AUSTRALIA’S RECORD-BREAKING SUMMER https://jpratt27.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/australias-record-breaking-summer-climatechange-auspol/ Australia’s record-breaking summer heat linked directly to climate change By Natasha Gieling
The record-breaking heat seen across southeast Australia in the last few months was made 50 times more likely by climate change, according to new analysis that links the heat directly to global warming.
Southeast Australia was struck by three major heatwaves in January and February, with temperatures climbing as high as 113°F (45°C) in some places.
On February 10, Sydney Airport recorded its hottest February day on record, with temperatures hitting 109°F (42°C).
The heat was also uncharacteristically persistent — Observatory Hill in Sydney saw temperatures reach above 95°F (35°C) for nine consecutive days in January, breaking a 120-year old record.
Elsewhere, the consistent heat was even more extreme: in Moore, New South Wales, there were 52 consecutive days with temperatures above 95°F (35°C).
The study, conducted by the World Weather Attribution Program at Climate Central, used climate model simulations and observational data analysis to understand how climate change, caused by an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, might have made these heat events more likely.
They found that climate change made the average temperatures seen this summer in Australia 50 times more likely, and made the maximum summer temperatures 10 times more likely.
“In the past, a summer as hot as 2016–2017 was a roughly 1 in 500-year event,” the researchers wrote. “Today, climate change has increased the odds to roughly 1 in 50 years — a 10-fold increase in frequency.”
The analysis also warns that heat events like these — both punctuated heatwaves and long stretches of above-average temperatures — are likely to become more frequent as climate change continues.
In the future, according to the study, heat events like the one this summer could happen as frequently as every five years — and will likely be more intense, with temperatures averaging at least 1.8ºF (1°C) warmer than they were in the past.
The connection between heat waves and climate change has strong scientific support. In 2015, eight papers published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s attribution report — an annual report that explains extreme weather events from a climate perspective — all linked climate change to heatwaves, showing that climate change clearly made heatwaves either more likely, more intense, or both.
According to data from NASA and NOAA, 2016 was the hottest year on record.
Before that, both 2015 and 2014 held that distinction.
In fact, 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
Press link for more: Think Progress
March 6, 2017
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Big Australian banks invest $7bn more in fossil fuels than renewables, says report https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/06/big-australian-banks-invest-7bn-more-in-fossil-fuels-than-renewables-says-report ANZ, NAB, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac provided three times more for non-renewable than clean energy projects in 2016, says Market Forces, Guardian, Naaman Zhou, 6 Mar 17, Australia’s big four banks invested three times as much in global fossil fuels as they did in clean energy in 2016, despite pledging to help Australia transition to a low carbon economy.
The banks provided a combined $10bn to projects around the world that expanded non-renewable energy, according to finance group Market Forces.
ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank were the worst offenders, investing over $3bn each in fossil fuels. In the same period, ANZ only lent $225m to renewables, giving it a 14:1 ratio. Continue reading →
March 6, 2017
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Federal Court reserves Adani decision http://www.theage.com.
au/business/mining-and-resources/federal-court-reserves-adani-decision-20170303-guq2gd.html
The Australian Conservation Foundation must wait to learn if its latest challenge against the controversial Adani coalmine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin has been successful.
The ACF appeared before the Federal Court in Brisbane on Friday to appeal a decision last year that gave the huge Carmichael project the green light.
But the full bench reserved its judgment after it heard submissions from the environmental group, federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and Adani.
ACF barrister Saul Holt QC argued the original judge had erred when he found in favour of Mr Frydenberg and the Indian mining giant in August.
Mr Holt claimed the environment minister had not applied or misconstrued the law when he claimed if the mine didn’t go ahead, the same amount of coal could still be produced somewhere else in the world.
Mr Holt said the argument failed to address the impact the Adani mine would have on global warming and in particular, warmer water temperatures on the Great Barrier Reef.
“What someone else might do if this action doesn’t go ahead is irrelevant,” he said.
