Australia doesn’t ‘get’ the environmental challenges faced by Pacific Islanders http://theconversation.com/australia-doesnt-get-the-environmental-challenges-faced-by-pacific-islanders-81995 Steven Cork, Adjunct Associate Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Kate Auty, Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Melbourne, August 7, 2017 What actions are required to implement nature-based solutions to Oceania’s most pressing sustainability challenges? That’s the question addressed by the recently released Brisbane Declaration on ecosystem services and sustainability in Oceania.
There once was an Island
Compiled following a forum earlier this year in Brisbane, featuring researchers, politicians and community leaders, the declaration suggests that Australia can help Pacific Island communities in a much wider range of ways than simply responding to disasters such as tropical cyclones.
Many of the insights offered at the forum were shocking, especially for Australians. Over the past few years, many articles, including several on The Conversation, have highlighted the losses of beaches, villages and whole islands in the region, including in the Solomons, Catarets, Takuu Atoll and Torres Strait, as sea level has risen. But the forum in Brisbane highlighted how little many Australians understand about the implications of these events.
Over the past decade, Australia has experienced a range of extreme weather events, including Tropical Cyclone Debbie, which hit Queensland in the very week that the forum was in progress. People who have been directly affected by these events can understand the deep emotional trauma that accompanies damage to life and property.
At the forum, people from several Pacific nations spoke personally about how the tragedy of sea-level rise is impacting life, culture and nature for Pacific Islanders.
One story, which has become the focus of the play Mama’s Bones, told of the deep emotional suffering that results when islanders are forced to move from the land that holds their ancestors’ remains.
The forum also featured a screening of the film There Once Was an Island, which documents people living on the remote Takuu Atoll as they attempt to deal with the impact of rising seas on their 600-strong island community. Released in 2011, it shows how Pacific Islanders are already struggling with the pressure to relocate, the perils of moving to new homes far away, and the potentially painful fragmentation of families and community that will result.
Their culture is demonstrably under threat, yet many of the people featured in the film said they receive little government or international help in facing these upheavals. Australia’s foreign aid budgets have since shrunk even further.
As Stella Miria-Robinson, representing the Pacific Islands Council of Queensland, reminded participants at the forum, the losses faced by Pacific Islanders are at least partly due to the emissions-intensive lifestyles enjoyed by people in developed countries.
Australia’s role
What can Australians do to help? Obviously, encouraging informed debate about aid and immigration policies is an important first step. As public policy researchers Susan Nicholls and Leanne Glenny have noted, in relation to the 2003 Canberra bushfires, Australians understand so-called “hard hat” responses to crises (such as fixing the electricity, phones, water, roads and other infrastructure) much better than “soft hat” responses such as supporting the psychological recovery of those affected.
Similarly, participants in the Brisbane forum noted that Australian aid to Pacific nations is typically tied to hard-hat advice from consultants based in Australia. This means that soft-hat issues – like providing islanders with education and culturally appropriate psychological services – are under-supported.
The Brisbane Declaration calls on governments, aid agencies, academics and international development organisations to do better. Among a series of recommendations aimed at preserving Pacific Island communities and ecosystems, it calls for the agencies to “actively incorporate indigenous and local knowledge” in their plans.
At the heart of the recommendations is the need to establish mechanisms for ongoing conversations among Oceanic nations, to improve not only understanding of each others’ cultures but of people’s relationships with the environment. Key to these conversations is the development of a common language about the social and cultural, as well as economic, meaning of the natural environment to people, and the building of capacity among all nations to engage in productive dialogue (that is, both speaking and listening).
This capacity involves not only training in relevant skills, but also establishing relevant networks, collecting and sharing appropriate information, and acknowledging the importance of indigenous and local knowledge.
Apart from the recognition that Australians have some way to go to put themselves in the shoes of our Pacific neighbours, it is very clear that these neighbours, through the challenges they have already faced, have many valuable insights that can help Australia develop policies, governance arrangements and management approaches in our quest to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
This article was co-written by Simone Maynard, Forum Coordinator and Ecosystem Services Thematic Group Lead, IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management.
