Australia faces a "perilous" water security future from climate change even as the Turnbull government eyes budget cuts to water programs and CSIRO halves climate investment, Rob Vertessy, the outgoing head of the Bureau of Meteorology, says.
Reservoirs in the Murray-Darling basin are now close to their lowest levels since the Millennium Drought and Tasmania is also facing "serious" issues", Dr Vertessy told Fairfax Media on Friday, his final day as the bureau's chief.
"Water shortage is a problem and climate change is going to be intensifying the drought and flood cycle," he said, noting that water demand is increasing. "Australia faces a really perilous water security challenge in the future."
The bureau's boss bows out just days before the federal budget on Tuesday will reveal whether the government axes funding for programs set up under the National Plan for Water Security. Begun in 2007 by then prime minister John Howard, the 10-year, $10 billion program funded a range of water policies, with almost $450m going to the bureau.
Weathering BoM: Rob Vertessy steps down as chief executive of the Bureau of Meteorology. Photo: Andrew Meares
The bureau now had "the world's best water information service", including precise stream-flow forecasting, that boasts a return on investments of between twofold and ninefold, despite the early stage of many projects, Dr Vertessy, a hydrologist by training, said. A drop in funding would result in a sharp reduction of services.
Funding constraints also hindered the bureau's ability to win its case to house climate researchers facing the chop at the CSIRO.
Facing criticism at home and abroad, CSIRO last week announced that it would instead form a special climate science centre of 40 staff under its Oceans and Atmosphere division. About 45 of the remaining 100 scientists in two key programs will lose their jobs and the future of those remaining is uncertain.
Dr Vertessy welcomed the centre's creation as an advance: "We were looking at the complete elimination of [the climate program] at one stage.
"Let's not sugar-coat it – CSIRO are diminishing their investments overall, they are probably halving them," Dr Vertessy said. "So it's really up to the rest of us now to work with them to build up the national capability to what it should be."
Droughts are likely to get worse as the climate changes, climate scientists say. Photo: Simon_O'Dwyer
The need to boost global warming research was only going to increase. In Australia's case, the threats included lengthening and intensifying fire seasons, worse heatwaves and more intense storms.
"Unless we start slowing down our [greenhouse gas] emissions and really mitigating them completely in the next few decades, there's going to be a lot of environmental shocks to the planet," Dr Vertessy said.
Human societies and ecosystems "are being pushed to the edge of sustainability".
Facing criticism at home and abroad, CSIRO last week announced that it would instead form a special climate science centre of 40 staff under its Oceans and Atmosphere division.
About 45 of the remaining 100 scientists in two key programs will lose their jobs and the future of those remaining is uncertain.
Dr Vertessy welcomed the centre's creation as an advance: "We were looking at the complete elimination of [the climate program] at one stage.
"Let's not sugar-coat it – CSIRO are diminishing their investments
overall, they are probably halving them," Dr Vertessy said. "So it's
really up to the rest of us now to work with them to build up the
national capability to what it should be."
East coast lows are likely to trigger more intense rain storms in the future. Photo: Daniel Munoz, Getty Images
The need to boost global warming research was only going to increase. In Australia's case, the threats included lengthening and intensifying fire seasons, worse heatwaves and more intense storms.
"Unless we start slowing down our [greenhouse gas] emissions and
really mitigating them completely in the next few decades, there's going
to be a lot of environmental shocks to the planet," Dr Vertessy said.
Human societies and ecosystems "are being pushed to the edge of
sustainability".
The outgoing boss added that he "never fell
hobbled" despite attacks on the bureau from some members of the
Coalition, particularly during the Abbott government, and from climate
change deniers who claimed the agency revised temperature data higher.
The Erickson Aircrane fire bomber works on a fire near Melbourne. Photo: Jason South
The bureau routinely used peer-reviewed processes to account for
changes, such as shifts in locations of weather monitoring sites, to
ensure data remained accurate.
"It's not too hard to imagine for
conspiracy theorists that we're somehow rigging our data," he said. "The
climate change trends we are reporting are absolutely robust."
The
advance of technology promises ever more accurate weather prediction.
The bureau will soon begin using a new supercomputer that promises 18
times faster data processing, and within three years, a 30-fold
increase.
The resulting higher resolution capability would allow
the bureau to scale forecasts down to 1.5 kilometres from 4 kilometres
now, allowing an improvement in severe weather warnings.
Four
cities, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide will also get more
powerful radars over the next year, improving the ability to discern
hail from rain, also providing improved warnings for the public.
Dr
Vertessy, 55, said he would take a holiday after retiring before
considering his next role after "running very hard for 14 years".
Labor has released a six point climate plan, which features a proposed phased emissions trading scheme.
Lukas Coch/AAP
Labor has announced a six point climate change strategy,
aimed at increasing renewable energy use, improving energy efficiency
and transitioning away from old and inefficient coal power stations.
The policy includes a plan to reintroduce an emissions trading scheme for large emitters (over 25,000 tonnes annually), introduced over two phases.
How would it work?
Labor's policy documents says that:
Phase one of the ETS will operate for two years, from 1 July 2018 until 30 June 2020 to align with the second (and final) commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol;
Phase two of the ETS will operate from 1 July 2020. Pollution levels will be capped and reduced over the course of the decade in line with Australia's international commitments under the Paris agreement;
The scheme will allow business to work out the cheapest and most effective way to operate and will not involve taxpayers handing over billions of dollars to Australia's large polluters.
The cost up until 2020 would be about 3 cents per tonne of carbon for those industries exposed to foreign competition. For other firms, that cost will be about 30 cents a tonne.
The scheme design beyond 2020 would be worked out in the future, but
would focus on meeting Australia's international commitments.
A separate scheme for energy generators would start from 2018.
What's the history behind the proposed scheme?
Climate policy has been a hot topic in Australian politics for over 25 years.
The Hawke government made a conditional commitment
in 1992 to cut carbon emissions. In the mid-1990s, industry staved off a
carbon pricing scheme under the Keating government by committing to a
voluntary Greenhouse Challenge program.
