JENNIFER BECHWATI: The United Nations peak body for climate change delivers a scathing report on global warming. JIM SKEA: We are really making it very challenging to impossible to keep warming below 1.5 degrees. JENNIFER BECHWATI: It states that unless coal-fired power is phased out globally by 2050 the world will suffer catastrophic consequences … - Seven Afternoon News, 8 October, 2018

Hello, I’m Paul Barry welcome to Media Watch.

And even for a world used to warnings of climate catastrophe, the latest report from the IPCC really packs a punch:

AMBER SHERLOCK: Australia’s world renowned Great Barrier Reef will be destroyed if coal isn’t phased out as a source of power. - Nine News Now, 8 October, 2018

PROFESSOR MARK HOWDEN: At 1.5 degrees something like 70 to 90 per cent of the coral reefs globally will disappear. - ABC News Channel, 8 October, 2018

So, in the face of urgent calls to save the planet, how will News Corp’s Sky after Dark respond?

Well, on Thursday we got this anticipatory rant on climate change from Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean:

ROSS CAMERON: … we just want to make it clear that on this issue we, on Outsiders, are in full dissent. We don’t believe that there is a compromise situation available. We believe the whole thing, from its foundation to its turret, is a bull story. ROWAN DEAN: Total. ROSS CAMERON: We believe it is completely, irretrievably garbage. We believe with Tony Abbott in a moment of clarity and frankness that climate change is … ROSS CAMERON/ROWAN DEAN: Crap. - Outsiders, Sky News, 4 October, 2018

Irresponsible? Unscientific? Or batshit crazy? Probably best to just ignore them.

But News Corp announced last week it’s giving those two science deniers an even bigger megaphone and putting them to air on Sky News five days a week, albeit in a late-night slot.

So we can expect to see even more of their thoughts on global warming. Like this:

ROWAN DEAN: It’s gone up by about a millimetre! ROSS CAMERON: Rising sea levels. You got it? ROWAN DEAN: I got it. Three mil. ROSS CAMERON: Three mil! - Sky News, 3 August, 2017

But it’s not just Laurel and Hardy on Sky telling us that man-made global warming is a joke, or a massive beat-up, or there’s no point in Australia taking action

Here’s The Australian’s leader writer Chris Kenny on his Sky show last Sunday:

CHRIS KENNY: The Paris commitments. This is it. The ABC again lost in its world. Australia’s emissions, Australia’s 1.3 per cent of global carbon emissions apparently have gone up 1.3 per cent. - Kenny on Sunday, Sky News, 30 September, 2018

And this was Andrew Bolt on Sky last week, riffing on one of the themes from an advance copy of that IPCC report:

ANDREW BOLT: … to save the planet from global warming we eat less meat because cows of course burp and fart methane which is a global warming gas. When the pain includes not putting some lamb on your fork or pork on your fork or beef on your fork, Andrew, do you think voters might start asking for the pain what’s the gain? - The Bolt Report, Sky News, 2 October, 2018

Well, the gain is, Andrew, if all the world does something we may not be screwed.

So how much has Australia been doing to avert the catastrophe that scientists predict? Don’t know?

Well, possibly because you missed this bad news 10 days ago:

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions have continued to climb, reaching the highest levels on a quarterly basis since 2010, led by a surge in gas production. - The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September, 2018

Yes, as Environment Editor Peter Hannam reported online for Fairfax, the latest Environment Department data reveal a 1.3 per cent jump in CO2 emissions in the year to March.

But that news was too late for the print edition of the Herald next day. And News Corp and ABC TV missed it altogether.

So, why was that? Timing. As Martin Rice from the Climate Council explained last week:

Late last Friday afternoon, after Commissioner Kenneth Hayne delivered his interim findings into the financial services industry, and the nation prepared for a weekend of football finals, the federal government quietly released a story that should have been front-page news. - The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October, 2018

And was that just bad luck to miss the headlines?

Well, no. Because, according to Rice, the government:

… had held onto the information for months, seemingly waiting for the right time to “take out the trash”. - The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October, 2018

Peter Hannam, who rushed to file his online story that evening, told Media Watch:

There’s nothing like trying to bury the figures by releasing them late on a Friday before grand finals and on a day when the banking royal commission swamped the news. - Peter Hannam, Phone interview, 4 October, 2018

And last Thursday, we discovered just how long they’d been waiting for that moment to put out the trash:

JOE O’BRIEN: The ABC has learned the federal government delayed the release of a report showing how Australia is failing to reign in its greenhouse gas pollution for nearly two months before dropping it on the footy finals’ long weekend. - ABC News Channel, 4 October, 2018

Yep, the Department of Environment first alerted ministers the data was available seven weeks before its release.

And how do we know? Thanks to a successful FOI request from the Australian Conservation Foundation, whose CEO Kelly O’Shanassy told the ABC:

KELLY O’SHANNASSY: For them to hide that information, not just this year but for the last four years, does really make me worry about their intention on climate change. - The Drum, ABC News Channel, 4 October, 2018

And the latest Friday dump was indeed no one-off.

Back in May, the previous set of quarterly figures – showing a rise in emissions for the third year in a row – also came out late on a Friday.

Ten months before that, the government released four quarters of emissions data all at once, after an FOI request revealed it had been holding the figures back for almost a year.

And in 2016 environment groups hit out at the government for dumping the data on, wait for it, Christmas Eve.

But, according to Peter Hannam, this is all just part of a pattern:

There’s a long record under the Abbott, Turnbull and now Morrison government of deliberate obfuscation of the greenhouse gas industry figures … Under Greg Hunt, then environment minister, the standard approach was to give the numbers to The Australian, often if I recall correctly on a Sunday for the Monday paper. And the figures would be dutifully and gently reported, uncritically for the following day’s paper. - Peter Hannam, Phone interview, 4 October, 2018

So why all the cloak and dagger?

Well, emissions are rising.

And the government doesn’t like getting questions like these:

BARRIE CASSIDY … you say you’ll reach the Paris commitments in a canter. SCOTT MORRISON: Yes. BARRIE CASSIDY: Based on what? SCOTT MORRISON: Based on our assessments. - Insiders, ABC, 30 September, 2018

In fact, current projections show Australia will blow those Paris Agreement 2030 targets by 1 billion tonnes of CO2 if we stay on our current course.

Which is why the Climate Council’s Martin Rice wrote last week:

… it has never been more important for transparent greenhouse gas pollution information. Yet the federal government has consistently withheld or hidden vital emissions data; it’s a serial offender when it comes to climate censorship. - The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 October, 2018

Ultimately, voters will decide what Australia does or does not do about global warming.

But it’s the media’s job to tell them what’s happening. And the government has been making it as difficult as it possibly can.

So what does it say in its defence? A spokesperson for the Environment Minister told the ABC last week:

“Ministers routinely and appropriately consider briefs for a period of time.” - ABC News, 4 October, 2018

Really, that does not wash.