Climate Change: Australia Almost Comes Last In World Ranking

NEWS.com.au - Charis Chang (with AFP)

WE’VE come up short in an important world ranking of more than 50 countries in what has been described as embarrassing.


How climate change will affect us

AUSTRALIANS are proud of their clean, green environment but when it comes to cutting pollution, the country has been ranked fourth-last in the world.

The Climate Change Performance Index uses four key categories to rank more than 50 nations — greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, clean energy, and climate policy.
It rated Australia 57 out of 60 countries, although the top three positions were not filled because no one achieved a “very high” rating.
Only Iran, Republic of Korea and Saudi Arabia performed worse than Australia on overall performance to tackle climate pollution. Even China managed to beat Australia.
Overall Australia was among 15 countries rating as “very low” in general, including the United States, which was ranked 56 just ahead of Australia.
Sweden was the best performing country, followed by Lithuania, Morocco and Norway.
The United Kingdom was ranked eight, New Zealand was 33 and China was 41.
A separate Climate Action Tracker analysis also released this week found US President Donald Trump’s pullout from the Paris Agreement would push up global temperatures by nearly 0.5C, with temperatures on track to reach 3.2C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
Even if all 196 countries, including the US, honoured their carbon-cutting pledges global, temperatures are still expected to increase by 2.8C.
Countries need to step up their efforts if warming is to be kept under 2C and avoid the impacts of climate change like extreme drought, deadly heatwaves and super storms.

Even though the climate index still rates China’s performance as “low”, analysis released by the Lowy Institute notes the country had become an active participant in climate diplomacy.

Australia's carbon emissions according to data from the Department of Environment and Energy, March 2017 Quarterly Emission Results, Released August 2017. Source: Australian Conservation Foundation. Source:Supplied

Australia's carbon emissions according to data from the Department of Environment and Energy, March 2017 Quarterly Emission Results, Released August 2017. Source: Australian Conservation Foundation. Source:Supplied

Report author Dr Sam Geall, executive editor of chinadialogue, said China’s domestic commitments were consistent with its climate pledges and go even further.
China plans to roll out a nationwide emissions trading scheme, the biggest in the world, in late 2017. It also leads the world in the technologies needed to mitigate climate change.
“Chinese companies account for five of the top six global solar photovoltaic manufacturers, and seven of the top 15 wind turbine manufacturers,” Dr Geall’s analysis noted.
“Four of the five biggest renewables deals in 2016 were made by Chinese companies.
“China is also the dominant manufacturer of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, which among other things are used in electric cars.”
While Dr Geall believes it is unlikely China will take a leadership position on climate change in the short term, it may eventually show greater ambition in the future.
The Climate Change Performance Index rated China’s climate efforts as higher than Australia’s.
The index takes into account pollution per person, developments in the last five years in absolute pollution and how Australia’s targets compare to the action needed to keep global warming below 2C.
In particular, Australia was rated as one of the “very low” performing countries in three of the index’s categories: for efforts to reduce emissions, improve energy efficiency and to develop a decent climate policy.
Efforts on clean energy achieved a slightly higher “low” category.
Australia’s poor rating has been described as an embarrassment by the Australian Conservation Foundation, which was an adviser to the assessment.

Chinese workers ride in a boat through a large floating solar farm project under construction by the Sungrow Power Supply Company on a lake caused by a collapsed and flooded coal mine on June 13, 2017 in Huainan, Anhui province, China. The floating solar field is billed as the largest in the world. Picture: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images  Source:Getty Images

“This assessment has found Australia has the highest level of climate pollution per person,” ACF chief executive officer Kelly O’Shanassy said.
“This is a national embarrassment for a wealthy nation with so much at risk from climate change and such abundant sun and wind that could be harvested for clean energy.”
Ms O’Shanassy said Australia’s climate pollution was on the rise and the continued reliance on burning coal and gas for power contributed significantly to climate change. Australia’s exports were also creating more pollution overseas.
“Australia’s continued failure to put in place a robust and comprehensive national plan to cut pollution is raising alarm bells around the world,” Ms O’Shanassy said.
The report was prepared by Germanwatch, Climate Action Network Europe and the NewClimate Institute, and was released at the latest round of major UN climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany.
It noted that experts had emphasised the need for Australia to strengthen its 2030 targets, especially in terms of emissions reduction and renewable energy.
Australians should be demanding governments implement credible policies to meet targets, the report added.
Opposition spokesman on climate change, Mark Butler, said the Federal Government’s own data suggested Australia would have zero emissions reductions by 2030 on 2005 levels.
“(Prime Minister Malcolm) Turnbull is incapable of standing up to the hard-right fossils of his party and implementing credible climate policy,” the Labor MP said in a statement.
“Not only will Turnbull fail our international obligations, he is failing future generations of Australians.”
A national review of climate policy was due next month and Ms O’Shanassy said the poor rating should give the Turnbull Government a push to deliver a strong plan.
“Our elected representatives need to put in place a comprehensive plan to cut climate pollution, swiftly transition to clean energy and end the burning of coal and gas,” she said.

