10/09/2018

'Truly Desperate Times': Pacific Nations Despair At Australia's Climate Action Stasis

Fairfax - Nicole Hasham

The head of the Pacific’s leading political grouping says Australia’s support for fossil fuels threatens the “wellbeing and potential” of the region, revealing the true depth of diplomatic tension over Canberra's climate policy inertia.
As Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s cabinet on Monday night prepared to officially dump emissions reduction targets from the Coalition’s energy plan, Pacific Islands Forum secretary-general Dame Meg Taylor delivered a damning speech that warned climate change had brought “truly desperate times” to Australia’s most vulnerable neighbours.
Dame Meg told a conference in Canberra that while some saw Australia’s climate inaction as a political reality, "we cannot afford to have one or two of us acting in ways that place the wellbeing and potential of the Blue Pacific Continent at risk”.
Low-lying Pacific nations such as Kiribati are battling rising sea levels as a result of climate change. Photo: Justin McManus
Blue Pacific Continent is a term used to reflect the shared interests, responsibilities and collective action of Pacific nations.
Dame Meg is a Papua New Guinean lawyer and diplomat and former senior official at the World Bank.
Dame Meg Taylor with then foreign minister Julie Bishop at a meeting in February to discuss Pacific nation issues. Photo: Twitter
She said individual Pacific nations have publicly reproached Australia for its stance on fossil fuels, but “it is time for such a conversation to take place within the forum family" - suggesting Australia will come under more pressure over the issue at future meetings of Pacific nation leaders.
"It is absolutely essential that we work together to move the discussion with Australia to develop a pathway that will minimise the impacts of climate change for the future of all of our islands and our people – including Australia," a transcript of her speech says.
Low-lying Pacific island nations including Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands would be among the first wiped from the map if sea level rise caused by climate change is not abated.
At last week’s Pacific Islands Forum at Nauru, attended by Foreign Minister Marise Payne, leaders expressed private or veiled frustrations at Australia’s resistance to serious climate action, including its behind-the-scenes push to water down language on emissions pledges.
However Dame Meg’s comments on Monday, made outside the diplomatic constraints of the forum, point to the extent to which Australia risks pariah status in the region over its climate stance.
In comments likely to raise eyebrows among Pacific leaders, Liberal Queensland senator Ian Macdonald on Monday accused them of swindling money from Australia to address the effects of rising sea levels.
"They might be Pacific islanders, but there’s no doubting their wisdom and their ability to extract a dollar where they see it," Senator Macdonald told the Senate.
He acknowledged that climate change was occurring, but questioned whether humans were the cause.
"Once upon a time the Earth used to be covered in snow. Once upon a time there was a rainforest in the centre of Australia and clearly those things don’t happen anymore so the climate has obviously changed," he said.
Internal Coalition dissent over the National Energy Guarantee, led by backbench climate skeptics, triggered last month’s leadership spill and The Australian newspaper on Saturday reported that Mr Morrison had declared the policy "dead". The government will now focus on lowering electricity prices and improving reliability over emissions reduction.
A climate change protest outside Parliament House on Monday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Labor’s climate change and energy spokesman Mark Butler on Monday said electricity prices would “continue to skyrocket” under the Morrison administration due to an uncertain investment climate and a lack of investment in renewable energy.
The business sector has called on the government to salvage the reliability component of the plan.
An Origin Energy spokeswoman on Monday said the government’s failure to produce a national energy and emissions policy was “disappointing” and “we now have to focus on working constructively with governments to decide how best to deliver customers more affordable, reliable and sustainable energy outcomes”.

