USA- Australia co-operation on climate change action
Australia’s Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet, told the Carbon Expo conference in Melbourne on Friday that he was ”very pleased” with Mr Obama’s victory, and said he held already spoken on the issue with his US counterpart since the elections.
The minister has also been discussing the prospects of linking Australia’s planned market for greenhouse gas emissions with California. The biggest US state will auction its first pollution permits this week with the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to start on January 1.
Obama keen to tackle climate, The Age, November 12, 2012, Peter Hannam THE Australian government has wasted little time to sound out the newly re-elected Barack Obama over his administration’s climate change policies and the potential to work more closely together.
An issue excluded from the US presidential debates, the argument over global warming was revived when superstorm Sandy slammed into north-eastern US states a week before polling day, leaving a damage bill some expect to exceed $US50 billion ($A48 billion).
Mr Obama signalled his intention to tackle climate change in his second term during his acceptance speech in Chicago, where he underlined the issue as among his top priorities.
”We want our children to live in an America that isn’t burdened by debt; that isn’t weakened by inequality; that isn’t threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet,” he said. Continue reading
United Nations praise for Australia’s lead on climate action, and signing Kyoto Protocol
UN leader praises Australia’s climate lead http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/un-leader-praises-australias-climate-lead/story-e6frf7k6-1226514100428 AAP November 10, 2012, UN leader Ban Ki-moon has called for “urgent” action on measures to counter climate change, as he praised Australia for signing on to a new round of the Kyoto Protocol environmental protection treaty.
Ban called on other governments to follow Australia’s example and “congratulates Prime Minister Gillard for her leadership,” said a UN spokesman, Farhan Haq.
“Addressing climate change is fundamental for achieving sustainable development. Urgent action is needed,” Ban was quoted as saying on Friday. “The secretary general calls on all governments to take decisive steps against climate change at the upcoming Climate Change Conference” in Qatar, said the spokesman.
Australia, one of the world’s biggest per capita polluters, earlier announced that it was ready to join a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol. So far, only the European Union and some smaller economies have signalled they are ready to agree new pledges.
Annual negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) start in Qatar on November 26.
Australia to sign up to new Kyoto Treaty (in a rather cautious way)
Australia ready to join ‘Kyoto 2’ climate agreement, Tom Arup Nov 09, 2012. The Age AUSTRALIA will sign up to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol, joining the European Union and just a handful of other major
greenhouse gas emitters in recommitting to the world’s only climate treaty.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet will announce the decision on Friday in Melbourne, saying there has been sufficient progress in international talks to make the commitment, with some conditions.
It is understood he will also say the decision ensures business has access to cheap international offset credits (mainly created through clean energy projects in developing countries) to help meet domestic greenhouse targets.
The Kyoto Protocol was first negotiated by countries in 1997 and required wealthy nations to limit their emission of greenhouse gases. It is due to expire at the end of this year. Through UN climate change negotiations, countries have agreed to work on a replacement treaty. If successful, it would be agreed by 2015 and take effect in 2020. Unlike Kyoto, it would include emissions targets for wealthy nations and developing nations such as China and India.
At climate negotiations in South Africa last year, countries also agreed to a second round of the Kyoto Protocol until a new treaty takes effect. The European Union and a handful of small wealthy countries have committed to a second Kyoto, but some major wealthy nations including the US, Russia and Japan are refusing to sign
on…..
Australia’s support for a second Kyoto round comes with conditions, including progress on a post-2020 deal and a desire that the second round last until 2020, rather than 2017 as some developing nations proposed.
Canberra also wants rules letting it carry over some or all of about 80 million tonnes of surplus carbon permits under the protocol’s first round, which let it increase emissions by 8 per cent between 1990 and 2012. The carry-over permits could then count towards Australia’s 2020 emissions target.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/australia-ready-to-join-kyoto-2-climate-agreement-20121108-290×6.html#ixzz2Bkm3ObOr
Parramatta riverside sites under threat from rising sea levels
Rising sea a threat to riverside homes November 3, 2012 SMH Nicole Hasham WATER will swamp homes and businesses from Haberfield to Homebush as rising sea levels inundate the Parramatta River foreshore over the next century, a new analysis shows. The findings are critical as valuable river frontage becomes increasingly urbanised and former industrial sites are redeveloped into housing. Continue reading
Time for Australia to sign up to the new Kyoto Protocol
Sign on now, UN climate chief says October 25, 2012 THE United Nations climate chief has called on Australia to sign up to a new round of the greenhouse-gas-limiting Kyoto Protocol, saying it already has significant clean-energy
policies in place.
EU likely to exceed Kyoto carbon-cut target
”From a national perspective it wouldn’t change that much what Australia is already doing,” the head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, said in Sydney. ”It would send a very clear message internationally that what Australia is doing at a national level is actually contributing to global interests.”
