The Week’s Climate and Nuclear News- Australia
The marathon climate talks in Madrid had a rather disappointing outcome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk8McVmQRDI While the USA was excluded from the conference, other fossil-fuel addicted nations, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil did their best to sabotage the cause for climate action. Meanwhile the valuable perspective from women was largely ignored. From the top down in climate discussions, to regional and local talks in developing countries, women’s voices are generally excluded.
The nuclear lobby is working quietly away to get nuclear power accepted as “green”, thus getting not only ‘respectability’, but also hefty financial advantages. They’re having minor success in Europe. The European Union’s sustainable finance debate was bogged down in the question of including nuclear power. It ended up with a weak inclusion of nuclear power as a “sustainable activity’, but it still has to be agreed by the European Parliament, which has insisted on its “no” to nuclear.
Some good news – The Global Deal for Nature.
AUSTRALIA
CLIMATE Prime Minister Scott Morrison is on holidays overseas, as fires burn across Australia. Australians are reminded of the tourism slogan that Morrison created – #wherethebloodyhellareyou?
New South Wales’ bushfire conditions are getting worse. In blistering heat, Perth’s bushfire will keep burning for days. Ominous forecast for Australia’s bushfire dangers. Bushfire near power plant (just as well it’s not a NUCLEAR power plant) Australia’s rainforests used to be too wet to burn. Not now. 250m tonnes of CO2 emitted from Australia’s bushfires.
Swedish youth climate activist Greta Thunberg hits out at Australia’s quest for climate loopholes talks. No legal or moral basis for Australia’s Kyoto accounting fudge, new analysis shows.
NUCLEAR. Liberal-Party-dominated committee recommends removing Australia’s ban on nuclear power. Albanese attacks Coalition’s nuclear ‘fantasy’ as Greens say report should ‘alarm all Australians’. Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor rejects call for partial lift of nuclear power.
In fealty to the global nuclear industry, the Liberals line up the nuclear dump site, amendments to law, deepwater port.
In the rush to get a nuclear waste dump site, the Dept of Industry, Innovation and Science has ignored the transport dangers. Residents vote against nuclear waste dump near Hawker in South Australia. Strong opposition to nuclear waste dump plan for Flinders Ranges. Kimba now the likely site for nuclear waste dump.
ENVIRONMENT. While ignorant tunnel-visioned politicians kowtow to irrigators, the Murray River system faces death. A foreign corporation gets 89 BILLION litres of Australia’s water, as drought worsens. Scott Morrison trashes the Environment Department.
RENEWABLE ENERGY. A lot of progress, – much information at https://reneweconomy.com.au
INTERNATIONAL
United States and Russia are on the verge of a new arms race, Nuclear War Simulator shows the devastation that nukes could cause.
The toxic gender norms in the nuclear weapons establishment.
Ethics of burdening developing countries with nuclear debts and nuclear wastes.
Devastating array of craters on the ocean floor, from nuclear tests.
Investigative journalism – Hazards of Russia’s nuclear colonialism– example South Africa. Docking problems for Russia’s nuclear ships.
Ominous forecast for Australia’s bushfire dangers
- The bushfire outlook from August warned of above-normal bushfire conditions for most of the east coast this summer, as well as parts of all states and the ACT
- Monday’s update expands the above-normal region further north in Queensland, across to northern Victoria and further along the Tasmanian coast
- Experts say the only thing that would change this outlook would be widespread rainfall, which is not likely this summer
The outlook was already bad, with above-normal fire potential for most of the east coast.We’re already dealing with a fire season for the record books — crews exhausted, millions of hectares burnt, scores of houses destroyed — but an update of the danger ahead paints an even more ominous picture.
Where is above normal?
Above-normal fire danger is expected for most of the east coast, eastern Tasmania, northern Victoria, Kangaroo Island and the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, parts of south-west Western Australia and a patch up north.
But that doesn’t mean everywhere else is in the clear — for many areas of southern Australia, dangerous fires in summer are normal…..
Keep up to date with warnings from your local fire authority, ABC Radio and ABC Emergency on Facebook.