“The harm is still done by the emission of the carbon by Adani’s coal.”
However Richard Lancaster SC, representing Mr Frydenberg, said the original judge was correct when he agreed his client could only be “speculative” when it came to the impact Adani’s possible emissions would have on global warming.
Mr Lancaster said the projection that 4.64 billion tonnes of coal, or one-183rd of total worldwide emissions, could be produced by the Queensland mine was the “worst case scenario”.
Mr Lancaster said neither the original judge nor the environment minister had erred in their interpretation of the relevant acts.
The full bench of the Federal Court will hand down its decision at a later date.
March 4, 2017
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Silence is Complicity in Reef’s Destructuon #auspol , John Pratt, 1 M ar 17 Big tourism must demand action to save the reef – its business depends on it
According to a blog post on the home page of the tourism giant Mantra Group, a “family holiday in Queensland would be incomplete without a visit to the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world”.
Which raises the question, why isn’t the Mantra Group – one of Australia’s largest hotel and resort operators, with more than $8bn in asset management including a string of resorts in north Queensland – vociferous in demanding action to save the reef?
The question could not be more pertinent given the return of the threat of coral bleaching.
Mantra and other huge hospitality companies with interests on the reef, including Marriott and Accor, were conspicuously muted during the great bleaching of 2015-16.
Nor have any of these companies spoken out strongly against the Carmichael coalmine proposal – despite the mortal threat that fossil-fuel expansion poses to the reef their businesses depend on.
As the Queensland Tourism Industry Council boss, Daniel Gschwind, told the Monthly:
“It’s hard to see how the further development or expansion of the coal industry can support or in any way contribute positively to the future of the reef … There is no denying that the further extraction and burning of fossil fuels is a negative for the reef.”
Port Douglas sits at the hinge of the central and northern sectors of the Great Barrier Reef.
Presumably a large number of those who choose to stay in resorts like the Mantra Aqueous – or the Accor-owned Sea Temple or the Marriott-owned Sheraton Mirage, both also in Port Douglas – have been drawn there by the promise of the reef.
And while the vast majority of the reef experienced some damage, it is the northern sector that experienced the worst.
Last November a team of experts from James Cook University led by Prof Terry Hughes estimated that two-thirds of the corals in the reef’s northern part had died.
I snorkelled some of the impacted areas. I’d seen plenty of images and vision but nothing really prepares you for the scale of the carnage when the algae-covered remains spread out beneath you, all around, in every direction, as far as your goggled eyes can see.
Gschwind believes that most tour operators are not just on the reef “to make a buck” but rather “have a deep, almost spiritual, connection to the places they visit and take their visitors to” so “their interest is very much also in conservation”. The 170 tourism operators who wrote an open letter to the prime minister last year opposing the Carmichael coalmine are no doubt in this category.
But in the fight for the reef’s future, the big end of the tourism street has gone missing. The likes of Mantra, Accor and Marriott profit from the astonishing beauty of the fish and the coral – but where is the much-vaunted corporate leadership when the Great Barrier Reef needs defenders?……. https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/17124327/posts/1356978618
March 3, 2017
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Coalition’s “clean coal” plan to power Gina, Clive, Adani in Galilee basin, REneweconomy. By Giles Parkinson on 1 March 2017 The so-called “clean coal” power generator being promoted by the Coalition has been revealed to be a 2009 proposal from businessman Clive Palmer that would be used to help provide electricity to Galilee coal mines planned by Palmer himself, Gina Rinehart, and Indian group Adani.
Waratah Coal, the company owned by Palmer’s Mineralogy, confirmed to the ABC on Tuesday that it had made an application to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation last Friday to finance a proposed 900MW coal generator that proposes to use an unproven technology, carbon capture and storage.
The revived plan was originated in 2009, and the details can be found here. It proposed to bury the emissions from the coal plant under the very same coal province that the three mining groups propose to mine – except that it will be “sequestered” in an “un-mineable” area of coal seams some 1km underground.
