 The Adani coal mine is the ‘Work Choices‘ of this generationSimon Black 5 November 2018, Australians know Adani doesn’t “stack up” environmentally or economically and it won’t stack up for the Morrison Government politically either. Independent Australia Simon Black reports. DESPITE BEING A MINE, not a policy, the seething rage we are seeing from the Australian population at the continued insistence at driving the Adani coal mine down our throats reminds me increasingly of the mood of late 2005. The Adani project is becoming a single thing that unifies people and embodies unfairness and contempt from politicians who insist they know better than their constituents and pander to big business at their expense, time and time again. Despite poll after poll after poll showing that the overwhelming majority of Australians do not want this destructive project, we are simply fobbed off and dismissed as not understanding how good it is going to be for us. And people are angry. Enraged. Furious. Adani has been caught polluting protected wetlands, possibly even doctoring reports, for which the Government aren’t so much slapping them with a piece of wet lettuce as they are waving the lettuce in a slightly menacing fashion, while furiously winking with one side of their face. They have been taken to court for polluting the Great Barrier Reef, they are being investigated for illegal drilling into groundwater at the mine site and their claims about job numbers have been rejected — by their own economist. Add that to a very long history of unsavoury behaviour and there is little wonder there is public outrage that this project is in danger of being forced upon Australians. News this week shows that Adani recognises this as well — and it’s trying to get the project moving before the election, in defiance of the will of the Australian people. It looks like they will do this by sneakily getting their foot in the door with a smaller and self-fundedversion to jump start this dangerous and irresponsible project. Something they have been forced to do because no financial institution both in Australia and overseas would touch it with a ten-foot pole. The multi-billion dollar multinational had resorted to begging the Federal Government for $1 billion on top of the royalty scheme it had already been granted, but that a massive public backlash left that dead in the water. Adani is going to put up its own money. In an Australian coal market that has, as another report that came out on the same day showed, peaked and is now in a state of ‘terminal long-term decline‘. And that’s the point. This is a last-ditch dash from a company who recognise all too well how publically toxic this project is. The Liberal Party were shown this in their humiliating defeat in the Wentworth by-election. Despite attempting to blame Malcolm Turnbull and dismissing Wentworth as an outlier, Dave Sharma couldn’t go anywhere without being hounded on climate change by Stop Adani forces. Annastacia Palaszczuk was reminded of that outrage as well when she tweeted in support of action on climate change — the issue that voters in Wentworth identified as their number one concern. Despite the issue swinging farther and farther away from her political opponents, it’s a no-brainer to know any tweet would be met with howls of outrage about Adani — which is exactly what happened. This pressure is only going to increase with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition this week releasing a tool to show exactly where local Labor representatives stand on the issue. This project is not only toxic, but it is also becoming a focal point for governments’ refusal to take action on climate change and ignoring the Australian people to pander to big coal companies. The Adani project cannot be allowed to go ahead. It is insanity incarnated and a nightmare for the region, the country, and the world. The mine will take unlimited groundwater and 12.5 billion litres of river water, while 57 per cent of Queensland is drought declared. The water plans from the company are grossly inadequate and the Federal and Queensland governments must stop them. The mine will fuel climate change and even the United Nations has urged us to reconsider. It all adds up to a putrid picture. The spills, the pollution, the water license, the history overseas, the fight against Indigenous land rights, the fake social accounts………https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-adani-coal-mine-is-the-work-choices-of-this-generation,12066 |
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Yes, Prime Minister, I’m striking from school: consider it a climate lesson
Canberra Times, By Veronica Hester 29 November 2018 I am Veronica, 15 years old, from Scott Morrison’s electorate. Despite our Prime Minister’s calls for students not to strike from school on Friday, we’re choosing to no longer be powerless. We will be striking with thousands of other students, to show we will not stand for our government’s inaction on climate change………Seeing this, we students do not shout at each other across the classroom. We sit in a shocked silence. Afterwards, we shout, with our signs and our demands. Because how can an educated person know all we know, and do nothing?
Mr Morrison and his government continue to overlook the danger of climate change, while not seeming to have a problem helping coal miners such as Adani dig up and burn more coal. It’s surreal to watch nothing significant happening on the parliamentary floor, when the solutions have been made so clear. We are one of the sunniest and windiest countries in the world, yet our government chooses to burn more coal.