Australia, you have been warned. https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-16/bushfire-outlook-update-makes-for-more-grim-reading/11802452
In the interests of the coal lobby, Australia sabotaged the UN climate talks
Australia took a match to UN climate talks while back home the country burned https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/16/
australia-took-a-match-to-un-climate-talks-as-back-home-the-country-burned Julie-Anne Richards The gleeful coal lobby stalked the Madrid COP25 meeting halls as the Morrison government threw out compassion and international citizenship. I’ve been at the climate summit in Madrid for the past two weeks. The question I was constantly asked was: “What will it take for Australia to treat the climate crisis seriously?” International friends, colleagues and strangers looked on in horror at the effects of the bushfires and outright amazement at the Morrison government’s denial of the link between the fires and Australia’s coal industry, and seeming lack of concern at this extreme impact of climate change.
The ray of hope is the youth, demanding their future back. The rest of us have a responsibility to join them, to back their calls however we can. Force our government to show compassion. Demand genuine climate action. We can do this. Other governments are – New Zealand is showing us up. It is our government that is failing us, failing our neighbours, failing our youth. We’ve got no choice but to demand they act, and refuse to give up until they do. See you at a youth-led climate rally soon.
• Julie-Anne Richards is executive director of Climate Action Network Australia
Liberal-Party-dominated committee recommends removing Australia’s ban on nuclear power
The Energy Minister says there are no plans to lift the moratorium, and any lifting has to be bipartisan. Labor wrote a dissenting report so there seems to be no chance of bipartisanship.
|
|
Parliamentary committee recommends lifting ban on modern nuclear power technology The Advertiser,14 Dec 19
Stopping short of a full go-ahead, the government-dominated committee called for more economic and scientific analysis…… However, Labor members of the committee said the economics did not stack up and it would be “irrational” to pursue nuclear power. “There is simply no case for wasting time and resources on a technology that is literally the slowest, most expensive, most dangerous, and least flexible form of new power generation,” committee deputy chair Josh Wilson and fellow Labor members said in a dissenting report. Labor and independent Zali Steggall both called for a national energy policy but the recommendation was struck down. “A national energy policy is an essential prerequisite to the consideration of lifting the moratorium on nuclear energy,” she said. Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, who initiated the inquiry, said the Government would take its time to consider the report. “The Government has no plans to lift the longstanding moratorium on nuclear energy,” he said. “Any changes … would need bipartisan support and broad community acceptance.” The committee, which received more than 300 submissions and held hearings around the country, made three broad recommendations. Firstly, it called for a holistic, strategic approach that would learn from international partners, identify opportunities, build bipartisanship and put “the community at the centre”. Secondly, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation should be tasked with categorising nuclear into old and new technology — so-called Generation III+ and beyond which have in-built safety features. The Productivity Commission should look at economics and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency at safety, waste, skills and governance. In addition an unspecified expert body should “educate and inform Australians”. Thirdly, the Federal Parliament should lift the ban on Generation III+ and beyond, conditional on the recommended scientific assessments. Finally, with state and territory government, the Commonwealth should commit to any approval only after “the prior informed consent of local impacted communities”.  |
|
Pro nuclear nonsense from Geoff Russell – “we’re all toast without nuclear power”
Once again, New Matilda gave nuclear lobbyist Geoff Russell a forum for an attack on a critic of the nuclear industry. (Steggall’s Chicken On Nuclear Family, While Party Politics Buggers Inquiry, 16 Dec 19.) On this occasion, New Matilda was trashing a very mild nuclear critic, Zali Steggall.
So we’re “all toast” without nuclear power? This is nonsense. Even Geoff Russell knows that to get up and running the thousands of nuclear power plants that would be needed to stall global heating – would take decades. That means that, with the speed of global heating, nuclear power would be too late to make any difference. (And that’s if nuclear power really were effective against climate change – which it isn’t, when you consider the whole carbon emitting nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to deep disposal of wastes) Meanwhile, energy efficiency, wind and solar power, are quickly set up, quickly effective, and provide energy fuel that is genuinely zero carbon.