The $1.25 billion figure comes from its 2009 estimates, but it is expected that this is well out of the ball-park now. It also does not, the application makes clear, include the cost of carbon capture and sequestration.
No plant in the world has come close to making this a commercially viable proposition and the owners of the most advanced project, Kemper in Georgia, now admit it would be impossible make money from coal generation and CCS.
But that hasn’t stopped the Coalition continuing to push “clean coal” over renewables, despite overwhelming consensus that it would cost at least twice as much – and possibly four times as much with CCS – than wind and solar alternatives.
Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – who as recently as 2010 supported 100 per cent renewable energy scenarios – has now pitched the Coalition’s energy policy firmly behind the construction of new “ultra supercritical” coal plants.
Resources minister Matt Canavan has been particularly vocal in support of a new coal-fired power station in north Queensland. This proposal, from Palmer, is the only proposal in the pipeline. Most other energy investors in the area are instead looking to solar and wind farms.
This comes as new data shows that Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, jumping another 2.2 per cent in the last financial year and taking the growth since the repeal of the carbon price to more than 7 per cent.
Much of this growth has come from the electricity sector, due to increased coal-fired generation, and from the new LNG export facilities in Queensland, where more coal and gas is being burned to power the liquefaction of coal seam gas, so it can be shipped overseas.
New studies have again questioned whether coal seam gas is any “cleaner” than coal power, given evidence that “rogue methane emissions” which are not measured by the gas companies, are actually making CSG a dirtier power source than coal…..
The Minerals Council, it has been widely reported, supplied the lump of coal brought into Question Time last month by treasurer Scott Morrison, in the middle of a record-breaking heat wave. The coal was lacquered so Coalition ministers and MPs would not get their hands dirty.
The proposed coal-fired power station in the Galilee Basin reveals the farcical depths of Australia’s energy policy debate. Even the Energy Supply Council, which represents the country’s fossil fuel generators, admits that new coal power is now “un-investable”.
The Coalition wants such coal plants to be funded by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, but this has been dismissed on several occasions by CEO Oliver Yates, who points out that co-financiers would be impossible to find, and any such investment would require billions of dollars in government guarantees and indemnities against a future carbon price.
The Minerals Council, though, is pushing the Galilee coal basin hard. It has previously fought against a carbon price and has launched numerous campaigns to promote coal as a commodity……http://reneweconomy.com.au/coalitions-clean-coal-plan-power-gina-clive-adani-galilee-basin-35115/
March 3, 2017
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Climate scientists say likelihood of extreme summers surging due to global warming
Report’s authors say Sydney unprepared for knock-on effects of a significant increase in average summer temperatures, Guardian, Calla Wahlquist, 2 Mar 17, New South Wales, which has just experienced its hottest summer on record, is 50 times more likely to experience another similarly hot summer and 10 times more likely to experience extremely hot days under climate change, according to a group of Australian climate scientists.
The mean temperature in Sydney was 2.8C above average in December, January, and February, according to the Bureau of Meteorology, and the three-day heatwave from 9 February to 11 was the hottest on record from Sydney to Brisbane, breaking records set in 1939.
It us the kind of weather event that would have been considered a one in 500-year occurrence before 1910, before global warming had a significant impact on the climate system, but had now become a one in 50-year event, according to a new analysis released on Thursday.
“In the future, a summer as hot as this past summer in NSW is likely to happen roughly once every five years,” the report said.
It could make Sydney a less liveable city, one of the report’s authors, Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, said. Perkins-Kirkpatrick is a research fellow at the University of New South Wales’ Climate Change Research Centre and said Sydney was unprepared for the knock-on effects of a significant increase in average summer temperatures……..
Melbourne University’s Dr Andrew King, another author of the report, said that while Australia had experienced extremely hot days or extreme weather events in the past, the data showed the frequency and severity of those events had increased markedly in the past 20 years and would continue to increase unless drastic action was taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Yes, people would have experienced 40C days several decades ago around different parts of Australia and in Sydney but we know that these incidences of very hot days are getting more frequent and we are setting more records for heat,” he said.
