Lethal Heating: 12/15/16

15/12/2016

Fossil Fuel Divestment Is Worth $7tn Globally Yet Australia Still Clings To Coal

The Guardian - Blair Palese

While the Australian government lags behind on climate change action, consumers, local councils and energy companies lead the way to clean energy

Protesters gather in Melbourne last week to demonstrate against the federal government's offer to Adani of a $1bn taxpayer-funded loan to build a railway line to its Carmichael coalmine. Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

The Turnbull government has been an utter disappointment on so many things but nowhere as much as on the biggest issue of our time: climate change.
Unable to shrug off the legacy of the climate-denying Abbott government, it has been bullied out of any climate change ambition by science-denying fringe elements on the right.
The list of dishonourable mentions are long. Despite signing the Paris agreement last year, the Australian government has consistently undermined any efforts to keep the world below the safe level of 2C. Last week's backflip on the idea of a carbon-intensity emissions trading scheme – supported by most of the banks and the energy sector as the best way to reduce emissions and provide a level-playing field – is just the latest in a long line.
But the biggest worry is seeing Turnbull's coal-loving ministers push through the Adani mega coalmine in Queensland, replete with the offer of a $1bn taxpayer-funded loan to build a railway line through rich farmland to a coal terminal on the Great Barrier Reef. If constructed, the Adani mine will almost certainly condemn the Great Barrier Reef to the annals of history, not to mention blowing almost any chance of us living in a safe climate future.
But while climate change is mired in partisanship and cheap political point-scoring on a federal level, Australian organisations, driven by a strong market shift away from polluting fossil fuels, particularly coal, are leading the way towards the clean economy.
On Tuesday a report by global financial outfit Arabella shows that fossil fuel divestment is now worth an astounding A$7tn globally. It spans almost 700 organisations as diverse as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund, the City of Newcastle and the Australian National University.
This $7tn that is not invested in coal, oil and gas provides a significant financial indicator to back up what we already know: fossil fuels are on the nose.
While Australia may be lagging on a government level, many of our businesses are leading the world in waking up to the risks posed by fossil fuels and the opportunities of the new clean economy.
The Arabella report highlights that Australia has the most divestments per capita of any developed nation. And these organisations that have divested are by no means radical. It is groups such as the Australian Capital Territory's government, Australian Academy of Science, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the National Tertiary Education Union. Add to the mix almost 30 local government councils, 10 super funds, a handful of our top universities and you get the picture.
There is even a chance you live in a fossil-free council considering that more than one in 10 Australians now live in a council area that has sworn off fossil fuels.
In 350.org's work, we deal closely with banks, energy companies and organisations that are constantly weighing up the risks associated with fossil fuel investments. All of them have told us just how quickly things are changing.
The recently released Melbourne University sustainability plan acknowledges the changing market dynamics:

Companies which effectively manage environmental, social and governance responsibilities should yield better risk-adjusted returns over the long term.

And as coal enters structural decline, clean energy is booming. Consumers and local government are bypassing government barriers and again leading the way.Local governments, such as the City of Melbourne and others such as the ACT are teaming up to source their energy from renewables – thus providing security for investors to build more clean energy infrastructure.
The Renewable Energy Benefits: Measuring the Economics report that came out earlier this year showed that doubling renewable energy's current share of the global energy mix to 36% by 2030 would create 24 million jobs and deliver about half of the emissions reduction necessary under the Paris agreement.
For Australia this would boost our economy by 1.7%. The clean energy rush would create a swathe of new jobs in regional areas to meet the demand to transition from our dirty grid to the new renewable one.
Already we are seeing a transition that is well under way. Just last week Energy Australia announced an investment of $1.5bn into new wind and solar projects to meet its renewable energy target. It also announced support for a price on carbon – the same day the Turnbull government backflipped and said a carbon price was now off the table. Something is seriously wrong when the country's biggest climate polluters are calling for a tax on their operations and the government refuses to consider it.
Energy Australia's announcement is one of many from around the country: Eco Energy is building a new solar plant in regional Queensland; AGL is building solar plants across regional New South Wales, including a new one near Broken Hill; and Origin Energy is seeking to divest much of its oil and conventional gas assets to focus more on renewables.
The key now is to ensure our big three energy companies collectively push beyond our rudderless federal government, not fall into the idea that gas is the answer over coal, and quicken the pace to clean energy. It helps that at this point in time, both large-scale wind and solar projects are now cheaper than fossil-fuel energy sources.
Over the past few years, leadership from business has been the main driver in Australia's route to decarbonisation. But businesses can't bear the load alone and they have recognised this. In November, Andrew Vesey, the chief executive of AGL, was one of 17 eminent Australians who called on the government to stop blocking the transition, "facilitate and accelerate the inevitable closure of coal plants" and "create an attractive sustainable investment environment for clean energy".
If we are to benefit from the jobs of the new economy and ensure a safe future for the planet, Malcolm Turnbull and the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, must stop listening to the science-denying members of their party and instead start making some real decisions about what our energy and economic future will look like.