The comments by Ms Figueres come as the government weighs joining the federal opposition in backing a second round of the 1997 climate treaty. The current period of the Kyoto Protocol, under which most developed nations pledged to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, lapses at the end of the year. Continue reading
Scientists must not downplay the seriousness of Antarctic ice melting
parts of the Antarctic ice caps were melting at unprecedented rates.
“The role of scientists is not to be alarmists, and not to downplay the data, but simply to report it.”
Antarctic climate facing ‘rapid’ changes: chief scientist, The Age, October 16, 2012 -Australia’s chief Antarctic scientist says claims by climate experts about environmental changes in the southern continent are not alarmist.
The Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) told a Senate estimates hearing today “rapid changes” taking place across the icy land mass would have significant impact on global climate.
Changes in ocean flows and shifts in Antarctic ice cap levels were occurring at rates faster than at any other time in history, chief scientist Nick Gales said. “That’s the part that is the most dramatic about the information we’re receiving,” he told the hearing. Continue reading
Australia’s Institute of Public Affairs campaigning to deny climate change
IPA goes up the greasy Delingpole for cash http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/environment/ipa-goes-up-the-delingpole-for-cash/ 14 September, 2012 The IPA are grubbing for donations to fund their tireless campaign to stymie action on climate change — and are happy to fly out even the most obnoxious deniers from the UK to assist. Graham Readfearn reports.JAMES DELINGPOLE is a UK columnist waging a long personal jihad against wind farms, environmentalists and climate science.
A resident blogger and columnist at London’s Daily Telegraph, Delingpole is probably best known for being among the first mainstream columnists to declare – wrongly, of course – that emails illegally hacked from an influential climate research unit showed scientists were trying to con the public.
So he is the perfect person to be appealing for people to donate their cash to the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs, a free market think tank which has been working for about 20 years on a campaign to mislead the public about climate science and the impact of carbon pricing.
In the appeal, Delingpole lauds the IPA’s campaign against climate science and action on climate change. Readers of the appeal might be forgiven for thinking the IPA is struggling for cash. Says Delingpole:
James Delingpole
‘Their budget is always stretched. If you don’t give them money they’ll go broke.’
Yet the IPA’s most recent financial returns to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission suggest that, rather than scrambling around for spare change, the think-tank is, in fact, in rude financial health.
For the year ending June 2011, the ASIC documents show the IPA declared a before-tax profit of $217,000 with an income of $2.42 million. In 2010, the IPA’s income was $1.72 million, with before-tax profit of $203,000.
The IPA’s executive director John Roskam refuses to declare where the IPA’s money comes from……
Professor Bob Carter, the IPA’s science policy advisor, is also an advisor to the GWPF (as well as at least seven other climate sceptic groups), alongside fellow Australian “sceptic” Professor Ian Plimer, who has also made personal appeals for people to hand over cash to the IPA.
As I revealed in a story for The Guardian in March, the only known funder of the GWPF is Michael Hintze, an Australian-born, UK-based, hedge fund manager, donor to the UK Tory Party, and a man with a personal fortune of $1.4 billion, according to Forbes.
The IPA also has close ties to the billionaire set in the form of Gina Rinehart, the coal and iron ore mining magnate and world’s richest woman. In an address to “IPA members and friends”, Rinehart recently declared her concern that Australia was becoming too expensive, given that “Africans want to work, and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day”. The comments prompted a Ugandan television personality to declare Rinehart was “removed from reality“.
The IPA is currently working in partnership with Rinehart’s lobby group Australians for Northern Development & Economic Vision, which wants a separate low-tax economic zone for the north of Australia to make it cheaper to run major mining projects.
In 2012 a tipping point in the change to renewable energy for Australia
We’ve hit energy tipping point: Flannery THE AUSTRALIAN, AAP August 14, CLIMATE change campaigner Tim Flannery says 2012 will be seen as a tipping point in the fight against rising carbon dioxide levels.
Advances in clean energy technologies, increasing global investment, the drop in price of those technologies and growing public support point to the dawn of the clean energy era, Australia’s chief climate commissioner says.
“Global investments in renewable power and fuels has increased six fold since just 2004, standing today at about $257 billion,” Professor Flannery told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia function in Melbourne on Tuesday.
“We’re seeing investment in renewables now outpacing those of fossil fuels. “Some of these trends have only become evident in the last 12 months. I don’t think they’re going to go away and I think we’ll see this as the moment when things really started to move.”