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New Antarctica Map Is Like ‘Putting On Glasses For The First Time And Seeing 20/20’

New York Times - Shannon Stirone

The Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica in a new map made with satellites operated by a Department of Defense agency. Credit National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
You may never make it to the South Pole, but you can now see Antarctica and its glaciers in unprecedented detail.
Researchers this week announced the release of a new high resolution terrain map of the southernmost continent, called the Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica, or REMA, which they say makes Antarctica the best mapped continent on Earth.
Antarctica is the most desolate and inhospitable place on Earth and its remoteness makes monitoring changes in the fluctuations of ice and water levels difficult. Because of the warming climate, seasonal changes at Antarctica are becoming more severe, making the need to understand the loss of ice even more important.
Ian Howat, the project’s principal investigator and a professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, and Paul Morin, of the University of Minnesota, used data from a constellation of polar orbiting satellites to image the frozen wastes. The satellite data was licensed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is part of the Department of Defense.
Previous maps of the continent had a resolution similar to seeing the whole of Central Park from a satellite. With this new data, it is now possible to see down to the size of a car, and even smaller in some areas. The data is so complete that scientists now know the height of every feature on the continent down to a few feet.
“If you’re someone that needs glasses to see, it’s a bit like being almost blind and putting on glasses for the first time and seeing 20/20,” said Dr. Howat.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
The team used 187,585 images collected over six years to create the map.
“Until now, we’ve had a better map of Mars than we’ve had of Antarctica,” said Dr. Howat.
The pictures are so detailed they had to use one of the most powerful supercomputers on Earth to ingest the data. Having access to this amount of information will allow researchers to better monitor the effects of climate change on the ice.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
Previous images of Antarctic terrain left much to be desired. The difference between two images from previous surface imaging on the left and the new map on the right demonstrates the difference.
The upturned shovel feature in the bottom right is called Siple Dome. Hills like these are found all over Antarctica, their smooth surface made by accumulations of ice. The large mounds act like obstructions in this stream of glacial ice that is flowing out to the Ross ice shelf, Antarctica’s largest.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
Observing snowfall, ice-growth and the rate of melt and fissures will allow scientists to monitor sea-level rise and glacial melt with more accuracy. Ice shelves bear the brunt of pressure from flowing rivers pushing against them. The faster the ice melts on the land, the more weight the ice shelf has to contain, resulting in breaks of glaciers into the sea.
Scientists who keep a close watch on large ice shelves like Larsen C, above, will now be able to study the streams of ice and stress fractures that occur between the mountains. Because of the location of Antarctica and because the rest of the year there isn’t enough sunlight at the poles for the satellites to see the land, images can only be taken from December through March, the summer season. Since the last set of data was collected, a large section of this glacier has broken off into an iceberg named A-68.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
This is a large river of ice flowing between two mountains called the Glacier South of Dry Valley. Images like these will be free and accessible to scientists for their research.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
Explorers and scientists stationed at Antarctica will also find the new map useful. By having such a detailed topographical map, new routes to science stations can be planned around the continent’s dangerous terrain.
At the center of this image above are two locations called Halley V & VI. Both were British research bases. They have since had to move because the ice shelf began to break off.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE 
“Something that’s always been a problem is knowing where the ice is and knowing how thick it is,” Dr. Howat said.
The 150 terabyte data set is the first that will allow researchers to watch the fracturing of ice shells within a three week time span, nearly tracking changes on the ice in real time. These streams are flowing into Filchner ice shelf where stress fractures can be seen forming between hills. Such fractures are often the early signs of a full break from the glacier.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency LARGE IMAGE
Dr. Howat and Mr. Morin hope to update the map every year. With REMA it will be possible to watch icebergs forming and glaciers moving like this flow of ice at Byrd Glacier, which is the largest ice stream on Antarctica.

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'Overwhelming' Economics Favour Accelerating Shift From Coal, Reports Say

