A TRUE ANTI-ZERO

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Scott Morrison has declared that he is not concerned about the future impact of net zero emissions targets set by four of our top trading partners — China, Britain, South Korea and Japan — on Australia’s fossil fuel industry or domestic targets.

While a number of those countries have also gone hard on post-COVID green stimulus programs — i.e. South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who just yesterday outlined a 2050 net zero target and also announced a US$61.9 billion Green New Deal in July — Morrison has effectively rebuffed a direct call from Boris Johnston to take “bold action” on climate change and looks set to remain on his gas-led recovery designed by gas executives.

The news comes as The Australian ($) reports that ANZ will today announce “the most ­ambitious net zero emissions ­action of the big four banks and adopt climate change as a condition of lending”, a plan that will increase pressure on businesses, construction firms, and farmers to establish low-carbon transition plans by next year.

Elsewhere, The Age reports that Victorians who lost their homes in the Black Summer bushfires are calling for a massive expansion of the state’s fleet of aerial water bombers and for governments to take the threat of global warming as seriously as they are taking COVID-19.

Finally, on the international front, RenewEconomy reports that analysis led by Stanford University futurist Tony Seba has found that 100% clean electricity from solar, wind, and batteries is both physically possible and economically affordable across America and “the overwhelming majority of other populated regions of the world” by 2030.

PS: If you are at all curious about the types of people Australian governments are interested in appeasing, The Guardian reports that Adani has hired a private investigator to spy on the wife and daughter of Brisbane activist Ben Pennings.

RETRACING OUR STEPS

According to the Herald Sun ($), Victoria’s opposition has received approval for a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s contact tracing system.

The news comes after the system was overwhelmed in the early days of Victoria’s second wave — for example, the ABC reported in August that a close contact was texted permission to leave a quarantine he hadn’t been told he was supposed to be in — as well as recent improvements including new training programs, a shift from paper to digital, and expanded criteria for what constitutes “close contacts”.

Elsewhere, The Sydney Morning Herald reports the state government is considering increasing the number of quarantine “health hotels” following a spike in returned travellers testing positive.

The paper also reports that more than 1500 aged care homes had their requests for personal protective equipment from the National Medical Stockpile rejected by the Department of Health; for context, lack of PPE was one of several issues identified by the aged care royal commission’s special COVID-19 report.

PS: In reopening news, the Herald Sun reports that Melbourne pubs — buoyant though they, and we, are that they are once again open — are calling for the state government to tweak the November 8 step and allow 40 patrons inside without being split up into a maximum of four groups of 10.

MOMENT OF TRUTH: LEFT OUT IN THE COLD

According to The Hill, hundreds of Donald Trump fans in Nebraska were left waiting in freezing cold temperatures Tuesday night after shuttle buses were unable — for an unidentified reason — to return them from his rally to their cars.

With more than 70 million votes already counted, Trump is going hard on swing states — often unhappily, as CNN reports of his complaints over poor weather/locales and his audible wishes to drive away in a big Pennsylvania truck.

Conversely, The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Joe Biden has bizarrely made his rallies invite-only, although CNN notes his campaign is about to get some younger — if not exactly fresh — energy as Barack Obama joins him for the final stretch.

Finally, The New York Times’ ($) latest investigation into Trump’s financial history finds he was able to avoid $287 million in unpaid debt for a failed real estate project because, “rather than warring with a notoriously litigious and headline-seeking client, lenders cut Mr Trump slack — exactly what he seemed to have been counting on”.