Australia broke 12 times more records for hot weather than cool weather between 2000 and 2014.
“The purpose of the analysis in this report is to raise awareness that climate change is already impacting on weather in Australia,” King said. “Hopefully it motivates action on climate change, because we know what the solution to climate change is.”https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/02/climate-scientists-say-likelihood-of-extreme-summers-surging-due-to-global-warming
March 3, 2017
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https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/17124327/posts/1359555949 John Pratt 2 Mar 17 Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get much worse for the Great Barrier Reef comes news that devastating coral bleaching will almost certainly increase significantly — again — in the coming months.
Record bleaching hit the 1,400-mile-long reef system in 2016, for the third year in a row, killing more than 65 percent of the coral of the northern reef. Climate change has impacted the ecosystem, as the colorful zooxanthellae are expelled from the coral during times of stress, according to numerous studies and the Australian Government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
Coral can rebound in good times — though it takes as long as a decade — but scientists say that’s not likely to happen soon, if ever. The reef is already warmer than it was at this time last year and there’s a strong strong possibility that March and April will set new temperature highs ― and a new record for coral bleaching. Marine park authority workers are already seeing significant bleaching this season.
March 3, 2017
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Climate pollution rising: Turnbull, Frydenberg failing, REneweconomy, By Matthew Rose and Suzanne Harter on 1 March 2017 If the Turnbull government had to pay a dollar for every time a minister claimed Australia was ‘meeting and beating’ its climate targets, the money would be stacking up. Their claims, however, would not.
New data, just released under the National Greenhouse & Energy Reporting Scheme, shows the climate policies of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Environment & Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg are simply not working.
The data reflects the emissions of approximately 400 of Australia’s biggest companies and sits alongside the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory as an indicator of our emissions trajectory.
The 10 biggest polluters remain the same as last year. although the order has slightly changed.
They include Australia’s biggest electricity generators, AGL, Energy Australia, Origin, Engie and CS Energy, along with mining giants Rio Tinto and Glencore.
Overall, climate pollution is up by 3.4 per cent since last year and by 7.5 per cent since the Abbott-Turnbull government axed the carbon price. Unlike the government’s current policy, the carbon price was reducing Australia’s pollution. This is evident in the data. [graph on original]
The new data also shows pollution from Australia’s electricity sector, which is responsible for about 35 per cent of our climate pollution, went up 2.6 per cent on the previous year and 5 per cent since the carbon price was removed.
The pollution increases — from specific generators and overall — show there is little incentive for big polluters to clean up their acts when they have a free ride to pollute.
Meanwhile, global warming continues to damage Australian treasures, like the Great Barrier Reef, and increase the likelihood and severity of heatwaves and bushfires.
And there’s no sign Australia’s international commitments under the Paris agreement, including our 2030 target for 26-28 per cent pollution reduction in 2005 levels, will be able to be reached without major policy changes that see Australia phase out fossil fuels and enable a rapid transition to clean renewable energy.
However, instead of acknowledging global warming as a national crisis that demands immediate serious action, the federal government is considering loaning Adani $1 billion for a coal-carting railway line from the Galilee Basin to the Great Barrier Reef coast and wants the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to fund new coal-fired power stations.
None of this stacks up for investors that see coal in terminal decline and are unwilling to sink their money into facilities that will undoubtedly end up as stranded assets.
Nor is support for coal consistent with our Paris commitments, which include driving down pollution to net zero well before mid-century keeping global warming under 1.5—2 degrees………
Turnbull and Frydenberg continue to blame renewable energy. The data released this week is hard evidence Australia’s pollution is going up and that means Turnbull and Frydenberg’s policies are failing. http://reneweconomy.com.au/climate-pollution-rising-turnbull-frydenberg-failing-15377/
March 3, 2017
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Government green bank receives funding request for $1.2 billion coal-fired power plant, The Age, Adam Morton Amy Remeikis 28 Feb 17 The Turnbull government’s push for taxpayers to finance new coal-fired power stations is facing its first test after an application for support was lodged with the national green bank.
