Parliamentary committee finds that Kimba nuclear waste dump law may breach Indigenous human rights
Kimba nuclear waste dump law risks breaching Indigenous human rights, committee finds https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-16/risk-kimba-nuclear-dump-may-breach-human-rights-committee-says/12154474 ABC North and West SA By Gabriella Marchant 17 Apr 20, A cross-party parliamentary committee has found “significant risk” that local Indigenous groups were not consulted about a proposed nuclear waste facility to a standard required under international law.
Key points:
A report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights found that given Barngarla traditional owners unanimously vetoed the proposed facility, the Federal Government’s decision to press ahead with a bill to build it risked breaching Barngarla rights to culture and self-determination. The proposed site outside Kimba on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula is on land traditionally associated with the Barngarla people and would store Australia’s low to medium-level radioactive waste, most of which is created by nuclear medicine. Two non-binding independent ballots were conducted to gauge community support for the proposal; one for residents in the local government area surrounding the site, the other among Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation members, who largely did not qualify for the first ballot. While more than 60 per cent of voters in the Kimba local government ballot supported the facility, 100 per cent of Barngarla voters rejected the proposal. Rights ‘may not be sufficiently protected’The committee found the site’s nomination seemed to “rest heavily on the local council ballot from which native title holders were excluded, which the Minister uses as evidence of local community support”.
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Scientists predict that 2020 is likely to be the planet’s hottest year on record
2020 expected to be Earth’s warmest year on record, scientists say, Doyle Rice, USA TODAY, 17 Apr 20,
- This year’s warmth is “unusual,” given the lack of a strong El Niño.
- Already, through the first three months of the year, it’s the second-warmest on record.
- There’s a 99.9% chance that 2020 will end among the five warmest years on record.
Federal scientists announced Thursday that 2020 has nearly a 75% chance of being the warmest year on record for the planet Earth.
Already, through the first three months of the year, it’s the second-warmest on record, trailing only the El Niño fueled year of 2016, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.
This year’s warmth is “unusual,” given the lack of a strong El Niño, a natural warming of tropical Pacific Ocean water that influences temperatures worldwide, according to Deke Arndt of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
He said both February and March were the warmest months on record without an El Niño present. The long-term trend of ongoing heat the planet continues to see is primarily because of the emission of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels, he said.
Even if 2020 ends up not being the warmest year, NOAA said there’s a 99.9% chance that 2020 will end among the five warmest years on record.
The warmth has been nearly global so far this year: “Record-hot January-through-March temperatures were seen across parts of Europe, Asia, Central and South America, as well as the Atlantic, Indian and western Pacific Oceans,” NOAA said. “No land or ocean areas had record-cold temperatures during this period.”
Climate change:Antarctic glacier retreated 3 miles in 22 years, threatening global sea-level rise
What winter?:Earth just had its second-warmest December-February on record……
Sea-level rise:Greenland and Antarctica are now melting six times faster than in the 1990s https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/04/16/global-warming-2020-expected-warmest-year-record-noaa-said/5144767002/
Amid climate change threat to the Murray Darling river system, the States haggle
No water, no leadership: new Murray Darling Basin report reveals states’ climate gamble, The Conversation
April 17, 2020 Daniel Connell, Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University A report released today investigating how states share water in the Murray Darling Basin describes a fascinating contrast between state cultures – in particular, risk-averse South Australia and buccaneering New South Wales. Perhaps surprising is the report’s sparse discussion of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, which has been the focus of irrigators’ anger and denunciation by National Party leaders: Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro. In general terms, the Murray Darling Basin Plan was originally intended to make water management in the Murray Darling Basin more environmentally sustainable. Its critics see it as a restraint on development, and complain it has taken water away from irrigators during a time of extreme drought. In response to McCormack and Barliaro’s criticisms of the plan in late 2019, federal water minister (and senior National Party figure) David Littleproud commissioned Mick Keelty as Interim Inspector General of MDB Water Resources. For the new report, Keelty investigated the changing distribution of “inflows” – water flowing into the River Murray in the southern states. Climate change has brought the inflow to just a trickle. This dramatic reduction over the past 20 years is what Keelty has described as “the most telling finding”. He also investigated