Prof Flannery said the 75 per cent drop in the cost of producing solar panels over the past four years, and the subsequent take-up rate in Australian homes was evidence of the change locally….. “(Look at) Germany, with it’s 25 gigawatts of solar power, where the very best sunlight you get in Germany is about as good as our worst here in Australia – we have huge potential in that area.” http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/weve-hit-energy-tipping-point-flannery/story-fn3dxiwe-1226450269594
Australian scientists find that human activity has caused melanoma in fish
A whopping 15% of the fish surveyed had melanoma. … While 15% sounds high, Sweet and his colleagues believe it’s only a minimum estimate. “Once the cancer spreads further you would expect the fish to become quite sick, becoming less active and possibly feeding less, hence less likely to be caught. This suggests the actual percentage affected by the cancer is likely to be higher than observed in this study.”….
Fish with Melanoma – Our Enduring Environmental Legacy Scientific American. By Christie Wilcox | August 1, 2012 | We’ve all heard the horror stories. Melanoma is one of the most dangerous kinds of skin cancer, killing around 50,000 people worldwide every year. If caught early enough, it can be cured, but once it invades past the skin, it’s deadly. On the advice of doctors, we try to protect ourselves, donning floppy hats and coat upon coat of SPF 50 sunblock. We pick over our bodies in the mirror regularly, looking for dark, irregularly-shaped spots. . The recent rise in the incidence of skin cancer, though, is our own fault.
It is the result of our environmental hubris, a combination of a chemically-depleted ozone layer and our pathological obsession with a tanned physical appearance. Now, we’re becoming increasingly aware that our choices don’t just impact our own species. The rest of life has to deal with our poor decisions, and studies are just now determining the wide-ranging consequences of our actions.
Unable to slather on sunscreen, the creatures on our planet are much more limited in their ability to deal with the sun’s radiation…… Continue reading
Queensland’s Liberal-National Party policy on Climate Change- an international embarassment
Queensland and the weird alternate reality of climate change denialists Independent Australia, Graham Readfearn, 25 July, 2012 “….. we come to the latest episode, where Queensland’s currently in-power Liberal-National Party has accepted a motion that climate science shouldn’t be taught in schools. The proposer of the motion, which was accepted unanimously (but may not be taken up by the parliamentary wing of the party), is a Dr Richard Pearson, from Noosa.
It now appears that Dr Pearson has been conducting his own climate science experiments — at home, in his kitchen, armed only with thermometers, two fish cooler boxes and a roll of cling film. Some may find the results remarkable; you see, Dr Pearson believes he may have disproved the greenhouse effect (you may now pinch yourself).
We know this because he wrote about his experiment on the website of the climate sceptic group the Galileo Movement — whose patron is the noted climate expert (and radio presenter) Alan Jones. Dr Pearson’s conclusion?
‘That the Greenhouse Effect theory is not confirmed by this experiment and may be disproved by it.’
Now, even though the notion that a guy in his kitchen in Noosa armed with two eskies and a roll of cling film could single-handedly disprove the greenhouse theory may seem just a tad fanciful….
plausible to non-experts, such as the vast majority of the general public. At the end of his experiment, Dr Pearson recounts how his daughter had questioned how a man with cling film could “disprove a theory that hundreds of climate scientists around the world say is true”. “That my darling is science”, was Dr Pearson’s response. Is it really?…
Professor Matthew England, of the University of New South Wales Climate Change Research Centre and also chairman of the Australian Climate Commission’s science advisory panel, says the motion which Dr Pearson managed to get passed at the LNP’s state conference could have broad ramifications, if only for the state’s reputation.
If the proposal to remove greenhouse science from the school curriculum is enacted, Queensland’s education system will become an international joke overnight. Basic greenhouse gas physics has been established with around 200 years of scientific progress — any move to muzzle climate science facts from being taught at schools will be condemned as world’s worst practice in scientific education.
So if the Queensland Education Minister John Paul Langbroek does act on the motion from his party, then Prof England says the State will be a laughing stock. Until then, we’ll just have to settle for the majority of the members of the LNP. http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/queensland-and-the-weird-alternate-reality-of-climate-change-denialists/
Climate Change Denialism in full swing in Australia
The climate change denialists may soon to be running the asylum Independent Australia, 19 July, 2012 Anyone who places stock in safeguarding the current and future climate (and for that matter anyone who doesn’t) should prepare themselves for the risk that very soon, climate science deniers, contrarians and sceptics will be running the show, writes Graham Readfearn.
ALL the polls suggest that a Liberal-led coalition will sweep to power at next year’s Federal election in Australia — the world’s biggest exporter of coal and on track to be the biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas. Current Liberal leader Tony Abbott, if we care to remember, once described climate change as “crap“. Views shared among Abbott’s parliamentary coalition ranks are that climate science is a “leftist fad” and a “work of fiction”.