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U.S. Energy Department Balks At Trump Request For Names On Climate Change

Reuters - David Shepardson

A child embraces a globe shaped balloon ahead of the start of the 2015 Paris World Climate Change Conference, known as the COP21 summit, in Rome, Italy , November 29, 2015. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi

The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it will not comply with a request from President-elect Donald Trump's Energy Department transition team for the names of people who have worked on climate change and the professional society memberships of lab workers.
The Energy Department's response could signal a rocky transition for the president-elect's energy team and potential friction between the new leadership and the staffers who remain in place.
The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters last week contains 74 questions, including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years.
Energy Department spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said Tuesday the department will not comply.
"Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of (the Energy Department) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people," Burnham-Snyder said.
"We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," he added. "We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team."
He added that the request "left many in our workforce unsettled."
Andrew Rosenberg, an official at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Energy Department "made the right choice in refusing this absurd and dangerous request. Federal agencies need the best available science to respond to the growing risk of climate change."
Reuters reported late Monday that former Texas Governor Rick Perry is expected to be named by Trump to run the Energy Department. The agency employs more than 90,000 people working on nuclear weapons maintenance and research labs, nuclear energy, advanced renewable energy, batteries and climate science.
The memo sought a list of all department employees or contractors who have attended any meetings on the social cost of carbon, a measurement that federal agencies use to weigh the costs and benefits of new energy and environmental regulations. It also asked for all publications written by employees at the department's 17 national laboratories for the past three years.
Trump transition officials declined to comment on the memo.
"This feels like the first draft of an eventual political enemies list," a Department of Energy employee, who asked not to be identified because he feared a reprisal by the Trump transition team, had told Reuters.
Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said in a news briefing on Tuesday that the queries "could have been an attempt to target civil servants," including "scientists and lawyers and other experts who are critical to the success of the federal government's ability to make policy."
By design, their work transcends the term of any one president, Earnest said.
Trump, a Republican, said during his election campaign that climate change was a hoax perpetrated by China to damage U.S. manufacturing. He said he would rip up last year's landmark global climate deal struck in Paris that was signed by President Barack Obama.
Since winning the Nov. 8 election, however, Trump has said he will keep an "open mind" about the Paris deal. He also met with former Vice President Al Gore, a strong advocate for action on climate change.
After that meeting, he picked Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Scientists Are Frantically Copying U.S. Climate Data, Fearing It Might Vanish Under Trump

Washington Post - Brady Dennis

A satellite image of Hurricane Otto approaching the coast of Central America on Nov. 24. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.
“Something that seemed a little paranoid to me before all of a sudden seems potentially realistic, or at least something you’d want to hedge against,” said Nick Santos, an environmental researcher at the University of California at Davis, who over the weekend began copying government climate data onto a nongovernment server, where it will remain available to the public. “Doing this can only be a good thing. Hopefully they leave everything in place. But if not, we’re planning for that.”

In recent weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a growing list of Cabinet members who have questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus around global warming. His transition team at the Department of Energy has asked agency officials for names of employees and contractors who have participated in international climate talks and worked on the scientific basis for Obama administration-era regulations of carbon emissions. One Trump adviser suggested that NASA no longer should conduct climate research and instead should focus on space exploration.

The Trump transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking officials there to identify which department employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation's carbon output. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)

Those moves have stoked fears among the scientific community that Trump, who has called the notion of man-made climate change “a hoax” and vowed to reverse environmental policies put in place by President Obama, could try to alter or dismantle parts of the federal government’s repository of data on everything from rising sea levels to the number of wildfires in the country.
Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that Trump has appointed a “band of climate conspiracy theorists” to run transition efforts at various agencies, along with nominees to lead them who share similar views.

“They have been salivating at the possibility of dismantling federal climate research programs for years. It’s not unreasonable to think they would want to take down the very data that they dispute,” Halpern said in an email. “There is a fine line between being paranoid and being prepared, and scientists are doing their best to be prepared. . . . Scientists are right to preserve data and archive websites before those who want to dismantle federal climate change research programs storm the castle.”