Clean Energy Finance Corporation chief Oliver Yates told a Senate estimates hearing that the agency received an email on Friday from an unidentified company requesting a loan for a proposed $1.2 billion, 900 megawatt coal plant with carbon capture and storage.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the plan, but energy industry experts noted the size and estimated cost were similar to a previous proposal by former mining magnate and MP Clive Palmer for a generator in Queensland’s Galilee Basin.
Speaking to Fairfax Media on Monday night, Mr Palmer said he had “retired” and directed questions to Waratah Coal managing director Nui Harris. But he said the company had spent $20 million on a similar plant under the Gillard government and the project was in a “high state of readiness”.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation is banned from financing capture and storage technology, which involves burying the greenhouse gas emitted in burning coal underground. Dropping the ban would require a challenging change in legislation – a step likely to be opposed by Labor and the Greens.
Mr Yates said he believed new coal plants were not commercially viable unless the government was willing to indemnify the owner for the life of the plant.
He said the indemnity would need to cover any future climate change policy – an unquantifiable sum covering decades – and potential delays in construction due to protests.
Mr Yates, a former Macquarie Bank executive director who is stepping down as head of the finance corporation, said he was not aware of any bank that would be willing to lend to a project that may not be viable.
“I don’t see that as a sensible risk position for the taxpayer to take,” he said.
“If a private sector participant wants to go and build anything – they want to build a theme park, want to build the Eiffel Tower – it may not be economically sensible, but they are entitled to go and do it if they want to.”…….
Mr Yates said among the risks facing coal proposals was the falling cost of renewable energy. Coal generators would need to compete to sell the electricity they produced.
An analysis by consultants Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently found new coal plants, with emissions up to 25 per cent lower than Australia’s existing plants, would be more expensive than gas, wind or solar power. Adding carbon capture and storage would dramatically further increase the cost. ……. http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-green-bank-receives-funding-request-for-12-billion-coalfired-power-plant-20170227-gume05.html
March 1, 2017
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Has Australia’s mainstream media not noticed this? And if so, why so?
Australian state passes bill to reduce emissions to zero by 2050, http://www.ammonia21.com/articles/7460/australian_state_passes_bill_to_reduce_emissions_to_zero_by_2050 By Charlotte McLaughlin, Feb 24, 2017, The southern Australian state of Victoria passed the climate change bill yesterday. The legislature of Victoria, Australia has passed a climate change bill committing the state to reduce emissions to zero by 2050. Achieving this would imply phasing out super-pollutants like hydroflurocarbons (HFCs).
HFCs are some of the fastest-growing climate pollutants. R404A, an HFC commonly used in refrigeration and air-conditioning, has a global warming potential (GWP) of 3,922 (in other words, 3,922 times that of carbon dioxide).
The Victoria bill sets out how to achieve the long-term target by “determining the amount of total greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the State, including any removals of greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere due to activities within the State; and (b) deducting from that amount any eligible offsets from outside of the State”.
Options for reducing emissions to zero may see Victoria take part in an emissions trading scheme or introduce carbon capture measures.
The state government will determine targets for each year once they have received feedback from experts on how to achieve this ambitious goal. It will then give relevant departments and local government “a description of actions” that they need to achieve over the next five years to work towards the goal of reducing emissions completely.
Extreme weather nudging Australia in right direction
The legislation marks an important step for Australia on climate change, whose federal and state governments have been traditionally hesitant to act.
The conservative Liberal Party and the primarily rural-based National Party, who control the national government, revoked Australia’s carbon trading scheme two years ago.
Australia is also the least-active country among the biggest global economies that make up the G20 when it comes to climate protection, according to a 2016 report from Climate Transparency, an NGO.
