country to the greatest place. i know the final run into the u.k.'s departure from the e.u. . hello i'm. counting the cost on al-jazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week australia mining and climate change. this is called the fright. that was australia's prime minister 3 years ago and after 30 years of uninterrupted economic growth thanks to the extraction industry he would say that but now with the president of bushfires is it time to rethink its dependence on coal. and the thing is it can be done despite a bad economy and social unrest is standing by its ambitious promise to go carbon neutral by the year 2015 and we're looking at lebanon's economic and political paralysis is the country ready to devalue its currency as it seeks the support of the international monetary fund. when a prime minister takes a lump of coal into his own parliament as a peculiar form of show and tell you can be sure of a couple of things one that coal means a lot of the country's fortunes and 2 there is going to be some controversy about it and so it is in australia where prime minister scott morrison went into bat for the country's 2nd biggest export which has to be fair help destroy the economy avoid a recession for the last 30 years but then he also went on holiday while his nation burned in some of the worst bushfires ever seen now put the 2 together and you arrive at climate change arguably the cause of the fires and the results of these carbon producing industries like coal so let's start with the numbers you know in 2018 the value of astronomy in coal exports was $67000000000.00 that number is equivalent to 3 and a half percent of nominal g.d.p. the industry directly employs a quarter of a 1000000 people and many more through support services and related businesses but scott morrison says astray is only responsible for 1.3 percent of global emissions the thing is when you take into account its export of petroleum and coal and the population which is around 24000000 people i mean we have a country of 0.3 percent of the world's population but it's actually responsible for 5 percent of global carbon emissions which is a big jump on morrison's claim of 1.3 percent and then there is the costs more than $500.00 australians die each year from heat stress alone and the financial cost of climate change is expected to rise to $26700000000.00 every year by the year 2050 which is as much as it currently spends on defense but with a debt to g.d.p. ratio of just 40 percent australia is a nation that has the power to transform its economy away from fossil fuels if it wants to ok so here's what we're going to have a discussion in a moment 2 guests from australia who are working to do just that to change the direction of the discourse on australia's environmental record but if we're going to count the cost of. and it changed there we can't go past those unprecedented bushfires people have died respiratory illnesses are on the rise and the full economic impact well yet to be fully determined is looking devastating as well with a special report for counting the cost here is just a washington in-built in new south wales it's summer in australia and this orchard would normally draw hundreds of visitors who come to pick their own fruit this is just $1.00 of many small businesses devastated by the bush by a crisis almost all of the apple trees were destroyed by flames the trees were uninsured and it will cost the family about $1000000.00 to replant them and repair the damage my parents have owned of her in the business for 35 yes. and yes it takes a bit of a toll emotionally when you say you put so much blood sweat and tears into producing the fruit and to say it go up in fines is just devastating the summer holidays is usually the busiest time of year for businesses in popular tourist areas tourists are encouraged to support bushfire affected businesses and the local economy but some have no products left to sell this is the worst that we've ever say we've had bushfires through here before we've never lost as much as what we have this time. you know we have like i said before how storms and things like that it's never it's never been this bad many farms around australia had already been suffering through the relentless drought and this bushfire season has just made this situation so much worse but the financial impact of this natural disaster won't just be felt on farms it will be felt around the country. this is a strangely is longest bushfire emergency the fires began months earlier than normal and are still burning the most severely affected areas only account for about one percent of the economy but the economic impact of the bush buys extends well beyond those communities economists say the global media coverage of the disaster will damage the economy and the smoke haze is a turnoff for tourists from an economic perspective we're going to see already fragile consumer confidence high particular because of the spike that's been in some of them i just cities we also see a loss of tourism coming into this country people are already canceling holidays and whether there's a longer term costs associated with the image of a strike or as i burning nation. analysts have downgraded forecasts for economic growth one of australia's biggest banks westpac estimates it could slash half a percent from economic growth damage assessment teams are working to get an idea of the full picture but millions of livestock perished in the flames and more than 2000 houses were destroyed rebuilding them may boost some local businesses but it also comes with challenges the level of reconstruction activity is going to be so concentrated in those areas there's a big push that local rights people will be given opportunities but what we're seeing in natural disasters in australia is rising costs as people want to rebuild quickly the challenge for us is to rebuild quickly but with that do you know why the calls process to spark and we see exploitation in some areas whole communities were almost completely destroyed already there are around $1000000000.00 worth of insurance claims and the government has committed around one and a half $1000000000.00 to rebuilding infrastructure that amount is