Australians will cringe, when our govt gives its climate-denialist policy in Glascow
The Coalition’s climate policy is an international embarrassment https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-coalitions-climate-policy-is-an-international-embarrassment,13559
AT A RECENT Press Club lunch, Prime Minister Scott Morrison dug deep to defend the Coalition’s response to the national and global climate emergency by defending a policy which is essentially that of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s in 2013. Continue reading
Flooding events highlight the danger to proposed uranium mining sites Yeelirrie and Wiluna
K-A Garlick at Nuclear Free WA |
6 Feb 20, In an area where two uranium mines are proposed ~ Yeelirrie and Wiluna, there have been massive rain influx, leading to widespread floods across the Goldfields country.
Toro Energy Wiluna uranium project expands over two lake systems and over 100 kms. The project includes four uranium deposits – Lake Way, Centipede, Millipede and Lake Maitland.
The project proposal includes a high risk inappropriate site to attempt disposal of up to 50 million tonnes of radioactive tailings that would be stored in mined out pits on the edge of Lake Way in a floodplain and in the drainage channel of a creek.
The company’s studies of hydrogeology, hydrology and geochemistry were all heavily criticised in Peer Reviews submitted as part of the environmental assessment. With these floods today, the planned emplacement of 50 million tonnes of long-lived radioactive mine waste in a floodplain poses a very serious risk to the environment and public health.
In 2020 Adelaide City Council to become South Australia’s first carbon neutral local government
Renewable energy to fully power city council, INDAILY , Stephanie Richards, 5 Feb 20,
Adelaide City Council says it will become South Australia’s first carbon neutral local government by the end of this year following the signing of a “landmark” renewable power purchase agreement.
Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor this morning announced the council had entered into an agreement with Melbourne-based energy retailer Flow Power to source all its electricity from solar and wind power.
The contract means all council-owned infrastructure and buildings – including street lights, libraries, community centres and Town Hall – will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy from July.
The switch is expected to slash the council’s current carbon emissions – more than half of which are tied to electricity use – by 11,000 tonnes each year.
Verschoor told reporters this morning the agreement would result in a 20 per cent reduction to the council’s electricity costs, however she said she was “not allowed to talk dollars” due to commercial confidentiality.
She said the agreement would mean the council would become carbon neutral-certified by the end of this year, joining the already-certified Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne city councils.
Carbon neutrality, or having a net-zero carbon footprint, is achieved when the amount of greenhouse gas emissions emitted into the atmosphere is balanced by the amount being removed.
“This partnership will not only save our ratepayers money, it helps cement Adelaide’s international clean and green reputation,” Verschoor said…….. https://indaily.com.au/news/local/2020/02/05/renewable-energy-to-fully-power-city-council/
#ScottyFromMarketing “won’t be bullied” by climate science
Mr Morrison’s comments echoed those of his deputy prime minister during the height of the bushfire crisis.
In November, Mr McCormack attacked those who were linking climate change to the severity of the bushfires, labelling them “inner-city raving lunatics”
 Scott Morrison says he won’t be ‘bullied’ on climate by inner city voters, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/scott-morrison-says-he-won-t-be-bullied-on-climate-by-inner-city-voters Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he “won’t be bullied” into changing his government’s position on climate change as National MPs renew demands for more investment in coal.
5 Feb 20, BY TOM STAYNER
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared he won’t be “bullied” by inner-city voters as he downplayed concerns of a fresh climate war inside the Coalition. Continue reading
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Adani about to receive criminal conviction over false documents
Adani agrees to plead guilty to giving ‘false or misleading documents to an administering authority’, may be fined up to $3m
Key points:
- The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing in the Brisbane Magistrates Court
- It belatedly declared clearing land on its mine site after environmentalists complained to the government
- The company says it has been prosecuted for an “an administrative error”
Adani has agreed to plead guilty to giving “false or misleading documents to an administering authority”, according to the court file and sources familiar with the case.
The company’s Australian arm, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, is listed for sentencing today in the Brisbane Magistrates Court.
It faces a fine of up to $3 million if convicted under the Environmental Protection Act.
According to notes in the court file made by Magistrate Stephen Courtney and seen by the ABC, the matter is “to be [a] plea of guilty”.