Fairfax - Peter Hannam

Making the transition to a low-carbon economy has the potential to unlock $US26 trillion ($36 trillion) in benefits by 2030, while failure to act on climate change will trigger huge costs including a surge in refugees, a report co-authored by Britain's Lord Nicholas Stern has found.
A separate report written partly by Canberra-based researchers argues global coal use has peaked and nations such as Australia must prepare for lower exports of the fuel. Local coal-fired power stations will also likely close earlier than forecast, it said.
Lord Nicholas Stern, a leading climate economist, says renewable energy sources "have their own momentum". Photo: AAP
The twin reports come as Angus Taylor, the new federal energy minister, this week said Australia had "too much intermittent" power in its grid. He warned energy companies "we'll force you to divest" assets such as AGL's ailing Liddell power station in order to keep old plants running, in comments made to 2GB.
In the New Climate Economy report, Lord Stern and other authors found ambitious climate action could generate 65 million new jobs through 2030 as nations moved to cut emissions from energy, land use and other industries.
Some 700,000 premature deaths would also be avoided from lower air pollution compared with business as usual.
The case for change was "overwhelming" especially as technologies such as renewable energy now "have their own momentum", Lord Stern told Fairfax Media.
Solar panel costs "are now less than 10 per cent what they were a decade ago, while the cost of storage and wind energy have come crashing down", he said.
His report, by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, also calls for carbon pricing of at least $US40-80 a tonne by 2020 in G20 nations – of which Australia is one. There should also be mandatory disclosure of climate-related financial risks so investors are better informed.
Wind and solar energy prices are tumbling, making those energy sources cheaper than new-build coal plants, analysts say. Photo: Jason South
Lord Stern said the decision by the Turnbull government in its final days to drop any emissions goal in its energy policy did not mean others won't act.
"Australia obviously has a big private sector, states and cities ... my guess is [they] will continue to move forward," he said.

'Three degrees of warming'
By contrast, if nations "move tentatively", and continue to build infrastructure as they have, the world is likely to lock in much more severe global warming, the report found.
Coal-fired plants are going to shut sooner than many of its boosters expect, a new report argues. Photo: Janie Barrett
"It's quite likely [keeping temperature increases to] 3 degrees will be out of reach," Lord Stern said, noting that heavy costs were already being triggered by the 1 degree of warming so far.
Business-as-usual growth could mean 140 million climate migrants by 2050, or more than double the number of refugees today, the report said.

Peak coal
The separate Coal Transitions report, by researchers including Frank Jotzo and Salim Mazouz from the Australian National University, look at the pathways for coal if nations met the Paris climate goal of keeping warming to "well below 2 degrees".
It found both climate action and market forces meant coal use could start to shrink by the early 2020s "if it has not done so already".
It noted 36 governments – and 28 major firms – had already committed to phasing out coal from the power sector by 2030.
Major markets for Australian coal such as China and India were already seeking to curb use. As local suppliers were likely to be given priority that meant "a negative long-term outlook for coal and a lot of uncertainty", Professor Jotzo said.
In Australia's power sector, the cost of new renewable energy is approaching even the operating cost of existing coal-fired power stations, he said.
While modelling done for state and federal governments assumed remaining coal plants would run for 50 years, the average age of those that closed over the past decade was 42 years.
Professor Jotzo said it was "highly unrealistic" to expect remaining plants to hit the half-century mark as they would be increasingly ramped up and down as more renewables enter the market.
Far-sighted governments would be preparing for plant closures that could "happen very suddenly", he said. "There's no policy for that at all at the moment."

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Greener Growth Could Add $26 Trillion To World Economy By 2030: Study

