Why this south-east Queensland council declared a ‘climate emergency’ https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/why-this-south-east-queensland-council-declared-a-climate-emergency-20190724-p52acd.html, By Tony Wellington, July 27, 2019
Frustrated by stagnant policy at the federal level, Australian communities are looking elsewhere for responses to climate change.
Businesses, communities and, increasingly, local governments are stepping up to the plate.
Noosa council declared a climate emergency to send a strong message, according to the mayor.
As the closest tier of government to the people, it’s our responsibility to listen to the concerns of residents, and they are demanding a healthy and resilient future for their children and grandchildren.
The concerns of our communities are not being heard by the national decision-makers. Local governments have no choice but to act as climate advocates for their communities and thus take matters into their own hands.
That’s why we in Noosa shire have set ourselves a target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2026 – and our community has jumped on board.
Our modelling shows that, if action is not taken to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, a much larger proportion of our residential and commercial properties will be within the storm tide inundation zone in the year 2100.
In other words, with a projected sea-level rise of 0.8 metres and intensifying weather events, many properties could be flooded in a significant storm or else subject to coastal erosion. We need to plan for this now, not wait until it’s too late.
Noosa recently became the first Queensland council to declare a climate emergency, joining 847 other government jurisdictions across the world who have already done so. We want to send a strong message to higher levels of government that this is the most serious issue facing humankind.
Noosa council is rolling out solar panels and battery storage, adopting a wide range of energy efficiency measures and tackling methane emissions from our landfill. And we are working with our community to reduce emissions at the business and household level. Of course, there is much more to be done. But we’re not alone.
We’re just one of many councils across the country who are rising to the challenge of climate change. From the Huon Valley in Tasmania to Port Douglas in northern Queensland, councils are working together through alliances such as the Cities Power Partnership.
We need to learn from each other and share our knowledge because we’re all in this together. Every local government wants to see sustainable, healthy communities that thrive in the future. And, like it or not, the future is renewable energy. Tony Wellington is the Mayor of Noosa Shire Council
July 29, 2019
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Adani’s Carmichael coal mine surviving on lifeline from Indian parent company, ABC 23 July 19
Key points:
- The company responsible for the Carmichael coal mine has current liabilities of more than $1.8b versus current assets of less than $30m
- The auditors signed off on the company being a “going concern” because of a 12-month guarantee from the Indian parent firm
- Accounting expert Sandra van der Laan says “effectively on paper they are insolvent. I wouldn’t be trading with them”………
She examines a diagram of Adani’s Australian structure: a labyrinth of trusts interposed between private companies and Indian stock market-listed companies with ties to, and in some cases ownership in, tax havens stretching from Singapore to Mauritius, on to the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
The more immediate concern is Adani Mining Pty Ltd, the Australian-registered company which is the proponent of the Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin.
Adani Mining recently provided ASIC with its financial accounts to March 31.
As a private company, the subsidiary is only required to release reduced financial statements with limited detail — but enough to raise red flags for Professor van der Laan and other critics.
The accounts show the owners have contributed less than $9 million in equity to the business and total liabilities exceed total assets by more than half a billion dollars.
Current assets of less than $30 million are swamped by current liabilities, due over the next 12 months, of more than $1.8 billion.
“Adani Mining is in a very fragile, even perilous, financial position,” Professor van der Laan observes.
“The gap between the current assets and liabilities is what’s really concerning………
‘They will never pay any material corporate tax in Australia’
Adani is now going it alone and “self-funding” the Carmichael mine after failing to secure loans from banks or government wealth funds.
Although the mine has been scaled down to an initial 10 million tonnes a year output, rather than the mega-mine of 60 million tonnes a year it has approval for, the price tag for building it and an accompanying railway will still be a multi-billion-dollar sum.
Even for a man as rich as family patriarch Gautam Adani, it is no small ask.
But in the tangled web that is the Adani Group, there are ways.
Adani’s ports business is the most profitable part of the empire, headed by the Bombay stock exchange-listed company Adani Ports SEZ.
