30/04/2017

For A Horrible Glimpse Into Australia's Dark Future, Look To Trump's Views On Coal

The Guardian - 

The ugly end of decarbonisation is being yanked in different directions by political messaging, in both the US and Australia
As renewable energy and gas become cheaper in the US, Trump is promising a shining, coal-powered future. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images
 Every big step in the process of decarbonisation is marred by unshakeable ideological allegiances. This is the frustrating and tragic clockwork of climate action: there are always echoes of a plan, but they're buried underneath political posturing.
Renewable energy has broad bipartisan support. The shutdown of coal is a different story. There are no popular solutions for the ugly end of climate action. Can we thread a needle through the ever-shifting ethical challenges of surgically removing a technology that still forms a major part of our society?
The recent shutdown of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station isn't Australia's first coal closure, but the event activated the denial of coal's inevitable demise in those tasked with forward thinking. This pattern of denial is a haunting forecast of what we'll see when the closure of coal intensifies in Australia.
Coal's destiny isn't a secret. The European Union has pledged no new coal plants after 2020. China and India have seen a pointed decline in coal growth. The UK's last lump of coal will glow red in 2025. Though the International Energy Agency forecasts many more decades of coal, primarily in Asia, that's a testament to the strength of incumbency than any long-term viability.
Hazelwood's French owner, Engie, is "making climate a priority" – so much so that Hazelwood's closure was announced with only a few months' notice. It was Australia's oldest, dirtiest, most inefficient and expensive power station. It felt sudden, but that's because we have not been paying attention.
On the day of Hazelwood's closure, painted signs were hung alongside rows of helmets scrawled with messages of support, sentimentality and anger. "GOD HATES GREENIES", "FUCK THE GREENIES" and "SHUT DOWN BY GREENS + LABOR" all popped up in my Twitter feed on that day, alongside demands for the power station to be kept open.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott urged the government to intervene to meet these demands. The philosophy of government refusing to meddle in free energy markets was forgotten in the face of fewer fossil-fuelled electrons hurtling through the grid. The plea was rejected by the prime minister, but within days Malcolm Turnbull was blaming the closure of the power station on Victoria's Labor premier, Daniel Andrews, despite Hazelwood having been privatised under the Kennett government in the late 90s, before Engie's economic decision.
For the Labor party, there's no easy way to contextualise the deactivation of this historic, coal-powered machine within the frames of workers' rights and environmental protection. Celebrating the removal of such a profoundly significant source of emissions seems somewhat callous in the context of 750 humans being left without jobs in a town heavily dependent on the power station and coalmine.
Conversely, focusing solely on employment seems narrow and shortsighted, like odd disregard for the rest of us, breathing the same air and relying on the same atmospheric system. Hazelwood's contribution to total emissions was far greater than its contribution to generation of electrical power, but most discourse focused on the stability of the grid rather than emissions reductions.


Total facility-type electricity sector emissions and generation data from the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) database

The nuances and contradictions of coal closure don't fit neatly into any party's over-arching narrative. Nevertheless, the Greens initiated a Senate inquiry into the closure of coal-fired power stations, with the aim of investigating how a transition away from coal might be managed.
Even that exercise was split into ideological shards – the Greens (normally accused of runaway fanaticism) produced a level-headed final report, while Labor and the Liberal party produced dissenting reports that fractured any hope of a potential tripartisan pathway. Resounding retreat was the outcome.
For a horrible glimpse into a dark potential future for Australia, you need only glance at US president Donald Trump's views on coal-fired power, and the cruel system of false hope he's using to draw votes in US towns reliant on fossil fuels for employment.
As renewable energy and gas become cheaper in the US, Trump paints himself as the saviour of communities due to be hit hardest, promising a shining coal-powered future. The magnitude of this fantasy is not to be underestimated. Even the founder and chief executive of the largest privately held coal-mining firm in the US told Trump to tone it down, as Trump raised his executive pen to a slew of environmental regulations. It's the hulking momentum of the free market in the US that is shrinking demand for carbon-intensive fuels. Trump's promises go beyond lies. They are irresponsible, and they condemn thousands to a treacherous future.
Long-term plans to deal with the challenges of American coal decline are seen as political suicide in regions relying on the extraction and burning of a substance that has become politically, socially, economically and environmentally unviable.
Political flight, instead of political fight, isn't a uniquely Australian phenomenon. The major parties in Australia are yet to turn the echoes of a plan into reality, and so we're left vaguely toying with the immature fantasies of Trump.
We can't continue with a weather-beaten mess of policy that is being yanked daily in different directions by the minuscule attention span of political messaging. There is really only one way out of this: ditch the denials, accept reality, and make a serious plan for the inevitable demise of coal.

