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Foreign Minister Marise Payne Defends Australia's Climate Change Policies
ABC News - Melissa Clarke
Foreign Minister Marise Payne defends Australia's climate change policies. (ABC News)
Key points:
"I think that they should be pleased that Australia is meeting our Paris commitments, that is something we are absolutely locked in to doing," Senator Payne said.Climate change and the ADF
Australia's Defence Department has spelled out clearly to a Senate inquiry that climate change will create "concurrency pressures" for the Defence Force as a rise in disaster relief operations continues.
Speaking to the ABC ahead of her departure, she defended the Coalition's credentials on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are very serious and meeting our Paris commitments is the best symbol of that, in my view."
The Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting in Suva comes at a time of renewed focus on the Pacific.
The region is emerging as a battleground for influence in global politics, with Australia trying to maintain its pre-eminence as an economic and strategic partner against China's growing assertiveness.
"Well I think one of the things I think we can say, is that we live here, this is our region," Senator Payne told the ABC.
"These countries are our Pacific family and that is a very important starting point."
Fuel drums are being used as sea walls to provide protection against coastal erosion in Tuvalu. (Oxfam: Rodney Dekker)China has stepped up its diplomatic efforts in the region, providing more development assistance, economic loans and private sector investment.
An island's race against time
The Carteret Islands were the first place in the world to require population relocations due to climate change, with predictions they would be submerged by 2015.
Beijing is presenting a challenge to the United States' long-running dominance as the super-power of the Asia-Pacific region.
But Senator Payne said the changing power dynamic isn't cause for concern.
"Our relationship with Indonesia has changed significantly in the last 10, 20 years, so I don't think relationships such as this are immutable," she said.
"The important thing for governments is to work with the changes, work with those developments.
"I think it's a busy space and I don't think that's a bad thing. The growth in partnerships in the region is a good thing.
"We welcome all-comers, if you like, as long as they're contributing to the things that are important to the region — to security, to stability and to prosperity."
Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Australia is "very serious" about meeting the UN's climate change agreement. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
Links
Foreign Minister Marise Payne defends Australia's climate change policies. (ABC News)
Key points:
- Ms Payne defended the Coalition's credentials on reducing greenhouse gas emissions
- The Pacific region is emerging as a battleground for influence in global politics
- She said the changing power dynamic in the Asia-Pacific isn't cause for concern
"I think that they should be pleased that Australia is meeting our Paris commitments, that is something we are absolutely locked in to doing," Senator Payne said.Climate change and the ADF
Australia's Defence Department has spelled out clearly to a Senate inquiry that climate change will create "concurrency pressures" for the Defence Force as a rise in disaster relief operations continues.
Speaking to the ABC ahead of her departure, she defended the Coalition's credentials on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"We are very serious and meeting our Paris commitments is the best symbol of that, in my view."
The Pacific Islands Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting in Suva comes at a time of renewed focus on the Pacific.
The region is emerging as a battleground for influence in global politics, with Australia trying to maintain its pre-eminence as an economic and strategic partner against China's growing assertiveness.
"Well I think one of the things I think we can say, is that we live here, this is our region," Senator Payne told the ABC.
"These countries are our Pacific family and that is a very important starting point."
Fuel drums are being used as sea walls to provide protection against coastal erosion in Tuvalu. (Oxfam: Rodney Dekker)China has stepped up its diplomatic efforts in the region, providing more development assistance, economic loans and private sector investment.
An island's race against time
The Carteret Islands were the first place in the world to require population relocations due to climate change, with predictions they would be submerged by 2015.
Beijing is presenting a challenge to the United States' long-running dominance as the super-power of the Asia-Pacific region.
But Senator Payne said the changing power dynamic isn't cause for concern.
"Our relationship with Indonesia has changed significantly in the last 10, 20 years, so I don't think relationships such as this are immutable," she said.
"The important thing for governments is to work with the changes, work with those developments.
"I think it's a busy space and I don't think that's a bad thing. The growth in partnerships in the region is a good thing.
"We welcome all-comers, if you like, as long as they're contributing to the things that are important to the region — to security, to stability and to prosperity."
Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Australia is "very serious" about meeting the UN's climate change agreement. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
Links
- UN secretary-general meets Pacific leaders to discuss 'global catastrophe' of climate change
- Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga says Australia's climate change inaction undermines its 'Pacific pivot'
- Australia on track to meet Paris Agreement targets five years earlier than expected, research finds
- Climate change-related disaster relief is increasing demand on Defence Department, Senate hears
- Lost at sea: the race against time to save the Carteret Islands from climate change
- Australia ramps up rivalry with China for influence in the Pacific
Categories: External websites
Climate Change: 12 Years To Save The Planet? Make That 18 Months
BBC - Matt McGrath
CLINT SPENCERDo you remember the good old days when we had "12 years to save the planet"?
Now it seems, there's a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030.
But today, observers recognise that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year.
The idea that 2020 is a firm deadline was eloquently addressed by one of the world's top climate scientists, speaking back in 2017.
The jet stream drags tropical continental air from Africa over to Europe
"The climate math is brutally clear: While the world can't be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and now director emeritus of the Potsdam Climate Institute.
The sense that the end of next year is the last chance saloon for climate change is becoming clearer all the time.
"I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival," said Prince Charles, speaking at a reception for Commonwealth foreign ministers recently.
So why are the next 18 months so important?
The Prince was looking ahead to a series of critical UN meetings that are due to take place between now and the end of 2020.
Ever since a global climate agreement was signed in Paris in December 2015, negotiators have been consumed with arguing about the rulebook for the pact.
But under the terms of the deal, countries have also promised to improve their carbon-cutting plans by the end of next year.
Prince Charles has stressed how important the next 12 months are in tackling climate change. Getty ImagesOne of the understated headlines in last year's IPCC report was that global emissions of carbon dioxide must peak by 2020 to keep the planet below 1.5C.
Current plans are nowhere near strong enough to keep temperatures below the so-called safe limit. Right now, we are heading towards 3C of heating by 2100 not 1.5.
As countries usually scope out their plans over five and 10 year timeframes, if the 45% carbon cut target by 2030 is to be met then the plans really need to be on the table by the end of 2020.
What are the steps?
The first major hurdle will be the special climate summit called by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which will be held in New York on 23 September.
Mr Guterres has been clear that he only wants countries to come to the UN if they can make significant offers to improve their national carbon cutting plans.
This will be followed by COP25 in Santiago, Chile, where the most important achievement will likely be keeping the process moving forward.
But the really big moment will most likely be in the UK at COP26, which takes place at the end of 2020.
The UK government believes it can use the opportunity of COP26, in a post-Brexit world, to show that Britain can build the political will for progress, in the same way the French used their diplomatic muscle to make the Paris deal happen.
"If we succeed in our bid (to host COP26) then we will ensure we build on the Paris agreement and reflect the scientific evidence accumulating now that we need to go further and faster," said Environment Secretary Michael Gove, in what may have been his last major speech in the job.
"And we need at COP26 to ensure other countries are serious about their obligations and that means leading by example. Together we must take all the steps necessary to restrict global warming to at least 1.5C."
Reasons to be cheerful?
Whether it's the evidence of heatwaves, or the influence of Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg, or the rise of Extinction Rebellion, there has been a marked change in public interest in stories about climate change and a hunger for solutions that people can put in place in their own lives.
People are demanding significant action, and politicians in many countries have woken up to these changes.
The rise of school strikers like Greta Thunberg has reflected growing interest in the climate question. Getty ImagesIdeas like the green new deal in the US, which might have seemed unfeasible a few years ago have gained real traction.
Some countries like the UK have gone even further and legislated for net zero emissions by 2050, the long-term goal that will keep temperatures down.
Prince Charles' sense that the next 18 months are critical is shared by some climate negotiators.
"Our group of small island developing states share Prince Charles's sense of the profound urgency for ambitious climate action," said ambassador Janine Felson from Belize who is the chief strategist for the Alliance of Small Island States group in the UN.
"All at once we are witness to a collective convergence of public mobilisation, worsening climatic impacts and dire scientific warnings that compel decisive climate leadership."
"Without question, 2020 is a hard deadline for that leadership to finally manifest itself."
Reasons to be fearful?
With exquisite timing, the likely UK COP in 2020 could also be the moment the US finally pulls out of the Paris agreement.
But if Donald Trump doesn't prevail in the presidential election that position could change, with a democrat victor likely to reverse the decision.
Either step could have huge consequences for the climate fight.
Right now a number of countries seem keen to slow down progress. Last December the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia blocked the IPCC special report on 1.5C from UN talks.
Just a few weeks ago in Bonn, further objections from Saudi Arabia meant it was again dropped from the UN negotiations, much to annoyance of small island states and developing nations.
The US and Saudi Arabia have joined forces to restrict the use of IPCC science reports in climate talks. ANADOLU AGENCYThere will be significant pressure on the host country to ensure substantial progress. But if there's ongoing political turmoil around Brexit then the government may not have the bandwidth to unpick the multiple global challenges that climate change presents.
"If we cannot use that moment to accelerate ambition we will have no chance of getting to a 1.5 or 2C limit," said Prof Michael Jacobs, from the University of Sheffield, a former climate adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"Right now there's nothing like enough understanding of, or commitment to, this among leading countries. That's why the UN Secretary General is holding a summit in September.
"It's great that the COP might be in UK because we have a big civil society ecosystem and much higher climate awareness than in most other countries. But the movement here has barely started to think about how to apply sufficient pressure."
There's also been a strong warning shot from the UK's Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
At the launch of their review of progress made by the UK government on tackling climate change, the country was found not to be on track despite legislating for net zero emissions by 2050.
"The government must show it is serious about its legal obligations…[its] credibility really is at stake here," said CCC chief executive Chris Stark.
"There is a window over the next 12-18 months to do something about this. If we don't see that, I fear the government will be embarrassed at COP26."
And it's not all about climate change
While the decisions taken on climate change in the next year or so will be critical, there are a number of other key gatherings on the environment that will shape the nature on preserving species and protecting our oceans in the coming decades.
Earlier this year a major study on the losses being felt across the natural world as result of broader human impacts caused a huge stir among governments.
The IPBES report showed that up to one million species could be lost in coming decades.
To address this, governments will meet in China next year to try to agree a deal that will protect creatures of all types.
The Convention on Biological Diversity is the UN body tasked with putting together a plan to protect nature up to 2030.
Next year's meeting could be a "Paris agreement" moment for the natural world. If agreement is found it's likely there will be an emphasis on sustainable farming and fishing. It will urge greater protection for species and a limit on deforestation.
Next year, the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea will also meet to negotiate a new global oceans treaty.
This has the potential to make a real difference, according to UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
"We have been convinced by the evidence of environmental degradation which occurs without adequate protection," he said in a speech last week.
"And that is why the United Kingdom has taken the lead in ensuring at least 30% of the ocean we are responsible for is protected by 2030 - a trebling of the present target. We will be asking all nations to sign up to that goal."
If all this comes to pass, the world might have a fighting chance of preserving our natural environment.
But the challenges are huge, the political involvement patchy.
So don't hold your breath!
Links
CLINT SPENCERDo you remember the good old days when we had "12 years to save the planet"?
Now it seems, there's a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges.
Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5C this century, emissions of carbon dioxide would have to be cut by 45% by 2030.
But today, observers recognise that the decisive, political steps to enable the cuts in carbon to take place will have to happen before the end of next year.
The idea that 2020 is a firm deadline was eloquently addressed by one of the world's top climate scientists, speaking back in 2017.
The jet stream drags tropical continental air from Africa over to Europe
"The climate math is brutally clear: While the world can't be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence until 2020," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder and now director emeritus of the Potsdam Climate Institute.
The sense that the end of next year is the last chance saloon for climate change is becoming clearer all the time.
"I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival," said Prince Charles, speaking at a reception for Commonwealth foreign ministers recently.
So why are the next 18 months so important?
The Prince was looking ahead to a series of critical UN meetings that are due to take place between now and the end of 2020.
Ever since a global climate agreement was signed in Paris in December 2015, negotiators have been consumed with arguing about the rulebook for the pact.
But under the terms of the deal, countries have also promised to improve their carbon-cutting plans by the end of next year.
Prince Charles has stressed how important the next 12 months are in tackling climate change. Getty ImagesOne of the understated headlines in last year's IPCC report was that global emissions of carbon dioxide must peak by 2020 to keep the planet below 1.5C.
Current plans are nowhere near strong enough to keep temperatures below the so-called safe limit. Right now, we are heading towards 3C of heating by 2100 not 1.5.
As countries usually scope out their plans over five and 10 year timeframes, if the 45% carbon cut target by 2030 is to be met then the plans really need to be on the table by the end of 2020.
What are the steps?
The first major hurdle will be the special climate summit called by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, which will be held in New York on 23 September.
Mr Guterres has been clear that he only wants countries to come to the UN if they can make significant offers to improve their national carbon cutting plans.
This will be followed by COP25 in Santiago, Chile, where the most important achievement will likely be keeping the process moving forward.
But the really big moment will most likely be in the UK at COP26, which takes place at the end of 2020.
The UK government believes it can use the opportunity of COP26, in a post-Brexit world, to show that Britain can build the political will for progress, in the same way the French used their diplomatic muscle to make the Paris deal happen.
"If we succeed in our bid (to host COP26) then we will ensure we build on the Paris agreement and reflect the scientific evidence accumulating now that we need to go further and faster," said Environment Secretary Michael Gove, in what may have been his last major speech in the job.
"And we need at COP26 to ensure other countries are serious about their obligations and that means leading by example. Together we must take all the steps necessary to restrict global warming to at least 1.5C."
Reasons to be cheerful?
Whether it's the evidence of heatwaves, or the influence of Swedish school striker Greta Thunberg, or the rise of Extinction Rebellion, there has been a marked change in public interest in stories about climate change and a hunger for solutions that people can put in place in their own lives.
People are demanding significant action, and politicians in many countries have woken up to these changes.
The rise of school strikers like Greta Thunberg has reflected growing interest in the climate question. Getty ImagesIdeas like the green new deal in the US, which might have seemed unfeasible a few years ago have gained real traction.
Some countries like the UK have gone even further and legislated for net zero emissions by 2050, the long-term goal that will keep temperatures down.
Prince Charles' sense that the next 18 months are critical is shared by some climate negotiators.
"Our group of small island developing states share Prince Charles's sense of the profound urgency for ambitious climate action," said ambassador Janine Felson from Belize who is the chief strategist for the Alliance of Small Island States group in the UN.
"All at once we are witness to a collective convergence of public mobilisation, worsening climatic impacts and dire scientific warnings that compel decisive climate leadership."
"Without question, 2020 is a hard deadline for that leadership to finally manifest itself."
Reasons to be fearful?
With exquisite timing, the likely UK COP in 2020 could also be the moment the US finally pulls out of the Paris agreement.
But if Donald Trump doesn't prevail in the presidential election that position could change, with a democrat victor likely to reverse the decision.
Either step could have huge consequences for the climate fight.
Right now a number of countries seem keen to slow down progress. Last December the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia blocked the IPCC special report on 1.5C from UN talks.
Just a few weeks ago in Bonn, further objections from Saudi Arabia meant it was again dropped from the UN negotiations, much to annoyance of small island states and developing nations.
The US and Saudi Arabia have joined forces to restrict the use of IPCC science reports in climate talks. ANADOLU AGENCYThere will be significant pressure on the host country to ensure substantial progress. But if there's ongoing political turmoil around Brexit then the government may not have the bandwidth to unpick the multiple global challenges that climate change presents.
"If we cannot use that moment to accelerate ambition we will have no chance of getting to a 1.5 or 2C limit," said Prof Michael Jacobs, from the University of Sheffield, a former climate adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"Right now there's nothing like enough understanding of, or commitment to, this among leading countries. That's why the UN Secretary General is holding a summit in September.
"It's great that the COP might be in UK because we have a big civil society ecosystem and much higher climate awareness than in most other countries. But the movement here has barely started to think about how to apply sufficient pressure."
There's also been a strong warning shot from the UK's Committee on Climate Change (CCC).
At the launch of their review of progress made by the UK government on tackling climate change, the country was found not to be on track despite legislating for net zero emissions by 2050.
"The government must show it is serious about its legal obligations…[its] credibility really is at stake here," said CCC chief executive Chris Stark.
"There is a window over the next 12-18 months to do something about this. If we don't see that, I fear the government will be embarrassed at COP26."
And it's not all about climate change
While the decisions taken on climate change in the next year or so will be critical, there are a number of other key gatherings on the environment that will shape the nature on preserving species and protecting our oceans in the coming decades.
Earlier this year a major study on the losses being felt across the natural world as result of broader human impacts caused a huge stir among governments.
The IPBES report showed that up to one million species could be lost in coming decades.
To address this, governments will meet in China next year to try to agree a deal that will protect creatures of all types.
The Convention on Biological Diversity is the UN body tasked with putting together a plan to protect nature up to 2030.
Next year's meeting could be a "Paris agreement" moment for the natural world. If agreement is found it's likely there will be an emphasis on sustainable farming and fishing. It will urge greater protection for species and a limit on deforestation.
Next year, the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea will also meet to negotiate a new global oceans treaty.
This has the potential to make a real difference, according to UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove.
"We have been convinced by the evidence of environmental degradation which occurs without adequate protection," he said in a speech last week.
"And that is why the United Kingdom has taken the lead in ensuring at least 30% of the ocean we are responsible for is protected by 2030 - a trebling of the present target. We will be asking all nations to sign up to that goal."
If all this comes to pass, the world might have a fighting chance of preserving our natural environment.
But the challenges are huge, the political involvement patchy.
So don't hold your breath!
Links
- UK heatwave 'set to break records'
- Records tumble as Europe swelters in heatwave
- 'No brainer' fuel change to cut transport CO2
- Used cooking oil imports may boost deforestation
- Government 'like Dad's Army' on climate change
- What does 1.5C mean in a warming world?
- IPCC Special Report: Global warming of 1.5°C (pdf)
- Climate Action Summit, 23 September 2019
- UK 'likely' to host critical climate conference next year
- Green New Deal : Can this plan pushed by some Democrats really work?
- Climate change: UK government to commit to 2050 target
- Nature crisis: Humans 'threaten 1m species with extinction'
Categories: External websites
BHP Boss Announces $US400m Plan To Combat 'Indisputable' Climate Crisis
The Guardian - Australian Associated Press
The mining giant’s chief executive Andrew Mackenzie endorses drastic action to tackle global warming
BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie says carbon pricing is not enough to combat the looming threat of mass extinctions and major sea rises. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP The chief executive of the world’s largest mining company has endorsed drastic action to combat global warming, which he calls “indisputable”, and an emerging crisis.
“The planet will survive. Many species may not,” the BHP chief executive officer, Andrew Mackenzie, told a business breakfast in London on Tuesday. “This is a confronting conclusion but as a veteran geologist once said, ‘you can’t argue with a rock’.”
Mackenzie endorsed carbon pricing but said it was not enough to combat the looming threat of mass extinctions and major sea rises.
He announced BHP was spending $US400m ($A570m) to create a climate investment program to reduce emissions from its own operations as well as those generated from its resources.
BHP has been working to reduce its emissions since the 1990s but still directly produced 16.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions in the 2017/18 fiscal year, mostly from energy and diesel use at its operations.
That’s the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 3.5m cars or 4.2 coal-fired power stations for a year, according to a calculator on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
But when one adds to the equation customers’ use of BHP’s products – most notably the processing of iron ore and the burning of coal and crude oil – BHP’s indirect emissions dwarfed that, totalling 596.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide for the fiscal year.
That’s equivalent of the emissions produced in a year by 126m cars or 153 coal-fired power plants, according to the EPA calculator.
“Use of emissions-intensive products from the resource industry have contributed significantly to global warming,” Mackenzie said, while noting that BHP’s emissions in 2017 were less than those in 2006.
BHP has a short-term goal to cap 2022 emissions at 2017 levels, and a long-term goal of achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century.
It is also strengthening the link between emissions performance and executive renumeration from 2021, and has invested $6m in Carbon Engineering Limited, a Canadian company focused on developing ways to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Mackenzie said that “like most scientists” he believes that global warming will tend to the upper end of forecasts, while conceding there was a chance it would not. But he said prudent risk management meant BHP was planning to protect against the downside.
Global warming required a “coordinated global response” and no single solution could combat it, Mackenzie said . “While we endorse a carbon price this is not enough in isolation.”
Electric vehicles, renewables, reforestation and replacing single-use plastics all have trade-offs, such as simply moving fossil fuel emissions up the chain if energy production is not also decarbonised.
“An ‘all of the above’ solution barely gets us there,” Mackenzie said. “All emitters, resource companies, customers, consumers must play their part together with governments to meet the climate challenge.”
Links
The mining giant’s chief executive Andrew Mackenzie endorses drastic action to tackle global warming
BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie says carbon pricing is not enough to combat the looming threat of mass extinctions and major sea rises. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP The chief executive of the world’s largest mining company has endorsed drastic action to combat global warming, which he calls “indisputable”, and an emerging crisis.
“The planet will survive. Many species may not,” the BHP chief executive officer, Andrew Mackenzie, told a business breakfast in London on Tuesday. “This is a confronting conclusion but as a veteran geologist once said, ‘you can’t argue with a rock’.”
Mackenzie endorsed carbon pricing but said it was not enough to combat the looming threat of mass extinctions and major sea rises.
He announced BHP was spending $US400m ($A570m) to create a climate investment program to reduce emissions from its own operations as well as those generated from its resources.
BHP has been working to reduce its emissions since the 1990s but still directly produced 16.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions in the 2017/18 fiscal year, mostly from energy and diesel use at its operations.
That’s the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 3.5m cars or 4.2 coal-fired power stations for a year, according to a calculator on the US Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
But when one adds to the equation customers’ use of BHP’s products – most notably the processing of iron ore and the burning of coal and crude oil – BHP’s indirect emissions dwarfed that, totalling 596.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide for the fiscal year.
That’s equivalent of the emissions produced in a year by 126m cars or 153 coal-fired power plants, according to the EPA calculator.