* None of the countries achieved positions one to three. No country is doing enough to prevent dangerous climate change.  **rounded © Germanwatch 2017

Links

• Climate Change  Performance Index (pdf)
• Australia's Climate Performance Ranks Fourth Last On Long List
• Climate Action Network
• Germanwatch
• NewClimate Institute for Climate Policy and Global Sustainability
• Clear waters and green mountains: Will Xi Jinping take the lead on climate change?

Many Small Island Nations Can Adapt To Climate Change With Global Support

The Conversation - Martina Grecequet | Ian Noble | Jessica Hellmann

COP 22 President Salaheddine Mezouar from Morocco, right, hands over a gavel to Fiji’s prime minister and president of COP 23 Frank Bainimarama, left, during the opening of the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. AP Photo/Martin Meissner

Island nations are on the front lines of global climate change. Heavy rainfall and rising sea levels are eroding shorelines and causing flooding. Warming and increasingly acidic oceans are damaging coral reefs that support fisheries and attract tourists. Some island communities are already moving or making plans to relocate.
Fiji, a chain of 300 islands in the South Pacific, currently is chairing the meeting of the Conference of Parties of the U.N. Climate Change Convention in Bonn, Germany. Frank Bainimarama, the prime minister of Fiji and president of COP-23, has called on all nations to take climate action because “we are all vulnerable to climate change and we all need to act.”
Fiji’s leading role in Bonn presents an opportunity for island nations to raise their voices. Islanders know that sea level rise could completely eliminate their homelands. Their concerns, symbolized by the Fijian canoe on display at the Bonn conference center, have been a legitimate and powerful force in international climate change negotiations.

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But it would be a mistake to assume that their only option is to abandon their islands now or at some future point. Many of these countries are taking steps today to adapt to climate change impacts. If the international community can agree on ways to limit greenhouse gas emissions and aggressively pursue local adaptation, it may be possible to preserve many island nations and cultures.

Measuring vulnerability
We all participate in an initiative hosted at the University of Notre Dame’s Global Adaptation Initiative that works to measure individual nations’ vulnerability to climate change. This index is designed to help governments, businesses and communities prioritize investments for a more efficient response to immediate global challenges, such as food security.
The index combines information on future impacts of climate change, such as changes in a country’s crop yields; sensitivity to climate hazards, such as that nation’s dependence on agriculture; and its capacity to cope with the impacts of climate change through steps such as increasing protected ecosystem areas. The first two measures describe a country’s risk, while the third indicates its ability to reduce that risk.
The index shows that not all island nations are equally vulnerable or prepared to deal with impacts of climate change. Among Pacific Island nations, Papua New Guinea is the most vulnerable – on a par with countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Fiji, on the other hand, is less vulnerable to change and more prepared to invest in adaptive measures. Some nations, such as the Republic of Maldives, Kiribati and Tuvalu, are considering international migration as an option for adapting.
Many island nations are taking steps to reduce their climate risk. For example, Fiji is working to expand its economy by investing in public infrastructure, adjusting taxes and reorienting away from agriculture toward services and tourism to generate capital for investments in climate adaptation. Palau is expanding its network of marine protected areas to reduce stresses on its reefs and fisheries. And Tonga is slowly decreasing its economic reliance on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture.

The prospect of relocating is wrenching for many residents of Tuvalu and Kiribati.