John Howard's 1997 pre-Kyoto Protocol statement, Safeguarding the Future,
mapped out a number of response measures, intended to underpin
Australia's efforts to gain an easy target under the Kyoto Protocol.
Indeed, Australia got a Kyoto target of 8% above its 1990 emissions
level, while the overall developed country goal was a 5% cut.
The Australian Greenhouse Office,
set up after the Kyoto meeting, produced numerous reports and
discussion papers exploring climate policy options, including various
options for pricing emissions.
Former Prime Minister John Howard grudgingly proposed a cap and trade plan in 2007 on advice from senior bureaucrat Peter Shergold.
That scheme was meant to be up and running by about 2011, but plans
were cut short by election of Labor's Kevin Rudd as prime minister in
2007.
Rudd promised a strong commitment to climate action, and under his
leadership, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was developed (it was
basically an ETS). In 2010, today's prime minister Malcolm Turnbull also
preferred an ETS, even crossing the floor to support it.
This scheme was eventually rejected by the parliament because the
Greens and many others considered it was too compromised to be
effective. This was the beginning of the shambles that has surrounded Australian climate policy in recent years.
Julia Gillard replaced Rudd as Labor leader in the mid-2010 and
worked closely with the Greens and other cross-benchers to develop the Clean Energy Future package. Part of that package was a plan to put a price on carbon.
The plan
was to transition into a market-based emissions trading scheme in 2015,
but the so-called carbon tax was axed by the Abbott government in 2014
(despite evidence it was effective in reducing emissions).
Australia's present Direct Action
policy has as its centrepiece the Emission Reduction Fund, which uses
taxpayer funds to support a very limited number of emission reduction
actions through an auction process.
The associated "safeguards" mechanism is yet to be finalised, but provides a possible basis for a future emissions trading scheme.
How is Labor's "phased" ETS different to what they previously proposed?
Separating the electricity industry from the broader ETS allows
transition to be managed more delicately, and reduces risk of criticism
over the impact on electricity prices.
It will involve much lower carbon prices that will be more closely
linked to international carbon prices. This leaves Labor open to
criticism from many economists and advocates, who take the view that a
much higher carbon price is an essential element of an effective climate
response.
The low carbon price expected, and the heavy reliance on
international permits will severely limit the amount of revenue from
carbon pricing for some years. This denies the government a potential
revenue source to fund other climate action.
Why has this issue been so fraught in the past?
Climate policy has been controversial
in Australia since the early 1990s. Powerful industry groups have
lobbied since then to limit climate action, and the issue has been
framed as the economy versus a future, uncertain environmental impact.
This conflict was amplified by the Coalition under Tony Abbott, both in opposition and in government.
The government has warned that Labor's proposed plan will drastically
increase electricity prices. However, such dire warnings rely on old
modelling that has not factored in recent reductions in renewable
electricity prices and improvements in energy efficiency.
The end of the resources boom has led many to realise that we need to
diversify our economy. Conflicts over coal mining and coal seam gas, as
well as big increases in electricity prices, have also challenged past
acceptance of the benefits of fossil fuel industries.
Meanwhile, more frequent extreme climate events, coral bleaching and
unusual weather patterns have reinforced concerns that climate is
actually changing faster than expected.
What will happen to Labor's policy?
The Labor proposal seems to address many of the political
vulnerabilities of its previous policy. At the same time, it captures
some of the present government's agenda.
However, it will be seen as weak by many climate response advocates.
After the anti carbon tax campaign that helped bring Tony Abbott to
power in 2013, it remains to be seen whether or not voters are ready to
rein in emissions by making pollution a costly business.
The most carbon-dependent nation on earth, Saudi Arabia, this week
announced a plan for a post-oil economy. "We have an addiction to oil,"
said the kingdom's de facto ruler, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman. "This is dangerous. It has delayed development of other
sectors."
The superpower of the oil world has decided that the
most prized commodity of the 20th century is a big risk in the 21st.
It's attempting a decisive break under a plan called Vision 2030.
Saudi Arabia is not an admirable country and it's not any kind of model for Australia.
But
in demonstrating the risks of fossil fuel addiction, it is more than
the proverbial canary in the proverbial coal mine. It is the coal mine,
and the coal mine is acknowledging openly that it's in terminal decline.
As the Saudis act urgently to escape the grip of fossil fuel addiction, what is Malcolm Turnbull's "agile and innovative" Australia doing? Photo: AP
Note that this has nothing to do with saving the planet from climate
change. For the Saudis, it's strictly a matter of economics.
As
the Saudis act urgently to escape the grip of fossil fuel addiction,
what is Malcolm Turnbull's "agile and innovative" Australia doing?
Australia has been one of the great powers of the energy sector in
the carboniferous era thanks to its high-quality, low-cost coal
endowments.
But it has the potential to be a superpower in the
next phase of the global energy revolution, the move into renewables.
"Australia's advantages in renewable energy are even greater than in
fossil fuels," the eminent economist and climate policy expert Ross
Garnaut has noted repeatedly, "and the sooner we start establishing the
economic and business foundations the stronger our advantages will be."
Illustration by Rocco Fazzari
The opposition took the initiative this week. Labor announced a
policy to hasten the country's slow-motion progress from carbon fuels to
renewable ones. The Turnbull government's response was a frenzied
attack and a wild scare campaign.
Malcolm Turnbull himself, who
once campaigned passionately in favour of more decisive action on
climate change, started campaigning emphatically against it.
The
Labor renewables policy will be one of the defining points of this
year's election, partly because it defines Labor. But more powerfully
because it illuminates Turnbull and what he has become as he opposes
more and more of what he once believed.
It brings his transformation from Malcolm Turnbull to Tony Abbott closer to completion.
Greg Hunt "is going around basically telling lies" about Labor's plan to drive up electricity prices by 78 per cent. John Hewson
The economist and former Liberal leader John Hewson says that
Turnbull's response is "very damning, actually". He says that if
Turnbull were serious about innovation, jobs and growth he'd support
some of Labor's plan, not oppose it.
"Bill Shorten can run a new
industry on these commitments with new jobs and a new industrial base
for the country. Labor has taken a bit of a risk and gone out in front
on this," Hewson tells me, "and it's being constructive and they are
still pretty moderate in terms of the task ahead of Australia over the
next 30 years.