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Yes, Climate Change Matters: International Scientists Appeal To Trump On His First 100 Days

The Conversation -  |  |  | 

Bill Nye the Science Guy leads a crowd of scientists in the April 22 2017 March on Science in Washington, DC. Aaron Bernstein/Reuters
US President Donald Trump has called global warming a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese and appointed a foe of environmental regulations to head up America’s Environmental Protection Agency.
On April 22, which annually marks Earth Day, thousands of scientists around the globe marched to defend the role of science, research and facts in society today against repeated attacks from the White House.
New York’s March for Science drew an estimated 20,000 people. Stephan Schmidt
As the US president rounds the bend of his first 100 days, The Conversation Global has invited scientists from Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe to explain why climate change is real, and how it’s impacting life where they live.

Maty Konte - Climate change is ‘not gender neutral’
The UN goal of achieving inclusive and sustainable development across the world by 2030 will be impossible without the participation of women in developing nations, including in Africa. But empowering women will be impossible if we don’t do something to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Climate change hinders the empowerment of many poor women and girls from rural areas. First, women represent more than half the workers in the agricultural sector in Africa, where insufficient infrastructure is exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
Women also spend a considerable number of unpaid hours walking long distances to bring firewood and clean water for drinking and bathing home on a daily basis. Climate change makes both water and firewood scarce, forcing these women and girls to trek further to reach the few areas where fresh water and wood can still be found.
Gathering firewood before school gets harder as woodlands become more scarce. Antony Njuguna/Reuters
On these vital journeys, they risk being raped or kidnapped; the longer the trip, the greater the risk.
Climate change thus also impacts girls’ education in rural regions of the developing world. Because girls must fetch household necessities before class in the morning, harder-to-find water and wood increases school absenteeism. That slows down their learning, as does the fatigue engendered by increasingly arduous morning and weekend routines, which makes it harder to concentrate on math and language lessons.
A Zulu Carnival show before COP17 in Durban. Rogan Ward/Reuters 
All of these impede the potential achievement of girls and women. School dropouts and loss of female human capital due to climate change consequences will have negative repercussions on the economy and on the next generation.
Climate change is not gender neutral. It reduces economic opportunities for the most vulnerable people in the world, who are more often than not women and children.
Failing to act goes against women’s empowerment and is yet another handicap for all the efforts that have been put forward for inclusive development.

Shobhakar Dhakal - Asia has hotter days and warmer nights
Asia already alternates from one extreme to another. Heatwave frequency has increased in many regions, as evidenced by droughts during the monsoon season, but we’re also seeing wetter conditions across Central Asia and frequent flooding in eastern Asia and India.
Across Southeast Asia, temperatures have been increasing at a rate 0.14°C to 0.2°C per decade since the 1960s, coupled with a rising number of hot days and warm nights and a decline in cooler weather. Today, scientists are projecting temperature rises of 3°C to 6°C in Asia if no action is taken.
Seas are also projected to rise by 0.4m to 0.6m by the year 2100, while growing warmer and more acidic.
All of this would be dangerous for the people who live in impacted areas. Due to projected sea-level rise and extreme climate events, millions of people along the coasts of South and Southeast Asia will likely be at risk from coastal and river flooding, with the potential for widespread damage to human settlements. We can also anticipate heat-related deaths and water and food shortages resulting from drought.
Southeast Asia has begun responding to these threats to a certain extent, developing early-warning systems for climatic events, reforesting mangrove forests, managing water resources better and protecting coasts from flooding.
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva statue during Typhoon Dujuan in Quanzhou, 2015. China Daily China Daily Information Corp - CDIC/reuters
This region is also actively cooperating to pursue the ambitious renewable energy target set by the Paris Agreement.
If the current US administration reverses Obama-era environmental efforts and pushes fossil fuels domestically, it will set Asia and the world on a dangerous, possibly irreversible path. It will also erode the credibility of the United States when it makes international commitments and damage much-needed American leadership in science and the environment.
Climate change is anthropogenic, and changes are already evident. Business as usual is a scientifically well-stated concern. We have a chance to keep global temperatures at under 2°C from pre-industrial levels if we act fast and stick together. I sincerely hope the Trump administration will give this crisis more serious thought.