“Use of emissions-intensive products from the resource industry have contributed significantly to global warming,” Mackenzie said, while noting that BHP’s emissions in 2017 were less than those in 2006.
BHP has a short-term goal to cap 2022 emissions at 2017 levels, and a long-term goal of achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century.
It is also strengthening the link between emissions performance and executive renumeration from 2021, and has invested $6m in Carbon Engineering Limited, a Canadian company focused on developing ways to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Mackenzie said that “like most scientists” he believes that global warming will tend to the upper end of forecasts, while conceding there was a chance it would not. But he said prudent risk management meant BHP was planning to protect against the downside.
Global warming required a “coordinated global response” and no single solution could combat it, Mackenzie said . “While we endorse a carbon price this is not enough in isolation.”
Electric vehicles, renewables, reforestation and replacing single-use plastics all have trade-offs, such as simply moving fossil fuel emissions up the chain if energy production is not also decarbonised.
“An ‘all of the above’ solution barely gets us there,” Mackenzie said. “All emitters, resource companies, customers, consumers must play their part together with governments to meet the climate challenge.”
Links
- BHP warns investors coal could be phased out 'sooner than expected'
- BHP boss warns climate change escalating towards crisis point
- BHP's half-year profit drops 8 per cent to $5.66b
- BHP set to leave World Coal Association, threatens Minerals Council withdrawal
- BHP to push customers on emissions
- BHP tackles customer emissions challenge
- BHP plans $400m climate change fund and greener pay for executives
- In climate first, BHP pledges to invest $400m to reduce emissions
- Miners have a role to play in fighting climate change
- Banks increasing exposure to fossil fuels despite promises to fight climate change: report
- Whitehaven Coal: activist shareholders to force vote on climate strategy
Categories: External websites
I’m An Ordinary Person Who Joined An Extinction Rebellion Blockade. Here's Why You Should Too
The Guardian - Anonymous*
It was way out of my comfort zone, but as a scientist I can tell you that the climate emergency is much more terrifying
‘We need to wake people up, fast. This requires massive, sustained media attention. Disruption is very effective at creating this, especially by blockading major urban centres.’ Photograph: Darren England/AAP I am an ordinary mid-career professional. I work a nine-to-five job in the city, and I’m well respected and growing in my career. I have never broken the law. And recently, I joined Extinction Rebellion, blockading traffic.
I have never done anything like this before. It was way out of my comfort zone, and I felt like vomiting at the idea. But climate change makes me want to vomit even more. I am a scientist, and I can say with confidence: the science is absolutely terrifying. So I went.
Here’s my reflections on the experience: I found it surprisingly calm, peaceful and friendly. The heavy media and police presence was intense, but I felt safe, and I didn’t feel like I was at risk of being arrested at any point. I just followed clear instructions from organisers and the police. Those who were arrested chose to be arrested, and even that was very calm. I’d genuinely feel safe bringing a child, just like to any other peaceful rally.
Also, it was fun! There was lots of chanting, and it felt positive and upbeat. I’m really glad I had courage and went, despite feeling so nervous. I don’t intend to get arrested, but there are a hundred other ways to support and contribute, and I intend to do them.
Until recently, I thought that these sorts of tactics are ridiculous and just irritate people and lead to more divisiveness. I thought blocking traffic was no way to develop consensus and get things done.
But then I saw the news on Extinction Rebellion blockading London for more than a week, with more than 1,000 arrests. Soon after, the UK government adopted a climate emergency resolution.
I started reading about Extinction Rebellion. I found out that it’s been carefully and deliberately constructed, drawing upon the best research on how to create massive social change, of the kind we need to address the climate emergency.
Let me tell you a story. Many of us already know the climate catastrophe story, so let me tell you a different oneI found out that the suffragettes got women the vote by smashing windows and chaining themselves to railings, facing hate and ridicule in the media. And how Martin Luther King combated racial inequality by rallying people to violate laws and provoke mass arrests, and was arrested 29 times. And this was deliberate, carefully orchestrated and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
I learned how the research shows nonviolent civil disobedience can bring rapid and sweeping changes, and that we’ve never seen an example fail once 3.5% of the population becomes actively involved.
I started to hope.
Let me tell you a story. Many of us already know the climate catastrophe story, so let me tell you a different one.
Right now, we are sleepwalking. We go about our daily lives assuming that buying a house and putting money in our superannuation are appropriate ways to plan for the future. If we hear about the climate crisis, we tell ourselves, surely it can’t be that urgent if no one is doing anything?
We need to wake people up, fast. This requires massive, sustained media attention. Disruption is very effective at creating this, especially by blockading major urban centres. The aim is to make people pay attention, and they’re much more likely to do so when it impacts their daily lives. If there are arrests, that’s great too, because that’s also newsworthy.
Most people will hate the disruption tactics, and get irritated or angry. They’ll ridicule the people involved and say negative things in the media. A small percentage will join the movement. It’s OK that this is only a small percentage. Remember that we only need 3.5% of people to get active.
We do, however, need most people to be sympathetic.
People start by discussing tactics (with lots of hate), but then move on to the issue (“but we really should be doing something about climate, it’s actually quite scary”). More people start to realise that this is an actual emergency.
Proper debate starts happening, and people are talking about it everywhere. As more people wake up, more of them join the protests. And there’s safety in numbers, so as it gets bigger, more people feel they can join.
Politicians can no longer ignore the issue. More and more people are getting arrested for nonviolent and relatively harmless activities, and they have growing public support for their sentiments. Grandfathers are glueing themselves to roads because they want a safe future for their grandchildren. Economic activity is suffering from longer blockades, and businesses are demanding that the government does something.
Politicians are forced to address the issue. And now, we finally start working together in collaboration with other countries. People all around the world have been inspired to rebellion.
I have no idea if this story will ever happen but I think there’s a chance. It depends entirely on how many of us get on board. It’s uncomfortable to disrupt people’s lives, but the courageous folks doing it are putting themselves on the line to save us all.
I still benefit from the sacrifices of those suffragettes and all the others who’ve fought so hard, at great personal cost. Now it’s my turn.
*The author of this article is a scientist living in Australia
Links
It was way out of my comfort zone, but as a scientist I can tell you that the climate emergency is much more terrifying
‘We need to wake people up, fast. This requires massive, sustained media attention. Disruption is very effective at creating this, especially by blockading major urban centres.’ Photograph: Darren England/AAP I am an ordinary mid-career professional. I work a nine-to-five job in the city, and I’m well respected and growing in my career. I have never broken the law. And recently, I joined Extinction Rebellion, blockading traffic.
I have never done anything like this before. It was way out of my comfort zone, and I felt like vomiting at the idea. But climate change makes me want to vomit even more. I am a scientist, and I can say with confidence: the science is absolutely terrifying. So I went.
Here’s my reflections on the experience: I found it surprisingly calm, peaceful and friendly. The heavy media and police presence was intense, but I felt safe, and I didn’t feel like I was at risk of being arrested at any point. I just followed clear instructions from organisers and the police. Those who were arrested chose to be arrested, and even that was very calm. I’d genuinely feel safe bringing a child, just like to any other peaceful rally.
Also, it was fun! There was lots of chanting, and it felt positive and upbeat. I’m really glad I had courage and went, despite feeling so nervous. I don’t intend to get arrested, but there are a hundred other ways to support and contribute, and I intend to do them.
Until recently, I thought that these sorts of tactics are ridiculous and just irritate people and lead to more divisiveness. I thought blocking traffic was no way to develop consensus and get things done.
But then I saw the news on Extinction Rebellion blockading London for more than a week, with more than 1,000 arrests. Soon after, the UK government adopted a climate emergency resolution.
I started reading about Extinction Rebellion. I found out that it’s been carefully and deliberately constructed, drawing upon the best research on how to create massive social change, of the kind we need to address the climate emergency.
Let me tell you a story. Many of us already know the climate catastrophe story, so let me tell you a different oneI found out that the suffragettes got women the vote by smashing windows and chaining themselves to railings, facing hate and ridicule in the media. And how Martin Luther King combated racial inequality by rallying people to violate laws and provoke mass arrests, and was arrested 29 times. And this was deliberate, carefully orchestrated and inspired by the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi.
I learned how the research shows nonviolent civil disobedience can bring rapid and sweeping changes, and that we’ve never seen an example fail once 3.5% of the population becomes actively involved.
I started to hope.
Let me tell you a story. Many of us already know the climate catastrophe story, so let me tell you a different one.
Right now, we are sleepwalking. We go about our daily lives assuming that buying a house and putting money in our superannuation are appropriate ways to plan for the future. If we hear about the climate crisis, we tell ourselves, surely it can’t be that urgent if no one is doing anything?
We need to wake people up, fast. This requires massive, sustained media attention. Disruption is very effective at creating this, especially by blockading major urban centres. The aim is to make people pay attention, and they’re much more likely to do so when it impacts their daily lives. If there are arrests, that’s great too, because that’s also newsworthy.
Most people will hate the disruption tactics, and get irritated or angry. They’ll ridicule the people involved and say negative things in the media. A small percentage will join the movement. It’s OK that this is only a small percentage. Remember that we only need 3.5% of people to get active.
We do, however, need most people to be sympathetic.
People start by discussing tactics (with lots of hate), but then move on to the issue (“but we really should be doing something about climate, it’s actually quite scary”). More people start to realise that this is an actual emergency.
Proper debate starts happening, and people are talking about it everywhere. As more people wake up, more of them join the protests. And there’s safety in numbers, so as it gets bigger, more people feel they can join.
Politicians can no longer ignore the issue. More and more people are getting arrested for nonviolent and relatively harmless activities, and they have growing public support for their sentiments. Grandfathers are glueing themselves to roads because they want a safe future for their grandchildren. Economic activity is suffering from longer blockades, and businesses are demanding that the government does something.
Politicians are forced to address the issue. And now, we finally start working together in collaboration with other countries. People all around the world have been inspired to rebellion.
I have no idea if this story will ever happen but I think there’s a chance. It depends entirely on how many of us get on board. It’s uncomfortable to disrupt people’s lives, but the courageous folks doing it are putting themselves on the line to save us all.
I still benefit from the sacrifices of those suffragettes and all the others who’ve fought so hard, at great personal cost. Now it’s my turn.
*The author of this article is a scientist living in Australia
Links
- Extinction Rebellion
- The '3.5% rule': How a small minority can change the world
- Extinction Rebellion protesters aren’t anarchists – we just want to save our world
- Politicians’ reluctance on climate change is bizarre – action would not only be right but popular
- Young Climate Activists ‘Most At Risk’ Of Being Spied On By AFP
- US Philanthropists Vow To Raise Millions For Climate Activists
- This Is The Only Way To Tackle The Climate Emergency
- Good News For Climate Activists: Marching Might Work
- Environment Leaders Reflect On Their Role In The 'Climate Election'
- Kids Suing The US Over Climate Change Are Getting Global Support
- Students From 1,600 Cities Just Walked Out Of School To Protest Climate Change. It Could Be Greta Thunberg's Biggest Strike Yet
Categories: External websites
'No Limits': Victoria's Biggest Solar Farm Paves Way For More
Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam
Victoria's largest solar farm has reached full-capacity, with its French owner Neoen declaring the plant to be operating "slightly above" expectations as it eyes 3 gigawatts of new renewable developments in Australia.
The $198-million Numurkah solar farm in the state's north took just a year to build and employed about 300 people in the construction phase.
The plant's 128 megawatt-capacity includes 373,839 photovoltaic panels spread over 515 hectares, and it will partly power Melbourne's tram network.
Victoria's biggest solar farm, Neoen's Numurkah plant, brings 128 megawatts of capacity to the grid, and was constructed in just a year. Credit: NeoenLouis de Sambucy, who took over as managing director of Neoen Australia this month, said technology costs were continuing to fall, making Australia increasingly attractive as an investment location because of its "incredible" wind and solar resources.
"We don't see the limits – things are continuously improving, delivering better and better results," Mr de Sambucy told The Age.
"We are at the very beginning of the energy transition.
"We look at projects where we can be 20 per cent up to 40 per cent lower than the current [wholesale electricity] price."
Energy minister, Lily D'Ambrosio, who was expected to attend Friday's formal opening of the plant, said the project would supply about 255,000 megawatt-hours to the grid each year.
"The Numurkah solar farm will play an important role in supporting the transformation of our energy system towards clean, renewable energy and reaching our renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030," she said.
The avoided greenhouse gas emissions from the solar farm amount to the equivalent of taking 75,000 cars off the road or planting 390,000 trees.
Support for the plant included a 38 megawatt green certificate purchase agreement from the government, and $56 million in loans from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Also underpinning the project was a 15-year power purchase agreement with SIMEC ZEN Energy to supply electricity to the Laverton Steelworks in Melbourne's west, which helped to almost quadruple the original size of the plant.
Neoen's Numurkah solar farm will partly power a steel works and Melbourne's tram network. Credit: NeoenThe Victorian government's renewable energy target (VRET) is expected to draw in $7.2 billion to meet its 2025 goal of supplying 40 per cent of the state's electricity from renewables by 2025.
Some 10,000 jobs will also be spurred by those projects, according to government estimates.
Neoen is also developing a $350 million, 200MW wind farm, including 56 turbines, on an old gold mine site at Bulgana, near Stawell in western Victoria.
The company also operates the successful Hornsdale battery in South Australia, which has been helping to stabilise the grid for almost two years.
Despite that project's success, Neoen is wary of building additional capacity for now given "the shallow market" that currently exists for such projects, Mr de Sambucy said.
Links
Victoria's largest solar farm has reached full-capacity, with its French owner Neoen declaring the plant to be operating "slightly above" expectations as it eyes 3 gigawatts of new renewable developments in Australia.
The $198-million Numurkah solar farm in the state's north took just a year to build and employed about 300 people in the construction phase.
The plant's 128 megawatt-capacity includes 373,839 photovoltaic panels spread over 515 hectares, and it will partly power Melbourne's tram network.
Victoria's biggest solar farm, Neoen's Numurkah plant, brings 128 megawatts of capacity to the grid, and was constructed in just a year. Credit: NeoenLouis de Sambucy, who took over as managing director of Neoen Australia this month, said technology costs were continuing to fall, making Australia increasingly attractive as an investment location because of its "incredible" wind and solar resources.
"We don't see the limits – things are continuously improving, delivering better and better results," Mr de Sambucy told The Age.
"We are at the very beginning of the energy transition.
"We look at projects where we can be 20 per cent up to 40 per cent lower than the current [wholesale electricity] price."
Energy minister, Lily D'Ambrosio, who was expected to attend Friday's formal opening of the plant, said the project would supply about 255,000 megawatt-hours to the grid each year.
"The Numurkah solar farm will play an important role in supporting the transformation of our energy system towards clean, renewable energy and reaching our renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030," she said.
The avoided greenhouse gas emissions from the solar farm amount to the equivalent of taking 75,000 cars off the road or planting 390,000 trees.
Support for the plant included a 38 megawatt green certificate purchase agreement from the government, and $56 million in loans from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Also underpinning the project was a 15-year power purchase agreement with SIMEC ZEN Energy to supply electricity to the Laverton Steelworks in Melbourne's west, which helped to almost quadruple the original size of the plant.
Neoen's Numurkah solar farm will partly power a steel works and Melbourne's tram network. Credit: NeoenThe Victorian government's renewable energy target (VRET) is expected to draw in $7.2 billion to meet its 2025 goal of supplying 40 per cent of the state's electricity from renewables by 2025.
Some 10,000 jobs will also be spurred by those projects, according to government estimates.
Neoen is also developing a $350 million, 200MW wind farm, including 56 turbines, on an old gold mine site at Bulgana, near Stawell in western Victoria.
The company also operates the successful Hornsdale battery in South Australia, which has been helping to stabilise the grid for almost two years.
Despite that project's success, Neoen is wary of building additional capacity for now given "the shallow market" that currently exists for such projects, Mr de Sambucy said.
Links
- 'Vital development': Market to pay big users to cut power gets green lightMelbourne's trams to be solar powered
- Australia To Achieve 50% Renewables By 2030 Without Government Intervention, Analysis Finds
- Analysis: $130 Billion Per Year Benefit To Australia's GDP By Avoiding Climate Change
- Jump In Renewable Energy Jobs As Solar Farms Overtake Hydro Power
- Device Could Bring Both Solar Power And Clean Water To Millions
- Act Now On Emissions Says Farmers For Climate Action
- Sydney Opera House Turns To Wind And Solar, May Add Battery For Perfect Match
Categories: External websites
40 Years Ago, Scientists Predicted Climate Change. And Hey, They Were Right
The Conversation - Neville Nicholls
It’s been four decades since the first credible, global report on the effect of carbon dioxide on the global climate.ShutterstockThis month the world has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon. But this week sees another scientific anniversary, perhaps just as important for the future of civilisation.
Forty years ago, a group of climate scientists sat down at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts for the first meeting of the “Ad Hoc Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate”. It led to the preparation of what became known as the Charney Report – the first comprehensive assessment of global climate change due to carbon dioxide.
It doesn’t sound as impressive as landing on the Moon, and there certainly weren’t millions waiting with bated breath for the deliberations of the meeting.
But the Charney Report is an exemplar of good science, and the success of its predictions over the past 40 years has firmly established the science of global warming.
Why reducing our carbon emissions matters (a little story about climate change)
What is this ‘greenhouse gas’ you speak of?
Other scientists, starting in the 19th century, had already demonstrated that carbon dioxide was what we now call a “greenhouse gas”. By the 1950s, scientists were predicting warming of several degrees from the burning of fossil fuels. In 1972 John Sawyer, the head of research at the UK Meteorological Office, wrote a four-page paper published in Nature summarising what was known at the time, and predicting warming of about 0.6℃ by the end of the 20th century.
But these predictions were still controversial in the 1970s. The world had, if anything, cooled since the middle of the 20th century, and there was even some speculation in the media that perhaps we were headed for an ice age.
The meeting at Woods Hole gathered together about 10 distinguished climate scientists, who also sought advice from other scientists from across the world. The group was led by Jule Charney from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most respected atmospheric scientists of the 20th century.
The Report lays out clearly what was known about the likely effects of increasing carbon dioxide on the climate, as well as the uncertainties. The main conclusion of the Report was direct:
We estimate the most probable warming for a doubling of CO₂ to be near 3℃ with a probable error of 1.5℃.In the 40 years since their meeting, the annual average CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, has increased by about 21%. Over the same period, global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.66℃, almost exactly what could have been expected if a doubling of CO₂ produces about 2.5℃ warming – just a bit below their best estimate. A remarkably prescient prediction.
Reception of the article
Despite the high regard in which the authors of the Charney Report were held by their scientific peers at the time, the report certainly didn’t lead to immediate changes in behaviour, by the public or politicians.
But over time, as the world has continued to warm as they predicted, the report has become accepted as a major milestone in our understanding of the consequences our actions have for the climate. The current crop of climate scientists revere Charney and his co-authors for their insight and clarity.
Strong science
The report exemplifies how good science works: establish an hypothesis after examining the physics and chemistry, then based on your assessment of the science make strong predictions. Here, “strong predictions” means something that would be unlikely to come true if your hypothesis and science were incorrect.
In this case, their very specific prediction was that warming of between 1.5℃ and 4.5℃ would accompany a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. At the time, global temperatures, in the absence of their hypothesis and science, might have been expected to stay pretty much the same over the ensuing 40 years, cooled a bit, possibly even cooled a lot, or warmed a lot (or a little).
In the absence of global warming science any of these outcomes could have been feasible, so their very specific prediction made for a very stringent test of their science.
The Charney Report’s authors didn’t just uncritically summarise the science. They also acted sceptically, trying to find factors that might invalidate their conclusions. They concluded:
We have tried but have been unable to find any overlooked or underestimated physical effects that could reduce the currently estimated global warmings due to a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ to negligible proportions or to reverse them altogether.The report, and the successful verification of its prediction, provides a firm scientific basis for the discussion of what we should do about global warming.
Over the ensuing 40 years, as the world warmed pretty much as Charney and his colleagues expected, climate change science improved, with better models that included some of the factors missing from their 1979 deliberations.
This subsequent science has, however, only confirmed the conclusions of the Charney Report, although much more detailed predictions of climate change are now possible.
Links
It’s been four decades since the first credible, global report on the effect of carbon dioxide on the global climate.ShutterstockThis month the world has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon. But this week sees another scientific anniversary, perhaps just as important for the future of civilisation.
Forty years ago, a group of climate scientists sat down at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts for the first meeting of the “Ad Hoc Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate”. It led to the preparation of what became known as the Charney Report – the first comprehensive assessment of global climate change due to carbon dioxide.
It doesn’t sound as impressive as landing on the Moon, and there certainly weren’t millions waiting with bated breath for the deliberations of the meeting.
But the Charney Report is an exemplar of good science, and the success of its predictions over the past 40 years has firmly established the science of global warming.
Why reducing our carbon emissions matters (a little story about climate change)
What is this ‘greenhouse gas’ you speak of?
Other scientists, starting in the 19th century, had already demonstrated that carbon dioxide was what we now call a “greenhouse gas”. By the 1950s, scientists were predicting warming of several degrees from the burning of fossil fuels. In 1972 John Sawyer, the head of research at the UK Meteorological Office, wrote a four-page paper published in Nature summarising what was known at the time, and predicting warming of about 0.6℃ by the end of the 20th century.
But these predictions were still controversial in the 1970s. The world had, if anything, cooled since the middle of the 20th century, and there was even some speculation in the media that perhaps we were headed for an ice age.
The meeting at Woods Hole gathered together about 10 distinguished climate scientists, who also sought advice from other scientists from across the world. The group was led by Jule Charney from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the most respected atmospheric scientists of the 20th century.
The Report lays out clearly what was known about the likely effects of increasing carbon dioxide on the climate, as well as the uncertainties. The main conclusion of the Report was direct:
We estimate the most probable warming for a doubling of CO₂ to be near 3℃ with a probable error of 1.5℃.In the 40 years since their meeting, the annual average CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere, as measured at Mauna Loa in Hawaii, has increased by about 21%. Over the same period, global average surface temperature has increased by about 0.66℃, almost exactly what could have been expected if a doubling of CO₂ produces about 2.5℃ warming – just a bit below their best estimate. A remarkably prescient prediction.