To be clear, neither Trump nor his transition team have said the new administration plans to manipulate or curtail publicly available data. The transition team did not respond to a request for comment. But some scientists aren’t taking any chances.
“What are the most important .gov climate assets?” Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and self-proclaimed “climate hawk,” tweeted from his Arizona home Saturday evening. “Scientists: Do you have a US .gov climate database that you don’t want to see disappear?”
Within hours, responses flooded in from around the country. Scientists added links to dozens of government databases to a Google spreadsheet. Investors offered to help fund efforts to copy and safeguard key climate data. Lawyers offered pro bono legal help. Database experts offered server space and help organizing mountains of data. In California, Santos began building an online repository to “make sure these data sets remain freely and broadly accessible.”
Climate data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been politically vulnerable. When Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, and his colleagues published a study in 2015 seeking to challenge the idea that there had been a global warming “slowdown” or “pause” during the 2000s, they relied, in significant part, on updates to NOAA’s ocean temperature data set, saying the data “do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus.’”
In response, the U.S. House Science, Space and Technology Committee chair, Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R-Tex.), tried to subpoena the scientists and their records.
That effort launched by Holthaus is one of several underway to preserve key federal scientific data.
In Philadelphia, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, along with members of groups such as Open Data Philly and the software company Azavea, have been meeting to figure out ways to harvest and store important data sets.
At the University of Toronto this weekend, researchers are holding what they call a “guerrilla archiving” event to catalogue key federal environmental data ahead of Trump’s inauguration. The event “is focused on preserving information and data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has programs and data at high risk of being removed from online public access or even deleted,” the organizers said. “This includes climate change, water, air, toxics programs.”
The event is part of a broader effort to help San Francisco-based Internet Archive with its End of Term 2016 project, an effort by university, government and nonprofit officials to find and archive valuable pages on federal websites. The project has existed through several presidential transitions.
At the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco, where more than 20,000 earth and climate scientists have swarmed the city’s biggest conference center this week, an air of gallows humor marked many conversations. Some young scientists said their biggest personal concern is funding for their research, much of which relies on support from NASA and other agencies.
“You just don’t know what’s coming,” said Adam Campbell, who studies the imperiled Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.
But others also arrived at the meeting with a strengthened sense of resolve. Campbell was planning to join hundreds of other people at a rally Tuesday, organized in part by the activist group ClimateTruth.org, encouraging researchers to “stand up for science.” “People have felt a call to arms,” Campbell said. “We need to be outspoken.”

Donald Trump will enter the White House with an environmental policy agenda opposed to that of the Obama administration and many other nations that have pledged support to the Paris climate agreement. The Washington Post's Chris Mooney breaks down what a Donald Trump presidency will mean when it comes to climate change. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

Lawyers with the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund — which provides legal assistance to researchers facing lawsuits over their work on climate change — will be holding one-on-one consultations with researchers who think they might need help from a lawyer. And the organization’s table in the AGU exhibition hall is piled high with booklets titled “Handling Political Harassment and Legal Intimidation: A Pocket Guide for Scientists.”
“We literally thought about it the day after the election,” said Lauren Kurtz, the legal defense fund’s executive director. “I have gotten a lot of calls from scientists who are really concerned. . . . So it’s intended in some ways to be reassuring, to say, ‘There is a game plan; we’re here to help you.’”
The 16-page guide contains advice for government researchers who believe their work is being suppressed, as well as how scientists should react if they receive hate mail or death threats.
Holthaus, who encouraged scientists to flag key databases, said the effort to safeguard them is mostly precautionary.
“I don’t actually think that it will happen,” he said of efforts by an incoming administration to obscure or alter scientific data. “But I think it could happen. . . . All of these data sets are priceless, in the sense that if there is a gap, it greatly diminishes their usefulness.”

That’s the main concern for Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University. He said he doubts that even the most hostile administration would try to do away with existing climate data, given the potential backlash.

“I think it’s much more likely they’d try to end the collection of data, which would minimize its value. Having continuous data is crucial for understanding long-term trends,” Dessler said. “Trends are what climate change is about — understanding these long-term changes. Think about how much better off the people who don’t want to do anything about climate change would be if all the long-term temperature trends didn’t exist.”
He added, “If you can just get rid of the data, you’re in a stronger position to argue we should do nothing about climate change.”

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