"Labor's carbon emissions target, I think, is
realistic and it's getting closer to where it should be" if Australia is
serious about its commitments to the Paris climate accord.
"It's all right for Malcolm Turnbull to talk about innovation but to make it happen, it's not just designing apps.
"This
country has a poor record of commercialising new technology. You need a
broad based movement," says Hewson, who is a renewables entrepreneur
these days.
Labor's target? Its new plan has two more ambitious
aims than the government's. One is to cut Australia's carbon emissions
faster. Instead of government's current commitment to cut emissions by
26 to 28 per cent by 2030, Labor proposes cutting 45 per cent over the
same time.
That'd be bigger than the EU target of 34 per cent, identical to Germany's 45, and smaller than Britain's 49.
The other new Labor proposal is to create a new renewable energy target for the decade ending in 2030.
At
the moment, Australian law requires electricity companies to work
towards generating 23.5 per cent of their power from renewable sources
by 2020.
Labor wants to enlarge and extend this to a target of 50
per cent renewables by 2030. This goal, naturally, would help to
achieve the first goal.
To hit its carbon target, Labor's policy
also includes two emissions trading schemes. One would be a broad scheme
for major emitters that put out over 25,000 tonnes a year.
This
scheme would put a cap on total emissions but no fixed price on them.
The cap would shrink as the years passed and the price of emitting would
rise. Labor estimates that the scheme would cost big emitters about 30
cents per tonne of carbon in the initial phase. Big emitters who face
international competition would pay about 3 cents a tonne. For
reference, the Gillard government's carbon tax imposed a price of $23 a
tonne on emissions.
The other would be an emissions trading scheme
for the electricity industry only. This scheme would be designed to
make the power companies meet their proportionate share of cuts in total
national carbon emissions.
Two further elements: New emissions
limits on new cars; and limits on how much land clearing state
governments could permit farmers to conduct.
Much detail for this
plan is missing; Labor says that it would be for the next parliament to
negotiate in 2016-2019 so that it could be put in place for the decade
to follow.
Unexpectedly, the Business Council of Australia, the
biggest of the big-business lobbies, a group that thundered against
Gillard's carbon tax, embraced the Labor proposal this week as "a
platform for bipartisanship" on climate change. Business, like most
voters, is thoroughly disheartened by the way that the political system
has mangled a national solution to the problem of climate change.
Business cannot plan and cannot invest without stable and sensible
policy.
The Turnbull government's response? To oppose both targets immediately, reflexively. And to scaremonger.
While
the Greens leader, Richard di Natale, sought to ridicule the Labor plan
because the initial carbon price in its emissions trading scheme was a
risibly low 3 cents a tonne, the Coalition tried to inflate it into a
giant job-eating monster.
"This is yet another economic handbrake
that Labor is putting on our economy," said the prime minister. Labor
would have to "very significantly increase the cost of energy, the cost
of electricity and all other power." An emissions trading scheme, said
Turnbull, would be "effectively another tax."
Treasurer Scott
Morrison said it would amount to "a big, thumping electricity tax".
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said that it was "Julia Gillard's carbon
tax on steroids". He said that the wholesale price of electricity would
soar by 78 per cent by 2030.
Sound familiar? This is Tony
Abbott's scare campaign against Labor's carbon tax exhumed and sent into
electoral battle once more. Nothing agile or innovative about that.
Labor
knew it was coming - why did Bill Shorten take the risk? Because
Shorten decided months ago that he had no choice but to take risks.
He
concluded that Labor was such an underdog, that the Turnbull government
was so ascendant, that there was no point in trying to present Labor as
a "small target", avoiding criticism by avoiding action.
Labor
has instead taken the initiative and the government's responses have
exposed Turnbull. The movement in the polls has been all one-way – away
from the Turnbull government.
John Hewson observes: "Shorten is a confidence player.
He's getting a lift in the last few weeks and now he's out there punching hard again, and I'm amazed that Malcolm can't see it."
Turnbull,
he says, should have rejected some elements of Labor's plan but
embraced some – the longer and larger renewables target, for instance.
Labor's
renewables target, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, would
require about $48 billion in new investment in solar and wind energy,
the basis for a major source of new economic activity. Bloomberg's Kobad
Bhavnagri told The Australian newspaper that electricity prices were
unlikely to increase by much in the process because "Australia's power
fleet is aging and needs updating and one way or another prices will
have to rise to support new investment."
The difference will be
whether Australia gets a thrusting new industry in the process. Or not.
Bhavnagri again: "Without renewable policy, it is old coal that banks
the higher prices and remains dominant. With renewable policy, the money
instead goes to building new wind and solar farms."
Hewson is
stinging on the government's scaremongering. Greg Hunt "is going around
basically telling lies" about Labor's plan to drive up electricity
prices by 78 per cent, he says.
In any case, that figure has been
discredited before. It's predicated on a world where there is no policy
response except a carbon price, and the carbon price goes to $209
dollars a tonne.
The government's claims of "a massive new tax are
ridiculous" says Hewson. "There are already solutions around baseload
solar with battery storage that are cheaper than current electricity
prices."
Hewson still expects Turnbull to win the election, but
his disillusionment with Turnbull is deep: "Malcolm said he'd give us
advocacy, not slogans, and we'd get better politics.
"And here we
are with slogans already. Labor's negative gearing policy is 'Labor's
big housing tax'. Now he says Labor has 'a big new electricity tax'.
He's trying to kill off debate in areas where he's exposed. The slogans
are taking over."
While the Saudi reformists get to work on Vision 2030, Turnbull gets to work on Scares and Slogans 2016.
The
old Malcolm once said that "climate change is the ultimate long-term
problem", and that "it is always easy to argue we should do nothing, or
little or postpone action." He also said on climate change: "Because if
you believe in nothing why are you there?"
It's not that the new
Malcolm believes in nothing, necessarily. What we're learning is that,
contrary to old Malcolm, new Malcolm appears to believe in precisely
what Abbott believed.
The overarching factor in this election is
not which party runs which scare on which issue. It is the question of
who is Malcolm Turnbull? Because voters will have to decide who they
think he is before they decide whether to trust him.
US Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has painted a stark picture of
communities displaced by rising Arctic temperatures that are 'washing
away' towns
The marshy, tundra landscape surrounding Newtok, Alaska, a village threatened by the melting of permafrost. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Getty Images
The Obama administration
has warned the US will need to deal with a wave of "climate refugees"
as the Arctic continues to warm, joining with the Canadian government to
express alarm over how climate change is affecting indigenous
communities.
Sally Jewell, US secretary of the interior, painted a stark picture
of communities relocating and lives disrupted in her first official
visit to Canada. The Arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of the global average, has just recorded its lowest recorded peak ice extent after what's been called a "warm, crazy winter".
"We can't turn this around. We can stem the increase in temperature,
we can stem some of the effect, perhaps, if we act on climate. But the
changes are under way and they are very rapid."
The escalating Arctic temperatures, diminishing ice and rising sea
levels are having consequences for humans as well as other animals such as polar bears and walruses. The ability to catch fish and travel – or even to hold the famed Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska – is at risk.
Jewell said the remote town of Kivalina in Alaska
is "washing away". The coastal town, located around 80 miles above the
Arctic circle, has been visited by Barack Obama following warnings its
400-strong population will have to be moved due to thinning ice that
exposes the town to crashing waves.
The village of Kivalina, Alaska, seen from Air Force One, the president's plane. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
It's a problem that is expected to be replicated elsewhere in Alaska
and in Canada. Jewell said political leaders need to "act and support"
efforts to make communities more resilient to climate change. US
Republicans have, so far, opposed any funding to protect or relocate
Alaskan towns.
"The
changing climate isn't just about melting permafrost, it's having a
huge impact upon cultures," said Catherine McKenna, Canada's environment
minister, who met with Jewell in Quebec. "When your ice highway has
gone, communities can't interact. It's having a huge impact upon food
and food insecurity."
McKenna said there is a "huge commitment to do more" from Obama and Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister. The two leaders met in Washington DC in March
to agree to help lead the world to a low-carbon economy and to bolster
efforts to protect the Arctic and the people who live there.
Scientists expect the Arctic to be completely ice-free for at least a
few days during the summer by the 2040s. The area of summer ice has
shrunk by around 3m sq km since 1980.
The disappearance of this ice is set to open up new opportunities for
shipping lanes through previously inaccessible areas, raising concerns
over oil spills and further disruption to indigenous livelihoods
El Niño driving current spike in warm weather and May almost certain to be warmer than average from 1961 to 1990
The sun rises over Port Philip Bay in Melbourne. Blair Trewin from the Bureau of Meteorology said the unseasonal weather was happening against a background of global warming. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP
Unseasonably warm weather across Australia, which is set to continue
through the coming month, might be putting a spring in people's step
but is a clear sign of dangerous climate change, according climate
scientists and meteorologists.
Australia and the rest of the world have been reeling from a string of temperature records being smashed. February caused alarm when it was the most unusually warm month on record by a huge margin. But that record was broken immediately by March.
In Australia March 2016 was the warmest March on record. And this week the Bureau Of Meteorology released its seasonal outlook, showing above average temperatures are set to continue across the country at least throughout May.
According to David Karoly, a climate scientist from the University of
Melbourne, climate change increased the chance of March breaking the
temperature record in Australia by at least seven times.
xx"The previous record had about a one in 43-year chance due to natural
climate variations alone but now occurs about one year in six in the
present climate, that is already affected by human-caused climate
change," he told Guardian Australia.
"It's evidence that climate change is already happening – and increasing the risks of hot extremes."
Blair Trewin from the Bureau of Meteorology said: "April won't be a record but it will be well above normal."
Throughout May temperatures across most of the country have an 80%
chance of being warmer than the average from 1961 to 1990. By June and
July most coastal regions will continue to have unusually warm weather,
however temperatures will return to normal around central and southern
Australia.
The current spike in warm weather is happening partly because of the
monster El Niño that spread a pulse of warm water across the Pacific
Ocean in 2015. That El Niño is dissipating, spreading the warmer water
around Australia, raising temperatures.
But all that was happening on top of the background of global
warming, Trewin said. He said that these days, in an El Niño year, the
world tended to experience extreme temperatures and merely "above
average" temperatures in other years. Only when a La Niña cooled the
globe were there normal or slightly cool temperatures.
Just when you thought you had most of the threats from climate change covered.
We
are looking on now as warming oceans stress the world's coral reefs,
prompting them to turn white, including our Great Barrier Reef.
The world's oceans are warming up along with the rest of the planet. Photo: Leigh Henneingham
We also know that our oceans have become about 30 per cent more
acidic since pre-industrial times as they absorb the billions of tonnes a
year of carbon dioxide released from our burning of fossil fuels and
forests, making it harder for shellfish and crabs to form shells.
But now, some of the first evidence is emerging of what scientists
have been expecting for decades: oxygen levels in some oceans are
beginning to fall and widespread evidence of the trend should be evident
from 2030 onwards.
Warming seas absorb less oxygen at the
surface. Another effect of a changing climate is that oceans turn over
less, so that oxygen at the surface has less chance of moving deeper.
Marine life will be hit hard if oxygen levels sink. Photo: NOAA
Matthew Long, lead author of a study published in the American Geophysical Union's journal, Global Biogeochemical Cycles, said deoxygenation poses a major threat to marine life and is one of the most serious side-effects from a warming atmosphere.
"Oxygen
is a necessary ingredient for marine life, for all sorts of marine
organisms," Dr Long, a scientist with the US's National Centre for
Atmospheric Research and based in Colorado.
"The extent we care
about marine ecosystems for their intrinsic value, we should care," Dr
Long told Fairfax Media. "We're also reliant on these systems for food -
fisheries will be vulnerable."
According to the models, the
process is likely to be underway in the southern Indian Ocean and parts
of the eastern tropical Pacific and Atlantic.
The study found that
eastern Australia, eastern Africa and south-east Asia may be relatively
spared, with impacts likely to be delayed until the next century.
The effects of lower oxygen levels will compound other harmful trends for wildlife such as oceans becoming more acidic.
