'Disturbing': CSIRO Units Copping Cuts To 'Wear' Redundancy Costs, Lift Revenue

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Scientists analyse samples in a laboratory on board the CSIRO-run RV Investigator. Photo: Pete Harmsen

The CSIRO divisions to bear the brunt of the planned staffing cuts are being told to increase their revenue from external sources in coming years and count the redundancy costs against those targets.
Fairfax Media can reveal that the Oceans and Atmosphere division, which is slated to lose about one-fifth of its staff, will  be expected to increase total revenue from external sources from about $42 million in 2015-16 to about $44 million by 2019-2020.
The division is home to climate modelling and monitoring teams that are likely to lose about half their 140 staff, a move that has drawn criticism from around the world.

Larry Marshall, CEO of the CSIRO, wants the organisation to be more profitable. Photo: Daniel Munoz

Kenneth Lee, director of the Oceans and Atmosphere division, told staff on Monday that he hoped "corporate" would pay for at least some of the redundancies.

"I was talking to Hazel Bennett [CSIRO's chief finance officer], but she said that the organisation does not have the money to pay for all redundancies," Dr Lee told staff, according to a transcript of the briefing obtained by Fairfax Media.  "So all the business units will have wear some of it."
Insiders have told Fairfax Media that the cost of the redundancies for the Oceans and Atmosphere division is about $13 million, with more than two-thirds of the sum to be carried by the division.
"It's very disturbing," Michael Borgas, president of CSIRO's Staff Association, said. "It means for those who are carrying on [after the cuts] that you're got a big debt to start with, and that's pretty dispiriting."

More to come?
Labor and the Greens said the strategy employed by CSIRO points to further job cuts when the depleted units failed to deliver rising returns.
"What is becoming clear is that the CSIRO management is trying to use business principles to disrupt the science-based priorities of the CSIRO," Shadow Industry Minister Kim Carr said.
"CSIRO divisions will be hit even harder if they are forced to fund the redundancies of scientists and researchers out of their own budgets," Senator Carr said. "This will just be a double whack for CSIRO research."    
Greens Senator Larissa Waters said the drive to make shrinking staff lift earnings would shift the onus of research on to shorter term projects that may be less critical for the nation.
"The blinkered focus on profit making is dangerous and unscientific," the deputy Greens leader said.
"Asking our world-class climate scientists to do even more work for corporations, like the oil and gas industry, raises serious questions about the CSIRO's institutional integrity,"  Senator Waters said, referring to plans by the organisation to help firms to improve their "social licence".

'Detailed' planning
The CSIRO declined to comment on how the redundancies would be funded nor how divisions could expand the earnings they make from customers with fewer staff.
"We are now conducting our detailed budget planning covering all revenue and expenditure and taking into account the recent decisions, as we routinely do at this time of the budget cycle," a spokesman said.
A spokesman for Science Minister Christopher Pyne said the CSIRO was an independent statutory agency. The plan to recover the 350 job losses – including also from the Land and Water, Data61 and manufacturing divisions -  by an equal number of new hires in other more promising sectors, he said.
A senior researcher in the Land and Water division, which also faces the loss of 100 full-time positions, said the lack of funds to pay for redundancies "is a massive blow to the viability of Oceans and Atmosphere and Land & Water".
"Land and Water came up $4 million short on external earnings targets last year," the scientist said. "If Corporate imposes this bill as well as external earnings targets, then there will be another round of massive staff cuts next financial year."