In court papers, the Department of Environment and Science (DES) says Adani filed its annual return in March 2018 with a graph declaring it cleared no land on the Carmichael mine site, north-west of Clermont, in 2017-18.
The DES alleged it became aware of the offence six months later. It alleged Adani “knew or ought reasonably to have known [the document] was false or misleading” because it had planned and carried out land clearing before and during the reporting period.
On September 6, 2018, conservation group Coast and Country raised land clearing allegations with the State Government, citing satellite imagery.
State and federal environment department officials then inspected the site within days……..https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-06/adani-to-plead-guilty-court-qld/11932640
Greens leader Adam Bandt vows to hold torch to Coalition on climate
 Greens leader Adam Bandt vows to hold torch to Coalition on climate, The New Daily, 3 Feb 20, Adam Bandt has been elected unopposed as Greens leader following the surprise resignation of Richard Di Natale
The only Greens member in the lower house, Mr Bandt was formally endorsed by his federal party room colleagues in Canberra on Tuesday morning. He has promised to pursue a “Green New Deal” focused on including dental treatment in Medicare, making education free by abolishing public school fees, and replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. Mr Bandt aims to win the balance of power in the upper and lower houses of federal parliament at the next election. In the meantime, he intends to pressure the Morrison government to take stronger action on climate change. Mr Bandt labelled the Coalition government “criminal” for abolishing the carbon price under Tony Abbott and argued climate inaction was fanning the ongoing bushfire crisis. He also claimed big businesses were “killing people” by contributing to a “climate catastrophe”. Mr Bandt said the Greens would provide “real opposition” and hold the government to account He said the major parties were “singing from the same song sheet” on coal mining. “I’m not one of those people who says that Labor and the Liberals are the same,” he said, shortly after his election to the leadership. “But when it comes to coal, Labor is now using exactly the same terminology as the Liberals.” Queensland senator Larissa Waters will remain co-deputy of the party and will share the role with Tasmanian senator Nick McKim. Senator Waters will also be the Greens leader in the Senate……https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/politics/australian-politics/2020/02/04/adam-bandt-greens-leader/ |
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A reminder to South Australian govt that nuclear waste dumping is illegal there
Our laws are clear, there are ten year imprisonment penalties and multi million dollar fines for offences relating to planning and promotion and establishment and operation of a nuclear waste dump in South Australia – these are very serious penalties, in accord with the gravity of the threat.
These laws have been breached by recent bribery and deception activities … and there are clear public statements of intention to breach these laws further in the near future, recently moving from conspiring to breach the importation prohibition, to specifying a precise place where an illegal dump is planned, on farm land in the middle of a large area of precious farm land.
Please act to fight this evil criminal activity.
As specified in the legislation, this is a matter of acting “to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live by prohibiting the establishment of certain nuclear waste storage facilities in this State.”
(Nuclear Waste Storage Facility (Prohibition) Act 2000 https://www.legislation.sa.gov.au/…/NUCLEAR%20WASTE… )
Best wishes
from
Brett Stokes
resident of Willaston 5118
High Level Nuclear Waste: Believe Canavan’s Queensland mate or official sources?
DEFINITION OF HIGH LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE :
Source : US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) :
High-level radioactive wastes are the highly radioactive materials produced as a byproduct of the reactions that occur inside nuclear reactors. High-level wastes take one of two forms:
1) Spent (used) reactor fuel when it is accepted for disposal.
2) Waste materials remaining after spent fuel is reprocessed.
Source : International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) :
High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLW) is produced from the burning of uranium fuel in nuclear power reactors. It is of two kinds:
1) Spent nuclear fuel.
2) Waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel.
Due to its high radioactivity and very long half-life, HLW has to be well contained and isolated from the human environment.
