Mining Sector, Morrison Government On The Defensive Over IPCC Report

Fairfax - Peter Hannam | Cole Latimer

Australia's mining industry and the Morrison government have rejected an international climate report that demands nations phase out all coal-fired power by mid-century and leave most fossil fuel reserves untapped to avoid dangerous global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's special report, released on Monday, said average temperature increases could still be kept to 1.5 degrees but would require a "global transformation" of all sectors of the economy.

Sunset for coal and other fossil fuels? Not yet, says the Morrison government. Credit: Nic Walker

Prime Minister Scott Morrison led his government's defence of miners, saying the IPCC report did not "provide recommendations to Australia" and that his government's focus would be "to ensure that electricity prices are lower" for households and businesses, alike.
Resources companies, though, fell on the Australian Stock Exchange, led by South32, the mainly coal miner spun-off from BHP. Its price sank 5.4 per cent or more than triple the overall market's slide of 1.4 per cent.
Industry groups, such as the Queensland Resources Council, dismissed the prospect of an early demise for the country's coal sector, saying Australian coal boasted relatively low emissions.
"There is a role for high-quality Australian coal and it's compatible with meeting Paris emissions reductions targets," Ian Macfarlane, council chief executive and a former Coalition energy minister.
"Our economy depends on the coal industry, and we can have both a strong coal industry and reduce carbon emissions."
The NSW Minerals Council likewise said coal had "very positive" future in the state, with strong demand from traditional and emerging export markets, a spokesman said.
"There are positive signs that these good conditions will continue in coming decades," he said, citing a recent industry forecast that annual Asian demand for coal burnt in power plants would jump by half from about 740 million tonnes to 1.147 billion tonnes by 2030.

Carbon budgets
However, the IPCC report's authors said the world would face severe consequences if the great bulk of fossil fuels including coal, oil and gas, weren't left in the ground.
At 1.5 degrees of warming, compared with pre-industrial levels, as much as 90 per cent of the world's coral reefs will die, and virtually all would be lost if temperatures rose two degrees, or about twice the increase so far.
Mark Howden, head of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, said emitting the equivalent of about 420 billions of carbon dioxide would exhaust the remaining carbon budget to cap warming at 1.5 degrees. Current annual emissions are about 42 billion tonnes, implying about a decade of pollution before "the need to go vertical" to zero emissions to keep within the temperature limit.



Emissions will need to fall 45 per cent from 2010 levels - or 58 per cent from 2015 totals - by 2030, the IPCC said.
Melissa Price, the federal Environment Minister, said the government would consider the IPCC report, saying the government "is committed to the Paris Agreement and takes its international obligations seriously".
"We’re particularly concerned about the implications for coral reefs, with the report finding climate
change will impact reefs across the world, including Australia," she said.
The Paris accord was signed three years ago by almost 200 nations, who pledged to keep warming to 1.5-2 degrees. Australia's pledge is to cut 2005-level emissions 26-28 per cent by 2030, a target environmental groups such as the Climate Action Tracker describe as "insufficient".

Labor, Greens
Both Labor and the Greens attacked the Coalition government, signalling the likelihood that climate change will become a major issue at the next federal poll due by mid-2019.
"At 1.5 degrees, we will see the consequences of climate-related risks to our health, our livelihoods, our food security, water supply, human security, and economic growth," Penny Wong, Labor's acting spokeswoman for climate change, said.
Senator Wong said "the government’s own data shows they will fail to meet their already inadequate Paris targets with pollution rising all the way to 2030".
Labor has pledged to increase Australia's carbon reduction effort to 45 per cent from 2005 levels and roughly triple the current share of renewable energy to 50 per cent by 2030.

Adam Bandt, the Greens climate spokesman, said the IPCC report showed it was "time to hit the climate emergency button", and that neither major party was prepared to take the necessary steps.
"If we don’t quit coal, we are screwed," said Mr Bandt. "Business as usual under Liberal and Labor is a death sentence."

Shutting down
Market forces, at least in Australia, indicate an exit from coal in the electricity sector is likely for all major plants by 2050 - unless governments intervene to extend their lives.