When Mr Morrison refuses to implement a climate policy that keeps fossil fuels in the ground and transition to 100 per cent renewable energy, he isn’t representing us, our community, or the majority of Australians who want urgent climate action.
Tackling climate change isn’t just about looking out for our young people. We’ll all live with extreme heat and changing weather patterns, not to mention the sense of helplessness in losing our natural world.
By making a stand and organising our communities, we can push our politicians to represent us, not lumps of coal…….That is all we want – for a serious problem to be treated seriously by our politicians. We need the fire of climate change to be confronted, not left to engulf my generation.
Veronica Hester is a school student from the Sutherland Shire. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/yes-prime-minister-i-m-striking-from-school-consider-it-a-climate-lesson-20181127-p50iqd.html
Queensland experiencing fires of unprecedented fury, similar to California’s wildfires
Qld fires compared to deadly US blazes The Queensland fires have been compared to the infernos that recently decimated California. News com.au, Staff reporters, Australian Associated Press, NOVEMBER 28, 2018 Almost 10,000 Queenslanders are being forced to flee to shelter as wildfires fanned by catastrophic conditions bear down on their communities. Firefighters in Queensland are battling almost 140 wildfires, with the worst in central Queensland in destructive conditions that have been compared to those that fanned the infernos that recently decimated California. Mandatory evacuations have been ordered and 37 schools closed amid a new blaze near Rockhampton and monster one farther south that’s already razed at least four homes and scorched tens of thousands of hectares of bush and farmland. A large fire sparked shortly before 3pm on Wednesday has since raced towards Gracemere, prompting authorities to order a mandatory complete evacuation of the 8000 people in the area. Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart told people not to panic but make for the Rockhampton showgrounds around 14km away, where an evacuation centre has been set up. ……..Firefighters have been fighting since Saturday the monster fire near Deepwater, Baffle Creek, Rules Beach and Oyster Creek, Eungella and Dalrymple Heights, where people were ordered to evacuate before fires cut road. Most people got out by road but some had to be ferried over Baffle Creek. ……….Deputy Police Commissioner Bob Gee had bluntly warned people that the conditions were so dangerous people could die if they stayed put. “People will burn to death. Their normal approaches probably won’t work if this situation develops the way it is predicted to develop. It is no different to a Category 5 cyclone coming through your door.” Brian Smith, Regional Manager for the Rural Fire Services Central Region, said experts were comparing the conditions in Deepwater to the Waroona fires in Western Australia, which completely wiped out a town a few years ago, and also to the recent deadly California fires. Interstate crews arrived on Tuesday to help fight the inferno in Deepwater that’s destroyed homes and burnt through at tens of thousands of hectares of bush and farmland since Saturday. Crews from South Australia are expected to arrive on Wednesday, with more from around Australia to arrive later this week. https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/qld-may-lose-lives-in-firestorm-govt/news-story/df1dcf91c83f868bef7ba12caba27c40
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Australia’s school students not impressed with PM Scott Morrison’s criticism of their climate change activism
Students hit back at PM after ‘less activism in schools’ climate change comment, SBS, 28 Nov 18 Hundreds of students are planning to leave school this Friday to protest government inaction on climate change. There’s a storm brewing between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and school students planning a national strike on climate change inaction this Friday.
Hundreds of students are vowing to put the books away and converge on MP offices and parliaments around the country in the Big School Walk Out for Climate Action.
On Monday, Mr Morrison implored children to stay in class rather than protesting things that “can be dealt with outside of school”.
What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools,” he said.
But students aren’t happy with the response.
Melbourne student Jagveer Singh, who will take part in the protest, said Mr Morrison’s broadside made him “want to go on strike even more”. [We want to] demonstrate that we’re not happy with the federal government for not listening to us and demand that we get a safe climate,” he said.
“It’s our future. We are the ones that will be facing the consequences of the decisions that are made today, and that is why we need to have a say.
“The time that they’re using to debate this issue is time that’s being wasted … We need to act on this.” …….https://www.sbs.com.au/news/students-hit-back-at-pm-after-less-activism-in-schools-climate-change-comment
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison furiously against the Big School Walkout for Climate Action.
theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/26/scott-morrison-tells-students-striking-over-climate-change-to-be-less-activist
Prime minister is labelled ‘out of touch’ after he says let the politicians not schoolchildren deal with the issue
Scott Morrison has been labelled “out of touch” for angrily condemning a national student strike to protest government inaction on climate change.