Sandrine Maljean-Dubois - It’s a ‘race against the clock’
The message from science is clear: we are in a race against the clock.
In adopting the Paris Agreement, states around the world agreed on clear and ambitious targets to contain global warming and to limit global temperature increases. They outlined a trajectory of progressive decarbonisation of our societies by the end of the century.
It was the signal the markets were waiting for after years of chaotic negotiations. Businesses, banks, investment funds, local authorities, individuals – so many economic actors – are following world leaders down this path. Pushed to innovation, they are advancing ahead of their competitors. They will create the technologies and jobs of tomorrow.

spiral_2016_large
Spiralling global temperatures from 1850-2016 (full animation) Ed Hawkins

The fact is, undoing Barack Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan, as Trump has recently done with the swipe of a pen, will produce only a limited environmental effect. Reactivating coal plants can be detrimental in the long run but coal is no longer competitive, so the move is impracticable and short-sighted.
But it sends a very negative signal to the world. The US is the world’s second-biggest producer of greenhouse gasses, and it had previously exercised decisive leadership in the COP process along with top-producer China. Considering the importance of American financial contributions to international bodies such as the secretariat of the UN climate action branch, the Green Climate Fund and the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, American disengagement threatens to undermine this fragile and too-timid dynamic.
Coal will sink this ship. Stephan Schmidt
The individual commitments of states are insufficient to achieve the objectives they have collectively set themselves. The Paris Agreement contains the tools needed to push countries to progressively up the ante on their national contributions, but without political will they will likely go unheeded. And it is precisely this that the US is now undermining.
For the American economy and for the world, for environmental, health and economic reasons, for present and future generations, we must immediately repudiate coal. History will frown on you for doing otherwise, President Trump!

Joice Ferreira - Brazil alone cannot save the Amazon
The Brazilian Amazon – the largest rainforest in the world and a region of national, regional and global importance – already faces an existential threat from raging wildfires and extreme flooding engendered by climate change.
Further global warming may push the forest’s biome beyond the point of no return.
Given the importance of the 6.9 million km² the Amazon for biodiversity and ecosystem services, that would bring unprecedented problems not just to Brazil or the Amazon region but the entire world.
Deforestation has long threatened the Brazilian Amazon, now climate change-related flooding, fire and drought do too. Nacho Doce/Reuters
In the last decade, the Amazon has experienced three intense droughts (2005, 2010 and 2015), interspersed with extreme flooding events. The droughts saw rivers run dry, killing millions of fish and isolating rural communities that rely on rivers to get around.
On land, huge tracts of forests burned as never before. In 2015 alone, fire ravaged some 9,500 km² – an area the size of the US state of Vermont. Millions of people suffered severe impacts from those events, as they saw their livelihoods and health endangered, crops ruined, transportation imperilled, hydropower disabled. All this affects the wider general economy, of course.
Such changes can trigger cascading effects on the region. Droughts, for example, render the forest more vulnerable to fire; lack of rainfall also leads to a massive loss of carbon absorption capacity due to reduced plant growth and tree death. After the 2005 drought, for example, about five billion extra tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted into the atmosphere.
A mural of the Amazon’s indigenous defenders. Nacho Doce/Reuters
The end of the seasonal monsoon rains that the Amazon generates across the region would spell disaster for South American breadbaskets such as Argentina and Brazil.
Brazil cannot deal with this global threat alone. We need strong action from developed countries in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from the United States.
Governments must take immediate measures to avoid further degradation of this delicate, critical biome. If the US reneges on its leadership and refuses to enforce environmental regulations and international agreements to curb climate change, the world will pay the price.

