calculator to estimate your personal inflation rate. You just need to answer seven easy questions. It turns out, a lot of the things that are bad for the climate — like driving, heating your home with oil and eating a lot of meat — also have an outsize effect on inflation. You can try the calculator here.Thanks for reading. We’ll be back on Tuesday.Manuela Andreoni, Claire O’Neill and Douglas Alteen contributed to Climate Forward. Reach us at climateforward@nytimes.com. We read every message, and reply to many! More