It is currently raising more than $1 billion in debt on global markets.
Critics are suspicious that Adani may channel the money through its opaque corporate structure and use the money to fund the Queensland coal mine that no bank was willing to finance………
Whether or not concerns about the solvency of various Adani companies or funding for the Carmichael mine are well-founded, the promise of a company tax bonanza from the Queensland mine seems destined to remain unfulfilled, according to Tim Buckley.
Already, accumulated losses mean that, if the mine is built, Adani Mining won’t pay company tax for many years in Australia and may never do so — like the Abbot Point Coal Terminal, which has paid little to no company tax under the ownership of Adani.
“They have carry forward losses that mean the first $1.5 billion of profit are corporate tax free,” says Mr Buckley.
July 25, 2019
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We are now in a place we’ve never been before https://southwind.com.au/, 
23 July 2019 by Peter Boyer Australia’s big dry is now its worst drought on record. Which is pretty much the way it is everywhere. Following a lead from our state and federal governments, today I’m going to avoid the delicate matter of future climate. Instead I’ll focus on what’s happening around us now.
Weather records tell us that June in Australia was 0.26C warmer than average and 31 per cent drier. The first half of 2019 produced the continent’s second warmest and seventh driest conditions in 120 years of records.
In those six months the Murray-Darling Basin had about half its normal rainfall. Basin residents might have coped with this in normal times, but these are not normal times. Dry, warm, high-evaporation weather since January 2017 has left them with conditions they’ve not seen before.
Now it’s official. Rainfall records reveal that today’s Murray-Darling experience is Australia’s worst drought on record – more severe than the Federation, the World War II, the Millennium or any other drought in our recorded history.
Bureau of Meteorology climatologist David Jones told a BOM seminar last week that proxy evidence indicates Australia hasn’t been as dry as this for two or three million years, long before humans existed. This puts the current state of our weather in a completely new place.
Numerous NSW and southern Queensland towns now have emergency water restrictions in place. Many towns in upper Darling catchments calculate their water storage as a few months at most. In Tenterfield they’re pumping already-depleted groundwater to try to keep storage levels stable.
Water is now being carted to the small town of Guyra, 150 km away, but for Tenterfield that’s not an option – at least not a sustainable one. Its businesses and 4000 residents would need 1400 B-double truckloads a month, or nearly 50 each day, to sustain even minimal water use.
The list of towns threatened with losing their water supply is growing, including Warwick and Stanthorpe in Queensland. The larger centres of Tamworth, Armidale, Orange and Dubbo are lining up to join them if good rain doesn’t come this year. The Bureau is not hopeful of that happening.
Running out of water is a nightmare for any community. Cape Town almost ran out a year ago and is still in a tenuous position. In much-larger Chennai on India’s southeast coast, where it hasn’t rained for six months, the situation is dire. Monsoon rain is not expected for another month or two.
This city of 10 million people consumes over 500 million litres a day. The provincial government is now using trains to transport water every day from a half-full storage over 300 km away, but if the city were to run out completely that supply would have to increase 50-fold. That won’t happen.
Early monsoonal downpours in India’s Assam along with Nepal and Bangladesh have brought the opposite problem: too much water, displacing millions of people and killing over 100. Not far away in the high Himalayas, the rate of glacier melt has been found to have doubled in less than 20 years to more than eight billion tonnes a year. A scientific assessment published in June is a very bad omen for downstream communities depending on glacial meltwater.
Meanwhile America’s Pacific north-west is preparing for another nasty fire season. A scientific wildfire survey has just informed Californians, after their worst season ever last year, that the state’s summer fires have increased five-fold since the 1970s, with rising temperature the key cause.
Wildfire anxiety has spread northward, to the dark, dank forests of British Columbia. The Canadian province’s wildfire service has warned that abnormally high fire conditions will be experienced in coastal regions including Vancouver Island at least till the end of summer.