RADIOACTIVE WASTE 10,000 X MORE RADIOACTIVE THAN URANIUM ORE
Source: Nuclear
#ScottyFromMarketing has no climate target, because he is controlled by climate denialists
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Scott Morrison’s missing target: climate https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/scott-morrison-s-missing-climate-target-20200203-p53x5g
If he is going to appease noisy climate change denialists, it would be better if the Prime Minister left emissions reduction policy to the states. Richard Denniss Columnist Scott Morrison loves long-run targets for everything except climate policy.The federal government has long-run targets for inflation (2 to 3 per cent), the budget surplus (1 per cent of gross domestic product) and net debt (zero). It’s got a long-run target for defence spending (2 per cent of GDP) and countless long-run targets when it comes to Indigenous disadvantage, education performance, aged care quality and foreign aid. But when it comes to reducing the amount of coal, oil and gas Australia burns, apparently long-run targets are an unnecessary distraction for an “action man” like Scotty from Marketing. Targets give business, consumers and other levels of government something clear to work towards. Energy sources, especially the coal and nuclear power stations that the Prime Minister likes the sound of, take years to plan, years to build and decades to pay for themselves. Targets give business more certainty but they also make governments accountable for performance, which is presumably why the Prime Minister is so determined to avoid them when it comes to carbon emissions. In his sermon to the National Press Club last week, he avoided committing to net zero emissions by 2050 on the basis that his “climate action agenda is a practical one, it goes beyond targets and summits”. But you can’t go “beyond” long-run targets without having first set them.
Morrison knows targets matter. That’s why his government targeted so many sports grants to marginal electorates, and it’s why he spends so much time talking about meeting and beating Tony Abbott’s 26 to 28 per cent Paris target. Scott knows that if you set the bar low enough you can easily clear it, and if you don’t set the bar at all you can do nothing at all. After six years in office, continuing to avoid long-run emissions targets makes the government’s job easier and the energy industry’s harder. The Prime Minister’s real problem with long-run climate targets is the long-run climate change deniers in the party he’s trying to lead. For 10 years the only way for a Liberal leader to survive has been to publicly promise to do something about climate change while privately promising not to. Morrison waved a lump of coal in Parliament when he wanted to destabilise Malcolm Turnbull, but today he waves his “climate action now” slogan to stabilise his slide in the polls. Ultimately, like the last five Liberal leaders, he will be impaled on the fence his party insists he sit on. Morrison’s new-found interest in hazard reduction is no substitute for spending his prime ministerial capital in international forums, trying to steer the world away from the 3 degrees of warning we are currently on track to experience. The state premiers are perfectly capable of raking the leaves, but only the federal government can negotiate on the nation’s behalf for more ambitious action. Which brings me back to targets. Back in 2016, the ACT set a target to source 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, and it’s already “meeting and beating” that goal and providing some of the cheapest electricity in Australia. The City of Sydney will be 100 per cent renewable by the end of this year and the state Coalition government of Gladys Berejiklian has committed NSW to net-zero emissions by 2050. In fact, every state in Australia is committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 – which, whether Scott Morrison likes it or not, means that Australia has committed to being carbon neutral by 2050. But rather than using those targets as leverage on the international stage, Morrison is undermining them on the domestic stage. If the Prime Minister was as interested in appeasing the quiet Australians as he was in appeasing the noisy climate denialists, he would welcome the bear hug the state premiers have wrapped him in and take credit for their ambition on the world stage while holding the premiers to account for their commitments back home. While a national approach to emissions reduction would be nice, the federal Coalition has shredded every initiative that has been put forward. Rather than take over more responsibilities from the states, Morrison would do better to leave climate and energy policy to them. The only thing stopping him from showing up at the next global climate talks and putting the states’ target of net zero by 2050 on the table is his backbench. |
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Pro nuclear stooge Minister Matt Canavan faces conflict-of-interest inquiry
 Matt Canavan faces conflict-of-interest inquiry over $20m club loan, SMH By David Crowe, February 3, 2020 The Morrison government is caught up in another inquiry into one of its own senior figures after Resources Minister Matt Canavan revealed a potential conflict of interest over a $20 million loan.Senator Canavan announced on Monday night he had not declared his link to the North Queensland Cowboys football club at the time it gained the loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility……..
Senator Canavan disclosed the inquiry at the same time he announced he had offered his resignation from the ministry because he would back former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce in a challenge against party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack. The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, or NAIF, is a key agency within Senator Canavan’s portfolio and was used last year to fund a multi-use training centre at the club……. The inquiry into the loan raises the prospect that Senator Canavan may remain outside the ministry whatever the outcome of the Nationals leadership ballot. The potential conflict has similarities with the resignation of former Nationals deputy leader Bridget McKenzie, who stood down because she had not disclosed her membership of a gun club when the club received money from the sports funding program she oversaw as minister……… https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/matt-canavan-faces-conflict-of-interest-inquiry-over-20m-club-loan-20200203-p53xez.html?fbclid=IwAR2SINUWJoXs791GHHySuwgvYFHG9YJRtCT-qtRYJGdmcVvUeXIBb2_P0yQ |
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Strong rally in Kimba, South Australia, against nuclear dump plan
SA community calls on government to scrap planned nuclear waste dump, SBS, 2 Feb 2020 Protesters are venting their anger at a nuclear waste dump proposed on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. Protesters are calling on the federal government to scrap a proposed nuclear waste dump on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula at a rally on Sunday.