"We're
driving pretty massive changes in the environment - and we're not just
changing one variable," Dr Long said. "We're changing a suite of
variables to which marine organisms are sensitive, and basically putting
significant demands on their adaptive capacities."
CSIRO cuts
Dr
Long said it was important for governments to invest in long-term,
consistent research to help predict and manage the impacts. This role
was particularly vital given observation records for much of the world's
oceans are limited.
He also questioned the decision by Australia's CSIRO to cut climate monitoring and modelling programs. The agency has trimmed the number of scientists to
go from two key research programs from almost 100 to about 45, a move
that has drawn wide criticism from researchers at home and abroad.
"I don't understand it, and it does seem short-sighted in my view," Dr Long said.
In the longer term, the world had to curb carbon impacts and limit global warming.
"If
the carbon dioxide-driven warming continues, the trend in ocean
deoxygenation is basically an inexorable component associated with that
warming," he said.
Work 'in jeopardy'
Richard
Matear, a senior research scientist at CSIRO, said a 2001 paper that he
and a team of researchers had worked on had detected some changes to
oxygen levels south of Tasmania. The new paper, though, suggests,
natural fluctuations may be the key there.
"We're just slowly getting a handle on how much natural variability there is in the system," Dr Matear said.
The
Southern Ocean to Australia's south has relatively high oxygen levels
compared with other oceans, and a strengthening of the circumpolar winds
with climate change may foster more mixing of oxygen-rich waters, he
said.
Still, changing circulation would alter which seas become
more oxygenated - and at what depths. Those shifts could impact more
mobile species such as tuna and squid, whose larger ranges require more
oxygen to match their higher metabolism.
The current cuts to CSIRO
climate science will remove about 13 researchers from Dr Matear's
program. His unit has yet to determine which projects will be scaled
back or dropped, to cope with reduced funding.
Some of his
colleagues have just left on a research voyage to conduct "repeat lines"
of an area studied in the Pacific, to detect changes.
"We have
no funding going forward to do that cruise again in the next five to 10
years," Dr Matear said, hindering the ability to track changes to oxygen
and other elements.
Of the other key areas being monitored,
cruises to the region south of Tasmania may continue with funds cobbled
together from other sources. The region south of Perth is another area
where monitoring may be disrupted, he said.
"In the current situation, there's really no funding to support them," Dr Matear said of the cruises.
"We're an important player in the southern hemisphere and the Southern Ocean, and that work is in jeopardy," he said.
The
evidence suggests that the combination of rising CO2 and falling oxygen
levels "will be worse than each one acting independently", Dr Matear
said.
CSIRO is a principal sponsor of a conference in Hobart next week on "The oceans in a high CO2 world".
Links
The worst bleaching event on record has affected corals across the
Great Barrier Reef in the last few months. As of the end of March, a
whopping 93% of the reef has experienced
bleaching. This event has led scientists and high-profile figures such as Sir David Attenborough to call for urgent action to protect the reef from annihilation.
There is indisputable evidence that climate change is harming the reef.
Yet, so far, no one has assessed how much climate change might be
contributing to bleaching events such as the one we have just witnessed.
Unusually warm sea surface temperatures are strongly associated with
bleaching. Because climate models can simulate these warm sea surface
temperatures, we can investigate how climate change is altering extreme
warm conditions across the region.
Daily sea surface temperature anomalies in March 2016 show unusual
warmth around much of Australia. Author provided using OSSTIA data from
UK Met Office Hadley Centre.
We examined the Coral Sea region (shown above) to look at how climate
change is altering sea surface temperatures in an area that is
experiencing recurring coral bleaching. This area has recorded a big
increase in temperatures over the past century, with March 2016 being
the warmest on record.
March sea surface temperatures were the highest on record this year in the Coral Sea, beating the previous 2015 record. Source: Bureau of Meteorology.
Examining the human influence To find out how climate change is changing the likelihood of coral
bleaching, we can look at how warming has affected the likelihood of
extremely hot March sea temperature records. To do so, we use climate
model simulations with and without human influences included.
If we see more very hot March months in simulations with a human
influence, then we can say that climate change is having an effect, and
we can attribute that change to the human impact on the climate.
This method is similar to analyses we have done for land regions, such as our investigations of recent Australian weather extremes.
We found that climate change has dramatically increased the
likelihood of very hot March months like that of 2016 in the Coral Sea.
We estimate that there is at least a 175 times increase in likelihood of
hot March months because of the human influence on the climate.
The decaying El Niño
event may also have affected the likelihood of bleaching events.
However, we found no substantial influence for the Coral Sea region as a
whole. Sea surface temperatures in the Coral Sea can be warmer than
normal for different reasons, including changes in ocean currents (often
related to La Niña events) and increased sunshine duration (generally
associated with El Niño conditions).
Overall, this means that the influence of El Niño on the Coral Sea as a whole is weak. There have been severe bleaching events in past El Niño, neutral and La Niña years.
We estimate that climate change has increased temperatures in the
hottest March months by just over 1℃. As the effects of climate change
worsen we would expect this warming effect to increase, as has been
pointed out elsewhere.
March 2016 was clearly extreme in the observed weather record, but
using climate models we estimate that by 2034 temperature anomalies like
March 2016 will be normal. Thereafter events like March 2016 will be
cooler than average.
Overall, we're observing rapid warming in the Coral Sea region that
can only be understood if we include human influences. The human effect
on the region through climate change is clear and it is strengthening.
Surface temperatures like those in March 2016 would be extremely
unlikely to occur in a world without humans.
As the seas warm because of our effect on the climate, bleaching
events in the Great Barrier Reef and other areas within the Coral Sea
are likely to become more frequent and more devastating.
Action on climate change may reduce the likelihood of future
bleaching events, although not for a few decades as we have already
built in warming through our recent greenhouse gas emissions.
A note on peer review
We have analysed this coral bleaching event in near-real time, which
means the results we present here have not been through peer review.
Recently, we have started undertaking these event attribution analyses immediately after the extreme event has occurred or even before it has finished. As we are using a method that has been previously peer-reviewed, we can have confidence in our results.