The Liberal-National Party’s new Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and his environment minister Andrew Powell are currently presiding over a massive boom in coal and gas projects. Both have said they’re unable to accept the evidence of human-caused climate change, going against the scientific findings of the country’s main science agency the CSIRO and the country’s Bureau of Meteorology, plus every major science academy on the planet. Continue reading
At last, a comprehensive and rational assessment of Australia’s climate policy
Little by little: the benefits of Australian climate policy, The Conversation, Roger Jones, 20 July “…..For climate, any action to permanently reduce greenhouse gas emissions in one region spreads the benefits across the globe. A global effort requires many good neighbours amongst countries who may not know each other well or trust each other very much.
Australia’s efforts to do its bit as a good neighbour are being opposed by an increasingly shrill and irrational chorus that includes politicians, industry figures, academics and a sizeable proportion of Australia’s print media….. Is Australia going it alone? No. Limited trading or tax schemes exist in the US, Canada, the EU, and Japan, and are soon to start up in regions of China, India, and South Korea. The rest of the world will learn from us, as we have learned from the Europeans to keep a tight limit on emissions permits. Good carbon accounting was largely developed in Australia.
In the same way that we have exported Landcare for good environmental management and sports science for running marathons, we can export our know-how in managing the climate. Naked self-interest and ignorance are the two biggest barriers to achieving this. http://theconversation.edu.au/little-by-little-the-benefits-of-australian-climate-policy-8259
70,000 scientists wrong about climate science, says Queensland’s Liberal/National Party
Scientists reject LNP school move http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/scientists-reject-lnp-school-move-20120713-221or.html#ixzz20dcQEzwx July 14, 2012 Adam Morton and Daniel Hurst A BODY representing nearly 70,000 Australian scientists has criticised a Queensland Liberal National Party resolution calling for mainstream climate science to be cut from the state’s school curriculum.
LNP delegates at the party’s state conference passed a motion yesterday calling on Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek to stop the teaching of ”environmental propaganda material, in particular post-normal science about climate change”. The mover of the motion, Noosa LNP member Richard Pearson, attacked ”false prophets who would poison the minds of our children in our schools”.
”Few people understand that the so-called science of climate change is really what can be defined as post-normal science,” he said, arguing it went beyond traditional understanding of science. The motion was passed with overwhelming support.
Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of Science & Technology Australia, called the resolution ”extremely harmful”. The central principles of climate science – including that man-made greenhouse gases trap heat in the lower atmosphere and have warmed the planet – were backed by all the world’s major scientific academies.
”The message this sends is ‘we do not treat the science as an issue of testing ideas, we treat it as a belief system’,” Ms Arabia said. ”We shouldn’t be telling students that testing ideas is propaganda and that there is ‘post-normal science’, whatever that means.” Queensland Premier Campbell Newman said MPs had not decided whether to act on the resolution. ”We will always do the right thing by Queenslanders ahead of the LNP,” he said.
Australian businesses don’t want repeal of carbon tax
The opposition climate spokesman, Greg Hunt, (left) repeated his prediction that if the Coalition won the next election, there would be no carbon price in Australia for the next 20 years.
Keith Orchison, a former head of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association, said Mr Hunt’s 20-year prediction was out of step with business. Investors in mining, power infrastructure and large manufacturing – which look 20 years or more ahead – were assuming a carbon price, he said.
Businesses reject Abbott’s vow to repeal carbon tax, SMH, July 7, 2012, David Wroe with Adam Morton and Paddy Doulman FEWER than a quarter of the biggest heavy greenhouse gas-emitting companies that will directly pay the carbon tax support Tony Abbott’s ”pledge in blood” to repeal the scheme, a survey by the Herald has found…
.The Herald asked 40 of the biggest emitters on the government’s list of 294 companies that will pay the carbon tax whether it was in their interests to repeal or change the scheme. Nine indicated they supported a repeal, Continue reading
When El Nino strikes, Australians will believe in global warming again, and in carbon tax?
This week, the weather bureau warned another El Nino event was looming for the coming year.
The last time Australia went through El Nino, the country had its worst drought in more than a century. Not surprisingly, many Australians drew a connection between the drought and climate change and the need for action.
El Nino may be good for Labor The West, Andrew Probyn July 6, 2012, Shhhh! Don’t mention the war. As the great heatwave struck the US, knocking off thousands of temperature records, Bob Henson, a meteorologist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, was asked this week whether any of this could be down to climate change.
“Climate change is a political question,” he told Fairfax’s US correspondent Nick O’Malley. “I thought it was a scientific question,” O’Malley responded. “Well, it’s both.”
This was a fascinating exchange. Especially in a week where scientists could confidently announce they had confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson, the so-called God particle. Comparatively speaking, there’s less evidence of the Higgs boson than there is of climate change, but we believed the scientists when they told us they had found the elusive subatomic particle that explained mass.
The fact that Mr Henson went straight to the politics of climate change, rather than going to the cause of climate change
(anthropomorphic or otherwise) speaks volumes for the success of the campaign against the so-called “warmists”….. Continue reading
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