Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Hi, It's sucksha. We published our full interview of Zero
Speaker 2: early this week, looking at what the UK's new Prime Minister,
Speaker 2: Andy Burnham can do to bring down the country's stubbornly
Speaker 2: high energy costs. It's a great conversation with British green
Speaker 2: entrepreneur and political donor Dale Vince. I hope you will
Speaker 2: listen to it. Today we have a bonus episode from
Speaker 2: our sister podcast, Bloomberg Australia. David Stringer, Managing Editor of
Speaker 2: Asia at Bloomberg Green, shares the lessons from one of
Speaker 2: the world's most remote climate observation stations at the edge
Speaker 2: of Tasmania. He also shares the latest on climate and
Speaker 2: energy politics in Australia.
Speaker 3: Hello. I'm Rebecca Joans and this is the Bloomberg Australia podcast,
Speaker 3: where we take you inside the biggest stories defining Australia's
Speaker 3: place in forlobal business. This week, what a Lonely Tower
Speaker 3: in Tazi tells us about the future of the planet.
Speaker 3: On the remote northwestern tip of Tasmania stands a monitoring
Speaker 3: station that samples some of the cleanest air on Earth
Speaker 3: for nearly fifty years, scientists have used it to track
Speaker 3: the changing composition of the atmosphere, making it one of
Speaker 3: the world's most important windows into humanity's impact on the climate.
Speaker 3: David Stringer, who leads climate in the ESG coverage for
Speaker 3: Bloomberg News in Asia, recently visited this station and he
Speaker 3: joins me this week to explain why as governments, businesses
Speaker 3: and investors grapple with a warming planet, the data collected
Speaker 3: here has never been more valuable. David, welcome back to
Speaker 3: the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me now.
Speaker 3: As our regular listeners would well know, you and I
Speaker 3: share a disk pod here in the Melbourne newsroom, and
Speaker 3: it was a little while back I couldn't help but
Speaker 3: overhear you booking some pretty cool travel. At first I
Speaker 3: thought you were going on holidays to a climate monitoring station,
Speaker 3: and look, I wouldn't put it past you, but no,
Speaker 3: it was a reporting trip. So David, could you just
Speaker 3: start by painting a picture for us of just how
Speaker 3: secluded this place is and why it's become such a
Speaker 3: lynchpin for global climate science.
Speaker 1: Thanks Rebecca.
Speaker 4: As you said, Cape grim Is is really on the
Speaker 4: northwestern tip of Tasmania, and.
Speaker 1: It really does feel like the edge of the map.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: The air pollution station is perched on this sort of
Speaker 4: tossig dotted cliffs overlooking incredibly dramatic crescent shape bay. It's
Speaker 4: a really unspoiled landscape.
Speaker 1: You know. Actually access is limited.
Speaker 4: People can't usually visit there because it's a private agricultural station,
Speaker 4: you know. And the closest population center is the town
Speaker 4: of Smith, and that's a place of about four thousand people.
Speaker 4: That's a forty five minute drive away. And what makes
Speaker 4: this site so special is the thing that you feel
Speaker 4: as soon as you step out of a vehicle, as
Speaker 4: soon as I opened a car door. It's the wind
Speaker 4: gusts that really do whip across the landscape. The lab
Speaker 4: sits within something we call the Roaring forties, the band
Speaker 4: of Southern Hemisphere latitudes that are really known for powerful
Speaker 4: and consistent westerly winds. And there's a story that kind
Speaker 4: of encapsulates why that's important. So this site began its work,
Speaker 4: began its measurements in nineteen seventy six, and it was
Speaker 4: all pretty ramshackle. Part of the laboratory at that time
Speaker 4: was a caravan that had been donated by NASA. They
Speaker 4: actually used it to track the Apollo missions, which they
Speaker 4: did from out back Australia. After about a year, the
Speaker 4: scientists realized that the winds were so strong they needed
Speaker 4: to permanently fix that caravan to the ground because the
Speaker 4: gusts were buffeting it so hard that the vibrations were
Speaker 4: disrupting the measurements. To understand the site's importance, This is
Speaker 4: just one of three premiere global air pollution observatories. There's
Speaker 4: Mana Loa in Hawaii, Alert in the Canadian Arctic and Tasmania,
Speaker 4: and really it's the data from those three places that
Speaker 4: is used by global policymakers and ultimately that's the basis
Speaker 4: of what we understand about how the climate is changing.
Speaker 3: So I was right. You would have gone to that
Speaker 3: place for holiday, wouldn't David. It's often said that the
Speaker 3: air at this station is among the most pristine on
Speaker 3: the planet. Can we look at the long term data,
Speaker 3: what is that telling us about the atmosphere right now?
Speaker 4: That air really is extraordinary and genuinely it is some
Speaker 4: of the cleanest in the world. And when the wind
Speaker 4: can diditions are right, the air reaching to that part
Speaker 4: of Tasmania has traveled literally thousands of kilometers across the
Speaker 4: southern Ocean. Basically, you can think of it all the
Speaker 4: way from the kind of tip of South America, and
Speaker 4: it's passed over the ocean without being disturbed by cities,
Speaker 4: by heavy industry, by pollution sources. That's what makes it valuable.