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Coral-Bleaching Database Puts Australia Second Worst In The World

ABC News - Annie Guest

Bleached and unbleached coral from Fiji (Supplied: Simon Donner)
Key points:
  • New database includes 80 per cent more reports of coral bleaching than existing databank
  • Links higher water temperatures to an eight-fold increase in the likelihood of bleaching
  • Before the 1990s there were few coral bleaching events
Scientists have compiled a new global database of coral reef mass-bleaching events that shows the likelihood of bleaching increased eight-fold from the late 1990s.
The new database includes 80 per cent more reports of coral bleaching than the existing databank, with Australia having the second-worst record.
It also demonstrates the relationship between higher water temperatures and bleaching.
The database was put together by three researchers from Canada and Australia who personally contacted scientists and divers from around the world, and trawled thousands of research papers to bring it together.
Simon Donner, climate scientist from the University of British Columbia and the lead author, said they had created the "most comprehensive historical database of reports of coral bleaching from around the world".
"The largest number of reports actually comes from the Caribbean, and part of that is due to the extensive bleaching event that happened in 2005 and then again in 2010," he said.
"After that the largest number of reports comes from Australia and the Great Barrier Reef."
Simon Donner, the lead author of the new global database. (Supplied)
The scientists' work, published in the journal Plos One, has almost doubled the existing database of mass coral-bleaching events around the world.
It has linked higher water temperatures to an eight-fold increase in the likelihood of bleaching from the late 1990s.
"There's so few records before even 1990 and that's not because there were no scientists studying reefs or that people weren't diving, it's because bleaching events were not happening very often," Professor Donner said.
"We have this database from time zero up to 1990 [and] there's only about 250 records — then after that there's another 7,000-plus."

Once vibrant reefs 'now graveyards'
The new database has been welcomed by the Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland.
"I'm personally very interested in that because it's an ability to get baseline and the amount of change," he said.
"And then hopefully identify areas that might be more robust than others to the climate change coming along.
"If we can identify those, we can then really focus our attention on making sure that they get through to the Paris agreement conditions — stabilise temperatures by mid-century.
"It's really important that we get this sort of information."
Professor Hoegh-Guldberg recently examined reefs around the Maldives Islands, after doing a baseline survey two years ago and said what he found was shocking.
"The amount of coral that's been lost across vast parts of that archipelago system — reefs that were vibrant, full of fish, full of coral, are now graveyards," he said.
"And, it's not just in one or two places, it's across most of the archipelago.
"It's a really serious indicator of this new climate regime that we seem to have entered."

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29/04/2017

CSIRO, Energy Networks Australia Lay Out Roadmap For Emissions-Free Future

ABC News - Louise Yaxley

The roadmap comes after two years of analysing Australia's electricity system. (Reuters: Jason Lee)
Key points:
  • Australia will need "stable and enduring carbon policy" to reach energy goals, Energy Networks Australia says
  • Roadmap says 25 new large-scale solar or wind farms will be needed in the next five years
  • Rooftop solar and battery storage will play key roles
Federal and state governments have been told Australia could generate electricity with no carbon emissions by 2050, but a carbon price will be needed to achieve that.
Energy Networks Australia and the CSIRO have spent two years analysing the future of the electricity system.
Their roadmap says a national energy plan with an emissions intensity scheme starting by 2020 should be part of a successful energy transition.
Energy Networks Australia's chief executive John Bradley said it would send the signals needed to drive a smooth shift to a reliable, low-cost and low-carbon energy.
"The carbon price and the certainty around carbon policy is certainly one of the things that has been identified in this process," Mr Bradley said.
"If we have stable and enduring carbon policy, which doesn't change at every election cycle, then we will see a lower cost of investment, whether that is large-scale renewables or … small-scale systems that households are investing in.
"We will see a more stable transition that keeps energy security at this critical time."
The report predicts about 25 new large-scale solar or wind farms will be needed in a five-year time frame to replace coal-fired power stations.
Mr Bradley said rooftop solar would also be a big contributor. He identified Queensland as a huge growth area.
"By 2030, there would be as much rooftop solar capacity on the system as there currently is coal-fired generation capacity," he said.
"Similarly, in New South Wales there's likely to be more rooftop solar capacity by 2030 than there is coal-fired generation in New South Wales today."