The world needs the insights of women at male-dominated climate conferences
|
Climate conferences are male, pale and stale – it’s time to bring in women https://theconversation.com/climate-conferences-are-male-pale-and-stale-its-time-to-bring-in-women-128060 16 Dec 19, The COP25 climate meeting in Madrid concluded over the weekend. As in past meetings, the talks failed to make much progress on international climate action. And again, the views and needs of women were largely ignored.Among the aims of the COP, or conference of parties to the Paris Agreement, was working towards “ambitious and gender-inclusive climate action”. That is, recognising the need to integrate gender considerations into national and international climate action.
The first step to achieving this aim would be gender parity at international climate conferences such as the Madrid COP. While we don’t yet know how many of the 13,000 registered governmental delegates were women, based on past numbers they are unlikely to make up more than a quarter. This is not the only forum where the experiences of women are ignored. Our research, spanning Kenya, Cambodia and Vanuatu, has found women are working collectively to strengthen their communities in the face of climate change. But their knowledge about climate risk is dismissed by scientists and political leaders. Bridging climate awareness When women are excluded from local and national-level governance, the absence of their voices at regional and global levels, such as COP meetings, is virtually assured. Our work across Africa, Asia and the Pacific found scientists – generally male – lack awareness of the knowledge women hold about the local consequences of climate change. At the same time, those women had little access to scientific research. In places where the labour is divided by gender, women and men learn different things about the environment. Though the women in our research generally did not know about government policies or programs on climate change and disaster risk reduction, they were very aware of environmental change. In Kenya, the pastoralist women we spoke to are acutely aware of the link between their physical insecurity and extreme drought. Continue reading |
Bushfire near power plant (just as well it’s not a NUCLEAR power plant)
| Blaze burns near power plant as another fire destroys homes, SMH 17 Dec 19 |
| A fire that has burnt almost 400,000 hectares in the Hawkesbury is burning in the vicinity of a power station responsible for 10 per cent of NSW’s electricity. The area, north-west of Lithgow, is home to the Mount Piper Power Station, the fourth-largest in the state, and the Springvale coal mine. |
An emergency warning was issued for the Gospers Mountain fire about 4pm on Monday as it headed towards Wallerawang, Lidsdale and Blackmans Flat, in the state’s Central Tablelands.
This area, north-west of Lithgow, is home to the Mount Piper Power Station and the Springvale coal mine.
Mount Piper is the fourth-largest power station in the state and has large stockpiles of coal……
NSW RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd said crews were aware that the fire was burning just six kilometres east of the station, but believed there was “no current threat”. …. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/blaze-approaches-power-plant-as-another-fire-destroys-homes-20191216-p53khc.html
Nuclear colonialism – a cautionary tale about Russia’s drive to export nuclear power to South Africa
costly projects such as the one pushed by Zuma typically make little economic sense for the purchasing countrySUMMARY
Nuclear power toxifies EU sustainable finance debate
Nuclear power toxifies EU sustainable finance debate EU28 ambassadors meet on Monday morning to see if they can come up with a compromise that can keep all sides happy Mehreen Khan 16 Dec 19,
Australia has enough environmental degradation, without degrading SA with nuclear waastes
|
Roy Ramage, Commenting on the story: Kimba firms as nuclear dump site after Hawker ruled out Readercomments, In Daily , 17 Dec 19 Just as we realise our planet is suffocating in our own waste and filth, along comes another politician wanting to further degrade our nation. In an effort to understand the magnitude of dangerous waste, here are a few stats from the International Energy Agency (IEA) which expects a wave of nuclear reactor retirements from here out to 2050. The IEA reports that as of September 2019 there are: 94 nuclear reactors abandoned construction, 46 nuclear reactors under construction, 415 nuclear reactors in operation, 28 nuclear reactors in a long-term outage and 183 nuclear reactors in a permanent shutdown mode. So there are untold tonnes of this dangerous and lethal waste that the minister wants to store in our backyard. It will never be safe. Perhaps it can be stored where he lives. – https://indaily.com.au/opinion/reader-contributions/2019/12/16/your-views-on-service-sa-closures-park-lands-booze-bans-and-nuclear-dumps/ |
|
December 16 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Why Madrid Climate Summit Fell Short Of Global Expectations” • COP25 climate negotiations, the longest in 25 such gatherings, ended with major polluters resisting calls to ramp up efforts to keep global warming at bay. Here is a look at the main issues resolved, and the sticking points for future negotiations. [Christian Science […]
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 