The prime minister implored children to stay in class rather than protesting things that “can be dealt with outside of school”.
“Each day I send my kids to school and I know other members’ kids should also go to school but we do not support our schools being turned into parliaments,” Morrison told parliament on Monday.
“What we want is more learning in schools and less activism in schools.”
Morrison furiously reacted to Greens MP Adam Bandt during question time about the protest, dubbed the Big School Walkout for Climate Action.
Hundreds of Australian school students are vowing to put the books away and converge on MP offices and parliaments around the country this Friday.
Morrison began his answer to Bandt’s question by saying climate change is a “very real and serious issue” that demands attention.
He said the government was acting on climate change through initiatives such as the emissions reduction fund and the renewable energy target.
“We are committed to all of these things, but I will tell you what we are also committed to – kids should go to school,” Morrison said.
Bandt said he had met with some of the students involved and backed their actions.
“The PM is unbelievably out of touch with young people, not only in Australia but around the world,” he said.
“These students want a leader to protect their future, but they got a hectoring, ungenerous and condescending rebuke from someone even worse than Tony Abbott.”
Australian Youth Climate Coalition spokesperson Laura Sykes said Morrison had shown “irrational outrage” to students who care about their education.
“It was shocking see our prime minister condemning students as young as eight, who are sacrificing a day of schooling to stand up for a safe climate future,” Sykes told AAP.
“When young people try to have a voice in politics, Scott Morrison is shutting them down, yet he’s happy to listen to the coal lobby and big corporations who continue to profit from making climate change worse.”
Events are planned in all capital cities, along with about 20 regional areas.
Friday November 30 – Australian students Strike For Climate Action
Students in each state capital and across 20 regional Australian centres will walk out of their classrooms this week to tell politicians that more of the same climate inaction is not good enough.
Here are some of the lessons they hope to teach.
‘If we really want a better planet Earth’ Continue reading
New Climate Council report links climate change with worsening droughts
 Deluge and Drought: Climate Council issues grim warning on looming water security crisis, ABC, 14 Nov 18
The Climate Council has released a new report linking climate change with worsening droughts, including the current one, extreme weather events such as bushfires and floods, and identifying water security as a source of grave concern. The report, Deluge and Drought: Australia’s Water Security in a Changing Climate, stated that if the effects of climate change were left unchecked the results for the agriculture sector and beyond will be devastating. According to the report, the Murray-Darling Basin — known as “Australia’s food bowl” —has seen a 41 per cent reduction in “streamflows” since the mid-1990s, while water systems in Western Australia’s southwest have declined by about 50 per cent. Additionally, the report said Australia’s south-east had seen a 15 per cent reduction in rainfall in late autumn and early winter, and a 25 per cent decline in rainfall in April and May over the past 20 to 30 years. These grim figures were all related, the publicly-funded council found, to rainfall patterns thrown badly out of whack by climate change. “Most of our [rainfall] comes from the ocean, so we are exposed to big-scale changes, and the tropics are expanding,” Professor Will Steffen, one of the report’s seven co-authors, said. “That is the ultimate explanation for why these fronts in the Southern Ocean are now being pushed a bit further south, and so that means that we are getting less rainfall across the southern part of Australia……… Council urges immediate action The report warned that “continuing on our current trajectory of high emissions has enormous and growing risks”. “Dealing decisively and effectively with climate change cannot be put off any longer,” the report said. “Solutions are available. “We need to accelerate the transition to clean, affordable and reliable renewables and storage technologies and ramp up other climate solutions in the water, transport, agriculture and other sectors.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-11-13/climate-change-report-and-drought-policy/10493812 |
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Air conditioning – if supplied by fossil fuels – increases global warming
This article highlights Sir Richard Branson (a nuclear power proponent) and correctly reminds us of the carbon footprint if air-conditioning, if fuelled by fossil power. Important to Australia, and also to India. Why didn’t Ft mention this?
BUT – the logical alternative is renewable energy – either by use of a total 
renewable energy electrical system, or just a solar air-conditioner.
FT 12th Oct 2018 Air Conditioning A competition to find a breakthrough in air-conditioning technology has been launched with the backing of Sir Richard Branson and the Indian government, in an effort to avert the climate impact of the huge expected growth in the use of cooling systems.