It is important, however, that these studies go through a peer-review
process and these results will be submitted soon. In the meantime we
have published a short methods document which provides more detail.
Our results are also consistent with previous studies (see also here and here).
A coal ship caught on Nobby's Beach in Newcastle. The city is the biggest in the world for coal exports.
asnewlibrarian/Flick
Why get worked up about our climate responsibilities when Australia's
contribution to global emissions – around 1.5% of the total - is small?
Here is the usual reply. Australia's domestic greenhouse gas
emissions means it ranks 12th among the planet's 195-plus nations. We
are 16th in the world for domestic CO2 emissions alone. And our per capita emissions are among the highest in the world. So our contribution to global warming is much greater than we often recognise.
But by another view Australia's role is vastly more significant, and
our climate and energy export policies are positively schizophrenic in
response. Specifically, Labor's national energy export policy undermines
and overwhelms any benefits from its domestic climate policy efforts.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
requires nations to account for emissions produced within their
borders. However this approach displaces and unjustly lessens the burden
of responsibility of states, companies and consumers that sit "before"
or "after" the point where those emissions are released.
As a result, consumers of imported manufactured goods and exporters
of fossil fuels remain unaccountable for their roles in the
co-production of emissions released at a "distance".
"Embodied carbon" and trade in unburned fossil fuels
Some aspects of the relationship between trade and emissions are
coming under increasing scrutiny. For instance, it is now widely
acknowledged that approximately 25% to 33% of China's total national
emissions now result from production for export markets. These are "embodied" emissions that have largely been "displaced" to China from countries that formerly manufactured but now import these goods.
China now has a carbon tax
on certain exported goods and France has proposed border adjustment
taxes on imports from countries without a carbon price – both moves
intended to level the playing field in traded embodied carbon.
By contrast, little attention has paid to trade in unprocessed (or
unburned) fossil
fuels, which shifts responsibility for emissions from fossil fuel
exporting nations
and companies to the middle-consumers (the states and companies involved
in producing emissions using these fuels for power or manufacturing).
How convenient for the beneficiaries - countries such as Australia,
Canada, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia.
Powering the "world's factory" has put China at the top of global carbon emitters. The E/Flickr
Australia - world's largest coal exporter
While Australia's domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions represent
some 1.5% of the global total, its global carbon footprint – the total
amount of carbon it pushes out into the global economy - is much bigger.
Australia is the world's largest coal exporter.
By adding emissions from exported coal to our domestic emissions,
Australia's carbon footprint trebles. Its coal exports alone currently
contribute at least another 3.3% of global emissions.
In aggregate, therefore, Australia is at present the source of at least 4.8% of total
global emissions. That's without considering natural gas exports.
This alternative viewpoint underscores the importance of Greenpeace's recent claim
that proposed "mega coal mines" in Queensland's Galilee Basin,
producing for export, would be responsible for 705 million tonnes of CO2 per year and would turn that region alone into the world's seventh largest contributor of emissions.
Good reasons for this larger perspective
Why take this alternative view? First, such a re-framing makes
visible a range of
hidden but significant national responsibilities for climate change. It
is a more
honest calibration of the mitigation/adaptation responsibilities and
burdens of specific states. Countries like Australia benefit
economically from this trade
– and from fuelling climate change - without acknowledging that benefit
or the
costs.
Second, it undermines already spurious claims that Australia's contribution to the problem of climate change is trivial.
When its current domestic carbon dioxide emissions and its exported CO2 emissions are combined, Australia ranks as the planet's 6th largest emitter of CO2
- after China, the USA, the Russian Federation, India and Indonesia. It
is responsible directly and indirectly for over 1.5 billion tonnes of
CO2 per year – more than Germany's emissions (population 82 million) and the UK's emissions (population 62 million) combined.
If planned and projected increases in Australian coal and gas exports
are realised, our carbon footprint will more than double again over the
coming decades. By 2030, Australia would be directly and indirectly
responsible for over 2 billion tonnes of exported GHG emissions per
year.
Harm avoidance
Still, should we reduce our coal exports in a global system geared to direct-emitters' responsibility?
Consider the principle of harm avoidance. This is a widely recognised
principle, including under international law. It has been enshrined in
the Stockholm Convention 1972 and the
Rio Declaration of 1992.
These international declarations – to which Australia is a signatory - state that
parties "have the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction
or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States". Trade in
injurious substances flies in the face of the harm avoidance principle.
It's not okay for cigarette companies to ignore the harm done by their products, so why is it for miners?lanier67/Flickr
By analogy, think of how most legal systems view sellers of asbestos or heroin,
or of the growing reaction to the sale of tobacco.
Leaving the responsibility for mitigation to others involves an
abrogation of ethical responsibility to the market and to the atomised
consumer. If you are not convinced by this view – think of the heroin
dealer's defence: "I do no harm, yer Honour. I only sell the stuff.
They're the ones that inject it."
The second argument is purely pragmatic. The greater our dependency
on a coal/gas export economy, the greater the economic distortions and
social perils for Australia in the longer term. Australia's export
energy boom is generating an economy unsustainably dependent on the
returns of that sector.
If the end to the fossil energy boom is abrupt, the trauma to
Australia's economy will be significant. How will we provide regional
structural adjustment assistance in the Hunter Valley and Bowen Basin,
especially if this adjustment trauma is accompanied by increasing
demands for climate adaptation and disaster relief funding (think Flood
Levy)?
Killing the goose?
It must seem crazy-brave to propose a tax on coal exports given
falling coal prices and political anxiety about the power of the mining
industry.
It must seem crazier still to propose an immediate moratorium on
further expansion and to plan for the sector to be wound back. But in
each case, that is what Labor should do.
Labor first should immediately freeze Australia's expanding global carbon footprint by capping export volumes.
Second, it should simultaneously establish a carbon fund to provide
for longer term structural adjustment costs domestically and for
investment in energy alternatives in developing nations currently
importing our fuels. Even a modest levy of $2 per tonne of exported coal
would now net almost $800 million per year.
More than this, though, Australia needs a national energy strategy
based on this shift in perspective. It involves reconfiguring our
understanding of Australia's very substantial international role in the
climate game and winding back our fossil fuel export sector within a
decade.