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Australia Risks Missing Clean Power Goals, With Households To Pick Up The Bill

Fairfax - Tom Arup

Households will ultimately have to pay if interim renewable energy targets are missed. Photo: Getty Images

Australia risks not hitting its 2020 renewable energy target with analysts now forecasting that interim goals will be missed – a situation that will trigger penalties that households will have to pay.
Many in the energy industry agree that this year will be "make or break" for achieving the end-of-decade target, which aims to deliver about 23 per cent of Australia's electricity from clean technologies such as wind and solar.
"This year is critical" said Kane Thornton, who heads the Clean Energy Council.
"We are expecting all the major players will start taking action, meaning projects can move quickly, will reach financial close and construction will get under way."
"But if that hasn't happened by the end of the year then clearly there will be a problem."
While it appears a two-year investment freeze on new large-scale renewables in Australia is thawing, analysts say it is unlikely enough commitments will come through this year to meet annual interim renewable energy goals between now and 2020.
If an annual shortfall occurs major energy players are required to pay penalties to the federal government, with the costs being passed on to consumers.
Advisory firm Green Energy Markets calculates falling short of the target would cost the average household $5 in Victoria and $8 in NSW on their quarterly power bill. That is on top of the otherwise expected costs of meeting the renewable energy goal.
Analysts and traders in clean energy certificates, which underpin the target scheme and provide a financial boost for renewables projects, are forecasting that situation will arise in 2018, and even as early as next year.
Green Energy Markets says commitments for 4400 megawatts worth of large-scale renewable energy projects is needed this year to avoid penalties in 2018. They forecast government-backed projects will deliver 1100 megawatts, with an additional amount expected from other sources.
Elsewhere analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance calculate that 3500 megawatts in commitments are needed this year to avoid future annual shortfalls. They forecast up to 2000 megawatts worth will be made.
Mr Thornton said renewable energy developers had well over the 6,000 megawatts of projects ready to be deployed.
"In order for us to meet the [2020] target something has to change, " said Marco Stella, a senior broker at another firm, TFS Green Australia.
"Either people have to start committing to projects or financiers and project proponents need to be prepared to take on more risk."
"It is an enormous amount of generation that still has to be built. And because we have been doing nothing for years the requirements are getting larger and larger."
Matthew Warren, chief executive of the Australian Energy Council, which represents coal and gas power plant owners and retailers, said multiple uncertainties still hung over renewable energy investments, including commercial, government, demand and technology issues.
"Basically this is a financing problem. There is still insufficient certainty around the nature of those investments," Mr Warren said.
"But that can evolve a lot in 12 months. It will just depend on whether we can find ways for that risk to be managed and what do we do if we can't."
Some continue to blame the sluggish investment on the uncertainty created by then Prime Minister Tony Abbott's ferocious push across 2014 and 2015 to cut the renewable energy target. Last year the government and Labor struck a deal to lower the target.
In recent times there have been some positive signs of movement.. This month energy giant AGL launched an investment fund aimed at delivering 1000 megawatts worth of renewable energy, while Origin Energy head Grant King was quoted saying his company was preparing to back new projects.
Kobad Bhavnagri ​, head of Australia for Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said these were signs of intent from the big energy players. He added hitting the penalty in one year – while not the best outcome for consumers – did not mean the target was not working, and pointed out the scheme included retrospective make good provisions.
"In the short-term the capacity and investments may be short of what is required to meet the annual targets, but if progress is being made to the larger target then the scheme is succeeding," Mr Bhavnagri said.
"If it is not met in 2020, but we are getting close and it is met in 2021 and 2022, the target has still worked."
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said that 2020 renewable energy target was fixed and had the rock solid support of the government.
He pointed to the recent AGL announcement as an indication the market was responding to the revised target and the "certainty created".
"We expect significant further announcements in the coming six months," Mr Hunt said.