uncapped if more money is needed scientists say the bushfire season was exacerbated by climate change which influenced the relentless drought the disaster has put a strain as leaders under more pressure to address climate change but the country's economic interests don't align with environmental concerns coal is one of australia's biggest exports and one of the reasons for its economic stability one independent politician is pushing for a long term shift in economic priorities with a pivot towards renewables call up to something very influential in spreading a lot of misinformation about what the impacts are going to pay and what actions we can take that will benefit the astray an economy there's huge prospects for us and i think we need to focus on those positives the government has indicated they may be a formal inquiry into the fight is including the role of climate change in sparking one of australia's most expensive natural disasters ever just washington counting the cost. so as promised we've got our panel of experts from australia to talk about this on skype from canberra that is tom swan he is the senior researcher at the australia institute and from melbourne we've got julian vincent who is the executive director of a group called market forces gentlemen great to have both of you with us tom we'll start with you the climate change debate in australia is clearly alive i see that in the public eye see that in the protests that are happening and in the anger directed towards in particular scott morrison is scott morrison and his government catching up do you feel that it's starting to sink in i know he did admit or maybe i could have handled this differently but is there any shift in policy you're absolutely right that there's been a big shift in the rhetoric and in some of the political positions taken by that the commonwealth government over the last month just a few weeks ago scott morrison was saying this is purely an issue for the state governments and he's deputy prime minister was saying that only raving in a city lunatics would link climate change to the bushfires that's all out the window now that's all changed but we haven't seen as any change in policy in fact rather than taking strong action to reduce emissions and calling coke local leadership this government has in fact shifted towards saying things like climate action includes hazard reduction burning reducing the amount of fuel loads to try and make fires less carbon less severe. and fortunately it's actually climate change that's making these hazard reduction burning more hazardous and more dangerous in australia that's really become a bit of a distraction from what has to be the main game reducing emissions why was there so much reluctance does it simply come down to in the 1st place that and we're going to focus a lot on the coal industry but that these industries these extraction industries have been so important to australia's economy and the government thinking well we don't want to step on their toes too much it's certainly true that the coal industry has a lot of political power in australia but it's a common misconception that the coal industry plays a. very large part in our economy we had a room full of $200.00 australian workers less than one would being employed in coal mining and if you look just at thermal coal which is the power plant call that we absolutely have to be phasing out quickly it's about half that. supplies a much smaller role in our economy than even many of stradley and realize that research shows that australians are the estimate by a factor of 10 so it's very powerful and very large in terms of exports throughout this call exports make us the 3rd largest exporter in the world fossil fuel c o 2 behind russia saudi arabia clearly let's bring you in from melbourne i've been reading about you and your group market forces raising the ire of scott morrison what do you tell us exactly what you did and what the reaction was i guess from the government most able of very concerned basically concerned especially with the bushfires that are writing now about impacts of climate change lives away of the fact that their own personal investment could be hoping to fuel the problem and so what we do is help shift the behavior of financial institutions by giving that sense of power to the people they're ultimately accountable to now last year we have 3 breakthroughs mechanize we've found that you know all the strategies big 3 general i'm sure the committed to being out of there will call 2030 or so you know the 1st time we have one of every major banks coming all banks i think because the recall by 2030 i would say the government decided no it's because you know as you talk with. just with all of the political now the government of the coal industry works hand in glove to protect the power of this very small company so that you're with everyone else and now to respond to get some significant progress from the cobra step away from polluting activities with the government going back to our lives he made a speech i mean like resources jones a luncheon which is essentially you know the representatives the lobby groups of the whole. sector so he's going in there essentially into back into support the industries that are primarily responsible for driving the climate crisis and it's no wonder that he gets this sort of response and he does when he goes trying to visit new indies you mention when we went there and you mention queensland there that is a part of the country where there are still coal mining efforts going on clearly it's part of a kind of it is the indian group adani i believe it's called with a $1400000000.00 deals in mind there is that just. business which is going to carry on regardless when it comes to a diversion i mean it's very likely in these drawing a line in the sand there because we're talking about in the midst of a climate crisis in the midst of a climate emergency wanting to open up one of the world's largest untapped coal reserves because they had only predicted just the in and that wage and we've basically made a point of the fact that we cannot allow the particular history keep expanding if we're going to deal with climate change and keep