Linking local and global struggles for climate justice

Linking local and global struggles for climate justice

by Geoff Evans

Is Australia inevitably locked into fossil fuel-intensive economic future just because we have huge quantities of high quality, accessible coal? In the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, the home of the world’s largest coal export port, Newcastle, coalitions of residents, farmers, scientists, trade unionists and others are calling for a future Beyond Coal as awareness grows that coal dependency puts both local and global sustainability in jeopardy.

There is also a growing shift from coal dependency to renewable energy internationally. Wind energy is now the world’s fastest-growing energy technology, and China has set ambitious renewable targets that match those of Europe and position the country to become the world leader in renewable energy technology development.

Justice in and to the environment For many activists in the Hunter Valley the struggle for sustainability is links a local struggle for environmental justice – equitable protection under the law to a safe and healthy environment – with the global struggle for climate justice – equitable contributions to the total load of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere. Climate justice solidarity links are being forged with communities fighting coal dependency elsewhere in Australia, as well as in India, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the US and Britain.

Climate Action Newcastle
Postcard from Newcastle: International Day of Action on Climate Change
A human sign depicting Hunter community aspirations for a regional
economy “Beyond Coal” (Climate Action Newcastle, 2006)

For other residents the Hunter Valley struggle is linked to more immediate issues of identity for rural communities, and protection of health. Locals attribute high incidences of respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, and even cancer, to the dust and chemical pollution from more than 30 open cut and underground coal mines and five coal-fired power stations located in the region (Higginbotham et al, 2010).

map
The Hunter River catchment and mining areas
(Courtesy: University of Newcastle Ecosystem Health Research Group)

Residents and health professionals in Upper Hunter Valley coal communities are so alarmed about the health impacts from emissions from mines and power stations, and about Governments continually ignoring their plight, that they have initiated a citizens’ inquiry into the health of local people. In April 2010, the ABC’s 4 Corners revealed how local organisations such as the Singleton Shire Health Study Group have challenged the moral bankruptcy of governments locking the region into an economy that puts short-term profits of global mining and aluminium corporations before citizen’s wellbeing (Fowler, 2010).

Hunter Valley community campaigns for a just and healthy regional economy date back many decades. In the 1980s, the Newcastle Trades Hall Council sponsored the Ecology Centre’s booklet Who Asked Us? Coal, Power, Aluminium - The Hunter Region’s Only Future? That questioned the equity and sustainability of locking the region’s future into global energy markets, and asked whether control over the trajectory of the region’s development was being taken out of the hands of local people and being put in the hands of governments willing to sacrifice the region as a cash-cow for state coffers and global corporations (Phillips and Ross, 1980).

A just transition

The Hunter Valley campaign for a ‘just transition’ to a clean energy future links issues of class, ecology, work and internationalism. The campaign aims to create safe, secure, career-building, satisfying, well-paid and environmentally friendly jobs locally, and the clean energy economy that anticipates climate change and creates potential partnerships and trade in clean energy development globally.

A just transition pays particular attention to supporting workers and communities that are vulnerable during the change process. These include potentially displaced workers, low-income communities and people who are already disadvantaged in the labour market.

While the general global trend is towards a low carbon economy, the NSW Government is moving in the opposite direction. It has committed to building two new fossil-fired power stations (supposedly coal or gas, but most pundits think the government will go for coal). It has approved a doubling of coal exports from the port of Newcastle over the next decade to over 200 millions tonnes annually (with the new, third coal loader being a non-union worksite) and estimated to contribute the equivalent of a 13% increase in Australia’s greenhouse pollution to the global atmosphere when burnt overseas - the same figure that ALP calculations claim Tony Abbot’s climate policy will increase pollution (Rising Tide, 2009).

The NSW Government’s proposal to privatise the State’s power generation and distribution industries threatens to lockin coal dependency as, rather than phase out and amortise coal fired power stations, and private investors in coal-fired power stations will demand guarantees of business-as-usual, or else would seek multi-billion dollar compensation if Government policies were to drive the energy system shifted towards renewables.

