Someone the other day said Australia is used to being far away but in recent times that vast gap is closing. And that’s a good thing in some cases. For instance, as part of its Climate Law France recently banned short-haul domestic flights for journeys that would take less than 2.5 hours by train, eliminating 12 per cent of domestic flights.
Pretty gutsy call, right?
Other European countries including Spain, Germany, Austria, and some Scandinavian countries have also proposed similar bans. And an actual airline, KLM, has suggested passengers take the train for short flights. You have to wonder if Qantas would ever take the same approach in Australia.
Of course it would help if a train trip from Melbourne to Sydney was on a par to those in Europe.
So far that looks like a dream. As in, “tell ‘em they’re dreaming” kind of dream.
High speed rail
The plan for a Sydney to Melbourne high speed rail – long suggested – has made headlines again, and not for positive reasons.
Thanks to visiting authority David Higgins, the Australian-born chairman of London’s Gatwick Airport and former chair of the UK’s high-speed rail authority, we heard last week that high speed train is a pipe dream in Australia and funding should instead be diverted into improving urban infrastructure, such as speeding up Sydney’s famously slow suburban and regional public transport system.
The “plan”, one among too many to mention, is to travel from Sydney to Melbourne – a journey of 900 kilometres – in 150 minutes.
Higgins says Sydney would be better off concentrating on improving the speed of local trains that travel at a painfully slow 40-60 kilometres an hour, compared to those in London that fly along at 160 km an hour.
Higgins told the Sydney Morning Herald that it was important to “focus on getting your urban areas to work first”.
Someone is listening. The Commonwealth is co-funding a $1 billion project with the NSW government to upgrade rail infrastructure north of Sydney.
Launch of federal EPA
A new authority soon to be established is the similarly oft-spoken of Environmental Protection Agency, which could be introduced as early as next year.
“Nature is being destroyed… Businesses are waiting too long for decisions. That’s bad for everyone. Things have to change,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said on Thursday.
The new legislation would be released as a draft in 2023 and be introduced into parliament by the end of the year.
The proposed overhaul of the 1999 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act was a last-minute election promise announced the day before the May 21 poll.
Labor will likely need support from the Greens and independant David Pocock, who seek to ban new fossil fuel projects alongside implementing a legal climate trigger and earmarking additional funds for nature conservation.
Alongside the new independent EPA Labor proposes to overhaul environmental offsetting regulations to force businesses to avoid and mitigate risk before offsetting, and establish a “nature repair market” in parallel with the carbon trading scheme.
BlackRock’s Larry Fink attacked over ESG “failures”
And in case you missed it, Larry Fink who heads up BlackRock, the biggest funds management company in the world, and who made the world sit up and take notice with his letters urging the financial world to wake up to the environmental emergency, is under attack again because his company has not divested from fossil fuels.
Activist investor Bluebell Capital Partners has been urging BlackRock to replace Fink as chief executive.
“We are increasingly concerned about the reputational risk (including greenwashing risk) to which you have unreasonably exposed the company, potentially fuelling a gap between the ‘talk’ and the ‘walk’ on ESG investing,” Bluebell said.
The world’s largest money management firm is stuck between a rock and a hard place it seems, also copping flack both for its inaction on climate and from US Republicans who would rather see big returns and don’t care about the environmental or social outcomes.
Florida recently announced it would pull US$2 billion (A$3 billion) from the funds manager – the largest withdrawal by a US state in response to a company attempting to go green.
BlackRock has had to defend its sustainability investments, saying that is what clients are now pivoting towards.