the reserve policies under which the three states choose – or don’t choose – to hold back water in Hume and Dartmouth Dams to manage future droughts. Keelty says there’s little transparency or clarity about how much water states are allocated under the Murray Darling Basin Agreement (the arrangement for sharing water between the states which underpins the Basin Plan). This failure in communication and leadership across such a vital system must change. Sharing water across three statesOne major finding of Keelty’s inquiry is that the federal government has little power to change the MDB Agreement between the three states, which was first approved in 1914-15. Any amendment requires the approval of all three governments. To increase the volume of water provided to NSW irrigators, South Australia and Victoria would need to agree to reduce the volumes supplied to their own entitlement holders. That will not happen. Why has the agreement lasted so long? Over the past century it has proved robust under a wide range of conditions. Its central principle is to share water with a proportion-of-available-flow formula, giving each state a percentage of whatever is available, no matter whether it’s a lot, or not much. After receiving its share of the River Murray flows, each state is then free to manage its allocation as it wishes. …… Reliability of water supply What’s more, each state makes its own decision about how its state allocation is shared between its entitlement holders (95% of water goes to irrigators the rest supplies towns and industry). South Australia chooses to distribute a much smaller proportion to its entitlement holders than New South Wales. It also restricted the number of licences in the 1970s. That combination ensures a very high level of reliability in supply. Victoria took a similar approach…….. When climate change is taken into account these differences between the three states result in their irrigators having significantly different risk profiles. The climate change threat to the basin is very realDespite climate denial in the National Party, the threat is very real in the MDB. The report describes a massive reduction in inflows over the past 20 years, approximately half compared with the previous century. One drought could be an aberration, but two begins to look like a pattern. The report also suggests that in many cases irrigator expectations of what should be normal were formed during the wet period Australia experienced between the second world war and the 1990s. Added to this have been business decisions by many irrigators to sell their entitlements and rely on the water market, a business model based on what now seems like unrealistic inflow expectations. In effect, successive New South Wales governments – a significant part of the state’s irrigation sector in the southern part of the state and the National Party – gambled against the climate and are now paying a high price. In desperation, they’re focusing on alternative sources. This includes the water in Hume and Dartmouth held under the reserves policy of the two other states; environmental entitlements managed by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder; the very large volume of water lost to evaporation in the lower lakes in South Australia; and the possibility of savings resulting from changes to management of the system by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Failure in leadership and communicationFor reasons already outlined, the state reserves policy is not likely to change and use of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder environmental water entitlements would not be permitted under current legislation. Management of the lower lakes is being reviewed through another investigation so is not discussed in the report. The report also states that management of the MDB Authority is subject to regular detailed assessment by state governments, and they have assessed its performance as satisfactory. However the report was critical of the performance of all MDB governments with regard to leadership and communications suggesting that failures in those areas were largely responsible for the public concern which triggered its investigation. https://theconversation.com/no-water-no-leadership-new-murray-darling-basin-report-reveals-states-climate-gamble-136514 |
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With dry and windy conditions, new areas of ‘smoldering’ reported near Chernobyl nuclear plant
The fire began to burn in the region back on April 3, near the town of Pripyat, located over two hours north of the country’s capital of Kiev and near the border with Belarus.
Police say they arrested a 27-year-old man who is being accused of starting the fire last week. On Monday, police said that another local resident burned waste and accidentally set dry grass ablaze.
The location of the fire was reportedly only one kilometer (less than one mile) away from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world’s largest nuclear catastrophe back in April 1986.
However, Greenpeace Russia, on Monday, warned that the fire being in close proximity of the power plant posed a radiation risk.
“Higher-than-usual” radiation levels were first reported by the AP on April 5, and are being carefully monitored as the fire continues.
According to Reuters, Chernobyl tour operator, Yaroslav Yemelianenko, shared on Facebook that the fire was only two kilometers away from where “the most highly active radiation waste of the whole Chernobyl zone is located.” He called on officials to warn people of the danger.