global warming to 100 degrees the absolute last thing you would do if you were serious about avoiding catastrophic climate change is to open up a massive new so-called base and that's exactly what his army would be doing with this comment of mine and so you're saying doesn't all banks insurers contractors other services companies all say they're not going to work on this project and the community going to continue to work on that and until they find it is nothing more than that is that it is time you raise the argument earlier about jobs and in fact that maybe the jobs that have been. overstated the number of jobs that are in the coal mining industry. even so let's say that those jobs did disappear and that or that at least they were cut down what are the alternatives out there because they get that's a political argument or we're employing a strain and we're keeping work here what about. power alternatives and therefore jabal genitives israeli restraint has been proposing and it's not a lot of research around at the proposal for a moratorium on you call mines the idea is that we would allow existing mines to run to the end of their lives providing certainty for communities and for governments to enable them to plan for the end of over many decades the end of the coal mining industry in terms of alternatives there are many alternatives in regional australia proposing that it's necessarily easy to do regional planning and industry planning it's something that australian generally has a checkered history and that is absolutely something that we should be doing not just for the coal mining regions but for all regional parts of australia many of which are doing it very tough including right now with so many disasters hitting us let me give you and i'll put this to both of you and get a separate responses but let me put what we're talking alternatives here's an example in germany angela merkel struck a deal with the coal industry and said you know it's going to cost 44000000000 euros yes but we are going to make a commitment to move away and move to alternatives australia financially should be in a position to do something similar should it not judy let me come to you 1st of all and and is there the political will to make that sort of thing happen alternatives sunshine and lots of it in australia we have every opportunity that remains and wishing us all what economically we're not being can't all be real n.g. revolutionist and whites around the world so we have an abundance of options the political will is absolutely not there really what we're talking about news. a sector where i noticed those corporations wanting to move wanting to rest further on climate change action and there's a countervailing force which is extremely loose at auction of companies in australia working with the israeli government to protect their arm so serving interests at the expense of money in developing new industries but i say for a long term quote corner very quick final thought from both of you and tom i'll just stay with you while the question that's on the bushfires which we actually haven't talked about that much the we ran a report on him on the economic impact of it which is you know yet to being known fully yet but economically psychologically socially this should really be the thing which makes people sit up and say no more we have to make a change. this trailer institute has released just today really some research showing the vast scale impacts across the stream link society most astray leanne's have already been touched personally in their own lives by the bush guys around 5000000 or around a quarter of a stray lions have had for spiritual problems and health problems because of the smoke there's been $1800000.00 days of work lost and we estimate that's a fair chunk of the expected growth in a quarter of g.d.p. just in that single kind of economic impact the lion and of course that is the long term impacts to tourism which are in the billions of dollars that's rebuilding costs it's going to be it's reasonable to expect it'll be beyond $100000000000.00 australian dollars the long term plan across in the really concerning thing is that this is that one degree of level warming we're heading to 3 on current policies during final word with you i'm sure you will hope this but do you actually think that in 20 years time people might look back on the summer of 192-020-1920 extension 20 i should say and think yes this was a turning point it's something that we just haven't experienced anything like of all we've been eating the wood on the president to describe the bush bio says october november and that was the really intense fight and it's not over. this is making a step change in the level of awareness and concern and anger able want to do to help they want to help communities that are affected they want help the fire services they want to contribute and that is negative and of course they should and we all should however people that want to know what they can do to stop is becoming worse and so i was going to be very important that organisations want to do so but anyone who will be contributed to the size of great change in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and doing everything they can to provide those on duty time so on in canberra and julian vincent in melbourne great to talk to you about all this thank you for your time and your post thank you. now if it wanted to australia could take a leaf out of chile its book despite being battered by economic and social unrest the government there is standing by its ambitious promise to go carbon neutral by the year 2050 and environmentalists are of course praising that commitment but the aspiration is still 30 years away and in cities like coronel it is far too early to celebrate more now from a latin america editor the sea and human. this is what remains of the once impressive coal company in the city of quarter. but while today the mines are closed 28 thermal electric plants powered by coal continue to supply more than 40 percent of chile's energy and 3 of them are located within a 3 kilometer radius here in. america shows us the giant coal ash dump of one of the largest plants he says that since 2003 