This comes after several summers of intense wildfires up and down the Canadian west coast, mostly started by lightning strikes. They have been especially devastating in new-growth forests, where less genetic diversity and lower tree density allows higher moisture loss.
Things are hotting up in the far north. Alert, a Canadian military base on Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic, normally has a daytime maximum around 7C in July, but it’s currently experiencing an unprecedented heatwave that has seen temperatures climb above 20C.
Canada’s chief climatologist, David Phillips, says this heatwave is just the latest indicator of what will be a long, hot Arctic summer. The main trigger, say scientists, was a dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice over the past decade that allowed the ocean to absorb much more heat from the sun.
Smoke has become a regular contributor to Arctic weather, and this year is no exception. These are not forest fires so much as peat fires. The dried-out tundra itself is now burning in Alaska and across wide Siberian expanses, sending choking black smoke into the air.
Among the many things I’ve left out are Darwin’s groundwater crisis, depleted Great Barrier Reef coral, Europe’s unprecedented June heat, vanishing Antarctic sea ice, chronic drought in Africa and the Americas and floods in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Did I mention climate change?
VICTIM of a chronic decline in government support, Hobart’s venerable environment and sustainability body, Sustainable Living Tasmania, has been forced to close its doors after nearly 50 years of quiet achievement. It will continue as a volunteer-run organisation with no office
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July 23, 2019
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Adani protest: French journalists arrested while filming anti-coal activities, Guardian
Journalists charged with trespassing after filming Frontline Action on Coal activists include Hugo Clément, Ben Smee@BenSmee, Mon 22 Jul 2019 Four journalists working for the public television network France 2 have been charged with trespassing for filming a protest near the Abbot Point coal terminal, in north Queensland, targeting the operations of the Adani group.
July 23, 2019
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Greens seek ‘climate emergency’ this year, SBS News 20 July 19
The Australian Greens are focusing on climate change and the need to transition to renewable energy at its annual conference in Adelaide. The Australian Greens are demanding the country declare a “climate emergency” while calling for a royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin plan.
Aside from those core messages at the party’s annual conference, Greens leader Richard Di Natale also had a crack at the Labor Party for capitulating on the Morrison government’s personal income tax cuts.
And he urged Australia to forge an independent, non-aligned foreign policy rather being tied to a “dangerous and unhinged” US President in Donald Trump.
It’s now clearer than ever that the Greens are the real opposition,” Senator Di Natale declared at the Greens national conference in Adelaide on Saturday in response to the actions of Labor since the May election.
“We don’t believe one thing before an election and another thing after it.”
Addressing reporters after his speech, Senator Di Natale said a key focus for the conference will be the transition from coal and fossil fuels to renewable energy.
“There needs to be a transition that brings tens of thousands of new jobs and that looks after people so that we are better off as a result of making this transition,” he said.
“Unless you accept that there is a serous problem you’re not going to come up with the solutions that are necessary to deal with it.”
Greens federal spokesman on climate change, Adam Bandt said he hopes to bring a motion to have the parliament declare a climate emergency before the end of the year.
He said the UK, France and Canada have already made such declarations, as has the ACT government. Labor and the crossbench also took climate change policies to the election.
“We think there is a really good chance in having the parliament unanimously declare a climate change emergency before the end of the year,” Mr Bandt told reporters……. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/greens-seek-climate-emergency-this-year
July 22, 2019
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 Large Man Looking At Co-Worker With A Magnifying Glass — Image by © Images.com/Corbis Young climate activists ‘most at risk’ of being spied on by AFP, New Daily, Cait Kelly, Reporter, 16 July 19
Children and young adults who go to protests are the most likely Australians to have their phones tracked and monitored by police, a prominent security analyst has warned in a submission to an inquiry cybersecurity laws.Dr Stanley Shanapinda of La Trobe University said that politically minded youth are “the most at risk” of having their digital footprint watched by the AFP.
“They’re the most at risk because of their social media habits, they’re a lot more vocal. As a community they’re the most likely to be targeted,” he told The New Daily.