Ultimately change will be forced upon us, whether or not we like it, or are prepared. Even the most conservative IPCC and IEA estimates
suggest that global fossil fuel use will need to contract substantially
by 2050 if we are to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius.
Australia itself has adopted an emissions mitigation policy of -80% by
2050. This is less than 38 years away.
Major importers are already moving to cap and reduce their coal
consumption. Our export carbon sector is clearly unsustainable if the
rest of the world intends to cut fossil fuel use dramatically.
A coherent energy-climate policy would guide a rapid, planned
scale-down in coal production. The chaotic alternative - the one we have
now - will continue to build our coal export sector and then allow
market and climate forces to combine in a perfect economic storm.
Labor has promised 50% of electricity will come from renewable sources by 2050, but has left the detail for after the election.
Wind turbine image from www.shutterstock.com
Labor has announced the climate policy it will take to the federal election, including a return to carbon pricing under an emissions trading scheme.
The detailed policy includes multiple market-based mechanisms. Among
these are an emissions trading scheme, a domestic electricity
cap-and-trade scheme, and a mechanism to close brown coal power
stations. The package would also increase investment in renewable
energy, instigate a major review of the electricity sector, tighten
vehicle emissions standards and create a “trigger” to account for
climate change in land-clearing.
Climate policy is the football of Australian politics. So as the
election campaign ramps up, grab your popcorn and settle in for the
showdown.
World agrees on need for action
Politicians of almost all persuasions, as well as the majority of scientists,
now agree that action needs to be taken on a global scale if the world
is to continue to enjoy the benefits of a stable climate.
The Paris climate agreement sets out the long-term goal of limiting warming to well below 2℃ and if possible below 1.5℃. It needs to be ratified by at least 55 countries and represent 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
To do this, these emissions must eventually reach zero (or be completely offset) by mid-century. This is currently not matched by short- and medium-term pledges by countries to reduce emissions.
So while the Paris agreement was uplifting in terms of its
aspirations, it was less inspiring in terms of its practical execution.
What does good climate policy look like?
All countries need to develop strong climate policy to be able to
ratify the Paris agreement. This should be about pragmatic action, not
ideology. The huge challenge facing the world means that the action
taken needs to be strong and urgent.
In Australia, emissions from energy make up 75% and agriculture 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions, so climate policy should be primarily about reducing the combustion of fossil fuels.
As energy and agriculture are key to our economy, economists
generally agree the most efficient way to reduce carbon emissions is
through an emissions trading scheme (ETS) or a carbon tax.
Alongside strong financial incentives and disincentives for reducing
emissions, institutional support is needed to shepherd and adapt policy
to ensure it can be applied. This is not just a matter for government;
the private sector must be included and committed to both the policy and
their part in the pursuit of abatement.
Last but not least, the public needs to understand the problem and be
confident of the ability of policymakers to craft policy that will help
to resolve it.
In recent years, the game of political football over climate policy has intensified. Labor’s carbon-pricing package lasted just two years before being axed and replaced under the Coalition government. The Renewable Energy Target was introduced with bipartisan support, expanded under Labor, then reduced under the Coalition. Supporting institutions have similarly been created, restructured, defunded and dissolved.
Public support for climate policy, too, has waxed and waned from a
high level around 2007 – at the height of the droughts in Queensland and
New South Wales – to cynicism about the carbon tax and the perception
of its impact on electricity and industrial competitiveness to, more
recently, a return to support for renewable energy and climate action.
How will Labor play the game?
Labor’s plan to resurrect an ETS is an attempt to return to a policy supported by economists, but with a tentative introduction.
Labor has announced that multiple market mechanisms will be
introduced. Phase one, to run from 2018-2020, includes a scheme for the
electricity sector that will simply cap the emissions of high carbon
emitters according to an industry benchmark and encourage generators to
trade with each other to meet their cap. This will aim to stop emissions
increasing to 2020, and make cuts after that.
This differs from the previous carbon tax in that initially there
will be little cost for electricity generators and therefore electricity
consumers. There will be greater pressure on emissions reductions after
2020. But if it is opened up to international schemes the cost of
emissions reductions will be in line with prices overseas, reducing
impacts on competitiveness.
Other large emitters will be part of a separate ETS, also with caps
on emissions but the ability to offset or trade internationally.
Phase two of the ETS will link the ETS with other international
emissions trading schemes. The detail on phase two for the electricity
sector is less clear. There is also a plan for a market mechanism to close brown-coal-fired power stations.
While the Coalition’s Emissions Reduction Fund seeks to buy emission
reductions from agriculture and vegetation management out of tax income,
it ignores emissions reduction from electricity generation. This is an
important point of difference between the two policy approaches.
Beyond emissions trading
Labor also intends to prevent further land clearing in Queensland and
New South Wales. This may may well put Labor offside with the NSW
Coalition government, which is considering land-clearing laws. Land
clearing can add significantly to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions,
so it is an important element of national climate policy.
As with all policy, though, the detail will define the ability of the Labor policy to deliver the emissions cuts required.
For now, we know only that Labor seeks to decrease emissions by 45%
and increase renewable energy to 50% of electricity generation by 2030.
Labor’s policy depends on how the party sells it to a public weary
and wary of climate policies after relentless campaigning against the
carbon tax by the Coalition during the last election. Labor is at pains
to point out that it would like to initiate dialogue with the Coalition
to gain consensus on climate policy.
Promisingly, it includes the necessary support and funding of
transition for trade-exposed industries (which are disproportionately
affected by carbon pricing), community power workers who may be
displaced from coal-fired power stations, and solar thermal generation.
Solar thermal generation is important for a large roll-out of
renewable energy because of its ability to stabilise the network. While
solar panels and wind power are affordable sources of energy, our demand
for electricity does not often match availability from solar panels and
wind power. For this reason we need electricity to be able to be stored
for use on dark, windless nights or oppressive, rainy days.
Hydroelectricity can do this job but Australia has a dry climate and
limited hydro resources. The hype around batteries is a little premature
in terms of both the cost of battery storage and its ability to
integrate with the electricity grid. So solar thermal is an important
element of a fleet with large levels of renewable energy.