Batteries to play key role in transition
The report found part of the solution to the reliability problems with renewables would be to manage peak demand.
CSIRO chief economist Paul Graham said that could include rewarding people for using their batteries during times of peak demand.
"If you could turn your battery on at that time, that might save the grid some costs. That is the sort of signal we need," he said.
He pointed out it would also require new high-tech meters, "so the customer knows when their power demand is getting higher and they can pull that back".
Mr Bradley said batteries would also play a key role in eventually replacing coal-fired power generators.
"You could see very large-scale, grid-connected batteries playing a role as we are looking at in some parts of South Australia," he said.
"But you will also see this mass-market, take-up of residential and small customer battery storage."
He predicted there would be 760,000 residential batteries in Queensland by 2030 and over 2 million by 2050.
"So that is going to be a major integration challenge for the grid, but also a huge opportunity to avoid investment in other parts of the system," he said.

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Big Four Banks Distance Themselves From Adani Coalmine As Westpac Rules Out Loan

The Guardian - 

Coalition frontbencher calls for Queenslanders to boycott Australia’s second-largest bank after it says it will now only lend to mines in established coalfields
Westpac has said it will not fund new thermal coal projects unless they are in existing mining regions and meet other guidelines. Photograph: Joel Carrett/AAP
Australia’s big four banks have all ruled out funding or withdrawn from Adani’s Queensland coal project, after Westpac said it would not back opening up new coalmining regions, prompting a scathing attack from the resources minister, Matthew Canavan.
Westpac, the country’s second-largest bank, released a new climate policy on Friday, saying it would limit lending for new thermal coal projects to “only existing coal producing basins”.
The coal mined must also have energy content “in at least the top 15% globally”, meaning at least 6,300 kilocalories per kg, according to the Westpac policy.
Adani’s Carmichael mine would be the first in the Galilee basin and the coal would have only 4,950 kilocalories per kg, the miner told the Queensland land court in 2014.
Canavan, thealso the minister for northern Australia, invited Queenslanders seeking home loans or term deposits to boycott Westpac as a result of its decision.
“I can only conclude from this decision by Westpac that they are seeking to revert to their original name as the Bank of New South Wales, as they are turning their back on Queensland as a result of this decision,” he said.
“May I suggest those Queenslanders seeking a home loan or a bank deposit or some such in the next few months might want to back a bank that is backing the interests of Queenslanders.”
Canavan also accused Westpac of turning its back on “the Indigenous people of Queensland” because of majority support for the project among Wangan and Jagalingou traditional owners, although this is contested by an anti-Adani faction.
The Queensland senator castigated the bank for “almost zero consultation with the people of north Queensland”, saying it was “more interested in listening to the noisy activists in Sydney than the job hungry people” in his constituency.
Westpac has come under pressure from environmental groups and various activist campaigns, including one that targeted its cash machines and a rally that interrupted the bank’s 200th anniversary celebrations in Sydney this month.
Adani’s final investment decision on Carmichael had been slated for this month but the company subsequently said it would be made by June before mine construction from August.
An Adani Australia spokesman said the company had not approached Westpac for funding for the mine, rail or port expansion.
But Blair Palese, the chief executive of climate advocacy group 350.org, said Westpac’s decision represented “an enormous blow to this project and the future of coal in Australia”.
Palese said the federal and Queensland governments, which both support the proposed mine, were “becoming increasingly isolated as businesses and international investors refuse to touch coal and the Adani project”.
“After months of community pressure, Westpac’s announcement is a strong indication that people everywhere are ready to stop this climate disaster in its tracks and that Adani and our government ignore them at their peril,” he said.
Adani is seeking a $1bn concessional loan from the commonwealth for its rail project linking the mine to its Abbot Point coal terminal.
On Thursday Andrew Harding, the CEO of Adani’s rival Aurizon, told the Melbourne Mining Club his company could build the line for “at least $1bn less” than Adani’s proposal, with fewer land acquisitions and less impact on the environment.
Adani wrote off that suggestion as “fanciful and monopolistic”.
“The so-called plan is a smokescreen aimed at defending Aurizon’s expensive monopoly of coal rail lines in Queensland,” Adani said. “The Aurizon plan is designed to instil fear and stifle hope in the people of regional Queensland.”
The CEO of Westpac, Brian Hartzer, also said the bank would increase its lending target for “climate change solutions” from $6.3bn to $10bn by 2020 and $25bn by 2030.
“Westpac recognises that climate change is an economic issue as well as an environmental issue, and banks have an important role to play in assisting the Australian economy to transition to a net zero emissions economy,” Hartzer said. “Limiting global warming will require a collaborative effort as we transition to lower-emissions sectors, while also taking steps to help the economy and our communities become more resilient.”
Adani previously received a $543m loan facility in two deals with Westpac, alongside others from Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank, to acquire a 99-year lease on the Abbot Point terminal, according to the climate advocacy group Market Forces.
NAB ruled out funding the Carmichael project in September 2015, a month after Commonwealth Bank parted ways with Adani as project finance adviser.
The CEO of ANZ, Shayne Elliott, in effect ruled out financing the mine last December when he predicted a downward shift in the bank’s exposure to coalmining would continue for the foreseeable future.
Critics of the Adani proposal, which would be Australia’s largest and one of the world’s largest coal mines, argue the impact of carbon emissions from its coal is incompatible with global attempts to limit warming to less than 2C.
Canavan said Adani’s target markets in India and north Asia would simply source lower quality coal with higher emissions elsewhere, a conclusion he said was shared by the Queensland supreme court in its recent rejection of a “green activist claims” against the mine.
The Adani spokesman said the company was “fervently committed” to the project “despite Westpac and other Australian financial houses choosing to ignore the opportunity to invest”.
“The financial houses have, instead, chosen to bow to environmental activists,” he said. “In so doing, they have chosen to continue to invest in overseas coal projects that will generate jobs in those countries at the expense of Australians, many of whom are their investors and depositors.”
The Carmichael coal “easily meets the emissions standards announced by Westpac”, the spokesman said.