Under the metadata laws passed in 2015 the Australian Federal Police force (AFP) has the power to view the metadata of citizens who are deemed as a risk to national security, up to two years old without a warrant.
Dr Shanapinda argues that both Liberal and National politicians have highlighted young climate change activists, Adani protestors and The Greens as threats.
“Senior members of the government have labelled the protest actions of the young people and the Greens … as threats to national security and the national economic interests, openly in national media,” he said.
During the federal election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned that The Greens are a greater political threat to national and economic security than Clive Palmer or Pauline Hanson.
Dr Shanapinda said that these concerns over Greens policies, and young protestors could open the door to party members and activists having their metadata watched.
“Opposing the Adani coal mine and protesting against it, on climate change on ideological bases, may therefore legally be categorised by the government as posing a threat to national security, if the government wanted to, because of its economic and job creation value,” Dr Shanapinda said.
Protestors having their phones used against them has become an increasing issue around the globe…… https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2019/07/16/metadata-activists-climate/
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July 18, 2019
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 Adani demands names of CSIRO scientists reviewing groundwater plans https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-16/adani-requests-names-of-csiro-scientists/11308616
Exclusive by Josh Robertson Adani demanded the names of all federal agency scientists reviewing its contentious groundwater plans so it could check if they were “anti-coal” activists, emails obtained under freedom of information show.
Key points:
- Emails show Adani gave the federal environment department five days to provide the names of people from the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia involved in the review
- Adani says it wrote to the department to request “assurance that individuals involved in any review processes were independent”
- CSIRO’s Sam Popovski says “our scientists just want to get on and do their best job … without their social media being tracked”
The revelation has alarmed CSIRO staff representatives, who said it indicated Adani had “a deliberate strategy” to pressure scientists by searching for personal information it could use to try to “discredit their work”.
Emails obtained under freedom of information by environmental group Lock The Gate show Adani gave the federal environment department five days to provide “a list of each person from the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia involved in the review”.
“Adani simply wants to know who is involved in the review to provide it with peace of mind that it is being treated fairly and that the review will not be hijacked by activists with a political, as opposed to scientific, agenda,” the company told the department on January 25.
A department spokeswoman said it “consulted with CSIRO and Geoscience Australia about Adani’s request” but did not provide the names “as the advice on the plans was received from CSIRO and Geoscience Australia, rather than individuals within those agencies”.
Days before the demand, in a January 21 newspaper article Adani had questioned the independence of a scientist leading a Queensland review into the company’s bird conservation plan because he tweeted from a climate rally nine months earlier.
The ABC revealed in February that Adani last year hired a law firm, AJ & Co, that had drafted a commercial proposal called “Taking the Gloves Off”, in which it vowed to act as the company’s “trained attack dog”.
It proposed a “war” strategy including that Adani “not settle for government department’s dragging out decisions — use the legal system to pressure decision makers”.
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July 16, 2019
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Defence lacks ‘overarching strategy’ to deal with climate change conflict, internal notes warn By Mark Willacy, ABC Investigations and Freedom of Information Editor Michael McKinnon, 14 July 19, Australia’s military has warned of a possible influx of climate refugees and an increased potential for conflict because of the effects of climate change.
Key points:
- A briefing note warns there is no “overarching strategy” to address climate change risks
- The Indo-Pacific region is projected to experience prolonged droughts and increased flooding from rising sea-levels
- Defence admits that their operations could be impacted by ocean acidification and extreme weather
Internal Australian Defence Force (ADF) briefing notes from last year, obtained by the ABC under Freedom of Information, also predict the military may be forced to increase patrols in Australia’s northern waters to deal with “sea-borne migration” sparked by rising sea levels in the Indo-Pacific.
One document warns that climate change could “exacerbate the potential for conflict” and contribute to “state fragility and the undermining of economic development in our immediate region”.
Former Defence Force chief Chris Barrie said Australia would be seen as the “land of opportunity” for many people affected by climate change………..