Reuters - Alister Doyle | Nina Chestney

  • A new report argues that quicker action on climate change could add more than $2 trillion a year to the global economy over the next decade.
  • The report, from the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate (GCEC), argues that increasing investments in sustainable technologies would increase economic output globally by $26 trillion by 2030.
  • "There's still a perception that moving toward a low-carbon path would be costly," Helen Mountford, the lead author of the report said. "What we are trying to do with this report is once and for all put the nails in the coffin on that idea."
  • The report's release comes just months after US President Donald Trump signalled his intention to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Workers inspect solar panels at a photovoltaic power station on a hill in Linyi, Shandong province, China August 11, 2018. Picture taken August 11, 2018. REUTERS/Stringer
OSLO/LONDON - Strong action to combat climate change could cumulatively add at least $26 trillion to the world economy by 2030, according to a study on Wednesday which seeks to dispel fears that a shift from fossil fuels will undermine growth.
President Donald Trump, for instance, said last year that he will pull the United States out of a global climate pact called the Paris Agreement because it would impose what he called “draconian financial and economic burdens” on his country.
By contrast, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, which includes former heads of government, business leaders and economists, said there was “unprecedented momentum” toward greener growth that would boost jobs and countries’ economies.
Bold climate action could deliver at least $26 trillion in net cumulative benefits from now until 2030 compared with business as usual, it said.
“There’s still a perception that moving toward a low-carbon path would be costly,” lead author Helen Mountford told Reuters. “What we are trying to do with this report is once and for all put the nails in the coffin on that idea.”
The commission’s study adds detailed projections since it first issued a report in 2014 to highlight economic opportunities from a shift away from fossil fuels.
Smarter investments in cleaner energy, cities, food and land use, water and industry could generate 65 million new jobs in 2030, equivalent to the workforces of Egypt and Britain combined, the study said.
A shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energies such as wind and solar power would avoid 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution in 2030, it added.
The report recommended high prices on carbon dioxide emissions of $40-$80 per tonne by 2020 in major economies.
Subsidy reforms in the energy sector, coupled with higher carbon prices, could raise $2.8 trillion a year in government revenues in 2030, it said.
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, honorary chair of the Commission, said it was “a manifesto for how we can turn better growth and a better climate into reality”. Co-chairs include Paul Pohlman, chief executive of consumer goods group Unilever, and Professor Nicholas Stern of the London School of Economics.
Trump, who doubts that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are the prime cause of climate change and wants to promote the coal industry, has said the 2015 Paris Agreement could cost 2.7 million U.S. jobs by 2025.
But the report predicted that U.S. jobs lost in fossil fuels can be more than offset by a rise in employment in renewables and construction. It said 476,000 people were now employed in wind and solar power in the United States.
Despite signs of climate action the report said “we are not making progress fast enough” to limit a rise in temperatures linked to more floods, heat waves, wildfires and rising sea levels.

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Dear Politicians, Get Your Heads Out Of The Coal Pit And Into The Real World

The Guardian - *

As farmers we’re dealing with increasingly extreme weather as a result of global warming. We need meaningful action now
‘This is not a “hard done by farmer” narrative. We’re tough and we manage our resources carefully, making decisions based upon the best available evidence’ Photograph: Mike Bowers for the Guardian 
As a third-generation farmer from Harden in New South Wales, I’ve weathered climate extremes my whole life. It’s simply part of doing business in one of the most variable climates in the world.
The truth is, Australian farmers are good at what they do, and we know when things are changing.
NSW last year was 2 degrees above the baseline average, without an El Niño in sight. This year we’ve already seen 100% of the state drought-declared. The minimal amount of winter crop that has sprouted is sizzling on the stalks or bitten hard by severe -5C frosts. To the north the dams are parched and farmers across the state are close to walking off the land.
It’s not just the farmers, either. In the past five years, my local town, amalgamated against the wishes of the local population, has struggled to keep council staff. We have seen a local bank and a favourite watering hole close. We are about to lose our Landcare facilitator who has been a critical element in natural resource management, sustainable farming and drought support.
We can and must do better.
This is not a “hard-done-by farmer” narrative. We’re tough and we manage our resources carefully, making decisions based upon the best available evidence and always keeping one eye to the future. This is an area with a long history of working with scientists and advisers to be prepared for future agricultural, environmental and economic shocks.
But, the first step to managing for the future is to grapple with reality. And the reality is that our climate is on a devastating trajectory. Much as our politicians like to deny reality, out here – beyond the air-conditioned hallways of parliament – we’re already dealing with increasingly extreme weather as a result of global warming.
So, a message to our elected representatives. Get your heads out of the coalpit and back into the real world. We need meaningful action now; including support for regional communities and funding for Landcare facilitators to be driving up driveways and checking on those whose lives are being destroyed by your failure to take action. We need a good heavy dose of reality injected into Australian politics.
On Monday, my fellow farmers and I will stand outside parliament and rally for our future. A future in which our kids have a chance to farm and our government no longer hides from the truth.
The alternative is simply unthinkable.

*Peter Holding is a mixed cropping and sheep producer with 40 years’ experience on his family farm

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