Another 93MW of solar PV was installed on Australian homes and business in the month of July, as booming markets in every state continue to deliver the nation’s best year to date, with a total of 568MW installed so far in 2017.
In its latest monthly market update, solar analysts Sunwiz said the solar PV market had maintained the record-breaking momentum of the previous two months, painting a picture of “a market that is level – at exceptionally high levels.”
According to Sunwiz, this July marked the second highest ever for registrations in that month, maintaining the record solar tally for any year to date that has put the market 47 per cent ahead of the same time last year.
The report notes that part of the reason for this sustained PV market momentum is that every state is doing so well at the same time, not least Western Australia, which is having its best ever start to the year.
Of course, one significant down-side to the booming installation market has been the sudden drop in small-scale renewable energy certificate (STC) prices – which, as we reported here, caught many PV installers off-guard and pushed up the cost of installing solar by around 10 per cent for households and small business.
According to Sunwiz, STC prices – which last month fell from around $40 to as low as $26 – are likely to keep falling as long as the STC creation rate continues to exceed the target, “something we feel is very likely to happen,” it says.
“So expect a soft STC price that will only turn north in early 2018.”
Elsewhere, the report notes that commercial solar systems of larger than 10kW notched up record high monthly and tri-monthly figures, with 33 per cent of volume in June down to commercial installations.
In July the proportion of commercial fell slightly to 31 per cent, as the volume in the 6-10kW range expanded to 20 per cent of the market.
NSW again led the pack on commercial installs, although it was briefly overtaken by Victoria and then Queensland, “but rounded out July on top again” after Victoria stalled and then Queensland fell, the report says.
In the residential market, average rooftop solar system sizes remained steady at and average of 6.5kW, sustaining a new record.
Equis plans 1,000MW solar farm in heart of Queensland’s gas country, REneweconomy By Giles Parkinson on 7 August 2017 Singapore-based renewable energy developer Equis Energy has announced plans to build a 1,000MW solar farm – which would be Australia’s largest – in the heart of Queensland’s coal and gas region in the Surat Basin.
The Wandoan solar farm, to be built near the town of the same name, adds considerably to the huge pipeline of wind and solar projects in Queensland, which now stands at more than 4,000MW.
Wandoan won approval from the Western Downs Council late last week and will begin construction when the first of several negotiations on off-take agreements is complete.
The $1.5 billion project is expected to be built in stages, and Equis could go bigger – this plant is likely to cover 1,400 hectares but is has more than 5000 hectares available.
Equis is taking advantage of existing infrastructure, including new transmission assets, which has been built to support the gas industry. Demand for energy is highest in the region because of the gas export industry.
Equis is also planning to build the 127MW Tailem Bend solar project in South Australia, to be built near a 28M diesel plant owned by Snowy Hydro.
That solar farm will begin construction when negotiations for contracts are concluded, and Equis also has an interest in the 150MW Collinsville north solar farm, where PPAs are also under construction, and other projects in the pipeline in South Australia and NSW.
All project are considered to be “battery storage ready”…….
Why doesn’t this otherwise excellent article mention green energy supplied by Powershop? I’m poor and I use renewable energy, (on scheme that supports community projects, too) from Powershop.
Poor households are locked out of green energy, unless governments help, REneweconomy, By Alan Pears on 7 August 2017, The Conversation
The underlying issue is the fundamental change in energy solutions. As I pointed out in my previous column, we are moving away from investment by governments and large businesses in big power stations and centralised supply, and towards a distributed, diversified and more complex energy system. As a result, there is a growing focus on “behind the meter” technologies that save, store or produce energy.
What this means is that anyone who does not have access to capital, or is uninformed, disempowered or passive risks being disadvantaged – unless governments act.
The reality is that energy-efficient appliances and buildings, rooftop solar, and increasingly energy storage, are cost-effective. They save households money through energy savings, improved health, and improved performance in comparison with buying grid electricity or gas. But if you can’t buy them, you can’t benefit.