Climate change ‘may directly impact’ Defence operations
The ADF has refused to release documents relating to the impact of sea level rises and flooding on defence training areas, telling the ABC that it is not in the national interest.
“Release of this information could reasonably be expected to cause damage to the ability of the Defence Force to remain an effective force as well as potentially providing an avenue through which foreign incursions could significantly impact our critical infrastructure,” it said.
But one briefing note warns that the Indo-Pacific region is projected to experience challenges such as prolonged droughts and increased flooding from increased sea levels.
“Sea level rise, ocean acidification, increase in extreme temperatures and a forecast increase in intensity of bushfires and extreme weather events may directly impact Defence capabilities, personnel and equipment,” it read.
The ADF has already identified climate change as a challenge to Australia’s future security.
Its 2016 Defence White Paper predicted that Australia may be called on to conduct more humanitarian and disaster relief operations.
The internal notes obtained under freedom of information go further in warning about climate change risks.
“Further, an increase in illegal foreign fishing or sea-borne migration to Australia because of climate change effects may increase demands for Australian Defence Force patrols in Australia’s north waters,” the briefing note said.
Admiral Barrie said Australia was “wide open” for climate refugees, using Bangladesh as an example — its border with India is already being heavily patrolled by the Indian military.
“Bangladesh — a very populated country — runs out of fresh water and also has problems with sea level rise. Where will all the Bangladeshis go?” he said.
‘Impacts are unavoidable’
The briefing documents include a report assessing the impact of sea level rises and flooding on “selected defence training areas and ranges”.
The report, by global infrastructure consultancy Aecom, says the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal…atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years”.
It states that the warming of Australia’s mean air temperature could “reach 0.6 degrees Celsius to 5.1C depending on the emission scenarios”.
The report cites such impacts as increased flooding, coastal erosion, bushfires and heatwaves.
“Even with considerable reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, the inertia of the global climatic system means that many of these impacts are unavoidable.”
Last year defence chiefs told the Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee that rising sea levels and coastal erosion could damage military bases “in the short to medium term”.
The committee’s report warned that “climate change may also eventually contribute to greater irregular migration pressure in vulnerable countries to Australia’s north, potentially becoming a substantial security threat to Australia”…….. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-15/defence-lacks-overarching-strategy-for-climate-change-conflict/11304954
July 15, 2019
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Country towns close to reaching ‘day zero’, as water supplies dry up in the drought, ABC News, By National Regional Affairs reporter Lucy Barbour 14 July 19, Across New South Wales and Queensland’s southern downs, country towns are approaching their own ‘day zero’, as water supplies dry up in the drought.
Ten towns, including major centres, are considered to be at high risk of running out within six months, if it doesn’t rain and if water infrastructure isn’t improved.
Councils are rushing to put emergency measures in place, but more than a decade since the end of the millennium drought, water security is still almost non-existent for many rural communities……….
Bigger centres like Tamworth and Orange, and potentially Dubbo and Armidale, plus smaller towns like Cobar, Narromine and Nyngan are all considered to be at “high risk” of running out within six months if things do not change.
Across the border in Queensland, water shortages are biting hard in towns like Stanthorpe and Warwick, which are inching towards emergency restrictions.
Southern Downs Shire Mayor Tracy Dobie says water may have to be carted from Warwick to Stanthorpe in December, and she fears ratepayers may have to foot the bill.
“We could be looking at anything from $500,000 to $1.5 million per month, to transport the water, depending on how far we have to truck it from,” she says.
Trucks are already a big part of the landscape in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales, carting livestock between saleyards and abattoirs.
But water restrictions are making those journeys longer, more expensive and messier, because councils have closed the wash stations drivers use to clean excrement from their vehicles……… https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-14/day-zero-approaching-as-towns-run-out-of-water/11271430
July 15, 2019
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Our Future || Caring for planet is a moral responsibility https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6244511/caring-for-planet-is-a-moral-responsibility/?cs=14246 Thea Ormerod, 30 June 19
I am a grandmother with eight grandchildren. Sometimes I lie awake at night worrying about how our changing climate is going to affect their future.