Origin Energy, for instance, plans to shut the Eraring coal-fired power station in NSW - Australia's largest - by 2032.
"We believe that net-zero emissions for the electricity sector by 2050 or earlier is achievable," Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said in the company’s 2018 Sustainability report.
One industry hoping to benefit from any shift towards low emissions in the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry, a sector singled out by the IPCC as necessary if global temperatures are to avoid "overshooting" the targets.
"It’s obviously very pleasing the panel is endorsing the necessity for CCS," Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute spokesman Antonios Papaspiropoulos told Fairfax Media.
"This is a pivotal part of turning back the climate change siege," he said. "We’re starting to see a wider acceptance that more needs to be done to fight climate change, and CCS is part of this 'more'."

Links

• 'Next decade critical': Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC
• 'Terrible': Rising gas output lifts Australia's greenhouse gas emissions
• Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report: 1.5˚C
• Coal Power Finished By 2050 If Temperature Increase Kept To 1.5 Degrees: IPCC
• The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say 
• IPCC 1.5 C degree report points to high stakes of climate inaction
• UN warns paradigm shift needed to avert global climate chaos
• World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future
• Low-Carbon Growth Is a $26 Trillion Opportunity. Here Are 4 Ways to Seize It.
• Half a Degree and a World Apart: The Difference in Climate Impacts Between 1.5 and 2˚C of Warming
• 6 Ways to Remove Carbon Pollution from the Sky
• Forget Paris: Australia needs to stop pretending we're tackling climate change 
• Here's why the majority of green turtles in north Queensland are female 
• 2017 was third warmest year on record for globe, scientists say

Major Climate Report Describes A Strong Risk Of Crisis As Early As 2040

New York Times - Coral Davenport

Harry Taylor, 6, played with the bones of dead livestock on his family’s farm in New South Wales, Australia, an area that has faced severe drought. Credit Brook Mitchell/Getty Images

INCHEON, South Korea — A landmark report from the United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a far more dire picture of the immediate consequences of climate change than previously thought and says that avoiding the damage requires transforming the world economy at a speed and scale that has “no documented historic precedent.”
The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population.
The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.” The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming.
The authors found that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, the atmosphere will warm up by as much as 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels by 2040, inundating coastlines and intensifying droughts and poverty. Previous work had focused on estimating the damage if average temperatures were to rise by a larger number, 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), because that was the threshold scientists previously considered for the most severe effects of climate change.
The new report, however, shows that many of those effects will come much sooner, at the 2.7-degree mark.

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Avoiding the most serious damage requires transforming the world economy within just a few years, said the authors, who estimate that the damage would come at a cost of $54 trillion. But while they conclude that it is technically possible to achieve the rapid changes required to avoid 2.7 degrees of warming, they concede that it may be politically unlikely.
For instance, the report says that heavy taxes or prices on carbon dioxide emissions — perhaps as high as $27,000 per ton by 2100 — would be required. But such a move would be almost politically impossible in the United States, the world’s largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China. Lawmakers around the world, including in China, the European Union and California, have enacted carbon pricing programs.

People on a smog-clouded street in Hebei Province, China, in 2016. China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, followed by the United States. Credit Damir Sagolj/Reuters

President Trump, who has mocked the science of human-caused climate change, has vowed to increase the burning of coal and said he intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement. And on Sunday in Brazil, the world’s seventh-largest emitter of greenhouse gas, voters appeared on track to elect a new president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has said he also plans to withdraw from the accord.
The report was written and edited by 91 scientists from 40 countries who analyzed more than 6,000 scientific studies. The Paris agreement set out to prevent warming of more than 3.6 degrees above preindustrial levels — long considered a threshold for the most severe social and economic damage from climate change. But the heads of small island nations, fearful of rising sea levels, had also asked scientists to examine the effects of 2.7 degrees of warming.
Absent aggressive action, many effects once expected only several decades in the future will arrive by 2040, and at the lower temperature, the report shows. “It’s telling us we need to reverse emissions trends and turn the world economy on a dime,” said Myles Allen, an Oxford University climate scientist and an author of the report.
To prevent 2.7 degrees of warming, the report said, greenhouse pollution must be reduced by 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and 100 percent by 2050. It also found that, by 2050, use of coal as an electricity source would have to drop from nearly 40 percent today to between 1 and 7 percent. Renewable energy such as wind and solar, which make up about 20 percent of the electricity mix today, would have to increase to as much as 67 percent.
“This report makes it clear: There is no way to mitigate climate change without getting rid of coal,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University and an author of the report.