The prize is intended to encourage inventors to find new ideas for indoor cooling that can be economically competitive against current technologies, while reducing energy consumption and the use of refrigerants such as hydrofluorocarbons that contribute to global warming.
There are about 1.2bn air-conditioning units installed worldwide today, and that number is forecast to rise to 4.5bn by 2050 as incomes rise and living standards improve in hot countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
If today’s technology is used for those units, they would by themselves emit enough greenhouse gases to raise global temperatures by 0.5C, according to Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think-tank. The International Energy Agency has also sounded the alarm over air-conditioning, describing it as one of the most critical blind spots in international energy policy.
https://www.ft.com/content/1e056bde-e5ef-11e8-8a85-04b8afea6ea3
The Adani coal mine doesn’t stack up environmentally, economically, or politically
Kerryn Phelps confirmed as new independent MP: makes climate change action her first priority
 Kerryn Phelps zeroes in on climate change and Peter Dutton’s eligibilityOfficially declared Wentworth byelection winner, MP wants to stop Adani and will seek urgent briefing on minister, Guardian, Paul Karp and Anne Davies, Mon 5 Nov 2018 The newly minted independent MP for Wentworth, Kerryn Phelps, has pledged to tackle climate change policy as her first priority after she was formally declared the winner of the once blue ribbon Liberal seat in Sydney’s east. Phelps said she would move to reinstate the Climate Change Authority to provide a scientific voice in the debate, put forward reforms to vehicle emissions standards and look at ways to use the crossbench clout to stop the Adani coalmine. “We can stop fiddling around with talking about new coalmines because no one wants to fund them,” she said. “Government policy needs to establish a foundation for business to invest in renewables for our future and to protect our environment. That is something the Australian people are saying they want.” Phelps also said she will seek an urgent briefing on the constitutional eligibility of Liberal MPs Peter Dutton and Chris Crewther, adding that she had received legal advice that she did not have any section 44 issues that might affect her own eligibility to sit………https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/05/kerryn-phelps-seeks-urgent-briefing-on-peter-duttons-eligibility
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Major Korean banks rule out any lending for Adani’s Queensland mega-mine,
Korean banks tell traditional owners they won’t back 
Adani’s Queensland mega-mine, ABC by Josh Robertson 5 Nov 18 Major Korean lenders have ruled out any role in funding Adani’s contentious Australian coal project, just months after the miner was reportedly in talks to win backing from lenders in Seoul.
Key points:
- Adani is trying to get funding for a its proposed Queensland coal project
- Traditional owners opposed to the mine will lobby Korean lenders to not back the project
- Three major Korean lenders have written to the group saying they won’t help fund it
Traditional owners fighting the mine have secured pledges from a trio of lenders including the Export-Import Bank of Korea, a critical conduit for Korean lenders, which said it believed there was no longer any interest in the mega-mine.
Anti-Adani representatives of the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) traditional owners will today fly to Korea to continue lobbying lenders, including Mirae Asset Daewoo, which refinanced Adani’s Queensland coal port in July……..
The W&J Adani opponents said they would seek meetings and hold “media events” at the offices of other institutions including Mirae Asset Daewoo, Korea’s National Pension Service and NH-Amundi.
A similar lobbying roadshow by W&J representatives in the US and Europe in 2015 saw major lenders, including Britain’s largest investment bank Standard Chartered, back away from Adani.
The ABC understands financial industry sources recently confirmed with Australia’s big four banks that none would have a role in the Carmichael project.
A media report in September suggested Adani was seeking to partly fund the Carmichael project by selling a stake in its Abbot Point coal port to Korean interests.
The Queensland government has said Adani must reach “financial close” before it will permanently wipe out native title claims to the mine site to hand over tenure to the miner.
But it has also asked Adani to put up security for a royalties deal that would allow the miner to defer hundreds of millions of dollars of state payments — which Adani is yet to sign after 18 months.
Traditional owners have made formal complaint to UN
The W&J mine opponents are battling to retain their native title rights and have formally complained to the United Nations.
“Whoever assists Adani financially at this crucial time will become complicit in a grave breach of our rights, and the destruction of our lands and waters and sacred places,” W&J elder Adrian Burragubba said.
