by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 07 Jan 2020] If Australia and other countries meet their current emission reduction targets bushfires are still going to get much, much worse. Over the past century, humans have caused the world to warm by one degree, but if Australia and the rest of the world

by Fergus Green & Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 26 November 2019] The amount of fossil fuels that companies and governments around the world expect to extract over the coming decade is startlingly out of kilter with the imperative to maintain a stable climate system – and Australia is a large part

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 18 November 2019] I was a cub reporter working in the press gallery for the Sydney Morning Herald when bushfires engulfed Canberra in 2003, claiming four lives and almost 500 homes. It’s seared in my memory, as I’m sure it is for a lot of Canberrans. I’ve been thinking

by Richard Denniss[Originally published on the Guardian Australia, 13 November 2019] It’s not just climate protesters who powerful voices are trying to silence in Australia, it’s anyone who wants to talk about the bigger-picture causes to the problems Australia is facing. In modern Australia it has become “inappropriate” to talk about why our rivers are

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Financial Review, 11 November 2019] Despite Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s best efforts, Australia has a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 31 years’ time. His suggestions that Labor’s renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030 is an economic “wrecking ball” is as pointless and wrong

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 21 October 2019] As the black sheep in a family of car enthusiasts, I know that if you brake and put your foot on the accelerator at the same time there’s a lot of noise and smoke, but you end up spinning your wheels. For some time

by Richie Merzian[Originally published in The Canberra Times, 24 August 2019] If fuelling global carbon pollution with fossil fuel exports was an Olympic sport, Australia would get a podium place. New Australia Institute research shows Australia is the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world – behind only Russia and Saudi Arabia. This expansive

by Richard Denniss[Originally published on The Guardian Australia, 21 Augustr 2019] Australia isn’t transitioning away from extracting fossil fuels, it is doubling down on them. That’s right – even though Australia is already the third largest fossil fuel exporter in the world, the federal government still wants to double our coal exports, drill for oil in

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 20 August 2019] Short-term thinking is often a feature of Australian domestic politics but when it comes to foreign policy, we’ve usually played the long game. Not any more. The Morrison Government is placing 1000 potential coal jobs ahead of its ‘Pacific Step Up’, announced in 2017 to

by Richie Merzian[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 10 August 2019] Late last Friday – a timeslot where ministers are known to announce policies they are most proud of – the Minister for Energy, Angus Taylor, ordered a parliamentary inquiry into nuclear energy.  Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus

by Maryanne Slattery[Originally published in The Canberra Times, 13 July 2019] The Murray-Darling Basin is broken. Literally. As in its parts aren’t joined up anymore – the Darling River/Barka hasn’t flowed into the Murray since 2017. The Murrumbidgee isn’t flowing into the Murray either and will be disconnected from the rest of the basin more

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in The Canberra Times, 15 June 2019] Australia’s debate on the climate crisis reached a new level of lunacy this past week. Almost nowhere else in the world is the climate debate so divorced from reality. Firstly, Adani’s groundwater plan was approved by the Queensland government in a rushed process. This

by Richard Denniss[Originally Published on Guardian Australia, 29 May 2019] While Australian political debate has never seemed more sharply divided, the philosophical lines between left and right have never seemed more blurred. The economy is always in transition, and people are always losing and finding jobs, but – after decades of the right being contemptuous

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Australian Financial Review, 27 May 2019] There’s no doubt the Adani coal mine helped the Liberal National Party win votes in North Queensland but there’s also no doubt it helped them lose a lot of votes – and economic credibility – in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. And while the triumphalism of

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 17 May 2019] Bob Hawke is perhaps credited most often for his economic reforms, but he also leaves a tremendous legacy of protecting Earth’s wilderness. Without Bob Hawke, Antarctica would be a quarry, Tasmania’s iconic Franklin River would be flooded and Queensland’s Daintree rainforest would be a

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in The Australian Financial Review, 5 March 2019] Cultural symbols have replaced price signals at the heart of conservative politics. There’s now no better way for Australian conservatives to virtue signal than to support the construction of new coal mines. The Coalition is no longer neo, nor liberal – it simply

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in the Canberra Times, 23 Febuary 2019] These last two weeks of Parliament may prove a turning point for the 2019 election, but only time will tell if they mark the moment the Coalition got back in the game or the point at which voters wrote them off entirely. At their

by Richard Denniss[Originally published in the Financial Review, 19 Feb 2019] Millions of people in developing countries jumped straight from having no phone to having a mobile phone and so too will thousands of villages in developing countries jump from having no grid electricity to their own renewable energy. Leapfrogging old technologies can save billions.

by Ebony Bennett[Originally published in The Canberra Times, 26.01.19] Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and forcing 537 councils to conduct citizenship ceremonies on Australia Day. And it’s stinking hot. What could be more Australian than a nationwide ban on shorts and thongs as we confer citizenship on our newest Aussies during

by Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director of The Australia Institute. [This article originally appeared in the Canberra Times 08.09.18] Watching Brazil’s National Museum burn this week was a tragic reminder that, if we don’t take care, we can snap the threads that bind us to our history forever. Over a matter of hours, tens of millions

he Adani coal mine is the most divisive resource project since the proposal to dam Tasmania’s Franklin River in 1983. The debate over whether to subsidise it even more so. But thanks to Annastasia Palaszczuk’s last-minute decision to veto any Commonwealth loan to the project, the voters of Queensland are now being offered a full range of policy positions

The Australian gas industry’s best hope is the Turnbull government’s worst nightmare; a big increase in world prices for oil and gas. Santos and Origin executives lost billions of their shareholder’s dollars when they bet $60 billion worth of gas export facilities in Gladstone on a world oil price of around $US100. They lost. The

In a post-truth world, the ability of an industry to generate its own “alternative facts” is likely to be an asset in the short term and a liability in the long term. Indeed, for those who crave certainty and value continuous disclosure, the willingness of some firms to move well beyond simply putting a positive spin on

The notion of evidence-based policy in Australia is dead. While it’s been in poor health for some time, it was finally killed by the Coalition backbench last week and replaced with “gut instinct” and “the pub test”. First published by the Australian Financial Review – here When Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce was recently quizzed

When Tony Abbott promised to shed more than 13,000 full time jobs from the public service there was a deafening silence from the Australian business community about the impact of job loss on Canberra communities and families. Likewise, you could hear crickets when Campbell Newman sacked 10,000 teachers, nurses and other Queensland public servants.

Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to merge the environment and energy portfolios could lead to a breakthrough in the toxic climate politics of climate first triggered when he was rolled by Tony Abbott in December 2009. Full article on Guardian Australia – here. Dan Cass, Strategist, The Australia Institute @DanJCass

Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to merge the environment and energy portfolios could lead to a breakthrough in the toxic climate politics that was unleashed when Tony Abbott rolled him in the December 2009 leadership coup. Or the new super-ministry and its new minister Josh Frydenberg could be set up for failure. It depends entirely on whether

Originally published in the Australian Financial Review – here.  The differences between rugby league and rugby union, like the differences between the disciplines of economics and finance, can seem obscure to those who aren’t fans of either. Subtle though they may be, small differences can have big impacts on the end result. Indeed, those small

First published in The Australian Financial Review – here. If you think that world demand for coal is going to grow in the coming decades, then it makes sense to build the 50 new coal mines proposed for Australia. And if you think that the world will continue its shift away from coal, then it

As Sweden debates how best to get out of the coal mining business, Australia is debating how best to subsidise the world’s largest export coal mines. Just last week the Australian Federal Government approved the enormous Adani/Carmichael coal mine which, at 40 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, is bigger than Gothenburg. The Australian Government