According to this week’s release of the ‘synthesis report’ by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if left unchecked, climate change will increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts on our lives, and the world around us. In particular, the poor and disadvantaged.
Starkly, the report found with “very high confidence” that, in urban areas, poverty would be driven further as climate change increased the risk of damaging weather conditions.
In Australia, the debate on climate change may still rage on its veracity but one fact is undeniable, that in the past three years our energy bills have increased by 45 per cent and a staggering 82 per cent in just seven years.
Extreme conditions, challenging circumstances.
Australia is located in a part of the world where we experience greater extremes than countries to the north of us. For Victorians, this is even worse. Our winters are harsher and longer (many of us in the south-east corner of Australia are still using heaters long into September), and our hot days have become brutal, with 30-plus degree days already recorded for October and November. And it is those households that cannot afford air-conditioning, or efficient heating systems that bear the brunt of these highs and lows.
The IPCC report is right on one thing. It is the poor that are the greatest casualties of these extreme changes.
People on lower incomes are paying on average 10 per cent of their income on energy costs. In the last financial year, one in every 100 Victorian households had their electricity disconnected for non-payment, and most starkly, Victoria had the second-highest rate of disconnections in Australia.
Financial assaults on a family’s fortnightly income are coming from spiralling bills related to gas (a 66 per cent increase in five years) with electricity showing similar rises in costs and disconnections.
This is not a climate issue so much as a financial survival issue for many low income families.
Home truths.
It is true that a person on a low income will more than likely live in a home which is poorly insulated and they will mostly rely on inefficient appliances to keep comfortable in extreme weather conditions. They lack the financial ability to make the changes needed. In recent experience, 85 per cent of families that seek material aid services from Anglicare Victoria do not have $500 in the bank. Even if they did, retrofitting the house will take second place to children’s dental braces and school camps.
While the Essential Service Commission’s Energy Retail Code requires retailers to provide energy audits and the provision of energy efficient compliances, few are fulfilling these or providing them to the financially stretched.
Denis Napthine, Daniel Andrews and their parties must come to the November 29 election with a plan that will deliver a new and innovative strategy to assist the poor in dealing with a more extreme climate; one that is sustainable and economically efficient. Retrofitting homes with energy efficient appliances; greater advice on how the poor can reduce their energy costs; and a strategy aimed at placing greater regulation on companies and their ability to increase bills.
Without policy relief to arm poorer households, with the best methods to adapt to these conditions, families will continue to suffer both financially and physically during this ongoing period of climate change.
Governments need to step in with policies that directly stem spiralling disconnections, and bring to heel the unbridled energy costs to ensure all in the community can be reasonably prepared for the evolving harshness of our winters and summers.