The farming property Napandee near the town of Kimba was announced as the site of the radioactive facility on Saturday.
But the No Radioactive Waste on Agricultural Land in Kimba or SA committee says the community consultation process was flawed.
“Those opposed to the facility have had no choice but to fight, at every opportunity, for our legitimate concerns to be heard,” president Peter Woolford said…..
Federal Resources Minister Matthew Canavan said a decision on the site would be announced soon. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/sa-community-calls-on-government-to-scrap-planned-nuclear-waste-dump
A clear path to climate action for Australia
 The Princes Highway to climate action, SMH, Jono La Nauze 2 Feb 2020 In the past few weeks a clear path to real action on climate change has emerged. State and territory governments are aligning on the need for stronger climate policy.If the states act decisively and act together on setting emissions targets they can reduce pollution through an alternative route. Let’s call it the Princes Highway to climate action, because, like the famous road, it passes through the eastern capitals and deliberately avoids Canberra.
The biggest barrier to action has been a lack of political will and outright climate denialism in Federal Parliament, mainly from the Liberal and National parties. Even after the bushfires, the Prime Minister has tried to deflect attention from his party’s failure by focusing the debate on how we can “adapt” to a hotter, more chaotic climate, rather than cutting the pollution that causes it. But at the state level, things have been different. In recent weeks, senior Liberals have been speaking out about the need to cut pollution and have called for stronger climate policy – including the South Australian Premier, the outgoing and incoming Tasmanian premiers, the Victorian Opposition Leader and the NSW Climate and Energy Minister. In South Australia, the Liberal Party shifted a long time ago. When a freak storm toppled transmission lines and blacked out the state, the federal Coalition rolled out an aggressive misinformation campaign blaming the then Labor government’s renewable energy leadership. But when the Liberals came to power they didn’t follow their federal counterparts in trashing wind and solar – instead, they embraced it. “A lot of people thought when I got elected that we would be scaling back the state’s focus on renewable energy, when in fact we are putting the foot to the floor,” said Liberal Premier Steven Marshall on Friday. South Australia is now on track for 75 per cent renewable energy by 2025, and the Premier has linked the recent bushfires to climate change. Every single state and territory in the country has now set a goal of net zero emissions by 2050 – a long-term target the Prime Minister has so far rejected. Of course, the reality is that emissions cuts in the next five and 10 years will count the most. That’s why it’s critical that premiers such as Gladys Berejiklian and Daniel Andrews seize this moment to work with their fellow premiers on a national climate change strategy…….. This is a critical moment that could shift the national debate. If Victoria adopts emissions targets in line with the Paris Agreement, it is possible for other states to follow suit, passing similar legislation and creating a de-facto national climate change strategy – whether Scott Morrison decided to help out or not. In a few years, rather than being stuck in a stalemate at the federal level while temperatures rise and the country burns, we could have agreement between states and territories to get on with the job of lowering emissions and creating a safer future. https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-princes-highway-to-climate-action-20200131-p53wg6.html |
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Australian govt’s dodgy process, with “jobs promises” for getting support for Kimba nuclear waste dump.
Megan Jo I Fight To Stop A Nuclear Waste Dump In South Australia 3 Feb 2020 I feel empathy for the people that voted yes. I think they truly believe that the promises of jobs, safety and prosperity are going to materialise. Sure, the government has promised 45 jobs….. but the current definition of ‘employed’ is 1 hour per week. Australia’s extreme bushfires – forests might not recover
Wildfires have spread dramatically—and some forests may not recover. An explosion in the frequency and extent of wildfires worldwide is hindering recovery even in ecosystems that rely on natural blazes to survive. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/01/extreme-wildfires-reshaping-forests-worldwide-recovery-australia-climate/
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BY JOHN PICKRELL, JANUARY 30, 2020, Pungent and damp, the so-called tall, wet forests of southeastern Australia are home to the tallest flowering plants on Earth. Eucalyptus regnans, the Latin name of the mountain ash, means “ruler of the gum trees”—which is fitting, given these giants can reach more than 300 feet high.