Seeing those little faces looking up at you, I feel we’re betraying the trust of these future generations by not taking care of this beautiful planet.
I attend the church of Our Lady of Fatima at Kingsgrove.
And while I pray for the Earth’s future, I also know that we must stand and act together. Our leaders must be persuaded to take moral responsibility. That’s why last week the organisation I’m involved with, the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, released an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him to make the climate the No.1 priority.
It was signed by 153 religious leaders from across the spectrum, many of them in very senior roles.
Climate change and the burning of fossil fuels is a moral issue. Saving the world is a spiritual matter. I don’t interpret spiritual as “other worldly”.
Spirituality for me is about being responsible and reasonable, which shows in healthy relationships.
You see the fruits in laughter, peace and kindness towards each other. In his time on earth, Jesus himself was less interested in rules and who was or wasn’t praying.
He was interested in who was caring about people, especially people who are suffering.
Today, the people who have been hit hardest by climate change are mostly in developing countries, and they’ve done nothing to contribute to the problem.
Those suffering most in Australia are largely people in rural and regional areas. They are on the frontline of droughts, bushfires, intense heat and flooding, left grieving for lost herds and ruined crops.
But people in these areas are being sold short by politicians who are not planning for a more sustainable future, which includes an orderly transition away from the mining and burning of fossil fuels.
Many other nations are making big commitments to reduce emissions but Australia is out of step.
Our elected representatives may think politics is not about religion or spirituality. But it is about morality and caring about people.
June 30, 2019
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Tiny nations challenge Australia’s carbon ‘carryover credits’ SMH Peter Hannam, June 30, 20Nations from Senegal to Tuvalu have used a United Nations climate conference to challenge the Morrison government’s use of carbon “carryover credits” to virtually halve Australia’s abatement ambition out to 2030.
The conference that wrapped up at the end of last week in Bonn, Germany, debated among other things, the rules of the Paris Agreement.
The discussions included whether nations including Australia should be allowed to count the surplus it expects to generate during the Kyoto Protocol period that runs to 2020.
On the government’s projections, 328 million tonnes of Australia’s pledged cut of about 695 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent could be met by counting the Kyoto surplus for the Paris pledge over the decade from 2021-2030.
Among the nations that opposed the use of “carryover credits” at the Bonn conference included the Association of Small Island states, including Tuvalu.
South Korea, the European Union and New Zealand were also against using Kyoto surplus, according to Kate Dooley, a researcher with the the Climate and Energy College at the University of Melbourne, who was an observer at the Bonn conference.
“Discussions here in Bonn have made it clear that most countries do not accept the carry-over of Kyoto units into the Paris Agreement,” Dr Dooley said.
“The world’s most vulnerable countries have spoken out to say that accounting tricks, such as those the Australian government intends to use, are not consistent with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.”
…….. The Bonn talks were largely focused on preparing the rules for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement ahead of a Conference of the Parties (COP25) summit in Santiago, Chile later this year. The article is one of the main unresolved issues from the pact signed in Paris in 2015.
The Carbon Pulse newswire said while the new text agreed at Bonn had the potential to scupper Australia’s plans to use Kyoto credits without a specific prohibition in place they would still be able to be banked.
Still, the newswire quoted Gilles Dufrasne of Carbon Market Watch as raising the issue of how such credits had undermined nations’ abatement efforts.
“We have seen how damaging this has been under the Kyoto Protocol and we cannot afford to repeat the experience under the Paris Agreement,” Mr Dufrasne said. “It is very important that [Kyoto Protocol] units are not allowed for use towards [national targets}.” https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/tiny-nation-s-challenge-australia-s-carbon-carryover-credits-20190630-p522n0.html
June 30, 2019
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‘For the sake of generations to come’: Faith leaders unite on climate change https://www.sbs.com.au/news/for-the-sake-of-generations-to-come-faith-leaders-unite-on-climate-change 26 June 19, More than 150 religious leaders have issued an open letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, urging him to show moral leadership on the issue of climate change.