“They are also exposing themselves to financial risk because success in our Federal Court appeal due next year would deliver great uncertainty to investors.”
Another W&J anti-Adani representative travelling to Korea, Murrawah Johnson, said 33 major institutions had now ruled out funding Adani.
“The interest in Adani from Korean banks or potential equity financiers needs to be made clear after reports that Adani has held talks with Korean finance companies,” she said.
“We are seeking to close the door on this financing avenue.”
An Adani spokeswoman said the company had been “working with the traditional owners of the Carmichael project area, the Wangan and Jagalingou, Juru, Birriah and Jangga, since 2010”.
“Indigenous Land Use Agreements are in place with all four claim groups and are registered by the National Native Title Tribunal,” the spokesperson said. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-05/korean-banks-rule-out-backing-adani-mine/10463838
The world does not need Australia’s ‘toxic’ coal -Christiana Figueres
Former UN climate chief says world doesn’t need Australia’s ‘toxic’ coal, Canberra Times, By Nicole Hasham, 3 November 2018 Former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres has repudiated Australian mining giant BHP for its refusal to stop mining coal, suggesting the decision is uneconomic and poor nations do not need the “toxic” and “expensive” fossil fuel.BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said this week the company is “not going to move away from coal mining”.
His position comes despite a warning last month by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that coal must be virtually phased out by 2050 if the world is to keep global warming below the 1.5 degree threshold, beyond which the effects of climate change would be catastrophic and, in many cases, irreversible. …….
Ms Figueres, the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said poorer nations did not need Australia’s coal.
“Developing nations will unlock the solutions to poverty with renewable energy. Not with toxic, expensive coal,” she said.
Solar and wind power were already cheaper than fossil fuels in many markets and “renewable energy will out-compete fossil fuels everywhere by 2020”, she said, adding that investors were “withdrawing from coal on all fronts”.
The World Bank, among other financiers, has largely ruled out funding new coal plants. It says coal contributes to poverty through air pollution, which causes illness, and climate change, to which the poor are particularly vulnerable.
Ms Figueres, who led the Paris climate talks in 2015, said as well as the health impacts, global warming was hurting the environment and “contributing to the die-off of the beloved Great Barrier Reef”………
Veteran physicist and climate scientist Bill Hare, founder of international think tank Climate Analytics, said renewable hydrogen could replace coal in steel production.
Such use of hydrogen is at the experimental stage, however, the capture and storage of carbon is also unproven at large scale.
“By backing coal only weeks after the world scientific community has spoken on the urgent need to phase this out, [BHP] is turning its back on the future,” Dr Hare said, adding that claims coal was needed to overcome poverty was “a denial of science”.
Meantime, the ACT is nearing its goal of sourcing all electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The Crookwell 2 wind farm, near Goulburn, has begun feeding electricity into the grid and is expected to produce enough electricity to power about 42,000 Canberra homes.
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who has campaigned against wind farms, did not attend a launch event on Saturday despite the project being located in his electorate. A spokesman said Mr Taylor had a “prior engagement”.
ACT Climate Change Minister Shane Rattenbury said the wind farm was “a key milestone as we progress towards our ambitious clean-energy future” and would provide significant flow-on benefits to the region. https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/former-un-climate-chief-says-world-doesn-t-need-australia-s-toxic-coal-20181103-p50dt5.html
Australian Conservation Foundation encourages all voters to recognise the coming CLIMATE ELECTION
Sector Action Needed For the ‘Climate Election’ https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2018/10/sector-action-needed-climate-election/ The environmental sector needs to step up efforts to ensure serious action on climate change is part of all political parties’ federal election platform, a sector leader says. Wednesday, 31st October 2018 Maggie Coggan, Journalist Kelly O’Shanassy, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) CEO, spoke to Pro Bono News following an address to the National Press Club on Tuesday, where she expressed her concern over the impact of climate change, and the inaction of politicians.O’Shanassy said the ACF, along with other environmental organisations, were tired of the climate dysfunction coming out of Canberra, and titled the upcoming election the “climate election”.
“For decades ACF has knocked on the doors of Parliament House with climate policy solutions, supported by community and business, only to see them vanish into thin air because of weak political leadership,” O’Shanassy said on Tuesday.
“We are tired of government after government at the national level, failing Australians on climate change, and so, we decided to do something about it.”