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The Cheap Energy Revolution Is Here, And Coal Won’t Cut It

Bloomberg - Tom Randall


QuickTake: Trump Pushes Coal Revival

Wind and solar are about to become unstoppable, natural gas and oil production are approaching their peak, and electric cars and batteries for the grid are waiting to take over. This is the world Donald Trump inherited as U.S. president. And yet his energy plan is to cut regulations to resuscitate the one sector that's never coming back: coal.
Clean energy installations broke new records worldwide in 2016, and wind and solar are seeing twice as much funding as fossil fuels, according to new data released Tuesday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). That's largely because prices continue to fall. Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity in the world.
But with Trump's deregulations plans, what "we're going to see is the age of plenty—on steroids," BNEF founder Michael Liebreich said during a presentation in New York. "That's good news economically, except there's one fly in the ointment, and that's climate."
Here's what's shaping the future of power markets, in 15 charts from BNEF:
Government subsidies have helped wind and solar get a foothold in global power markets, but economies of scale are the true driver of falling prices. Unsubsidized wind and solar are beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas in an ever-widening circle of countries.

The U.S. may not be leading the world in renewables as a percentage of grid output, but a number of states are exceeding expectations.
Wind and solar have taken off—so much so that grid operators in California are facing some of the same challenges of regulating the peaks and valleys of high-density renewables that have plagued Germany's energy revolution. The U.S. boom, while not the first, has been remarkable.
Electricity demand in the U.S. has been declining, largely due to increased energy efficiency in everything from light bulbs and TVs to heavy manufacturing. In such an environment, the most expensive fuel loses, and increasingly that's coal.
With renewables entering the mix, even the fossil-fuel plants still in operation are being used less often. When the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, the marginal cost of that electricity is essentially free, and free energy wins every time. That also means declining profits for fuel-burning power plants.
The bad news for coal miners gets even worse. U.S. mining equipment has gotten bigger, badder, and way more efficient. Perhaps the biggest killer of coal jobs is improved mining equipment. The state of California now employs more people in the solar industry than the entire country employs for coal.
Historically, economic growth has gone hand-in-hand with increased energy consumption. Advances in efficiency are changing that, too. Call it the Great Decoupling.
The sharpest change in U.S. energy has been driven by advances in oil and gas drilling through shale rock. This type of horizontal drilling has also seen enormous improvements in efficiency, deploying fewer workers, fewer rigs, and drilling fewer wells to produce ever-more fossil fuels. The natural gas that comes out of these wells is practically free.
But demand for that oil and gas may not be long for this world. The world's cars are getting wildly more efficient.
And the biggest threat to oil markets—electric cars—is just getting started. Joel Couse, the chief economist for Total SA, told the BNEF conference that EVs will make up 15 percent to 30 percent of new vehicles by 2030, after which fuel "demand will flatten out," Couse said. "Maybe even decline."
Couse's projection for electric cars is the highest yet by a major oil company and exceeds BNEF's own forecast.
The outlook for electric cars—and for battery-backed wind and solar—is improving because the price of lithium-ion packs continues to tumble.
The shift to cleaner energy is ridding the air of local pollutants that cause heart disease, asthma, and cancer, as well as the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change. Trump's Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, told the BNEF Summit that the U.S. should remain in the Paris climate accord, but should renegotiate it to draw out stronger pledges from European countries.
Meeting U.S. commitments made under President Barack Obama shouldn't be too difficult. America is already half way to meeting its 2025 goal.
And cleaning up emissions hasn't exactly burdened consumers. Personal expenditures on electricity and fuels is down significantly.
Just meeting the Paris goals for emissions reductions doesn't go far enough to fend off the catastrophe scientists anticipate from climate change. Eventually the economy will need to decarbonize completely—in energy, agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and land use. And solutions for some of the trickiest and most expensive parts of that equation are still decades away.
Fortunately, global energy markets at least seem headed in a cleaner direction.
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28/04/2017