Reception of the article
Despite the high regard in which the authors of the Charney Report were held by their scientific peers at the time, the report certainly didn’t lead to immediate changes in behaviour, by the public or politicians.
But over time, as the world has continued to warm as they predicted, the report has become accepted as a major milestone in our understanding of the consequences our actions have for the climate. The current crop of climate scientists revere Charney and his co-authors for their insight and clarity.
Strong science
The report exemplifies how good science works: establish an hypothesis after examining the physics and chemistry, then based on your assessment of the science make strong predictions. Here, “strong predictions” means something that would be unlikely to come true if your hypothesis and science were incorrect.
In this case, their very specific prediction was that warming of between 1.5℃ and 4.5℃ would accompany a doubling of atmospheric CO₂. At the time, global temperatures, in the absence of their hypothesis and science, might have been expected to stay pretty much the same over the ensuing 40 years, cooled a bit, possibly even cooled a lot, or warmed a lot (or a little).
In the absence of global warming science any of these outcomes could have been feasible, so their very specific prediction made for a very stringent test of their science.
The Charney Report’s authors didn’t just uncritically summarise the science. They also acted sceptically, trying to find factors that might invalidate their conclusions. They concluded:
We have tried but have been unable to find any overlooked or underestimated physical effects that could reduce the currently estimated global warmings due to a doubling of atmospheric CO₂ to negligible proportions or to reverse them altogether.The report, and the successful verification of its prediction, provides a firm scientific basis for the discussion of what we should do about global warming.
Over the ensuing 40 years, as the world warmed pretty much as Charney and his colleagues expected, climate change science improved, with better models that included some of the factors missing from their 1979 deliberations.
This subsequent science has, however, only confirmed the conclusions of the Charney Report, although much more detailed predictions of climate change are now possible.
Links
- 1979 Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment (pdf)
- 1972 Man-made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse” Effect
- What is a pre-industrial climate and why does it matter?
- Climate change or climate crisis? To really engage people, the media should talk about solutions
- New wave of smart cities has arrived - and they’re nothing like science fiction
- Using language to make the world of fossil fuels strange and ugly
- Adapting cities to a hotter world: 3 essential reads
- Heat stroke: A doctor offers tips to stay safe as temperatures soar
Categories: External websites
What Happens When Parts Of South Asia Become Unlivable? The Climate Crisis Is Already Displacing Millions
CNN - James Griffiths
More than 100 dead and 6M affected by flooding
Almost six million people are under threat from rising flood waters across South Asia, where hundreds of thousands of people have already been displaced as a result of heavy monsoon rains.
The flooding comes as India was still reeling from a weeks-long water crisis amid heavy droughts and heatwaves across the country which killed at least 137 people. Experts said the country has five years to address severe water shortages, caused by steadily depleting groundwater supplies, or over 100 million people will left be without ready access to water.
In Afghanistan, drought has devastated traditional farming areas, forcing millions of people to move or face starvation, while in Bangladesh, heavy monsoon flooding has marooned entire communities and cut-off vital roads. Especially at risk are the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in fragile, makeshift camps along the country's border with Myanmar.
This is the sharp edge of the climate crisis. What seems an urgent but still future problem for many developed countries is already killing people in parts of Asia, and a new refugee crisis, far worse than that which has hit Europe in recent years, is brewing.
LARGE IMAGE
Monsoon disaster
Agriculture in South Asia has depended on the annual monsoon for centuries. If the rains arrive late, as they did this year, they can cause widespread drought and water shortages. Since the late 19th century, scientists and government agencies have sought to model and predict when the monsoon will come, a vital task in apportioning relief and assistance to the two billion or so people who depend on the monsoon for sustenance.
Climate change is making this task increasingly difficult, however. According to a study in the journal Nature, the warming of the Indian Ocean, the increasing frequency of the El Niño weather phenomenon, air pollution and changing land use across the subcontinent has led to steadily decreasing rainfall, increasing the variability of the monsoon and making it harder to accurately model.
Cruelly, as the overall amount of rain has decreased, leading to drought, the frequency of extreme rainfall, causing flooding and landslides, has actually gone up, the Nature study found.
Researchers said there had been a threefold increase in "widespread extreme rain events" over central India between 1950 and 2015, which brought with them a potentially "catastrophic impact on life, agriculture and property."
"The overall intensity and frequency of extreme events are increasing over the region," the study said, adding that projected changes showed "further intensification of extreme precipitation over most parts of the subcontinent by the end of the century."
A combination of rising temperatures and more severe droughts and flooding is raising the very real question whether parts of India could soon be unlivable for humans. And its not just India, scientists predict extreme heatwaves that can kill even perfectly healthy people are becoming more common across South Asia, as well as much of the Middle East and North Africa.
LARGE IMAGE
Unequal effects
Climate change is no longer a future event. We already appear locked into 1.5C of warming, once hoped to be the top limit of human-caused climate change, and are now on path to blow through the 2C limit set by the Paris Agreement.
The unfolding climate emergency will affect the entire world, but it will not do so equally, or all at the same time. Parts of the globe will see manageable temperature spikes or variable weather, as others face deadly droughts, heatwaves, flooding and extreme weather. Those who survive these climate shocks may find local agriculture and infrastructure devastated, making them all the more vulnerable in future.
Rising sea levels and coastal flooding is expected to effect millions more in some of the world's least developed countries.
According to the United Nations, more than 120 million people could slip into poverty within the next decade because of climate change, forcing them to "choose between starvation and migration."
Researchers from Stanford University have previously warned that climate change is making poor countries poorer, widening global inequality between nations.
"We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer," said Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, last month.
But while the air conditioned, hurricane and typhoon-proofed cities in the developed world may be able to better cope with the immediate effects of climate change, they will not escape the ramifications of how the crisis unfolds in other countries.
Climate change could make this country disappear
Climate refugees
People affected by climate change will not stay put as their children drown or die of heat stroke or thirst. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates that 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods and storms every year, or one person every second. By 2045, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, some 135 million people could be displaced as a result of land and soil degradation.
Most of those people become internally displaced, in effect refugees within their own country. But the numbers forced to flee across borders is on the rise -- driven too by violence and persecution -- reaching 70 million this year, a record high.
According to government documents published by the ABC this week, Australia alone may face up to 100 million climate refugees in the coming years, as large parts of the Indo-Pacific is hit by rising sea levels and extreme weather.
Australia -- which is among the worst offenders for global emissions -- has some of the most draconian policies for dealing with refugees in the developed world, housing them in offshore detention camps which have been denounced by the United Nations and human rights groups.
Other countries have reacted to existing refugee flows -- many of which are already effected by climate change even if this is not widely discussed -- with shifts to nativism and often violent anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Making matters worse, the UN's Refugee Convention currently does not recognize those fleeing climate change as entitled to protection by international law. This could enable countries to refuse to offer sanctuary, or regard those entering the country as illegal immigrants.
South Asia is already suffering as a result of climate change, a crisis caused by the developed world's consumption patterns and fossil fuel-driven capitalism. The effects of that crisis will not remain confined to the region for long, however, nor will the people already dealing with the sharp end of it.
Links
More than 100 dead and 6M affected by flooding
Almost six million people are under threat from rising flood waters across South Asia, where hundreds of thousands of people have already been displaced as a result of heavy monsoon rains.
The flooding comes as India was still reeling from a weeks-long water crisis amid heavy droughts and heatwaves across the country which killed at least 137 people. Experts said the country has five years to address severe water shortages, caused by steadily depleting groundwater supplies, or over 100 million people will left be without ready access to water.
In Afghanistan, drought has devastated traditional farming areas, forcing millions of people to move or face starvation, while in Bangladesh, heavy monsoon flooding has marooned entire communities and cut-off vital roads. Especially at risk are the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees living in fragile, makeshift camps along the country's border with Myanmar.
This is the sharp edge of the climate crisis. What seems an urgent but still future problem for many developed countries is already killing people in parts of Asia, and a new refugee crisis, far worse than that which has hit Europe in recent years, is brewing.
LARGE IMAGE
Monsoon disaster
Agriculture in South Asia has depended on the annual monsoon for centuries. If the rains arrive late, as they did this year, they can cause widespread drought and water shortages. Since the late 19th century, scientists and government agencies have sought to model and predict when the monsoon will come, a vital task in apportioning relief and assistance to the two billion or so people who depend on the monsoon for sustenance.
Climate change is making this task increasingly difficult, however. According to a study in the journal Nature, the warming of the Indian Ocean, the increasing frequency of the El Niño weather phenomenon, air pollution and changing land use across the subcontinent has led to steadily decreasing rainfall, increasing the variability of the monsoon and making it harder to accurately model.
Cruelly, as the overall amount of rain has decreased, leading to drought, the frequency of extreme rainfall, causing flooding and landslides, has actually gone up, the Nature study found.
Researchers said there had been a threefold increase in "widespread extreme rain events" over central India between 1950 and 2015, which brought with them a potentially "catastrophic impact on life, agriculture and property."
"The overall intensity and frequency of extreme events are increasing over the region," the study said, adding that projected changes showed "further intensification of extreme precipitation over most parts of the subcontinent by the end of the century."
A combination of rising temperatures and more severe droughts and flooding is raising the very real question whether parts of India could soon be unlivable for humans. And its not just India, scientists predict extreme heatwaves that can kill even perfectly healthy people are becoming more common across South Asia, as well as much of the Middle East and North Africa.
LARGE IMAGE
Unequal effects
Climate change is no longer a future event. We already appear locked into 1.5C of warming, once hoped to be the top limit of human-caused climate change, and are now on path to blow through the 2C limit set by the Paris Agreement.
The unfolding climate emergency will affect the entire world, but it will not do so equally, or all at the same time. Parts of the globe will see manageable temperature spikes or variable weather, as others face deadly droughts, heatwaves, flooding and extreme weather. Those who survive these climate shocks may find local agriculture and infrastructure devastated, making them all the more vulnerable in future.
Rising sea levels and coastal flooding is expected to effect millions more in some of the world's least developed countries.
According to the United Nations, more than 120 million people could slip into poverty within the next decade because of climate change, forcing them to "choose between starvation and migration."
Researchers from Stanford University have previously warned that climate change is making poor countries poorer, widening global inequality between nations.
"We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer," said Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, last month.
But while the air conditioned, hurricane and typhoon-proofed cities in the developed world may be able to better cope with the immediate effects of climate change, they will not escape the ramifications of how the crisis unfolds in other countries.
Climate change could make this country disappear
Climate refugees
People affected by climate change will not stay put as their children drown or die of heat stroke or thirst. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates that 26 million people are displaced by disasters such as floods and storms every year, or one person every second. By 2045, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, some 135 million people could be displaced as a result of land and soil degradation.
Most of those people become internally displaced, in effect refugees within their own country. But the numbers forced to flee across borders is on the rise -- driven too by violence and persecution -- reaching 70 million this year, a record high.
According to government documents published by the ABC this week, Australia alone may face up to 100 million climate refugees in the coming years, as large parts of the Indo-Pacific is hit by rising sea levels and extreme weather.
Australia -- which is among the worst offenders for global emissions -- has some of the most draconian policies for dealing with refugees in the developed world, housing them in offshore detention camps which have been denounced by the United Nations and human rights groups.
Other countries have reacted to existing refugee flows -- many of which are already effected by climate change even if this is not widely discussed -- with shifts to nativism and often violent anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Making matters worse, the UN's Refugee Convention currently does not recognize those fleeing climate change as entitled to protection by international law. This could enable countries to refuse to offer sanctuary, or regard those entering the country as illegal immigrants.
South Asia is already suffering as a result of climate change, a crisis caused by the developed world's consumption patterns and fossil fuel-driven capitalism. The effects of that crisis will not remain confined to the region for long, however, nor will the people already dealing with the sharp end of it.
Links
- Rising flood waters threatening millions across South Asia
- India has just five years to solve its water crisis, experts fear. Otherwise hundreds of millions of lives will be in danger
- Are parts of India becoming too hot for humans?
- India has just five years to solve its water crisis, experts fear. Otherwise hundreds of millions of lives will be in danger
- A threefold rise in widespread extreme rain events over central India
- Are parts of India becoming too hot for humans?
- In Afghanistan, drought is forcing families to move
- World is woefully short of 2 degree goal for climate change, according to UN report
- Disaster and climate change
Categories: External websites
Greta Thunberg: ‘They See Us As A Threat Because We’re Having An Impact’
The Guardian - Greta Thunberg*
The climate activist answers questions from famous supporters and Observer readers, with an introduction by Ali Smith*
‘Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed’: Greta Thunberg photographed in her home city, Stockholm, March 2019. Photograph: Michael Campanella/The GuardianGreta Thunberg. This time last year she was unimaginable. Then, pretty much from nowhere, there she was: small and slight, a girl just turned 16, the way-too-young odd person out on a panel of adults sitting in front of the world’s economic powers at Davos last January. Unshowy and serious, careful, firm, she said it. Our house is on fire.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this: parrhesiastes. It means a person who speaks truth to power: you should not be behaving in this way. Don’t. More specifically it suggests someone in whom directness of expression and access to truth coincide; and it means someone of very little power who’s risking everything – because they can’t not, there’s no option – to speak ethical truth to powers so entrenched that they’re close to tyrannical, because telling this truth is about moral law.
“Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular know exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue to make unimaginable amounts of money, and I think many of you here today,” she said to the World Economic Forum conference, “belong to that group of people.”
Thunberg is Swedish; she was born in 2003 and lives in Stockholm with her younger sister Beata, her mother, a singer, and her father, an actor.
There’s a picture of the family somewhere online taken when she was much younger; her mother and father are smiling broad old-fashioned smiles at the camera – doing what you do when you have your photo taken.
Both the children, only waist- and knee-high, regard the lens with utter seriousness and inquiry. At eight years old, Greta Thunberg heard about climate change. She wondered why no one was doing anything to stop it. At 11 she stopped speaking, in protest; now she sees that “selective mutism” as the first step to understanding the power and necessity of speaking at all.
She was 15 when she began taking days off her education to sit in front of the Riksdag in Stockholm, declaring she’d do this till Sweden reduced carbon emissions in line with the Paris agreement.
She gave out leaflets: “I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.” She made a couple of speeches internationally that tapped into a profound unspoken understanding in young people; in just six months, nearly one and a half million children across the world were schoolstriking for action on climate change.
Her Instagram post on these strikes reads: “Time is much shorter than we think. Failure means disaster. The grown-ups have failed us. And since most of them, including the press and the politicians, keep ignoring the situation, we must take action into our own hands. Starting today. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed. Please join in.”
Earlier this month Opec declared Thunberg, and with her the other young climate activists, the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry. Thunberg tweeted them her thanks. “Our biggest compliment yet.” Hers is a voice totally unlike the world’s usual power-cacophony: clean, simple, inclusive, the voice of someone refusing to beguile.
She talks ethics to politics without flinching. She cuts through the media white noise and political rabble-rousing to get to the essentials. This is a communal voice and Thunberg is its lightning conductor, and no wonder: when you hear her speak or you read her speeches you know you’re in the presence of the opposite of cynicism – of a spirit, in fact, that rebuffs cynicism and knows that the way we act, every single one of us, has transformatory impact and consequence. “The real power belongs to the people.”
This voice lets us know we’re in disavowal, and that we’d better wake up.
Then it tells us, clear as anything, how to do this.
Questions from famous fans
Maisie Williams
Actor
What can people reading this do today to make an impact?
A great start is to inform yourself. To read and try to understand the problem. It is very depressing but absolutely necessary. Once you fully realise the situation then you will know what to do. And then spread that information to others. Then there are lots of things you can do in your everyday life. Going vegan, stop flying and have shop-stop for instance. Of course we need a system change. But I believe that you cannot have system change without individual change. In today’s debate climate, a lot of people will not listen to you unless you practise as you preach and live by example. And we need everyone to listen. So making some personal changes is very much worth it.
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Leader of the Labour party
How will young people today have to live and work differently in the future because of climate change?
In the global north the immediate differences may not be very striking. But we need to rapidly remove all fossil fuels from our everyday life and leave them in the ground. This is what most politicians do not seem to understand. Lowering emissions is not enough. In the global south, however, people already are very much affected. There is an ongoing catastrophe in many parts of the world. And this is already affecting hundreds of millions. There will of course be lots of benefits to changing to a green economy. But we must remember that this is above all an emergency – not primarily an opportunity to create new green economic growth. We need a whole new way of thinking.
Jameela Jamil
Actor and campaigner
How can we most effectively and efficiently support you and your amazing work? (PS: Thank you for your efforts, you’re the most inspiring person.)
Activism seems to be working. So I would encourage people to become activists. And if you have a big platform, then highlight the crisis and communicate the information. There will be general, global climate strikes on 20 and 27 September. We need everyone to participate in these. Even adults and unions and so on. And of course we do this every Friday. Everyone is welcome to join.
Simon Armitage
Poet laureate
Environmentally speaking, what has been humankind’s most catastrophic invention?
I don’t think there is one singular worst invention. It is all of them combined with our current systems. But the idea that we can dig up astronomical amounts of fossilised, compressed biomass and burn it in the atmosphere without consequences is pretty catastrophic. And also the thought of eternal economic growth on a planet with limited resources.
Lily Cole
Model and campaigner
Do you have any sense of what job you would like to do in future – would you be interested in going into politics, for example?
I think I would like work where I feel most needed. I would love to study science but the scientific facts are already there. We now need to communicate those facts and then [take] political action. The politics of today don’t interest me much, however. It’s all about competing, and it’s more important how you say something – the way you say it – than the content of what you actually are saying. That has to change.
Sigrid
Singer and songwriter
Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the huge following you now have? (PS: You are such a remarkable person, and even though things are looking pretty dark, I do hope that you take some time to be proud of how many people you have engaged with your words. Well done!)
Yes, of course. What has happened during the past few months is very hard to grasp. I would never have expected anything close to this.
David Lammy
Labour MP for Tottenham
Can you be politically conservative, ie on the political right, pro-growth, pro-capitalism and pro the for-profit motive, and still support the climate change movement and green issues?
That is not for me to say. I am only communicating the scientific facts. This question is probably not possible to answer without personal opinion and I leave that to others. But I think we can safely say that all ideologies have failed. If some have failed more than others then that is for others to say.
Stewart Lee
Comedian
You are my new hero and you have really helped me to explain what is going on to my children. How do you keep so calm when people use personal attacks to try and undermine your work?
I had expected that. If you don’t fully understand the ongoing climate breakdown, then what I and the other school strikers do must seem very strange… and since most people are not aware, this is unfortunately what I expected. And I don’t think I can do much about it. Even if I would constantly prove them wrong with facts and arguments, they would make up new things to attack the climate movement or me. But I think that as long as they go after me personally with insults and conspiracy theories then that is good. It proves that they don’t have any arguments. And that they see us as a threat because we are having an impact.
Rutger Bregman
Historian and author
Do you think human beings are generally selfish and focused on their own needs, or do you believe human beings are naturally cooperative, empathetic and creative? Or something in between? And does your view of humanity determine your activism?
I don’t believe humans are naturally evil. But under the wrong circumstances we can be very selfish and greedy, like now. People can be taught to be good, or bad. I think we all need help to focus on the right things to do. With more than 7 billion people on the planet, we need to cooperate. I don’t believe we are continuing to ruin the biosphere because we are evil. I am convinced we are doing it because we are not fully informed of the consequences of our actions. And this is very hopeful to me, because I believe that once we know we will change. This has a huge impact on my activism, because people are adaptable and the changes necessary are not impossible.
Jane Goodall
Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN messenger of peace
The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots programme involves thousands of young people of all ages in roughly 60 countries. Hundreds of groups are working on projects in connection with the climate crisis. Do you think it is important that young people roll up their sleeves and take action in addition to marching? If so, what would you suggest?
Yes, everything is needed. There are thousands of ways to take action. For example, plant trees, pick up litter, join an organisation or movement that makes a difference and especially try to influence adults and put pressure on people in power. I started my activism at home, changing my parents’ and relatives’ habits and ways of thinking.
‘Greta Thunberg finally acts against climate catastrophe’: an effigy of Greta in Dusseldorf in March 2019. The figures the model is holding are labelled ‘parents’ generation’. Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images
Questions from readers
Do you have days when you feel “there’s no hope, we’re doomed”? If so, where do you get the motivation to keep fighting?
Ali B Kord, Sydney, Australia
Yeah, you have no idea… But that’s not a reason to quit. We must never give up. I have made up my mind and decided to never, ever give up.
I’ve worked in the environmental sector for the past five years. I have gone vegetarian, barely fly (and offset when I do), and cycle to work every day. The problem is I often find it impossible to make others understand the severity of the situation. Any tips on how to effectively persuade people?
Craig Blyth-Moore, Edinburgh
I think a combination of activism works. If more and more people start behaving like we are in a crisis, more people will understand.
People in poverty have little or no concept of climate change because they are busy just surviving. How do we reach the parts of society like this?
Mike Jarrey, Ghent, Belgium
Good question. I think we must make them realise that climate-related issues are the key to other issues as well. Such as equality and social injustice and human rights. The climate issue offers a solid, science-supported black or white issue. The sooner other movements realise this, the better.
Thunberg with her ‘school strike for climate’ placard outside the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty ImagesYou’ve called for a global general climate strike on 20 September. What do you think about the possibility of a continuous general strike and the impacts it could have on global business-as-usual?
Thomas Kane, Stockport
We children are calling for the adults to join us on 20 and 27 September. To have real impact we must get to the stage where we have continuous general strikes. That will have an enormous impact on business-as-usual. We must get there soon. It would open people’s eyes and put things in perspective.
I’m 21 and I am facing a lot of ageism. I am discriminated against and invalidated because of my age. I’m told I don’t understand “how the world works”, and that my experiences don’t count. How do you push back against ageism and keep raising your voice?