Faith leaders from across the religious divide have gathered in Sydney to call on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to show moral leadership on climate change.
The joint press conference kicked off with Rabbi Johnathan Keren-Black blowing a ram’s horn to symbolise raising the alarm.
Environmental Advisor for the Council of Progressive Rabbis, Rabbi Keren-Black said the world is facing a “climate emergency”.
“We blow the horn to awake slumbers from their sleep and to sound the alarm, so we blow it to sound the alarm for the climate emergency, for the sake of the world, for the sake of generations to come,” he said.
Judaism believes that we have a responsibility to be caretakers for God’s world, and we’re not doing a very good job of it at the moment.”
More than 150 religious leaders – including the heads of the Uniting Church in Australia, the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils, Muslims Australia and the National Council of Churches – on Tuesday issued an open letter to Mr Morrison.
The letter calls on the Prime Minister to make addressing climate change his number one priority.
Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC) President Thea Ormerod described climate change as a moral issue that needs to be urgently addressed.
“We have an urgent challenge which we all share, a moral challenge. It’s not just a political issue or an economic issue, it’s also a moral issue and all of us are standing together with one voice today,” she said.
Under the banner of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, the group is calling for a stop to new coal and gas projects, stopping Adani’s controversial coal mine in central Queensland and moving to 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2030.
Despite the differences in our faith, we all regard addressing the climate emergency as our shared moral challenge. We stand together for our common home, the Earth,” the letter says.
“Will you and your Government have the courage to agree to this simple threefold agenda? We pray that you will.”
Loreto Sister Libby Rogerson said there is a sacred responsibility to care for the earth and all living beings.
“We are concerned for the poorest and most vulnerable, and it is the poorest and most vulnerable of people and nations that are affected by Climate Change,” she said.
Federation of Australian Budhist Councils Spokesperson Gawaine Powell Davies also attended the press conference, and said climate change is driven by “human foolishness”.
“We have a very sharp analysis of human foolishness which has led us to put greed and short-term benefit ahead of the long-term interests of ourselves and our children, and our grandchildren,” Mr Powell Davies said.
The Grand Mufti of Australia, Ibrahim Abu Mohammed, along with senior Rabbis, bishops and theologians have also signed the letter.
June 27, 2019
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Australia leads the G20 nations’ pack in aid for coal-fired power, SMH Peter Hannam, June 25, 2019 Subsidies for coal-fired power production almost tripled in the three years to 2016-17 among G20 nations, with Australia providing among the largest support, an international study has found.The
report by UK think tank, the Overseas Development Institute, found aid for such power stations soared from US$17.2 billion ($24.7 billion) in 2013-14 to $US47 billion in the most recent year. It’s in contrast to pledges made by the 20 biggest economies in 2009 to phase out subsidies to reduce the risks of climate change……
The highest amounts of total support to coal consumption were identified in Indonesia at US$2.3 billion per year, Italy and Australia, both about US$870 million, the US at US$708 million, and the UK with US$682 million, it reported.
“These tens of billions of dollars a year of G20 support to coal are not just locking in the high-carbon
economy and leading to stranded assets, they are also a missed opportunity to support a clean energy transition and to achieve other sustainable development objectives,” the study said……
‘Ecological crisis’
Jamie Hanson, head of campaigns at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said Australia was in an “ecological crisis driven by climate change”.
“Coal is the primary cause of the climate damage that is causing extinctions all over the country, drought and fire that has torched ancient rainforests, and that has killed half the Great Barrier Reef in the last five years,” he said.
“Climate-destroying government handouts to the coal industry defy all logic – especially now, when we know that clean renewable energy is the cheapest form of new power.”