high levels of arsenic and other heavy metals have been contaminating the air and filtering into the water supply from. cornell is the only city in the world that has a coal ash dump inside a residential area 100 meters from a school 150 from a nursery school 30 from home the ash is a health hazard. and that's why is known as a sacrifice zone more than 70 residents especially children have tested positive for heavy metals including planet 9 this who has dangerously high levels in her blood stream she and her 2 children suffer from headaches exhaustion muscle and body pains lack of concentration and other symptoms. and no one has taken responsibility they haven't said what will be the long term consequences what will happen to our children we have been totally abandoned by the state what will happen to my children if i die. the good news is that chile's government has vowed to close down all coal plants by 2040 and replace them with clean energy sources like solar and wind. these measures aim to confront climate change and contribute to reducing greenhouse gases but they also are intended to create a positive impact in the cities where there is contamination from coal plants chile has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 it will require one of the fast. just call shutdowns yet for a codependent economy but the government's plan to begin by shutting down 8 of chile's oldest or well electric plants is regarded as an ambitious by environmentalists and much of the communities that live next to them. as plants are unlikely to be shut down for another decade the government argues transitioning to alternative energy takes time and technology unfortunately for residents like $109.00 days to dream of no longer living with her children in a so-called sacrifice joan will have to wait. around to other economic news now and you will have seen on al-jazeera the ongoing protests in lebanon have gone on for months they've been violent at times and they all stem from a failing economy and real to stain for the government now lebanon may be forced to seek help though from the international monetary fund as the political and economic crisis escalates it may also need to reconsider its 23 year old currency pegged to the dollar as its debt becomes unmanageable how unmanageable will lebanon's debt to g.d.p. ratio is under 50 percent or more worryingly the 3rd highest in the world and is $1200000000.00 in debt stude be repaid in march there was a plan to delay those but it's been pulled after the credit ratings agencies said lebanon would be in selective default in total it needs to repay or issue more debt to cover a 2 and a half $1000000000.00 euro bond this year let's talk more about this now in beirut is job he is an associate professor of economics at the american university of beirut and it's great to have you with us lebanon now does finally have a government after months of paralysis what have you made of the promises made by the new prime minister with regards to fixing the root of all the problems the economy. you know the promises are still very general in my opinion and. you know we don't really think that this government can really deliver on a nice concrete promise because it has lost the support of even some of the main political parties in power and also from the continued protests on the street there seems to be adjourned there are discontent with the way this government was formed with the way the ministers were selected and their background or at least several of the ministers and until now we haven't seen anything concrete or just words empty words that are yet to be materialize in a concrete plan ok so in the absence of anything concrete let's talk about what could be done and what is it that is needed in your opinion to start turning this economy around it is a big task when any economy is in distress to start creating jobs to start increasing growth where should that start in lebanon the 1st we have depression we have a recession coupled with very high prices and with you know a devaluation of local currency which has drove prices extremely high in the last period so the 1st job of any government is that this one or any one in even before that one is to create jobs through more investments in infrastructure through more investments in the economy in the service sectors by easing the pressure on public finances but also tackling corruption that is eating out most of the public revenues and in acting reforms that the debate is are waiting for for now you know decades well in the short term there is always the option of many countries have done this going to the international monetary fund for some sort of loan or bailout . that's fraud as well isn't it because obviously you have to pay that loan back at some point and we don't know when or if lebanon would be in a position to do that. i mean it's very difficult for us to enter into any international loan and international bailout because of the you know very harsh conditions that are usually imposed on such laws such as raising indirect taxes cutting pensions and laying off people from the public sector this unfortunately cannot be done even though there are many reforms that are needed but. cannot bear any increase in the prices and the taxes people are on the brink of massive poverty so we cannot come and cut their pensions and apply austerity measures that are usually dictated by such programs joining us from beirut thank you so much free time to appreciate it thank you very much and that is our show for this week but if you'd like to get in touch with us comment on anything you've seen you can tweet me directly at. the hash tag in the e-mail address if you'd like is counting the cost at al-jazeera dot net and there's plenty more. that takes you straight to our page but that is it for this edition of in the costs time to mull santamaria from the whole team thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera. al-jazeera explores prominent figures of the 20th century and how rivalries influence the course of history and much better market to bill gates. than. bill made software what it is today will change the world to 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