Gayane Aghabalyan, Yerevan, Armenia
I don’t care about age. Nor do I care about those who do not accept the science. I don’t have as much experience, and therefore I listen more. But I also have the right to express my opinion, no matter my age. Also, being young is a great advantage since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.
As a biology teacher I support your actions because I view the planet from the perspective of ecology. I would like to draw your attention to two important graphs that can be seen online based on the present scientific evidence available. The first is human population growth v global warming and the second is human population growth v extinctions. Both have near perfect positive correlations. So do you think we have a responsibility to manage population growth to save the planet?
Colin Pascoe, Bath
The problem is not the people. It is what we do. But of course it is more difficult to live sustainably with more people on the planet. But these solutions can never be discussed on a personal level – it must be handled on a global level. If we are to control the number of people on Earth then I guess we must start with the high emitters. This debate would take decades and leave no space to solve other problems. It’s simply too big for us individuals. In my experience, the “we are too many people” argument is used as an excuse for not taking action ourselves. Whether we start controlling births or not, we need to get to zero emissions.
How do we get the message across in countries like China and Russia, which do not have the open media that we have?
John Telling, Tunbridge Wells
We do what we can do. I, for instance, can’t vote in China or Russia. Nor do I control media in China or Russia. I can only do what I can. And if enough people stand up for the climate and the environment, that will eventually spread to other countries. Perhaps even to China and Russia. We must focus on what we can do. Not what we can’t do.
Discussing cross-party action in Westminster with Michael Gove, Ed Miliband and Caroline Lucas. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAI am an old man without children. Why should I care about what happens to the planet after my death?
Confundido, online, name not supplied
Maybe you believe in something? Like karma, faith? Or morality? Or just because it’s the right thing to do.
How do you explain that, despite the findings of scientists and the alarming UN report, some people keep on denying or ignoring the climate crisis?
mdivet, online
I don’t believe so much in denial. I think either you don’t fully understand or you don’t accept the facts. This is because the facts just don’t fit your idea of how things are or should be. Your ideology or religion, for example. To accept the climate emergency is to admit that we have all failed, in a major way. And this is not an easy thing to do.
Is it too late?
ID0658798, online
No, most studies show that it is still possible within the laws of physics to avoid the worst scenarios. But it is not possible if we go on like today. And there is a possibility that there are positive feedbacks too, once we start to act. We don’t know.
Is there one achievable issue we should prioritise?
Kim Williams, Birmingham
To treat the crisis as a crisis. Because we can’t solve an emergency without treating it like one. We need to look at the full picture and do all that we can.
*No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg is published by Penguin (£2.99)
*Ali Smith’s latest novel is Spring (Hamish Hamilton)
Links
The climate activist answers questions from famous supporters and Observer readers, with an introduction by Ali Smith*
‘Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed’: Greta Thunberg photographed in her home city, Stockholm, March 2019. Photograph: Michael Campanella/The GuardianGreta Thunberg. This time last year she was unimaginable. Then, pretty much from nowhere, there she was: small and slight, a girl just turned 16, the way-too-young odd person out on a panel of adults sitting in front of the world’s economic powers at Davos last January. Unshowy and serious, careful, firm, she said it. Our house is on fire.
The ancient Greeks had a word for this: parrhesiastes. It means a person who speaks truth to power: you should not be behaving in this way. Don’t. More specifically it suggests someone in whom directness of expression and access to truth coincide; and it means someone of very little power who’s risking everything – because they can’t not, there’s no option – to speak ethical truth to powers so entrenched that they’re close to tyrannical, because telling this truth is about moral law.
“Some people, some companies, some decision-makers in particular know exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue to make unimaginable amounts of money, and I think many of you here today,” she said to the World Economic Forum conference, “belong to that group of people.”
Thunberg is Swedish; she was born in 2003 and lives in Stockholm with her younger sister Beata, her mother, a singer, and her father, an actor.
There’s a picture of the family somewhere online taken when she was much younger; her mother and father are smiling broad old-fashioned smiles at the camera – doing what you do when you have your photo taken.
Both the children, only waist- and knee-high, regard the lens with utter seriousness and inquiry. At eight years old, Greta Thunberg heard about climate change. She wondered why no one was doing anything to stop it. At 11 she stopped speaking, in protest; now she sees that “selective mutism” as the first step to understanding the power and necessity of speaking at all.
She was 15 when she began taking days off her education to sit in front of the Riksdag in Stockholm, declaring she’d do this till Sweden reduced carbon emissions in line with the Paris agreement.
She gave out leaflets: “I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future.” She made a couple of speeches internationally that tapped into a profound unspoken understanding in young people; in just six months, nearly one and a half million children across the world were schoolstriking for action on climate change.
Her Instagram post on these strikes reads: “Time is much shorter than we think. Failure means disaster. The grown-ups have failed us. And since most of them, including the press and the politicians, keep ignoring the situation, we must take action into our own hands. Starting today. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed. Please join in.”
Earlier this month Opec declared Thunberg, and with her the other young climate activists, the “greatest threat” to the fossil fuel industry. Thunberg tweeted them her thanks. “Our biggest compliment yet.” Hers is a voice totally unlike the world’s usual power-cacophony: clean, simple, inclusive, the voice of someone refusing to beguile.
She talks ethics to politics without flinching. She cuts through the media white noise and political rabble-rousing to get to the essentials. This is a communal voice and Thunberg is its lightning conductor, and no wonder: when you hear her speak or you read her speeches you know you’re in the presence of the opposite of cynicism – of a spirit, in fact, that rebuffs cynicism and knows that the way we act, every single one of us, has transformatory impact and consequence. “The real power belongs to the people.”
This voice lets us know we’re in disavowal, and that we’d better wake up.
Then it tells us, clear as anything, how to do this.
Questions from famous fans
Maisie Williams
Actor
What can people reading this do today to make an impact?
A great start is to inform yourself. To read and try to understand the problem. It is very depressing but absolutely necessary. Once you fully realise the situation then you will know what to do. And then spread that information to others. Then there are lots of things you can do in your everyday life. Going vegan, stop flying and have shop-stop for instance. Of course we need a system change. But I believe that you cannot have system change without individual change. In today’s debate climate, a lot of people will not listen to you unless you practise as you preach and live by example. And we need everyone to listen. So making some personal changes is very much worth it.
Jeremy Corbyn MP
Leader of the Labour party
How will young people today have to live and work differently in the future because of climate change?
In the global north the immediate differences may not be very striking. But we need to rapidly remove all fossil fuels from our everyday life and leave them in the ground. This is what most politicians do not seem to understand. Lowering emissions is not enough. In the global south, however, people already are very much affected. There is an ongoing catastrophe in many parts of the world. And this is already affecting hundreds of millions. There will of course be lots of benefits to changing to a green economy. But we must remember that this is above all an emergency – not primarily an opportunity to create new green economic growth. We need a whole new way of thinking.
Jameela Jamil
Actor and campaigner
How can we most effectively and efficiently support you and your amazing work? (PS: Thank you for your efforts, you’re the most inspiring person.)
Activism seems to be working. So I would encourage people to become activists. And if you have a big platform, then highlight the crisis and communicate the information. There will be general, global climate strikes on 20 and 27 September. We need everyone to participate in these. Even adults and unions and so on. And of course we do this every Friday. Everyone is welcome to join.
Simon Armitage
Poet laureate
Environmentally speaking, what has been humankind’s most catastrophic invention?
I don’t think there is one singular worst invention. It is all of them combined with our current systems. But the idea that we can dig up astronomical amounts of fossilised, compressed biomass and burn it in the atmosphere without consequences is pretty catastrophic. And also the thought of eternal economic growth on a planet with limited resources.
Lily Cole
Model and campaigner
Do you have any sense of what job you would like to do in future – would you be interested in going into politics, for example?
I think I would like work where I feel most needed. I would love to study science but the scientific facts are already there. We now need to communicate those facts and then [take] political action. The politics of today don’t interest me much, however. It’s all about competing, and it’s more important how you say something – the way you say it – than the content of what you actually are saying. That has to change.
Sigrid
Singer and songwriter
Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the huge following you now have? (PS: You are such a remarkable person, and even though things are looking pretty dark, I do hope that you take some time to be proud of how many people you have engaged with your words. Well done!)
Yes, of course. What has happened during the past few months is very hard to grasp. I would never have expected anything close to this.
David Lammy
Labour MP for Tottenham
Can you be politically conservative, ie on the political right, pro-growth, pro-capitalism and pro the for-profit motive, and still support the climate change movement and green issues?
That is not for me to say. I am only communicating the scientific facts. This question is probably not possible to answer without personal opinion and I leave that to others. But I think we can safely say that all ideologies have failed. If some have failed more than others then that is for others to say.
Stewart Lee
Comedian
You are my new hero and you have really helped me to explain what is going on to my children. How do you keep so calm when people use personal attacks to try and undermine your work?
I had expected that. If you don’t fully understand the ongoing climate breakdown, then what I and the other school strikers do must seem very strange… and since most people are not aware, this is unfortunately what I expected. And I don’t think I can do much about it. Even if I would constantly prove them wrong with facts and arguments, they would make up new things to attack the climate movement or me. But I think that as long as they go after me personally with insults and conspiracy theories then that is good. It proves that they don’t have any arguments. And that they see us as a threat because we are having an impact.
Rutger Bregman
Historian and author
Do you think human beings are generally selfish and focused on their own needs, or do you believe human beings are naturally cooperative, empathetic and creative? Or something in between? And does your view of humanity determine your activism?
I don’t believe humans are naturally evil. But under the wrong circumstances we can be very selfish and greedy, like now. People can be taught to be good, or bad. I think we all need help to focus on the right things to do. With more than 7 billion people on the planet, we need to cooperate. I don’t believe we are continuing to ruin the biosphere because we are evil. I am convinced we are doing it because we are not fully informed of the consequences of our actions. And this is very hopeful to me, because I believe that once we know we will change. This has a huge impact on my activism, because people are adaptable and the changes necessary are not impossible.
Jane Goodall
Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN messenger of peace
The Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots & Shoots programme involves thousands of young people of all ages in roughly 60 countries. Hundreds of groups are working on projects in connection with the climate crisis. Do you think it is important that young people roll up their sleeves and take action in addition to marching? If so, what would you suggest?
Yes, everything is needed. There are thousands of ways to take action. For example, plant trees, pick up litter, join an organisation or movement that makes a difference and especially try to influence adults and put pressure on people in power. I started my activism at home, changing my parents’ and relatives’ habits and ways of thinking.
‘Greta Thunberg finally acts against climate catastrophe’: an effigy of Greta in Dusseldorf in March 2019. The figures the model is holding are labelled ‘parents’ generation’. Photograph: Lukas Schulze/Getty Images
Questions from readers
Do you have days when you feel “there’s no hope, we’re doomed”? If so, where do you get the motivation to keep fighting?
Ali B Kord, Sydney, Australia
Yeah, you have no idea… But that’s not a reason to quit. We must never give up. I have made up my mind and decided to never, ever give up.
I’ve worked in the environmental sector for the past five years. I have gone vegetarian, barely fly (and offset when I do), and cycle to work every day. The problem is I often find it impossible to make others understand the severity of the situation. Any tips on how to effectively persuade people?
Craig Blyth-Moore, Edinburgh
I think a combination of activism works. If more and more people start behaving like we are in a crisis, more people will understand.
People in poverty have little or no concept of climate change because they are busy just surviving. How do we reach the parts of society like this?
Mike Jarrey, Ghent, Belgium
Good question. I think we must make them realise that climate-related issues are the key to other issues as well. Such as equality and social injustice and human rights. The climate issue offers a solid, science-supported black or white issue. The sooner other movements realise this, the better.
Thunberg with her ‘school strike for climate’ placard outside the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January. Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty ImagesYou’ve called for a global general climate strike on 20 September. What do you think about the possibility of a continuous general strike and the impacts it could have on global business-as-usual?
Thomas Kane, Stockport
We children are calling for the adults to join us on 20 and 27 September. To have real impact we must get to the stage where we have continuous general strikes. That will have an enormous impact on business-as-usual. We must get there soon. It would open people’s eyes and put things in perspective.
I’m 21 and I am facing a lot of ageism. I am discriminated against and invalidated because of my age. I’m told I don’t understand “how the world works”, and that my experiences don’t count. How do you push back against ageism and keep raising your voice?
Gayane Aghabalyan, Yerevan, Armenia
I don’t care about age. Nor do I care about those who do not accept the science. I don’t have as much experience, and therefore I listen more. But I also have the right to express my opinion, no matter my age. Also, being young is a great advantage since we see the world from a new perspective and we are not afraid to make radical changes.
As a biology teacher I support your actions because I view the planet from the perspective of ecology. I would like to draw your attention to two important graphs that can be seen online based on the present scientific evidence available. The first is human population growth v global warming and the second is human population growth v extinctions. Both have near perfect positive correlations. So do you think we have a responsibility to manage population growth to save the planet?
Colin Pascoe, Bath
The problem is not the people. It is what we do. But of course it is more difficult to live sustainably with more people on the planet. But these solutions can never be discussed on a personal level – it must be handled on a global level. If we are to control the number of people on Earth then I guess we must start with the high emitters. This debate would take decades and leave no space to solve other problems. It’s simply too big for us individuals. In my experience, the “we are too many people” argument is used as an excuse for not taking action ourselves. Whether we start controlling births or not, we need to get to zero emissions.
How do we get the message across in countries like China and Russia, which do not have the open media that we have?
John Telling, Tunbridge Wells
We do what we can do. I, for instance, can’t vote in China or Russia. Nor do I control media in China or Russia. I can only do what I can. And if enough people stand up for the climate and the environment, that will eventually spread to other countries. Perhaps even to China and Russia. We must focus on what we can do. Not what we can’t do.
Discussing cross-party action in Westminster with Michael Gove, Ed Miliband and Caroline Lucas. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAI am an old man without children. Why should I care about what happens to the planet after my death?
Confundido, online, name not supplied
Maybe you believe in something? Like karma, faith? Or morality? Or just because it’s the right thing to do.
How do you explain that, despite the findings of scientists and the alarming UN report, some people keep on denying or ignoring the climate crisis?
mdivet, online
I don’t believe so much in denial. I think either you don’t fully understand or you don’t accept the facts. This is because the facts just don’t fit your idea of how things are or should be. Your ideology or religion, for example. To accept the climate emergency is to admit that we have all failed, in a major way. And this is not an easy thing to do.
Is it too late?
ID0658798, online
No, most studies show that it is still possible within the laws of physics to avoid the worst scenarios. But it is not possible if we go on like today. And there is a possibility that there are positive feedbacks too, once we start to act. We don’t know.
Is there one achievable issue we should prioritise?
Kim Williams, Birmingham
To treat the crisis as a crisis. Because we can’t solve an emergency without treating it like one. We need to look at the full picture and do all that we can.
*No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg is published by Penguin (£2.99)
*Ali Smith’s latest novel is Spring (Hamish Hamilton)
Links
- Greta Thunberg Thanks OPEC Chief For Complaining About ‘Threat’ Of Climate Activists
- When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Met Greta Thunberg: 'Hope Is Contagious'
- Students From 1,600 Cities Just Walked Out Of School To Protest Climate Change. It Could Be Greta Thunberg's Biggest Strike Yet
- ‘Now I Am Speaking To The Whole World.’ How Teen Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Got Everyone To Listen
- Greta Thunberg Became A Climate Activist Not In Spite Of Her Autism, But Because Of It
- The Uncanny Power Of Greta Thunberg’s Climate-Change Rhetoric
- The Guardian View On Greta Thunberg: Seizing The Future
- Greta Thunberg Backs Climate General Strike To Force Leaders To Act
- Additional Links
Categories: External websites
DFAT's Climate Change Strategy Stuck On Hold
AFR - Andrew Tillett
A climate change strategy for Australia's foreign aid program has languished in Foreign Minister Marise Payne's office for six months, undermining efforts to bolster ties with Pacific nations who regard global warming as an existential threat.
Foreign aid groups have lashed the delay, which coincides with warnings from military chiefs that China could take advantage of climate change to occupy abandoned islands in the Pacific.
A child wades through sludge and water on the Island Republic of Kiribati, which often experiences inundation on high tides and is one of a number of low-lying nations exposed to the worst effects of rising waters due to climate change. James AlcockThe strategy is intended to provide a framework for integrating investment on climate change action with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's overseas development assistance program.
The strategy had its genesis in July 2016, when DFAT elevated climate change as a foreign aid priority, and then foreign minister Julie Bishop gave the green light to preparing the strategy.
DFAT officials said last year the strategy would be made public in late 2018 but Senator Payne told Senate estimates in February she had received a draft version of the strategy that month but was non-committal about when it would be released.
Confirmation of the delay comes as Senator Payne travels to the Cook Islands for bilateral meetings and Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepares to meet New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern in Melbourne on Friday, where cooperation in the Pacific will feature heavily in talks.
Mr Morrison has made the so-called "Pacific step up" a signature issue of his prime ministership as he seeks to deepen diplomatic and defence ties with Pacific nations, amid a strategic competition with China for regional influence.
Pacific nations have declared climate change the single biggest threat to the region and have criticised the Australian government for not doing enough to respond to the challenge.
The Australian Financial Review revealed earlier this week that Defence Force chief Angus Campbell used a private speech to warn fresh regional tensions could erupt if unnamed states occupied islands that had been abandoned because of rising sea levels.
The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for aid and development non-government organisations, urged Senator Payne to release the climate strategy, adding it should be the basis of further reform of the aid program.
"As the Boe declaration states – and to which Australia is a signatory – climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific. Yet, we are yet to see action from the Australian government which equates to this recognition," head of government relations Tim Watkin said.
"If we want to be a good neighbour and preferred partner, we must listen, respect and respond to the leaders of the Blue Pacific who consistently identify climate change as their key priority. It should be front and centre of the Pacific ‘step up’.
"As a matter of urgency, the Australian government must recognise the threat of climate change at the highest level of the development program. We think the government should refresh the 2014 aid policy and performance framework to reflect the threat of climate change and the Boe declaration. This would elevate and help mainstream climate change adaptation and resilience in the aid program."
DFAT said it was already integrating climate change action across aid programs. The government was on track to meet its promise of providing $1 billion over five years to 2020 to support countries in the region build resilence and lower emissions, including $300 million for the Pacific, it said in a statement.
"The climate change action strategy for the aid program is being updated to better reflect Australia’s international climate change engagement prior to the Paris Agreement coming into effect in 2020," the statement said.
"Australia recognises Pacific island countries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and disasters, and is already working closely with the Pacific on climate change and development issues, as well as interrelated environmental concerns like marine litter."
Links
A climate change strategy for Australia's foreign aid program has languished in Foreign Minister Marise Payne's office for six months, undermining efforts to bolster ties with Pacific nations who regard global warming as an existential threat.
Foreign aid groups have lashed the delay, which coincides with warnings from military chiefs that China could take advantage of climate change to occupy abandoned islands in the Pacific.
A child wades through sludge and water on the Island Republic of Kiribati, which often experiences inundation on high tides and is one of a number of low-lying nations exposed to the worst effects of rising waters due to climate change. James AlcockThe strategy is intended to provide a framework for integrating investment on climate change action with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's overseas development assistance program.
The strategy had its genesis in July 2016, when DFAT elevated climate change as a foreign aid priority, and then foreign minister Julie Bishop gave the green light to preparing the strategy.
DFAT officials said last year the strategy would be made public in late 2018 but Senator Payne told Senate estimates in February she had received a draft version of the strategy that month but was non-committal about when it would be released.
Confirmation of the delay comes as Senator Payne travels to the Cook Islands for bilateral meetings and Prime Minister Scott Morrison prepares to meet New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern in Melbourne on Friday, where cooperation in the Pacific will feature heavily in talks.
Mr Morrison has made the so-called "Pacific step up" a signature issue of his prime ministership as he seeks to deepen diplomatic and defence ties with Pacific nations, amid a strategic competition with China for regional influence.
Pacific nations have declared climate change the single biggest threat to the region and have criticised the Australian government for not doing enough to respond to the challenge.
The Australian Financial Review revealed earlier this week that Defence Force chief Angus Campbell used a private speech to warn fresh regional tensions could erupt if unnamed states occupied islands that had been abandoned because of rising sea levels.
The Australian Council for International Development, the peak body for aid and development non-government organisations, urged Senator Payne to release the climate strategy, adding it should be the basis of further reform of the aid program.
"As the Boe declaration states – and to which Australia is a signatory – climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of the peoples of the Pacific. Yet, we are yet to see action from the Australian government which equates to this recognition," head of government relations Tim Watkin said.
"If we want to be a good neighbour and preferred partner, we must listen, respect and respond to the leaders of the Blue Pacific who consistently identify climate change as their key priority. It should be front and centre of the Pacific ‘step up’.
"As a matter of urgency, the Australian government must recognise the threat of climate change at the highest level of the development program. We think the government should refresh the 2014 aid policy and performance framework to reflect the threat of climate change and the Boe declaration. This would elevate and help mainstream climate change adaptation and resilience in the aid program."
DFAT said it was already integrating climate change action across aid programs. The government was on track to meet its promise of providing $1 billion over five years to 2020 to support countries in the region build resilence and lower emissions, including $300 million for the Pacific, it said in a statement.
"The climate change action strategy for the aid program is being updated to better reflect Australia’s international climate change engagement prior to the Paris Agreement coming into effect in 2020," the statement said.
"Australia recognises Pacific island countries are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and disasters, and is already working closely with the Pacific on climate change and development issues, as well as interrelated environmental concerns like marine litter."
Links
Categories: External websites
A Deadly Heat Wave After The Hottest June On Record: How The Climate Crisis Is Creating 'A New Normal'
TIME - Jasmine Aguilera
A picture taken on June 24, 2019 shows a thermometer reaching almost 37 degrees Celsius in the French northern city of Godewaersvelde, near Lille. - Up to 40 degrees celsius during the day, 25 at night: France will know this week a heat wave exceptional in its precocity and intensity, warns on June 21, 2019 Meteo-France, saying that the heat waves are multiplying with the global warming. PHILIPPE HUGUEN—AFP/Getty Images
As millions of people prepare for sweltering heatwaves in the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, scientists say July will likely be the hottest July on record, following the hottest June on record. These types of heatwaves are expected to become more frequent throughout the world as global warming continues, say scientists.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports the average global temperature for June was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees. NOAA also reported record-breaking decreases in sea ice coverage in the Arctic and Antarctica.