Public opinion is shifting in the wake of Australia experiencing record temperatures of over 47oC in the past few weeks. A recent poll by Essential Media puts the number of people who agree with the statement that “climate change is happening and is caused by human activity” at 60%.
According to Accelerate Australia & NZ reports that the federal government in Canberra will table an HFC phase-down plan by the end of next month and pass it by June of this year.
February 25, 2017
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The climate bombshell the politicians didn’t touch, SMH, Business, Michael Pasco, 21 Feb 17 , Never mind the politicisation of energy and carbon policy – the market and legal system is moving rapidly to instil the discipline and punishment the government isn’t game to discuss.That was the core of the climate change bombshell dropped by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority on Friday. The policy vacuum will be filled by the personal liability of company directors and the disclosure requirements of financial regulators.
If the ABC’s Insiders program and the federal Environment and Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, are any guide, Canberra hasn’t yet grasped the importance of the speech by APRA executive board member, Geoff Summerhayes, to the Insurance Council of Australia forum.In keeping with the Paris Agreement Australia has signed and the Financial Stability Board’s (FSB) policy development, APRA leaves no room for climate sceptics. Both the obvious physical and perhaps less obvious “transition” risks of climate change are real and present dangers to the financial system APRA is charged with safeguarding.
And it’s the transition risks of moving to a low-carbon economy that Summerhayes fingered as being particularly important for financial entities. APRA and its international counterparts fear the impact on banks, superannuation funds and asset managers of changes in policy, law, markets, technology and prices that are part of the agreed transition to a low-carbon economy.
Spare a thought here for the board of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) as it considers Adani’s application for a billion-dollar loan to build a railway from the Galilee Basin to the Queensland coast. While being lent on by pro-coal government members, NAIF directors would do well to consider why Australia’s banks seem to have no interest in financing the line. It’s not just a green PR issue – it’s the danger of being left with a stranded asset and directors being personally liable.
Summerhayes quoted legal opinion that it’s only a matter of time before directors who fail to properly consider and disclose foreseeable climate-related risks are held personally liable for breaching their statutory duty of care and diligence under the Corporations Act.The same consideration would weigh heavily on Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) directors if the government changes the legislation to allow CEFC to lend to new coal-powered electricity generators
Summerhayes noted that much of the early focus on climate change risks had been on insurance firms and their exposure to losses from increasingly frequent and severe natural disasters, but there were a variety of other potential issues.”These include the potential exposure of banks’ and insurers’ balance sheets to real estate impacted by climate change and to re-pricing or even ‘stranding’ of carbon-intensive assets in other parts of their loan books,” he said.
“They also include exposure of asset owners and managers – an important consideration given the size of Australia’s superannuation sector and its heavy weighting towards carbon-intensive equities and a relatively resource-intensive domestic economy.”
Frydenberg on Sunday gave the impression the government was determined to bet Australia’s energy future on the coal industry finding a way to make carbon capture and storage (CCS) economically viable.
Given the Coalition’s refusal to price carbon so as to give CCS here even a small chance of success, that looks as sensible as an individual betting their financial future on winning OzLotto. That sort of policy response, driven by the coalition’s internal ructions, climate sceptics and concentration on simplistic immediate “hip pocket” politics, contrasts with broader forces APRA comprehends.APRA’s view is that the Paris Agreement provided a very reliable signal that policy and regulatory efforts would intensify…….http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-climate-bombshell-the-politicians-didnt-touch-20170219-gugn0r.html
February 22, 2017
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Climate scepticism is a far-right badge of honour – even in sweltering Australia, Guardian, Paul Mason It’s up to progressives to fight back against this idiocy-promoting rhetoric and save the Earth Tuesday 21 February 2017
It hits you in the face and clings to you. It makes tall buildings whine as their air conditioning plants struggle to cope. It makes the streets deserted and the ice-cold salons of corner pubs get crowded with people who don’t like beer. It is the Aussie heatwave: and it is no joke.