Many of Australia’s gum trees, particularly those in drier forest types, are famously able to tolerate fire, throwing out new buds and shoots within weeks of being engulfed in flames. But even these tenacious species have their limits. Old-growth forests of the mountain ash and a related species, the alpine ash, are among the gum trees that are less tolerant of intense blazes. In the state of Victoria, these trees had already been severely depleted by logging and land clearing. Now, the bushfires that have burned more than 26 million acres of eastern Australia in recent months are putting the forests at even greater risk. Some of the forests razed this year have experienced four bushfires in the past 25 years, meaning they’ve had no chance to recover, says David Lindenmayer, an ecologist at the Australian National University in Canberra. “They should be burning no more than every 75 to 125 years, so that’s just an extraordinary change to fire regimes,” he says. “Mountain ash need to be about 15 to 30 years old before they can produce viable amounts of seed to replace themselves following fire.” The loss of these dominant trees is a significant problem, since they provide vital habitat for threatened animal species such as the sooty owl, the giant burrowing frog, and a fluffy arboreal marsupial called the greater glider. (Also find out how Australia’s fires can create big problems for freshwater supplies.) |
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Federal Government chooses Kimba farm Napandee on the Eyre Peninsula for nuclear dump
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Federal Government chooses Kimba farm Napandee on the Eyre Peninsula for nuclear dump, ABC, 1 Feb 2020
The Federal Government has selected a farm on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula as the site of a controversial nuclear waste dump. Key points:
Jeff Baldock’s Napandee property 20 kilometres west of Kimba will be used to permanently store low-level waste and temporarily store intermediate-level waste. The decision to use the 160-hectare area for what the Government calls a “disposal and storage facility” was made after four years of consultation. Nearly 62 per cent of people voted in favour of the site being used in November, while a site near Hawker in the Flinders Ranges was opposed by Aboriginal traditional owners and residents……. Dump to consolidate nuclear wasteLocal federal Liberal MP Rowan Ramsey said waste would come in from more than 100 sites around Australia, such as hospitals and universities, and the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney. Processed medium-level nuclear fuel rods from Lucas Heights will be temporarily stored at Kimba while a permanent site is found for them, he said. Mr Ramsey, who tried to nominate his own property near Kimba for the dump but was barred as a federal MP, said there would be no fly-in, fly-out workers at the facility……. Aboriginal group opposed the voteThe Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation launched legal action in 2018 against the District Council of Kimba, arguing it contravened the Racial Discrimination Act by excluding native title holders from a ballot due to be held that year. The Federal Court dismissed the claim last year because it said no contraventions of the Racial Discrimination Act had been established…….. The Howard government proposed a similar dump in South Australia in 1998 but withdrew its plans after losing a fight with the South Australian Labor government in the Federal Court. In 2007, a property called Mukaty Station in the Northern Territory was put forward to host the nuclear waste facility. The plan was abandoned in 2014, again because of legal action, this time by the area’s traditional owners. A group called No Radioactive Waste Facility for Kimba District held a rally against the decision in the town on Sunday.Friends of the Earth national nuclear campaigner Jim Green said the Federal Government promised the facility would not be approved unless it received at least 65 per cent of community support. “They’ve ignored the traditional owners, ignored South Australians. South Australia’s got legislation banning the imposition of nuclear waste dumps and that’s been ignored and it’s just disrespectful from start to finish,” he said. “South Australians have got greater ambitions for our state than to be someone else’s nuclear waste dump.”https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-01/kimba-farm-eyre-peninsula-chosen-for-nuclear-dump/11920514 |
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1 This month
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes – A good documentary on Chernobyl on SBS available On Demand for the next 3 weeks– https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/chernobyl-the-lost-tapes/235274195556
21 April Webinar: No Nuclear Weapons in Australia
Start: 2026-04-21 18:00:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
End: 2026-04-21 19:30:00 UTC Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney (GMT+10:00)
Event Type: Virtual
A virtual link will be communicated before the event.
Host Contact Info: australia@icanw.org
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 