Links

Greenhouse gas emissions from Australia's biggest polluters on the rise

A sweltering summer, a hot March - now get set for a wet Autumn

'Disturbing': CSIRO units copping cuts to 'wear' redundancy costs, lift revenue

'Perverse' science: Greg Hunt gives nod to logging in new red gum national park

Climate Change Adaptation In Global Megacities Protects Wealth – Not People

The Conversation - Lucien Georgeson  |  Mark Maslin 

Mumbai is one of many large cities threatened by climate change, but not adapting fast enough. EPA

Cities across the world are increasingly at risk from climate change. People living in extreme poverty are especially vulnerable, both because global warming will tend to hit developing countries the hardest, and because they have less money to throw at the problem.
We used newly-available data to investigate how cities are responding to climate change and whether resources are being allocated efficiently or fairly. We expected there to be differences in spending between rich and poor. But we did not expect them to be so vast, with New York for instance spending more than £190 (US$260) per person to protect its people and infrastructure from the impact of climate change, while Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa spends less than £5 ($7).
It seems the amount spent on climate adaptation is driven more by the amount of wealth at risk rather than the number of vulnerable people.
Adaptation simply means any actions that anticipate the negative consequences of climate change – to human health, the economy or ecosystems – and attempt to minimise the damage. In big cities this might mean raising sea walls to tackle sea level rise or expanding drains to cope with bigger storm surges.
We need a comprehensive picture of how much is being spent on these adaptation measures across the world. The Millennium Development Goals, despite their shortcomings, have demonstrated that measuring a problem provides an invaluable baseline from which improvements can occur.

Addis Ababa’s preparations for climate change can’t compete with those in richer cities. Laika ac, CC BY-SA

For this study, published in Nature Climate Change, we focused on spending in ten megacities. New adaptation spending figures were gathered and analysed using data triangulation, which draws on many different sources and types of data to arrive at more accurate estimates. Our work on this is part of a wider project on measuring the size of the green economy.
Where ever you look, this “adaptation economy” remains a small part of the overall economy – a maximum of 0.33% of a city’s gross domestic product. Yet there are real disparities between cities. As you might expect, developed cities spend significantly more per capita. After all, most things cost a lot more in the US than in Ethiopia, and new drainage systems, air conditioning and so on are no different.

Cities in richer countries spend more in total and per head (2014-15 data). Paris is an exception due to narrow definitions of its ‘city proper’. Georgeson et al/Nature Comms, Author provided

But this same disparity also applies as a percentage of city GDP. The three rich cities we looked at spend nearly half as much again as the developing cities (around 0.22% of city GDP, compared to 0.15%), even though climate change is a far scarier prospect for low-lying, flood-prone Jakarta or already-hot Addis Ababa than it is for London or Paris.
Of course, cities in poorer countries have greater competing needs for their finances. Things Londoners or Parisians can take for granted such as clean water or basic healthcare are still pressing issues in Lagos or Mumbai.
Yet such disparity still has to end, particularly as between now and 2050 the major growth in urban populations will be in China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria. In these countries we need to think about how to boost cities’ resilience through far more adaptation funding.

Beijing tops the charts for adaptation as a percentage of GDP (2014/15 data). Georgeson et al / Nature Comms, Author provided

It can be done. Just look at Beijing, which stands out because the proportion of its economy devoted to climate adaptation was significantly higher than any other city in the study. Almost half of this was spent on changes to the built environment such as water efficiency retrofitting – a much higher ratio than any other city – with less going towards health or agriculture.
The fact the Chinese capital is taking adaptation seriously is linked to strong central government policies, which encourage cities to face up to climate change. In China, all provinces have a comprehensive adaptation plan and a taskforce to deliver it. When governments offer leadership and policy certainty, things will happen.
Most cities at least show solid growth in adaptation spending over the past five years, beyond their average GDP growth for the period. But adaptation spending was more volatile in Addis Ababa and Lagos, the cities in the study that spent the least in real, proportional and per capita terms, and heavily-dependent on a few specific projects. This should be a cause for concern.
It is clear that insufficient funds are being spent to protect major population centres in developing and emerging economies. Our study is an early warning sign: we must remain focused on protecting people at risk, and not just the “capital”.

Links

• CSIRO boss's failed logic over climate science could waste billions in taxes
• No ribbon to cut: climate change adaptation never ends
• Spending wisely now will make heatwaves less costly later
• Everyone knows climate adaptation is crucial, but beyond that it's pretty hazy