Speaker 4: It's air that's as close to untainted as you can find.
Speaker 4: The sciences they call it baseline air. Basically it allows
Speaker 4: them to see the underlying signals of climate change. They
Speaker 4: can use measurements of pollutants in that air to see
Speaker 4: what's natural variability, you know, what's a result of seasonal cycles,
Speaker 4: and crucially, what is changing due to human impacts. When
Speaker 4: we think about carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas fueling
Speaker 4: climate change, what the data from that site in Tasmania
Speaker 4: shows us is the most extraordinary acceleration of CO two
Speaker 4: from about the Industrial Revolution onwards. You know, scientists compare
Speaker 4: the data since nineteen seventy six to much earlier records
Speaker 4: that they get from from sampling Antarctic ice cools, and
Speaker 4: you can literally see.
Speaker 1: You can chart the change.
Speaker 4: And in fact they have even in Smithton at an
Speaker 4: office they have there on the front of the building,
Speaker 4: they literally have the chart so people who live there
Speaker 4: can see it, and it's hundreds and hundreds of years
Speaker 4: of essentially a flat line, and then around the time
Speaker 4: of the Industrial Revolution, it's incredibly steep vertical line shooting
Speaker 4: upwards and one that isn't yet bending.
Speaker 3: Back down profound and David beyond carbon. They are tracking
Speaker 3: a massive array of pollutants at this station, and that
Speaker 3: in itself is quite a complex task. I did like
Speaker 3: in your story your chat with one of the scientists
Speaker 3: who worked at the station who said that, you know,
Speaker 3: she was still trying to work out how to actually
Speaker 3: use the equipment, which is obviously almost as old as
Speaker 3: she was. How has this decades long record of tracing
Speaker 3: various different guesses shifted the way that we are understanding
Speaker 3: our own environmental footprint?
Speaker 1: Well, that's right.
Speaker 4: That the sample sort of, as it was explained to me,
Speaker 4: sort of about you know, more than one hundred gases,
Speaker 4: air pollutants, aerosols. They look at how even things like
Speaker 4: how how do clouds fam and what impact does that have?
Speaker 4: You get a real center of that at the site.
Speaker 4: You know, I stood up on this sort of weathered
Speaker 4: rooftop deck. You know, there's a spinning anometer. There's masts
Speaker 4: poking up between these mossy wooden platforms, and then towering
Speaker 4: over it all is this eighty meter high telecommunications tower
Speaker 4: near the top has these air vents sucking in that air,
Speaker 4: bringing it through pipes and into these scientific equipment, you know, machines,
Speaker 4: some of which, as you say, are sort of you
Speaker 4: know at this point fifty years old. There's a great
Speaker 4: example that the scientists give of like how has that
Speaker 4: had an impact? You know, how is this monitoring changed things?
Speaker 4: From the late nineteen eighties there was huge global success
Speaker 4: in limiting ozone depleting chlorophor carbons CFCs. Now Cape grim
Speaker 4: was was one of the sites that detected this unexpected
Speaker 4: slowdown in the rate of reduction of emissions in about
Speaker 4: twenty twelve, and that was in CFC eleven, really potent pollutant. Now,
Speaker 4: eventually that anomaly was traced back to eastern China. The
Speaker 4: government in Beijing acted essentially they fixed the problem and
Speaker 4: then you can see that curve begin to bend back down.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a problem that was detected and
Speaker 4: solved all.
Speaker 1: Within less than a decade.
Speaker 4: And so that's a really good vivid illustration of the
Speaker 4: impact that their work can have.
Speaker 3: David, climate science is often at the mercy of political whims.
Speaker 3: As we know, we've seen funding shifts happen in the
Speaker 3: US recently. How is the financial support for this kind
Speaker 3: of research holding up in Australia.
Speaker 4: Well, you're right, globally, the most dramatic impacts we've seen
Speaker 4: have been in the US. You know, we've seen funding
Speaker 4: for climate research reduced quite dramatically. We've seen the kinds
Speaker 4: of information even that government funded agencies can publicize altered.
Speaker 4: It's not that everywhere else is immune to those pressures.
Speaker 4: I mean here in Australia, scientists talk about, you know,
Speaker 4: coming under pressure even as the government actually increases overall
Speaker 4: funding for the national agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial
Speaker 4: Research Organization. You know, the CSIRO has been criticized by
Speaker 4: staff for plans to cut research roles. It's been criticized
Speaker 4: over changes to the way it produces climate modeling. All
Speaker 4: of that, even as that total share of funding does increase.
Speaker 4: You know, Now when it comes to this site in Tasmania,
Speaker 4: it's jointly operated by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO,
Speaker 4: and it isn't a location that's expected to be to
Speaker 4: be impacted. But you know, even here in Australia when
Speaker 4: the the atmosphere, if you forgive the pun and you
Speaker 4: know around climate funding is more.
Speaker 1: Benign, not immune. We are seeing changes in the science.
Speaker 3: Let's stick with policy for a moment. You know, the
Speaker 3: Albanesi government has stepped up with some more ambitious admissions
Speaker 3: targets David, between the rise of electric vehicles and new
Speaker 3: storage projects. Are we seeing these changes actually move the needle?