“Our climate is warming,” Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, a climatologist at NOAA, tells TIME. “We have a new normal, we are in a new warmer climate. Just in the 21st century, we’ve set a new global world temperature record five times.”
Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, tells TIME that July is also likely to be the hottest July on record, as global temperatures continue to trend towards increasing heat.
Regionally, hot June temperatures broke records in Europe, Africa and South America, and it was the hottest first half of the year for Alaska, Madagascar, New Zealand, Mexico, western Canada and eastern Asia.
Overall between January through June, the temperature averaged out to 1.71 degrees above the 20th century average of 55.3, tying with 2017 as the hottest year so far.
Rohde says this trend can be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases. “This trend will continue until humans find a way to change their behavior and stop modifying the atmosphere,” Rohde says.
He points out that while the trend continues upward, the world may not see consistently warmer temperatures. “It doesn’t happen continuously,” he says. “There are fluctuations, we don’t have a new hottest year every year or a new hottest month every month, but as we move forward we expect to set many records over time.”
Why does record-breaking heat matter?
Sánchez-Lugo says as the world gets warmer, populations can expect more frequent heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather.
“Our extremes will change,” she says. “Drought is expected to become more intense and more frequent, heatwaves too, and all of this has consequences. Drought can impact the quality of water, the quantity of water, crops, food might get more expensive if there’s a drought.”
As temperatures continue to increase globally due to greenhouse gas emissions, the world will begin to see fewer cool days, according to Rohde.
“These conditions will start to put stress on social, economic and technical systems designed for the historical climate,” he adds. For example, agricultural systems that depend on a certain amount of rainfall that gradually starts to decrease while temperatures gradually increase.
Sánchez-Lugo says we have already seen examples of climate change effecting parts of the U.S., pointing to above average rainfall in the U.S. Midwest in June that prevented the planting and growing of crops.
“This year there were pastures that were not even planted with corn because it was so wet,” she says.
In the longterm, climate change threatens ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctic, increasing sea levels, which is already occurring. In Antarctica, sea ice coverage was 8.5% below the 1981-2010 average, the difference of 62,000 square miles, the smallest Antarctic record for June. And in the Arctic, sea ice coverage was 10.5% below average, the second-smallest on record for June.
Where have people been impacted by severe heat?
In Europe, Austria, Germany and Hungary had the warmest June on record, but heat also increased in Switzerland and France, which saw its hottest day in history on June 28 — 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Heatwaves in Europe can be especially dangerous for elderly people in regions that are not used to high temperatures, says Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.
“Particularly in Europe, when heatwaves occur it can be especially damaging to harvests,” he adds. “Crops can be heavily effected, and of course you create a lot more susceptibility to wildfires, that can burn down homes and that also creates worse air pollution as well.”
The entire continents of South America and Africa and parts of Alaska saw saw the warmest June on record. In Alaska, infrastructure damage has been caused by permafrost melting due to temperature rising.
Now much of the U.S. prepares for a weekend heatwave expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Extreme heat is the most fatal weather hazard in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service, even more deadly than hurricanes and floods.
What can be done to change the rising temperature trend?
Sánchez-Lugo, Rodhe and Forster agree the world needs to halt the the emission of greenhouse gasses in order to end the global rise in temperature.
Forster says temperatures are expected to increase globally even if greenhouse gases are reduced. “So to prevent them from going up, we have to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases all the way to zero.”
179 countries have signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. But the U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2017.
Still, Forster is optimistic. “Countries around the world are taking it really seriously,” he says. “The thing is you have to get every country in the world to do it and you have to get every part of the economy interested. So that’s where the challenge is but I would say that humanity always rises to these challenges, so I’m personally quite optimistic.”
Links
A picture taken on June 24, 2019 shows a thermometer reaching almost 37 degrees Celsius in the French northern city of Godewaersvelde, near Lille. - Up to 40 degrees celsius during the day, 25 at night: France will know this week a heat wave exceptional in its precocity and intensity, warns on June 21, 2019 Meteo-France, saying that the heat waves are multiplying with the global warming. PHILIPPE HUGUEN—AFP/Getty Images
As millions of people prepare for sweltering heatwaves in the U.S. Midwest and East Coast, scientists say July will likely be the hottest July on record, following the hottest June on record. These types of heatwaves are expected to become more frequent throughout the world as global warming continues, say scientists.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports the average global temperature for June was 1.71 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees. NOAA also reported record-breaking decreases in sea ice coverage in the Arctic and Antarctica.
“Our climate is warming,” Ahira Sánchez-Lugo, a climatologist at NOAA, tells TIME. “We have a new normal, we are in a new warmer climate. Just in the 21st century, we’ve set a new global world temperature record five times.”
Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, tells TIME that July is also likely to be the hottest July on record, as global temperatures continue to trend towards increasing heat.
Regionally, hot June temperatures broke records in Europe, Africa and South America, and it was the hottest first half of the year for Alaska, Madagascar, New Zealand, Mexico, western Canada and eastern Asia.
Overall between January through June, the temperature averaged out to 1.71 degrees above the 20th century average of 55.3, tying with 2017 as the hottest year so far.
Rohde says this trend can be attributed to human emissions of greenhouse gases. “This trend will continue until humans find a way to change their behavior and stop modifying the atmosphere,” Rohde says.
He points out that while the trend continues upward, the world may not see consistently warmer temperatures. “It doesn’t happen continuously,” he says. “There are fluctuations, we don’t have a new hottest year every year or a new hottest month every month, but as we move forward we expect to set many records over time.”
Why does record-breaking heat matter?
Sánchez-Lugo says as the world gets warmer, populations can expect more frequent heatwaves, droughts and extreme weather.
“Our extremes will change,” she says. “Drought is expected to become more intense and more frequent, heatwaves too, and all of this has consequences. Drought can impact the quality of water, the quantity of water, crops, food might get more expensive if there’s a drought.”
As temperatures continue to increase globally due to greenhouse gas emissions, the world will begin to see fewer cool days, according to Rohde.
“These conditions will start to put stress on social, economic and technical systems designed for the historical climate,” he adds. For example, agricultural systems that depend on a certain amount of rainfall that gradually starts to decrease while temperatures gradually increase.
Sánchez-Lugo says we have already seen examples of climate change effecting parts of the U.S., pointing to above average rainfall in the U.S. Midwest in June that prevented the planting and growing of crops.
“This year there were pastures that were not even planted with corn because it was so wet,” she says.
In the longterm, climate change threatens ice melting in the Arctic and Antarctic, increasing sea levels, which is already occurring. In Antarctica, sea ice coverage was 8.5% below the 1981-2010 average, the difference of 62,000 square miles, the smallest Antarctic record for June. And in the Arctic, sea ice coverage was 10.5% below average, the second-smallest on record for June.
Where have people been impacted by severe heat?
In Europe, Austria, Germany and Hungary had the warmest June on record, but heat also increased in Switzerland and France, which saw its hottest day in history on June 28 — 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Heatwaves in Europe can be especially dangerous for elderly people in regions that are not used to high temperatures, says Piers Forster, professor of climate physics at the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.
“Particularly in Europe, when heatwaves occur it can be especially damaging to harvests,” he adds. “Crops can be heavily effected, and of course you create a lot more susceptibility to wildfires, that can burn down homes and that also creates worse air pollution as well.”
The entire continents of South America and Africa and parts of Alaska saw saw the warmest June on record. In Alaska, infrastructure damage has been caused by permafrost melting due to temperature rising.
Now much of the U.S. prepares for a weekend heatwave expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Extreme heat is the most fatal weather hazard in the U.S., according to the National Weather Service, even more deadly than hurricanes and floods.
What can be done to change the rising temperature trend?
Sánchez-Lugo, Rodhe and Forster agree the world needs to halt the the emission of greenhouse gasses in order to end the global rise in temperature.
Forster says temperatures are expected to increase globally even if greenhouse gases are reduced. “So to prevent them from going up, we have to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases all the way to zero.”
179 countries have signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, or 35.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. But the U.S. withdrew from the agreement in 2017.
Still, Forster is optimistic. “Countries around the world are taking it really seriously,” he says. “The thing is you have to get every country in the world to do it and you have to get every part of the economy interested. So that’s where the challenge is but I would say that humanity always rises to these challenges, so I’m personally quite optimistic.”
Links
- June 2019 was hottest on record for the globe
- Scientists Predict Climate Change Will Make Dangerous Heat Waves Far More Common
- An 'Extremely Dangerous' Heat Wave Will Hit 195 Million Americans This Weekend. Here's How to Stay Safe
- A Glacier the Size of Florida Is Becoming Unstable. It Has Dire Implications for Global Sea Levels
- An 'Unprecedented' Early Summer Heatwave Grips Europe as Scientists Warn More Are on the Way
- ‘A Harbinger of Things to Come’: Farmers in Australia Struggle With Its Hottest Drought Ever
Categories: External websites
Assessing The Global Climate In June 2019
NASA
Warmest June on record for the globe, record-low Antarctic sea ice extent
Courtesy of Pixabay.com The global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average for June 2019 was the highest for the month of June in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. The year-to-date temperature for 2019 was the second warmest January–June on record.
An annotated map of the world showing notable climate events that occurred around the world in June 2019.LARGE IMAGEThis monthly summary, developed by scientists at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to government, business, academia and the public to support informed decision-making.
June 2019 Temperature
LARGE IMAGEThe June temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 59.9°F and was the highest for June in the 1880–2019 record. June 2019 bested the previous record set in 2016 by 0.04°F.
Sea Ice and Snow Cover
LARGE IMAGEJune 2019 marked the 20th consecutive June with Arctic sea ice extent below average. This was the second smallest Arctic sea ice extent for June in the 41-year record at 475,000 square miles (10.5%) below the 1981–2010 average and 46,300 square miles above the record low set in June 2016, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center using data from NOAA and NASA. June 2019 marks the fourth consecutive June that the Antarctic sea ice extent was below average at 425,000 square miles (8.5%) below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June extent in the 41-year record, surpassing the previous record set in 2002 by 62,000 square miles.
Year-to-date (January–June 2019)
LARGE IMAGEThe year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 56.3°F — tying with 2017 as the second highest for January–June in the 140-year record. Only January–June 2016 (+2.00°F) was warmer.
The year-to-date globally averaged sea surface temperature was the second highest for January–June in the 1880–2019 record at 1.33°F above the 20th century average of 60.9°F. June 2016 (+1.51°F) was warmer.
Links
Warmest June on record for the globe, record-low Antarctic sea ice extent
Courtesy of Pixabay.com The global land and ocean surface temperature departure from average for June 2019 was the highest for the month of June in the 140-year NOAA global temperature dataset record, which dates back to 1880. The year-to-date temperature for 2019 was the second warmest January–June on record.
An annotated map of the world showing notable climate events that occurred around the world in June 2019.LARGE IMAGEThis monthly summary, developed by scientists at NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to government, business, academia and the public to support informed decision-making.
June 2019 Temperature
LARGE IMAGEThe June temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 59.9°F and was the highest for June in the 1880–2019 record. June 2019 bested the previous record set in 2016 by 0.04°F.
- Nine of the 10 warmest Junes have occurred since 2010. June 1998 is the only value from the previous century among the 10 warmest Junes on record, and it is currently ranked as the eighth warmest June on record.
- June 2019 also marks the 43rd consecutive June and the 414th consecutive month with temperatures, at least nominally, above the 20th century average.
- Record warm temperatures during June 2019 were present across parts of central and eastern Europe, northern Russia, Asia, Africa, South America, the north Indian Ocean, and across parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. No land or ocean areas had record cold June temperatures.
- The most notable warm temperature departures from average were present across central and eastern Europe, north-central Russia, northeastern Canada and southern parts of South America, where temperatures were 3.6°F above the 1981–2010 average or higher. The most notable cooler-than-average temperatures were limited to parts of western Asia and Antarctica, where temperatures were at least 1.8°F below the 1981–2010 average or cooler.
- Regionally, South America, Europe, Africa, the Hawaiian region and the Gulf of Mexico had their warmest June in the 110-year record. Asia and the Caribbean region had their eighth and ninth highest June temperature since continental records began in 1910, respectively. Meanwhile, North America and Oceania had their coolest June since 2009 and 2012, respectively.
Sea Ice and Snow Cover
LARGE IMAGEJune 2019 marked the 20th consecutive June with Arctic sea ice extent below average. This was the second smallest Arctic sea ice extent for June in the 41-year record at 475,000 square miles (10.5%) below the 1981–2010 average and 46,300 square miles above the record low set in June 2016, according to an analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center using data from NOAA and NASA. June 2019 marks the fourth consecutive June that the Antarctic sea ice extent was below average at 425,000 square miles (8.5%) below the 1981–2010 average. This was the smallest June extent in the 41-year record, surpassing the previous record set in 2002 by 62,000 square miles.
Year-to-date (January–June 2019)
LARGE IMAGEThe year-to-date temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.71°F above the 20th century average of 56.3°F — tying with 2017 as the second highest for January–June in the 140-year record. Only January–June 2016 (+2.00°F) was warmer.
- The most notable warm temperature departures from average were present across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, specifically Alaska, western Canada and central Russia, where temperature departures from average were +5.4°F or higher. Meanwhile, the most notable cool temperature departures from average were present across much of the contiguous U.S. and southern Canada, where temperatures were at least 1.8°F below average or cooler.
- Record-warm January–June temperatures were present across central South America, the southern half of Africa, New Zealand and its surrounding ocean, as well as parts of Alaska, western Canada, Mexico, the Bering Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, Madagascar and surrounding Indian Ocean, and across parts of eastern Asia. No land or ocean areas had record-cold temperatures during January–June 2019.
- Regionally, five of six continents had a January–June temperature that ranked among the four highest such periods on record, with South America having its warmest year-to-date on record and Oceania having a near-record January-June temperature.
The year-to-date globally averaged sea surface temperature was the second highest for January–June in the 1880–2019 record at 1.33°F above the 20th century average of 60.9°F. June 2016 (+1.51°F) was warmer.
Links
- A Deadly Heat Wave After The Hottest June On Record: How The Climate Crisis Is Creating 'A New Normal'
- June 2019 Global Climate Report
- Climate at a Glance
- Global Temperature and Precipitation Maps
- Temperature Percentiles Explained
- Precipitation Percentiles Explained
- State of the Climate Summaries
- June 2019 was hottest on record for the globe
- Scientists Predict Climate Change Will Make Dangerous Heat Waves Far More Common
- An 'Extremely Dangerous' Heat Wave Will Hit 195 Million Americans This Weekend. Here's How to Stay Safe
- A Glacier the Size of Florida Is Becoming Unstable. It Has Dire Implications for Global Sea Levels
- An 'Unprecedented' Early Summer Heatwave Grips Europe as Scientists Warn More Are on the Way
- ‘A Harbinger of Things to Come’: Farmers in Australia Struggle With Its Hottest Drought Ever
Categories: External websites
Great Barrier Reef Authority Urges 'Fastest Possible Action' On Emissions
The Guardian - Lisa Cox
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says ‘further loss of coral is inevitable’
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says it is ‘critical’ global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees. Photograph: Tory ChaseThe federal agency that manages the Great Barrier Reef has made an unprecedented call for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, warning only the “strongest and fastest possible action” will reduce the risks to the natural wonder.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has published a climate position statement that says the reef is already damaged from warming oceans and it is “critical” global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees.
The Coalition government has been criticised for overseeing four straight years of increases in national emissions and experts say it will not meet the country’s Paris target under current climate policy.
“Only the strongest and fastest possible action on climate change will reduce the risks and limit the impacts of climate change on the reef,” the authority said. “Further loss of coral is inevitable and can be minimised by limiting global temperature increase to the maximum extent possible.”The climate statement was in development for more than a year and published late on Wednesday.
It says climate change is the single greatest threat to the reef and points to the “widespread impacts” already felt from back to back marine heatwaves in 2016 and 2017 that caused the mass wipe-out of corals.
“Of particular concern are projections that the reef could be affected by bleaching events twice per decade by about 2035 and annually by about 2044 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at the current rate,” the authority said.
“If bleaching becomes more frequent and more intense, there will not be enough time for reefs to recover and persist as coral-dominated systems in their current form.”
The marine park authority’s statement says the reduction in emissions required for the reef to survive requires both national and international effort and an “urgent and critical” acceleration of policies to cut carbon pollution.
Any further increase in global temperatures will have “further negative impacts” for reef-dependent activities such as tourism, fishing and traditional use.
“These effects are likely to include loss of properties and infrastructure, loss of cultural and regional identity and, unless urgent action is taken, subsequent declines in regional economies,” the authority said.
Environment groups said on Thursday that such a clear statement from the government’s own agency should prompt the Morrison government to act faster to address the climate crisis.
Australia’s emissions have been rising since the repeal of the carbon price.
“The Great Barrier Reef is not dead yet, but the marine park authority makes it clear that it is already under stress from rising temperatures,” Christian Slattery, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said.
“As the marine park authority states, any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts on the reef and flow-on effects for tourism, fishing, recreation and traditional use.
“ACF urges the federal government to listen to the experts and treat this call to action with the seriousness and urgency it deserves.”
Imogen Zethoven, the strategic director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the government’s $443m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation would be “wasted unless the Morrison government takes radical action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save our greatest natural icon and the jobs it supports”.
Any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts.
Australian Conservation Foundation“The prime minister, a former managing director of Tourism Australia, knows how critical the reef is to the tourism industry and to Australia’s international reputation,” she said. “As the caretaker for the reef and a daily witness to its decline, GBRMPA is crying out for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
After the May election, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, named Warren Entsch the special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef.
In an interview, Entsch said he wanted to focus on plastic waste and warned climate activists in northern Queensland had had a negative impact on the region’s economy.
Environment minister Sussan Ley said she accepted accept the scientific advice, “both that climate change is the biggest threat to the reef and that there are actions we can continue to take to build a more resilient reef.”
“The government is taking meaningful action to reduce global emissions and we investing $1.2bn in addressing threats such as water quality, marine litter and the crown of thorns star fish.”
In 2017, Australia avoided an “in danger” listing for the reef from Unesco’s world heritage committee.
But its status will be reassessed by Unesco next year and Australia must submit a state of conservation report to Unesco in December.
An outlook report for the reef from GBRMPA is also due soon.
Links
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says ‘further loss of coral is inevitable’
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says it is ‘critical’ global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees. Photograph: Tory ChaseThe federal agency that manages the Great Barrier Reef has made an unprecedented call for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, warning only the “strongest and fastest possible action” will reduce the risks to the natural wonder.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has published a climate position statement that says the reef is already damaged from warming oceans and it is “critical” global temperature rises remain within 1.5 degrees.
The Coalition government has been criticised for overseeing four straight years of increases in national emissions and experts say it will not meet the country’s Paris target under current climate policy.
“Only the strongest and fastest possible action on climate change will reduce the risks and limit the impacts of climate change on the reef,” the authority said. “Further loss of coral is inevitable and can be minimised by limiting global temperature increase to the maximum extent possible.”The climate statement was in development for more than a year and published late on Wednesday.
It says climate change is the single greatest threat to the reef and points to the “widespread impacts” already felt from back to back marine heatwaves in 2016 and 2017 that caused the mass wipe-out of corals.
“Of particular concern are projections that the reef could be affected by bleaching events twice per decade by about 2035 and annually by about 2044 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase at the current rate,” the authority said.
“If bleaching becomes more frequent and more intense, there will not be enough time for reefs to recover and persist as coral-dominated systems in their current form.”
The marine park authority’s statement says the reduction in emissions required for the reef to survive requires both national and international effort and an “urgent and critical” acceleration of policies to cut carbon pollution.
Any further increase in global temperatures will have “further negative impacts” for reef-dependent activities such as tourism, fishing and traditional use.
“These effects are likely to include loss of properties and infrastructure, loss of cultural and regional identity and, unless urgent action is taken, subsequent declines in regional economies,” the authority said.
Environment groups said on Thursday that such a clear statement from the government’s own agency should prompt the Morrison government to act faster to address the climate crisis.
Australia’s emissions have been rising since the repeal of the carbon price.
“The Great Barrier Reef is not dead yet, but the marine park authority makes it clear that it is already under stress from rising temperatures,” Christian Slattery, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said.
“As the marine park authority states, any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts on the reef and flow-on effects for tourism, fishing, recreation and traditional use.
“ACF urges the federal government to listen to the experts and treat this call to action with the seriousness and urgency it deserves.”
Imogen Zethoven, the strategic director at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said the government’s $443m grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation would be “wasted unless the Morrison government takes radical action to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to save our greatest natural icon and the jobs it supports”.
Any additional increase in temperatures will have further devastating impacts.
Australian Conservation Foundation“The prime minister, a former managing director of Tourism Australia, knows how critical the reef is to the tourism industry and to Australia’s international reputation,” she said. “As the caretaker for the reef and a daily witness to its decline, GBRMPA is crying out for immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
After the May election, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, named Warren Entsch the special envoy for the Great Barrier Reef.
In an interview, Entsch said he wanted to focus on plastic waste and warned climate activists in northern Queensland had had a negative impact on the region’s economy.
Environment minister Sussan Ley said she accepted accept the scientific advice, “both that climate change is the biggest threat to the reef and that there are actions we can continue to take to build a more resilient reef.”
“The government is taking meaningful action to reduce global emissions and we investing $1.2bn in addressing threats such as water quality, marine litter and the crown of thorns star fish.”
In 2017, Australia avoided an “in danger” listing for the reef from Unesco’s world heritage committee.
But its status will be reassessed by Unesco next year and Australia must submit a state of conservation report to Unesco in December.
An outlook report for the reef from GBRMPA is also due soon.