President Trump has vowed to increase the burning of coal and said he intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

The World Coal Association disputed the conclusion that stopping global warming calls for an end of coal use. In a statement, Katie Warrick, its interim chief executive, noted that forecasts from the International Energy Agency, a global analysis organization, “continue to see a role for coal for the foreseeable future.”
Ms. Warrick said her organization intends to campaign for governments to invest in carbon capture technology. Such technology, which is currently too expensive for commercial use, could allow coal to continue to be widely used.
Despite the controversial policy implications, the United States delegation joined more than 180 countries on Saturday in accepting the report’s summary for policymakers, while walking a delicate diplomatic line. A State Department statement said that “acceptance of this report by the panel does not imply endorsement by the United States of the specific findings or underlying contents of the report.”

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The State Department delegation faced a conundrum. Refusing to approve the document would place the United States at odds with many nations and show it rejecting established academic science on the world stage. However, the delegation also represents a president who has rejected climate science and climate policy.
“We reiterate that the United States intends to withdraw from the Paris agreement at the earliest opportunity absent the identification of terms that are better for the American people,” the statement said.
The report attempts to put a price tag on the effects of climate change. The estimated $54 trillion in damage from 2.7 degrees of warming would grow to $69 trillion if the world continues to warm by 3.6 degrees and beyond, the report found, although it does not specify the length of time represented by those costs.
The report concludes that the world is already more than halfway to the 2.7-degree mark. Human activities have caused warming of about 1.8 degrees since about the 1850s, the beginning of large-scale industrial coal burning, the report found.
The United States is not alone in failing to reduce emissions enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. The report concluded that the greenhouse gas reduction pledges put forth under the Paris agreement will not be enough to avoid 3.6 degrees of warming.
The report emphasizes the potential role of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. “A price on carbon is central to prompt mitigation,” the report concludes. It estimates that to be effective, such a price would have to range from $135 to $5,500 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution in 2030, and from $690 to $27,000 per ton by 2100.
By comparison, under the Obama administration, government economists estimated that an appropriate price on carbon would be in the range of $50 per ton. Under the Trump administration, that figure was lowered to about $7 per ton.

The World Coal Association disputed the conclusion that stopping global warming calls for an end of coal use. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Americans for Prosperity, the political advocacy group funded by the libertarian billionaires Charles and David Koch, has made a point of campaigning against politicians who support a carbon tax.
“Carbon taxes are political poison because they increase gas prices and electric rates,” said Myron Ebell, who heads the energy program at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an industry-funded Washington research organization, and who led the Trump administration’s transition at the Environmental Protection Agency.
The report details the economic damage expected should governments fail to enact policies to reduce emissions. The United States, it said, could lose roughly 1.2 percent of gross domestic product for every 1.8 degrees of warming.

A wildfire in Shasta-Trinity National Forest in California last month. The new I.P.C.C. research found that wildfires are likely to worsen if steps are not taken to tame climate change. Credit Noah Berger/Associated Press

In addition, it said, the United States along with Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam are home to 50 million people who will be exposed to the effects of increased coastal flooding by 2040, if 2.7 degrees of warming occur.
At 3.6 degrees of warming, the report predicts a “disproportionately rapid evacuation” of people from the tropics. “In some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant,” said Aromar Revi, director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and an author of the report. “You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but not 10 million.”
The report also finds that, in the likelihood that governments fail to avert 2.7 degrees of warming, another scenario is possible: The world could overshoot that target, heat up by more than 3.6 degrees, and then through a combination of lowering emissions and deploying carbon capture technology, bring the temperature back down below the 2.7-degree threshold.
In that scenario, some damage would be irreversible, the report found. All coral reefs would die. However, the sea ice that would disappear in the hotter scenario would return once temperatures had cooled off.
“For governments, the idea of overshooting the target but then coming back to it is attractive because then they don’t have to make such rapid changes,” Dr. Shindell said. “But it has a lot of disadvantages.”