Speaker 4: Yet we are seeing some impact. Is it moving the needle?
Speaker 4: Is it moving the needle enough? I think those are
Speaker 4: questions that it's probably too.
Speaker 1: Early to say. But what we do know is that.
Speaker 4: Australia's annual greenhouse gas emissions fell about two percent last
Speaker 4: year and that was largely the result of more renewable energy,
Speaker 4: less use of fossil fuels and the accelerating adoption of
Speaker 4: electric vehicles. And when it comes to evs, we've seen
Speaker 4: that since then, since the end of last year, that
Speaker 4: adoption rate has increased only further. Australia will need to
Speaker 4: sustain momentum. You know, Albanesi's government has pledged to reduce
Speaker 4: emissions between sixty two and seventy percent of two thousand
Speaker 4: five levels by twenty thirty five. To get that, they
Speaker 4: have to go further, They have to do more, and
Speaker 4: that's not a given, particularly because support for those ambitions
Speaker 4: is waning at best among Australia's opposition parties. You know,
Speaker 4: the main Liberal National Coalition has pledged to dump Australia's
Speaker 4: net zero target. You know, it says that it's destroying
Speaker 4: Australia's economy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean I think it is important to
Speaker 3: stay with that friction point just for a moment, because
Speaker 3: I am interested too in how the government is navigating
Speaker 3: some of the more vocal pushback that we've seen coming
Speaker 3: from the One Nation party of recent times.
Speaker 4: Well, that's right, and you know, globally we've seen parties,
Speaker 4: particularly on the political right, push back much harder than
Speaker 4: before against targets to curb emissions and against the costs
Speaker 4: of decarbonization. And One Nation certainly has been far more
Speaker 4: vocal than we've seen previously in Australia, certainly more vocal
Speaker 4: and more explicit than the Liberal National Coalition. You know,
Speaker 4: One Nation says austral early as climate plans are economic suicide.
Speaker 4: It says that you know, it openly questions the scientific
Speaker 4: consensus on global warming and actually makes a virtue, you know,
Speaker 4: as it says, of being the only party to question
Speaker 4: climate science.
Speaker 3: Finally, David, Australia is also positioning itself for a major
Speaker 3: role in an upcoming UN Climate talks, albeit through a
Speaker 3: somewhat unique strategy. I'm interested in what that roadmap looks
Speaker 3: like now and also how the Prime Minister is intending
Speaker 3: on engaging with Pacific leaders, who of course are all
Speaker 3: in this region with US bigger countries like Australia and
Speaker 3: New Zealand.
Speaker 4: Well sorry, well Australia was hoping to host this year's
Speaker 4: big annual global Climate Summit COP thirty one as it's known,
Speaker 4: but ultimately lost out in what was a pretty contentious
Speaker 4: process to Turkey. So the result is quite an unusual arrangement.
Speaker 4: The talks themselves will take place in Antalia in Turkey
Speaker 4: in November, and yet it is Australian officials who will
Speaker 4: be in charge of the process of negotiations, and in
Speaker 4: fact Chris Bowie, in Australia's Climate Change and Energy Minister,
Speaker 4: he'll be the President of negotiations. That's a pretty unenviable
Speaker 4: task getting consensus on climate action among about two hundred nations,
Speaker 4: but it's one that he says that he's relishing. Part
Speaker 4: of Australia's rationale for bidding in the first place was
Speaker 4: really to shine a spotlight on Pacific island nations. But
Speaker 4: you know, we've seen the Prime Minister talking just in
Speaker 4: the past couple of days to some of those specific leaders,
Speaker 4: and what they'll really want to see is not just talk,
Speaker 4: not just meetings. They need more money, and they need
Speaker 4: more support, and they need it now.
Speaker 3: And what do you think the odds of them getting
Speaker 3: any sort of resolution on any of those asks?
Speaker 4: H I think it is going to be a pretty
Speaker 4: difficult ask to as it is in any of these
Speaker 4: global climate negotiations, to significantly increase support and particularly financial
Speaker 4: support for the entire developing world, not just the Pacific.
Speaker 4: But I think what they'll hope is they can show
Speaker 4: what the reality is on the ground and the kinds
Speaker 4: of impacts they're experiencing right now, and.
Speaker 3: The happenings at Cape Grim are part of that process
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: The only way we can know how the climate is
Speaker 4: changing is to measure it, to have that record, and
Speaker 4: to see it in the data that's produced in places
Speaker 4: like Tasmania.
Speaker 3: You can read David's story this weekend on Bloomberg Weekend,
Speaker 3: available at Bloomberg dot com for subscribers and on the
Speaker 3: Bloomberg terminal. If you found today's conversation insightful, be sure
Speaker 3: to follow the Bloomberg Australia podcast wherever you listen. This
Speaker 3: episode is recorded on the traditional lands of the Wandery
Speaker 3: People who was edited by Chris Burg and produced by
Speaker 3: Justin Millaner special thanks go out to end Johnson. I'm
Speaker 3: Rebecca Jones. We'll see you next week.