Links
- Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Position Statement Climate Change (pdf)
- Great Barrier Reef hard coral cover close to record lows
- Radical climate action 'critical' to Great Barrier Reef's survival, government body says
- Morrison Government Experts Say Australia Must 'Do More' On Climate
- ‘Sadness, Disgust, Anger’: Fear For The Great Barrier Reef Made Climate Change Feel Urgent
- Radical Climate Action 'Critical' To Great Barrier Reef's Survival, Government Body Says
- Legal Protections Urged As Science Gears Up To Aid Great Barrier Reef
- Malcolm Turnbull Asked To Front Reef Inquiry
- The Great Barrier Reef Is “In For A Rough Ride”
- Great Barrier Reef Likely To Be Hit With Another Mass Bleaching This Summer, Forecast Shows
- To Tackle Climate Change, A New U.N. Climate Report Says Put A High Price On Carbon
- Mining Sector, Morrison Government On The Defensive Over IPCC Report
Categories: External websites
We Went To The Moon. Why Can’t We Solve Climate Change?
New York Times - John Schwartz
The original moon shoot inspired billions. Calling climate action a moon shot isn’t a perfect parallel — but maybe we should try it anyway.
Earth as seen from the Apollo 11 lunar mission in July 1969. Credit NASA/ReutersCould a “moon shot” for climate change cool a warming planet?
Fifty years after humans first left bootprints in the lunar dust, it’s an enticing idea. The effort and the commitment of brainpower and money, and the glorious achievement itself, shine as an international example of what people can do when they set their minds to it. The spinoff technologies ended up affecting all of our lives.
So why not do it all over again — but instead of going to another astronomical body and planting a flag, why not save our own planet? Why not face it with the kind of inspiration that John F. Kennedy projected when he stood up at Rice University in 1962 and said “We choose to go to the moon,” and to do such things:
“ … not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win …”
John F. Kennedy delivering his address at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962. Credit Associated Press
But President Kennedy did not have to convince people that the moon existed. In our current political climate, the clear evidence that humans have generated greenhouse gases that are having a powerful effect on climate, and will have a greater effect into the future, has not moved the federal government to act with vigor. And a determined faction even argues that climate change is a hoax, as President Donald Trump has falsely stated at various times.And the moon shot had a clearly defined goal: Land on the moon. A finish line for fighting climate change is less clear. Back to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (We have already passed 412 parts per million.)Still, it should come as no surprise that Kennedy’s stirring words and accomplishments have made the idea of a moon shot one of the most enduring metaphors for our time. Roger Launius, a retired NASA chief historian and author of a new book, “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings,” said that “moon shot” has become shorthand for “a big push,” and it’s almost become a trope: ‘We need a ‘project Apollo for name-the-big-thing-of-your-choice’.”Climate change is certainly an urgent challenge. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are raising temperatures worldwide, leading to shifting weather patterns that are only expected to get worse, with increased flooding and heat waves, and drought and wildfires afflicting millions. The task of reversing that accumulation of greenhouse gases is vast, and progress is painfully slow.
The idea of a moon shot for climate has been gaining supporters. Beto O’Rourke and Kirsten Gillibrand use the idea in their presidential campaigns, as did Michael Bloomberg in unveiling his recently announced $500 million Beyond Carbon campaign. In a commencement speech this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he said, “It is time for all of us to accept that climate change is the challenge of our time.” He concluded, “It may be a moon shot — but it’s the only shot we’ve got.”
Does the enduring metaphor fit the task of countering the grinding destructiveness of a warming planet?
Climate presents more complicated issues than getting to the moon did, said John M. Logsdon, historian of the space program and founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
In 1970, Dr. Logsdon wrote a book, “The Decision to Go to the Moon,” that laid out four conditions that made Apollo possible. In the case of the space program, the stimulus was the first human spaceflight of the Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin, which filled Americans with dread of losing the space race. In an interview, Dr. Logsdon said it has to be “a singular act that would force action, that you couldn’t ignore.” Other moon shot prerequisites, he said, include leaders in a position to direct the resources necessary to meet the goal on “a warlike basis,” with very deep national pockets — people like President Kennedy, who began the program, and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who brought it to fruition.
Finally, Dr. Logsdon said, “the objective has to be technically feasible.” Scientists and engineers had told Mr. Kennedy that “there were no technical show stoppers in sending humans to the moon — it would just take a hell of a lot of engineering.”
What would be the “action-forcing stimulus” for a climate moon shot, he asked? He suggested it would have to be something deeply dramatic and immediate, like “Manhattan going under water.” What’s more, he noted, “Apollo did not require changing human behavior” as fighting climate change would, through the need for measures like carbon taxes or changes in consumption patterns.
One more important difference between sending people to the moon and solving a problem like climate change was cited in a recent editorial in the journal Nature, which noted that attempts to counter climate change have lobbyists fighting against them. The editorial said “for decades, energy corporations have stymied global efforts to make equitable reductions to greenhouse-gas emissions because such efforts would reduce their profits. Influential private companies are central to today’s Earth shots, but the historical moon shot approach will be ineffective if potential conflicts of interest are not addressed.”
Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, lauded the inspiration that the moon shot provided, but said she had a less sweeping example of a good comparison to the challenge ahead: fixing the ozone hole. It required international cooperation, detailed in the Montreal Protocol of 1987, and a concerted effort of nearly 200 countries to rid the world of the chlorofluorocarbons that were damaging our atmospheric protection. “There are bumps on that road, but largely the ozone hole is on the road to recovery because of actions that humans took,” she said.
Yet she treasures a necklace that recreates the Apollo 11 trajectory from the Earth to the moon. “It’s incredibly nerdy,” she said, but it’s also a reminder of a national act that people think of “with nothing but good will.” And so, she said, comparing a climate push to the Apollo program makes a kind of sense. “Just because a metaphor is not exact,” she said, “doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”
If we did choose once again to do an important thing because it is hard, the task ahead would be more than technical, said Hal Harvey, chief executive of the research firm Energy Innovation. The deceptively simple goal, he said, should be to “decarbonize electricity, and then electrify everything.” That would involve building up renewable energy and dropping electrical generation from fossil fuel plants, and building up the use of technologies like heat pumps that can make home heating and cooling more efficient. China has invested heavily in electric buses, electric scooters, and other ways to stop burning fossil fuels. There are further advances in industrial processes and power systems engineering that will help, he said, ticking off a dizzying array of avenues that would allow society to reach those goals.
But mostly, he said, it will require a shift in national attitude.
“The moon shot technology we need is political will.”Links
The original moon shoot inspired billions. Calling climate action a moon shot isn’t a perfect parallel — but maybe we should try it anyway.
Earth as seen from the Apollo 11 lunar mission in July 1969. Credit NASA/ReutersCould a “moon shot” for climate change cool a warming planet?
Fifty years after humans first left bootprints in the lunar dust, it’s an enticing idea. The effort and the commitment of brainpower and money, and the glorious achievement itself, shine as an international example of what people can do when they set their minds to it. The spinoff technologies ended up affecting all of our lives.
So why not do it all over again — but instead of going to another astronomical body and planting a flag, why not save our own planet? Why not face it with the kind of inspiration that John F. Kennedy projected when he stood up at Rice University in 1962 and said “We choose to go to the moon,” and to do such things:
“ … not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win …”
John F. Kennedy delivering his address at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962. Credit Associated Press
But President Kennedy did not have to convince people that the moon existed. In our current political climate, the clear evidence that humans have generated greenhouse gases that are having a powerful effect on climate, and will have a greater effect into the future, has not moved the federal government to act with vigor. And a determined faction even argues that climate change is a hoax, as President Donald Trump has falsely stated at various times.And the moon shot had a clearly defined goal: Land on the moon. A finish line for fighting climate change is less clear. Back to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? (We have already passed 412 parts per million.)Still, it should come as no surprise that Kennedy’s stirring words and accomplishments have made the idea of a moon shot one of the most enduring metaphors for our time. Roger Launius, a retired NASA chief historian and author of a new book, “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings,” said that “moon shot” has become shorthand for “a big push,” and it’s almost become a trope: ‘We need a ‘project Apollo for name-the-big-thing-of-your-choice’.”Climate change is certainly an urgent challenge. Rising levels of greenhouse gases are raising temperatures worldwide, leading to shifting weather patterns that are only expected to get worse, with increased flooding and heat waves, and drought and wildfires afflicting millions. The task of reversing that accumulation of greenhouse gases is vast, and progress is painfully slow.
The idea of a moon shot for climate has been gaining supporters. Beto O’Rourke and Kirsten Gillibrand use the idea in their presidential campaigns, as did Michael Bloomberg in unveiling his recently announced $500 million Beyond Carbon campaign. In a commencement speech this year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he said, “It is time for all of us to accept that climate change is the challenge of our time.” He concluded, “It may be a moon shot — but it’s the only shot we’ve got.”
Does the enduring metaphor fit the task of countering the grinding destructiveness of a warming planet?
Climate presents more complicated issues than getting to the moon did, said John M. Logsdon, historian of the space program and founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.
In 1970, Dr. Logsdon wrote a book, “The Decision to Go to the Moon,” that laid out four conditions that made Apollo possible. In the case of the space program, the stimulus was the first human spaceflight of the Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin, which filled Americans with dread of losing the space race. In an interview, Dr. Logsdon said it has to be “a singular act that would force action, that you couldn’t ignore.” Other moon shot prerequisites, he said, include leaders in a position to direct the resources necessary to meet the goal on “a warlike basis,” with very deep national pockets — people like President Kennedy, who began the program, and Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, who brought it to fruition.
Finally, Dr. Logsdon said, “the objective has to be technically feasible.” Scientists and engineers had told Mr. Kennedy that “there were no technical show stoppers in sending humans to the moon — it would just take a hell of a lot of engineering.”
What would be the “action-forcing stimulus” for a climate moon shot, he asked? He suggested it would have to be something deeply dramatic and immediate, like “Manhattan going under water.” What’s more, he noted, “Apollo did not require changing human behavior” as fighting climate change would, through the need for measures like carbon taxes or changes in consumption patterns.
One more important difference between sending people to the moon and solving a problem like climate change was cited in a recent editorial in the journal Nature, which noted that attempts to counter climate change have lobbyists fighting against them. The editorial said “for decades, energy corporations have stymied global efforts to make equitable reductions to greenhouse-gas emissions because such efforts would reduce their profits. Influential private companies are central to today’s Earth shots, but the historical moon shot approach will be ineffective if potential conflicts of interest are not addressed.”
Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, lauded the inspiration that the moon shot provided, but said she had a less sweeping example of a good comparison to the challenge ahead: fixing the ozone hole. It required international cooperation, detailed in the Montreal Protocol of 1987, and a concerted effort of nearly 200 countries to rid the world of the chlorofluorocarbons that were damaging our atmospheric protection. “There are bumps on that road, but largely the ozone hole is on the road to recovery because of actions that humans took,” she said.
Yet she treasures a necklace that recreates the Apollo 11 trajectory from the Earth to the moon. “It’s incredibly nerdy,” she said, but it’s also a reminder of a national act that people think of “with nothing but good will.” And so, she said, comparing a climate push to the Apollo program makes a kind of sense. “Just because a metaphor is not exact,” she said, “doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”
If we did choose once again to do an important thing because it is hard, the task ahead would be more than technical, said Hal Harvey, chief executive of the research firm Energy Innovation. The deceptively simple goal, he said, should be to “decarbonize electricity, and then electrify everything.” That would involve building up renewable energy and dropping electrical generation from fossil fuel plants, and building up the use of technologies like heat pumps that can make home heating and cooling more efficient. China has invested heavily in electric buses, electric scooters, and other ways to stop burning fossil fuels. There are further advances in industrial processes and power systems engineering that will help, he said, ticking off a dizzying array of avenues that would allow society to reach those goals.
But mostly, he said, it will require a shift in national attitude.
“The moon shot technology we need is political will.”Links
- The Keeling Curve: CO2 now at 415 ppm
- Michael Bloomberg Promises $500 Million to Help End Coal
- Cancer, climate, plastics: why ‘earthshots’ are harder than moonshots
- The Counter-Intuitive Solution To Getting People To Care About Climate Change
- The One Viable Solution To Climate Change
- Device Could Bring Both Solar Power And Clean Water To Millions
- This Is A $15 Trillion Opportunity For Farmers To Fight Climate Change
- The Climate Crisis Is Already Hitting Food Production: An Urgent System-Wide Response Is Needed
- Waste Not — If You Want To Help Secure The Future Of The Planet
Categories: External websites
Former President Of Kiribati Tells SF To Step Up Fight As Climate Change Threatens To Swallow His Island Country
San Francisco Chronicle - Eduardo Medina
This file photo taken on September 7, 2011 shows then Kiribati President Anote Tong in Auckland. Photo: AFP / Getty ImagesNestled in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is Kiribati — a country destined to be doomed, and eventually erased, by climate change. Scientists, the United Nations and even its former president, Anote Tong, all agree: The small island home to 116,000 people will be engulfed by rising sea levels.
It was shortly after taking office in 2003 that he realized the peril his country was in, Tong said in an interview with The Chronicle at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco.
“The responsibility of my country fell squarely on my shoulders,” Tong said. “When the science started coming in, it was a matter of urgency.”
That science showed how “the results of sea level rise and increasing storm surge threaten the very existence and livelihoods of large segments of the population” in Kiribati, according to a United Nations report from August 2015.
In this March 30, 2004 file photo, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, is seen in an aerial view. Photo: Richard Vogel / Associated PressTong would become renowned around the world as the man leading a country that could soon cease to geographically exist.
He’s in San Francisco this week to speak at the Climate and Ocean Conservation event at Salesforce Tower on Wednesday night. The event gathers CEOs and leaders from over 230 corporations to discuss and explore “climate resilience and ocean conservation.”
Tong caught the world’s attention when he purchased approximately 20 square kilometers of land in Fiji in 2014 — a purchase he describes as an “investment,” a place his people can migrate to just in case his people need it.
Some of Tong’s constituents were upset with him for suggesting an impending migration from their homeland.
“The media went on to extrapolate that I’m moving my people to Fiji, but I never, ever said that,” Tong said. “I had no plans to move people... but somebody else in the future might need to do it.”
The purchase also sent a worldwide message.
“It was a very loud statement to the international community,” Tong said. “They were not listening. And if you’re not listening, then you will never do anything for us.”
He’s now sending a statement to CEOs in the Bay Area, reminding them that companies can either be “complicit or helpful” in stopping the further warming of the planet.
Tong said one man does seem to be particularly silent and dismissive on the issue of climate change: President Trump.
“I’ve been disappointed by his lack of climate change initiative,” Tong said. “But he was elected... and people need to choose for themselves who they think will be strong on this.”
Since leaving office in 2016, he has spent his time speaking to leaders around the world on the global efforts needed to save countries like his own.
Tong said he admires the environmental awareness prevalent in San Francisco, but he said tech companies in Silicon Valley need to step up to expedite progress in combating climate change.
“This is a battle we’re in —a huge, unprecedented battle,” Tong said. “I wonder if these companies can use their resources to change our world for the better.”
When he visits cities like San Francisco, Tong said he sees potential to counteract the current administration’s policies.
“Your federal government isn’t helping, but that’s when cities like San Francisco and other states in your country step in,” Tong said.
In terms of specific changes he wants to see happen, Tong refers to the need for a rapid global response.
“Climate change is only now becoming known as a fight for the survival of humanity,” Tong said. “When I come here to speak, I also come here to inspire people to act quickly.”
Links
This file photo taken on September 7, 2011 shows then Kiribati President Anote Tong in Auckland. Photo: AFP / Getty ImagesNestled in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is Kiribati — a country destined to be doomed, and eventually erased, by climate change. Scientists, the United Nations and even its former president, Anote Tong, all agree: The small island home to 116,000 people will be engulfed by rising sea levels.
It was shortly after taking office in 2003 that he realized the peril his country was in, Tong said in an interview with The Chronicle at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco.
“The responsibility of my country fell squarely on my shoulders,” Tong said. “When the science started coming in, it was a matter of urgency.”
That science showed how “the results of sea level rise and increasing storm surge threaten the very existence and livelihoods of large segments of the population” in Kiribati, according to a United Nations report from August 2015.
In this March 30, 2004 file photo, Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, is seen in an aerial view. Photo: Richard Vogel / Associated PressTong would become renowned around the world as the man leading a country that could soon cease to geographically exist.
He’s in San Francisco this week to speak at the Climate and Ocean Conservation event at Salesforce Tower on Wednesday night. The event gathers CEOs and leaders from over 230 corporations to discuss and explore “climate resilience and ocean conservation.”
Tong caught the world’s attention when he purchased approximately 20 square kilometers of land in Fiji in 2014 — a purchase he describes as an “investment,” a place his people can migrate to just in case his people need it.
Some of Tong’s constituents were upset with him for suggesting an impending migration from their homeland.
“The media went on to extrapolate that I’m moving my people to Fiji, but I never, ever said that,” Tong said. “I had no plans to move people... but somebody else in the future might need to do it.”
The purchase also sent a worldwide message.
“It was a very loud statement to the international community,” Tong said. “They were not listening. And if you’re not listening, then you will never do anything for us.”
He’s now sending a statement to CEOs in the Bay Area, reminding them that companies can either be “complicit or helpful” in stopping the further warming of the planet.
Tong said one man does seem to be particularly silent and dismissive on the issue of climate change: President Trump.
“I’ve been disappointed by his lack of climate change initiative,” Tong said. “But he was elected... and people need to choose for themselves who they think will be strong on this.”
Since leaving office in 2016, he has spent his time speaking to leaders around the world on the global efforts needed to save countries like his own.
Tong said he admires the environmental awareness prevalent in San Francisco, but he said tech companies in Silicon Valley need to step up to expedite progress in combating climate change.
“This is a battle we’re in —a huge, unprecedented battle,” Tong said. “I wonder if these companies can use their resources to change our world for the better.”
When he visits cities like San Francisco, Tong said he sees potential to counteract the current administration’s policies.
“Your federal government isn’t helping, but that’s when cities like San Francisco and other states in your country step in,” Tong said.
In terms of specific changes he wants to see happen, Tong refers to the need for a rapid global response.
“Climate change is only now becoming known as a fight for the survival of humanity,” Tong said. “When I come here to speak, I also come here to inspire people to act quickly.”
Links
- Interview: Climate Change And The Disappearing Islands Of Kiribati
- Waiting For The Tide To Turn: Kiribati's Fight For Survival
- While My Island Nation Sinks, Australia Is Doing Nothing To Solve Climate Change
- ‘Not Happy’: Australia Must Act On Climate, Says Former Kiribati Leader
- Climate Change: Kiribati Turns To Artificial Islands To Save Nation From Atlantis Fate
- An Island Nation Turns Away From Climate Migration, Despite Rising Seas
- Pacific Nations Aren’t Cash-Hungry, Minister, They Just Want Action On Climate Change
- Pacific Island Leaders Fail To Agree On Climate Change Target
Categories: External websites
One Climate Crisis Disaster Happening Every Week, UN Warns
The Guardian - Fiona Harvey
Developing countries must prepare now for profound impact, disaster representative says
Aftermath of the damage left by Cyclone Kenneth in a village north of Pemba, Mozambique in May. Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.
Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”
This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”
Estimates put the cost of climate-related disasters at $520bn a year, while the additional cost of building infrastructure that is resistant to the effects of global heating is only about 3%, or $2.7tn in total over the next 20 years.
Mizutori said: “This is not a lot of money [in the context of infrastructure spending], but investors have not been doing enough. Resilience needs to become a commodity that people will pay for.” That would mean normalising the standards for new infrastructure, such as housing, road and rail networks, factories, power and water supply networks, so that they were less vulnerable to the effects of floods, droughts, storms and extreme weather.
Until now, most of the focus of work on the climate crisis has been on “mitigation” – jargon for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and not to be confused with mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. The question of adapting to its effects has taken a distant second place, in part because activists and scientists were concerned for years that people would gain a false complacency that we need not cut emissions as we could adapt to the effects instead, and also because while cutting emissions could be clearly measured, the question of adapting or increasing resilience was harder to pin down.
Mizutori said the time for such arguments had ran out. “We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive,” she told the Guardian. “We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience.”
Many of the lower-impact disasters would be preventable if people had early warnings of severe weather, better infrastructure such as flood defences or access to water in case of drought, and governments had more awareness of which areas were most vulnerable.
Nor is this a problem confined to the developing world, she said, as the recent forest fires in the US and Europe’s latest heatwave had shown. Rich countries also face a challenge to adapt their infrastructure and ways of protecting people from disaster.
“Nature-based solutions”, such as mangrove swamps, forests and wetlands which could form natural barriers to flooding should be a priority, said Mizutori. A further key problem is how to protect people in informal settlements, or slums, which are more vulnerable than planned cities. The most vulnerable people are the poor, women, children, the elderly, the disabled and displaced, and many of these people live in informal settlements without access to basic amenities.
Regulations on building standards must also be updated for the climate crisis and properly enforced, she said. One of the governance issues cited by Mizutori was that while responsibility for the climate crisis and greenhouse gas emissions was usually held in one ministry, such as the economics, environment or energy department, responsibility for infrastructure and people’s protection was held elsewhere in government.
“We need to take a more holistic view of the risks,” she said.
Links
Developing countries must prepare now for profound impact, disaster representative says
Aftermath of the damage left by Cyclone Kenneth in a village north of Pemba, Mozambique in May. Photograph: Mike Hutchings/Reuters Climate crisis disasters are happening at the rate of one a week, though most draw little international attention and work is urgently needed to prepare developing countries for the profound impacts, the UN has warned.
Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”
This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”
Estimates put the cost of climate-related disasters at $520bn a year, while the additional cost of building infrastructure that is resistant to the effects of global heating is only about 3%, or $2.7tn in total over the next 20 years.
Mizutori said: “This is not a lot of money [in the context of infrastructure spending], but investors have not been doing enough. Resilience needs to become a commodity that people will pay for.” That would mean normalising the standards for new infrastructure, such as housing, road and rail networks, factories, power and water supply networks, so that they were less vulnerable to the effects of floods, droughts, storms and extreme weather.