Moving out of vulnerable zones
Development agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Bank, are prepared to fund projects to help island states adapt to climate change, using both hard solutions, such as sea walls and levees, and softer solutions, such as replanting coastal mangroves or installing early warning systems in case of floods. But many communities are already finding that they need to relocate away from flood-prone areas of their islands, which is a socially and economically disruptive process.
In Fiji, for example, coastal communities are threatened by extreme storms and rising sea levels that cause flooding, especially at high tide. The government has established a Climate Change Mitigation Fund with its own resources to help relocate villages that wish to move. The village of Vunidogolo was the first to move in January 2014, settling on a site on their traditional land one mile inland. Villagers were even able to move their cemetery so that their ancestors were not abandoned.
Hundreds of other Fijian villages are at risk. About 40 were planning similar moves when Cyclone Winston struck Fiji in February 2016. The storm caused extensive damage: Recovery costs are estimated at US$1 billion, which represents about 20 percent of Fiji’s gross domestic product. Assistance for recovering and “building back better” has flowed into Fiji, and more villages now are considering relocating.
The Fijian government is taking a proactive approach to financing climate-related needs. In October 2017 Fiji became the first emerging nation to issue a sovereign green bond, raising $50 million to fund climate change mitigation and adaptation actions. Proceeds from green bonds are exclusively applied to projects that have clear environmental benefits and promote low-carbon, climate-resilient growth. They are attractive to investors seeking socially responsible portfolios, such as pension funds. Some of the proceeds from these bonds will be used to create more resilient village societies.

Palau has created extensive marine reserves to protect coral reefs and other ocean habitats, which it relies on for food and tourism revenues. Jeff~, CC BY

Adapting locally
Moving to new locations off-island is not an easy solution for many islanders. Those who move will need income sources and social contacts in their new locations. And some moves may actually put migrants at greater climate risk – for example, moving to urban areas in coastal regions that are exposed to flooding.
New Zealand leaders are considering creating a new visa for people migrating from areas affected by climate change. While this is a positive step, the first priority for funding agencies should be to support local adaptation within island nations.
For example, one recent study found that while the shapes of low-lying atolls may shift under the force of waves and tides, these islands will not necessarily erode as long as they retain enough sediment. But human activities such as sand mining, sea wall construction and land reclamation amplify shoreline losses. Reducing these impacts is essential for island states seeking to adapt to climate change. Funding agencies can support those efforts.
Pacific Islanders have lived on atolls for at least 2,000 years, and have adapted to life there in spite of isolated conditions and limited resources. By pursuing climate adaptation strategies that build on their accumulated knowledge, and driving development that is economically and environmentally sustainable, they can minimize the number of communities that may have to move to other shores.

Links

• Fiji Told It Must Spend Billions To Adapt To Climate Change
• Fiji Brings First-Hand Experience With Effects Of Climate Change To UN Summit
• Waiting For The Tide To Turn: Kiribati's Fight For Survival
• How International Law Could Help Small Islands Tackle Climate Change
• Climate Change Creating Food Shortages Across The Pacific, Says Support Agency
• 'Stuck In The Dark Ages': Pacific Island Leader Vents After Australia's Emissions Hit Record High
• Eight Low-Lying Pacific Islands Swallowed Whole By Rising Seas
• The Drowning Isles: A Story Of Climate Change In The South PacificHow should we compensate poor countries for ‘loss and damage’ from climate change?
• Why Trump’s decision to leave Paris accord hurts the US and the world
• The pope as messenger: making climate change a moral issue

U.N. Climate Projects, Aimed At The Poorest, Raise Red Flags

New York Times - Hiroko Tabuchi

Tidal flooding on South Tarawa, one of the atolls that makes up Kiribati. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times

A landmark pledge seven years ago by the world’s richest nations to spend billions to help developing countries tackle climate change seemed like a godsend for Kiribati, the Pacific island nation threatened by rising seas.

The result of that promise was the Green Climate Fund. But Kiribati — like many of the poorest countries most vulnerable to climate change — has yet to see any project funding.

Instead, many of the projects that have won early backing were approved despite concerns raised by current and former observers on the fund’s board over whether officials had done due diligence on projects — especially on those involving the private sector, which make up half of the approximately $2.6 billion in project financing authorized so far.

“We raised our objections, but the gavel just came down,” said Liane Schalatek, one of two civil society observers on the fund’s board and associate director at the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, an environmental group associated with the Greens party in Germany.

“There’s a real lack of transparency,” she said.

The observers took issue, for example, with a proposed project that would hand out $265 million in equity and grants to Geeref Next, a Luxembourg-based investment fund that proposed to finance renewable energy or energy efficiency projects in about 30 countries — with no explicit plan to disclose what those projects would be.

The fund’s 24-member board approved the proposal.

The board observers have also asked why the fund’s finances, set up to back locally owned projects that reach the most vulnerable communities, were going toward private-sector enterprises led by global investment firms — like $110 million in loans and grants for solar projects in Kazakhstan led by London-based United Green Energy and the investment arm of Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund.

Those concerns also went unaddressed.