In the past, financial institutions loaned money to governments or big businesses to build power stations and gas supply systems. Now we need mechanisms to give all households and businesses access to loans to fund the new energy system.
Households that cannot meet commercial borrowing criteria, or are disempowered – such as tenants, those under financial stress, or those who are disengaged for other reasons – need help.
Queensland Resources Council denies urging Great Barrier Reef experts to ignore climate change, ABC, By Louisa Rebgetz, 2 Aug 17, The mining industry’s lobby group urged key advisors on the Great Barrier Reef not to consider climate change in the Reef 2050 plan, according to documents.
However, the Queensland Resources Council (QRC) said its position on climate change had been misrepresented in the notes, taken at Reef Advisory Committee (RAC) meetings in May this year.
The RAC’s role is to advise marine park authorities on ways to address risks to the reef and to assist with policy development.
The ABC has obtained an earlier copy of two reports by the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel and the RAC from meetings to advise on responding to mass coral bleaching events on the reef.
Committee members expressed the view both the Australian and Queensland Government’s position on coal extraction was “not consistent with its position on protecting the Great Barrier Reef” and stated the Adani’s Carmichael coal mine “should not proceed”.
The documents contained notes detailing the QRC’s position and stated the QRC did not support the committee making statements regarding climate change.
According to the notes, the QRC argued there was no direct scientific link between coal mining and climate change.
Climate change a serious threat to national security: Climate Council http://www.mygc.com.au/climate-change-serious-threat-national-security-climate-council/, 5 Aug 17 INTENSIFYING climate change poses a serious threat to Australia’s national security and we are not sufficiently prepared, according to a new submission released from the Climate Council.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzies said urgent reforms are needed in order for Australia’s defence forces to deal with the vast and far-reaching impacts of climate change.
She warns more resources and stronger planning is needed to enable the defence force to tackle the increasing threat as extreme weather events, such as bushfires, floods and cyclones become more intense. “The Australian Defence force will have to play an increasing role at home and in the Pacific as extreme weather events become more frequent and forceful,” Ms McKenzies said.
“This requires more resources and strong planning. To bury our heads in the sand would risk not being able to cope effectively.
“When it comes to tackling this threat, Australia is at risk of being labelled Missing In Action, all while the UK and US militaries have spent years preparing for intensifying climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels.”
It comes after 2016 was named the hottest year on earth, smashing consecutive records set in 2015 and 2014, as a result of rising greenhouse gas levels from the burning of coal, oil and gas. See below story.
McKenzie said the Climate Council’s recommendations span from military planning and operations, through to training, testing and acquisition.
“These recommendations have already been rolled out and implemented in the US and the UK. Australia cannot ignore these critical footsteps already taken by our strategic allies,” she said.
“We’ve even seen the fingerprints of climate change in Syria’s civil war. The country’s severe drought, which was exacerbated by climate change, contributed to instability in Syria.”
“This should serve as a warning signal for the Australian Defence Force. Australia and its military must be equipped and prepared in the face of worsening climate change.”
Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions soar in latest figures Figures reveal trend of increasing emissions since the carbon tax was repealed in 2014 and cast doubt on whether Australia can meet cuts in Paris agreement, Guardian, Michael Slezak, 5 Aug 17, Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising to the highest figures seen in years, according to official government figures, increasing 1.6% in the last quarter and 1% in the past year.
The country’s emissions in the year to March 2017 are the highest on record at 550.3m tonnes of CO2 equivalent when emissions from land use change are excluded – a sector where the government says its figures have a high degree of uncertainty.
The country’s emissions rose by 1.6m tonnes in the quarter to March 2017, or by 1.1% – a figure that is the same whether estimations of land use emissions are taken into account or not…….
The figures reveal a clear trend of increasing greenhouse gas emissions since the carbon tax was repealed in 2014 – a trend that runs counter to Australia’s international commitments…….
Canberra hoped that aiding Britain might be a step toward its own bomb.