The use of emissions trading with incentives for increasing renewable
energy is crucial for reducing emissions and shifting to cleaner forms
of energy. Without an ETS, investment in renewable energy is likely to
produce a disappointing reduction in emissions. So it is important that
both be rolled out together.
What about electricity prices? Phase one is unlikely to have a large
impact on electricity prices and the detail on phase two is too sketchy
to predict the impact on prices. It will however depend on how effective
the solar thermal funding is at securing baseload power, and the extent
to which Labor will be able to garner industry support for closing
brown coal power stations.
Ultimately, the success or failure of this policy gambit will depend
on whether Labor can calm the public’s nerves over their future power
bills.
Researchers have been slow to harness the power of big data from
satellites in the fight against climate change. But a new partnership
around the Copernicus program may change that.
Only tears of sand remain
Earth observation satellites such as the European Space Agency's Proba-V collect daily images that allow for the tracking of environmental changes over time. The images above - taken in April 2014, July 2015 and January 2016 (left to right) - offer crystal-clear insight into the gradual evaporation of Lake Poopo, once Bolivia's second largest lake - due at least in part to climate change.
Over the past decade, people have gotten used to using Google Earth's
satellite map to satisfy their curiosity - whether that involves
examining tree cover or peering into their neighbor's backyard.
Now, a new European Union initiative is attempting to harness that
satellite data to fight climate change - and to document its effects.
On Tuesday (26.04.2016), the European Institute for Innovation and
Technology (EIT) announced a new partnership with the European Space
Agency (ESA) to mine the "big data" satellites gather, to help local and
national governments mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The program, unveiled at the EIT's annual conference in Budapest, is the
first time satellite data has been mobilized at this scale.
Untapped potential
The ESA has been monitoring the Earth since 2008, when it set up the
Copernicus program
in partnership with the European Commission. Through a family of
missions involving Sentinel satellites, Copernicus feeds vast amounts of
data into a unified system.
Although it is the world's broadest Earth observation program, so far it
has not gone into deep analysis of the effects of climate change. But
it has been
collecting the data.
Sentinel satellites can track changes on Earth's surface in high resolution
"If you knew just how much data was out there - sitting on 'shelves' in
the digital world, with no one really accessing it - you would be
amazed," said Mike Cherrett, director of operations for the climate
change division of EIT. "It's a scandal it's not being used - and we
need to turn that around."
Cherrett says the problem is that although Copernicus has collected much
data, this isn't reaching end users, such as local governments or
companies, who would be interested in and able to do something with it.
Such data can be used to analyze the effects of climate change, for
example by tracking the erosion of coastlines or abnormalities in
vegetation as a result of temperature changes.
It can also be used to track activities that contribute to climate
change, such as deforestation or poor city planning. A city government
could for example use the information to see how urban planning is
affecting emissions.
'Living data'
Ian Short, CEO of the EIT's climate division, says that that while there
is useful information to be gleaned from satellite data about where
emissions are taking place, the most useful part could be looking at how
climate change is already affecting the world.
With climate change, much focus has been placed on mitigation - that is,
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Short pointed out. "But we're well
past that point now," Short told DW.
"We're starting to see the impact of climate change - increasingly, we
have to understand what that impact is," Short said. "We need to be able
to predict where it's going to happen."
An image of the French riviera taken from a Sentinel satellite
Initial results of the collaboration will be presented at this year's
United Nations climate summit this November in Morocco. The data
collected will be open-source, which also means it can be accessed by
any member of the public.
Cherrett called it "living data."
"You can look at historical records to compare and contrast," Cherrett
said. "It has huge potential to revolutionalize the way we plan city and
rural areas. It has huge potential to inform citizens and generate
business ideas."
"This will be one of those things we look back on in five, 10 years and say, 'why didn’t we use more of this big data earlier?'"
Sentinel satellites eye view
The beast has awoken No matter how long volcanoes sleep, they're always in a bad mood when
they wake up. The International Space Station was passing overhead when
the Sarychev volcano, located in the Kuril Islands of Russia, erupted
in 2009. Astronauts were able to snap a picture through a hole in the
clouds. From dense ash to clouds of condensed water, virtually all
natural phenomena can be examined from outer space.
Don't play with fire Every year, wildfires devastate the landscape - and ecology - in
numerous countries around the world. Too often, these are caused by
humans. This was also the case in Indonesia, where farmers burned peat
rainforest areas for agriculture. On the island of Borneo and Sumatra,
satellites detected fire hot spots in September 2015, and the plume of
grey smoke that triggered air quality alerts.
German kids misbehaved In Germany, parents warn their children that if they don't finish
their meals, it's going to rain. And indeed, in 2013 it rained, so much
that some of central Europe's major rivers overflowed their banks. As
shown in this image from 2013, the Elbe burst its banks following
unprecedented rainfall. In the photo, muddy water covers the area around
Wittenberg, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
At the eye of the hurricane A strong storm can cause irreparable damage through intense winds and
storm surges from the sea. Space-based information is crucial in
following development of such storms: intensity, the direction it's
moving, wind speed … in the eastern Pacific Ocean near Mexico, this
satellite image helped determine how tropical storm Sandra reached winds
of 160 kilometers per hour by November 25, 2015.
Melting away from under us Satellites also play a key role in monitoring climate change and,
inevitably, the process of melting ice. From space, scientists were able
to document how several glaciers around the globe have receded - as
well as the subsequent rise in sea level. This photograph, taken from
the International Space Station, shows the retreat of the Upsala glacier
in Argentine Patagonia from 2002 to 2013.
Hold your breath! Dust often covers remote deserts - however in September 2015,
satellites offered this impressive view of Middle East areas enveloped
by a dust storm, or haboob, affecting large populated regions. What
satellites can observe from space supports air quality sensors on the
ground to understand patterns on how the storms start and develop. These
findings can improve forecasting methods.
'Naked mountain' These are the words NASA used to describe the lack of snow on
California's Mount Shasta, a crucial source of water for the region.
Images documenting drought over the past years have consistently been
showing brown mountains that should be white, and bare earth where
people seek water. As ice melts, drought grows.