Emergency services said on Tuesday morning that there were still some acreage “smoldering” in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, but that the zone contained no open fire.
Acting Chairman of the State Environmental Inspectorate, Yegor Firsov, later said that the fire in the Chernobyl exclusion zone was extinguished, and cited some rain that moved through the region as one helpful factor.
Hundreds of firefighters, as well as several planes and helicopters, battled the blaze for 10 days.
………Strong winds increased the difficulty in containing what’s left of the blaze and new areas of “smoldering” were reported in the Exclusion Zone, but did not pose a threat to any critical facilities, reported officials……..
Dry weather across much of eastern Europe has allowed for a more volatile environment for fire to thrive.
Through April 13, only two percent of the month’s normal rainfall has fallen in Kiev. Since the beginning of 2020, the city has been much drier than normal, only recording 81 mm of rain instead of the average 150 mm.
The dry weather has also caused crop losses already this year across Ukraine, with further damage possible should the dry stretch continue.
Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.
April 17 Energy News — geoharvey
Opinion: ¶ “Coronavirus And The Fragility Of Auto-Centric Cities” • The coronavirus has exposed the ills of continued automobile-centric urban planning practices that adversely impact equity, health, and the climate. Some of us can work at home and conveniently make grocery runs in our automobiles. But many in this country are not so lucky. [CleanTechnica] […]
Thousands rush to S.A. home battery scheme before subsidy winds back — RenewEconomy
More than 5,000 solar households apply for battery subsidy in just five weeks, in a last-minute rush to access a $6000 discount via state government home storage scheme. The post Thousands rush to S.A. home battery scheme before subsidy winds back appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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Nuclear Business as Usual — Mining Awareness +
While other small business go the wall as collateral fallout of COVID19 , the military and civil nuclear global industrial complex continues with business as usual and even seeks to benefit from the pandemic. Here in Cumbria the BAE shipyard at Barrow continues to build its next generation Weapons of Mass Destruction – nuclear submarines…
ARENA future clouded as Taylor fudges on board appointments — RenewEconomy
Future of ARENA remains uncertain after energy minister chooses to renew terms of existing board for only three months. The post ARENA future clouded as Taylor fudges on board appointments appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via ARENA future clouded as Taylor fudges on board appointments — RenewEconomy
April 16 Energy News — geoharvey
Science and Technology: ¶ “Scientists Confirm Dramatic Melting Of Greenland Ice Sheet” • Greenland’s ice sheet melted dramatically in the summer of 2019, researchers confirmed. A study reveals the loss was largely down to a persistent zone of high pressure. If such high pressure zones become regular weather features, future melting could be twice as […]
Australians installed 22,661 home battery systems in 2019 — RenewEconomy
Australian households invested in almost two-and-a-half “Big Batteries” worth of home energy storage in 2019, installing 22,661 systems over the course of the year with a total capacity of 233MWh, and taking further control over their energy supply. The post Australians installed 22,661 home battery systems in 2019 appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Australians installed 22,661 home battery systems in 2019 — RenewEconomy
SA Water to build solar farm on former oil refinery site — RenewEconomy
SA Water to build a solar farm on a former oil refinery site to help power the Adelaide desalination plant. The post SA Water to build solar farm on former oil refinery site appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via SA Water to build solar farm on former oil refinery site — RenewEconomy
Climate Change Authority launches review into stalled Emissions Reduction Fund — RenewEconomy
Climate Change Authority launches a fresh review of the Morrison Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund, following flatlining project participation. The post Climate Change Authority launches review into stalled Emissions Reduction Fund appeared first on RenewEconomy.
via Climate Change Authority launches review into stalled Emissions Reduction Fund — RenewEconomy
Australia deploying new renewables at ten times global average — RenewEconomy
New report confirms special status of Australia as “global pathfinder” for renewable energy, deploying new wind and solar 10 times faster per capita than the global average. The post Australia deploying new renewables at ten times global average appeared first on RenewEconomy.
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