Australia took tentative steps to go it alone. This included the Lucas Heights nuclear plant on Sydney’s southern fringe. Still Australia’s only reactor, it began its life researching, among other things, nuclear weapons
“We have the people, the knowledge, the history, the uranium and we still have Lucas Heights.”
Australia’s secret plans to have its own nuclear arsenal, AMERICA. Russia. China. Britain. The world’s most powerful countries all have nuclear arsenals — and few people know Australia was almost one of them,Benedict Brook@BenedictBrook, news.com.au, JULY 11, 2017 “…….A military expert has told news.com.au, that top secret plans were so advanced Australia was considered “top of the pile” of countries expected to acquire its own nuclear arsenal
It was 60 years ago that the last nuclear bomb was detonated in Australia, a British weapon at the Maralinga test site in South Australia.
If you look closely, evidence of Australia’s plans for its own nuke remain. A few hours south of Sydney, at picturesque Jervis Bay, a small road leads into the bush. By a boat ramp is a large car park.
However, this was never designed to be a place for tourists’ vehicles. Rather, it is the unfinished foundations of Australia’s first commercial nuclear power station.
The public were told it would revolutionise the country’s energy needs. The truth was it would enrich uranium for Australia’s atomic bombs.
Associate Professor Wayne Reynolds is a defence and foreign policy expert at the University of Newcastle and author of the book Australia’s Bid for the Atomic Bomb….. “We wanted to have a navy; in WWII we wanted access to heavy bombers; and so we wanted nuclear weapons. We wanted to maintain a strategic leading edge.”
Australia didn’t want to go it alone. During WWII, British and Australian experts had worked alongside their American counterparts on the Manhattan Project to build the world’s first atomic bomb.
The expectation was that the US would share the results with its allies.
“In 1946, the Americans changed that calculation by announcing they would not share any of the technology or weapons,” says Prof Reynolds. “Britain and Australia were cut out from the club”……. Many in the government harboured a desire for a joint “Empire” bomb produced between Australia, Britain, Canada and South Africa.
Despite the UK’s ownership of the bombs it detonated at Maralinga, Canberra hoped aiding Britain might be a step toward its own bomb. Certainly, no one underestimated Australia’s atom ambitions. “German, Italy, the Netherlands — all wanted nuclear weapons but Australia was top of the list because of our uranium resources, our scientists and our enrichment program,” Prof Reynolds says.
Australia took tentative steps to go it alone. This included the Lucas Heights nuclear plant on Sydney’s southern fringe. Still Australia’s only reactor, it began its life researching, among other things, nuclear weapons…..
In the early 1960s, the Menzies Government was discussing with the US the top secret “SEATO plan 4” which could have seen American bombs on Australian soil.
“This were absolutely not known by the public and plan 4 was only declassified thirty years later,” says Prof Reynolds.
…..In 1968, ex-RAAF pilot Gorton became Prime Minister. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) was already in the works. However, a big supporter of a homegrown nuclear deterrent, Gorton wanted to Australia to be on the “brink of manufacture” of a weapon, says Prof Reynolds…….
Gough Whitlam formally ended Australia’s atom ambitions by signing onto the NPT and tying the country’s security to the US…….
Prof Reynolds says it is unlikely Australia would seek to host nuclear bombs — its own or others. But history warns you to never say never.
Heading to the slopes this winter? Why much of the snow you’ll see comes from a machine, not the sky, ABC Rural , By Catherine McAloon, 5 Aug 17, With below average rain and warmer than usual temperatures, this Australian winter has produced conditions that would have once spelled disaster for the local ski industry.
But despite the mild conditions, it has been pretty much business as usual at many of the major alpine resorts, with visitor numbers tracking around average.
That is because Australian ski resorts have invested heavily in advancements in snowmaking machines that can produce enough snow to cover ski runs, even when Mother Nature provides no natural snowfall.
This season, for the first time, some mountains have introduced a new generation of snowmaking technology that can churn out machine-made snow in just about any weather conditions.
And with predictions climate change could slash Australia’s ski seasons, resorts are making big investments in ramping up their snowmaking equipment to ensure the industry can keep drawing tourists to alpine regions in the winter months……….