Separately, Australia’s climate ambassador Patrick Suckling has argued at a United Nations conference in Bonn, Germany that the country’s carbon reduction efforts were “having a positive effect”. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/g20-nations-aid-for-coal-fired-power-triples-in-three-years-report-20190625-p5213r.html
June 27, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, politics |
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It’s ironic, perhaps, that in an election cycle where a number of regional Queenslanders voted for the promise of blue-collar jobs, backing the party that backed the Adani coal project, renewables generated more than 13,000 actual jobs in construction, with a lot of that activity in north Queensland.
Cowling says as a corporate player in the energy market, it is clear why the Morrison government needs to step back into the frame: “You wouldn’t dream of government pulling out of the planning of roads, or where you put an airport, and Australia’s electricity grid is more complex than those things.
Liberal states have caucused, and they want the newly elected Morrison government to reboot the National Energy Guarantee….. “we are prepared to do it if you don’t”.
Liberal states in talks to revive Turnbull’s dumped energy policy In Canberra, a month on from Scott Morrison’s election victory, there is talk of feasibility studies for a new Queensland coal plant, and a nascent nuclear debate. But if we shift our vantage point to Adelaide, Australia’s near-term energy outlook looks very different.
Dan Van Holst Pellekaan, the Liberal energy minister, is talking about South Australia hitting 100% net renewables by the 2030s. When asked to explain what that means, he tells Guardian Australia “producing more renewable energy in South Australia than we need for our own consumption and exporting the surplus”.
There is no talk of coal, apart from the inevitability of its displacement.
The South Australian renewables export plan relies on a new interconnector with New South Wales. Van Holst Pellekaan says if the proposed interconnector is approved, there are opportunities to construct large-scale solar and wind farms in the north-east of the state, on pastoral land, adjacent to the transmission equipment. “Then we start to displace coal in NSW,” he says. “It’s not just about a bit of renewable energy making a difference … that’s where you start to get a really big win on emissions reduction.”
But pushing ahead with that kind of progress is much easier if there’s a national framework driving the transition. Post-election, Van Holst Pellekaan wants Canberra back at the table being collaborative, implementing a coherent energy policy.
What the South Australian doesn’t say, but is obvious to people who know how the Coag energy council works, is the states can force this issue if they choose to.
If they can agree among themselves about what needs to happen, they can create a framework setting out the rules of the road even if the commonwealth resists.
Liberal states drive energy policy reboot Continue reading →
June 24, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, energy, politics |
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Rising sea, erosion to wreak havoc in low-lying suburbs: report, The Age , By Benjamin Preiss and Adam Carey
June 23, 2019, Rising seas are threatening to encroach on low-lying parts of Melbourne within 20 years, causing flooding and erosion in suburbs including St Kilda, Point Cook, Mordialloc, Seaford and Frankston.
Other places at risk include areas around Queenscliff and Barwon Heads on the Bellarine Peninsula; the south-west Victorian towns of Port Fairy and Portland; and Tooradin, Lang Lang and Seaspray in the state’s south-east.
A report tabled in Victoria’s Parliament last week examines the myriad threats to the state’s fragile coastline, painting an alarming picture of damage to the environment and suburban Melbourne if no action is taken.
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council report cites a 20-centimetre sea-level rise by 2040 and between 40 centimetres and one metre by century’s end.
Sea-level rise will lead to more frequent inundation of low-lying areas, loss of coastal habitat, cliff, beach and foreshore erosion,” the report says.
“Climate change will also put pressure on ageing coastal infrastructure and ultimately impact on feasibility of living in or developing some coastal locations.”
Increasing storm intensity, coupled with rising seas, will cause extensive erosion of the Victorian coastline by 2040, the report says.
“The most extensive area vulnerable to erosion by 2040 is the Gippsland coast,” it says. “Other coasts at risk include west of Portland, beaches in Port Phillip Bay between Mordialloc and Frankston, and the coast between Cape Paterson and Cape Liptrap in South Gippsland.”
June 24, 2019
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
climate change - global warming, Victoria |
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Antinuclear 