Bushfires illuminate price of burning coal

You could smell the approach of Sydney’s bushfires two weeks away. Leaving my home for work last month at a time when California’s fires were at their most intense, the sandalwood odour of burning eucalyptus was heavy on air. Looking north from Bloomberg’s office to far side of Sydney Harbour, the normally sparkling blue water was a barely discernible smudge. That was mostly not wildfire, but a dozen deliberate hazard-reduction burns under way across metropolitan area in a last-ditch attempt to eliminate
flammable plant litter and undergrowth before conditions worsened.
Sydney’s entire metropolitan area and a swathe of country in the Hunter Valley to the north and Illawarra to the south will face catastrophic fire danger, the highest risk rating in New South Wales state, thanks to strong winds combined with temperatures up to 37 degrees centigrade. Already, three are dead and 150 homes have been destroyed by fires elsewhere in New South Wales and Queensland state to the north.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been determined not to link the disasters to the country’s fractious climate and energy debate. Asked what his response would be to a couple who’d had to flee their homes and wanted to know what he was doing about climate change, he deflected.
The Hunter Valley is the world’s largest export basin for thermal coal used in power stations. The Illawarra escarpment contains Australia’s oldest mines for coking coal used in steelmaking. This region was built on coal, which overtook iron ore to become the country’s most valuable export last year. Electoral seats in the Hunter, one of the few parts of Australia where coal is a major employer, swung heavily towards Morrison’s government in the country’s May election.
Australia’s climate debate is fraught, but it would be a whole lot more fraught if the country faced up to the scale of its responsibility. The country, with a population little larger than 25 million, likes to think of itself as a minor player on the global stage. “Australia is responsible for just 1.3% of global emissions,” Morrison told the United Nations General Assembly.
That argument is only tenable if you exclude country’s exports from equation. Australia is world’s largest fossil fuels exporter after Russia. The coal and natural gas the government expects to be shipped in 2024 will produce about 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide when burned, a larger emissions total than any nation except China, the US, India, Russia and Japan.
The exclusion of exports is, to be sure, standard in international carbon budgeting, which typically counts only emissions within a country’s borders toward its total. But even Australia’s ability for doublethink may be challenged by the sight of a government that’s aggressively trying to revive coal exports touring mining regions devastated by bushfires — events that will become more frequent and devastating as a result of climate change.
Australians should understand what is happening. Government rhetoric isn’t just words, and its effects aren’t just theoretical. A mass transfer of wealth is under way. For the sake of the small sum that comes into government coffers as mining royalties and taxes, politicians are doing everything to support activities that push more carbon into the atmosphere.
The consequence will ultimately be borne by local households, who will see rising costs for insurance and fire-resistant renovation, falling property values as fire-prone lands extend their reach, and ultimately the threat of destruction and even death when the inferno comes.

—Bloomberg