Until now, most of the focus of work on the climate crisis has been on “mitigation” – jargon for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and not to be confused with mitigating the effects of the climate crisis. The question of adapting to its effects has taken a distant second place, in part because activists and scientists were concerned for years that people would gain a false complacency that we need not cut emissions as we could adapt to the effects instead, and also because while cutting emissions could be clearly measured, the question of adapting or increasing resilience was harder to pin down.
Mizutori said the time for such arguments had ran out. “We talk about a climate emergency and a climate crisis, but if we cannot confront this [issue of adapting to the effects] we will not survive,” she told the Guardian. “We need to look at the risks of not investing in resilience.”
Many of the lower-impact disasters would be preventable if people had early warnings of severe weather, better infrastructure such as flood defences or access to water in case of drought, and governments had more awareness of which areas were most vulnerable.
Nor is this a problem confined to the developing world, she said, as the recent forest fires in the US and Europe’s latest heatwave had shown. Rich countries also face a challenge to adapt their infrastructure and ways of protecting people from disaster.
“Nature-based solutions”, such as mangrove swamps, forests and wetlands which could form natural barriers to flooding should be a priority, said Mizutori. A further key problem is how to protect people in informal settlements, or slums, which are more vulnerable than planned cities. The most vulnerable people are the poor, women, children, the elderly, the disabled and displaced, and many of these people live in informal settlements without access to basic amenities.
Regulations on building standards must also be updated for the climate crisis and properly enforced, she said. One of the governance issues cited by Mizutori was that while responsibility for the climate crisis and greenhouse gas emissions was usually held in one ministry, such as the economics, environment or energy department, responsibility for infrastructure and people’s protection was held elsewhere in government.
“We need to take a more holistic view of the risks,” she said.
Links
- Climate crisis seriously damaging human health, report finds
- Climate crisis: flooding threat ‘may force UK towns to be abandoned’
- Melting permafrost in Arctic will have $70tn climate impact – study
- David Attenborough: collapse of civilisation is on the horizon
- We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
- Global carbon emissions stood still in 2016, offering climate hope
- Climate change 'already affecting food supply' – UN
- Climate change? Try catastrophic climate breakdown
- Global warming likely to breach 2C threshold, climate scientists conclude
Categories: External websites
'Just A Matter Of When': The $20bn Plan To Power Singapore With Australian Solar
The Guardian - Adam Morton
Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world
There are ambitious solar and wind projects planned for both the Northern Territory and the Pilbara in Western Australia. Photograph: Alice Solar City/AAPThe desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.
If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.
Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world’s largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock.
Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the NT grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city-state’s electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power.
This will be the channel through which Australian energy production will greatly reduce [global] emissions
Ross GarnautAfter 18 months in development, the $20bn Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party in the Top End three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the NT’s solar potential. The idea has been embraced by the NT government and attracted the attention of the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is considering involvement through his Grok Ventures private investment firm.
The NT plan follows a similarly ambitious proposal for the Pilbara, where another group of developers are working on an even bigger wind and solar hybrid plant to power local industry and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub. On Friday, project developer Andrew Dickson announced the scale of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub had grown by more than a third, from 11GW to 15GW. “To our knowledge, it’s the largest wind-solar hybrid in the world,” he says.
The skyline of Singapore. The Sun Cable plan could replace one-fifth of the city-state’s electricity needs, currently filled by expensive gas-fired generation. Photograph: Edgar Su/ReutersThese developments are still at relatively early stages of planning. Both teams say it will be four years before they lock in finance, with production scheduled to start mid-to-late next decade. But renewable energy watchers are cautiously optimistic they could help spark a new way of thinking about Australia’s energy exports – one that better aligns with the country’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement, rather than broadening a fossil fuel trade at odds with it.
Opponents to Australia taking significant action on the climate crisis often point out the country is responsible for about 1.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, placing it about 15th on a table of carbon-polluting nations. A recent report by science and policy institute Climate Analytics makes the case that this underplays Australia’s contribution, which increases by 5% if fossil fuel exports are included.
The latter figure is expected to increase over the next decade. Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal and rivals Qatar as the leader in selling liquified natural gas (LNG). There is bipartisan support for a significant expansion of both industries, though government economists anticipate export earnings from coal will fall.
Ross Garnaut, former advisor to Labor governments who is now professor of economics at the University of Melbourne and chairman of the Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, makes the case that there is another way ahead. In a recent lecture series that is being turned into a book, he lays out his analysis of how Australia, with the best renewable energy resource in the developed world, could expand its energy production while significantly reducing global emissions.
Garnaut points to the transformative reduction in the capital cost of renewable energy and energy storage over the past two decades. As most of the cost of clean energy developments is capital (the fuel is free), he says the transformation has radically changed the ability of clean projects to compete with fossil fuels. Given capital costs are lower in developed countries, Garnaut says it means Australia can, if properly managed, be the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world.
It would make it the natural home for growth in minerals processing for a world that increasingly values production powered by solar, wind and other clean sources. Industries that would flourish under Garnaut’s vision include familiar energy-intensive operations such as aluminium, iron ore and steel, and new opportunities in silica, lithium, vanadium, nickel, cobalt and copper.
“This will be the channel through which production of energy in Australia will greatly reduce emissions in the rest of the world. It will also be a foundation for a new era of economic expansion and prosperity,” he says.
Garnaut believes exporting electricity through high-voltage cable and green hydrogen will be a part of this clean energy future, though they would mostly be expected to come later. Sun Cable’s chief executive, David Griffin, is bullish about the possibility of his company helping power Singapore from the outback in less than a decade.
He says the project will use prefabricated solar cells to capture “one of the best solar radiance reserves on the planet”. But he says the major transformation that makes the farm possible is the advent of high-voltage, direct-current submarine cable, which he describes as the “greatest unsung technology development”. Sun Cable’s underwater link to Singapore will run 3,800km.
“It is extraordinary technology that is going to change the flow of energy between countries. It is going to have profound implications and the extent of those implications hasn’t been widely identified,” Griffin says.
“If you have the transmission of electricity over very large distances between countries, then the flow of energy changes from liquid fuels – oil and LNG – to electrons. Ultimately, that’s a vastly more efficient way to transport energy. The incumbents just won’t be able to compete.”
Sun Cable’s backers believe Singapore, as a well-regulated electricity market that runs mostly on gas piped from Malaysia and Indonesia and shipped as LNG, is ripe for competition.
Across in the Pilbara, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub proposal has taken another tack. The developers – a consortium of InterContinental Energy, CWP Energy Asia, wind energy company Vestas and financiers at the Macquarie Group – began with a plan to send energy to Indonesia via sub-sea cable. That has been dropped in favour of green hydrogen – a shift driven, Andrew Dickson says, by falling costs and growing international and local interest that suggests a much bigger market.
An expanded hub proposal released this week says it will be spread across a vast area – 6,500 sq km, or about half the size of greater Sydney – and create 3,000 construction and 400 operational jobs. About two-thirds of the 15GW capacity will be met with giant wind turbines and one-third solar panels. The developers say up to a fifth of the total capacity is expected to go to large industrial energy users in the Pilbara, potentially including new and expanded mines and mineral processing. But most of the electricity generated will be used to run a hydrogen manufacturing hub.
The hydrogen would be sold domestically and exported, most likely to Japan and South Korea, which have expressed a desire to shift energy consumption in that direction. Dickson says producing green hydrogen at large volumes could open up possibilities such as using it to replace coking coal in steel production. It could allow an expanded version of the “green steel” model adopted in Whyalla by British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta.
Dickson points to recent appraisals by the Australian chief scientist, Alan Finkel, and the International Energy Agency as evidence of hydrogen’s potential. “People are realising, after several decades of promise, that now could be the time for it to be a thing,” he says.
Griffin and Dickson both decline to comment on the role the federal government could or should play in developing green exports, although they volunteer that some local MPs and state governments are supportive. Both note the fact their proposals are off-grid has helped insulate them from politically loaded debates that pit renewable energy against fossil fuels.
Roger Dargaville, a senior lecturer in renewable energy at Monash University and member of the Energy Transition Hub, underlines the amount of work that is going into examining what a future of clean exports will look like. A recent project he was involved in suggested a 40-gigawatt sub-sea electricity cable into Indonesia – much larger than that initially proposed by the Asian Renewable Energy Hub – would be viable by 2035 if that country adopts a low emissions target.
Dargaville believes future exports will almost certainly be a mix of hydrogen, cabled electricity and minerals refined before shipment. He says no one should underestimate the scale of what would be necessary to replace Australia’s existing fossil fuel industries (coal and LNG industries are worth more than $100bn a year and employ tens of thousands) and that the political and technological challenges will be significant. But he stresses no one should mistake where international markets are taking us.
The only question is whether it is in the timeframe climate scientists says is necessary. “It’s not really yes or no, it’s just when.”
Links
Ambitious export plan could generate billions and make Australia the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world
There are ambitious solar and wind projects planned for both the Northern Territory and the Pilbara in Western Australia. Photograph: Alice Solar City/AAPThe desert outside Tennant Creek, deep in the Northern Territory, is not the most obvious place to build and transmit Singapore’s future electricity supply. Though few in the southern states are yet to take notice, a group of Australian developers are betting that will change.
If they are right, it could have far-reaching consequences for Australia’s energy industry and what the country sells to the world.
Known as Sun Cable, it is promised to be the world’s largest solar farm. If developed as planned, a 10-gigawatt-capacity array of panels will be spread across 15,000 hectares and be backed by battery storage to ensure it can supply power around the clock.
Overhead transmission lines will send electricity to Darwin and plug into the NT grid. But the bulk would be exported via a high-voltage direct-current submarine cable snaking through the Indonesian archipelago to Singapore. The developers say it will be able to provide one-fifth of the island city-state’s electricity needs, replacing its increasingly expensive gas-fired power.
This will be the channel through which Australian energy production will greatly reduce [global] emissions
Ross GarnautAfter 18 months in development, the $20bn Sun Cable development had a quiet coming out party in the Top End three weeks ago at a series of events held to highlight the NT’s solar potential. The idea has been embraced by the NT government and attracted the attention of the software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who is considering involvement through his Grok Ventures private investment firm.
The NT plan follows a similarly ambitious proposal for the Pilbara, where another group of developers are working on an even bigger wind and solar hybrid plant to power local industry and develop a green hydrogen manufacturing hub. On Friday, project developer Andrew Dickson announced the scale of the proposed Asian Renewable Energy Hub had grown by more than a third, from 11GW to 15GW. “To our knowledge, it’s the largest wind-solar hybrid in the world,” he says.
The skyline of Singapore. The Sun Cable plan could replace one-fifth of the city-state’s electricity needs, currently filled by expensive gas-fired generation. Photograph: Edgar Su/ReutersThese developments are still at relatively early stages of planning. Both teams say it will be four years before they lock in finance, with production scheduled to start mid-to-late next decade. But renewable energy watchers are cautiously optimistic they could help spark a new way of thinking about Australia’s energy exports – one that better aligns with the country’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement, rather than broadening a fossil fuel trade at odds with it.
Opponents to Australia taking significant action on the climate crisis often point out the country is responsible for about 1.4% of greenhouse gas emissions, placing it about 15th on a table of carbon-polluting nations. A recent report by science and policy institute Climate Analytics makes the case that this underplays Australia’s contribution, which increases by 5% if fossil fuel exports are included.
The latter figure is expected to increase over the next decade. Australia is the world’s biggest exporter of coal and rivals Qatar as the leader in selling liquified natural gas (LNG). There is bipartisan support for a significant expansion of both industries, though government economists anticipate export earnings from coal will fall.
Ross Garnaut, former advisor to Labor governments who is now professor of economics at the University of Melbourne and chairman of the Australian-German Energy Transition Hub, makes the case that there is another way ahead. In a recent lecture series that is being turned into a book, he lays out his analysis of how Australia, with the best renewable energy resource in the developed world, could expand its energy production while significantly reducing global emissions.
Garnaut points to the transformative reduction in the capital cost of renewable energy and energy storage over the past two decades. As most of the cost of clean energy developments is capital (the fuel is free), he says the transformation has radically changed the ability of clean projects to compete with fossil fuels. Given capital costs are lower in developed countries, Garnaut says it means Australia can, if properly managed, be the centre of low-cost energy in a future zero-carbon world.
It would make it the natural home for growth in minerals processing for a world that increasingly values production powered by solar, wind and other clean sources. Industries that would flourish under Garnaut’s vision include familiar energy-intensive operations such as aluminium, iron ore and steel, and new opportunities in silica, lithium, vanadium, nickel, cobalt and copper.
“This will be the channel through which production of energy in Australia will greatly reduce emissions in the rest of the world. It will also be a foundation for a new era of economic expansion and prosperity,” he says.
Garnaut believes exporting electricity through high-voltage cable and green hydrogen will be a part of this clean energy future, though they would mostly be expected to come later. Sun Cable’s chief executive, David Griffin, is bullish about the possibility of his company helping power Singapore from the outback in less than a decade.
He says the project will use prefabricated solar cells to capture “one of the best solar radiance reserves on the planet”. But he says the major transformation that makes the farm possible is the advent of high-voltage, direct-current submarine cable, which he describes as the “greatest unsung technology development”. Sun Cable’s underwater link to Singapore will run 3,800km.
“It is extraordinary technology that is going to change the flow of energy between countries. It is going to have profound implications and the extent of those implications hasn’t been widely identified,” Griffin says.
“If you have the transmission of electricity over very large distances between countries, then the flow of energy changes from liquid fuels – oil and LNG – to electrons. Ultimately, that’s a vastly more efficient way to transport energy. The incumbents just won’t be able to compete.”
Sun Cable’s backers believe Singapore, as a well-regulated electricity market that runs mostly on gas piped from Malaysia and Indonesia and shipped as LNG, is ripe for competition.
Across in the Pilbara, the Asian Renewable Energy Hub proposal has taken another tack. The developers – a consortium of InterContinental Energy, CWP Energy Asia, wind energy company Vestas and financiers at the Macquarie Group – began with a plan to send energy to Indonesia via sub-sea cable. That has been dropped in favour of green hydrogen – a shift driven, Andrew Dickson says, by falling costs and growing international and local interest that suggests a much bigger market.
An expanded hub proposal released this week says it will be spread across a vast area – 6,500 sq km, or about half the size of greater Sydney – and create 3,000 construction and 400 operational jobs. About two-thirds of the 15GW capacity will be met with giant wind turbines and one-third solar panels. The developers say up to a fifth of the total capacity is expected to go to large industrial energy users in the Pilbara, potentially including new and expanded mines and mineral processing. But most of the electricity generated will be used to run a hydrogen manufacturing hub.
The hydrogen would be sold domestically and exported, most likely to Japan and South Korea, which have expressed a desire to shift energy consumption in that direction. Dickson says producing green hydrogen at large volumes could open up possibilities such as using it to replace coking coal in steel production. It could allow an expanded version of the “green steel” model adopted in Whyalla by British industrialist Sanjeev Gupta.
Dickson points to recent appraisals by the Australian chief scientist, Alan Finkel, and the International Energy Agency as evidence of hydrogen’s potential. “People are realising, after several decades of promise, that now could be the time for it to be a thing,” he says.
Griffin and Dickson both decline to comment on the role the federal government could or should play in developing green exports, although they volunteer that some local MPs and state governments are supportive. Both note the fact their proposals are off-grid has helped insulate them from politically loaded debates that pit renewable energy against fossil fuels.
Roger Dargaville, a senior lecturer in renewable energy at Monash University and member of the Energy Transition Hub, underlines the amount of work that is going into examining what a future of clean exports will look like. A recent project he was involved in suggested a 40-gigawatt sub-sea electricity cable into Indonesia – much larger than that initially proposed by the Asian Renewable Energy Hub – would be viable by 2035 if that country adopts a low emissions target.
Dargaville believes future exports will almost certainly be a mix of hydrogen, cabled electricity and minerals refined before shipment. He says no one should underestimate the scale of what would be necessary to replace Australia’s existing fossil fuel industries (coal and LNG industries are worth more than $100bn a year and employ tens of thousands) and that the political and technological challenges will be significant. But he stresses no one should mistake where international markets are taking us.
The only question is whether it is in the timeframe climate scientists says is necessary. “It’s not really yes or no, it’s just when.”
Links
- Clean energy found to be a 'pathway to prosperity’ for Northern Territory
- Fuelling the climate crisis: why LNG is no miracle cure for Australia’s coal addiction
- Sanjeev Gupta: Coal power is no longer cheaper – and we'll prove it
- Renewable Energy for Singapore & Australia
- Hydrogen for Australia’s future (pdf)
- Ross Garnaut: Climate Change
- Resources and Energy Quarterly
- Fossil fuel exports make Australia one of the worst contributors to climate crisis
- The Asian Renewable Energy Hub
Categories: External websites
Lower House Inquiry To Set 'Responsible Road Map' Out Of Coal For NSW
Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam
Plotting NSW's transition away from coal will be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, including how the state can make the most of renewable energy supplies.
Submissions for the lower house's committee of environment and planning inquiry are open from Wednesday until September 15, with an aim to sidestep the "ideological debate" over the fossil fuels and climate change, said Alex Greenwich, independent MP and committee chair.
A coal-processing plant in the Hunter Valley: NSW lower house inquiry will examine the changing energy market in NSW including the rise of renewable energy. Credit: NineThe terms of reference of the inquiry into the sustainability and energy supply and resources in NSW, include the economic opportunities of renewables, emerging trends in supply and exports, and the role government policies can play to support communities affected by changing markets.
"It allows us to plot a responsible road map for renewables in NSW," Mr Greenwich told the Herald. The inquiry will seek to avoid "pitting coal communities against climate change activists".
The inquiry will also look into the impacts on regional communities from the current energy system. These will include the effects coal-fired power have on water supplies in a drought and the sector's wider impact on the environment and public health.
The government's latest budget forecasts are for little immediate change for coal. Mining royalties, 94 per cent supplied by coal, are predicted to total just over $2 billion this fiscal year and barely budge over the following three years.
Within the government, ministers are working to deal with the planned closure of AGL's 1680-megawatt Liddell coal-fired power plant, and the integration of a flood of large-scale solar and wind farms before the 2020 federal renewable energy target ends.
Danielle Coleman, coordinator for Hunter Renewal, said the inquiry was a chance for people in regional coal communities "to speak for ourselves about how we want to prepare for our future".
"We need a plan for a future that is less dependent on coal mining and that sets us up with new jobs and industries for the long-term," she said.
Sophie Nichols, a Singleton student, said there was "considerable worry" in her town aout the future of coal exports.
"It’s clear they cannot be relied on and we need to prepare for change, and this inquiry is a chance to put the Hunter region on the road to renewal," she said.
'Catastrophic' climate change
Prior to the March election, Mr Greenwich – along with fellow independent MPs Greg Piper and Joe McGirr – called on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to develop a 10-year plan for coal-mining communities if the government was "serious about saving the world from catastrophic climate change".
Mr Greenwich said post her election win, the premier "indicated she was open" to the inquiry after the three MPs offered to provide support for the government in Parliament if required.
He said he hopes the probe will draw submissions from all sectors of the communities, including "champions within the government" for taking action to prepare for a lower carbon-intensive economy.
Coal mines in the upper Hunter Valley near Bulga. The committee inquiry will also examine the effects on water security and public health from existing and future energy supplies.The five-person committee counts three Liberal MPs, including Felicity Wilson, a supporter of climate action, and Nathaniel Smith, the member for Wollondilly, a coal-mining region. Backing for the inquiry was unanimous with Anoulack Chanthivong, a Labor MP, the fifth member, also voting in support.
Matt Kean, the Minister for Energy and Environment, said his government was "focused on the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy for NSW customers".
Adam Searle, Labor's energy spokesman, questioned the need for another inquiry after an upper house probe last year "thoroughly" dealt with the key energy issues in the state.
"We all know renewable energy is the cheapest new-build supply," he said. "The time has passed for another inquiry - the time for action is now."
Upper house independent MP Justin Field had sought support for a joint select committee for the future diversity of the Hunter Valley economy with the aim of taking a wider approach than just energy supply and generation.
The Greenwich-led inquiry will aim to report its findings by next March or April.
Links
Plotting NSW's transition away from coal will be the subject of a parliamentary inquiry, including how the state can make the most of renewable energy supplies.
Submissions for the lower house's committee of environment and planning inquiry are open from Wednesday until September 15, with an aim to sidestep the "ideological debate" over the fossil fuels and climate change, said Alex Greenwich, independent MP and committee chair.
A coal-processing plant in the Hunter Valley: NSW lower house inquiry will examine the changing energy market in NSW including the rise of renewable energy. Credit: NineThe terms of reference of the inquiry into the sustainability and energy supply and resources in NSW, include the economic opportunities of renewables, emerging trends in supply and exports, and the role government policies can play to support communities affected by changing markets.
"It allows us to plot a responsible road map for renewables in NSW," Mr Greenwich told the Herald. The inquiry will seek to avoid "pitting coal communities against climate change activists".
The inquiry will also look into the impacts on regional communities from the current energy system. These will include the effects coal-fired power have on water supplies in a drought and the sector's wider impact on the environment and public health.
The government's latest budget forecasts are for little immediate change for coal. Mining royalties, 94 per cent supplied by coal, are predicted to total just over $2 billion this fiscal year and barely budge over the following three years.
Within the government, ministers are working to deal with the planned closure of AGL's 1680-megawatt Liddell coal-fired power plant, and the integration of a flood of large-scale solar and wind farms before the 2020 federal renewable energy target ends.
Danielle Coleman, coordinator for Hunter Renewal, said the inquiry was a chance for people in regional coal communities "to speak for ourselves about how we want to prepare for our future".
"We need a plan for a future that is less dependent on coal mining and that sets us up with new jobs and industries for the long-term," she said.
Sophie Nichols, a Singleton student, said there was "considerable worry" in her town aout the future of coal exports.
"It’s clear they cannot be relied on and we need to prepare for change, and this inquiry is a chance to put the Hunter region on the road to renewal," she said.