Donald Trump Being Sued By Nine-Year-Old Levi Draheim Over His Climate Policies

ABC News - Conor Duffy

Levi Draheim says he is "totally shocked" Mr Trump does not believe climate change is real. (ABC News: Conor Duffy)
US President Donald Trump is eight times his age and a much more experienced litigator, but nine-year-old Levi Draheim is looking forward to seeing the leader in court.
Levi lives near Melbourne Beach in central Florida and is part of a group of 21 young people suing the president over his climate policies.
"The reason that I care so much is that I basically grew up on the beach. It's like another mother, sort of, to me," Levi said.
His local beach faces the Atlantic Ocean and the flat coastal terrain is one of the areas in the United States most vulnerable to a rise in sea level.
Levi and his family believe they are already seeing the effects of climate change in the local sand dunes, which are nesting territory for sea turtles.
"It makes me really sad seeing how much dune we've lost," Levi said.
"When I went out on the beach after the hurricane, I was just crying because there was so much dune lost."

'I was shocked Trump doesn't believe in climate change'
Leanne Draheim says her son Levi is passionate about the environment and spending time outside. (ABC News: Conor Duffy)
The young people suing Mr Trump began their legal action under former president Barack Obama, and last November they had a win with a judge dismissing a move from the administration to throw out their court action.
"Exercising my 'reasoned judgement' I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society," Federal Judge Ann Aiken wrote.
The 16yo suing the US Government
Meet Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, aged 16 and one of the 21 plaintiffs suing the US Government over lack of action on climate change.
Last month the Trump administration announced plans to appeal, but Levi is not backing down.
"I was just totally shocked that he doesn't believe climate change is real," Levi said.
"It was a little bit scary. It was just a little bit disturbing he didn't believe that climate change was real."
The case has seen Levi and his fellow young climate activists face some rather adult language on social media, but his mother Leanne Draheim said she was not worried.
"Some people are saying like, 'Why are you letting your kid get involved? What does he know? He doesn't know enough to get involved'," Ms Draheim said.
"But really he knows that he cares about the environment, he cares about being outside, and we've talked about how that's not going to happen in the future for his kids if things keep going the way things are going."

Climate change spending slashed
President Trump has not yet said whether he will stick by his pledge to "cancel" the Paris Climate Accord, but he has moved swiftly to curtail government spending on climate.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stands to lose almost a third of its funding under Mr Trump's draft budget, and climate programs in other agencies will not be funded.
"Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward: 'We're not spending money on that anymore,'" Mr Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney said.