According to funding proposals for the 54 projects approved so far, as well as a record of objections raised by board observers, other projects that have raised red flags include:

• $25 million in equity and grants administered from Mauritius, a corporate tax haven, for off-grid solar power in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda;
• $50 million in loans and grants to repair a Soviet-era dam in Tajikistan, even though experts have warned that hydropower there is vulnerable to the retreat of the snow melt that feeds dams;
• $9 million in loans to a renewable energy project in rural Mongolia that observers worried would be used to power coal mining.

The Green Climate Fund also faces challenges on the donor front.

This year, President Trump said the United States would no longer pay into the fund — a snub that accompanied the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

The United States had promised to contribute $3 billion — more than any other country, though less than other donors on a per-capita basis — of which the Obama administration delivered $1 billion.

Industrialized nations have indeed pledged to generate $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and address the effects of climate change. The fund has so far secured $10.3 billion in financing.

To be sure, the climate fund has also enjoyed some notable successes, including private projects. The off-grid solar projects in Rwanda and Kenya, for example, have been praised for their focus on reaching remote communities.

But the board observers’ concerns underscore the challenges facing the fund, now a pillar of the Paris climate pact, as negotiators gather this week at United Nations climate talks in Bonn, Germany.

Critically, the early mix of approvals has meant that less than a tenth of the funding has gone to the kind of projects that make up the fund’s mandate: those owned and controlled by the poorer nations themselves.

An aerial view of North Tarawa. The government has said rising seas and extreme storms “threaten the very existence” of the country. Credit Josh Haner/The New York Times 

“There’s little enough, as it is, of public funds for climate, and so much of it is going toward sweetening returns for the private sector,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator of the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development and another observer on the fund’s board.

The fund’s growing pains reflect the competing pressures — from its donors, from the private sector, and from the countries it is meant to assist. Eager to show taxpayers back home that the fund is being put to work, donor countries have put pressure on the fund to ramp up its disbursements. Similar pressures arise from bank’s need to raise private investment to make up for the expected shortfall in contributions from industrialized countries.

The fund’s secretariat did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But in response to some of these criticisms, the bank has adopted a monitoring framework meant to strengthen transparency at the fund. The fund also recently set up an independent evaluation unit to assess the effectiveness of its projects.

“I hope we can learn, and learn fast, about what works for climate change action,” Jyotsna Puri, the head of the new unit, said in an interview posted on the fund’s site last month. “Otherwise, just imagine the waste of resources.”

For places like Kiribati, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Much of the country, a string of atolls and reef islands that straddles the Equator, lies no higher than six feet above sea level. The prospect of rising seas and more extreme storms threatens “the very existence” of large segments of the population, the government has said.

Officials in Kiribati have said they desperately need funding for desalination plants to provide safe water for the 110,000 residents of country, where much of the water has become contaminated by seawater intrusion into groundwater. The government is also seeking to elevate land on its main atoll and invest in renewable energy to end the country’s almost complete reliance on fossil fuels.

But with little diplomatic and financial heft, officials have struggled to secure funding.

“We can’t do it alone,” the president of Kiribati, Taneti Mamau, said in a video message before the Bonn meeting. “We need the hands of our partners and those who are ready to assist.”

The fund has pledged to improve the quality of its projects. It is also working to improve access for countries applying for smaller projects of less than $10 million.

“Unfortunately so far, we have not taken the observers’ comments into consideration for our decision. That is true,” said Omar El-Arini, a member of the climate fund’s board. He stressed that his personal views were not representative of the entire board.

“But we just started. There are competing interests — from countries, from the private sector, and we are trying to wade through this maze of conflicting interests,” he said. “We will get there.”

Kiribati scored a small victory this year when it qualified for a $586,000 grant to help the country prepare a new application to the fund.

The island nation, however, has also taken some heart-wrenching measures.

In 2014, Kiribati bought 8 square miles of land in Fiji, more than a thousand miles away, as an insurance policy against the rising oceans.

Mr. Mamau stressed that migration from Kiribati would be an absolute last resort.

“The idea is to build Kiribati’s resilience,” he said. “We don’t believe that Kiribati will sink like the Titanic.”

Links

• What’s at Stake in the Bonn Climate Talks?
• Syria Joins Paris Climate Accord, Leaving Only U.S. Opposed
• Trump Team to Promote Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power at Bonn Climate Talks
• New Talks on Paris Climate Pact Are Set, and That’s Awkward for U.S.
• Here’s How Far the World Is From Meeting Its Climate Goals
• Climate Change Is Complex. We’ve Got Answers to Your Questions.