In contrast, organisations fighting coal and climate change are calling for a cap on mine expansion, no new coal-fired power stations, protection of food-growing communities, and repair of river catchment ecosystems destroyed by mining. Resident groups, environmental organisations and local councils have also called for a levy to be put on coal exports to fund a just transition to a clean energy future.

Linking city and country

Direct action and civil disobedience are powerful tools linking city and country in the community campaign for a just transition. Grassroots climate action groups, such as Newcastle’s Rising Tide, have blockaded coal export railway lines, the coal loaders and the port of Newcastle, while traditionally conservative farmers in the Liverpool Plains have, for over a year, blockaded BHP Billiton gaining access to prime wheat and grain-growing farmland.

Many Hunter Valley communities threatened by coal mining have encouraged landholders to take up growing vegetables and other food products to highlight that food and water are more precious than coal. The Gloucester Project, for example, supports residents in the town of Gloucester to secure the community’s future as a supplier of clean energy, food and pure water, and position the region as a case study of climate change adaptation (Gloucester Project, 2010).

The campaign for a just transition to sustainability in Hunter Valley has brought together a new community partnership linking the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the NSW Nature Conservation Council and the University of Newcastle’s Business School who are collaborating to identify a Pathway to a Low Carbon Economy in the Hunter. This project received $250,000 from the NSW Government, like a similar project in the Illawarra, will identify government support and investment that is essential to create new jobs in renewable energy. The AMWU argues investment in a clean energy economy would revitalise Australia’s manufacturing industries (AMWU, 2008).

Farmers blockade
Farmers blockade coalmine developments in the Liverpool Plains
(Photo: Caroona Coal Action Group)

The Pathways project has identified there is potential for geothermal, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic industries in the Hunter Valley. The region’s research, manufacturing and engineering skills provide a solid base from which to build.

It is clear that some industries must change if they are to retain a place in a sustainable regional economy. The aluminium smelting industry for example, which consumes more than 25% of the Hunter Valley’s electricity production, must wean itself off coal and invest instead in developing the region’s geothermal and other renewable energy capacity.

The University of Newcastle’s Centre for Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE) showed that a shift to clean renewable energy economy in the Hunter region could create between 9, 400 and 14,290 new jobs – a net gain in jobs of between 5, 760 and 10,650 jobs. The research also identified that many thousands more jobs if the region were supported to become a renewable energy manufacturing hub (Bill, Welters et al, 2008).

A democratic response to climate change

The barriers to a just transition to a clean energy future beyond coal are political, not technological but a transition is possible if governments and communities:

  • Set clear environmental targets - GHG emission cuts of at least 40% by 2020 and a 100% by 2030 renewable energy target;
  • Regulate the market and set a carbon price that drives investment in renewables, energy efficiency and distributed energy systems;
  • Integrate environment, energy, regional development, industry, refugee and national security policies across local, state, national and international scales to both mitigate, and adapt to, the ecological, social, economic and humanitarian crisis of climate change;
  • Support vulnerable communities to minimise social disruption caused by change;
  • Invest in skills development, training, infrastructure and jobs for all in a 21st C economy (Evans, 2008; Binder et al, 2001)

The Hunter Valley has already experienced some elements of a just transition process when BHP closed its steelworks in Newcastle in the 1990’s. Concerted pressure from the community and unions ensured that there was support for displaced workers, investment in education and skills training for new jobs, and investment in alternative industries. The CSIRO Energy Centre was established in Newcastle after the closure of the steelworks, and its research on energy efficiency, renewable energy, intelligent grids and distributed energy systems could ensure that the Hunter Valley becomes a clean energy research and manufacturing hub.

However, for a fundamental shift to clean energy to happen in the Hunter Valley, Australia or globally, Big Coal’s stranglehold over governments must be broken and democratic responses to climate change need to grow stronger.

References:

Geoff Evans is an environmental scientist and a long-time campaigner supporting communities whose human rights are threatened by energy, mining and climate change issues.

Source: Australian Options, Issue 61, Winter 2010, pp. 24-27.
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