Temperatures in the western suburbs of Sydney, far from the upmarket beachside glamour, reached 47C (117F) last week, topping the 44C I experienced there the week before. For reference, if it reached 47C in the middle of the Sahara desert, that would be an unusually hot day.
For Sydney, 2017 was the hottest January on record. This after 2016 was declared the world’s hottest year on record. Climate change, even in some developed societies, is becoming climate disruption – and according to a UN report, one of the biggest disruptions may only now be getting under way.
El Niño, a temperature change in the Pacific ocean that happens cyclically, may have begun interacting with the long-term process of global warming, with catastrophic results…….
What cannot be disputed is that the most recent El Niño in 2015/16 contributed to the extreme weather patterns of the past 18 months, hiking global temperatures that were already setting records. (Although, such is the level of rising, both 2015 and 2016 would have still been the hottest ever without El Niño.) Sixty million people were “severely affected” according to the UN, while 23 countries – some of which no longer aid recipients – had to call for urgent humanitarian aid. The catastrophe prompted the head of the World Meteorological Association to warn: “This naturally occurring El Niño event and human-induced climate change may interact and modify each other in ways that we have never before experienced.”
The warning was enough to prompt the UN to issue a global action plan, with early warning systems, beefed-up aid networks and disaster relief preparation, and calls for developing countries to “climate proof” their economic plans.
Compare all this – the science, the modelling, the economic foresight and the attempt to design multilateral blueprint – with the actions of the jackass who runs Australia’s finance ministry.
Scott Morrison barged into the parliament chamber to wave a lump of coal at the Labor and Green opposition benches, taunting them: “Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared. It’s coal. It was dug up by men and women who work in the electorate of those who sit opposite.” Coal, argues the Australian conservative government, has given the economy “competitive energy advantage for more than 100 years”. Labor and the Greens had called, after the Paris climate accord, for an orderly shutdown of the coal-fired power stations that produce 60% of the country’s energy.
The Aussie culture war over coal is being fuelled by the resurgence of the white-supremacist One Nation party, led by Pauline Hanson, which is pressuring mainstream conservatives to drop commitments to the Paris accord and, instead, launch a “royal commission into the corruption of climate science”, which its members believe is a money-making scam.
All over the world, know-nothing xenophobes are claiming – without evidence – that climate science is rigged. Their goal is to defend coal-burning energy, promote fracking, suppress the development of renewable energies and shatter the multilateral Paris agreement of 2015.
Opposition to climate science has become not just the badge of honour for far-right politicians like Ukip’s Paul Nuttall. It has become the central tenet of their appeal to unreason…….https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/20/sweltering-aussies-rightwing-climate-of-fear
February 22, 2017
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Pre-election coal advertising funded by money meant for clean coal research, ABC News, By Stephen Long 21 Feb 17 The coal industry’s multi-million-dollar advertising and lobbying campaign in the run-up to the last federal election was bankrolled by money deducted from state mining royalty payments and meant to fund research into “clean coal”.
Key points:
- Coal21 fund launched in 2004, aiming to create $1 billion to research “clean coal technologies”
- Fund’s coal levy was suspended from mid-2012 to mid-2016
- In 2013 coal lobby changed mandate of Coal21 to allow its funds to be used for “coal promotion”
The mining industry spent $2.5 million pushing the case for lower-emissions, coal-fired power plants in the run-up to last year’s election — a cause the Federal Government has since taken up with gusto.
The source of the funds was a voluntary levy on coal companies, originally intended to fund research into “clean coal” technologies, which coal producers could deduct from state mining royalties.
Instead, some of the money raised paid for phone polling, literature and TV ads that declared “coal — it’s an amazing thing”.
The funds were channelled through the Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technology Limited (ACALET), formerly owned by the Australian Coal Association and now part of the Minerals Council for Australia.