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The Fingerprints Of Global Warming On Extreme Weather

Climate Central - Andrea Thompson

When climate scientists examine whether the warming of the Earth has made extreme weather events such as heatwaves or downpours more likely, they generally do it on a case-by-case basis. But a group led by Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh has aimed to develop a more global, comprehensive approach to investigating how climate change has impacted such extremes.
With a new framework they developed, Diffenbaugh’s team found that heat records were made both more likely and more severe for about 80 percent of the area of the globe with good observational data. For precipitation records, that percentage was about half.
Residents who refused to be evacuated sit on makeshift boats during evacuation operations of the Villeneuve-Trillage suburb of Paris on June 3, 2016. Credit: REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
The team also examined a few particular events, finding, for example, that warming was clearly linked to the record-low summer Arctic sea ice extent of 2012.
Given the findings of previous so-called attribution studies as well as long-term warming trends, those results aren’t surprising, but they do show how much human-caused global warming has affected weather extremes already, the study authors and outside experts said.
And while several outside researchers quibbled with some aspects of the study, they said it provided a new tool that could help researchers more easily and uniformly probe what ingredients of a particular extreme event exhibit a climate change signal.
“The overall message — that changes in extremes worldwide can be attributed to human-induced climate change — is not new, but this paper adds another piece of relevant evidence to bolster that conclusion,” Peter Stott, a UK Met Office climatologist who conducted the 2003 study that kicked off the attribution sub-field, said in an email.
The idea behind extreme event attribution studies is to gain a better handle on how warming is changing the risk of different types of extreme weather in different areas. Because extremes have some of the biggest impacts on people, infrastructure and the economy, understanding how those risks are changing can help government officials and businesses better plan for the future.
Most of these studies, though, are generally case studies of specific events, often ones that happen in scientists’ backyards. While informative, they lead to what scientists call “selection bias,” meaning they aren’t taking in the full scope of how warming is affecting extreme weather.
Diffenbaugh and his colleagues, who have done several attribution case studies, particularly on the California drought, sought to get a broader view by using existing attribution methods to look at particular climate measures across a broader swath of the planet. These included the hottest day, hottest month, driest year and the wettest five-day period.
The results, detailed Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that heat records in 80 percent of the study area were more likely affected by climate change than not, Diffenbaugh said.
This suggests that the world is not quite at the point where every single record-setting heat event has a discernable climate change influence, “but we are getting close,” he said.
For both the driest year and wettest five-day period, “about half the area exhibits an influence of global warming, and that is substantial,” even though it is less than for heat, Diffenbaugh said.
The higher percentage for extreme heat makes sense given the clearer line between warming and temperature; that extreme heat events are expected to occur more often and be more severe is one of the more robust outcomes of warming.
On the other hand, “precipitation is just a noisier quantity,” making it harder to pick out the climate change signal in some areas, Adam Sobel, a Columbia University climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study, said in an email.
But that “doesn't mean the influence isn't there — all we can say is that it hasn't clearly risen above the noise, but the noise is large so it is reasonable to expect that it will emerge in time,” he said.
The biggest influence from climate change was seen on heat and dry extremes in the tropics, “a combination that poses real risks for vulnerable communities and ecosystems,” Diffenbaugh said in a statement.
Sydneysiders take refuge from sweltering conditions alongside apartments at Sydney's North Cronulla Beach during a heatwave along Australia's east coast on Feb. 11, 2017. Credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed
The downside to the approach the team used is that the measures they used aren’t always the most relevant for the actual impacts on the ground, which is what people most care about and what attribution case studies try to address, Friederike Otto, of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute, said. Otto, who works with Climate Central’s own real-time attribution effort, also would’ve liked to see the study use more than one climate model.
While the new approach is useful “to gain confidence in real-time attribution,” allowing teams to place what they find in a larger context, “it doesn’t replace the actual attribution study in any way,” she said.
Diffenbaugh agreed and said that the team is working to develop ways to use their approach to look at the climate influence on particular impacts, such as the relationship between high temperatures and crop yields or coral bleaching.
He also said that his team’s framework can better help scientists look at how climate change is impacting the various ingredients that combine to cause extreme events, rather than focusing on just one aspect as many have to-date. For example, they found that warming had made a certain atmospheric pattern that led to a deadly heatwave in Russia in 2010 more common and more severe.
Conversely, while previous studies showed that changes in such atmospheric patterns made a major downpour and flooding event in Boulder, Colo., in 2013 less likely, the warming and moistening of the atmosphere would increase its likelihood.
The hope is that the framework is a step toward doing more real-time attribution studies and making analyses more consistent from study to study. Stott, who is working on a similar effort, said that this study does help move things in that direction.
This approach is “one brick in the wall and there are a lot of really smart people working hard on different aspects of this,” Diffenbaugh said. “We’re building a strong foundation for being able to ask these questions and answer them in a scientifically valid way.”

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