Links

• Australia’s Other Great (and Threatened) Coral Reefs
• To Tackle Climate Change, a New U.N. Climate Report Says Put a High Price on Carbon
• 'Next decade critical': Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC
• 'Terrible': Rising gas output lifts Australia's greenhouse gas emissions
• Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report: 1.5˚C
• Coal Power Finished By 2050 If Temperature Increase Kept To 1.5 Degrees: IPCC
• The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say 
• IPCC 1.5 C degree report points to high stakes of climate inaction
• UN warns paradigm shift needed to avert global climate chaos
• World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future
• Low-Carbon Growth Is a $26 Trillion Opportunity. Here Are 4 Ways to Seize It.
• Half a Degree and a World Apart: The Difference in Climate Impacts Between 1.5 and 2˚C of Warming
• 6 Ways to Remove Carbon Pollution from the Sky
• Forget Paris: Australia needs to stop pretending we're tackling climate change 
• Here's why the majority of green turtles in north Queensland are female 
• 2017 was third warmest year on record for globe, scientists say

The Political Will To Prevent Climate Change Is Lacking, Even As The Cost Climbs

Fairfax - David Crowe

Australians are being presented with another startling contrast between colossal risk and paltry action over climate change.
The latest scientific advice is that human activity has already caused an increase of 1 degree in world temperatures, with global warming estimated to reach 1.5 degrees by 2052 on current trends.
The cost is astronomical. The damage over the years to 2100 would reach $US54 trillion in today’s dollars if warming was kept to 1.5 degrees. The cost would climb to $US69 trillion if warming reached 2 degrees.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The obvious message from the report is to stop the 2 degree scenario. The scientists say this means halting the use of coal by 2050, accelerating the use of renewables and making mammoth investments to change the economy.
This cost is just as draw-dropping. The report says the investment would need to be $US2.4 trillion a year by 2034 across the global economy. There is no country-by-country analysis of what this means but Australia makes up about 1 per cent of global emissions, so it may have the same share of the expense.
Can Australia invest $US24 billion a year to avert dangerous climate change? That is more than the federal government spends on public hospitals.

Island life. Credit: Matt Golding

The answer from the Greens is to shut down coal-fired power stations and stop coal exports, but only about 10 per cent of Australian voters supported this position at the last election by giving the Greens their primary vote.
The two major parties will not rush the closure of coal-fired power stations.
The answer from the government is to ask for more time to come up with a policy. The leadership turmoil in August left the Liberals and Nationals without a plan to reduce emissions.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted on Monday that Australia would meet its emission targets "in a canter" but this is disputed by climate experts. It is a laughable message – nothing more than saying "trust us" – when the demise of the National Energy Guarantee proved again that the Coalition party room is incapable of reaching a consensus and then holding its nerve on energy and climate policy.
Labor has a 50 per cent target for renewable energy by 2030 but is yet to spell out how it would reduce emissions in government. One approach is to rebuild a policy from the wreckage of the NEG but this is easier said than done.
It is telling that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten signalled it was too risky to be too ambitious. "We are not saying that there won't be fossil fuel as part of our energy mix going forward," he said on Monday.
Political leaders are making a pragmatic assessment of the will of the Australian people.
The dismal assessment from the scientists is that even a political success on energy would not save the Great Barrier Reef as we know it today. The trend towards 1.5 degrees means damaging 70 to 90 per cent of the world's coral reefs.
It is hard to see an agreement in Canberra, let alone the world, that is strong enough to stop that happening.

Links

• 'Next decade critical': Perils mount at 1.5 degrees of warming, says IPCC
• 'Terrible': Rising gas output lifts Australia's greenhouse gas emissions
• Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report: 1.5˚C
• Coal Power Finished By 2050 If Temperature Increase Kept To 1.5 Degrees: IPCC
• The world has just over a decade to get climate change under control, U.N. scientists say 
• IPCC 1.5 C degree report points to high stakes of climate inaction
• UN warns paradigm shift needed to avert global climate chaos
• World Resources Report: Creating a Sustainable Food Future
• Low-Carbon Growth Is a $26 Trillion Opportunity. Here Are 4 Ways to Seize It.
• Half a Degree and a World Apart: The Difference in Climate Impacts Between 1.5 and 2˚C of Warming
• 6 Ways to Remove Carbon Pollution from the Sky
• Forget Paris: Australia needs to stop pretending we're tackling climate change 
• Here's why the majority of green turtles in north Queensland are female 
• 2017 was third warmest year on record for globe, scientists say