Coping with climate change Australian ski seasons have always been hugely variable from year to year, but the long-term trend for natural snowfall is towards declining levels of natural snowfall.The CSIRO’s latest climate change modellingpredicts, under a low-risk scenario, the average snow season across Victoria and some of New South Wales will become 20 to 55 days shorter and, under a worst-case scenario, 30 to 80 days shorter.
Donald Trump’s environment boss Scott Pruitt heading to Australia, ABC News , Exclusive by defence reporter Andrew Greene, 4 Aug 17, A climate science critic and one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration will soon tour Australia in a visit environmental activists are likely to target with protests.
Key points:
Critics accuse Pruitt of trying to weaken the EPA
Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly says Australia should welcome Pruitt “with open arms”
Greenpeace says visit could spark protests and is not helpful for Australia as it tackles climate change policy
Critics accuse the former Oklahoma attorney-general of trying to weaken the EPA since assuming his role as administrator in February.
The ABC has confirmed the Republican politician is scheduled to fly to Australia this year, joining other Trump administration figures who have already made the journey, including Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defence James Mattis.
Federal Government backbencher and climate change sceptic Craig Kelly has welcomed Mr Pruitt’s impending visit……..
Coal lobby hits peak denial on battery storage, renewables
Australia’s biggest coal miner and leading research organisation come up with ridiculous claims on battery storage in attempts to justify new coal plants and CCS.
Another attack on the Bureau, but top politicians have stopped listening to climate change denial, The Conversation Michael J. I. Brown Associate professor, Monash University, August 4, 2017 Has the Australian climate change debate changed? You could be forgiven for thinking the answer is no.
Those at the top of Australian politics are no longer debating the existence of climate change and its causes. Instead, four years after the Coalition was first elected, the big political issues are rising power prices and the electricity market. What’s happening?
A few years ago, rejection of climate science was part of the Australian political mainstream. In 2013, the then prime minister Tony Abbott repeated a common but flawed climate change denial argument:
Australia has had fires and floods since the beginning of time. We’ve had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we’ve recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic [sic] global warming.
Abbott’s statement dodges a key issue. While fires and floods have always occurred, climate change can still alter their frequency and severity. In 2013, government politicians and advisers, such as Dennis Jensen and Maurice Newman, weren’t shy about rejecting climate science either.
The atmosphere is different in 2017, and I’m not just talking about CO₂ levels. Tony Abbott is no longer prime minister, Dennis Jensen lost preselection and his seat, and Maurice Newman is no longer the prime minister’s business advisor.
Which Australian politician most vocally rejects climate science now? It isn’t the prime minister or members of the Coalition, but One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. In Australia, open rejection of human-induced climate change has moved to the political fringe……..
Have those who rejected global warming and its causes changed their tune? In general, no. They still imagine that scientists are up to no good. The Australian’s latest attacks on the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) illustrate this, especially as they are markedly similar to accusations made in the same newspaper three years ago.
This week, the newspaper’s environment editor Graham Lloyd wrote that the BoM was “caught tampering” with temperature logs, on the basis of measurements of cold temperatures on two July nights at Goulburn and Thredbo. For these nights, discrepant temperatures were in public BoM databases due to automated weather stations that stopped reporting data. The data points were flagged for BoM staff to verify, but in the meantime an amateur meteorologist contacted Lloyd and the Institute of Public Affairs’ Jennifer Marohasy.
In 2014, Lloyd cast doubt on the BoM’s climate record by attacking the process of “homogenisation,” with a particular emphasis on data from weather stations in Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke. Homogenisationis used to produce a continuous temperature record from measurements that may suffer from artificial discontinuities, such as in the case of weather stations that have been upgraded or moved from, say, a post office to an airport.
Lloyd’s articles from this week and 2014 are beat-ups, for similar reasons. The BoM’s ACORN-SAT long-term temperature record is compiled using daily measurements from 112 weather stations. Even Lloyd acknowledges that those 112 stations don’t include Goulburn and Thredbo. While Rutherglen, Amberley and Bourke do contribute to ACORN-SAT, homogenisation of their data (and that of other weather stations) does little to change the warming trend measured across Australia. Australia has warmed over the past century, and The Australian’s campaigns won’t change that…….