O’Shanassy said the lack of action from politicians on climate change, combined with an increased awareness from the public on the damage it had already done, meant it was the perfect time to focus attention and energy on the issue.
She encouraged environmental groups involved in the election to start conversations with voters about climate change, and the solutions that were out there that politicians were yet to take action on.“We would encourage everyone in the environment sector to make climate a focus, to be part of our million conversations, to talk about climate damage that is here now, but also the solutions that are here now,” she said.
“This upcoming election matters, and people can create a safer future through their vote.”
She said polling data showed about 70 to 80 per cent of the Australian community did want government action on climate change, and so it was important for the sector to harness those views in order to push change.
Severe fire danger as heat hits New South Wales East coast
NSW east coast now in ‘severe’ fire danger as mercury soars SMH , 2 Nov 18 Drier than expected conditions have put Sydney and much of the NSW east coast in severe fire danger, as the city experiences a “low intensity heatwave” on Friday afternoon.
A large mass of hot air moving across the state is driving temperatures up towards 40 degrees in some parts, fanned by strong winds above 30km/h.
At the peak, the mercury had hit 38.9 degrees at Sydney Airport, 37.6 degrees in Camden, 37.1 degrees at Observatory Hill and 38.8 degrees at Horsley Park. Statewide, White Cliffs in the far west, notched 43.3 degrees……..
Fires burn near Canberra and Newcastle
Firefighters were already battling an out-of-control blaze south-west of Canberra on Thursday night and continue to fight it today. The fire is burning erratically at Pierces Creek, about 8km from the nearest suburb……..
Exceptionally warm Australia was “exceptionally warm” last month, with mean temperatures 1.83 degrees above the 1961-90 average, making it the fourth warmest October on record, the bureau said.
While Sydney’s October rainfall was twice the average at 167.6 millimetres, evaporation rates were almost as high at 160.6 millimetres meaning the rainfall deficient barely budged.
Elsewhere, the big dry has expanded beyond NSW and Queensland, with Tasmania recording its third-driest October on record as rainfall dived 60 per cent below average for the month.
Victoria was also dry, continuing its run this year of below-average monthly rainfall totals with less than half the usual October rain. By mean temperatures, it was also that state’s fifth warmest October on record. https://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/nsw-east-coast-now-in-severe-fire-danger-as-mercury-soars-20181102-p50dn1.html?promote_channel=edmail&mbnr=MTM2NDAwMjM&eid=email:nnn-13omn655-
New member of Parliament, Kerryn Phelps, will push for strong role for Climate Change Authority
First thing’: Phelps set sights on reviving fortunes of climate body, Brisbane Times, By Peter Hannam, 27 October 2018 Kerryn Phelps, the likely new member for Wentworth, will push for the revival of the near-defunct Climate Change Authority as part of her efforts to advance action on global warming at a federal level.
Dr Phelps, who appears to hold an unassailable lead of 1783 votes for the seat vacated by former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, said her determination to emphasise cutting carbon emissions and advancing renewable energy was reinforced by a meeting in Sydney on Saturday with ex-Kiribati president Anote Tong.
Dr Phelps said that while Mr Tong’s island nation faced immediate threats from rising sea-levels, the former leader stressed that “sooner or later everyone will be on the frontline” from threats wrought by a warming world.
The independent candidate said it was clear from this month’s byelection that climate change – and the lack of federal policies – was among the highest concerns for Wentworth voters.
If she takes her seat in Parliament as expected next month, Dr Phelps said an early target will be to restore the Climate Change Authority.
It’s the first thing that we could actually do – to reinstate the funding and the scientific credibility of the Climate Change Authority,” Dr Phelps told Fairfax Media. “It’s very important that we do have an independent authority looking at the evidence and providing advice to governments.”……
Many Pacific islands are low-lying or have populations clustered to coasts that facing inundation from rising sea levels. Salt water intrusion into groundwater and exposure to more powerful cyclones are other risks.
Earlier this month, environment minister Melissa Price was accused of disrespecting the Pacific leader by telling him during a chance meeting in a Canberra restaurant that the region was “always” seeking cash and she had her chequebook ready. Ms Price denied she made such comments but she did ring later to say she wished no offence……. https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/first-thing-phelps-set-sights-on-reviving-fortunes-of-climate-body-20181027-p50cd3.html
1 This month
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 