Acting on climate change - now

Across the world it is the poor who live in areas of greatest environmental degradation: from the slums built on rubbish tips in South America and the Philippines to the people living in the haze of California’s celebrity pollution.

People on lower incomes are also less mobile. Those who do not complete school have significantly less choice in the workforce than those with a tertiary education. They are more likely to be employed in unskilled jobs in the carbon producing industries such as coal. This lack of choice also affects their ability to move and adapt as these industries re-structure and change.

We now have a government that declares itself willing to act on climate change. Signing the Kyoto Protocol was an important symbolic gesture. And Professor Ross Garnaut’s warning that the policy challenges facing Australia are “diabolical” suggests that his Climate Change Review, due in September, will be realistic and sobering.

Anglicare Australia supports Government actions in this area but cautions against a simplistic policy that would treat all Australians the same.

It is obvious, for example, that we will all have to be paying more for energy. Just as obvious is that the increase will not affect us all equally. It does not take a mathematical genius to recognise that simply charging more for something will disadvantage those with a low household budget. A study (PDF 95KB) commissioned by Anglicare Australia member the Brotherhood of St Laurence showed that a $25 a tonne rise in the price of carbon would cause poor households to experience an average 2.8 per cent increase in household expenditure, compared with 0.4 per cent for high income, tertiary educated households.

We need to consider options that take into account the ability to pay. Let us not forget that those that have used the most goods to date have, by default, caused the most problems. It may be a simplistic assumption that these higher-using individuals are likely to be on higher incomes, but still it points to a basic unfairness if we expect those with less to pay proportionately more.

• There is a level of electricity required to allow what we recognise as basic requirements in Australia - cooking, heating water, and lighting. Richer households may choose to utilise more - say, by keeping the temperature range around 22C or running extra appliances. Would it be unreasonable if there was one tariff for basic use, with a higher (luxury) rate for households wanting to use more (and therefore produce more carbon emissions)?
   
• As noted, people on low incomes are less able to afford energy-saving devices, such as solar panels or lagging for hot water tanks. Conversely, they are the least able to afford the extra power bills created by not having these items. Any government rebates for these items should consider people on low incomes first.
   
• We must also tackle the issue of “climate change proofing” houses owned by investors for that large number of Australians on low incomes who live in the private rental market. This of course should not benefit landlords but meet the needs of those living in private rental accommodation. In the future this issue could be addressed by writing these items into building codes and requiring them in any renovations.
   
• A subsidised basic insurance policy along the lines of compulsory third party fire and theft car insurance could offer solace to households affected by bush fires, floods and other wild weather events where they have been unable to afford insurance.
   
• Programs to address skill shortages should highlight those working in industries in need of re-structure to enable easier less painful movement when the time comes.

This is not a comprehensive list. It is more a call for a change in our overall ethos as we react to climate change.

Many years ago Peter Garrett, when President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, wrote that we need “a kind of bush dreaming in the cities and the suburbs, with a digger ethos of looking after our communities”. That remains the challenge, especially for the Government dreaming of which Mr Garrett is now a part: to address the issues of climate change while ensuring that the Australian aspiration to egalitarianism can be taken seriously.