The Queensland state government has commissioned the QCoast2100 program. This program aims to help with the development of coastal climate adaptation plans for Queensland communities exposed to sea-level rise.
Although the largest population centres in Queensland are in the state’s southeast, several of the most populous regional centres in Australia are located along the Great Barrier Reef coastline between Gladstone and Cape York. These include Townsville, Cairns, Gladstone, Mackay and Port Douglas.
A major task in developing coastal adaptation plans under the QCoast2100 program is to model inundation from a range of scenarios for sea-level rises and assess how assets will be inundated in the future. However, another threat is on the horizon.
How urban centres are protected
Urban centres along the reef’s coastline, which forms the majority of the Queensland coast, are protected from major ocean storms by natural deposits of coastal sediments. These include dunes and associated vegetation such as coastal forests, wetlands and mangrove systems.
These natural features continue to exist largely because the Great Barrier Reef’s outer reefs dampen incoming ocean waves. Although exposed to the occasional cyclone – which can lead to short-term erosion at specific locations – much of the coastal zone inside the reef is slowly growing out into the sea.
This increasing buffer zone can form a natural barrier to coastal recession.
A recently released report estimated the total economic, social and icon asset value of the Great Barrier Reef at A$56 billion. By design, this report did not include many of the ecosystem services the reef provides. One of these is its role in reducing the energy of waves that impact the coastline behind the reef.
However, an earlier assessment of the total economic value of ecosystem services delivered by the reef estimated the present coastal protection benefit is worth at least A$10 billion.
Despite the inherent uncertainties in such assessments, it is clear the reef acts to reduce incoming wave energy and its impacts on cities and towns along much of the Queensland coastline. The total economic value of these benefits is in the billions of dollars.
What role is bleaching playing?
The Great Barrier Reef’s ability to keep protecting the Queensland shoreline, and communities living along it, depends upon the ability of individual reefs in the system to grow vertically to “keep up” with rising sea level.
The jury is still out on whether the outer reefs will be able to keep up with predicted rises. This is an active area of research.
However, it is clear reefs that are extensively affected by coral bleaching will struggle to maintain the essential processes required for productive reef-building. Many reefs are now experiencing net erosion.
Predictions of ocean warming suggest that bleaching events will become even more common in coming decades. Increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are also making the oceans more acidic, which makes it more difficult for organisms such as corals to maintain their skeletons, which are made of calcium carbonate. This mineral dissolves more rapidly with increasing acidification, reducing the reef’s capacity to recover from storm damage and coral bleaching.
Therefore, as bleaching events and acidification continue, the outer reefs that protect the Queensland coast from ocean waves will increasingly struggle to perform this function.
In turn, over time the Queensland coast will potentially suffer from more coastal erosion, which may increase the vulnerability of coastal infrastructure. This effect, combined with rising sea levels leading to more coastal inundation events, multiples the risks to coastal settlements and infrastructure.
Shortage of climate scientists ‘significant risk’ to Australia: Academy of Science, Australia’s ability to maintain world-class climate science research is being jeopardised by under-resourcing and a lack of staff, according to a new report by the Australian Academy of Science, SBS, By Marese O’Sullivan, 3 Aug 17,
The report by the Australian Academy of Science investigates the current arrangements for the country’s climate science workforce, assesses Australia’s capability to respond to new developments in the field in the future, and analyses how findings are communicated.
The study of climate science aims to understand atmospheric conditions and processes over an extended period of time, in a broader way than climate change science, and the country’s ability to assess climate science findings directly affects how the world can respond to climate change. Continue reading →
Focus on economy before climate deal, Glencore urges Australia, Perry Williams, SMH, 3 Aug 17 Australia may need to consider delaying its goals to combat global climate change in order to prioritise energy security and economic prosperity, according to a senior executive at Glencore.
Antinuclear 