Queensland Government documents list “the COAL21 levy payable to Australian Coal Association Low Emissions Technologies Ltd (ACALET)” as an eligible deduction against royalty payments in the state.
A “coal research” levy in NSW is also deductible against coal mining royalty payments, under a deal signed off by the disgraced former NSW Labor minister Ian Macdonald, who was charged with criminal offences after an ICAC inquiry.
But it was not clear from the ABC’s research whether the NSW money funded the body behind the coal industry’s campaign.
Coal21 was launched more than a decade ago, with the aim of creating a $1 billion fund for research into “clean coal” technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), but only a fraction of the money was raised or spent.
With a lack of research projects to finance, the levy was suspended in 2012. In 2013, the coal lobby changed the mandate of Coal21 to downplay research and allow its funds to be used for “coal promotion”.
Critics ‘outraged’ by industry’s use of funding
Funding the industry campaign from money that otherwise would have been paid to state governments as mining royalties has outraged the Federal Opposition and the coal industry’s critics.
“It is a huge shame that Coal21 funding, which was mean to go into genuine CCS research, is now being used to finance advertising and political campaigns,” Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler said.
Australia Institute chief economist Richard Denniss said it was “scandalous”.
“Every dollar spent on advertising as part of the coal industry campaign was a dollar that should have gone into consolidated revenue,” he said.
“Citizens funded a propaganda campaign with money that would otherwise have gone into public revenue to fund schools and hospitals.”
February 22, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming, secrets and lies |
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Climate change could threaten entire financial system, APRA warns, ABC News, 17 Feb 17, By Stephen Long Climate change could threaten the stability of the entire financial system, the prudential regulator has warned, as it prepares to apply climate change “stress tests” to the nation’s financial institutions.
In its first major speech on climate change, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority chastised companies for a lack of action on the risks it poses.
“While climate risks have been broadly recognised, they have often been seen as a future problem or a non-financial problem,” APRA executive board member Geoff Summerhayes told an Insurance Council conference in Sydney.
“Many of these risks are foreseeable, material and actionable now.
The speech comes as the Government and the Opposition bicker about renewable energy targets amid dismay among industry leaders about a lack of certainty on climate change policy.
The Climate Institute’s CEO John Connor described the speech as a “huge” development.
“APRA has never gone out there like this before,” he said.
“It’s an antidote to the hyper partisan political culture war on climate policy; our regulator’s moved to the front foot in managing climate risks.”
The Climate Institute and the Investor Group on Climate Change wrote jointly to the Council of Financial Regulators two years calling for regulatory action on the financial risks from climate change.
Lack of policy ‘could greatly increase financial risks’
APRA warned in the speech that lack of policy and regulatory action could make the financial risks posed by climate change “greater and more abrupt”.
“There could be either sharper, more significant policy changes and market adjustments down the track, or the physical impacts of climate change could become more severe, more likely and more unpredictable,” Mr Summerhayes said.
“Like all risks, it is better they are explicitly considered and managed as appropriate, rather than simply ignored or neglected.
“So what can you expect to see from us? A greater emphasis on stress testing for organisational and systemic resilience in the face of adverse shocks.
“Just as we would expect to see more sophisticated scenario-based analysis of climate risks at the firm level, we look at these risks as part of our system-wide stress testing.”
APRA’s intervention follows a similar though more pointed warning two years ago by the head of the Bank of England about the threats climate change posed to financial stability…….http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-17/climate-change-could-threaten-entire-financial-system-apra/8281436?pfmredir=sm
February 20, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, business, climate change - global warming |
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About Seed http://www.seedmob.org.au/about_seed
“Seed is Australia’s first Indigenous youth climate network.
We are building a movement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people for climate justice with the Australian Youth Climate Coalition.
“Our vision is for a just and sustainable future with strong cultures and communities, powered by renewable energy.
“Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity, but we also know it is an opportunity to create a more just and sustainable world.”
February 20, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
aboriginal issues, AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, climate change - global warming |
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Antinuclear 