'Catastrophic' climate change
Prior to the March election, Mr Greenwich – along with fellow independent MPs Greg Piper and Joe McGirr – called on Premier Gladys Berejiklian to develop a 10-year plan for coal-mining communities if the government was "serious about saving the world from catastrophic climate change".
Mr Greenwich said post her election win, the premier "indicated she was open" to the inquiry after the three MPs offered to provide support for the government in Parliament if required.
He said he hopes the probe will draw submissions from all sectors of the communities, including "champions within the government" for taking action to prepare for a lower carbon-intensive economy.
Coal mines in the upper Hunter Valley near Bulga. The committee inquiry will also examine the effects on water security and public health from existing and future energy supplies.The five-person committee counts three Liberal MPs, including Felicity Wilson, a supporter of climate action, and Nathaniel Smith, the member for Wollondilly, a coal-mining region. Backing for the inquiry was unanimous with Anoulack Chanthivong, a Labor MP, the fifth member, also voting in support.
Matt Kean, the Minister for Energy and Environment, said his government was "focused on the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy for NSW customers".
Adam Searle, Labor's energy spokesman, questioned the need for another inquiry after an upper house probe last year "thoroughly" dealt with the key energy issues in the state.
"We all know renewable energy is the cheapest new-build supply," he said. "The time has passed for another inquiry - the time for action is now."
Upper house independent MP Justin Field had sought support for a joint select committee for the future diversity of the Hunter Valley economy with the aim of taking a wider approach than just energy supply and generation.
The Greenwich-led inquiry will aim to report its findings by next March or April.
Links
- How Germany closed its coal industry without sacking a single miner
- Premier taps into climate change fund to aid communities
- Charging electric cars in Queensland will be 'half the cost of petrol'
- Thredbo visitors need to think about climate change
- Pacific leadership on climate change is necessary and inevitable
Categories: External websites
Drought Now Officially Our Worst On Record
Farm Online - Gregor Heard
THE ongoing drought through the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is now the worst on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Speaking during a BOM seminar on climate, BOM climatologist David Jones said the drought had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the MDB.
"Our records only go back 120 years but in terms of the rainfall records it is the most severe," Dr Jones said.
Hydrologist and water sector engagement lead with BOM Matthew Coulton said this had also translated into markedly lower run-off into the system.
Dr Jones added temperatures were as high as they have been during the human era, saying the nearest equivalent according to paleo-climatic data (analysing historical weather trends) was a hot period encountered 2-3 million years ago.
"We are still below that threshold of a couple of million years ago but we are starting to approach it," Dr Jones said.
And the BOM panel had tough news for those hoping for a swift resolution to the big dry.
"Our climate forecasts for the next three months show well below average chances of exceeding median rainfall through most of the MDB, especially in the north," Dr Jones said.
Data shown during the seminar also demonstrated there is good accuracy in the BOM's forecasting skills over the spring period in the northern MDB.
It is going to be a long and arduous road back, with BOM data showing most of the northern basin, centring on river valleys such as the Barwon, Gwydir and Namoi, would need the wettest three months on record to drag itself back out of official drought conditions.
Poor summer rain in particular has been the killer for northern areas of the MDB.
"There just hasn't been the summer rain to get recharge," Mr Coulton said.
And he said the problem was worse in the subsoil, with aquifers taking longer to recharge than above-ground reservoirs.
Farmers in the Murray Darling Basin are suffering through the worst drought on record with no immediate end to the big dry in sight."When you see heavy rain, such as we saw in 2016 in parts of Australia you can get a relatively quick rise in storage levels, but to get recharge in the aquifers it is a much slower process and relies on a long period of rain rather than a short, intense rain system."
While the focus has been on the high profile woes of the MDB, the BOM data showed much of Australia was in drought.
"There was the good rain over summer in western Queensland, but for many other parts of Australia since the start of 2017 it has been very dry over a run of seasons," Dr Jones said.
He said the farming sector was well attuned to managing climatic variability but that the sustained run of dry seasons was making it difficult.
Gippsland, often referred to as the forgotten drought region of Australia and south-west Western Australia were other areas the BOM data highlighted as experiencing well below average rain over the 30 month period since the start of 2017.
The WA case is slightly surprising as grain yields out of the west have been excellent, especially last year, with further good prospects this season.
Links
THE ongoing drought through the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is now the worst on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM).
Speaking during a BOM seminar on climate, BOM climatologist David Jones said the drought had now exceeded the Federation Drought, the WWII drought and the Millennium drought in terms of its severity through the MDB.
"Our records only go back 120 years but in terms of the rainfall records it is the most severe," Dr Jones said.
Hydrologist and water sector engagement lead with BOM Matthew Coulton said this had also translated into markedly lower run-off into the system.
Dr Jones added temperatures were as high as they have been during the human era, saying the nearest equivalent according to paleo-climatic data (analysing historical weather trends) was a hot period encountered 2-3 million years ago.
"We are still below that threshold of a couple of million years ago but we are starting to approach it," Dr Jones said.
And the BOM panel had tough news for those hoping for a swift resolution to the big dry.
"Our climate forecasts for the next three months show well below average chances of exceeding median rainfall through most of the MDB, especially in the north," Dr Jones said.
Data shown during the seminar also demonstrated there is good accuracy in the BOM's forecasting skills over the spring period in the northern MDB.
It is going to be a long and arduous road back, with BOM data showing most of the northern basin, centring on river valleys such as the Barwon, Gwydir and Namoi, would need the wettest three months on record to drag itself back out of official drought conditions.
Poor summer rain in particular has been the killer for northern areas of the MDB.
"There just hasn't been the summer rain to get recharge," Mr Coulton said.
And he said the problem was worse in the subsoil, with aquifers taking longer to recharge than above-ground reservoirs.
Farmers in the Murray Darling Basin are suffering through the worst drought on record with no immediate end to the big dry in sight."When you see heavy rain, such as we saw in 2016 in parts of Australia you can get a relatively quick rise in storage levels, but to get recharge in the aquifers it is a much slower process and relies on a long period of rain rather than a short, intense rain system."
While the focus has been on the high profile woes of the MDB, the BOM data showed much of Australia was in drought.
"There was the good rain over summer in western Queensland, but for many other parts of Australia since the start of 2017 it has been very dry over a run of seasons," Dr Jones said.
He said the farming sector was well attuned to managing climatic variability but that the sustained run of dry seasons was making it difficult.
Gippsland, often referred to as the forgotten drought region of Australia and south-west Western Australia were other areas the BOM data highlighted as experiencing well below average rain over the 30 month period since the start of 2017.
The WA case is slightly surprising as grain yields out of the west have been excellent, especially last year, with further good prospects this season.
Links
- Australian Federation Drought, Painting Grim Future For Australia’s Biodiversity Under Climate Change
- A New Team Is Working To Predict The Danger Zones Of Australia's Deadliest Heatwaves
- 'Drier Than Millennium Drought': Satellite Shows Toll Of Big Dry
- NSW Towns Including Dubbo And Tamworth Face Water Emergency Within Months
- 'Monster' El Nino A Chance Later This Year, Pointing To Extended Dry Times
- 'The Darling Will Die': Scientists Say Mass Fish Kill Due To Over-Extraction And Drought
- Floods, Fire And Drought: Australia, A Country In The Grip Of Extreme Weather Bingo
- Extreme Weather Events Are Fueling ‘Food Shocks’ And Jeopardizing Global Security
Categories: External websites
Australian Federation Drought, Painting Grim Future For Australia’s Biodiversity Under Climate Change
National Geographic
Scientists utilised Over 37,000 newspaper articles to reconstruct the impacts of the Australian Federation Drought.
Carcasses of cattle at a drying waterhole on Bowra Station, north of Cunnamulla, Queensland, ca. 1900-1902. IMAGE CREDIT: National Library of AustraliaBY RECONSTRUCTING the events of the Australian Federation Drought Period (1891-1903), a new study by the CSIRO has revealed the impact the continent-wide ‘megadrought’ had on biodiversity.
This is the first time scientists have been able to comprehensively reconstruct the impacts of an historical drought on flora and fauna using newspaper articles.
The researchers warn that given increases in the frequency and severity of ‘megadroughts’, which are predicted for the future, Australia’s biodiversity is gravely under threat.
The paper, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used digitised newspaper articles sourced from Trove, an archival platform by the National Library of Australia, to reconstruct the ecological impacts of the Federation Drought across all states and territories.
More than 37,000 newspaper articles were read, of which 1500 referred to the drought and more than 400 provided information about local impacts on native animals or plants.
Mortality of rabbits due to lack of water and feed at Cockburn Railway, SA, 1892. (Image credit: National Library of Australia)“The Federation Drought had the biggest documented impact on plants and animals across a continent yet studied,” says lead author of the paper Robert Godfree.
“In Australia, more than 60 bird, fish, mammal, reptile and plant genera were severely affected across 2.8 million square kilometres, or more than a third of Australia.
“Herbivores, grain-eating birds, fish and plants were most vulnerable, while predators that could feed on dead animals, and other groups like waterbirds who could travel long distances, were less impacted.”
According to the paper, the presence of agriculture in the country exacerbated the impacts of the drought, noting it increased the potential for “overgrazing-induced meltdown and permanent ecosystem change.”
Through understanding the potential pattern and magnitude of ecological change brought about by megadroughts, the scientists hope they can predict locations at immediate risk of biodiversity loss under climate change.
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Scientists utilised Over 37,000 newspaper articles to reconstruct the impacts of the Australian Federation Drought.
Carcasses of cattle at a drying waterhole on Bowra Station, north of Cunnamulla, Queensland, ca. 1900-1902. IMAGE CREDIT: National Library of AustraliaBY RECONSTRUCTING the events of the Australian Federation Drought Period (1891-1903), a new study by the CSIRO has revealed the impact the continent-wide ‘megadrought’ had on biodiversity.
This is the first time scientists have been able to comprehensively reconstruct the impacts of an historical drought on flora and fauna using newspaper articles.
The researchers warn that given increases in the frequency and severity of ‘megadroughts’, which are predicted for the future, Australia’s biodiversity is gravely under threat.
The paper, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, used digitised newspaper articles sourced from Trove, an archival platform by the National Library of Australia, to reconstruct the ecological impacts of the Federation Drought across all states and territories.
More than 37,000 newspaper articles were read, of which 1500 referred to the drought and more than 400 provided information about local impacts on native animals or plants.
Mortality of rabbits due to lack of water and feed at Cockburn Railway, SA, 1892. (Image credit: National Library of Australia)“The Federation Drought had the biggest documented impact on plants and animals across a continent yet studied,” says lead author of the paper Robert Godfree.
“In Australia, more than 60 bird, fish, mammal, reptile and plant genera were severely affected across 2.8 million square kilometres, or more than a third of Australia.
“Herbivores, grain-eating birds, fish and plants were most vulnerable, while predators that could feed on dead animals, and other groups like waterbirds who could travel long distances, were less impacted.”
According to the paper, the presence of agriculture in the country exacerbated the impacts of the drought, noting it increased the potential for “overgrazing-induced meltdown and permanent ecosystem change.”
Through understanding the potential pattern and magnitude of ecological change brought about by megadroughts, the scientists hope they can predict locations at immediate risk of biodiversity loss under climate change.
Links
- A New Team Is Working To Predict The Danger Zones Of Australia's Deadliest Heatwaves
- 'Drier Than Millennium Drought': Satellite Shows Toll Of Big Dry
- NSW Towns Including Dubbo And Tamworth Face Water Emergency Within Months
- 'Monster' El Nino A Chance Later This Year, Pointing To Extended Dry Times
- 'The Darling Will Die': Scientists Say Mass Fish Kill Due To Over-Extraction And Drought
- Floods, Fire And Drought: Australia, A Country In The Grip Of Extreme Weather Bingo
- As Extinctions Loom, Biodiversity Warnings Fail To Resonate With Governments, Media
- Climate Change Threatens 26 Native Species In Great Dividing Range, Study Finds
- Fixing Australia’s Extinction Crisis Means Thinking Bigger Than Individual Species
- To Solve Climate Change And Biodiversity Loss, We Need A Global Deal For Nature
- United Nations Report: One Million Species At Risk Of Extinction
- Climate Change To Overtake Land Use As Major Threat To Global Biodiversity
- Australia’s Biodiversity And Climate Change
Categories: External websites
Climate Change Threatens Human Rights And Democracy, UN Official Warns
Canberra Times - Sherryn Groch
International law scholar and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human right Philip Alston. Philip AlstonPhilip Alston is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University. He is currently UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2014 he was a member of the Security Council-established commission of inquiry on the Central African Republic. He previously served as Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions (2004–10), as well as Chairperson of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1991–98). During the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, he was UNICEF’s Legal Adviser. It reads like the pages of a dystopian novel - a world stuck in a "climate apartheid" where only the rich can escape the worst of global warming while hundreds of millions battle disease, food insecurity, forced migration and monster storms.
And, on our current course, scientific modelling says even that number is a best-case scenario.
Speaking at the Australian National University on Thursday, the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston will deliver a sharp warning to Australia on global warming.
In a world already one degree warmer than it was before the industrial revolution, the effects of climate change are starting to bite but nations remain unprepared for their full force, Profesor Alston said ahead of his lecture.
That puts human rights and even democracy at greater risk, as civil unrest, migration and soaring health care costs threaten to tank economies - and governments - in the years ahead.
"If you do nothing and it gets to the point it is, of emergency, it's like any emergency it becomes very hard to act logically," he said.
"Syria and other places are going to look fairly small-scale in comparison with what climate change is going to do over next 30 years or so.
"And it's the middle classes as well as those who are very poor who will feel it."
While Australia so far did not appear to have the same appetite for populism he saw on display in his native US, Professor Alston said it was just as opposed to the economic reform needed to avert disaster.
"Australia is a lesson to the broader community," he said.
"What we are seeing is an extremely short-sighted preoccupation with neo-liberal economic policies that oppose any kind of intervention or regulation [of industry]."
Australia was a major player in global climate action as a rich nation, he said, but appeared to be falling into step with the anti-climate science agenda of US president Donald Trump.
"Trump uses political rhetoric as only he can do, but the [Australian] government is doing pretty much the same thing without using the offensive words," Professor Alston said.
AUDIO:'The globe's at risk of climate apartheid', UN rapporteur warns. ABC
While the Morrison government has moved to downplay Australia's rising emissions, advice from its own advisory Climate Change Authority released earlier this month urged Australia to adopt more ambitious policies to put the nation "firmly" on the path to a zero-carbon economy.
Professor Alston said the authority appeared to be "weak as water" compared to the model in the UK, where a special committee on climate change produced recommendations that had to be considered by parliament.
Ticking boxes will not save humanity.
Professor Philip AlstonHe noted jobs had to be considered carefully in the switch over to renewable energy from fossil fuels, which produce the emissions behind rising temperatures.
But he stressed governments could not keep pouring trillions of dollars into subsidies for the same companies polluting the planet.
"No one wants to inflict pain on a particular industry, [but] the fiddling around, the 'let's set another target'...incremental change has been a proven disaster," he said.
More damage has been done in the three decades since the UN established its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) in 1988 than in the whole of human history before it.
Professor Alston said the only hope of containing runaway climate change to 1.5 degrees of warming - and so averting more than 190 million deaths - now lay in a radical overhaul of the system.
"In some ways democracy has failed on climate change," he said. "You get politicians only thinking about the next election year.
"If you watch Fox News or read The Australian you will see that the push-back is this idea that it's all a Trojan horse for socialist upheaval [from] people pretending to be concerned about climate change."
The science - and increasingly the economics - told the real story, he said.
The World Bank now predicts climate change could push 120 million more people into poverty by 2030.
While the poorest half of the world's population - 3.5 billion people - is responsible for just 10 per cent of carbon emissions, they are also the most at risk.
Professor Alston said pursuing ambitious reform now offered an unprecedented opportunity to make systems inherently fairer.
"Economic prosperity, decent work, and environmental sustainability are fully compatible," Professor Alston said.
More than 20 countries had already uncoupled their economies from fossil fuels without slowing them down, he found in a recent report. Not only did they create new green jobs, they reduced poverty at a faster rate than elsewhere.
Professor Alston's criticism is not just reserved for governments.
Human rights organisations across the globe - including his own UN - have barely begun to grapple with climate change, he said, and remained too wedded to traditional means of litigation or advocacy.
"They've long resisted prioritising one issue over others....or more radical methods," he said.
"Voluntary emissions reduction commitments will only go so far."
Fortunately, he said, the movement was gaining momentum in another place it was desperately needed - on the ground.
From millions of students striking for climate action to environmentalists and farmers winning court actions against fossil fuel companies, people were beginning to recognise that saving the planet was really about their rights.
Earlier this month, celebrated broadcaster Sir David Attenborough also lashed Australia for its climate inaction, noting the country was especially at risk from the adverse effects of global warming such as increased heatwaves and bushfires.
Links
International law scholar and UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human right Philip Alston. Philip AlstonPhilip Alston is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University. He is currently UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. In 2014 he was a member of the Security Council-established commission of inquiry on the Central African Republic. He previously served as Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions (2004–10), as well as Chairperson of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1991–98). During the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, he was UNICEF’s Legal Adviser. It reads like the pages of a dystopian novel - a world stuck in a "climate apartheid" where only the rich can escape the worst of global warming while hundreds of millions battle disease, food insecurity, forced migration and monster storms.
And, on our current course, scientific modelling says even that number is a best-case scenario.
Speaking at the Australian National University on Thursday, the UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Philip Alston will deliver a sharp warning to Australia on global warming.
In a world already one degree warmer than it was before the industrial revolution, the effects of climate change are starting to bite but nations remain unprepared for their full force, Profesor Alston said ahead of his lecture.
That puts human rights and even democracy at greater risk, as civil unrest, migration and soaring health care costs threaten to tank economies - and governments - in the years ahead.
"If you do nothing and it gets to the point it is, of emergency, it's like any emergency it becomes very hard to act logically," he said.
"Syria and other places are going to look fairly small-scale in comparison with what climate change is going to do over next 30 years or so.
"And it's the middle classes as well as those who are very poor who will feel it."
While Australia so far did not appear to have the same appetite for populism he saw on display in his native US, Professor Alston said it was just as opposed to the economic reform needed to avert disaster.
"Australia is a lesson to the broader community," he said.
"What we are seeing is an extremely short-sighted preoccupation with neo-liberal economic policies that oppose any kind of intervention or regulation [of industry]."
Australia was a major player in global climate action as a rich nation, he said, but appeared to be falling into step with the anti-climate science agenda of US president Donald Trump.
"Trump uses political rhetoric as only he can do, but the [Australian] government is doing pretty much the same thing without using the offensive words," Professor Alston said.
AUDIO:'The globe's at risk of climate apartheid', UN rapporteur warns. ABC
While the Morrison government has moved to downplay Australia's rising emissions, advice from its own advisory Climate Change Authority released earlier this month urged Australia to adopt more ambitious policies to put the nation "firmly" on the path to a zero-carbon economy.
Professor Alston said the authority appeared to be "weak as water" compared to the model in the UK, where a special committee on climate change produced recommendations that had to be considered by parliament.
Ticking boxes will not save humanity.
Professor Philip AlstonHe noted jobs had to be considered carefully in the switch over to renewable energy from fossil fuels, which produce the emissions behind rising temperatures.
But he stressed governments could not keep pouring trillions of dollars into subsidies for the same companies polluting the planet.
"No one wants to inflict pain on a particular industry, [but] the fiddling around, the 'let's set another target'...incremental change has been a proven disaster," he said.
More damage has been done in the three decades since the UN established its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC) in 1988 than in the whole of human history before it.
Professor Alston said the only hope of containing runaway climate change to 1.5 degrees of warming - and so averting more than 190 million deaths - now lay in a radical overhaul of the system.
"In some ways democracy has failed on climate change," he said. "You get politicians only thinking about the next election year.
"If you watch Fox News or read The Australian you will see that the push-back is this idea that it's all a Trojan horse for socialist upheaval [from] people pretending to be concerned about climate change."
The science - and increasingly the economics - told the real story, he said.
The World Bank now predicts climate change could push 120 million more people into poverty by 2030.
While the poorest half of the world's population - 3.5 billion people - is responsible for just 10 per cent of carbon emissions, they are also the most at risk.
Professor Alston said pursuing ambitious reform now offered an unprecedented opportunity to make systems inherently fairer.
"Economic prosperity, decent work, and environmental sustainability are fully compatible," Professor Alston said.
More than 20 countries had already uncoupled their economies from fossil fuels without slowing them down, he found in a recent report. Not only did they create new green jobs, they reduced poverty at a faster rate than elsewhere.
Professor Alston's criticism is not just reserved for governments.
Human rights organisations across the globe - including his own UN - have barely begun to grapple with climate change, he said, and remained too wedded to traditional means of litigation or advocacy.
"They've long resisted prioritising one issue over others....or more radical methods," he said.
"Voluntary emissions reduction commitments will only go so far."
Fortunately, he said, the movement was gaining momentum in another place it was desperately needed - on the ground.
From millions of students striking for climate action to environmentalists and farmers winning court actions against fossil fuel companies, people were beginning to recognise that saving the planet was really about their rights.
Earlier this month, celebrated broadcaster Sir David Attenborough also lashed Australia for its climate inaction, noting the country was especially at risk from the adverse effects of global warming such as increased heatwaves and bushfires.
Links
- UN expert condemns failure to address impact of climate change on poverty
- In "climate apartheid", rich will save themselves while poor suffer - UN report
- ‘Climate apartheid’: UN expert says human rights may not survive
- UN expert Philip Alston: “climate change is too expensive for us not to take action”
- Morrison government experts say Australia must 'do more' on climate
- ‘We need everyone’: Greta Thunberg calls on adults to join climate strikes
- 'Outrage is justified': David Attenborough backs school climate strikers
- Climate change denial is evil, says Mary Robinson
- Climate-warming El Niño very likely in 2019, says UN agency
- 'Tipping points' could exacerbate climate crisis, scientists fear
Categories: External websites
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